COSTA MESA UNPLUGGED:

The bridge spanning Placentia Avenue in Costa Mesa’s Fairview Park has been scorned by a lot of folks in this town and by columnists here.

It’s rued as a colossal flushing of taxpayer coin. Disparaged as Costa Mesa’s “rusty elephant.” Treated as shabbily as the pimpled, chubby kid at the high school dance.

It’s too bad, really.

Most often slandered as the “bridge to nowhere,” the Fairview Park Bridge is in fact a link to somewhere pretty special. And if its critics would bother to spend some time noodling over the Fairview Park Master Plan, the fact would be evident.

Originally adopted by the Costa Mesa City Council in March 1998, the Fairview Park Master Plan is a comprehensive blueprint containing several projects that would transform the park’s 208 acres into an enviable open-space theater of native plant communities, riparian and seasonal creek watersheds, vernal pools and wildlife habitats.

In a city where concrete is king, Fairview Park is Costa Mesa’s last, best hope for safeguarding a sliver of its natural heritage in perpetuity.

Today’s headline is that the Fairview Park Master Plan is beginning to come into season. For nearly two years now, 11 acres in the northwest corner of lower Fairview Park have been the venue of a native-plant habitat restoration project funded via an open-space mitigation requirement of the Dana Point Headlands project. Once established, the coastal sage scrub and other vegetation residing in the restored habitat will be an important incubator for endangered bird and animal species.

The Costa Mesa City Council deserves the gratitude of the city’s residents for taking another important step in bringing bloom to the Fairview Park Master Plan. At its Sept. 18 huddle, the City Council approved a conservation easement between the city, the Orange County Flood Control District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

With the easement in place, the Army Corps of Engineers will soon begin work to transform the 17 acres in the northeast corner of lower Fairview Park into a lush wetlands and riparian habitat.

The $7.36 million project will feature five large ponds linked by a winding riparian streambed.

In the aggregate, the Fairview Park seasonal creek community will provide an important regional water quality benefit by serving as a natural treatment system of dry-weather water runoff from the Greenville-Banning channel. Too, it may well become established as an important new habitat for migratory birds.

As well, the project will be an extraordinary passive recreational asset and outdoor classroom. Trail systems, benches and picnic areas will connect Costa Mesans and students with this natural environment.

The first phase of this critical element of the Fairview Park Master Plan is already funded. The Army Corp of Engineers is chipping in $1.8 million. The city has secured another nearly half-million dollars in grants, and Costa Mesa is contributing $410,000.

Now, back to the bridge.

Within the broad canvas of the Fairview Park Master Plan, the Fairview Park Bridge is an important pedestrian link between the eastside of the park, providing safe above-grade passage between the popular trains operated by the Orange County Model Engineers on the eastside, and the incredible wetlands, plant and wildlife habitats that will soon occupy the westside.

The Fairview Park Bridge isn’t a bridge to nowhere. It’s a bridge to one of Orange County’s most valuable outdoor natural history museums.

BYRON DE ARAKAL is a former Costa Mesa parks and recreation commissioner. Readers can reach him at [email protected].