After 7 Decades, Ocean Water Flows into San Dieguito Lagoon

By Ed Joyce / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published January 23, 2008 at 2:00 PM PST

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

The San Dieguito Lagoon may be teeming with wildlife in a few years. The lagoon near the Del Mar Fairgrounds is now open to the Pacific Ocean. KPBS Reporter Ed Joyce tells us it's a major milestone i

After 7 Decades, Ocean Water Flows into San Dieguito Lagoon

The San Dieguito Lagoon may be teeming with wildlife in a few years. The lagoon near the Del Mar Fairgrounds is now open to the Pacific Ocean. KPBS Reporter Ed Joyce tells us it's a major milestone in the effort to restore the wetlands.

Ocean water flowed into the San Dieguito Lagoon for the first time in seven decades when an excavator - think bulldozer only larger - scooped away the last part of a temporary earthen dam. The Pacific Ocean flowed in from the west, mixing with groundwater in the 40-acre lagoon.

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Ecologist Steven Schroeter says restoring the connection to the sea is a major step to create a breeding habitat for wildlife.

Schroeter: So what's going to happen is right away you're going to get fish coming in here. And then you're going to get you know, all kinds of marine organisms colonizing and they're going to be kind of the food base for a lot of other things...and birds.

Biologists expect that several bird species will be attracted to the lagoon.

Project Manager Samir Tanious says the next step includes planting more than 350,000 plants.

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Tanious: And then after that we're going to head on to do some more work on the inlet, the inlet dredging and excavation of the inlet to open it from now on, in perpetuity to the ocean. To keep this kind of exchange for all year round.

By exchange he means the twice daily tides that will flow in and out from the ocean.

Southern California Edison is paying for the $86 million project to compensate for fish killed at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. The project should be finished by the end of next year.

Ed Joyce, KPBS News.

Ed Joyce

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Ed Joyce was the environment reporter and afternoon news anchor for KPBS-FM. Before joining KPBS, he worked as an editor/columnist with Copley News Service in San Diego. Ed has an extensive background in newspaper, radio, web and TV journalism. After graduating with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington in Seattle, Ed began a career in broadcast journalism. His work has included stints in public broadcasting, commercial broadcasting and education -- working as an affiliate professor of communication and reporter at the University of Idaho and Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. During the past 20 years he has worked in radio, TV and print as a news reporter, anchor, writer, editor and producer. Along the way he has won numerous awards for general news reporting, newswriting, feature and issue reporting and breaking news reporting from The Associated Press, The Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Press Club and other organizations. During the mid-1990s, while working for Oregon Public Broadcasting, he was a frequent contributor to National Public Radio, including a feature report on the memorial service for 14 U.S. Forest Service "hotshots" who died fighting a wildfire in Colorado (the crew was based in a central Oregon town). He’s also filed reports with Marketplace, KQED’s California Report and Climate Watch and with national and regional networks throughout the United States. At KPBS, Ed continues his contributions to National Public Radio and other national and regional news organizations. He has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and San Diego Press Club for his environmental reporting at KPBS-FM-TV and for producing and anchoring radio newscasts. In 2007 he was selected a National Press Foundation fellow for Understanding Violent Weather II program. The seminars were held at the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla. In 2008 he spoke at a UC San Diego conference on U.S. National Security as part of the school’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Ed led a discussion with the 18 foreign government officials and academics about the political debate over climate change. In 2010, Ed was elected to a three-year term on the board of the San Diego Press Club.

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