Two Restoration Projects, Not One...

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Here is Our Proposal for Restoring the Ballona Wetlands and Uplands:

June 17, 2009, from Rex Frankel, Director, Ballona Ecosystem Education Project

Right now, the local environmental community and the State's restoration planning team are on opposite sides: the State wants to dredge out most of Ballona and convert it into mostly wetlands. The local community wants all of the things they love about Ballona to be preserved, both the wetlands and the uplands, without the huge amount of bulldozing and habitat conversion.

The State's current plan is a recipe for many years of lawsuits. It makes a lot more sense to design a project that can win the support of the local community than push a plan that will lead to endless battling and bad feelings.

A PROPOSAL FOR RESOLVING THE CONTROVERSY:

1. Redesignate Ballona as Two Preserves: One for the Wetlands, and One for the Uplands

Right now, the Ballona Preserve is almost evenly split between low lying wetlands and higher elevation uplands. Both are vital components in a restored natural ecosystem.

Under this proposal, advocates of wetter wetlands can focus on bringing more water into the area south of Ballona Creek that is already wetland. That area can be restored and made much wetter without huge amounts of bulldozing, as the land is between 0 and 3 feet above sea level.

And with this compromise, the community's hiking trails and sagebrush and grasslands north of Ballona Creek that sit on the 15 foot tall uplands will be cleaned up and restored without the need for expensive earth-moving equipment.

2. Slowly remove the non-native weeds and replant native plants in both preserves

3. For the Wetlands Preserve south of Ballona Crek: Bring more water from the ocean into the Wetlands Preserve. Preserve the pickleweed and mudflats, the freshwater Centinela creek and eucalyptus grove, the far-west sand dune, and the former railroad track berm/trail, remains. Hopefully, the City will one day take back the portion of Cabora Road that the Gas Company has been allowed to fence off, so we will have a continuous 3 mile hiking and biking trail south of and overlooking the wetlands.

4. For the Uplands Preserve north of Ballona Creek: keep and enhance the wildflowers, sagebrush, dense laurel sumac thickets, loop hiking trails, Pacific Electric bridge platforms and sand dune, remnant of Ballona Creek and its saltbush, grasslands, and little league fields. Work with all users of the Uplands to sensitively design a new small water channel to expand the biodiversity of the Uplands without widescale habitat conversion.

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Map of Existing Habitat Conditions at the Ballona State Preserve

ORANGE SHADING: UPLAND HABITAT

BLUE SHADING: WETLANDS

(click on map to enlarge)

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For more photos showing how an Upland is different from a Wetland:
http://ballona-news.blogspot.com/2009/01/state-officials-back-off-from-over.html

WHAT AN UPLAND LOOKS LIKE:

Thickets of laurel sumac and loop hiking trails in the Uplands north of Ballona creek and the Playa Vista development and west of Lincoln Blvd.

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WHAT A WETLAND LOOKS LIKE:

The wettest part of Ballona, the tidal channel south of Ballona Creek, surrounded by pickleweed and mud flats

State Declares People are Banned in the Wetlands, but Bulldozers are OK?

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More on the Controversial State Plan to Bulldoze at Ballona...

6/10/2009--Read the views of three groups on the State restoration plan:
http://argonautnewspaper.com/articles/2009/06/10/news_-_features/ballona_wetlands/b1.txt

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6/10/2009--Billboards in our wetlands?

http://argonautnewspaper.com/articles/2009/06/10/news_-_features/ballona_wetlands/b2.txt

Rex Frankel of the Ballona Ecosystem Education Project was even more blunt.

“The idea of putting any new signs in the Ballona Wetlands is absurd,” Frankel asserted.

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5/28/2009--Marina Affairs Committee hears update on Ballona Wetlands restoration project, halted in December

BY HELGA GENDELL, Marina Del Rey Argonaut
http://argonautnewspaper.com/articles/2009/05/28/news_-_features/marina_del_rey/m2.txt

...Another question was about the public wanting to know what types of birds, wildlife and other species exist in the wetlands, asking if a biologist will be doing an inventory.

Mayfield said a biologist had been hired to do the inventory when the money freeze occurred.

The audience member also asked if photos of the various species could be provided online to educate the public, and said it was necessary for the EIR as well.

Small said some quality photos had been taken by Jonathan Coffin, although Mayfield interjected, alleging they were taken illegally because Coffin didn’t have permission to access the property....

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OUR OPINION:

Letter to the editor,

Re: Ballona Wetlands restoration proposals from the State:

June 8, 2009

There are three major controversial issues in the State’s restoration proposal for the Ballona preserve. The cost is a big one. Should we spend $209 million to restore the land which we already spent $225 million to buy? Shouldn’t we spend less on restoration and buy up other threatened lands next to the wetlands?

Another issue is the source of the water, from the ocean or from urban L.A. The third and most important issue: is this a restoration or a massive habitat conversion scheme?


WATER SOURCES:

We believe more water should be brought into the wetlands from the ocean, absolutely. We believe that this water should be clean, not contaminated with urban runoff.

The state’s plan takes the water for the wetlands right out of Ballona Creek. They say they will only do that when the water in Ballona creek is no longer being fouled with urban pollution from all of the streets in the Westside of Los Angeles. Cleaning up the polluted runoff in Ballona Creek is an important project which we support, on which we are working in partnership with our City sanitation department, but it’s going to take a long time and billions of dollars to accomplish this. Taxpayers ultimately have to pay for cleaning up the urban street runoff, and they need to be convinced that the cost is worth it. So this is a long term project that may or may not happen unless voters and taxpayers support it. On the other hand, restoration of the Ballona Wetlands could be accomplished quickly. It doesn’t need to drag on forever, nor cost $209 million as the last proposal would. That’s why we are very uncomfortable in tying the restoration plan at Ballona wetlands to the success of another very expensive project that may not be successfully completed for many years.


HABITAT CONVERSION ON A MASSIVE SCALE IS NOT RESTORATION:

The state’s plan for Habitat conversion is not restoration. It is development.

We support a balanced ecosystem approach for the Ballona Wetlands restoration project. What this means is that as, currently, the almost 600 acres of state land is 49% uplands and 48% wetlands, we prefer it to stay in roughly those same proportions. Unfortunately, the state’s managers have proposed not a restoration project, but a habitat conversion project. This would, at its worst configuration unveiled last fall, mean that the uplands, which contain our beloved hiking trails, thickets, fragrant sagebrush and wildflowers could be cut with heavy earthmoving equipment down to only 16% of the site.

This is not acceptable to the vast majority of the public who have attended planning meetings for the last 4 years, and to those of us who have devoted well over 20 years to saving the diverse Ballona wetlands ecosystem.

A little historical perspective is important here. The reason the Ballona Wetlands ecological preserve is twice the size it was promised to be 20 years ago is because the community and 100 groups rallied around the cry of “Save All of Ballona!”. We doubled the size of the preserve, convincing the State Wildlife Conservation Board to acquire almost 300 acres of uplands to add to the almost 300 acres of wetlands and other near sea-level land that the Playa Vista developer had offered as a concession in exchange for development permits in the 1980’s.

Each component of the fragile Ballona natural ecosystem must be preserved. There is no sense in trying to play backers of fish against the “friends of the lizards”, for example. Both wetlands and uplands are vital to the ecological health of this natural area. Wetlands are the food source, uplands are the nesting homes for the wildlife. There is room for both at Ballona.

The state’s misguided approach shows a lack of understanding of what is a restoration. To restore a wetland, you pull out the non-native weeds, replant native wetland plants and bring in more water from the ocean or the local river. But to restore an upland, you pull out the weeds and replant native upland plants. You don’t bulldoze it all away and turn it into something completely different.

This land is within the jurisdiction of the California Coastal Commission, which operates under tough rules that were written by the voters to protect our precious coastal natural resources. Because this current proposal is not a true restoration but a habitat conversion project, it should and will be analyzed by the coastal commission like any other development proposal.

The state’s managers have declared their property an “ecological preserve”. This means that all natural resources there are protected. That means that people are told to stay out in order to protect the nature. So it’s extraordinarily contradictory that massive earthmovers could be allowed in an ecological preserve. If the public is not allowed inside, why should we allow heavy earthmovers?

It’s also odd that local citizens who wish to take pictures of the wildlife in order to document its existence in order that it be protected are told by Rick Mayfield, the state’s manager, that they are trespassing. I suppose he will be as insistent when the state’s bulldozers arrive? If he won’t protect the wildlife, the public will!

The ecological preserve designation is identical to what the coastal commission calls an ESHA, which is an ecologically sensitive habitat area. Under the coastal commission’s rules, the only allowable “development” activities allowed in an ESHA are for restoration. If the natural value of that ESHA is as an upland, the only way to restore it is to keep it an upland. You can’t develop it, or change that habitat into something completely different, be it houses or a wetland. Lest there be any confusion, this is not said to be anti-wetlands, but because we oppose destruction of uplands.


IN SUMMARY:

We believe that all the reasons that the public loves the Ballona wetlands preserve should be preserved and enhanced in this restoration plan:

That means that for the uplands north of Ballona Creek, the wildflowers, sagebrush, dense laurel sumac thickets, loop hiking trails, Pacific Electric bridge platforms and sand dune, remnant of Ballona Creek and its saltbush, grasslands, and little league fields remain.

For the wetlands south of Ballona Creek, this means the pickleweed and mudflats, the freshwater Centinela creek and eucalyptus grove, the far-west sand dune, and the former railroad track berm/trail, remains. Hopefully, the City will one day take back the portion of Cabora Road that the Gas Company has been allowed to fence off, so we will have a continuous 3 mile hiking and biking trail south of and overlooking the wetlands.

We believe all the things the public loves at Ballona can be preserved.

But this requires the state’s managers to stop thinking of the land as “theirs”, and to recognize that the Ballona preserve belongs to all of us.

Rex Frankel
DIRECTOR, Ballona Ecosystem Education Project

http://saveallofballona.org

May 20th Ballona Restoration meeting...

