Back Bay could benefit from city, land trust oversight

There is an understandable air of wariness hanging over the Upper Newport Bay.

As the city of Newport Beach, the county and the state Department of Fish and Game work toward an agreement that would give control over the ecological reserve to the city, a name from the Back Bay’s more troubled past has risen: the Irvine Co.

Under the proposal being worked out, the city, county and state would team up and form a conservancy to manage and safeguard the Back Bay, with Newport Beach as the lead agency. The benefits of this arrangement, city leaders say, is that more money, time and attention could be paid to the reserve.

It’s a logical argument: City staffers who probably drive by the Back Bay every day will be quicker and more likely to act when there are problems or needs there. How often does someone from the Department of Fish and Game drive past there?

The trouble is that the city is not an expert when it comes to managing ecological areas, and so it would hire a group with that expertise to oversee the Back Bay.

Enter the Irvine Co. -- or, more precisely, the Irvine Ranch Land Reserve Trust, which was established last year with a $20-million donation from the Donald Bren Foundation. Bren, of course, is the chairman of the Irvine Co. as well as the land trust. City leaders have mentioned the trust as their possible pick to manage the Back Bay.

Enter the controversy.

“My parents would be rolling in their graves right now. They would be very upset.”

So said Jay Robinson at a meeting earlier this month of those concerned about the trust’s role. Robinson is the son of Frank and Fran Robinson, the Newport environmentalists who sued in 1969 to block the Irvine Co. from building a marina in the Back Bay.

That old Irvine Co. plan looms large over this debate. But the Back Bay’s troubled past is just that -- the past. Since then, and certainly in recent years, the Irvine Co. has taken on a more environmentally conscious role. Bren’s creation last year of the land trust to ensure that thousands of acres of land remain open to the public is a sign of that change. The company’s water-reclamation plan that is being built into its new resort in Pelican Hill is another.

People’s worries, of course, center on the fact that the Irvine Co. is in business to make money. Certainly, the Irvine Co.’s goal will always be profit -- as it is for any business. But how best to earn money these days has changed, compared with the 1960s and 1970s. In Newport-Mesa, it is not smart business to act without environmental safeguards. And no one is going to argue that the Irvine Co. isn’t smart when it comes to its business practices.

Will such assurances pacify the worried? Likely not.

But the Irvine Co. is not the only -- or even lead -- player in this proposal. Newport Beach also has a growing record of environmentally friendly action. Between the city and the Irvine Co., there seems good reason to think that the Back Bay would be in better hands under the land trust’s management, with close oversight from Newport Beach City Hall.

Not to mention the scores of residents who also would be keeping eagle eyes on the bay’s health and welfare.