An environmental agenda for the new council
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NATURAL PERSPECTIVES
Winds from the first storm of winter are whipping rain against our
windows, bringing needed relief from the drought of summer. Huge
waves are lashing the beach and pier. Even Talbert Lake is filling up
again. As far as the weather is concerned, change is in the air.
Can’t say the same for the local election. Things are going to
remain about the same and, in our opinion, that’s a good thing.
The voters stuck pretty much to the status quo, recycling former
Mayor and Councilman Dave Sullivan, replacing Peter Green with his
wife Cathy and electing Planning Commissioner Jill Hardy. These three
are familiar with environmental issues and can be counted on to
protect the high quality of life we presently enjoy.
Retired police officer Gil Coerper is more of an unknown, but we
think he’ll make a fine addition to the lineup on the dais. It will
be interesting to see Coerper and Sullivan square off on issues
affecting salaries and benefits for city employees. They’ll be facing
hard choices in these tough economic times. We wish them all well in
their new jobs.
Wave columnist Bill Borden doesn’t seem nearly as pleased with the
election results as we are. He complained that the “Citizens Against
Everything” will want to protect the “hootie” owls, save the bean
field and preserve our city’s parks and open space. Like these are
bad things!
Wake up and smell the sagebrush, Bill. Growing numbers of citizens
in this town care about the environment. They recognize that humans
depend upon a healthy environment for their own good health. The very
air that we breathe and the water that we drink can be contaminated
by the actions of man and cleaned by the actions of nature.
We’re pleased with the wave of environmental awareness that has
washed over our community. No matter how the minority feels about it,
we have a new council that is strongly committed to environmental
protection.
We’re sure that this new council will also help build business in
town to generate the funds required to run the city. We’re sure that
they recognize the need to do something about our crumbling
infrastructure. We hope that they have the intelligence, vision and
drive that it will take to solve these problems.
The council will have many broad-based issues to deal with in the
next few years, but the focus of our columns is the environment. With
that in mind, here is our wish list for an environmental agenda:
Protect the Bolsa Chica, as much of it as possible, including the
bean field. That little parcel was once a wetland, and it can be
again.
Stay the course with restoration of the Bolsa Chica lowlands. Keep
a close eye on the cleanup of toxics in the lowlands, and ensure that
the restoration plan is one that will maximize biological diversity.
This means that an ocean opening will be necessary. The current
restoration plan will not introduce flood control channel water
through the restored part and onto the beach. This plan should help
clean the ocean water by passing it through the pickle weed,
cordgrass and eelgrass that will grow in the newly restored area.
Continue to divert summertime runoff from the flood control
channels so it doesn’t pollute our beaches. Monitor the progress of
the Orange County Sanitation District in cleaning up the sewer
outfall. We really shouldn’t be dumping all those pollutants and
sewage into the ocean -- it’s 2002. We know better.
Protect the Huntington Beach Wetlands by continuing to defend the
city’s interest in the pending lawsuit brought by Mills Land and
Water Company. The owners would like to develop even the wetlands
portion of their property. Sorry, that’s against the law. We’d like
to see the Talbert Marsh restoration extend all the way to Beach
Boulevard. Some day it will.
We’d like the City Council to raise public awareness of the need
to recycle, compost, and conserve electricity, natural gas and water.
We’d like to see the City Council promote planting of native and
drought-tolerant plants on city property. We’d also like to see them
encourage homeowners to landscape with native and drought-tolerant
plants.
Finally, we hope the new council will continue the fight to
restore, improve and reopen the Shipley Nature Center.
* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and
environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].
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