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State Managers to Hold Another Ballona Wetlands Restoration Planning Meeting;

is it to hear from us or to tell us what they're going to do regardless of what the locals want?

From Mary Small, Southern California Regional Manager, Coastal Conservancy, 5/7/2009:

There will be a public meeting to provide an update on the Ballona Wetlands restoration project on May 20th from 5 to 7pm. This winter, all work on the project stopped when the state halted all bond-funded projects. We hope that some work related to project planning and access improvements will be able to resume and will have a more detailed update on the 20th. The meeting will be held in the McIntosh Room in University Hall at Loyola Marymount University ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1330 Broadway #1300 Oakland, CA 94612, 510-286-4181 phone, 510-219-7991 cell

New Park has 360 degree view of L.A.

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The Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook has opened to the public!

The grand opening was April 18th, 2009--Here are photos, maps, planting lists and more...

http://picasaweb.google.com/Rare.Earth.fotos/BaldwinHillsScenicOverlookGrandOpening#

Ballona Restoration "Stakeholders" Meeting is Planned in April

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Could the Ballona Wetlands Still Face Bulldozers?

By Rex Frankel
originally printed in the Culver City News, March 26, 2009

Numerous local residents fought for up to 30 years to save the westside’s Ballona Wetlands from the bulldozers of a developer. They won in 2003. So it was a shock to many when they learned last year that under the new owner, the State of California, the bulldozers and heavy equipment could return.

At issue here is what’s the best use of tax dollars: buying up more open spaces next to the wetlands or spending millions of dollars to fix the wetlands, which many who worked to save it say doesn’t need fixing.

The plan unveiled last September by the State’s managers of the land would have spent at least $209 million to dig out and remove most of the earth and trees and plants in the property in order to turn it into largely an inland arm of the ocean. That plan raised a howl from nature-lovers almost immediately and this forced the State’s bureaucracy to back off in January of 2009 and unveil a new plan. They are now promising to bring the public back into the planning process at a meeting this April to decide the future of the largest remaining coastal wetlands in Los Angeles County. (to see the State’s website, go to http://ballonarestoration.org)

The Ballona Wetlands Ecological Preserve is around a square mile in size and sits between the communities of Marina Del Rey, Playa del Rey, Westchester and Del Rey in what was once the floodplain of Ballona Creek. While a lot of the natural wonders of this land may not be visible when you are driving through it on Lincoln or Culver Blvd., a short walk on its trails may lead to a field of colorful wildflowers, a thicket of willow trees, mounds of minty smelling sagebrush and critters like lizards, frogs, jackrabbits and birds ranging from tiny to 4 feet tall.

Whether it was the State’s budget crisis or the threat of lawsuits and political battles that made State officials change their minds, for the next few years, at least, little is going to change at the beloved Ballona Wetlands.

What had seemed like a project on the fast train has been slowed way down by the State's budget crisis, but also by the community's response to the mega-dredging plan. Last month, Dr. Shelley Luce, the director of the State’s Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission and a key player in the project unveiled a new plan that preserved more of the higher elevation habitat, the upland/grassland/sagebrush area, especially the zone east of Lincoln Blvd.

There was "definitely a consensus that more uplands were needed", she said in an interview last month. Uplands are considered by scientists to be an essential part of wetlands as they provide the dry nesting areas for the wildlife which then hunts for food in the wetter lands. In response to the concerns of many that the State had unilaterally made a final decision, Luce said that even the latest plan unveiled in January is still "a work in progress". In fact, while it may not have been communicated clearly to the public last September, Dr. Luce says that it was always the State's intention that the plans were going to be modified after further review by the public. When the plan was first unveiled at a public meeting at Loyola Marymount University last September, critics immediately cried foul. “You don’t even know what is on the land,” said local wildlife photographer Jonathan Coffin, who has a website on flickr.com called “stonebird” with shots of birds, plants and animals that have been missed in the State’s official lists of likely occupants of the wetlands. In response to this, Luce agreed that "What is missing is a comprehensive survey of what is on the land".


WHAT’S ON THE LAND

In a noisy and busy urban environment like Los Angeles, there were many reasons to save this last intact piece of nature. Some come here to watch 350 types of birds. Some come to hike in a quiet refuge from the loud city. Others need a place to walk their dogs or ride their mountain bikes.

But the Ballona wetlands are a lot different than when man first arrived here. Instead of a delta-like region with many channels and sand bars and islands, full of the rainfall draining from Hollywood to the coast, Ballona today is much drier and the main source of water comes from the sky, a spring in the hillside near Loyola Marymount University, and from the ocean through a few remaining channels that were once part of the larger Centinela Creek.

During the last century when Los Angeles was paved over into a 100 mile metropolis, wetlands and creeks were dumped with trash and disparaged as “waste” lands and a nuisance and breeding ground for mosquitos. Beginning around 1905, the community of Venice was reclaimed from the north Ballona wetlands and a system of canals were dug to carry away water and also provide a lagoon for small boats called gondolas, much like the city of Venice in Italy. In the 1930’s the federal government sought to make the surrounding low-lying areas safe from flooding, and so they largely dried up the remaining Ballona Wetlands by confining Ballona Creek to a concrete channel running through the middle of the marsh and heading straight to the ocean. In the late 1950’s, another section of the wetlands was dug out into a yacht harbor and named Marina Del Rey. Construction of the Marina also brought a lot of damage to the wetland to the south as it was overrun with heavy equipment and used as a dumping ground for excess mud dug from the harbor channel. By the late 1970’s, only about 1/3rd of the original wetlands remained unpaved and it was in the hands of one owner, the estate of the quirky billionaire Howard Hughes, who in the 1940’s had bought up much of the wetlands plus dry land in the floodplain to the east for his company, Hughes Aircraft.

By the 1980’s, development plans for a project called “Playa Vista” were floated proposing to pave over 90% of Hughes’ land and carve out another yacht harbor, adding a golf course and 13,000 condominiums and numerous high-rise office buildings and a massive shopping center. After over 20 years of lawsuits by environmental groups over traffic jams and wildlife loss, including the political intrigue of one of L.A.’s most powerful politicians, the City Council’s president Pat Russell, getting voted out of office by angry constituents in 1987, the public now owns 600 acres, which is around 2/3rds of the former Hughes property.

The State spent a total of $225 million to buy this land with the first part of 73 acres acquired in 1988 and the rest in 2003.


WHAT TO DO WITH IT?

So what do you do with this land that is loved by birdwatchers and hikers, bikers and little leaguers?

In the opinion of the new managers of the wetlands at the State’s Coastal Conservancy and Department of Fish and Game, using massive earth-moving equipment and carving or “dredging” (as it’s called) out an almost all water “estuary” is the right way to go. At a cost of at least $209 million from taxpayers, their plan unveiled last fall would have converted the property into nearly all wetlands. The property now is around half salt and freshwater wetlands and half drier “uplands”, which are home to the wildflowers, sagebrush and hiking trails,.

Seeing this plan, 3 groups that had previously fought with each other over the development plans, with opposing strategies, such as “should we work with the developer?” or “should we sue them?”, all agreed that the State plan was too much. All of these former adversaries, which are the Friends of Ballona Wetlands, the Ballona Ecosystem Education Project, and the Balllona Institute agreed that the uplands and hiking trails were valuable and should not be eliminated.

As John Hodder, a biologist who has worked on wetland and upland habitat restoration projects and heads a group called California Wetland Research, explained, there are two ways to go when doing a restoration. The way which was chosen by the State planners is for maximum “biological productivity” and as the thinking goes, the wetter the habitat, the more life that can grow there. This approach favors ocean life and the wide numbers of animals that live there. The other approach is “maximum biodiversity” in which the existing three types of natural habitats at Ballona, all of which are rare in Los Angeles, would be preserved and enhanced. This would maintain the wide range of both common and endangered wildlife and plants in the saltmarsh, which are distinct from the freshwater marsh and distinct from the uplands, too.

Kathy Knight believes that “we should do nothing but pull weeds for the next hundred years.” Knight is a board member of the Ballona Ecosystem Education Project, which filed an unsuccessful lawsuit over the 1st part of the Playa Vista development plans in 1993 and halted the second and final portion in 2007. Knight agrees with Betsy Landis, a leader in the L.A. chapter of the California Native Plant Society, who wrote in their newsletter, “Let Ballona back in to flush the marsh area, but do no dredging. The best answer—let Nature do the work.”

An opposite opinion is held by Dr. Shelley Luce of the Bay Restoration Commission, who formerly worked as a marine biologist for the Heal the Bay group. As a member of a science advisory committee for the wetland project who was appointed by the State project managers, Luce strongly favored the plan unveiled last fall. Luce feels that “50 years of vegetation” that grew up after the construction of Marina Del Rey on the north portion of the remaining wetlands can be removed since the State’s plan would replace it with something more like what was historically there.

Choosing to be historically accurate and removing much of what is there now, however, really upsets those who like Ballona exactly as it is. Marcia Hanscom with the Ballona Institute thinks that if taxpayers provide the money, the priority should be to buy up other parcels of natural open space on the periphery of the wetlands. She points to two parcels totaling 5 acres near the original mouth of Ballona Creek at the ocean in Playa del Rey that are targeted by their owners for condominium development. Her group, as well as another called the Ballona Network have a list of smaller parcels on all sides of the State preserve that they feel would make excellent additions. After the State committee made its final recommendation in last September, Hanscom wrote in an email to activists “It will still be good-bye to the Great Blue Heron as a nesting species at Ballona, good-bye to the White-tailed Kite and Northern Harrier, good-bye to California King Snake, California Ground Squirrel, Horned Lizard, and possibly even the endangered Belding's Savannah Sparrow - as the channel where they currently nest will also be dug up and re-made in the likeness of whatever these people think is best.”

As local activists frame it, the choice is between adding more currently threatened open spaces to L.A.’s meager supply of green spaces, versus spending the money re-arranging land that is already saved for which no consensus has been reached on what is the best way to do it. Or as activist Kathy Knight says, “The wetlands will always be here—what’s the rush?”

