Swamp Wings

In a tiny corner of a scruffy lot, birds flock to
a one-woman wetlands restoration project

(c) TOM POLITEO/CAM ERA COMMITTEE Cathy Beauregard-Covit discovered this small freshwater wetland when she was looking for a project for her local neighborhood council.

By Tom Politeo

Cathy Beauregard-Covit has been introducing her San Pedro neighbors and community members to a freshwater wetland that no one knew was there.

People walk, bike and drive by this tiny, unnoticed oasis nestled between industry and homes just below an east-facing slope and a bikeway on a vacant lot that overlooks the L.A. harbor.

Beauregard-Covit, who is a neighborhood council representative in San Pedro, discovered the wetland when she began looking for a beautification project for her council to undertake.

The Port of Los Angeles had recently installed the bikeway along a strip of vacant property that skirts the port’s west edge. Unlandscaped and unmaintained, the bikeway runs alongside the large dirt lot strewn with litter and weeds.

The entire wetland is truly postage-stamp sized. Occupying only one corner of a large lot, it is small enough to fit in a backyard.

But despite its petite size, visitors are often greeted by pairs of red-winged blackbirds perched on the reeds and flying about—males with their bright red epaulets flashing, singing for attention from the plainer, brownish females.

Beauregard-Covit, who also has seen killdeer here, has observed birds nesting and found some small, recently hatched egg shells. This littlest wetland is clearly doing its share to help sustain a small community of wildlife.

Recently, the Angeles Chapter’s Harbor Vision Task Force passed a resolution in support of the efforts to maintain this freshwater habitat and spruce up an adjacent bike path.

(c) TOM POLITEO/CAM ERA COMMITTEE Girl Scouts from Troop 914 in San Pedro wrangle a discarded chair, one of the items removed from near the wetland.

As part of her plan to improve the bike path, Beauregard-Covit hopes to increase the size of the marsh slightly, just enough to fill one odd-shaped corner of the lot.

Marine biologist Steve Vogel of the Cabrillo Aquarium and Museum stressed the importance of preserving such wetlands, no matter their size, because they provide nature experiences for children, particularly because such coastal habitat has been largely lost to development. He said that wetlands like this one played an important role in introducing him and his colleagues to the wonders of biology.

Beauregard-Covit started tackling one of the site’s problems—garbage—on June 1 by organizing a cleanup of the lot. Thirty volunteers, including several area Girl Scouts, picked up all the trash in just a few hours.

Now, she plans to restore native vegetation to the vacant lot and along a walkway that stretches south to nearby Cabrillo Beach. The L.A. Harbor Department, which runs the port, had initially indicated some opposition to the native planting, hoping instead to plant grass along the lot.

However, when soil engineers reported that the soil was loose fill dirt and that the irrigation for a lawn might trigger a slide, they became receptive to the plan, according to Beauregard-Covit.

Beauregard-Covit, who is originally from Chicago’s south side, gathered photos of the area that date back to the turn of the century to show how the area has changed over the years.

Based on aerial images that show a small patch of plants clustered in this area, it appears the wetland has existed for a long time. She also discovered that the path had been part of a proposed wetland recovery action some 20 years ago.

To spur that recovery, Beauregard-Covit contacted the California Native Plant Society to seek advice on which native species should be planted in the area. She hopes that “the right plants will help bring back the butterflies, bugs and birds that would have made this area their home.”

She also contacted the nearby Cabrillo Aquarium and Museum and found out that her plans for restoring the marsh and revegetating the bike path would dovetail with programs the aquarium already offers.

According to Vogel, the aquarium maintains a 3.25-acre saltwater marsh, whose restoration and operation has provided valuable educational experience for youth and adults. The micro-wetland would provide access to a freshwater habitat. “Where else can you have such an opportunity to take kids to a salt and freshwater marsh so close to each other?” Beauregard-Covit asked.

(c) TOM POLITEO/CAM ERA COMMITTEE Kasmir Covit and Daniel Wait bag up trash during a June 1 cleanup organized by their mother, Cathy Beauregard-Covit.

It’s going to take a lot of muscle to pull up the invasive weeds and replace them with native vegetation. Beauregard-Covit is seeking help from local schools and various community volunteers to help replant the area.

She also has her eyes set on improving the walkway between the Cabrillo Aquarium and Museum and her small wetland, an area that stretches below the bluffs that once used to be the coastline but has since become landfill for the harbor.

Unlike the barren and weedy edges of the bike path, this walkway is nicely planted. However, it is planted with exotics rather than the native plants Beauregard-Covit envisions. She sees the native plantings as an important part of the educational experience that will one day link the two wetlands.

Vogel agrees, adding that the aquarium is already working to revegetate part of the walkway that leads from the saltwater marsh to Beauregard-Covit’s freshwater one.
Beauregard-Covit’s project would constitute the San Pedro area’s third native-plant restoration effort.

The Palos Verdes Land Conservancy and others have been working on one at the new White Point Reserve.

Another is a site on the border with Wilmington where volunteers help restore Palos Verdes blue butterfly habitat in a location where the once-believed-to-be-extinct butterfly was found. A fourth native plant restoration project is planned at the Rancho Palos Verdes border in Friendship Park.

For Beauregard-Covit, it’s now a waiting game to see if the port will approve her vision for the tiny wetland.
In the meantime, she is working to tap native-plant experts, complete research on the area and keep motivating volunteers who see the value of protecting this freshwater marsh habitat.