A $7.7 million restoration project in south San Diego Bay highlights just how difficult it is to manipulate nature — even when the goal is to make the landscape look more like it did before development took over. The roots of the San Diego Bay restoration effort date to 1999, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expanded a national wildlife refuge at the edges of Chula Vista and Imperial Beach. Its formation followed 20 years of lobbying by conservationists who wanted to protect the wetlands, mud flats and eelgrass beds for fish and birds.

Since the mid-1800s, coastal wetlands in Southern California have shriveled from roughly 50,000 acres to about 13,000, federal figures show. Navy activity and commercial development have reduced San Diego Bay’s “near shore” marine habitat.

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Turning back the clock in south S.D. Bay

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