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Rex Frankel writes about various public policy issues at http://rexfrankel.com, and about the Ballona issue at http://ballona-news.blogspot.com .

Sea-Level Rise may save our wetlands yet...

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Could Playa Vista Become an Island? Local Area is under Heavy Risk of Future Flooding; State-Funded Study Projects 4 & 1/2 Foot Rise in Sea Level by Year 2100

first reported 3/12/2009

http://www.pacinst.org/reports/sea_level_rise/exec_sum.pdf

funded by the California Energy Commission, the California Environmental Protection Agency, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, California Department of Transportation, and the California Ocean Protection Council

Over the past century, sea level has risen nearly eight inches along the California coast, and general circulation model scenarios suggest very substantial increases in sea level as a significant impact of climate change over the coming century. This study includes a detailed analysis of the current population, infrastructure, and property at risk from projected sea‐level rise if no actions are taken to protect the coast, and the cost of building structural measures to reduce that risk. We find the following:

• Under medium to medium‐high greenhouse‐gas emissions scenarios, mean sea level along the California coast is projected to rise from 1.0 to 1.4 meters (m) by the year 2100. A series of maps for the entire coast of California demonstrating the extent of the areas at risk are posted at http://pacinst.org/reports/sea_level_rise

• A 1.4 meter sea‐level rise will put 480,000 people at risk of a 100‐year flood event, given today’s population. Populations in San Mateo and Orange Counties are especially vulnerable. In each, an estimated 110,000 people are at risk. Large numbers of residents (66,000) in Alameda County are also at risk.


To read the report:

http://www.pacinst.org/reports/sea_level_rise/maps/

(click on map to enlarge)

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-global-warming-searise12-2009mar12,0,2741152.story

The group floated several radical proposals: limit coastal development in areas at risk from sea rise; consider phased abandonment of certain areas; halt federally subsidized insurance for property likely to be inundated; and require coastal structures to be built to adapt to climate change...

Ice sheet melting has since accelerated. Dan Cayan, a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a lead scientist on the state's action plan, said the 55-inch estimate in the report is "probably conservative. . . . As temperature climbs, melting is going to proceed at a greater pace. It is not necessarily going to proceed linearly, in the same proportion as it did in the past, because melting begets more melting."

State's scary plan for Ballona is not set in stone

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The Ballona Restoration Plan is still "a work in progress"...

by Rex Frankel

2/20/2009--I had the pleasure to meet on Feb. 17th with Dr. Shelley Luce, who is executive director of the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission. She served on the Science Advisory Panel for the Ballona Wetlands restoration project and is one of two local public employees along with Sean Bergquist that are based here and who work extensively on the restoration of our 600 acre Ballona Wetlands State Preserve. The Commission's offices are at Loyola Marymount University located on the bluffs in Westchester, as opposed to the State agency overseeing the show, the Coastal Conservancy, which is based in Oakland.

I met with Dr. Luce to explain my organization's objections to the State plan unveiled last September that would have dredged out nearly the entire 600 acres and converted it into mostly open water, as opposed to the current delicate mix of three habitat zones and hiking trails.

What had seemed like a project on the fast train has been slowed way down by the State's budget crisis, but also by the community's response to the mega-dredging plan. Last month, Dr. Luce unveiled a new plan that preserved more of the higher elevation habitat, the upland/grassland/sagebrush area, especially the zone east of Lincoln Blvd.

There was "definitely a consensus that more uplands were needed", she told me. In response to the concerns of many that the State had unilaterally made a final decision, Luce said that even the latest plan unveiled last month is still "a work in progress". In fact, while it may not have been communicated clearly to us last September, Dr. Luce says that it was always the State's intention that the plans were going to be modified after further review by the public.

We both agreed that the public meetings to involve the community back into the planning process need to resume. I see the end of local public meetings as when the whole process went awry. During 2007 and 2008, these meetings which were originally every 1 or 2 months soon became every six months. The Science Advisory Committee which ultimately made their final decision last September to endorse the mega-dredging plan had several 7 hour meetings in Costa Mesa, 30 miles away, and public comment was limited to the end of these long meetings. Whether this was intentional or due to budget cuts, the outcome didn't make any longtime Ballona activists happy.

We had a long talk about sources of water for the restoration, whether from the ocean or from the ocean and Ballona Creek. I suggested that we need a "modular" approach to planning the restoration, since it may be many years before the urban street runoff pollution in Ballona Creek is cleaned-up, and therefore, any plan that includes breaching the levees and letting the Creek back into the rest of the wetlands could have the negative effect of polluting the wetlands. That's why I favor bringing water back into the wetlands directly from the ocean. If someday we can clean up Ballona Creek than we can re-connect the creek and the wetlands. But basing the future of our wetland preserve on some other project that may or may not also happen could make us wait many years until anything changes at Ballona. Now, while some locals would rather that nothing changes at the wetlands unless it is done by hand or with shovels, (a position that is equally justifiable) I could support bringing some more water into our wetlands.

In response to the calls of many, especially local Ballona wildlife tracker/photographer Jonathon Coffin, Luce agreed that "What is missing is a comprehensive survey of what is on the land".

I agree with the calls of many that there is no rush to restore our Ballona wetlands. The maxim of "do no harm" needs to be followed here. We need to restore Ballona solely for what is best for all the wildlife of Ballona and all the respectful users of this land.

more corporate welfare for Playa Vista?

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Playa Vista Seeks $300 Million "Gift" from the People of Los Angeles via Massive Increase in What they're Allowed Build.

They seek OK for their Last Phase--the same project we overturned in 2007.

--Meanwhile, L.A. Residents Face the First Mandatory Water Restrictions in 20 Years

"Under the plan adopted in principle by the governing board of the L.A. Department of Water and Power, homes and businesses would pay a penalty rate -- nearly double normal prices -- for any water they use in excess of a reduced monthly allowance."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090218/ts_nm/us_water_california

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PLAYA VISTA: Concerns are reviewed a year after work on community was stopped when first study found flaws.

2/17/2009, Daily Breeze
http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_11719782
By Kristin S. Agostoni, Staff Writer

More than a year after a court ruling halted Playa Vista's second phase, developers of the master-planned community are hoping a new environmental study will move the project closer toward completion.

Since an appellate court ruled in September 2007 that an analysis for the so-called Village contained flaws, the land targeted for shops, homes and offices off Jefferson Boulevard has sat dormant and mostly vacant.

The grading is nearly complete and half of the roads have been put into place, but the court issued a stop-work order until a handful of disputed land-use issues were reviewed.

Now those issues are being hashed out in a revised environmental impact report that will trigger a new collection of city approvals.

Residents have until March 16 to submit comments on the "recirculated" EIR, which analyzes a development identical to the earlier one - with 2,600 homes, 175,000 square feet of office space, 150,000 square feet of retail and 40,000 square feet of community uses.

"We're moving forward with the plan that was approved by the City Council for The Village," said Playa Vista spokesman Steve Sugerman, adding that officials and residents are anxious to move on. "The court was pretty specific that all of the other areas (of the original EIR) were fine," he said.

The battle over The Village began not long after the council approved the project in September 2004.

Opponents, including the city of Santa Monica, the Surfrider Foundation, representatives of the Tongva/Gabrieleno Indians and groups dedicated to preserving the nearby Ballona Wetlands, said in two separate lawsuits that the environmental impact report was flawed.

In January 2006, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge had ruled that the city and Playa Vista provided the public and decision-makers with adequate information.

But the appellate court, which consolidated the cases and reviewed more than two dozen issues raised by opponents, singled out three "deficiencies."

The judges questioned the analysis of the project's effects on the Hyperion wastewater treatment plant, the treatment of human remains and artifacts dating back 3,500 years, and whether the city accurately described permitted land uses for the site.

On the latter issue, the court ruled that the EIR did not acknowledge that the proposed retail complex would "dramatically increase the amount of development permissible" on the property spanning 111 acres. Therefore, Playa Vista is required to seek a collection of land-use amendments.

Rex Frankel of the Ballona Ecosystem Education Project, one of the groups that sued, said he was pleased to see the new report acknowledge that the proposed land uses go beyond what is permitted - 108,050 square feet of office and light industrial space.

But Frankel also said he wants the analysis to include alternative plans that would adhere to the lower zoning threshold.

A community retail center still could be built, he said, but he'd like to see consideration given to other uses for the surrounding property, such as park space or a treatment wetland.

"The city has a lot of leverage right now to decide what is appropriate on this land," Frankel said. "We should have an honest discussion in an EIR. If you tell the truth, then the public at least knows we don't have to accept this project."

As for the treatment of Indian remains in the area, it's unclear what, if anything, will come from the revised report.

The area where most of the remains were discovered is now occupied by a drainage channel that was approved as part of Playa Vista's first phase and runs behind the land reserved for The Village. And as of December, the majority of the remains unearthed from the area have been reinterred nearby.

While opponents argued Playa Vista could have shifted the course of the channel to avoid a major burial site, the revised EIR states that "impacts to archeological resources would still have occurred" in four alternatives considered and that the channel might not operate as effectively.

On the Hyperion issue, the EIR says that new data indicates "there is less demand on the city's wastewater collection and treatment system than previously projected," and that the city has conducted studies on expansion plans, if needed, after 2020.

Sugerman said officials hope the City Council will reconsider the EIR this summer, and that construction would begin in mid-2010.

FIND OUT MORE

Los Angeles city planners are accepting comments on a revised environmental impact report for The Village at Playa Vista through March 16.

Submit comments to David Somers, Los Angeles City Planning Department, Room 750, City Hall, 200 N. Spring St., Los Angeles, 90012, or e-mail david.somers@lacity.org. Reference file

No. ENV-2002-6129-EIR.

Review the report at http://cityplanning.lacity.org/ (the link is under the "environmental" section, then click on Draft EIRs), or at these libraries: Playa Vista branch, 6400 Playa Vista Drive; Westchester/Loyola Village branch, 7114 W. Manchester Ave.; and the Marina del Rey library,

4533 Admiralty Way.

To buy a copy, call 213-978-1355.

