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Restoring the balance

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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