"Why don't they plant some grass?"

Because you can get better stuff from British Columbia?

If a dog comes along and pees on any land near the coast, the Coastal Commission will also declare it a wetland.

Ah Sunset Marina! The odor of rank hypocrisy permeates the place. The CEQA docs for the recent expansion paid hommage to the idiotic 3" depressions they called wetlands and completly glossed over the fact that the County was were building a 24/7 parking lot immediately adjacent to a National Wildlife Sanctuary. If that doesn't indicate that something is seriously wrong with CEQA then nothing will.

That little project also suggested to me that the CCC is far less about protecting nature and far more about telling people what to do.

This is a joke. right? :P

SMS

Which part?

Jubal 8:16
I will abstain from this discussion
The Fly

LOL

Hey new commenter, SMS, we all WISH this were a joke.

It would be funny if it weren't so tragically true.

Obviously, Jubal does not know what constitutes a wetland, which has a scientific definition involving hydrology, vegetation, and hydric soils. His perjorative remarks are a throwback to when wetlands were denigrated as swamps that were only good to drain and fill up for development. California has lost 90% of its original wetlands due to this caveman attitude. Thank heaven that the voters of California were wise enough to vote for Proposition 20 in 1972 that ultimately established the Coastal Act that protects our remaining wetlands. This wetland at Sunset Harbour Marina just needs a little TLC and restoration effort like what is being done at Bolsa Chica and Upper Newport Bay. Time to wake up and get a little enlightenment, Jubal.

Sorry JV, but if you had seen the EIR that went along with the parking lot you'd have noticed that the "wetlands" that were to be maintained were nothing but small depressions in the dirt a few feet across and a few inches deep. I am not making this up.

The game was played to protect these valuable resources (for the benefit of the CCC, no doubt)while at the same time ignoring the fact that the 24/7 parking lot was to built right next to the National Wildlife Reserve at the SBNS and that no water quality impacts were even discussed on an already non-compliant body of water.

Save your outrage for a CEQA process that does very little except paper over unmitigated impacts and provides huge business to consultants whose job it is to talk away problems - especially, it seems, those caused by government.

Is the EIR available online? Can you provide a link to the staff report of the Coastal Commission that determines this is a wetland? This might shine a light on the issue.

I don't think the whole site was ever defined as a jurisdictional wetlands - just certain small parts of it - and whether that was using CCC or ACOE criteria, I don't remember. The issue seemed particularly idiotic since the whole site is reclaimed, dumped, and basically ruderal.

I'll see if I can dig up that EIR # for you. The document is not on line at the County.

I don't think the whole site was ever defined as a jurisdictional wetlands - just certain small parts of it - and whether that was using CCC or ACOE criteria, I don't remember. The issue seemed particularly idiotic since the whole site is reclaimed, dumped, and basically ruderal.

I'll see if I can dig up that EIR # for you. The document is not on line at the County.

When was the item heard at the Coastal Commission? I can go to the Coastal Commission web site, look up the date of the meeting, access the agenda item, and read the staff report.

I don't know exactly. It was reviewed by the OC Planning Commssion in Dec 2004, and certified by the BOS a few months later. I don't think it made it to the CCC until 2005 or maybe 2006.

I can't find a reference to it on the RDMD web page.

A guy named Sy Ferny (I think?) was the staff person at the CCC.

If you ever find it good luck trying to decipher the graphics. It was, quite simply, the most incompetent EIR I have ever seen (and that's saying a lot). The fact that OC was lead agency reviewing its own project, even though it was in the city of Seal Beach, is suggestive of the integrity of the process and the consequent document.

The Coastal Commission uses the County's EIR as a baseline and compares it to the requirements of the Coastal Act. The staff of the Coastal Commission evidently found the EIR lacking with regards to wetlands and probably did its own analysis, showing wetlands where the County did not. I'll try to find the staff report.

No, the "wetlands" I'm talking about were included in the original EIR - long before the thing went to the CCC.

And I think the staff guy at the CCC is named Fernie Sy.

