From Dump To Development To Sensitive Habitat - Long Beach Wetlands To Be Restored
The California Coastal Commission has, "unanimously ordered restoration of a graded area near Los Cerritos Wetlands," reports the Long Beach Press-Telegram.
"It was a thriving evironmentally sensitive habitat area," said wetlands advocate Tom Marchese in the Press-Telegram. Per Friday's vote, the area will be, "restored to its previous sensitive habitat condition."
The now vacant 9.38-acre project site on Loynes Drive was, "part of an old landfill operation that filled coastal marshland in the 1940s and '50s." 2 H Properties in Signal Hill said "advocates for full restoration had failed to present evidence that the area was wetlands."
According to the commission staff report, un-permitted grading in March 2009 removed the majority of vegetation from the site and altered the topography, exposing the old dump.