County gives conservancy $1 million for help

A Huntington Beach conservation group has scored $1 million from the Orange County Board of Supervisors to help restore 140 acres of wetlands.

The Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy will get the money in exchange for doing some flood control work — cleaning up an ocean outlet — as part of its long-planned restoration effort.

“We’re both winning, because the more work we have by the same contractor, we should get a better deal,” the group’s chairman, Jack Kirkorn, said of the deal.

The conservancy has been working to restore the wetlands of southeast Huntington Beach since 1985, and members called the massive restoration project the culmination of those dreams. Since then, the conservancy has slowly bought up the land necessary to preserve the Talbert, Brookhurst and Magnolia marshes, home to dozens of species of birds and other wildlife.

The last necessary permit was given to the conservancy in August, and the county’s permission was the last step before the work could begin.

The $10 million project will pull out levees and restore natural vegetation throughout those marshes. Workers will begin with the Talbert and Brookhurst marshes, then give both time to flourish before moving on to the Magnolia marsh, planners said. The previously restored Brookhurst Marsh will be dredged.

Officials have said they plan to begin the project as soon as possible, and that they already put the project out for a bid.

The project is expected to take three years, Kirkorn said.

But the end result is already apparent in the Brookhurst Marsh he added. That means he knows what to expect, he said.

“The tidal waters will refresh the land, and it will teem with bird and fish life,” he said.