MELVIN L. NUTTER ATTORNEY AT LAW ARCO CENTER

200 OCEANGATE, SUITE 850LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA 90802-4353

Telephone (562) 432-8715Facsimile (562) 491-0907

E-mail: MelNutter@alum.pomona.edu

August 25, 2006 VIA FACSIMILE (562) 499-1277

Letters Editor Press-Telegram 604 Pine Ave. Long Beach, CA 90844 Re: Your Wetlands Reborn Editorial Dear Editor, Your editorial “A Wetlands Reborn” (8/25/06), about the opening of Bolsa Chica to the ocean, was on target when you asserted that the restoration project was deeply life-enhancing and fortunate for all of us. As a former chair of the California Coastal Commission, an attorney, a litigant and a proud environmentalist with 30 years of Bolsa Chica history, I am thankful we can celebrate this good news. However, your characterization of the tactics of some environmentalists as “unfair,” in helping to bring about this result, mystifies me. I hope you are not suggesting it was unfair of us to insist that governmental agencies and property owners respect state and federal laws such as the California Coastal Act, the California Environmental Quality Act, the Federal Coastal Zone Management Act, and Federal rules concerning wetlands. Certainly, you cannot mean that it was improper for people who care about Bolsa Chica to participate in the political process. That said, all of us, environmentalists, governmental agencies, property owners, and the general public, can cheer this historic success.

Yours very truly, Melvin L. Nutter Former Chair, California Coastal Commission

MLN/cc

Ocean water floods SoCal wetlands in ambitious restoration effort By GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press Writer Thursday, August 24, 2006 (08-24) 18:56 PDT Huntington Beach, Calif. (AP) -- The ocean flowed into historic wetlands for the first time in more than a century Thursday after bulldozers peeled back the last layer of an earthen dam. Environmentalists who worked for 30 years to restore the massive Bolsa Chica area cheered and sipped champagne as the salty ocean water poured into the fragile ecosystem that had been tapped as an oil field for decades. The event capped a two-year project that cost more than $100 million and shunted a portion of the scenic Pacific Coast Highway onto an overpass. The project has attracted international attention and is at the cutting edge of a new and evolving science, said Shirley Dettloff, longtime member of Amigos de Bolsa Chica and a former member of the California Coastal Commission. "Not many wetlands have been restored in the world, especially in an oil field," said Dettloff, who's been fighting for the wetlands for three decades. "Even we locals sometimes forget that this was the second-largest functioning oil field in the state of California for years, since the 1930s." Officials said it would take at least six hours for the 387-acre, newly restored basin to fill with ocean water after the bulldozers took down the barrier. The area had been separated from the ocean for 107 years. The eight state and federal agencies involved in the project said it was the largest and most ambitious restoration of coastal wetlands in the history of California, where 95 percent of saltwater marshes have succumbed to development. Bulldozers began knocking down the 20-foot-tall and 400-foot-long earthen dam at 3 a.m. and removed the last scoop of sand at 5:35 a.m. as they raced against the incoming tide, Dettloff said. "It's been like a steeplechase. It's a very long, challenging physical event with obstacles, and we're crossing the finish line now," said Jack Fancher, construction project manager with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "This is a significant moment of achievement."

The degraded wetlands are currently home to 200 species of birds, including six that are on state or federal lists of endangered or threatened species, said Marc Stirdivant, executive director of Bolsa Chica Land Trust. The new basin will be directly filled and drained twice a day by the tidal ebb-and-flow, restoring a natural rhythm that should replenish the fragile ecosystem and could attract more species, he said. The area was connected to the ocean until 1899, when members of a duck-hunting club cut it off, diking ponds to make it easier to stalk their prey. At one time, as many as 4,884 homes were proposed on 1,100 acres of the wetlands. The plan was scaled back to 3,300 homes by 1996. A year later, the state paid $25 million for 880 acres, and that parcel was added to 300 acres given to the state for wetlands preservation in 1973. Now, homebuilding is confined to an upper mesa area of Bolsa Chica, with a 356-home development underway. The restoration was funded in part by the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to make up for marine habitat destroyed during expansion. The rest of the funding came from voter-approved bonds. The flooding of another 200-acre portion of the wetlands' original footprint is on hold for at least 30 days because oil company Aera Energy LLC believes the work could create an oil spill. An additional 250 acres are still being pumped for oil, but could be added to the project in the future. ____ On the Net: www.fws.gov//bolsachica/ www.bolsachicalandtrust.org/restoration.html www.amigosdebolsachica.org www.slc.ca.gov/