This river park area is managed by a nonprofit in partnership with a local government Joint Powers Authority and what they have been able to do is just remarkable. It is one of the models we look to for what can be done with the Parkway under a similar management arrangement.
It is an example of how work can be taken on that strengthens and enhances a natural resource rather than just maintaining it, or not even that in the case of the Parkway which continues to fall short by millions of dollars a year in needed maintenance due to ineffective management.
An excerpt.
Lagoon on path to 3-year restoration
By James Steinberg
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER November 9, 2006
DEL MAR – You can see them from northbound Interstate 5 near Via de la Valle. About 20 workers and 15 pieces of heavy equipment are rearranging the landscape as part of the first phase of a three-year, $86 million restoration of the San Dieguito Lagoon.
The people and machines will grow by about a third once the pace of construction picks up after the first of the year, said project manager Jon Ruth of Marathon Construction in Lakeside, the contractor.
When work ends between late 2008 and mid-2009, the 440-acre wetland, degraded by time and urban encroachment, will support a population of fish, crabs, birds, small mammals and native plants.
The wetland will have more than a mile of earthen berms to control flooding along the San Dieguito River, plus 115 acres of new tidal salt marsh, and five nesting sites for the endangered California least tern and the Western snowy plover.
Marathon began preparing the site and bringing in the heavy equipment in August. Workers are clearing brush and removing topsoil to be used when the lagoon topography has been rearranged.
Among the things they have been cautioned to watch for are rattlesnakes, ticks, wild animals, dead animals and some open pits near the old Navy airfield off Grand Avenue near the south end of Jimmy Durante Boulevard. Groups of homeless people also have been known to gather in the area.
Marathon Construction's portion of the project encompasses about 330 acres, Ruth said. Southern California Edison is restoring the lagoon to compensate for the loss of fish eggs and larvae at its San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station 33 miles to the north, and it has yet to award the contract for the project's final phase – dredging the mouth of the San Dieguito River and opening it on a permanent basis.
To Ruth, the lagoon restoration is “a big dirt-moving job with a landscaping plan.”
“The moving of the dirt isn't the big issue on the job. Mostly it's making sure everything is going exactly to plan and complying with all the environmental concerns. That's the big challenge.”
Monitors working for the California Coastal Commission, Southern California Edison, and the San Dieguito River Park Joint Powers Authority are keeping a close watch as work proceeds.
The wetland is the western terminus of the 55-mile San Dieguito River Park that stretches from Volcan Mountain near Julian to the beach at Del Mar.
