Talk wetlands with wine tonight!

Come join the Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust for "Wine & Wetlands" tonight.
The event will be from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Gaslamp restaurant and bar 6251 Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach. The Land Trust will meet with the public the first Thursday of every month from there after.
Six tastings will cost $20, and there will be jazz by guitarist Frank Potenza.
The Los Cerritos Wetlands is an area of native marsh land, sustaining all sorts of coastal animals, birds and fish, even some endangered species.
The wetlands is located where the San Gabriel River meets the pacific ocean, sandwiched between Long Beach, Seal Beach and surrounding business development.
The land is home to herons, halibut, plovers, painted ladies, stingrays, crabs and cord grass according to the Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust Web site.
The area has also been the center of controversy as land owners want to develop the land and preservationists continue to make strides in purchases to help salvage some of the last remaining wetland areas in Southern California.
Plans to build a Home Depot on one lot off of Loyns Drive, and Studebaker drew much commotion from not only environmentalists but neighbors who felt the proposal would add hundreds of cars to the already congested area.
However, after the California Coastal Commission deemed the developers environmental impact report flawed, the land owner had to go back to the drawing board and then eventually squashed the idea altogether, according to the press telegram. However plans are still moving ahead for possibly another type of development there.
Another high point of contention for the wetlands whether or not portions of the land are actually zoned for development or not, which can bring about a whole host of mitigation requirements that have or maybe have not been fulfilled.
Plans to redevelop the Alamitos Bay Marina and the near historic Marina Hotel off of PCH might also have an affect on the wetlands, but plans for that project have also stalled.