As I recall the CCC basically accepted the County's EIR and required them to add some kind of fence (or maybe it was a berm) at the edge of the parking area as mitigation to help shield the adjacent wildlife refuge - something the original EIR said was unnecessary.

Jubal's original comment above blamed the Coastal Commission for protecting this wetland, but from you just said, the County recognized it as a wetland, so if any "blame" is to be assigned, it looks like it should be aimed at the County. Jubal's photo above shows some newly planted vegetation with an irrigation system. The irrigation is probably for the new plants. Native plants need to be watered, they can't just be plopped down and expected to survive. However, the plants in the photograph do not look like wetland plants. They look like coastal sage. This photo is probably from the buffer area around the wetland rather than the wetland itself. There usually is a 100-foot or more buffer required around a wetland. Maybe Jubal can tell us if this photo is of the wetland itself or the buffer area. Jubal, can you help out here?

Yes, the County (through its consultant) documented wetland value on the site - but not for the whole site - just for certain small, isolated depressions. However, I'm certain they did so in order to satisfy the CCC and preempt problems.

Jan:

This photo is from OC Parks. It is of what is now a wetland. It didn't used to be a wetland. The vegetation was not, as you are for some reason claiming, planted. They took root themselves. If someone had regularly roto-tilled the parcel, it would never have become a wetland.

As I write in the post itself, the county argued to the Coastal Commission that it was not a wetlands because it didn't meet the Corps of Engineer's test. The Commission sided with their staff's less stringent test of what is a wetland.

Jubal, the reason I think these plants were planted is because the individual plants have circular mounds around them in the photo. These mounds are used to act like a bowl to water the plants. The individual plants in the middle right hand side of the photo look like Artemisia californica, Coastal sagebrush, an upland plant that might be used in a wetland buffer. You might go up to the plants, crush some of the stems and smell them. They probably have the typical fragrance of sage. I have planted many of these in parks like Fairview Park in Costa Mesa, Cliff Drive Park in Newport Beach, and the Bolsa Chica Mesa. It looks like someone is trying to restore the land in the photo, because the plants are regularly spaced, the irrigation mounds, and possibly the white line in the foreground is PVC pipe indicating a temporary above-ground irrigation system. Maybe a volunteer group is restoring here?

It is futile for the County to argue coastal wetlands using Army Corps criteria, because the Coastal Commission always has used the single parameter approach. Redperegrine says the County's EIR showed these to be wetlands. The EIR consultants usually distinguish Coastal Commission criteria versus Army Corps criteria in the EIR. If they did not in this case, then they were remiss.

Rototilling the land constantly might diguise the wetland characteristics by disrupting the hydric soil and disallow vegetation from growing. However, the wetland usually springs back, given half a chance. The Coastal Commisssion staff usually know what's going on and that's why they apply stringent criteria in defining a wetland.

What is the address of this corner? I would like to visit it first hand and see what's happening here.

"What is the address of this corner? I would like to visit it first hand and see what's happening here."

It's at the very end of Edinger. Maybe I'll see you down there.

For the last time (I hope): the EIR did not say the whole site was a wetlands. Only a few small depressions in the mud - a few inches deep, and that had no plant life around them at all the one and only time I was there (Nov. 2004).

The Coastal Commission approved this project at its April 11, 2006 meeting. The staff report link is below. There is an addendum that is not online that may discuss the wetlands issue more thoroughly, and I am asking for that report to be sent to me by regular mail. The staff report shows a required buffer around the wetlands and a reqired planting plan, so I think the photo that Jubal is showing above is the result of the required planting plan and is not the wetland itself. See link at:

http://documents.coastal.ca.gov/reports/2006/4/T8a-4-2006.pdf

I visited the site today at the end of Endinger. Just as I suspected, the above photo depicts an upland that is being revegetated with an upland native landscape plan around the wetlands. You can see the plants in wells, plants in pots, and also a lot of hydroseeded coastal sage. The wetlands are separate from the above uplands. Jubal might check his facts before ranting about the Coastal Commission. I think this was an unintentional mistake by Jubal, but I think he owes us all an apology.