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If You Support Unpaving Ballona Creek , its Buried Streams and Filled-In Wetlands -- Come to this Public Workshop Held by the L.A. City Sanitation Department

INVITATION FOR STAKEHOLDER WORKSHOP: March 3, 2009, at Hyperion treatment Plant in Playa del Rey

TIME/DATE: March 3, 2009 from 1:00 to 3:30 pm Hyperion Treatment Plant, Conference Room 116 12000 Vista Del Mar, Playa Del Rey , CA , 90293

DEVELOPMENT OF TMDL IMPLEMENTATION PLANS IN THE BALLONA CREEK WATERSHED: WORKSHOP II

Dear Stakeholders: On behalf of the Ballona Creek watershed cities and agencies, Dr. Shahram Kharaghani (Division Manager of the Watershed Protection Division, City of Los Angeles ) would like to request your participation as a stakeholder in the second Implementation Plan Development Workshop for the Bacteria, Metals and Toxics TMDLs in the Ballona Creek watershed. These Implementation Plans will be developed over the next 2 years and have the overall goal of reducing urban runoff pollution to comply with TMDL requirements for the Ballona Creek watershed. More specific goals of the Implementation Plans are the following: . Identify pollution hot spots and prioritize the drainage areas to be addressed; and . Identify Best Management Practices for reducing pollution by urban runoff and select and verify potential locations for implementation. The TMDL Implementation Plans will be completed in 2009 (Bacteria TMDL), 2010 (Metals TMDL) or 2011 (Toxics TMDL). Several stakeholder workshops will be scheduled to support this process. The first workshop was held on November 6, 2008 and focused on the initial characterization of the Ballona Creek watershed.

This second workshop will focus on the next steps:

. BMP types and process selection
. Breakout sessions focusing on specific areas of the watershed

Your participation as a stakeholder is important to provide input to the development of the Implementation Plans.

For more information and to RSVP please contact Ida Meisami at, Ida.Meisami.Fard@lacity.org or (213) 485-3999. Please RSVP by February 19, 2009 with your name and the number of guests that will be in attendance.

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State Officials Back-Off From Over-Ambitious Ballona Restoration Proposal

NEWS ALERT!!! Friday, January 30, 2009

In a surprising and welcome turnaround, the managers of the state-owned Ballona Wetlands preserve have withdrawn a $209 million proposal to let heavy equipment loose on the site in order to create their vision of a restored wetland.

The proposal was unveiled as the "preferred alternative" at a community meeting last September to almost unanimous disbelief and disagreement from the groups that have worked up to 30 years to save the wetlands from a developer's bulldozers. What is notable is that groups that have frequently disagreed about Ballona issues in the past, such as the Friends of Ballona Wetlands, Ballona Institute/Wetlands Action Network, and our group, BEEP, were united in our distaste for this plan.

The plan we all agreed went too far would have converted what is currently a bio-diverse area with 3 habitat types and hiking paths into almost exclusively open water with almost all one habitat type, salt marsh. While we at BEEP want to see more water brought into this site as part of a restoration plan, we feel this went too far.

To compare the State's proposal to what is there today, currently 29% of it is a salt marsh, 19% is a freshwater marsh, and 49% is an upland/grassland area that contains most of the hiking trails. The State's plan would have been 82% saltmarsh, 2% freshwater wetland and 16% upland. It's uncertain where the Ballona Creek bikepath would have been re-routed and it's most likely that, given that most of this area would be under water, most of our hiking trails would be gone.

There is no question that the wetlands have been altered by man in the past, such as by road construction and by the development of the Marina Del Rey yacht harbor which resulted in dumping up to 10 feet of wetland mud onto the north part of the wetlands. But despite all the damage done 50 years ago and more, Ballona has bounced back and some of the areas that were most heavily altered are covered with thickets of wetland and upland plants, providing nesting areas and hunting grounds for numerous kinds of wildlife.


The New Proposal unveiled on January 20th by Dr. Shelley Luce, executive director of the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission: does not convert the parcel east of Lincoln Blvd. from uplands/grasslands into a deep water marsh like in the previous plan. It also does not require that Lincoln Blvd. be completely rebuilt and elevated. To attempt such a change to this exceedingly busy highway would assuredly be a many-year traffic nightmare.

We have a lot more to say about why the planning process for the Ballona Wetlands went astray, and that will be posted soon. While this latest proposal may still go too far, as I've heard from some, and dig up too much of this site, we are glad that the State has recognized that the local Ballona community wanted something better for our wetland.


--Rex Frankel, director of the Ballona Ecosystem Education Project
-----------------------------------

BELOW: the September 2008 proposal from the State. (Click on image to enlarge)

I have added elevations above sea level to give an idea how much dirt would have to be removed in the State's proposals. The current elevation of the land north of Ballona Creek is around 15 feet, while the land south of Ballona creek is around 3 feet.

BELOW: the revised State restoration proposal unveiled in January 2009

BELOW: a restoration proposal drawn up by the Friends of Ballona Wetlands in September 2007

-------------------------------------------------
HERE IS MORE BACKGROUND ON THE STATE'S SEPTEMBER 2008 PROPOSALS:

To read the report summarizing the 5 proposals:
http://www.santamonicabay.org/smbay/Portals/0/ballona/BallonaFeasTEXT-Sept2008-OUT.pdf

To see maps of the proposals:
http://www.santamonicabay.org/smbay/ProgramsProjects/HabitatRestorationProject/BallonaWetlandsRestoration/BallonaDocuments/tabid/153/Default.aspx


TABLE COMPARING THE HABITAT-CONVERSION UNDER THE 5 ALTERNATIVES:

TYPE OF HABITAT	ACREAGE CURRENTLY	UNDER ALT. 1	ALT 2	ALT 3	ALT 4	ALT 5
ESTUARINE-SALTMARSH, PICKLEWEED, OPEN WATER	29%	41%	52%	78%	79%	82%
FRESHWATER: WILLOWS, MULEFAT, SEDGE GRASS	19%	4%	3%	3%	3%	2%
UPLANDS: HIKING TRAILS, SAGEBRUSH, WILDFLOWERS	49%	51%	41%	19%	18%	16%
OTHER: UNVEGETATED & BALLFIELDS	3%	2%	2%	2%	2%	0.1%

NOTE: Percentages here are computed based on the total land owned by the State that can be modified as part of the restoration project which is 579.8 acres. The percentages exclude the 39.8 acre Freshwater Marsh urban runoff basin that was constructed by Playa Vista on State lands and the 10.9 acre Southern California Gas Company facility.

-----------------------------

HOW CAN YOU TELL THE DIFFERENT HABITATS APART?

This is a freshwater wetland:

Cattails growing in the lowlands west of the Gas Company facility.

old Centinela Creek west of the Gas Company facility

Sedge, a type of grass in the lowlands near the Gas Co. facility

WHAT IS A SALTMARSH?

The wettest part of Ballona, the tidal channel south of Ballona Creek, surrounded by pickleweed and mud flats

The tidal channel on the far north side of Ballona, alongside Fiji Way

The confluence of tidally influenced salt water channels and the freshwater Centinela creek. The wood piers used to support the Pacific Electric Railway. This is next to the small businesses on Culver Blvd. in Playa del Rey.

This is the high salt marsh that exists on top of soil dumped from the construction of Marina Del Rey. The saltmarsh plants such as pickleweed and alkali heath and saltbush that survive here get their water from rainfall, not the ocean.

FINALLY, WHAT IS AN UPLAND?

An upland is typically anything above 5 foot elevation

Coyote Bush north of Culver Blvd., and east of Lincoln Blvd.

Thickets of laurel sumac and loop hiking trails north of Ballona creek and west of Lincoln Blvd.

Fragrant coastal sage brush growing on the bluffs

Purple-flowering bush lupine near the Villa Marina Condos

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Tracking the Lost Streams of Ballona Creek

The report titled "Seeking Streams" was written and published in 2001 by students at Cal Poly Pomona, and is described as "A Landscape framework for urban and ecological revitalization in the upper Ballona Creek watershed of Los Angeles"

One of its authors, Jessica Hall, writes a blog here: http://lacreekfreak.wordpress.com/

(Hall and BEEP's executive director Rex Frankel were also quoted extensively in http://www.laweekly.com/general/features/the-lost-streams-of-los-angeles/14973/)
published the fall of 2006.

Here is the Full Report:

I have scanned the report into a pdf format and while it looks a little fuzzy on their screen, if you click on the upper right corner above the text window, the frame will enlarge to full screen and becomes much more readable. You can also click on the download button and see it full size that way, too.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/11529716/Seeking-Streams-Part-1

http://www.scribd.com/doc/11508230/Seeking-Streams-Part-2

http://www.scribd.com/doc/11508240/Seeking-Streams-Part-3

http://www.scribd.com/doc/11508247/Seeking-Streams-Part-4

Our 2008 Year-End Progress Report:

The 10th Anniversary of a Major Scoop and the Start of Big Successes in the Battle to Save the Ballona Wetlands

This is the Tenth Anniversary of the release of the Playa Vista company's 1998 secret business plan. Insiders in the development firm gave us this 198 page document that contains political strategy, what the owners paid for the land and what our public opposition was costing them, and the frank admission of how "generous" the City Council had been to them.

