Bean field war is back in the news

NATURAL PERSPECTIVES

In July, we wrote about Huntington Beach’s own Milagro Beanfield

War. We said that we hoped it wouldn’t take a milagro -- a miracle --

to save it from development.

Historically, the low-lying bean field west of Graham Street

between Warner and Slater avenues was a wetland. It was part of the

Wintersburg Creek riparian corridor. But a lot happened to that

little field over the last 100 years -- most of it bad.

Old maps show that by 1910 the dense willow thickets covering the

land had been cut down to create an agricultural field. But like the

Nile River Valley, the lowlands still flooded periodically, keeping

the soil moist and nutrient rich. The highest purpose to which the

parcel was put in those days was to grow beans and other crops,

probably celery and barley.

Eventually, the Wintersburg Flood Control Channel was constructed,

cutting the land off from periodic inundation. In 1981, the property

was designated a severely degraded historic wetland.

Development-minded city officials zoned the land for residential use.

But in 1986, more environmentallyminded city officials changed the

zoning from residential to conservation.

At one time, the land was deemed jurisdictional wetlands, which

offered the land some degree of protection from development. However,

the land lost that designation in the early 1990s. This opened up the

bean field once again to the possibility of development. That’s where

things stand now.

Shea Properties would like to build 172 homes there in a

development called Parkside Estates. They won’t if the Neighbors for

Wintersburg Wetlands Recovery have anything to say about it. Mark D.

and Julie Bixby, and many other members of the Neighbors, have spent

untold hours researching the issue and preparing a defense for the

little wetland parcel.

Here’s how we feel about this. Whether or not a particular piece

of land is designated as wetlands should be a biological decision,

not a political one. Biologically, that land is a wetland. What does

it take to call it a wetland? Simple. It requires moist soil, wetland

vegetation, and some days during which water stands on the property.

The bean field meets all of those criteria, although it struggles

against the actions of man to do so. The soil is wet and there are

many days during the rainy season when water ponds on the property.

But over the years illegal dumping occurred, filling in parts of the

wetland. If you fill it in, water will no longer stand. That doesn’t

mean the land was not a wetland and can’t be a wetland again if the

illegal fill is removed.

Most years the land is disked, harrowed and planted. If the

plowman lets the fields lie fallow, pickleweed grows there. That’s an

indicator species for wetlands. The current environmental report

blames the presence of wetland plants on introduced seeds that

sprouted during unusually wet years. Uh, excuse us. That’s the

definition of a wetland. If the soil is damp and wetland plants grow

there, it’s a wetland. That isn’t politics, boys and girls, that’s

biology.

The City Council met on Monday to decide the fate of the bean

field. The were shown pictures of the ephemeral streambed crossing

the Shea property that is still apparent on aerial photographs. They

heard testimony about the number of days that water stands on the

property, despite the attempts to fill it in. They saw photos of

bulldozers attempting to eliminate the low-lying wetlands. Yet still

the wetlands persist. Biology rules.

We can only hope the City Council did the right thing on Monday

and saved this remnant wetland from development. A much better

purpose for the land would be a restored freshwater wetland that

would help clean up the water in the Wintersburg Flood Control

Channel before it empties into outer Bolsa Bay and Huntington

Harbour. The land should be purchased from Shea Properties at fair

market value and restored to a much higher purpose than as a base for

a huge pad of fill with more homes on top.

Since our deadline falls in advance of the council meeting, we

don’t know the outcome. We can only hope that the council did the

right thing and recognized the Shea property for what it is. A

historic and imminently restorable wetlands.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

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