Bolsa Chica watershed

When eight former Amigos de Bolsa Chica presidents gathered at the Bolsa Chica Conservancy interpretive center on Warner Avenue, they were telling jokes about each others’ hairline and hair color.

Thirty years ago, many of them remembered having darker hair and bringing their young children to activities at the wetlands.

But today marks a milestone in their fight to save the Bolsa Chica.

Bulldozers are set to start at about 6 a.m. to raze the last barrier that prevented the Bolsa Chica tidal channel to mingle with the Pacific Ocean after being closed off from the ocean for more than 100 years.

Although water gushing into the inlet would be a sight to see, no such avalanche of water is expected today, said Shirley Dettloff, former Huntington Beach mayor and state Coastal Commissioner.

“It’ll be more like a trickle,” she said.

But for Dave Carlberg, one of the early pioneers of the fight to save the Bolsa Chica, the event is still momentous.

“It’s like waiting 30 years to have a baby,” he said. “We never thought it would come to this.”

About 600 acres of the wetlands were part of a massive $120-million restoration project that began in 1997.

The restoration efforts included building two bridges, nesting sites, dredging sand and dirt to build levees and other constructions.

Most importantly, the program called for cleaning soil contaminated with years of oil drilling on the wetlands that began in the 1940s.

“We have had quite an impact on the Bolsa Chica and the community,” said Peter Green, former mayor and past Amigos president.

Funding for the restoration project came from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The ports acquired the wetlands for restoration purposes as part of mitigation measures for port expansions.

“The best Valentine’s Day gift I got was when the Ports agreed to pay for wetland restoration work,” said Planning Commissioner Tom Livengood.

“The evolution is so interesting,” said Chuck Nelson. He joined the Amigos, founded in 1976, in the 1980s, when the focus was on saving the wetlands from development.

“We didn’t have the hope to restore the wetlands,” Nelson said.

For many of the Amigos members, the fight to save the Bolsa Chica was their first foray into activism.

“We learned very quickly that if we wanted to be a force in the community, then we had to understand the politics,” Dettloff said.

Amigos members began their crusade to save the wetlands before the Coastal Act was created, and they took full advantage of it.

“We have been around even before the word ‘environmentalist’ was coined,” Dettloff said.

Back then, most people perceived wetlands’ use to be for creating marinas and building homes.

“We had to educate the community,” said Linda Moon, another pioneer former Amigos president. “We had to convince them there was a value in wetlands.”

The fresh ocean water entering into the deep-water wetlands habitat will cause a tenfold increase in types of birds nesting at the site.

A set of muted tidal pools, which are shallow pools of water, and the full-tidal pool are expected to provide habitats for several endangered species, such as California least terns, Belding’s Savannah Sparrow as well as migratory birds and fishes.

“Environmentalism is good for business,” Moon said.

The city’s emphasis on becoming a tourist destination requires taking care of its environment, she said.

The Amigos are celebrating 30 years of existence along with completion of the restoration project’s first phase.

A party on Sept. 2 at the Interpretive Center on Warner will include tours starting 9 a.m. The tour will begin at a newly-improved footbridge and a new loop trail that will be opened to the public after the inlet is opened to the ocean.