To read the full plan, click here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/8719226/Playa-Vista-1998-Business-Plan

To read our analysis of the plan's contents, read here:
http://radio.weblogs.com/0138798/stories/2006/08/03/whistleblowersReleasePlayaVistaSecrets.html

Soon after we published excerpts of this report, Playa Vista's key tenant DreamWorks Pictures backed out of the project, after 4 years of public protest at their film premieres and a loss at the local Water Board when they sought to be exempted from financial liability for groundwater contamination at Playa Vista;

Read more here:
http://radio.weblogs.com/0138798/stories/2004/12/23/toxicWaste.html

http://radio.weblogs.com/0138798/stories/2006/08/03/september1999IssueOfSaveAllOfBallona.html


A year later, Patricia McPherson and her group the Grassroots Coalition discovered high levels of explosive methane gas underneath the proposed community for 20,000 people.

http://radio.weblogs.com/0138798/stories/2006/08/03/august2000IssueOfSaveAllOfBallona.html

also see: http://www.grassrootscoalition.org/

By 2001, Playa Vista began negotiations with the State of California to sell the Ballona Wetlands, taking the development of all the land west of Lincoln Blvd. off the table.

With the State's purchase of the wetlands in 2003, fully 70% of the original 1087 acre Playa Vista project was permanently preserved from development. Approximately 300 acres of the site has been developed or is in the process of being developed as part of the project's Phase 1. We were successful in 2007 in overturning the development plans for the remaining 110 acre Phase 2 site and with the election of friends at City Hall in 2005, we have excellent working relationships with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Councilman Bill Rosendahl.

Read more about our legal efforts here:
http://ballona.blogspot.com/2007/09/playa-vista-loses-huge-case-to.html

Above and Below--two views of the Ballona Wetlands State Preserve


BELOW: The condominium development at Playa Vista. In the background is the remaining Phase 2 site which totals 110 acres. Can we preserve this land? Maybe 2009 will bring us another big victory!

---------------------------------------------------

Excerpts of the 1998 Playa Vista Business Plan:

Here are some of the most interesting pages; CLICK ON THEM TO ENLARGE:

"The site has issues of...poor soil conditions".
"The entitlements received for Phase 1 are generous"

WHAT WE HAVE ACCOMPLISHED IN 20 YEARS:
OPEN SPACES SAVED;
TRAFFIC DISASTER PREVENTED!

11/4/2008

When we first began fighting the onslaught of mega-developments that out-of-town builders were planning here, the threatened traffic gridlock would have been staggering. City planners told us the traffic on Lincoln Blvd/Highway 1 would DOUBLE. Traffic on the 405 Freeway, which is now a virtual parking lot, would increase by 28% from Playa Vista alone!

By working with our partners and friendly elected officials, we have scaled back what would have been a disaster to much more manageable growth. We didn't get all that we wanted, but, for example, we saved 2/3rds of the Playa Vista/Ballona Wetlands. We still have a chance to save another 10% of this site. We preserved blufftop trails and the Cabora Road trail system. And we cut the size or eliminated many of the other major projects: Fully 60% of the new car trips per day that were on the books in 1989 have been cancelled!

TABLE OF DEVELOPMENT-TRAFFIC PROPOSED IN OUR AREA IN 1989:

(the traffic totals come from an L.A. City Planning department report from 1989)

PROJECTS IN 1989	CAR TRIPS PER DAY	OUTCOME
LAX Northside and Continental City	72,705 37,000	Both Not Built due to changed LAX plans
LAX 55 Million annual passengers Expansion	18,950	18,950 trips (more growth was proposed in the late 1990's that was cancelled)
Howard Hughes Center	37,350	Around 30,000 trips completed
Playa Vista	200,000	Cut to 79,000 trips due to State Parkland Purchase; Only around 25,000 trips completed so far
Marina Marketplace (Gelsons)	18,293	18,293--completed
Marina Place Mall	34,699	Cut to around 10,000; now CostCo/Albertsons/Sav-On center
Corporate Pointe	12,859	Around 5,000 completed
Sepulveda/Slauson offices	13,914	cancelled
Santa Monica Commons	17,231	cancelled
Marina Del Rey redevelopment	25,056	Approved but mostly unbuilt
TOTALS	488,056	BUILT: 107,243 CANCELLED-REDUCED: 286,549 --------------------------------- REMAINING TO BE BUILT: 94,265 54,000 AT PLAYA VISTA, 25,056 IN MARINA DEL REY plus Hughes Center buildout of 4 remaining lots

SOME BACKGROUND:

In 1985, the City Council which was very-friendly with developers approved the "Big-4" super-sized developments which surrounded the communities of Westchester and Playa del Rey. The only concession offered by these developers was that they would pay to widen most of the major roads in this area to the width of a freeway--or 10 lanes across. What made the plan fall apart was the discovery in 1988, (after voters elected a new councilperson to represent us at city hall,) that the money promised to fix traffic problems was less than half of what was required. That meant that taxpayers would have to fork over $100 million to fix problems, while these developers stood to make billions in profits.

(Also, note that in the table above, traffic totals are for the entire day, while in the article below, traffic totals are for each rush hour. Normally, to convert rush hour car trips into daily trips, multiply by 10.)


City Cites 2 Highrise Projects Over Funding Shortfall

By Rex Frankel

(originally printed in the Westchester Journal September 29, 1988)

The traffic management plan created by former Councilwoman Pat Russell in 1985 was denounced by City officials and Russell's successor Ruth Galanter last Thursday as giving special favors to two local high rise projects, the Howard Hughes Center and Continental City. Galanter criticized the granting by Russell in 1986 of development agreements for the two projects which lock-in traffic improvement fees at one third that to be paid by all other new businesses.

Representing the City Dept. of Transportation, Haripal Vir said the Coastal Transportation Corridor Specific Plan (CTCSP) will come up about $100 million short of its target of raising $191 million for traffic improvements from developers of commercial and industrial projects in the area bounded by the San Diego Freeway, Santa Monica City limits, the Pacific Ocean and Imperial Highway. Vir told the approximately 50 audience members that "only a change in land use can ultimately balance the development and transportation infrastructure" in the area. Galanter agreed, stating that reducing densities of Westside building projects was the major issue in her successful campaign against Russell last year.

The traffic fund would pay for the widening of most non-residential streets in the area, including Lincoln and Sepulveda Blvds. The plan also recommends that Falmouth Avenue in Playa del Rey be continued north from the edge of the Bluffs to Admiralty Way in Marina Del Rey.

One audience member shouted that "the whole ordinance should be scrapped." Others didn't like the proposed continuation of Falmouth and the widening of Lincoln and Sepulveda, while others opposed elimination of parking along major streets and loss of local businesses to the proposed street widenings.

The $191 million figure was the estimated amount needed to widen local streets to accomodate the total buildout of all commercial and industrial property in the Westchester, Playa del Rey, Del Rey, Mar Vista and Venice areas to at least 3 to 1 density. (For comparison, building densities in Downtown L.A. average out to 3.5 to 1 density.) This buildout would have caused creation of 34,560 rush hour vehicle trips. The Hughes Center and Continental City projects will create 10,300 of these trips. Adding the 9800 trips planned by Playa Vista and the 7500 planned at the LAX Northside project--a total of 27,600 rush hour trips will be created by these 4 projects. High rise construction on Century Blvd. will add several thousand more trips.

Galanter criticized the approach used by Russell's CTCSP as saying that " 'any amount of growth is OK as long as we keep widening streets and improving intersections to handle it.' I don't accept it and I believe very few of my constituents do either."

Galanter told the crowd to expect more public hearings on the revisions to the CTCSP in early 1989.

The changes to the CTCSP recommended by the City Transportation Department are as follows:

1. Raise the Traffic Impact Assessment (TIA) fee charged developers of new commercial and industrial projects from $2112 to $5690 for each additional rush hour vehicle trip created. The 20-year development agreements enacted for the Hughes Center and Continental City by Russell lock in these fees at the lower level. The report recomends prohibiting the setting of these TIA fees in future development agreements.

2. Cut the amount of time to pay the fees from 20 to 10 years.

3. Make new local-serving commercial projects, such as markets and mini-malls, pay TIA fees at 30% of that charged the more-regional commercial projects, such as offices and hotels. The DOT report cites a study showing that 70% of the area's traffic passes through and only 30% is locally generated.

4. Require widening of streets or improvements to intersections before a building can be occupied.

5. Modify the concept of "in-lieu credits", which are traffic improvements paid for directly by the developer which theoretically benefit the surrounding community, too, and are credited against the TIA fee. Both the Howard Hughes Center and Continental City projects make extensive use of these credits, further cutting into the city's ability to raise the needed $191 million.

6. Find ways to make LAX pay TIA fees for its proposed expansion from handling 40 million annual passengers to 65 million.

7. The report also suggested making now-exempt residential developments pay TIA fees if they generate "significant" amounts of traffic.

------

State Unveils Restoration Plan for Ballona Wetlands to Extreme Alarm of the Folks Who Fought For Years to Save It;

They would reduce the relatively balanced three native habitat communities at Ballona down to almost entirely one type

And here's the contradiction: While we are told there isn't money to buy the remaining open spaces next to the wetlands that are threatened by developers, there is over $200 million to pay for bulldozing the wetlands?

Restoration By Bulldozer Is Not The Way to Go...

Dear Friends,

We have been informed by the State officials in charge of the restoration planning for the Ballona Wetlands that they favor the most habitat-altering proposals of the 5 that were unveiled in September. Alternative 5 is the plan which proposes dredging out over 90% of the 600 acre wetland/wildflower property, and it would replace what is there now almost entirely with an arm of the ocean. Gone would be the hiking trails, the little league fields, and almost all of the uplands that are now covered with sage brush and trees and the freshwater habitats.

I have posted some of the State's maps. Look at the map legend for the phrase "new habitat to be created" compared to the areas labeled "existing habitat to remain"; this shows how much of the land is to be dredged/bulldozed under each proposal.

The director of the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission, Dr. Shelley Luce, informed me last week (Nov. 6th) that the EIR for the restoration will only consider Alternatives 4 and 5 and doing nothing at all. That ignores the more reasonable proposals that restored some of the wetlands while preserving existing trails and upland habitat.

