Natural Perspectives:

So many exciting things were going on in the past week that we don’t have room to do them all justice.

Saturday Vic and I attended the first workshop to gather public input on the Bolsa Chica Conservancy’s proposed new education and restoration center. The meeting was hosted by the conservancy in a tent set up next to Harriett Wieder Regional Park on Seapoint Drive, the proposed site for the new center.

About 90 people attended the two public planning sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The meetings began with introductions of the various design team members, who were from ZGF Architects, Advanced Environment, Design Ecology, Main Street Design and Van Atta Associates.

They did not present design concepts at this stage, because the first step is getting input from interested parties on what they want the center to do, how they want it to function and what they want the project to accomplish.

To do that, we broke into focus groups, one group each for landscaping, building and site, community, sustainability and exhibits. After about 45 minutes of brainstorming ideas, each group selected a person to summarize the main ideas and concerns of each session.

The ideas will be collated and examined in depth by a committee, which Vic and I are pleased to be a part of. With nearly 30 years involvement in preservation and restoration of Bolsa Chica, we’re thrilled to see the idea of a permanent education and interpretive center moving forward.

While a number of people agreed that the site location on Seapoint was not ideal, it is the site that is available. Ideas differed on whether the building should be highly visible or hidden below grade, but people agreed that it should be a sustainable building. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification by the U.S. Green Building Council is a definite goal, with possibilities of a green roof, solar thermal and solar voltaic, passive heating and cooling, and water collection as other goals.

The use of only Southern California native plants in the landscape was widely agreed upon. A viewing platform and trails down to the wetlands below were among many other suggestions.

Some of the notables who attended were former Huntington Beach Mayors Peter Green and Connie Boardman, both biologists, as well as Rep. Dana Rohrbacher, County Supervisor John Moorlach and Huntington Beach Mayor Keith Bohr. State Parks biologist David Pryor was in attendance as well as Amigos de Bolsa Chica President Dave Carlberg.

This project is not being planned in secret. If people want to be involved, they can contact the conservancy or just show up at the next public planning meeting, which will be in about a month.

Funding to the conservancy for this initial phase of planning came from donations from Sempra Energy Foundation, Griswold Foundation and Aera Energy. We can hardly wait to see what comes next.

In other exciting news, volunteers at Shipley Nature Center installed landscaping around their new recirculating stream Friday. Landscape architect Guy Stivers laid the plants out attractively, and installation was performed by Shipley’s groundskeeper, Derek Perez, and volunteers Mark Siemonsma of Siemonsma Landscaping and Jake “I killed my lawn” Hoffman.

As I watched them planting, a red-shouldered hawk cried from the oaks above, and a California towhee scratched away under shrubs in the demonstration garden.

The water rippled and burbled endlessly as it rushed from the top of the stream, down the rocky cascade to the bottom. As we mentioned in an earlier column, the water for the stream comes from a rain collection system under the eaves of the nature center. It is stored in an underground tank until needed for the stream.

The stream alone, with granite boulders and constantly tumbling water, is a real draw for humans and wildlife. Now, with plants, it’s even prettier. Some of the plants growing around the new stream are yellow-eyed and blue-eyed grasses, Douglas iris, coyote mint, yerba mansa, Catalina currant, hummingbird sage, Douglas mugwort, meadow rue and dancing tassels. Give those plants some time to mature, and the stream is going to be the scenic high point of Shipley Nature Center.

To the left of this column, is a story about the Bolsa Chica Land Trust garnering a $77,000 grant for mesa restoration work. Looks like their Terra Farms with solar and wind power are off and running, with help from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and California Department of Fish and Game.

The project still needs approval from the California Coastal Commission. I just have to hope that someone notices that wind-generated power and a bird sanctuary don’t go together.

First we had the Glass Wall of Death, and now we have the Wind Turbines of Trouble threatening the birds of Bolsa Chica.

It’s always something.

I have one more bit of news to report. There have been so many other things to write about in our column lately that I haven’t had space to write about our vegetable garden and ongoing chicken saga. We did get our license from the city to keep chickens, but I’m still working on turning the coop into Cluckingham Palace. Wanting to document the process with photos and short essays, I started a blog. You can read it at greenlifeinsocal.wordpress.com, or Google “Lou Murray’s Green World.” So far I’ve had more than 400 visits from 12 countries, and I just started. Please stop by to see the latest news from the henhouse.

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