Reserve your spot now for our August 5th Heron Hike

Reserve your spot now for our August 5th Heron Hike

I urge you to sign up now to attend our August 5 Heron Hike nature walk.

Join us, and educators from the environmental consulting firm Tidal Influence, on a wonderful nature walk at Los Cerritos Wetlands on Saturday, August 5.

The unusual Marketplace Marsh is an amazing feature of Los Cerritos Wetlands. Perhaps there will be water within Marketplace Marsh, but certainly, there will be lots of interesting plants and animals that attendees will learn about along the way. Environmental educators will take participants on a walking tour to Marketplace Marsh on the City of Long Beach’s wetlands and over to the San Gabriel River to property held by the Los Cerritos Wetlands Authority. We will likely come across great blue herons, as well as egrets and other water-loving wildlife.

During this 2-mile urban hike, you will learn about the history of land acquisitions in Los Cerritos Wetlands, and leaders will show us some freshwater marsh habitats that few people have ever viewed.

WHAT: Nature walk to Marketplace Marsh at Los Cerritos Wetlands.

WHEN: Saturday, August 5, 2023, at 8:00 AM. The parking lot gate will open at 7:45 AM and close at 8:10 AM. No latecomers can be admitted for the tour, and all participants must stay for the entire tour, which will end by 10:00 AM.

WHERE: Meet in the driveway/parking area at the corner of 1st Street and PCH in Seal Beach. There will be signs.

Close-toed shoes are required to attend the walk, and kids under 16 must be accompanied by an adult. Reserve your spot via our Eventbrite page. Feel free to email any questions you may have.


Also on August 5th, from 10:30 AM-12:30 PM, you are invited to join community-based wetlands restoration. Los Cerritos Wetlands are being restored and made beautiful because of hard-working folks who volunteer their time to remove invasive plants and other weeds and plant in their place “habitat friendly” native plants. It’s fun, fulfilling and it requires no special skills or experience–just enthusiasm and a willingness to learn. Your contribution of time and effort is vital to the success of the restoration and would be greatly appreciated! For more information or to RSVP email iwanttohelp@tidalinfluence.com.
Urgent Alert! Defend the California Environmental Quality Act

Urgent Alert! Defend the California Environmental Quality Act


Background
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), is a bedrock environmental law that consistently improves development projects from habitat and community perspectives. It gives stakeholders a voice in environmental issues where special interests often have too much power and influence with decision-makers through campaign contributions. 

Governor Newsom is trying to weaken the law in a very inappropriate manner – not through the usual legislative process but rather through last-minute “budget trailer bills” that don’t have regular public hearings.

Action Requested
Time is very short, and we would like to ask you to take action today or as soon as possible. Please call and leave a message for the Governor at 916-445-2841, or email him here. Below is a sample message:


I oppose the budget trailer bills that weaken the CEQA process, harming the environment and limiting the ability of citizens and communities to participate in governmental decision-making.


Los Cerritos Wetlands (and all wetlands) would look very different (way worse!) without the protection of CEQA. Take a minute to defend this important environmental law. Future generations will thank you.


Elizabeth Lambe
Executive Director
Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust
Email the Governor now!
Energy Agencies Continue to Request Extensions

Energy Agencies Continue to Request Extensions


By Joe Geever, Energy and Environmental Consultant

This summer, the California State Water Resources Control Board will decide whether to extend permits for several coastal power plants to continue using once-through cooling (OTC) – including the AES Alamitos Energy Center here in Long Beach. The Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust has some concerns about that plan. 

OTC is a design feature of older power plants. The generators are cooled by water drawn from a waterbody, pumped through the cooling system and discharged back into the waterbody. Those old cooling systems also withdraw and kill marine life, causing a significant adverse impact on healthy marine life populations and ecosystems. This intake and mortality of marine life is particularly concerning here because the cooling water is withdrawn from Alamitos Bay and the Los Cerritos Wetlands.

In 2010, the California State Water Board passed regulations to modernize these antiquated cooling systems. The new rules allowed time for all the power plant owners to prepare, and included a schedule to stagger the modernizing retrofits and avoid any risk to electrical grid reliability. Until completed, the power plants were required to pay mitigation fees to “replace” the marine life killed.

