At Malibu Lagoon Opening, Scientists Laud New Life

An hour before officials gathered to mark Friday's reopening of the Malibu Lagoon, volunteers worked quickly to weed out non-native plants, shoving them into large plastic bags.

The weeding of non-native plants is part of the ongoing restoration of the lagoon, according to Jamie King, an environmental scientist with California State Parks. Each native plant is plotted next to red, blue and green flags.

"Every flag is a plant. It's giving nature time to repopulate," King said.

During the nine-month restoration project, bulldozers ripped out mature vegetation and volunteers reintroduced more than 80 species of native plants.

King, who was part of the project from start to finish, said she has seen many animal species return to the lagoon, including a weasel and a rare snake.

Fish have also begun to return and breed, including the endangered tidewater goby, according to Rosi Dagit, a senior conservation biologist.

Dagit said she spotted a goby Friday near the submerged Winter Walk, a newly constructed path that is under water when the lagoon's sandy berm is closed and full of water.

Other fish spotted in the lagoon include the baby staghorn sculpin and the smelt, among others.

Opponents of the project who attended the ceremony made a point of noting the contrasts between the mature vegetation of the lagoon before the project and the bare, resculpted layout.

"There's no life here," said Judith Israel, a Malibu Colony resident who has watched the project unfold in her backyard. "There used to be hundreds of birds here."

Israel carried a handful of protest signs that took aim at several officials involved in the project, including Suzanne Goode, senior environmental scientist for State Parks and Mark Abramson, senior watershed advisor for the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Foundation.

The signs read "Wasteland not a Wetland," "Mark Golddigger," "Fire Suzanne Goode" and "Zero Hydrology Studies."

Damon Duvall, who has surfed at Surfrider Beach for years, said he came out to the ceremony because he was part of an original group of protesters that stood on the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Cross Creek Road when the project started.

"I just walked around and did a fish count," Duvall said. "I tried to find one, but none. I looked under a nice big log over there. There is nothing."

Paul Junger Witt, a California State Parks and Recreation commissioner, said he used to live in Malibu and he welcomed criticism of the project.

"I don't think it is necessarily unhealthy," Junger Witt said. "It is akin to the climate change deniers. What it does is it makes science and people trying to remedy that situation double check their facts that much more carefully, and that is what happened here."

During a special ceremony, Goode spoke at length about the public process of restoring the Malibu Lagoon, getting cheers and jeers from the crowd.

"I know this is Los Angeles where people expect instant makeovers," Goode said, laying out the vision for the lagoon.

State Assemblyman Richard Bloom also praised the end result of the project.

"It's a reemergence," Bloom said.

Shelly Luce, director of the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission, said the project will allow the lagoon to repair itself.

"Malibu Lagoon is better and healthier than it has been for a very long time, and we look forward to many years of celebrating nature here at the lagoon," Luce said.

State Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, was applauded by the project's partners for her dedication to the project.

"It's wonderful to see this beautiful and iconic treasure brought back to life," Pavley said. "From being a Caltrans dumping ground in the 1950s, the Malibu Lagoon is once again a clean and healthy environment for all to enjoy, whether by foot, fin or flight."

The ceremony concluded with a special cutting of a strand of kelp instead of a ribbon.