Though the signs announcing new fees for users of the Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve were premature, enforcement of that fee is still coming, a California Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesman said Wednesday.
The signs caused something of a kerfuffle as residents and city officials bristled at the notion of paying to use the Back Bay, which is bounded by city streets and accessible from several points along its length, making fee enforcement difficult.
"The signs went up inadvertently," Fish and Wildlife spokesman Andrew Hughan said. "One of our staff members up there thought he was doing the right thing, and they were up not in error, but prematurely."