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NATURAL PERSPECTIVES:

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The hundreds of fires now burning in northern and central California serve to remind us that we, too, live in a fire zone. One way to help prevent fires is called fuel modification, which includes removing dry brush from around residential areas.

While Vic has been teaching in air-conditioned classrooms this summer, I’ve been working with various orientation crews of the Orange County Conservation Corps to reduce fuel for fires at the Bolsa Chica. Using hand tools, we cut and rake dry brush — dead non-native plants — along the block walls separating residential areas from the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve.

We started work at the end of Graham Street in early summer, gradually working our way north toward the Wintersburg flood control channel. Last Thursday, we cut down some non-native Brazilian pepper trees and finished bagging the last of the brush in that project area. We’ll probably start working our way south from Graham in August.

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Several people stopped by as we were working to say thanks. The young men and women of my crew really appreciated being thanked for their hard work. And we’d like to extend a special big thank you to the anonymous lady who dropped off the cold bottled water one really hot day. That was a much-appreciated surprise.

Those of you who live in that area, or who walk there, may see a lot of vegetation remaining. We try not to disturb native plants, so when we found mulefat, mallow and pickleweed, we left them. In addition to the few native plants we discovered, we also left behind crystal iceplant and several other green — not dead and dry — non-natives. These plants serve the purposes of erosion control, dust control and habitat.

Although that area is highly degraded, it still provides habitat for native wildlife. We needed to leave some plants behind as food and cover for the Southern alligator lizards, Western fence lizards and Western field mice that live there. We also found one live rattlesnake but carefully moved him to a location that is fenced off from the public.

California ground squirrels also live in that dry, weedy area, along with many species of insects and spiders. Mourning doves, sparrows and finches flew in front of us, and swallows swooped over our heads, reminding us the insects that live there provide food for birds and animals higher on the food chain. Life exists in a complicated, interconnected web. Pull a strand in one small place and the web of life reverberates well beyond the margins of that strand. That’s why we removed only the dry brush that presented a fire hazard.

The Hearthside Homes native plant restoration project is another area of Bolsa Chica where fuel modification is practiced, only in a different way. Vic and I took a tour several weeks ago of the 32-acre restoration project around the perimeter of the new residential development. Ed Montford of Hearthside Homes and Art Homrighausen of LSA Associates showed us their new plantings. This project was planned and planted by a combination of LSA Associates and Glenn Lukost Associates, and paid for by Hearthside Homes. What an amazing and wonderful project it is.

The project has three distinct zones, all planted with California native species. In the area between the homes and the new public trail, plants are low growing and are irrigated regularly to maintain a high moisture content to reduce the likelihood of fire.

Looking from the trail downhill toward the wetlands, one can see two other areas. Nearest the trail is a strip 20 feet wide that also has short plants that are regularly irrigated. Beyond that strip, there are native plantings selected for their habitat value.

The 40 to 50 varieties of annual and perennial Southern California natives grew from a combination of a custom native seed mix and plants in containers. You can see blue-eyed grass, Dudleya, coastal sagebrush, monkeyflower, coyote brush, bladderpod, four-winged saltbush, buckwheat, white nightshade, mulefat, wishbone bush, goldfields, California boxthorn, tidytips and many other beautiful natives. This project also will provide excellent habitat for wildlife.

Part of this project was the creation of a natural grassland. Grasslands are one of the hardest restoration projects to implement, but this project looks successful. The trick was to grade the area, irrigate to cause weed seeds to germinate, then spray with herbicide. This cycle was repeated several times to exhaust the weed seed bank. Then seeds of purple needlegrass and foothills needlegrass were sown. After the first year, the grasses went to seed and the grasslands became self-sustaining.

One area was supposed to have become a riparian area. Those plans had to be scrapped when a burrowing owl was found there. Since burrowing owls are declining all over Southern California, it’s nice to know that at least a few migratory owls still winter at Bolsa Chica. However, the California Coastal Commission wouldn’t allow the area to be irrigated because of the owl. This means the area will stay dry and rocky instead of being converted to a riparian area.

Vic and I enjoyed touring the Hearthside restoration project. We’d like to see what the professional biologists at LSA Associates could do for the dry strip perpendicular to the end of Graham Street. It took several million dollars to restore the 32 acres around Hearthside Home.

We’re not sure what it would cost to professionally restore the strip at the end of Graham Street to the same high standard.

Unfortunately, there is probably no money available to do the job.


VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].

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