The Spirit of Freedom, Embodied in Their Work

“What It Means To Be an American,” theme of many an Independence Day oration in eras past, is rarely examined by contemporary celebrants seemingly satisfied with parades and pyrotechnics.

Jean Harris and Roma Armbrust not only know what it means, they live it 365 days a year.

Harris, who lives in Oxnard, and Armbrust, of Ventura, were recently flown to Washington, D.C., to receive a National Wetlands Award from the Environmental Law Institute, Environmental Protection Agency, Forest Service and other federal agencies. The award acknowledged their efforts to preserve Ormond Beach, just one of many civic crusades they have led as members of the League of Women Voters and other organizations.

The two high-powered redheads, both retired teachers, joined forces in 1987 out of mutual concern for wetlands preservation. Their environmental activism added a bold stroke of green to the otherwise red, white and blue activities of the 260-member Ventura County League of Women Voters. Its members have faithfully fed Lady Liberty’s flame for more than 35 years by educating folks about the democratic process, researching topics of political interest, issuing position papers and sponsoring candidate forums.

This was not the first time Harris had managed to transform apparently destined-for-development sand dunes into a park. The 114 acres that are now Oxnard State Beach were slated to be developed with high-end homes, a hotel and a restaurant before Harris took up the cause. And she accomplished that feat of legerdemain in a mere 13 years. She is also active in the Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources (SOAR) anti-sprawl movement and in the campaign against building Juan Soria School on farmland.

Ormond Beach constitutes the largest remaining tract of undeveloped coastline in Ventura County. Its unexpected gift of 800 acres of wetlands becomes even more significant when you consider that California has already squandered 97% of this uncommon variety of ecosystem.

If you face east while standing on the Port Hueneme Pier, you can take in most of the wide, wind-swept crescent of sand stretching down to serene Mugu Lagoon. This ecologically fragile area is all that remains of a salt marsh where the Chumash once gathered shellfish.

In the early 1900s, much of Ormond Beach was drained, cleared and planted with celery, berries and cabbage. The city of Oxnard allowed this parcel of beachfront real estate to be used as a dump.

In the late 1950s, because swampland--even swampland with an ocean view--wasn’t valued, heavy industry, including a magnesium recycling foundry, was allowed to move in. As a result, a 30-foot-high, quarter-mile-long loaf of melted metal juts out of the sand, jarringly out of place behind a languid lagoon encircled by reeds and rushes. As long as Halaco Engineering remains here, this great gray slag heap will continue to grow.

What you probably can’t discern from your Port Hueneme Pier vantage point are the barbed wire and taxi-yellow placards that insist, “Please do not enter--endangered bird nesting area and sensitive habitat.” Ormond Beach is home to the imperiled California least tern, Western snowy plover, Belding’s savannah sparrow, brown pelican and tidewater goby. (Mosquitoes may be considered nearly extinct as well, but I doubt that anyone misses them.)

Before 1989, when Harris and Armbrust pulled a dozen disparate organizations into a coalition called the Ormond Beach Observers, off-road vehicle drivers regularly thrashed the native flora and fauna--endangered or otherwise--with abandon. This dynamic duo (who will never be mistaken for Republicans) also found themselves on the Ormond Beach Task Force, created in 1993 when Oxnard officials invited representatives from government agencies, environmental groups, affected neighborhoods and business interests to sort out competing development options for the beach.

After six years of rancorous debate, it was the patience, perseverance and peacemaking of Harris and Armbrust that kept key players engaged through the final consensus.

The Oxnard City Council has yet to act on the task force recommendations, but earlier this year, the California Coastal Conservancy agreed to acquire 610 acres of Ormond Beach property at $14.9 million for restoration and permanent preservation.

Harris couldn’t be happier.

“This is the beginning of the realization of a 23-year-old dream of mine” she said.

Neither considers herself a hard-line environmentalist or contends that major development and nature cannot coexist.

“Life is a compromise from beginning to end,” declares the soft-spoken Armbrust, also a women’s issues activist and founding member of the Sustainability Council of Ventura County. But don’t be fooled by her nonconfrontational manner. She’s been known to bulldog an undertaking until it is finished.

Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote, “If I were asked . . . to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of [Americans] ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.”

He must have been thinking of Jean Harris and Roma Armbrust.