<cutline_leadin>MULE: </cutline_leadin>Bonnie Nash holds the mule fat plant that is being grown in Prado Wetlands.
ANA VENEGAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
The wetlands behind Prado Dam are about to burst into leafy, chattering life again.
The Orange County Water District has just completed a $4 million, 500-acre restoration of the freshwater wetland area, which took a beating during powerful storms two years ago.
This week, the district will begin filling newly excavated basins with water.
"The vegetation is already starting to come back," said assistant General Manager Craig Miller. "No active planting goes on. Mother Nature replants for us."
The wetland was created mainly to filter potentially harmful nitrates from the Santa Ana River before it flows into Orange County - and becomes part of the county's water supply by settling into the deep aquifer.
Over the years, it became well-known among conservationists as a key habitat area for a variety of species, including the least Bell's vireo, an endangered bird dependent on wetlands vegetation.
But periodically, heavy rainstorms swell the river and wreak havoc with the wetlands. In 2005, the river shifted its course, wrecking much of the wetland area. It was time to rebuild.
A grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency covered 90 percent of the restoration, Miller said. The rest came from the water district's budget.
And while the reconstructed basins are now largely bare, it should take no more a few months for the habitat to grow back.
Not everything was scoured away or buried in sediment during the flooding; several patches of good habitat remained.
Because the vireos live on the fringes of the wetland area, they suffered fewer ill effects from the damage and reconstruction than other species, water district officials said.
Not so for red-winged black birds, song sparrows and other marsh birds that inhabited the wetland's ponds and thickets of cattails and bulrushes.
These more common bird species, however, should return as soon as cattails begin to mature in the newly filled ponds.
"By summertime, it should look similar to the wetlands before," Miller said.
Docent led tours also will be resumed, he said.