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Blocked channel leads to fish die-off in San Elijo Lagoon

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Blocked channel leads to fish die-off in San Elijo Lagoon


The mouth of the San Elijo Lagoon, where a $120 million restoration was completed three years ago, is filling with sand faster than ever, a condition that endangers the wildlife there.

Last week’s warm temperatures turned areas of the closed lagoon hypoxic for the first time this year, said Jennifer Bright, chief operations officer and philanthropy director for the Nature Collective.

That means fish, mostly small anchovies, began dying because of the low oxygen levels in the stagnant water, Bright said Monday.

Fortunately, the weather turned cooler this week. The die-off slowed or stopped, and shore birds quickly cleaned up most of the evidence. Still, the winter rains that naturally restore the lagoon are months away.

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The lagoon’s outlet usually is bulldozed open once each summer, Bright said. This year it’s been done twice, and it’s needed again. The first time waves took a few weeks to refill the opening with sand. The second time it took just days.

The restoration, a project 20 years in the making, widened and deepened the lagoon channel to expand and improve the wetlands habitat. A healthy and biodiverse wetlands supports hundreds of important species of plants, fish and birds that help to keep a balanced ecosystem.

“We saw a lot of success with that,” Bright said.

Eelgrass thrives in the shallow water, where the plant provides a nursery for fish. Endangered species of native birds, such as the California least tern, feast on the fish and build their nests on the shore.

“By widening the channel (in the restoration), we get three times as much tidal flow into the lagoon,” Bright said. “But what it’s also doing is bringing more sand in.”

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The sand is carried farther into the lagoon than in the past, reaching the channel beneath the railroad bridge between Coast Highway 101 and Interstate 5.

Hayne Palmour IV / For The San Diego Union-Tribune

The train trestle that crosses a portion of the San Elijo Lagoon in Encinitas on Monday.

The Nature Collective, formerly known as the San Elijo Lagoon Conservancy, has overseen the care and preservation of the lagoon for nearly 40 years.

Almost every year the nonprofit uses bulldozers, skip loaders and trucks to open the lagoon after the summer waves build up a berm on the beach, closing the connection to the ocean.

“We knew we would still have to continue opening the inlet,” Bright said. However, the maintenance has become more than expected.

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Now, in addition to another beach opening, the lagoon’s caretakers need to dredge the sand that has accumulated at the railroad bridge, an area that is harder to reach. That will require more money and heavy equipment, and probably a boat-based dredge.

A rough estimate of the work needed is $1 million, Bright said. The Nature Collective has issued a request for proposals that will help determine the cost, but so far it does not have all the money. Mitigation funds could be available from Caltrans or the San Diego Association of Governments. The lagoon restoration was paid for by Transnet, the half-cent sales tax approved by voters and administered by SANDAG.

Every year, sand from the opening is used to widen nearby beaches. During the restoration, thousands of additional cubic yards of sand dredged from the lagoon were used to expand more than half a mile of the shoreline at Cardiff State Beach.

Called the Cardiff Living Shoreline project, the sand was placed atop a buried rock revetment and planted with native vegetation to help protect Coast Highway 101 from the steady erosion of high tides and winter storms.

An egret viewed from the Solana Beach side of the San Elijo Lagoon on Monday.

Hayne Palmour IV / For The San Diego Union-Tribune

An egret viewed from the Solana Beach side of the San Elijo Lagoon on Monday.

All of San Diego County’s coastal lagoons would naturally close up each summer without human intervention. Some, like Agua Hedionda and Batiquitos in Carlsbad, have been modified with rock jetties and periodic dredging to stay open year round.

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Sand from those projects also is placed on nearby beaches to slow the effects of coastal erosion. A number of additional local and regional replenishment projects have been completed and more are planned to dredge offshore sand and place it on the shrinking shoreline.

All that sand placement also could be affecting the lagoons, filling them up faster, but the process is complicated and more studies are needed.

California’s wetlands were once considered wastelands, only fit to be drained, filled and developed. More than 90 percent of the state’s coastal wetlands have disappeared over the last century.

Only recently have people realized the value of their special coastal habitats and passed laws to protect them.

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San Diego, CA

Judge sentences rapper to time served in 2023 San Diego arrest

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Judge sentences rapper to time served in 2023 San Diego arrest


Federal courthouse in downtown San Diego. (File photo by Chris Stone/Times of San Diego)

Rapper Boosie Badazz was sentenced Friday to credit for time served in the case stemming from his 2023 arrest in San Diego for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

The 43-year-old, whose real name is Torence Ivy Hatch Jr., was arrested in Chollas View after police found two guns inside a vehicle in which he was riding.

Hatch was in town to shoot a music video and perform at a Gaslamp Quarter nightclub.

In a social media video clip recorded during the video shoot, Hatch was spotted with a gun in his waistband. Police then used a helicopter to track down his vehicle, after which officers conducted a traffic stop and discovered the firearms.

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He pleaded guilty to a federal gun possession count last year. As part of his sentence, Hatch will also serve 300 hours of community service.

Defense attorney Meghan Blanco said in a statement released after Friday’s hearing, “The resolution brings a sense of relief, allowing him to finally put this chapter behind him. He can now focus on continuing his music career, dedicating time to his family, and being a positive and inspiring presence for his children and the wider community.”

Federal prosecutors sought a two-year prison sentence, arguing in court papers that custody was warranted due to Hatch’s “insistence on carrying a weapon despite his status as a convicted felon” and allegations that he threatened his security detail shortly after his arrest.

Blanco, in her sentencing memorandum, denied any such threats occurred, noting that the statements are not included in any police reports stemming from the arrest and that no recorded evidence of the threats exist.

