Our wetlands kayaking trips are back!

Sign up now to reserve your spot!

You are invited to join us for a refreshing kayak trip to Los Cerritos Wetlands. This year’s trips will be on October 28th and 29th, November 11th and 12th, and December 2nd and 3rd.

Kayak trips will start in the morning and will wrap up by noon.

Sign up here to reserve your spot!

It will be a unique and fascinating experience and we hope you will join us. It’s a chance to check out Steamshovel Slough which can only be viewed via kayak.
Rules for kayaking: You must be able to swim. You must be in decent shape to handle about 2 hours of kayaking (with some breaks). It is recommended that you have been kayaking before, but novice kayakers are welcome to join us. Wear proper attire for kayaking; you will get splashed (no jeans and tennis shoes). If you are a minor 12 years of age (or older) you are welcome to join us as long as you meet the above requirements and are accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Meet at Mother’s Beach near the children’s playground. Street and metered parking is available but can fill up on weekends, so plan on arriving early so you have enough time to find a place to park.

The cost to kayak with us is $40 (an amazing deal!) to help cover the rental expenses of kayaks, paddles, life-vests, and for the tour leaders who guide the trips. Tour leaders will be experienced kayakers from LA River Expeditions and environmental educator Katy Dressendorfer.

Please reserve your kayaking spot soon since there is limited availability and we will likely sell out.

Hope to see you out on the water with us! You will have an awesome time. Please email if you have any questions.

Our next nature walk will be the Turtle Trek! Hope you can join us.

*You might see a sea turtle like this when you attend our Turtle Trek nature walk on October 7th.* Photo by Katrina Plummer.

Join us to trek for Sea Turtles in the San Gabrial River on Saturday, October 7th.

You will observe sea turtles and interesting wildlife like egrets and perhaps a great blue heron or two.

Environmental educators from Tidal Influence will lead attendees on a beautiful walk along the levy of the San Gabriel River, which bisects Los Cerritos Wetlands. Attendees will walk through Los Cerritos Wetlands to a spot along the San Gabriel River where the sea turtles love to hang out.

For part of our tour, we will view and discuss the Zedler Marsh ecosystem while keeping an eye out for local wildlife. Much of our walk will take us through the Signal Hill Petroleum oil operations, where walk attendees will learn about the history of oil extraction and its impact on the wetlands.

We will stroll past Calloway Marsh, take the PCH bridge over to the western levee, and walk past privately and publicly owned wetlands on our way back to our meeting spot.

WHAT: Turtle Trek at Los Cerritos Wetlands.

WHEN: Saturday, October 7th, 2023, at 8:00 AM sharp! The parking lot gate will open at 7:45 a.m. and close at 8:10 a.m. No latecomers can be admitted for the tour, and all participants must stay for the entire tour, which will end by 10:00 a.m. Kids are welcome, but they must be closely supervised and able to walk for 2 hours without needing to turn back. Closed-toe shoes are required!

WHERE: Meet in the driveway/parking area at the corner of 1st Street and PCH in Seal Beach. Please wear close-toed shoes, and an adult must accompany kids under 16.

For more information or to RSVP visit our Eventbrite link or send me an email.

Wetlands Adjacent Development Update

*New zoning allows for new development adjacent to Los Cerritos Wetlands.*

Trust me. I get it. The new development proposals for South East Long Beach near Los Cerritos Wetlands are concerning. But for those of us who have been actively working to protect Los Cerritos Wetlands for over a decade (or longer), we have been anticipating this day.

Some background:
You may remember that the City of Long Beach started updating the zoning for the lands in and around Los Cerritos Wetlands in 2014. In some ways, that was a good thing since zoning for those lands was a mishmash of old laws that needed to be improved. We engaged in the zoning update process every step of the way. We participated in every public meeting, mobilized our members, sent in comment/feedback letters, engaged experts, and even filed a lawsuit when we saw issues that violated the California Environmental Quality Act.

That process resulted in a final zoning plan (approved by the City of Long Beach and then, with some good modifications, by the California Coastal Commission) We didn’t love it, but we acknowledge the good things about the new zoning. For example, robust buffers between development and the wetlands, bird-safe lighting, and drought-tolerant/native plant landscaping.

Subsequently, due to the acute housing crisis in California, new State laws were passed that override local zoning and have bumped up the allowed height of residential/mixed-use developments as long as certain conditions are met. Two of the proposed new developments include affordable housing units which triggered overriding SEASP and allow six-story buildings.

