RCD unveils updated Topanga Lagoon restoration plans Play

The concepts for reconstructing part of the lagoon down at Topanga Beach were laid out by the government agency with the ambitious plan Wednesday night. The Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains has plans to replace the PCH bridge and dig out the dirt that highway builders filled in the lagoon with 93 years ago.

The RCD plans are being changed, though, by the recent El Niño tidal flooding.

RCD planner Rosi Dagit: "It's really interesting, isn't it, that we're getting kind of a fast forward of what's in our future. What we're doing in the short term is trying to work with Department of Beaches and Harbors and everyone to make sure that we don't have any issues in terms of the lifeguard building." The lifeguard building is right now protected with sandbags.

Current plans include replacing the strip of burned-out businesses that used to line PCH with a lagoon, a landscaped parking lot and some sort of welcome-to-Topanga and welcome-to-Malibu visitor center. Plans for replacement businesses are not in the current concept.

The lagoon would be dramatically enlarged. The 79-foot-long bridge carrying PCH would be replaced with a new one 400 feet long.

Similar bridge construction at Solstice Creek has been a nightmare, construction halted time and time again as Native American artifacts were uncovered. A spokesperson for the RCD says Native American tribes are being consulted — from the Tongva and Gabrielino tribes — but curiously no Chumash tribal members.

A spokeswoman for the lagoon project says they tried: "I believe there were a couple of Chumash tribes originally listed when we did our initial preliminary tribal outreach, and they were not responsive for this particular project. We have been working with four tribal groups that represent the Gabrielino Tongva, the Fernandeño..."

Much more planning work is still ahead. Construction is at least three years away.