Project Description-
Monitoring the success of major environmental restoration projects can be difficult. At San Dieguito Lagoon just north of San Diego, Southern California Edison is restoring 150 acres of coastal wetlands to mitigate the impact on marine fish populations of the cooling water systems for San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) Units 2 and 3. The goal of the San Dieguito Lagoon restoration project is to preserve, improve, and create a variety of habitats to increase and maintain fish and wildlife and to ensure the protection of endangered species.
The wetland project is designed to provide adequate tidal flushing and circulation and the habitats necessary to support a diversity of biological resources within the wetland ecosystem. Proposals for upland restoration complement the adjoining coastal wetland areas and provide habitats that have historically occurred in the area. Proposed public access and use areas are sited in a manner that does not interfere with the naturally functioning ecosystem or the open space character of the western San Dieguito River Valley.
An independent, long-term monitoring plan will assess the success of the restoration based upon six critical performance standards: (1) restoration of biological communities, (2) persistence of vegetation, (3) Spartina canopy architecture, (4) reproductive success of plants, (5) food-chain support for bird populations, and (6) lack of impairment by exotic species. The successful performance of some of the standards — in particular, the restoration of biological communities and the cover and persistence of salt marsh vegetation — will be judged by comparing them to three relatively undisturbed reference sites in southern California. After careful evaluation, Coastal Commission scientists selected the NRS’s Carpinteria Salt Marsh Reserve as one of three reference sites. In addition to serving as a standard, Carpinteria Salt Marsh Reserve was used for developing monitoring techniques to judge the success of the restoration program.
Online Information-
http://www.sdlagoon.com/
http://www.sdrp.org/projects/coastal.htm
|
