A former oil field on California’s Central Coast is on track to become a federally protected wildlife habitat after decades of environmental cleanup and restoration.
Chevron, which acquired the sprawling 2,830-acre Guadalupe oil field from Unocal in 2005, is preparing to donate about 2,700 acres of coastal dunes to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The land will nearly double the size of the adjacent Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes National Wildlife Refuge.
From 1949 through the early 1990s, the dunes were criss-crossed with wells, pipelines and access roads. For decades, a kerosene-like chemical called diluent was used in oil production and eventually leaked into the soil, groundwater and nearby waterways.
State regulators ordered the clean-up in the late-1990s and a large-scale land restoration project has continued ever since.
Now the site is filled with restoration crews clearing out contaminated sand or collecting wildflower seed by hand. Much of the site has been replanted using more than 4,200 pounds of native seed and more than 100,000 plants.
Jenny Langford, a restoration biologist who has worked on the site since 1998, says the transformation was unlike anything she's ever seen.
“Usually you go into areas and you restore them, but they're not going to be native natural areas anymore. They're kind of more like parks,” she said. “So here I've been able to see the site get cleaned up and then restored to even better condition than it was before.”
The recovering habitat has already attracted a range of protected wildlife, from the California Red-Legged Frog to the Western Snowy Plover. Senior Biologist Kimberly Paradis works alongside the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife to facilitate the restoration project. She says larger animals are also returning.
“We have many deer, coyotes, [and] bobcats. We've had mountain lions out here. So it's a very diverse location,” Paradis said.
Chevron estimates there will be another three to five years of restoration and habitat work before the land is officially transferred over to Fish and Wildlife.