-----------------
COMPARING THE PROPOSALS:

EXISTING: SALTMARSH/ESTUARINE: 27%
FRESHWATER MARSH: 18%
UPLANDS: 45%
OTHER: 11%

ALTERNATIVE 5: SALTMARSH/ESTUARINE 75%
FRESHWATER MARSH: 2%
UPLAND: 14%

OTHER: 8.5%

To view the 5 alternatives, here is a link to the State's website:

http://www.santamonicabay.org/smbay/ProgramsProjects/HabitatRestorationProject/BallonaWetlandsRestoration/tabid/149/Default.aspx

(click on the "documents" link)

ALTERNATIVE 4: COST $170 MILLION

ALTERNATIVE 5: COST $209 MILLION

ALTERNATIVE 2-- COST $61 MILLION

---------------------

HERE IS A TABLE OF THE COST ESTIMATES OF ALL 5 ALTERNATIVES:

-------------------

Here is our opinion of the Plan that was endorsed by the Restoration project's Science Advisory Committee:

Alternative 5 is an outlandish, over-reaching solution without a problem. There is very little that needs fixing at the Ballona Wetlands. We spent 20 years fighting to keep this land from being bulldozed and turned into condos and a yacht harbor. Now the State wants to bulldoze it and wipe out two of the three natural habitats at Ballona to turn it into an inland sea. The community loves Ballona because it is a remnant of the three habitats that were once common in Los Angeles: salt marsh, freshwater creeks and grass and wildflower-covered uplands ringed by hiking trails. All of these natural habitats are nearly extinct in L.A.

To massively bulldoze and dredge out 90% of this fragile nature preserve to create an almost exclusively saltwater-world-like amusement park ignores the needs of the community that has grown up around Ballona walking the trails and smelling the wildflowers. While it is essential to bring water back into the wetlands, it should not be done at the expense of our walking paths and the uplands which are the nesting areas for so many of the wetland wildlife. What might be a good plan for fish is bad for birds and lizards and butterflies. Alternative 5 is not a balanced plan but one that satisfies a very narrow interest. To preserve biological diversity and the remains of nature in L.A., we support a balanced habitat plan like in Alternatives 1 and 2.

Rex Frankel, the editor, and director of Ballona Ecosystem Education Project
-------------------

Here is an account of the Science Advisory Panel meeting by Marcia Hanscom, who directs the Ballona Institute (NOTE: I have posted Hanscom's email so our readers can hear the variety of views on this issue. While I agree that the proposal circulated by the State planning team goes too far, I can not vouch for the accuracy nor necesarily agree with how Hanscom characterizes the events of this meeting since I was not there. I have heard from some that disagree with her account of the meeting. I have asked the State and Agency officials mentioned in her message to respond, and if they do, I will post them.):

9/20/2008

Well, after the *majority* of the public (even Friends of Ballona Wetlands/Playa Vista attorneys - they are worried the birds at the freshwater marsh may not have enough upland habitat surrounding the area!) expressed grave dis-like for alternative #5, and expressed concern for the land to be PRESERVED and the wildlife RESPECTED at this Working Group meeting....The only ones who expressed strong support for this radical vision of #5 were Mark Abramson, formerly of Heal the Bay (who helped pick the Science Advisory Committee, which is mostly made up of former Rich Ambrose students - Ambrose being the one who has little clue about land and wetlands ecological processes, only marine ecology, which he focuses on without knowing the rest) and Isabelle Duvivier, who is on the payroll of the State Coastal Conservancy, so, of course, she supports what they are pushing.

The next day, after a 6-7 hour meeting of the "Science Advisory Committee" - which has long been stacked with those who John Hodder has described to well below (pro-engineering and ignorant of ecology) - voted unanimously to support Alternative #5. Sean Bergquist immediately turned to National Marine Fisheries Service rep, Bryant Chesney, with a "high 5" and a big smile for getting what they wanted, which is an extension of the Bay inland, instead of a respect of the wetlands ECOSYSTEM.There were a couple of good scientists who asked strong and valid questions, but they were pooh-poohed with non-answers by Rich Ambrose, Shelley Luce, Mary Small and Sean Bergquist, the leaders in what they are calling a "planning process." Even Michael Josselyn, who long worked for the Friends of Ballona Wetlands, said he could not support this plan without a lot of "caveats." In the end, he, Camm Swift and Wayne Ferren, while expressing grave concerns, agreed to go along, so they could stay involved with the process - which is clearly being taken over now by the Army Corps of Engineers.Bottom line? What is being touted as a more NATURAL, sinuous stream restoration, will be nothing of the kind. They will need to build curving levee WALLS around edges of their curvy, unnaturally-formed (but mimicking nature) tidal channels, and nearly all of the upland areas will be wiped out. At the end, there was a BIT of a concession made and it was said that MAYBE Area C will be "restored" to grasslands. It will still be good-bye to the Great Blue Heron as a nesting species at Ballona, good-bye to the White-tailed Kite and Northern Harrier, good-bye to California King Snake, California Ground Squirrel, Horned Lizard, and possibly even the endangered Belding's Savannah Sparrow - as the channel where they currently nest will also be dug up and re-made in the likeness of whatever these people think is best. Best for what? Seemingly it is water quality driving this project, even though we all voted and AGREED that Water Quality was NOT the consideration we wanted guiding this process, but rather ecological processes.When Rich Ambrose was asked by scientist Ken Schwartz - what will the impacts of these plans be on various species - Ambrose said "well, we don't have enough information on this. I've asked a student I have working on a list of species at Ballona, but it would just be he and I guessing" This is pathetic, both as an answer and as a huge mis- calculation and non-understanding of what is at stake here - and from the co-chair of this "Science Advisory Committee."

Roy, Edith Read, a woman from Heal the Bay, Kelly Rose (from Friends) and I were the only public members who attended this day-long SAC meeting. Sack the SAC! may be our rallying cry. The public was not allowed to talk until the very end of the meeting, well after the vote was taken. We had asked the night before to be able to speak BEFORE the vote, but we were denied by Mary Small, who is running this show for the State Coastal Conservancy.

If any of this disturbs you, I hope you will write to your Assemblymember, your State Senator, the LA City Councilmember for this area (Bill Rosendahl) and our LA Mayor, who helped buy this land to begin with. They would all be very disturbed to learn these things. And, send a copy to us, if you would.

take care, all ~~ Marcia Hanscom, Ballona Institute

Playa Vista Condos Not Very Attractive to Buyers Compared to Nearby Marina Condo Developments.

Why? Because Playa Vista Never Built the promised mixed-use "live and shop in the same community" that they promised to their buyers.

Singles enclave harbors lofty ambitions

A former commercial area filling up with high-density housing attracts singles, artists and entertainment-industry workers.

By Diane Wedner, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer February 24, 2008

http://www.latimes.com/classified/realestate/la-re-guide24feb24,0,5319030.story

The loft-and-latte crowd is setting up house in the trendy Del Rey Arts District -- also known as the Marina Arts District. The tiny but flourishing neighborhood in Marina del Rey's old commercial hub is a hot spot for those with an artistic bent and is within walking distance of the beach and close to Venice's Abbot Kinney Boulevard.

Beginnings

This little slice of Marina del Rey -- roughly bounded by Beach Avenue to the north, Maxella Avenue to the south, Del Rey Avenue to the west and Redwood Avenue to the east -- once was farmland. By the 1940s, some commercial buildings had sprung up, and by the 1950s, a smattering of small residences had emerged amid the industrial and manufacturing complexes.The 1960s brought warehouses and food-processing plants, and in the 1990s, Internet companies and other "creative offices" opened in the grittier, less-pricey-than-Santa Monica community next to Marina del Rey's harbor.

By the early 2000s, developers saw a gold mine in this neighborhood whose manufacturing past was fading. Builders touted the area's proximity to beaches and bike paths, as well as the affordable prices, and buyers began purchasing the new condos and lofts, many of which still are going up.What it's aboutIf Hollywood's loft scene is about nightclubs and celebrities, and downtown's attracts young professionals, the Del Rey Arts District is all about the creative class.Artists and entertainment-industry workers are attracted to the high-density lofts and condos that feature flexible quarters for live/work arrangements.Tucked amid the auto-body shops, storage facilities and architectural offices are cutting-edge creative companies, such as advertising agency Ground Zero, which created the campaign for the Bijan cologne named after Michael Jordan. Some of the district's original brick buildings house a Pilates center and other trendy businesses.Not especially attractive to families, the district skews toward young, unattached buyers. At Element, John Laing Homes' 50-unit loft development, about 70% of the buyers are under 40 and 64% are single, said Kathy Kerr, director of sales for John Laing Homes Los Angeles/Ventura division. Prices range from about $569,000 for a 1,055-square-foot unit to $1.5 million for a 1,594-square-foot penthouse."Buyers in the district are hip, young, less mainstream," Kerr said. "They're TV writers, talent agents, they work for music companies and on film productions."

Insider's viewpoint

Lewis Lewis faced a choice two years ago: Buy a condo in neighboring residential giant Playa Vista or in the Marina's small arts district."It was an easy decision," the 55-year-old jewelry designer said. "I like walking, and here I'm near a bookstore, two movie theaters, supermarkets and Costco."Lewis works both from home and downtown, the latter commute requiring a 40-minute drive each way. So when she's in the district, she appreciates the five-minute stroll to the local shipping store, her herbal pharmacy and the beach. "I never have to leave the community when I'm home."

Home is an 800-square-foot, one-bedroom condo in Del Rey Terrace, in the heart of the district, that she purchased two years ago for under $500,000.The Mediterranean-style condo complex features a pool and spa, a screening room and lounge and a fitness center. One-bedrooms sell for $475,000 and up; a two-bedroom recently sold for $633,000. ...

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Good News About Unpaving and Restoring Nature in L.A....

Up Your Alley: Chicago's 2,000 miles of alleys are being repaved with porous materials to allow rain to seep into the soil and restore the underground water table. The new pavement, made of recycled materials, also reflects heat rather than absorbing it, helping reduce energy costs during Chicago's hot summers. —Lea Hartog from Sierra Magazine, http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200803/lol.asp

Torrance may transform sumps for clean water, recreation

By Nick Green, Staff Writer, the Daily Breeze
03/16/2008

http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_8598629

Torrance could spend an estimated $134 million for a water treatment plant to comply with stiffer environmental regulations set to take full effect in 2021.

