A 20-year culmination of California State Parks’ controversial efforts to restore the Malibu Lagoon to an earlier, idyllic state attracted more than 200 people last Friday to the official grand re-opening of Malibu Lagoon State Beach. With smoke visible on the western horizon from the Springs wildfire in Camarillo, State Parks officials declared success in their attempt to improve water quality in the lagoon, while a small band of demonstrators waved signs in protest at the Pacific Coast Highway entrance to the property.
“Welcome, everybody, to a healthy Malibu Lagoon!” proclaimed event emcee Shelley Luce of the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission to a cheering audience to kick off the ceremony. People milled about inside the park taking advantage of free hot dogs and lemonade, as well as self-guided tours of the paths and nature-viewing areas of the re-configured space.
Rather than a strip of ribbon, a host of elected officials cut a string of kelp to commemorate the opening. The officials included Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, State Sen. Fran Pavley and Assemblymember Richard Bloom.
The dignitaries were countered by about a dozen demonstrators who protested at the park’s entrance on Pacific Coast Highway.
“Let’s not destroy everything to say we’re saving it,” said a woman describing herself as the president of a grassroots coalition. “They took a perfectly rural setting and urbanized it.”
The state’s highly controversial lagoon re-shaping and dredging project began last summer and finished about two months ago. Supporters of the restoration argued that a prior restorative effort in 1983 did more harm than good to the lagoon, which was backed up and choking from poor water quality, flow and contaminated sediment. Opponents countered that using bulldozers to re-shape the lagoons channels would needlessly kill wildlife and plant species, and that the lagoon could correct its problems naturally.
After several legal delays, including a court-issued stay that delayed the project through 2011, the project began last summer and concluded recently. Non-native plants and shrubs were dug up and replaced with thousands of native seedlings, while much of the fish and other wildlife was relocated during the initial stages of the project.
Suzanne Goode, a senior environmental scientist for State Parks, said while dredging the lagoon in summer 2012 State Parks discovered “truck tires, pipes of all kinds, guns and cow skeletons.” She called the project a success.
“The tides can now come in and sweep the area, fish like striped mullet are using the area as a nursery again, and as the vegetation fills in, we expect our nesting ducks to return,” Goode concluded to wild cheering from the audience. “So we put into place a sustainable system. It’s up to nature to take over and the original wildlife to return and help this system evolve.”
Goode added that the reconfigured lagoon has netted an additional two acres of wetlands.
Mark Gold, former president of Heal the Bay, recalled living on Point Dume as a child when the lagoon was filled-in dirt used for baseball diamonds.
State Senator Fran Pavley, (D-Agoura Hills), told the audience that as an Agoura Hills native, she has watched the transition of the lagoon property for the last 35 years.
“I remember marching with the Malibu Township Council to move the baseball fields up to Bluffs Park,” she recalled.
Pavley described Goode as “unflappable” through the controversy over the project, and thanked her for her perseverance. She noted that State Parks Superintendent Craig Sap would not be speaking because, “He’s been up all night with the [Springs] fire.”
Meanwhile, several protesters alluded to the current project to restore the Ballona Wetlands near Marina del Rey.
“We don’t want them to destroy Ballona like they destroyed this,” one said. “And Ballona is 600 acres—not just 15 acres like the Malibu Lagoon. This was a bulldozer restoration.”
“They pushed the reset button,” added David Warren, a conservation activist with the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club.
