Chance for a New Life : 6-Way Pact Signed on Restoration of Batiquitos Lagoon by Port of L.A.

After more than two years of hemming and haggling, officials from six local, state and federal agencies sat down together Friday and signed an agreement they hope will lead to restoration of silt-choked Batiquitos Lagoon in Carlsbad.

Under the plan, the Port of Los Angeles will finance work in the lagoon to offset the environmental damage caused by construction of a landfill that will support an oil terminal planned at the harbor in Los Angeles.

In a half-hour ceremony under a white tent set up on the southern shore of the picturesque lagoon, officials from Carlsbad, the port and the other agencies involved in the proposal took turns complimenting one another and looking to the future.

Although the agreement represents a pivotal step in the effort to revive the lagoon, several key hurdles remain to be cleared before construction work can get started on the project.

For example, officials must still determine from both an environmental and engineering standpoint whether it will be feasible to restore the lagoon. Moreover, the Port of Los Angeles has yet to officially agree to provide funding for the project, a decision that will not be made until all aspects of the plan have been thoroughly scrutinized.

Nonetheless, local leaders and port officials on Friday expressed unflagging optimism about the project’s prospects.

‘I’m a Cheerleader,’ Councilwoman Says

“What can I say? I’m a cheerleader,” Carlsbad Councilwoman Ann Kulchin said. “I’ve just got to believe it’s going to happen.”

Vern Hall, projects manager at the port, agreed that the Batiquitos restoration work will likely come to fruition.

“I feel it will be done,” he said. “We’ll know in a month or so whether it’s a workable project from an engineering standpoint. The preliminary information indicates it will.”

Plans call for large sections of the lagoon to be dredged, freeing the coastal wetland of silt that has clogged its brackish bays. The lagoon mouth will be opened and a 170-foot rock jetty constructed into the sea to restore the normal tidal flow that historically has flushed the coastal wetland.

In addition, the plan provides for four nesting sites to accommodate the endangered least tern and construction of a levee to create a 40-acre fresh-water marsh.

Lillian Kawasaki, manager of the Batiquitos project for the port, said environmental reviews of the project will probably run through the end of 1988, with construction work beginning in about three years. Officials hope to have the project completed in about four years, Hall said.

While the concept of restoration has few opponents, the preliminary plans have drawn criticism from some wetlands advocates. Dolores Welty, a member of the Batiquitos Lagoon Foundation, said she feels that the preliminary plans call for the removal of too

much subtidal marsh, which is favored by several species of birds.

“My concern, as always, is that the needs of Batiquitos not get lost in the mitigation needs of the port,” Welty said. “I’m very hopeful, really, that the environmental studies will take all this into consideration and we’ll come out with a wonderful enhancement project.”

The fate of the project could hinge, to a large degree, on the success or failure of a company trying to build a 1,030-mile pipeline from Los Angeles harbor to Midland, Tex.

Remains Confident

Pacific Texas Pipeline Co. has agreed to put up $20 million for the restoration work to help compensate for the oil terminal it plans to build on a landfill that will be constructed at the port.

Although Pacific Texas has yet to secure funding for the $1.66-billion pipeline, the port district’s Hall said he remains confident that the company will succeed.

Other Agencies Involved

Even if the pipeline project falls through, Hall has repeatedly said that port district officials will probably go forward with the Batiquitos restoration work anyway to help compensate for other landfill work scheduled in Los Angeles Harbor.

Aside from the port and Carlsbad, other agencies involved in the six-party lagoon restoration agreement are the state Lands Commission, the California Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.