Society’s attitude toward Bolsa Chica has changed

VIC LEIPZIG AND LOU MURRAY

This summer, the Bolsa Chica Conservancy received a grant from the

Southern California Wetlands Recovery Project to restore the land by

their interpretive building at Warner Avenue and Pacific Coast

Highway. This area, which we’re calling Little Mesa, has seen a lot

of change over the past century, with more changes coming.

The Department of Fish and Game plans to build a boardwalk on

Little Mesa plus a walk bridge over the channel to connect the

parking lot with the trail on Bolsa Mesa. The Bolsa Chica Conservancy

is planting upper marsh and coastal sage scrub vegetation along the

site of the future boardwalk on Little Mesa to enhance habitat for

wildlife and to improve the interpretive value of the area for those

unable or unwilling to walk the entire mesa trail.

That’s where we come in. I’m planning and overseeing the

restoration project with advice from Vic and approval from Brian

Shelton, the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve’s biologist.

Our original plan had been to clear large areas of nonnative

vegetation and plant natives. Sounded simple enough. But a close

inspection of Little Mesa revealed native plants everywhere. Upper

marsh pickleweed dominated the landscape. Marsh heather grew in

profusion. We found shoregrass, saltgrass and several other natives.

Finding spots that contained nothing but weeds was actually a

challenge.

That certainly isn’t the case with the main part of Bolsa Mesa.

It’s covered with mustard and wild radish. We wondered why there was

such a big difference between the two upland areas.

The answer to this mystery is the channel that flows under the

Warner Avenue bridge. The channel was cut around 1900 to connect

Bolsa Bay with the portion of Anaheim Bay that is now Huntington

Harbour. The channel separated the western tip of Bolsa Mesa from the

main mesa and saved it from the intense ranching and farming

activities of the past century. Native vegetation flourished on the

isolated portion while weeds took over Bolsa Mesa.

In 1900, isolated dunes stretched for miles along the beach. The

Pacific Electric Railway wouldn’t be built on the dunes until 1904,

and Pacific Coast Highway wouldn’t be constructed until 1928. With

this historical setting in mind, we turned to Tom Talbert’s 1952

autobiography, “My Sixty Years in California.”

We’ve been told that Tom Talbert was hired to cut a channel

between Anaheim Bay and Bolsa Bay to restore ocean flow when the

natural ocean opening to Bolsa Bay silted over in the late 1800s

after construction of a dam. That’s not exactly how Talbert

remembered it. He indicated that the bay closure was deliberate.

In those days, Freeman River fed an extensive marsh system with

year-round flow through the peat bog springs of present-day Central

Park. The huge marsh and surrounding agricultural fields were a haven

for wildlife.

Talbert saw “birds by the thousands so thick in flight as to

almost eclipse the sun” and late afternoon flights of ducks that

lasted for hours, according to his book. Others saw merely a marsh to

be drained, dried, cut into parcels and sold. A state tideland

reclamation act allowed gun club members to acquire title to the

marsh and drain it.

“The natural channel of Bolsa Chica Bay entered into the ocean at

Los Patos,” Talbert wrote. “The reclamation of the tideland

necessitated the closing of this channel and the cutting of a new one

through the mesa and hardpan just east of the Pacific Electric power

plant. The new cut connected Bolsa Chica Bay and Anaheim Bay. Next, a

dam with automatic tide gates had to be built, extending from a point

of the mesa south of the club house to the sand dunes.”

Two earlier dams had washed out. Sea level in upper Anaheim Bay

was a foot lower at high tide than at the Los Patos opening of Bolsa

Bay. Someone reasoned that connecting Bolsa Bay to Anaheim Bay would

enable a more lasting dam to be built.

Talbert cut the channel with Fresno scrapers and road plows pulled

by six-horse teams. While the team and the man holding the plow were

immersed shoulder-deep in seawater, Talbert stayed high and dry on

the banks holding the reins to guide the horses. The plow loosened

the soil, which was carried away by the current. Over the past

century, the tides have continued to work at the banks of the old

channel, widening it year by year.

When the Department of Fish and Game restored muted tidal flushing

to Inner Bolsa Bay in 1978, they also scraped out some upland at

Warner and Pacific Coast Highway. They created two shallow wetland

cells by connecting the scraped out depressions to the channel by

culverts.

In February 2002, the old concrete foundation of the Pacific

Electric Railway power plant was demolished and West Cell was

extended to create wetland where the foundation had been. At the same

time, the old culverts were replaced with larger culverts set at a

slightly lower level to bring in additional seawater.

The wetland restoration project of 2002 has rejuvenated the marsh

plants and endangered Beldings Savannah sparrows have returned to the

site. Now volunteers are planting hundreds of marsh and coastal sage

scrub plants to enhance the habitat on Little Mesa. Tom Talbert

probably would be shocked to see how society’s values have changed

over the past century.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].