Victory with caution

A year ago Friday, environmentalists watched in awe as state workers broke through a final dam and a rush of seawater met the tidal basin of the Bolsa Chica Wetlands.

It was a landmark event, the first time water flowed into the wetlands since 1899, when a duck hunting club dammed the area off for recreational purposes. The area’s later role as oil fields and then a proposed site for massive development kept waters out till last year.

A year on out, local environmentalists are celebrating their victory, but changes in the wetlands are slow and sometimes unpredictable. Changes like the swarms of salt-water mosquitoes that found new pools of standing water a perfect hatchery.

Aggressive efforts by the Orange County Vector Control District have cut the insect problem by 82% in the last week, said district manager Gerard Goedhart to the City Council Monday.

But the infestation was a reminder that changing ecosystems can have unpredictable effects, and many consider the area a work in progress.

No one can plan every eventuality in such an unprecedented task, said Shirley Dettloff, a founding member of the Amigos de Bolsa Chica and former Huntington Beach mayor.

“The science of wetlands restoration is not an exact science,” she said. “You can’t say one and one equals two, because it hasn’t been done.”

But she sees a very different wetlands these days.

“It’s coming back to what it was 100 years ago, a functioning wetlands,” Dettloff said. “I’d think, my gosh, this was once a field of oil rigs. Now it’s filled with birds and wildlife. You can probably stand on a bridge and watch 10 new species come into the Bolsa Chica [Wetlands].”

For her group, which spearheaded the restoration effort that led to the inlet, the commencement of the project has led to a significant change in its mission. The organization that once endorsed candidates, churned out three mayors, and lobbied the highest levels of state government has now moved on to an advisory and educational role.

Some, including developer Shea Properties, which is planning to build a housing development on the last large parcel of land near the Bolsa Chica wetlands, have said opening up some areas to tides may be increasing the risk of flooding to the north, where the existing levy is weak.

But the evidence isn’t bearing those fears out so far, said Orange County Flood Control manager Nadeem Majaj.

“We don’t detect any impacts on flood control system due to the tidal pocket,” he said. “The levy itself is not in good condition. It’s in deteriorated condition. But the Bolsa Chica project has not contributed negatively to the levy’s stability so far.”

Activist and Bolsa Chica Land Trust Member Mark Bixby said he is strongly in favor of the restoration work done in the last year, and he’s glad to hear that local pollution levels didn’t rise when the former oil fields met the ocean. But he has seen side effects as well, such as a grove of dying eucalyptus trees hit by a trickle of salt water.

“It’s a little disappointing to see the extent of tree die-off,” he said. “But flood control work may have a chance at actually helping that area out.”

Ultimately, Bixby said, it’s too soon to look at the real impact, which will keep changing as restoration goes on.

“I was really thinking about the five-year time frame,” he said. “That would be a good point to stop and take stock.”