Restoring the balance
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There’s a small fence at the foot of the Bolsa Chica Mesa that serves
as a time machine, offering visitors a view of what is, and what is
still to come.
On one side of the fence sits the often fought-over lower mesa, a
tangle of waist-high grasses and eucalyptus groves, nonnative species
introduced by settlers over the centuries since Spanish
conquistadores first set foot in the New World. On the other side of
the fence, most of the tall grasses have subsided or died out, thanks
to thousands of volunteers who planted native California shrubs and
sage on the land.
While the restored fields offer a glimpse of what the lower mesa
may one day resemble, it also offers a view centuries back, to when
Native Americans roamed the land.
For nearly a decade, the Bolsa Chica Stewards have spent countless
weekends restoring the natural history of the small point just north
of where the Wintersburg Channel connects with the Pacific Ocean. On
this small bluff overlooking the upper wetlands and Bolsa Chica State
Beach, the stewards plan to celebrate 10 years of restoration work on
Oct. 15 with a celebratory planting day and Native American sage
ceremony.
“Knowing that the community cares really invigorates us,” said Kim
Kolpin, one of the founders of the stewards, the official restoration
organization of the Bolsa Chica Land Trust.
What started as an effort to remove trash along the lower pocket
on the northern section of wetlands has turned into a massive
community effort and the planting of more than 8,000 native plants by
an all-volunteer community workforce.
The state purchased the land in 1973 and launched the first
replanting day 22 years later, using about 100 leftover plants from a
Santa Ana River restoration. In the last decade, $100,000 worth of plants have been donated to the stewards for restoration work, Kolpin
said.
The 30-acre plot where the stewards focus their work is commonly
called the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, and it is located just
below the 103-acre mesa Hearthside Homes is expected to sell to the
Wildlife Conservation Board for $65 million by the end of the year.
“When the lower bench is acquired, we look forward to having the
Stewards expand their restoration efforts onto that portion of the
mesa,” Mark Stirdivant of the Bolsa Chica Land Trust said. “It will
be a big job, but with the community’s support, we feel we can make a
real difference at Bolsa Chica.”
Just south of the ecological reserve is an 880-acre parcel
purchased by the state in 1997 using mitigation money from the ports
of Long Beach and Los Angeles. Nine separate government agencies are
working on a massive project to restore that land and reconnect the
wetlands with the ocean.
Kolpin said she and her volunteers have long been involved in
efforts to preserve the Bolsa Chica.
“It got to the point where we were attending so many meetings to
save the wetlands that we never had any time to come out here,” she
said.
Soon she and her future husband found themselves spending weekends
on the mesa, first picking up trash and later replanting native
species on the fragile bluff.
The effort took much tending, she said, because the soil had been
badly damaged by agricultural use. The nonnative species had sucked
many of the nutrients out of the soil and choked out native plants.
Working with only hand tools and trucked-in water, volunteers
slowly removed the nonnative grasses, replacing them with coastal
shrubs and sages.
“Native plants enjoy a symbiotic relationship,” Kolpin said. “They
seek out each other’s root systems and slowly form a grid that
increases the nutrients in the soil and eventually crowd out
nonnatives.”
Kolpin points out the irony that native plants that were pushed
near extinction by humans can now be brought back from the brink only
by human intervention. Due to the weak conditions of the soil, the
plants often need tending in the beginning, Kolpin said, but after a
year of care, they can fend for themselves.
“It’s a matter of kick-starting things back into balance,” Kolpin
said, pointing to several fully grown species. “Some of these plants
I haven’t had to touch in 10 years.”
Kolpin estimates that more than 1,100 volunteers have helped in
the past three years -- community groups, youth organizations,
schools, churches, Eagle Scouts and plenty of volunteers who have
come out to help on restoration weekends.
“This gives people a way to be physically involved without
standing on a picket line,” Kolpin said.
They were a lot of negative feelings during the decades-long
debate over the fate of the property, Kolpin said.
“I think the public felt helpless, like this was something that
was being decided in courtrooms and not in the community,” she said.
“We gave them a way do something about it.”
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