Huntington Beach’s own bean field war

NATURAL PERSPECTIVE

It’s just a small bean field, 49 acres, but it has set off a big

war.

The field lies just north of the Wintersburg Flood Control Channel

at Graham Street. Sometimes it is bare. Sometimes rye grass grows on

it. But usually beans grow there.

Historically, the area was part of the Wintersburg Creek

watershed, a low lying area covered with a dense thicket of willows.

A 1910 map of the Bolsa Chica Gun Club shows that the field was used

to grow beans. Until the construction of the Wintersburg Flood

Control Channel, the area was subject to periodic flooding. It is

still often wet with standing water, and pickleweed grows there when

the field lies fallow for any length of time. This is an indication

of the true wetland status of the land.

In 1974, the Metropolitan Water District purchased the land from

Signal Landmark, owner of the Bolsa Chica. The field was designated

as a severely degraded historic wetland in 1981. When Vic was on the

Planning Commission in 1986, they changed the zoning on the site from

residential to conservation in recognition of its status as former

and restorable wetlands.

However, in the early 1990s, the land lost its designation as

“jurisdictional wetlands,” which would have made the land subject to

the Army Corps of Engineers 404 permitting process. The Environmental

Protection Agency and the Army Corp reclassified it as “prior

converted crop land,” which is not protected by wetlands regulations.

The field is now owned by Shea Homes. They want to build Parkside

Estates, a development of 172 single-family homes.

Local environmentalists picture a different fate for the little

bean field. They believe the best use of the field is to create a

freshwater wetland for flood control. Restoring this area to its

historic state as wetlands would have the added benefit of cleansing

urban runoff in the Wintersburg Channel before it empties into Outer

Bolsa Bay, Huntington Harbour and the ocean. On the other hand,

residential development on the bean field would just send more

polluted urban runoff into the channel. That means more pesticides

and herbicides, more trash and pet waste, more grease and more motor

oil.

The National Resources Defense Council recently declared Orange

County’s beaches the most polluted in the nation with 1,592 beach

closures and advisories in 2001. It is time to consider constructing

more wetlands along our flood control channels to help clean up urban

runoff before it reaches the ocean, not a time to add even more

people and pavement to this already heavily impacted area.

In Robert Redford’s 1988 movie, The Milagro Beanfield War, the

residents of a small town successfully battled a wealthy out-of-town

developer to save a bean field. We’d like to see a replay of that

story line here. It could happen.

To save this integral part of the Bolsa Chica wetlands ecosystem,

Monica Hamilton and other local residents have formed the Neighbors

for Wintersburg Wetlands Recovery. Mark D. Bixby (no relation to Long

Beach developer Mark L. Bixby) created an informative Web site

(www.bixby.org/parkside/) that details the plan to contour the field

for use as a flood control retention basin. They envision a

freshwater channel meandering through a field dotted with ponds. Some

powerful friends support them in this plan: the Bolsa Chica Land

Trust, the Amigos de Bolsa Chica and Jan Vandersloot, who is flush

with recent victory in the battle to stop the sewage waiver.

The Neighbors for Wintersburg Wetlands Recovery aren’t just a

bunch of naysayers trying to block development. They would like to

purchase the former wetlands and restore it. To this end, they are

raising funds for acquisition. The Bolsa Chica Land Trust is helping

with grant proposals for additional funds.

One of the biggest problems with the proposed residential

development is that during winter storms, the urban runoff from this

site would pour into the already polluted Wintersburg Channel and

Outer Bolsa Bay.

Because the site is low-lying and has serious potential for

flooding, the site would require pads of fill nearly six feet high,

with multi-story homes on top of that. The new homes would tower over

the existing homes that are below the level of the Wintersburg

Channel, an already precarious position. Any additional risk of

flooding to these existing homes, such as might be imposed by a dense

development set on a high pad, should be avoided.

This issue is coming to a head soon. The Planning Commission will

study the project in August. A tentative vote on the project is

scheduled for Sept. 10.

Development on the bean field is just plain wrong. We would like

to see it restored to its former state, a functioning wetland. We

would like it put to use as a flood control basin that would help

clean up the water in the Wintersburg Channel, not add more pollution

to it. This would provide much needed freshwater habitat for wildlife

and help protect existing homes in the area from floods. We hope it

doesn’t take a milagro -- a miracle -- for this to happen.

* VIC LEIPZIG PhD and LOU MURRAY PhD are Huntington Beach

residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at

[email protected].