The AES Alamitos power plant has completed one phase of that transition by replacing several of the older generators with more efficient gas turbines that don’t require OTC. But there are still some older AES Alamitos generators operating. These OTC generators were originally scheduled to be phased out in 2020, but the state’s energy agencies requested an extension to leave them online until 2023 to ensure grid reliability. Now, the energy agencies are requesting another extension until 2026, and that decision will be made by the State Water Board hearing this summer.

In brief, the energy agencies proposed the original schedule and now have requested two extensions. It’s not clear in the pending request that there won’t be more extensions. Of course, these extensions also prolong the marine life intake and mortality in the wetlands. Did you know that since the OTC regulations were adopted, the mitigation fees have not been adequate to meet the promise of “replacing” the marine life lost, and none of the mitigation fees have been designated for restoration projects in Los Cerritos Wetlands where the harm is caused?

The Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust is well aware of the difficulties of transitioning to a new energy reliability future. But we are concerned that the current transition from antiquated generators of the past is not meeting the promises of mitigating the impacts. Further, we think the State Water Board needs to make it perfectly clear that the energy agencies cannot continue requesting extensions of the law indefinitely.

Adapting our energy system to mitigate climate change is a thorny and difficult issue. But our coastal wetlands are also threatened by climate change and need restoration and protection. We strongly believe those goals can and must be met with equal urgency.

Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust has submitted its concerns to the State Water Resources Control Board. View the comment letter below.

Additonally, we are asking our supporters to sign a petition that will be submitted to the State Water Board this summer. To sign the petition visit www.change.org/AES-Extension
Read the LCWLT’s comment letter below:
LCWLT-comments-on-proposed-OTC-extensionsDownload

Wetlands Restoration Meeting on April 27th

Wetlands Restoration Meeting on April 27th




The Los Cerritos Wetlands Authority will be hosting its third public meeting (virtually) to discuss its Southern Los Cerritos Wetlands Restoration Project and the related environmental analysis document, as required under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
 
The meeting will be held via Zoom on Thursday, April 27th from 6:00 pm-7:30 pm.


You can access the meeting by clicking this link. I urge you to attend to learn the latest news about the status of restoration planning within the
Los Cerritos Wetlands Complex.


The Southern Los Cerritos Wetlands Restoration Project involves the restoration of tidal wetlands on 103.5 acres of the Los Cerritos Wetlands located in Seal Beach, California. It will facilitate the restoration of a range of wetland types extending from subtidal habitat to upland transition habitat. The restoration design considers factors such as historical ecology, natural ecosystem processes, tribal cultural resources, public access, resiliency to sea level rise, and current biotic and abiotic conditions of the site.


This public meeting will include a presentation of the restoration design and a discussion of the CEQA Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration (IS/MND). The LCWA and members of the consultant team will also provide a brief summary of their prior public meetings and share information about the next steps in the process. There will be several opportunities throughout the meeting to ask questions. Additionally, the LCWA is releasing an IS/MND analyzing the project’s potential impacts. The IS/MND are available for a 30-day public comment period beginning April 10, 2023, and ending May 10, 2023.


Don’t forget to tune in on Thursday, April 27th at 6:00 PM to learn more.

Planning Commission votes for a proposed development near Los Cerritos Wetlands

Planning Commission votes for a proposed development near Los Cerritos Wetlands


On Thursday, April 20th, the Long Beach Planning Commission voted unanimously in favor of a new development proposed on the corner of Studebaker and PCH (currently Congressional Place).


The current two-story building (over one level of parking) will be demolished and replaced with a 6-story residential building with 281 units and 3,000 square feet of retail space. Due to California’s low-income housing laws, the development is allowed more height than a market rate development would receive under the new SEASP regulations. That is because the new development will contain 13 low-income units that qualify for additional stories and other benefits. For the record, we don’t deny that California needs more affordable housing. However, this development (likely the first of many in the area) will be denser, higher, and more traffic-generating than the current structure on the property. We worry about how all of that will impact nearby fragile wetlands.


We reviewed the development carefully and while there are some important and good things about the project (bird-safe lighting and native plant landscaping for example) we are still scratching our heads about a couple of things and shared our concerns with the City in the form of this letter.


We appreciate our good dialog with the project proponents and plan to continue to engage with them about our concerns about the project. Stay tuned, as we learn further details we will share them with you.