Natural Perspectives -- Vic Leipzig and Lou Murray

Vic Leipzig and Lou Murray

Singing fish are sinking houses in Huntington Harbour.

In the 1960s a huge portion of Anaheim Bay was filled and developed.

Homes were built on concrete construction pads, which were held up by

wooden pilings driven into the muddy ocean bottom. Concrete bulkheads

that went below the mud line protected the pilings from direct contact

with water. The housing tract called Huntington Harbour was born.

Over the years currents and wave action eroded the mud that protected

the bulkheads in front of some homes. Then along came midshipmen fish.

They made a bad situation worse.

The midshipman is an unbelievably ugly, 10-inch-long fish that sings.

In the spring, males use their strong fins to excavate small caves for

nesting in the rocky intertidal zone. Then they hum to attract females

into the caves. The serenading males mate with one female after another,

remaining at their nest caves for three months to watch over the eggs and

raise the young.

In addition to these large males, there are smaller males that do not

build nests and do not hum. They simply hang around the nest site, hoping

to mate with a female while the dominant male isn’t looking. They

generally succeed. The nesting caves can fill with veritable orgies of a

dominant humming male, several interested females and a couple of smaller

males.

This behavior is all well and good when it occurs along some

uninhabited shoreline, but when it goes on under the houses in Huntington

Harbour -- and it is going on -- it wreaks havoc. Midshipmen fish have

excavated under the bulkheads of numerous homes, nesting under the

concrete pads that hold up the houses. Wave action and currents have

scoured out the mud from under the concrete, exposing the previously

buried wooden pilings to water. With the seawater comes more marine life,

including burrowing clams, called shipworms. They like to eat wood.

Shipworms have burrowed into the pilings like termites, devouring them

day and night.

Fifty-two homes now are at varying degrees of risk of failure.

Underwater video surveillance four years ago showed voids under 37

houses, some extending for nine to 12 feet under the pads. Under some

homes, the wooden supports had been totally eaten away.

To prevent further damage and save their homes, the affected

homeowners need to fix their bulkheads. Rather than do each job

individually, they banded together four years ago to save money and hired

a contractor. He will hire divers to fill the spaces under the houses

with concrete and will seal off the spaces with a barrier so waves and

midshipmen fish can’t get under the houses. All he needs is a permit from

the Coastal Commission. Getting that has turned out to be harder than the

homeowners thought.

The waters of Huntington Harbour are wildlife habitat. The houses have

either soft-bottom habitat or eelgrass habitat in front of them that

would be destroyed during bulkhead repair. The Coastal Commission said

that the habitat damage must be mitigated by improvement elsewhere before

the homes can be repaired. Forty-four homeowners have to pay for eelgrass

mitigation and eight have to pay for soft-bottom mitigation.

The homeowners hired someone to plant eelgrass and restore soft

bottom. The Bolsa Chica has a perfect spot for soft-bottom mitigation in

front of the Bolsa Chica Conservancy Interpretive Center. But restoring

that area requires paperwork from the Department of Fish and Game. The

county has a site in the Harbour for eelgrass mitigation, but that

requires paperwork from the county. The Coastal Commission can’t issue

permits for the repairs until all the mitigation paperwork is in order.

Therein lies the rub.

The county initially gave approval for eelgrass mitigation and some

consultants planted it nearly two years ago. But it was a red tide year

and the eelgrass died. Not good enough, said the Coastal Commission

staff. The eelgrass has to survive for five years. So the consultants

planted more. It died too. Bummer. Next the consultants proposed some

other kind of mitigation since what they were doing wasn’t working. The

commission said no, plant more eelgrass.

To make matters worse, the county may withdraw its permission to allow

mitigation on its site. It may need it all for its own eelgrass

mitigation project. That issue is pending.

Some homeowners have no eelgrass in front of their homes, only soft

bottom. They should be able to proceed separately, right? Hold on, not so

fast.

Fish and Game had to approve the soft bottom mitigation project at the

Bolsa Chica at Warner Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway. They got around

to signing the papers last week. Finally, we thought, the mitigation

could proceed, some homes could be saved, and the Bolsa Chica could be

improved. Wrong again.

The contractors said it would be too expensive to do only the work on

those homes that needed soft-bottom mitigation. Besides, they said, when

they did the work, they’d trample the eelgrass in front of the

neighboring houses. Better to do it all at once, they said.

So restoration of this tiny bit of Bolsa Chica, and salvation of

people’s homes, will have to wait until the county and the Coastal

Commission and the consultants get all their ducks in a row. Meanwhile,

the fish keep nesting, the clams keep chomping, and the tide rolls in and

out twice a day.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at o7 [email protected] .