LA Times: Bolsa Chica Wetlands and the Pacific Meet Again

I like a story with science, history, environmentalism, irony, and birds:

Bolsa Chica Wetlands and the Pacific Meet Again - The marshland restoration effort takes a major step with the opening of an inlet to bring in seawater.

In the foggy, predawn hours Thursday, bulldozers and giant excavators shoved aside the remaining mounds of beach sand and reunited the Pacific Ocean and the Bolsa Chica wetlands for the first time in more than a century.

It was the most significant and visible step in the long, ambitious effort to revive the degraded wetlands. The flow of ocean water — cut off by members of a duck hunting club in 1899 — is expected to help transform the saltwater marshes into a major wildlife sanctuary.