Each time I hear about a proposed or approved enhancement for Santa Barbara Airport (SBA), I grimace and groan. Don’t misunderstand me, I really like our airport, and it is a pleasure to use it when I travel.

However, I would rather that land be what it naturally was before the Army Corps of Engineers did their ecologically dastardly work to create the World War II airfield, which evolved into the modern SBA.

My granddaughter and I visited Goleta Beach recently and were admiring the small Goleta Slough, which is a protected area benefiting wildlife (and wildlife photographers).

I watched her expression go serious and then angry, as I described what the large and natural Goleta Bay was like prior to World War II.

I told her about the bay being at times a navigable waterway and how many believe that Sir Francis Drake utilized the bay.

Some of the reasons include how our Channel Islands more closely match his description of the offshore islands than do the Farallones (many believe the fabled admiral anchored up in San Francisco Bay), because cannons from the period had been found below the bluffs, and because on old and large anchor had been found in the Goleta Slough.

I explained that Goleta Bay had been a large natural bay that was important to our native American peoples, and then became a popular camping and vacation destination for many decades before World War II.

Then, the Army Corps of Engineers filled in a large portion of the natural bay and quickly build a military airfield.

My granddaughter asked, “Can they really do that?”

I told her that today they probably couldn’t get by with it, but at that point in our history, and with the real threat of enemy invasion (I told her about the submarine that shelled the Ellwood oil facility), they got by with it.

Then she asked the question I was hoping for: “Can they restore the bay?” I smiled because it is a concept I have brought up before, right here in my Noozhawk Captain’s Log column and elsewhere.

I want the community to challenge the Army Corpse of Engineers to undo the damage to nature they wrought back in the 1940s.

Move SBA and restore Goleta Bay to the natural wonder it was when it supported a vastly rich diversity of wildlife and provided the community with wonderful local recreational opportunities like camping fishing and swimming in its protected waters.

A radical request? Yup, I admit that. A request for a restoration project that will help both wildlife and people? Yup, that’s also true.

Travelers may have to drive further to go to the new airport site wherever that may be. But the ecological benefits, the support it would give wildlife and the recreational opportunities the project would afford us are priceless.