Natural Perspectives:

Thanks to a concerned reader, Vic and I were recently alerted to a growing problem in Huntington Central Park: destruction of habitat by radio-controlled cars.

When I went to the Shipley Nature Center parking lot on the west side of Goldenwest Street at Central Park Drive (formerly Talbert Avenue) to check it out, I was appalled at the damage. Use of the area by radio-controlled car aficionados had turned 5 acres of Central Park into a dust bowl.

Spent AA batteries littered the ground. Empty fuel cans and bottles had been tossed in a litter pile. Bollards had been pulled out from their rightful places ringing the parking lot. And the cars and trucks of the remote-controlled vehicle operators were parked in the school bus turn-around zone, which is clearly posted as a no-parking zone.

Probably the worst thing I saw was a man lighting a fire for his car to jump through. This was on a day when the Santa Ana winds were blowing.

Not wanting to see the fire spread accidentally, I called emergency dispatch. The dispatcher said that she’d relay the information to the fire department, but what really is needed at that site is some law enforcement by the Police Department.

Fires in Central Park are permitted only in the confines of barbecue grills.

Multiple ordinances are being violated there daily. The fire was the most egregious thing I saw, but disposal of batteries on park land is also a violation of the law, and a serious one.

Creating dust is dangerous to the health of passersby and a clear violation of air-quality ordinances.

The noise of the cars that run on liquid fuel is an obnoxiously loud, high-pitched whine that disturbs the peace of others who are using the park, and a violation of the noise ordinance.

Pulling up bollards is vandalism.

And the spilling what the car operators call “nitro” fuel is just more hazardous waste going into our park.

The destruction of what had been habitat for wildlife was appalling. What had formerly been an important habitat area now holds no value for any type of wildlife. There is nothing there but dirt, dust, litter and hazardous waste.

An ecosystem starts with plants, which are essential for capturing the energy of sunlight. All wildlife, from worms and lizards to birds and mammals, depends on the presence of plants to survive. With no flowers or greenery, there will be no butterflies and bees. With no seeds and plants, there will be no herbivores, and without herbivores, there can be no carnivores.

We wouldn’t tolerate people wantonly shooting or stomping on the wildlife that lives in our park. So why are we tolerating this destruction of habitat? It kills just as surely.

For eons, Native Americans lived on this site. You can still see the Chione clamshells left behind from their long-ago dinners. So we can add destruction of a potential archaeological site to the list of wrongs that are going on there.

In the old days, there was a hill on that site called Huff Hill, named after the farm family that lived there nearly 100 years ago. It was the tallest hill in town. Then the land was sold to the city for parkland. In the 1950s, Huff Hill was leveled and scooped away to provide fill dirt to construct the 405 Freeway. That’s when the present-day contours (a flat area on top and a steep, scooped-out slope) were established.

For 50 years prior to the use of this area by dirt bikers and radio-controlled car operators, the area had been covered by weedy growth. The habitat didn’t have many native plants, but grasses and herbaceous forbs were growing there. Those plants supported insects, lizards and rodents, which in turn supported raptors, coyotes and other native wildlife.

In the past, I’ve found gopher snakes there. Migrating American pipits used the grassland on that very spot to hunt for insects. The area was full of lizards and mice, and resident hawks hunted for them. Even tarantulas used to live there.

A search of the site last week turned up only two species of native insects. Nothing else. Even they were using only the periphery of the dirt site. The ground squirrels that used to live in the area were long gone. Migrating swallows were hunting over the Frisbee golf area on top of the hill, but avoided the bare dirt below. There was no evidence of any type of wildlife on the former habitat that has been destroyed by the radio-controlled car operators.

Off-path dirt bike riders are also contributing to the destruction of the former habitat in Central Park. It’s impossible to tell which of the two groups is causing the most destruction, but both are responsible for turning land formerly used by wildlife into a dust-filled wasteland.

If any other group wanted to use the park for a specific and dedicated purpose, it would be required to form a nonprofit and buy its own liability insurance. It would have to sit through seemingly endless meetings and discussions with city staff. It would have to jump through all sorts of hoops to use our public park for its specific wants.

Vic and I don’t know why the city is tolerating this clear violation of multiple ordinances.

Radio-controlled airplanes are specifically prohibited in the park. It’s time to add radio-controlled cars and off-path dirt bikes.

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