Wetlands

County officials and a Huntington Beach environmental nonprofit have identified possible locations for a pair of booms to keep trash from flowing into the wetlands. Giatho Tran, a project engineer for the Orange County Flood Control Division, said his department has pinpointed spots in the Huntington Beach and Talbert flood control channels and is working with a boom manufacturer to come up with designs. The Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy approached the county in 2010 after it finished a restoration project, which removed a levee that had previously stopped storm water from draining into the wetlands.

The Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy, a nonprofit dedicated to acquiring and preserving local wetlands, has gotten a $750,000 state grant for an educational center and interpretive trail. The California State Coastal Conservancy awarded the grant funded by Proposition 40 in late September. Gordon Smith, chairman of the Wetlands Conservancy, said his group hopes to start construction on the educational center in the coming months and finish it by the end of 2012. "There's a lot of opportunity there that we're looking forward to," Smith said.

Clarence Irwin Haydock, Ph.D., California ecologist, passed away peacefully the evening of July 30, 2011 in Fountain Valley, CA having been born April 15, 1938 in Bakersfield, CA.  As a boy, growing up in northern CA he sculled a duck boat on San Francisco Bay in the winter and was a gondolier and glass bottom boat guide in the Pacific Grove Marine Gardens for the summer.  He earned his Bachelors Degree in Biology from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Masters...

Amazingly and, as most would have thought, impossibly, Gordon Smith of the Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy is about to run the table with the conservancy's likely addition of the Newland Marsh to the Brookhurst, Magnolia and Talbert wetlands, which previously were acquired by the conservancy ( "Conservancy goes for that last piece," June 2). Looking back, much of this ecologically essential land once was slated for highway and/or residential uses. However, is there more to be done?

Recently, I was walking at the Bolsa Chica wetlands. A group of photographers on the bridge had their attention fixed not on the clusters of birds gathering to fish, but on a thin line of white smoke rising about a half-mile in the distance, near the Brightwater trail. It appeared to be a fire, so I walked out to see what was going on. By the time I arrived, eight or so firefighters were on scene, a few dragging a water hose down from the upper trail to extinguish a small fire burning with waist-high flames.

Lou and I were delighted to read some good news last week. A news report in the Independent indicated that Huntington Beach is to going to see some more of its wetlands protected and probably restored ( "Conservancy goes for last piece," June 1). The wetlands to the northeast of Beach Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway are closer than ever before to full protection and restoration. While to some, the area doesn't have the glamour of the larger Bolsa Chica wetlands to the north, it is large enough to support wetland vegetation and wetland wildlife.

The proposed site of Poseidon Resources' desalination plant in Huntington Beach may contain wetlands, according to a letter from the California Coastal Commission. In a May 10 letter to Poseidon Vice President Scott Maloni, the commission disputed the company and city's claim that the beachside property occupied by the AES Power Plant does not contain wetlands. The letter recommends that Poseidon schedule a site visit with a commission staff ecologist to further evaluate the property.

Her eyes twinkle in the morning sun, and her smile beams. Looking out across the water while standing on the boardwalk at the Bolsa Chica wetlands, she glances up as a large pelican swoops by, just several feet over our heads. She laughs like a girl decades younger than 78, but then age doesn't really mean too much to Olga Connolly. Born Olga Fikotová, in 1956 she won a gold medal in the discus competition at the 1956 Olympic games held in Melbourne, Australia. Also at these games, Olga met and fell in love with well-known American athlete Harold Connolly.

Huntington Beach City Councilwoman Connie Boardman has appealed the Planning Commission's decision to allow a property owner to remove three oil tanks from the city's southeastern area while leaving adjacent piping in place. The commission voted last month to approve the proposal from Plains All American Pipeline, a Texas-based company that seeks to demolish the defunct oil tanks and more than 2,000 feet of above-ground piping. Boardman filed her appeal shortly after the March 8 vote and said the council will vote on the matter in the coming weeks.

A Huntington Beach environmental nonprofit has partnered with the county in an attempt to block trash from flowing into the ocean through a pair of flood control channels. The Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy, a group dedicated to restoring the city's coastal wetlands, and the Orange County Flood Control Division hope to have permits within a year to install booms in the Huntington Beach and Talbert channels, which intersect and drain near the Santa Ana River. The conservancy approached the county last year after it finished a restoration project on the wetlands.