A small group of volunteers were perched on the sandy bluff above Carlsbad’s Agua Hedionda lagoon on Thursday, hoping to restore a slope filled with native plants.
Warren Bergman, Brandon Edens and Samantha Campbell dug shallow holes into the sandy bluff so they could plant prickly pear cactus. Those plants already dominate a part of the hillside, just below the trio.
The conservation group WILDCOAST organized the morning of work as part of an effort to help protect and preserve coastal areas that have the potential to help in the battle against climate change.
These “blue carbon” areas, including lagoons, wetlands and coastal marshes, are not as common as they once were, but the habitats are still scattered along the Southern California coast.
Carlos Callado, an advocate with WILDCOAST, sees much more than a picturesque body of water with an opening to the ocean. He sees a hedge against a warming climate.
“When you have these areas surrounding the lagoons — we call them transition zones — where, as sea level rises, salt marshes can migrate upward into these areas. And even when they become submerged and intertidal, they still act as functioning, healthy ecosystems that are blue carbon ecosystems,” Callado said.
Blue carbon ecosystems can store 2-to-5 times as much carbon as terrestrial ecosystems, Callado said. That means the coastal ecosystems can help keep climate-warming carbon out of the atmosphere and create a buffer as sea levels rise.
WILDCOAST is hoping to help engage the public by putting them to work in critical areas like this one.
That landed Jeremiah Cooper on a steep incline balancing himself on the rocks on the side of the lagoon.
He was zeroing in on an invasive weed.
“It’s a little bit stuck right now,” Cooper said as he pulled on the plant’s stem. “I’m just trying to like, pull up the weed from this rock.”
Behind him, along a hiking trail, other volunteers picked up trash and strategically placed long wire baskets full of oyster shells along a fence row at the bottom of a bluff.
The idea is to keep the sand on the slope out of the lagoon’s water.
The Agua Hedionda Lagoon has a narrow opening to the ocean. Roads cross it in three places, and Carlsbad homes are built very close to the water.
“The biggest concern is just the amount of traffic and the misuse of the lagoon,” said Samantha Richter, the COO of the Agua Hedionda Lagoon Foundation.
The urban environment puts pressure on the lagoon’s marine habitat, but boosters are not looking to keep people away. In fact, they hope for the opposite.
“We are big proponents of active use and balanced use and making our future generations aware that they need to protect, conserve and be the best stewards so that those future generations can enjoy this use,” Richter said.
Fishing is permitted in the lagoon, but it is regulated.
Boats are not permitted to drop anchor because it could disrupt the fragile underwater ecosystem.
There are two active agriculture businesses operating in the lagoon. The Carlsbad Aqua Farms which raises shellfish and the Hubbs-Seaworld Research Institute which operates a white sea bass hatchery there.