Or, city officials could spend just $4.5 million to build so-called "distributed treatment systems" - essentially wetlands and infiltration basins designed to clean water - at three of Torrance's sumps.

Not surprisingly, city officials are opting for the less expensive solution.

In addition to preventing bacteria-laden stormwater from entering the ocean during winter rains, improving the sumps will have the added benefit of creating new open spaces for public recreation and wildlife habitats.

Two other sumps - one near Bishop Montgomery High School and one called Ocean Basin near Sepulveda Boulevard - could also be improved to both help clean stormwater and provide recreational opportunities.

"We're uniquely positioned to take care of a major problem that larger cities are going to be facing," said Mayor Frank Scotto. "We're on the leading edge, and I am pretty excited we have this opportunity."

Torrance is "uniquely positioned" because of its legacy of the sumps that dot the once flood-prone city.

The sumps were constructed as subdivisions went in, but have not always been universally popular with residents.

In the late 1950s, Torrance was derided as the "city of sumps" by residents who opposed their creation of "Frankensteinian" proportions. Others disliked the skunks or other wildlife seen as nuisances the oases harbored.

Over the years some were filled in or sold, but the sumps are now seen as having practical value.
"The city of Torrance is very lucky to have these open spaces - it's not common," said John Dettle, public works engineering manager. "So we need to take full advantage of these open spaces."

The so-called Stormwater Basin Enhancement Program is part of an effort with neighboring cities to clean up urban runoff during winter months. Similar regulations - which the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board recently accused Torrance and 10 other South Bay cities of violating - are already in effect from April 1 to Oct. 31.

The program will be unveiled Tuesday when the City Council holds its regular meeting at 7 p.m. at the West High Library.

Three of the sumps in West Torrance - the Amie, Henrietta and Entradero basins, named for the nearby streets of the same name - flow into the Herondo drain along 190th Street.
Torrance contains 57 percent of the 2,745 acres that flow into the Herondo Drain, officials said.
Therefore, improving the health of those three basins is seen as the city's best opportunity to clean stormwater.

"That drain exceeds what's allowed in (pollutants) and so that's the one we need to address during wet weather," Dettle said.

Screens across drains would be installed to catch trash.

Wetlands would be constructed to naturally clean polluted urban runoff, while recharging groundwater and providing habitat for migratory birds and other wildlife.
Dettle foresees constructing "wildlife viewing platforms" in some areas.
In addition, the Ocean and Bishop Montgomery sumps would together account for another 26 acres of open space accessible to the public.

At the Bishop Montgomery Basin, three soccer fields - perhaps lighted - that the high school could use are proposed, with recycled water being used for irrigation.
Ocean Basin would offer more passive recreation with trails and infiltration basins to clean run-off.

Using sumps for recreation is not new - Entradero Basin boasts ball fields, for instance - and Scotto wants to see the others opened to the public to boost the city's park acreage. The mayor is a former national director with the Hawthorne-based American Youth Soccer Association.
"I'm excited about the possibility of using those sites in a different way," he said, noting the shortage of soccer fields for AYSO teams. "If people resist the lighting part I can understand that. We hope they're OK with using them as (soccer) fields.
"We're in a situation where these assets are really valuable to us."


WANT TO GO?
What: The Torrance City Council will discuss installing treatment systems at its sumps to clean stormwater and expand recreational opportunities.
Where: West High School library, 20401 Victor St.
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday 3/17/2008.
Information: http://www.ci.torrance.ca.us/

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Bay Cleanup or Boondoggle? Sprawl-Ridden L.A. Cleans Up Its Act — or At Least Acts Like It's Cleaning Up

From the Southern Sierran, May 2006

http://angeles.sierraclub.org/news/SS_2006-05/boondoggle.asp

By Rex Frankel

Undoing poor planning and fixing urban environmental problems is going to cost local taxpayers billions of dollars. Or it could pay for itself.

Certainly, the millions of dollars that various parks agencies have spent to purchase and save a ring of open spaces around the L.A. sprawl (and some scattered islands of wetlands and sagebrush) over the past 20 years have been a good investment. It’s good for residents, good for tourism, and good for air quality. It hasn’t even stopped housing construction as, instead, infill projects are taking up the slack. Why, we are even finally seeing the conversion of boarded-up downtown high-rises into high-quality housing.

And after a rocky beginning with the bank-breaking MetroRail subway, we are seeing a switch to more affordable above-ground public rail transit systems that will reach all corners of L.A.’s sprawl, giving commuters a reason to leave their cars at home.

This real-world economic analysis of our idealistic environmental goals is what helps to “sell” them to the general public. And a real-world, cost-benefit look at the latest mega-project that has come out of L.A. City’s planning agencies, the Santa Monica Bay cleanup plan, shows that if we’re not careful, the only “green” thing about this plan (officially titled the Integrated Resources Plan) is the enormous pile of money we could be shelling out for it.

Proponents claim that the first part of the plan will cost around $3 billion, with a monthly cost to each household of $96. A later part of the IRP could add $8 billion to the cost, meaning that the monthly cost could reach almost $400.

Every time it rains, huge amounts of trash, pet droppings, car brake dust, oil, grease, and smog run off the streets and into storm drains, which then pollute the ocean. This has led to unsafe water quality at several beaches for more than 30 days a year. After the federal government and clean water groups sued over violations of the federal Clean Water Act, local governments caved in and agreed to come up with a plan.

The local governments were ordered to cut the amount of pollution going into local waterways and the ocean in 10 years. But they complained about the cost, saying this compliance date would force them to build numerous expensive conventional water treatment plants. L.A. City’s engineers offered a new plan, which would clean up the Bay and also “integrate” how the city uses water resources. They promised a lot of “green” benefits, like maximizing capture and use of runoff.

Open spaces, specifically wetlands and natural streambeds, absorb these urban water pollutants at a fraction of the cost of conventional water treatment plants. And if the City can catch rainfall before it hits the streets, we might not have to continue taking water from the Owens Valley aqueduct.

For this idealistic plan, L.A. City was given 18 years by the State agency that administers the Clean Water Act, the Regional Water Quality Control Board.

But in the recently published detailed plans, largely written under the previous administration of Mayor James Hahn, it appears that this agreement could be unraveling. Instead of “green” goals, much of what this plan does is open the floodgates for more development, more pavement, and more pollution of our beaches.

The major component of the plan creates more drinking water and sewage treatment capacity, fixing one of the biggest impediments to more development of L.A. The plan heavily uses existing parks and schools as rainfall capture sites, but it has no specific plans to create new parks. The parts of the plan that would address new parks is put off to some unknown later date.
The plan mentions up to 21 major water treatment plants throughout the City, but doesn’t consider 21 less expensive treatment wetland parks.

And while this plan has been drafted, the City Council continues approving major development projects on the remaining vacant lands that could be used for treatment wetland parks, for example, 200 acres at the lowlands of Ballona Creek, which drains about a third of the City.
Economically, this plan doesn’t make sense; fortuantely, this is not our only available option. Our beaches could be cleaned up by creating a connected network of water-cleansing parks along the L.A River and Ballona, Compton, and Dominquez Creeks. The billions of dollars that would be spent on 21 huge water treatment plants could instead go toward re-greening the City that has been paved over in the last century, and at a much lower cost.

The economic boom brought by revitalized communities could be the same as in many other urban areas that have chosen to regreen the hearts of their city, (what urban planners call the “riverwalk concept”). Re-greening encourages businesses and neighborhoods to face the river instead of turning away and fencing them off. This plan could pay for itself in increased property values and tax revenues.

The bay could be cleaned up either way. The choice is between treatment plants and high taxes, or more parks and wetlands at a lower cost. The Regional Water Quality Control Board recognized this on April 6, when they rejected the City’s cleanup plans as inadequate and ordered revisions that strongly endorse “natural methods” to clean up runoff. The revised plans will be re-heard by the Water Board in July of 2007.

For more on the comparative costs of plans to cleanup Santa Monica Bay, please visit http://www.saveallofballona.org/

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STATUS OF THE OPEN SPACES AROUND THE BALLONA WETLANDS:

(TEXT IS COURTESY OF DR. TRAVIS LONGCORE, AT THE URBAN WILDLANDS GROUP)

BALDWIN HILLS—(not on above map) APPROXIMATELY 300 ACRES OWNED BY THE STATE PARKS DEPARTMENT, AND 930 ACRES OWNED BY OIL COMPANIES

HABITAT VALUE: The Baldwin Hills represent the largest contiguous open space in the western Los Angeles Basin. Significant swaths of intact coastal sage scrub still exist, and the Baldwin Hills may serve as the eventual source for many wildlife species that would use an enhanced wildlife connection as proposed by the Ballona Creek Parkway, such as coyote. Two projects would contribute significantly to biological connectivity: the "land bridge" proposed over La Cienega Boulevard and another bridge between the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook and Ballona Creek. The Baldwin Hills are also an essential source site for reintroduction of species to the Ballona Valley, such as desert woodrat or deer mouse.

BALLONA CREEK

HABITAT VALUE: Ballona Creek offers the only opportunity for a contiguous link between the coast and the Baldwin Hills. Greening along the channel could focus on connectivity for coyotes, because the presence of this species around the coastal wetlands will be critically important to restoring native bird diversity. Coyotes reduce the activity and abundance of other smaller predators, such as raccoons, skunks, and fox, which threaten native birds. Alterations to the channel to allow native vegetation, where feasible, would provide badly needed riparian habitat that would enhance connectivity and serve resident and foraging birds.

PLAYA VISTA EAST END—200 ACRES

HABITAT VALUE: The eastern portion of the Playa Vista property is the site of historic wetlands, as shown by early 1900s collections of wetland species (Epilobium pygmaeum , Aster subulatus var. parviflorus ) near Mesmer Ave. This low plain would be ideal for the restoration of freshwater wetlands and vernal pools that could both support endangered species such as Riverside fairy shrimp and serve sto rmw ater treatment and infiltration functions. It is also an appropriate location for freshwater wetlands and riparian restoration.