The defense attorney wrote that Hatch’s gun was never fired, brandished or used to threaten anyone. She also said there have been no allegations that the weapons were intended for any other offense and that Hatch’s last criminal case had occurred around 10 years prior.

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“The case represents an isolated lapse in judgment, not a pattern of ongoing criminal conduct,” Blanco wrote.

Hatch was initially charged by the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office. His defense attorneys have stated that Hatch intended to plead guilty at the time and was expected to be sentenced to probation, but the state’s case was dismissed before that plea deal could be reached and federal prosecutors took up the case.

U.S. District Judge Cathy Bencivengo, who sentenced Hatch on Friday, previously dismissed the case against him following a 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that said it was unconstitutional to prohibit convicted felons who served sentences for nonviolent drug offenses from possessing firearms.

But a larger panel of the 9th Circuit overturned its earlier ruling and San Diego federal prosecutors re-filed the charges against Hatch.

Hatch was previously convicted in Louisiana of marijuana possession. He also was indicted in an alleged murder-for-hire plot, but was acquitted by a Baton Rouge jury in 2012.

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Mayor Gloria defends Balboa Park paid parking, blames council for rocky rollout

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Mayor Gloria defends Balboa Park paid parking, blames council for rocky rollout


San Diego will put off issuing citations for paid parking in Balboa Park for about one month while improvements are made, but Mayor Todd Gloria says the new system is functioning well and being “actively adopted.”

In a long and harshly worded memo released Thursday, Gloria said recent calls by City Council members to suspend the program were politically motivated and examples of bad governance and erratic decision-making.

Gloria also deflected blame for the chaotic way enforcement began Monday, when city officials raced to put stickers about resident discounts on parking kiosks and lobbied a vendor to deliver crucial missing signs.

The mayor said the council had “shaped, amended and approved” paid parking in Balboa Park and contended an accelerated timeline chosen by the council made it hard for his administration to implement it flawlessly.

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The mayor’s memo came in response to a Tuesday memo from Councilmembers Kent Lee and Sean Elo-Rivera in which they called implementation of paid parking “haphazard” and “not ready for prime time.”

Lee and Elo-Rivera said the process for city residents to get approved for discounts was so complex, cumbersome and confusing that Gloria should waive fees for residents until they have had time to adapt and learn.

While Gloria rejected that suggestion in part of his memo, he later said “enforcement remains focused on education, not punishment, during this early phase, to ensure park users are aware of the new parking fees.”

Dave Rolland, a spokesperson for Gloria, said Thursday that no specific date had been set for when the city would shift from education to enforcement. But he added that “about a month” would be an accurate timeline.

City officials have already corrected one key mistake: Signs that were missing Monday — alerting drivers that the 951-space lower Inspiration Point lot is free for three hours — have since been installed.

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Lee and Elo-Rivera in their memo decried “an inadequate effort to educate the public on how to use this new system.”

They said San Diegans had not been clearly informed about when a portal for city resident discounts would go live or how to use it.

And they complained that residents weren’t told they couldn’t buy discounted parking passes in person, or when enforcement with citations would actually begin.

City residents must apply for discounts online, pay $5 to have their residency verified, then wait two days for that verification and choose the day they will visit in advance.

Lee and Elo-Rivera called the city’s efforts “a haphazard rollout that will surely lead to San Diegans missing out on their resident discount and paying higher parking rates than they have to.”

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Gloria said the city collected $23,000 in parking fees on Monday and Tuesday and another $106,000 in daily, monthly and quarterly passes — mostly from residents who get discounts on such passes.

“Early data shows that the program is functioning and being used,” he said. “These are not the metrics of a system that is failing to function. They are the metrics of a system that is new, actively being adopted, and continuing to improve as public familiarity increases.”

While Gloria conceded that some improvements are still necessary, he rejected calls from Lee and Elo-Rivera for a suspension, citing his concerns it would jeopardize city finances and confuse the public.

“Your proposal to suspend paid parking for residents two days into the new program would have immediate and serious fiscal consequences,” Gloria said. “This reversal could introduce confusion among park users and would disregard investments already made to establish the system, potentially compromising the program’s effectiveness.”

Paid parking in Balboa Park is expected to generate about $3.7 million during the fiscal year that ends June 30, but revenue is expected to rise substantially when the fees are in place for a full fiscal year.

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Gloria said the money is a small part of the city’s overall solution to recurring deficits it faces of more than $100 million per year.

“What we will not do is reverse course days into implementation in a way that undermines fiscal stability, creates uncertainty, and sends the message that addressing a decades-old structural budget deficit that has plagued our city is optional because it is politically uncomfortable,” he said. “That kind of erratic decision-making is not good governance, and San Diegans deserve better.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the San Diego Zoo said Thursday that paid parking there has continued to go smoothly since it began on Monday.

The zoo, which is using Ace Parking for enforcement, opted for immediate citations instead of an educational grace period.

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Barricaded individual in custody following police response in Mission Valley

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Barricaded individual in custody following police response in Mission Valley


SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — San Diego Police responded to a barricaded individual in the Mission Valley area Thursday afternoon, prompting a heavy law enforcement presence.

  • The Nexstar Media video above details resources for crime victims

The department confirmed around 1 p.m. that officers were on scene in the 1400 block of Hotel Circle North, and are working to safely resolve the situation. Authorities asked the public to avoid the area and allow officers the space needed to conduct their operations.

Police described the incident as a domestic violence restraining order violation. At this time, it’s unknown if the person is armed.

No injuries have been reported.

The suspect was taken into custody within an hour.

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Further details about the barricaded person were not immediately released. Police say updates will be shared as more information becomes available.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.



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