Carmel Partners proposes a development that qualifies for and complies with State requirements at 6615 E PCH (near the Pumpkin Patch). However, I am happy to let you know that, because of our talks with them, there will be some improvements to that project.
Improvements1) Carmel Partners has agreed to consult Dr. Travis Longcore for his expertise, review, and feedback to enhance wetlands/bird-safe lighting and rooftop design elements. Dr. Longcore is a highly regarded expert on the impacts of light and other urban intrusions on fragile wetlands species. His involvement will help make the proposed development’s bird safety and wetlands-friendly features as robust as possible. Given that the Carmel development will be located so close to Los Cerritos Wetlands, that is something they must get right.
2) Another office building owned by Carmel Partners is currently located within the new 100-foot buffer zone designed to protect Los Cerritos Wetlands from the impacts and intrusions of the surrounding urban environment. Carmel has agreed to give the Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust a “first option” opportunity to find a non-profit or government agency that could purchase the building and restore it to an open space/buffer area. I have closely followed the State of California’s 30 x 30 initiative, and a project that offers a robust buffer adjacent to wetlands meets those goals. I am optimistic that funding will be available to us.

See that office building, circled in red, sitting off by itself within Los Cerritos Wetlands? It needs to be removed so that it can no longer negatively impact the fragile Los Cerritos Wetlands ecosystem.

3) I have heard more than one person tell me that the solution to all new traffic woes brought on by new development in the area is to extend Shopkeeper Road through to PCH. But what if that isn’t true? Or what if extending the road is traffic-inducing or worsens nearby traffic? The best way to answer those questions is to conduct a traffic and mobility study to provide critical data. I am happy to share that Carmel Partners is committed to working with community leaders and partners to study “best practices” to address transportation issues in the area. A traffic and mobility study is the first step in that discussion. Roads adjacent to wetlands harm and kill fragile species. It is in the interest of all of us who care about Los Cerritos Wetlands to at least look at transportation alternatives, and I hope we do.
While I’m never going to be happy with the new development so close to Los Cerritos Wetlands, we must acknowledge it when developers go beyond the minimum required and Carmel Partners has done that.
Stay tuned. There are more developments proposed for the area, but you can be sure we will be all over them and will work to improve them as much as we possibly can.

Elizabeth Lambe
Executive Director
Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust

P.S. I hope by now you have heard the news! The California Coastal Conservancy voted to award $31,852,000 to the Los Cerritos Wetlands Authority for the Southern Los Cerritos Wetlands Restoration Project, which will help with planning and permitting for restoration and providing public access for Los Cerritos Wetlands restoration efforts.

The AES pumps (and others pumps too) get a three-year extension from the State Waterboard.

*The operating life of the environmentally damaging AES pumps has been extended for a few more years. Let’s hope it’s the last time!*

I am sad to report to you that the environmentally damaging AES cooling water pumps recently got a three-year extension from the State Water Resources Control Board to keep operating. AES’s pumps kill a lot of marine life because they suck in huge amounts of water from Alamitos Bay to cool their generators. Those pumps (and others like them) were supposed to be phased out because of all the damage they cause to marine life. But the State of California is concerned about the reliability of the energy grid so they were granted an extension.

Sure, we get it, reliability is important, perhaps even more so these days, as the climate gets more extreme. But for the health of the planet, plants and animals, AND humans we have to transition (quickly) away from our reliance on carbon-producing energy sources. And for the health and restoration of the wetlands, the pumps must be permanently shut down.

The government has been “balancing” these extensions (since the pumps kill so much sea life) by funding marine protected areas off the coast of California. We love marine life and marine protected areas but our local power plant is an unusual case. AES Alamitos is a gas-powered energy plant that sits in wetlands and thus, is killing marine life specific to wetlands. We made the case to the Water Board that if they allow the local AES powerplant to continue to run, any required mitigation should go to improving the local Los Cerritos Wetlands marine ecosystem. We hope the decision makers will agree when they meet again to talk about how best to calculate the mitigation and how best to spend the mitigation fees. You can read further details here. We will update you as we learn more.

Assembly Bill 1633 is a grave threat to our environment and communities

A.B. 1633 is a grave threat to our environment and communities and will give unchecked power to developers to unleash a flood of litigation against public agencies.

Why do we oppose AB 1633? This bill would unleash a flood of litigation against public agencies as it allows developers of qualifying housing projects to bring legal action against a public agency before the administrative record is complete and before the project is approved or denied. This totally upends the existing procedures for CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)

CEQA is the law that requires that state and local agencies disclose and evaluate the significant environmental impacts of proposed projects and adopt all feasible mitigation measures to reduce or eliminate those impacts.

Of particular concern to environmental justice organizations is the bill’s drastic limitations on the ability of petitioners to recover attorneys’ fees – which would severely limit meritorious lawsuits under CEQA to enforce environmental justice.

Contact Governor Newsom to demand a VETO on AB 1633.

Or call him at 916-445-2841

For a great overview of the importance of CEQA, which AB 1633 would weaken, check out the video below. And then contact Governor Newsom and tell him to veto AB 1633 today!