On Dec. 15, La Jolla’s Children’s Pool, usually closed for the start of the five-month harbor seal pupping season there, remained open.
That opening remained in effect until the following day, Friday, Dec. 16, when the beach was closed, yet again, after the city of San Diego appealed — and was granted — a temporary stay to protect the marine mammals.
In 2014, the City Council banned public access at Children’s Pool annually from Dec. 15-May 15 to protect the seals during their pupping season. That action was subsequently challenged in a lawsuit against the city and the California Coastal Commission by Friends of the Children’s Pool. Friends insist the state Constitution, as well as the pool’s trust, require the beach to be publicly accessible at all times.
Whether or not that stay is to be continued until the marine mammal’s pupping season ends May 15, is scheduled for a Dec. 28 court hearing.
This May, an Orange County judge ruled the San Diego City Council and California Coastal Commission had failed to follow proper procedures in developing an ordinance establishing shared use between humans and pinnipeds at the pool.
“They (officials) were making the announcement that the beach would be open for the winter, and in the background, they were getting a stay (to close it) pending the appeal,” said Ken Hunrichs, Friends spokesperson, adding the city’s action was expected. “Keeping the beach open, then closing it two days later, is part of the same deception that’s been going on for years.”
Hunrichs and his pro-beach access group have been in a pitched battle for years with animal advocates over shared use of Children’s Pool. The pool was paid for and created in 1931 by La Jolla philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps. Scripps deeded the pool to the city on the condition that it would continue to be used as a safe wading area for children and other recreational users.
But the popular pool, with its crescent-shaped man-made seawall protecting it, has been a bone of public contention since the 1990’s. That’s when a growing local population of harbor seals began hauling out there in larger numbers, turning it into a de facto rookery. The pool has since become polluted by bacteria from animal waste. Signs warn users they enter waters at their own risk.
Adrian Kwiatkowski, spokesperson for The Seal Conservancy (formerly La Jolla Friends of the Seals), noted the case for or against closing Children’s Pool during pupping season has been “working its way through the appellate court process for a year and a half.”
Kwiatkowski said Friends, on Dec. 28, will “have the opportunity to submit a statement as to why the stay should —or should not — be granted. Then the judge will decide.”
Noting that the shared-used principle in effect at Children’s Pool for years is a “compromise,” Kwiatkowski pointed out the beach is open to the public longer than it is closed for marine mammal protection.
“Our argument was you’re (beach users) getting the pool for more of the year, seven months, during the busier, warmer tourist season months, and the seals are getting it for five months when it’s far less utilized,” Kwiatkowski said.
The back-and-forth fight over whether to keep Children’s Pool open or closed has “caused great turmoil in the community,” said Hunrichs who added, “We’ll see how much more they (city) want to put into this.”
Hunrichs noted continuing court battles over the pool “have been hugely expensive” for the city, while noting the now-polluted beach “was designed and built for kids.”
Hunrichs expects a decision in Friends’ appeal of a previous court decision allowing closure of the beach during pupping season to be announced “sometime next spring.”
Noting Children’s Pool is “the only birth area on the mainland south of Ventura County,” Kwiatkowski concluded that “to have so much acrimony over less than 200 feet of sand is so unfortunate when we could have some harmony.”