From afar, the city’s new Oxbow Preserve on the Napa River appears wild and lovely, leafy and green, exactly how you think a nature preserve ought to look.

So why did the bulldozers show up Monday morning and begin ripping vegetation?

Truth be told, most of the trees and shrubs on the 13-acre property north of Copia form a tangle of invasive, non-native species spiced with construction debris, said Mark Tomko, the city’s project engineer.

Using state park and clean water grants, the city is overseeing a $1.2 million project to rebuild this riverfront site. Acres of eucalyptus, acacia, bamboo and fennel will be removed. In their stead will be planted native species such as mugwort, dwarf coyote, toyon and California coffeeberry.

To anyone with a view of this mostly hidden property, the growing devastation in coming weeks will be alarming, said Barry Martin, the city’s outreach coordinator.

Martin imagines the startled public gasping, “They’re clearing all the trees.”

Yes, many trees will be removed, but native oaks, box elders, black walnuts, elderberry and willow will remain, enhanced with 14,000 new plantings, including acres spray-planted in native grasses, he said.

Julie Burdick, whose property overlooks the new park, watched the creative destruction Monday afternoon and cheered. Burdick lives on McKenzie Drive, off of Silverado Trail.

One hundred yards of ghostly fennel skeletons had been ripped up, giving her a deeper view toward the river.

“My property values just went up. I’m now on a park,” Burdick said. A park will be a better neighbor than a homeless encampment, she said.

Burdick had only two quibbles. Because of the bulldozers, she had to find a new place to walk her dog that morning. And did they have to place the portable toilet so directly in front of her home?

Tomko led a tour of the park property, showing where the trails with river overlooks would go. A parking lot for about 10 cars will be on McKenzie. From there, visitors can head toward the forested southern end or the grassy upper terrace, he said.

The park may look denuded after the six-month construction phase is over, but the new emptiness will slowly be replaced by natural beauty, he said.

Because the park is in the river’s flood plain, it will continue to be inundated from time to time, Tomko said.

Where the channel begins to form the Oxbow at Copia, the river deposits sand, creating an almost tropical-looking beach with good views of Copia’s grassy concert amphitheater and the Westin hotel, which is under construction further north.

The beach will remain. Boaters should be able to come ashore, but no fishing will be allowed, Tomko said.

Hess Concrete Construction Co. of Napa won the $1.2 million construction contract. A native plant nursery has been growing thousands of the needed plantings, which will take a year to establish themselves, Tomko said.

Oxbow Preserve may someday connect to a trail on the east bank that runs through downtown as far south as Kennedy Park. A west bank trail is also a work in progress, with the flood control project and private developers building segments.

Early in the next decade, the flood project is scheduled to dig a bypass channel that will leave the west bank of the river, opposite Oxbow Preserve, cut past the Wine Train yard and under Soscol Avenue to rejoin the river at Napa Creek.

Before the park opens in the summer of 2009, the city will repave McKenzie, which is now a rutted, one-lane path.