The Restoration of Batiquitos Lagoon | The Restoration Story

West Basin

Because the Batiquitos Lagoon Enhancement Project was designed to mitigate the Pier 300/400 projects at the Port, the restoration needed to be implemented in time to allow the Port to use the mitigation when seeking coastal and dredging permits for pier construction. The Port also needed the restoration project to result in the creation of habitats and areas that met the requirements for sought-after mitigation credits.

The goals of the Batiquitos Lagoon Enhancement Project were to permanently restore tidal influence to the lagoon while protecting important habitat values. The subtidal and intertidal areas of the lagoon would mitigate the loss of habitat in the Outer Los Angeles Harbor.

Interagency Agreement

In 1987, the Batiquitos interagency mitigation agreement defined the process for implementing the Batiquitos Lagoon project and established the roles of the various agencies involved. In this agreement, which was critical to the success of the project, the Port agreed to fund all aspects of the project, including environmental documentation, design, permitting, construction, maintenance, and monitoring. The City of Carlsbad, as the local jurisdiction, agreed to be responsible for key project approvals and to be the recipient of construction permits. The California State Lands Commission agreed that it would own the lands of the lagoon and lease these lands to CDFG for maintenance and management as an ecological reserve. NMFS and USFWS served in a consulting role in the development of the project and participated, along with the other parties, in certifying that the project had been constructed as intended.

The interagency agreement established an administrative framework that provided certainty to Port expenditures and a mechanism for obtaining necessary approvals for terminal development at the Port. The agreement included the following components

A flexible plan for restoration of the lagoon-this plan was dependent on a series of milestones that were tailored to the project and included

completion of the preliminary design
completion of the environmental documentation
award of the construction contract

An as-built construction certification process-the purpose of this process was to evaluate and certify the number of acres of habitat created at the end of the construction project. The process required the approval of all parties within a certain period of time. This requirement ensured that the Port would be granted its mitigation credits in a defined period and based on measurable criteria.

Limitations on expenditures-such limitations set rules and boundaries on what costs were appropriate for mitigation at the lagoon.

Long-term maintenance funding provisions-this provided funds for the perpetual maintenance of the lagoon while capping the Port's long-term financial liability and identified CDFG as the long-term manager of the lagoon.

Environmental Review Process

To ensure that the selected restoration plan would be feasible, a number of studies of the lagoon were undertaken. These studies included hydrological studies to determine the tidal prism necessary to keep the lagoon mouth open. Also, an exhaustive 2-year environmental review of the proposed restoration project was completed in August 1990. Preparation of the environmental impact report/environmental impact statement (EIR/EIS) involved conducting prerestoration surveys of avifauna, vegetation, invertebrates, fishes, and historic resources of the lagoon. These surveys established baseline data that will be used to measure the development and success of the lagoon. The environmental review process included more than 25 public meetings and responses to 45 comment letters, totaling almost 400 pages. The final design and permitting were completed in April 1994.

Birds in the Mudflats

The Batiquitos Lagoon Enhancement Project was very controversial. During the environmental and permitting process, local environmental groups protested that the massive dredging project would ruin the lagoon for birds, including the threatened and endangered species that nested there; that it would transform a productive brackish system into a tidal system of value only to fish; and that "mitigation doesn't work." Other contentious issues included the construction and functioning of a tidal inlet and the effect it would have on sand transport along the coast, and the effect of the inlet structure on local surfing conditions.

The local Sierra Club brought two lawsuits against the project. The first suit, brought in state court, alleged, among other things, that the California Coastal Commission, in issuing its Coastal Development Permit for the project, had not approved the "least damaging" restoration alternative and had not adequately considered other, more protective, alternatives for restoration. The Audubon Society joined the Sierra Club in the second suit. This suit, brought in federal court, alleged that no consultation in accordance with the federal Endangered Species Act had been carried out for the western snowy plover, which had been listed as threatened after the permitting process was complete but before construction had begun. Both lawsuits were found in favor of the project.

Approved Project

The project that was approved for construction at Batiquitos Lagoon included the following major elements:

Construction of a nonnavigable, rock tidal inlet structure to allow uninterrupted tidal flushing of the lagoon

Physical reconfiguration/contouring of the lagoon through dredging to create the necessary subtidal and intertidal habitats and to create a tidal prism adequate to maintain an open inlet

Replenishment of local cobble-covered beaches using sands mined from the central basin of the lagoon

Construction of five sandy nesting areas, totaling 32 acres, for threatened and endangered bird species, using sand dredged from the central basin of the lagoon

Disposal of fine materials dredged from the eastern basin of the lagoon into a pit dredged in the central basin and capping of that pit with sandy material dredged from the central basin

Replacement of two aging bridges on Carlsbad Boulevard (the Pacific Coast Highway)

Relocation of utilities crossing the lagoon to the newly constructed bridges

Scour protection of the Interstate 5 and railroad bridges that cross the lagoon

Maintenance dredging at approximately 3-year intervals to remove ocean-derived sand from inside the mouth of the lagoon and placement of the sand on adjacent beaches

The approved project design restricted some construction activities and required construction to be sequenced to avoid adversely affecting the salt marsh, to avoid and protect the nesting activities of endangered species, to protect infrastructure around the lagoon from flooding, and to avoid beach nourishment during high-use periods. Construction began in March 1994, and the lagoon was finally opened in December 1996.