Long Beach plans to level historic wetland for sports park

A wetland in Long Beach is in danger of being flattened for a pay-for-play sports park.

The 60-acre remnant of a riparian corridor, known as Willow Spring, originated well up in the watershed and emptied into the L.A. River. The city of Long Beach is moving forward with a plan to obliterate the historic topography and habitat in favor of a sports park for which users would be charged a fee.

photo by Tom Politeo Willow Spring, a 60-acre remnant of a riparian corridor in Long Beach, provides habitat for numerous birds, including the loggerhead shrike. The city wants to level it to build a pay-for-play sports park.

After numerous years of being on the back burner, the issue has recently come to the fore.

Willow Spring was the replacement location for the sports park when the city, in deference to massive public protest, gave up its proposal to build in a pristine area of El Dorado Park back in 1997.

The city originally described Willow Spring as a highly degraded oil field that would be converted into 60 acres of badly needed parkland, relieving neighborhood parks of adult sports leagues that displace neighborhood kids.

The city's concept sounded great at first blush, absent any proper evaluation of the natural resources at Willow Spring or any cost estimates for grading the topography flat, vertically relocating 17 oil wells and numerous pipelines, and re-engineering the hydrology. The estimated costs turned out to be $15 to 20 million in site preparation alone, plus another $15 to 20 million for building the sports facilities.

The sports park project has struggled to gain momentum. The city declared an initial environmental impact report inadequate in 2000, a move that set back the sports park several years.

A new draft EIR was a released in December 2004, and triggered a wave of public comment and examination. Appalling to many members of the community was the loss of topography, including both the historic riparian corridor and Exxon Hill, the highest point in Long Beach.

In addition to the loss of historic topography, about 14 acres designated in 1989 by the Army Corps of Engineers as wetlands would be lost. This acreage contains wetland plants and hydric soils, and is seasonally inundated. The wetlands, together with a roughly equal amount of upland habitat, provide foraging for numerous locally rare species, including a pair of loggerhead shrikes, a California Department of Fish and Game Species of Special Concern and one of only five pairs known to exist in Los Angeles.

The activist community has suggested that the sports park could be built on any flat land in Long Beach, and that the $15 to 20 million needed for the site preparation at Willow Spring would be better spent acquiring new flat land elsewhere.

Activists presented a compromise plan on October 20 to the Long Beach Planning Commission, who certified the EIR but ruled that opposing sides of the project must meet to discuss the possibility of adding more wetlands or passive recreation uses at the site.

In response to this edict, the city's planning staff organized a community meeting that was conducted Dec. 14.

For those interested, the Planning Department has posted sports park information to the city's website, including the EIR and public comment (www.ci.long-beach.ca.us/plan/pb/epd/er.asp). The land itself is located just south of the 405 Freeway at the Orange Avenue exit, and is bounded by major streets Willow, Spring, Orange, and California.

David Sundstrom is active in Long Beach Eco-Link. He can be reached at 310-377-8398.