Natural Perspectives:

Vic and I approach wildland preservation and restoration differently. Vic is usually found in meetings or the classroom, educating, explaining or negotiating. I’m generally the one who is down in the dirt and mud, coming home with sticks and burs in my hair.

Here’s an example. Grace Adams, executive director of the Bolsa Chica Conservancy, and I wrote a grant proposal two years ago to the Southern California Wetlands Recovery Project to restore the strip of sand dunes along Pacific Coast Highway south of the south parking lot at the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve. The grant was awarded to the Orange County Conservation Corps, in conjunction with the conservancy and the Amigos de Bolsa Chica. I’ve been getting dirty at Bolsa Chica ever since.

Our first step was clearing out several homeless encampments that had been set up under the Myoporum trees. I had Department of Fish and Game wardens and Orange County Sheriff’s deputies out several times. The deputies played a form of hide-and-seek with the homeless men living there when the trespassers dodged behind spiny rush to avoid arrest. It’s illegal to even walk on those sand dunes in the ecological reserve, much less set up house there.

The mess the homeless left was unbelievable. After the last of the vagrants left the area, we removed old sleeping bags, discarded clothing, chipped coolers, beat-up cookware, a solar shower, plastic jugs and bottles of all kinds, and enough cardboard to build several shelters. Due to hepatitis risk, we wore gloves and were careful of broken glass or needles.

Unfortunately, homelessness isn’t solved just by asking people to move. Some now live on the Shea or Gooddell properties on the back Bolsa Chica, where they cause consternation to people living nearby.

Once the homeless were evicted, we began restoring the dunes. Chain saw crews from the Conservation Corps cut down all non-native trees along PCH, except for the palms. Grace organized groups of volunteers to pull ice plant and replant with native plants. The Amigos de Bolsa Chica brought a group to plant in an area by the south parking lot. Mary Ellen Houseal, one of the original founders of the Amigos more than 30 years ago, installed one of the coyote brush plants with the help of some stalwart youths from the corps who prepared the planting hole for her.

Month after month, I brought in my crews of brand-new kids from the corps to pull ice plant. After our morning of work, the conservancy provided education in the afternoon. We taught more than 300 corps members the value of coastal wetlands during the course of this project. Sometimes we took them to the public docks in Huntington Harbour to look at the slimy things that grow there.

These inner-city teens were amazed to find mussels, crabs, sea hares, tunicates and amphipods living on the seaweed at the dock. Sometimes we took them to the beach to look for shells and watch dolphins frolic in the surf. On occasion, we found dead sea lions washed up on the beach. As Vic and I know from having raised two sons, smelly dead things hold endless fascination for youngsters.

Sometimes we took the kids bird watching. I was surprised at how much they enjoyed using binoculars to observe bird behavior. They were surprised to see herons and cormorants hunting cooperatively. The cormorants drive small fish to shore where the egrets wait to gobble them up. Both bird species benefit from the confusion that results from the fish being hunted from opposite directions.

Of course, these kids do tend to see things differently. They were shocked to see gulls “jack” fish from the hard-working terns by harassing the terns until they dropped their prey. This is like some of the behavior they’ve seen among gangsters in their neighborhoods. Gulls are bullies of the bird world, living by stealing from others.

We’ve had a lot of fun working on this dune project at Bolsa Chica during the past two years. But finally, one of my crews pulled the last of the ice plant on the uplands along the half-mile strip of dunes.

That’s when the Department of Fish and Game stepped up to the plate. John Eckhoff has been assigned to Bolsa Chica as part of his territory. John put a big bar on his chain saw and cut down the palm trees, including the huge Canary Island palm. He is using herbicide on the non-native pampas grass, the ice plant that remains on steep slopes, and stump resprouts. As anyone can see by driving or biking along PCH, it’s now a changed habitat.

One of the great outcomes of this grant was being able to place a full-time corps education and recycling crew at Bolsa Chica to work with the conservancy and the department. The crew stationed at the conservancy helps with educating students, leading tours along the mesa. They help maintain the live animal exhibits and participate in restoration activities under the direction of Peter Knapp. This has been a win-win situation for all involved.

Now that the department has taken over maintenance of the dune area, I’ve moved my crews of new kids to Starr Ranch, a 4,000-acre Audubon reserve in Dove Canyon. With that much open space to maintain, I expect we’ll be happily getting dirty there for a long time. But if the department or the Bolsa Chica Conservancy needs us again, all they have to do is holler and we’ll be back.

VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at vicleipzig@aol.com.