CONFLUENCE OF CENTINELA AND BALLONA CREEKS

HABITAT VALUE: The confluence of these two channels is a peninsula largely inaccessible by foot because of the Marina Freeway. It would make an excellent site for restoration of riparian vegetation that might continue up Centinela Creek between the channel and the freeway. This site is would be an ideal loafing spot for waterbirds, it could be greatly enhanced through restoration of riparian vegetation.

MARINA FREEWAY MEDIAN—20 ACRES

HABITAT VALUE: The property under the freeway extension under construction is contiguous with and should be hydrologically connected with the Ballona Wetlands. Restoration of the remainder of this parcel after freeway construction would provide stormwater treatment and valuable wildlife habitat for noise-tolerant species.

U.S POSTAL SERVICE—SURPLUS 20 ACRE MAIL PROCESSING FACILITY LOCATED AT JEFFERSON AND ALLA ROAD

HABITAT VALUE: The location of this property along Ballona Channel offers opportunities for a treatment wetland and/or habitat restoration. The site has no current ecological value.

RECREATIONAL VALUE: The property presents an opportunity to lessen the burden on the heavily used parks of Westchester, West Los Angeles and Culver City. The creation of playing fields for soccer and other sports would greatly expand recreational opportunities for area youth. The stretch along the creek could be used as passive open space for strolling, picnicking and bird-watching. The site's proximity to bus routes and the Ballona Creek bike path would make it easily accessible to area residents.

BALLONA WETLANDS STATE PRESERVE—600+ ACRES BOUGHT BY THE STATE IN 2003

HABITAT VALUE: The State Coastal Conservancy is currently developing a restoration plan for these parcels, now in State ownership. This plan should include restoration of the rarest of local wetland types, coastal saltmarsh, with significant and restored uplands necessary for pollinators and other ecotonal species. The State endangered Belding's savannah sparrow, which is found only salt marsh habitat, depends on the success of the restoration.

BALLONA WESTBLUFFS—44 ACRES

HABITAT VALUE: The top of the West Bluff site, now slated for development, represents the last best place to restore coastal prairie and vernal pools in the region. It is of sufficient size to help maintain some of the grassland birds that are under severe pressure from loss of habitat, such as loggerhead shrike, white-tailed kite, and western meadowlark. The restoration of vernal pool habitat would be similarly significant for local biodiversity and could be home to rare and endangered species such as Riverside fairy shrimp and spade-footed toad.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS COMPANY STORAGE WELL FIELD—50 ACRES AND ADJACENT PRIVATE LOTS STRETCHING WEST TO PERSHING DRIVE

HABITAT VALUE: The Gas Company properties at the Ballona Wetlands and up the bluff would be an important part of a restored wetland ecosystem. The bluff faces are in need of restoration to replace iceplant, and the bluff top might support some coastal prairie vernal pool habitat if restored. Essential infrastructure should be assessed for how it might be more compatible with surrounding natural habitats, for instance by shielding and reducing intensity of nighttime lighting.

NORTH END OF DEL REY LAGOON PARK—APPROX. 2 ACRES

HABITAT VALUE: Historical maps show Del Rey Lagoon as the historic mouth of the Ballona Creek. Increasing the ecological value of this site will require better connection with Ballona Creek, through Lot C, which is currently threatened with development. This site would have a high value as part of a larger rehabilitation of the Del Rey Lagoon to increase/establish tidal flushing and replace the largely exotic landscaping with native species. This would enhance foraging opportunities for the endangered California Least Tern. Lot C is the ideal location for such an effort, so that restoration occurs at the northern end of the lagoon, leaving existing recreational uses intact at the southern end.

DUNES AT SOUTHWEST END OF DEL REY LAGOON PARK—APPROX. 2 ACRES

HABITAT VALUE: Toes Beach Dune is unique as the last undeveloped coastal dune contiguous with the beach between Ballona Creek and Palos Verdes. It shows typical dune development and vegetation, including beach burr and beach evening primrose. Minimal exotics removal and planting would be needed to transform it into a diverse strand and dune scrub community, with attendant wildlife, including endangered El Segundo blue butterflies.

EL SEGUNDO DUNES—OWNED BY L.A. DEPARTMENT OF AIRPORTS

HABITAT VALUE: At 300 acres, the dunes at LAX represent an internationally significant biodiversity hotspot. Many unique subspecies are found on the dunes, including the El Segundo dunes spineflower, El Segundo blue butterfly, four unique moths, a new species of crab spider, two rare weevil species, and the unique El Segundo dunes Jerusalem cricket. Approximately one hundred acres of the dunes are not included in the existing butterfly reserve and deserve protection. The dunes are also threatened by proliferation of invasive exotic species such as Myoporum that must be better controlled.

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Backers of Playa Vista are Disappointed


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/21/realestate/commercial/21Real.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=business

A Glimpse of a More Vertical Los Angeles
By TERRY PRISTIN
Published: March 21, 2007

LOS ANGELES — Long before “the new urbanism” became a tired phrase, Playa Vista, the last remaining large tract of undeveloped land on this city’s traffic-choked West Side, was envisioned as a place where people could live, work, shop and play without leaving their neighborhood.

Now a community of 4,500 people, Playa Vista is situated between Westchester Bluffs and Marina del Rey, about a mile from the Pacific Ocean. It is dotted with small parks and made up of blocks of four-story buildings, mainly condominiums, in styles that include Spanish, Art Deco and contemporary, and will eventually contain nearly 6,000 units of housing.

With about 32 units to an acre, according to Steve Soboroff, the president of Playa Vista, it is one of the densest residential communities in Southern California and a harbinger, some say, of Los Angeles’s vertical future.

Though Playa Vista encourages its residents to travel around their new neighborhood in electric carts, it has yet to free them from their cars. Commercial development has been confined so far to a smattering of retail storefronts and a glassy complex at the intersection of Jefferson and Lincoln Boulevards that has been leased since 2003 by Electronic Arts, the video game manufacturer.

But a new stage in the community’s evolution is about to arrive. Two major developers are planning large Silicon Valley-style projects that they hope to lease to the type of new-media companies that have been flocking to the West Side.

In February, Tishman Speyer, the company that owns Rockefeller Center, and its financial partner, Walton Street Capital, acquired a 64-acre site near Jefferson and Centinela Avenue, on the eastern edge of Playa Vista, for $200 million. It is the same site where DreamWorks, the movie company, once intended to build a studio that would have been Playa Vista’s showpiece. But those plans were shelved in 1999. A couple of years later, the office market went into decline.

The timing is right for Tishman Speyer to begin developing a 1.1-million-square-foot campus of low-slung buildings, said John R. Miller, a senior managing director.“It’s only recently that this made economic sense,” Mr. Miller said. The complex will surround a nine-acre park with ball fields and tennis courts to be developed by Playa Vista.Symantec, the Internet security technology company, is building a campus on nine acres near Playa Vista in Fox Hills, and Yahoo took 256,000 square feet of space at the former Colorado Center in Santa Monica in 2005.

Though the vacancy rate on the West Side is less than 6 percent, new construction has been hindered by a scarcity of land and strong public resistance to development. Only 65,000 square feet of new space was added to the market in 2006, according to the CoStar Group, a real estate research company in Bethesda, Md.

Playa Vista sits on land once owned by Howard Hughes, the eccentric aviation pioneer and filmmaker. The Tishman site includes 16 structures that were built from 1941 to 1953 for the Hughes Aircraft Corporation, including the hangar where Mr. Hughes created the flying boat known as the Spruce Goose. Because of their role in the development of the aerospace industry in Southern California, most of these buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and must be preserved.

Mr. Miller acknowledged that it would have been easier to start with “a clean slate.” But he said his company was toying with the possibility of modernizing the Spruce Goose hangar, which has been used as a soundstage in recent years for movies, including “Titanic” and “World Trade Center.”

Near Tishman Speyer’s site, another national developer, the Lincoln Property Company of Dallas, has begun driving piles into the ground for the first phase of Horizon at Playa Vista, which will consist of two five-story buildings totaling about a million square feet of office space, also for prospective new-media tenants.Playa Vista has “a lot of things that are un-L.A. in a good way,” said David S. Binswanger, an executive vice president at Lincoln. “We looked at the Playa culture and we looked at the culture of the tenants, and we decided they matched awfully well.”

Another selling point, he said, was the Village at Playa Vista, the new town center that Rick J. Caruso, the developer of the Grove, the popular open-air retail-and-entertainment center near the Farmers Market on Third Street and Fairfax Avenue, plans to build on an 11-acre site near the office complexes.

Mr. Caruso said the new center would have a “beachier” atmosphere than the Grove and would be smaller and more locally focused, with an upscale supermarket, 175 luxury rental apartments and a movie theater. Construction has been delayed by a long-running environmental lawsuit concerning the cleanup of gases emitted at the former industrial site.

In 1978 a previous owner, the Summa Corporation, a company managed by the Hughes heirs, announced plans to develop Playa Vista, prompting one of the most protracted development battles in the history of Los Angeles. Opponents said the project would destroy the fragile Ballona Wetlands to the east of Lincoln Boulevard and would have devastating consequences involving traffic and air pollution.In the intervening years, the project has been vastly reduced in scale from the huge commercial development that Summa intended to build, and more than 600 acres of land have been preserved as open space.

In 1989, a new owner, Maguire Thomas, brought in a group of architects from the fledgling New Urbanist movement, including Andrés Duany and Stefanos Polyzoides, to design a mixed-use village inspired by pedestrian-friendly places like Santa Barbara. “Playa Vista was the beginning, of the recognition that planning standards from the post-World War II era were wrong and counterproductive,” said Nelson C. Rising, who managed the project for Maguire Thomas.

But litigation tied up the project for years, and Maguire Thomas lost control of it in 1997. The current owners, Playa Capital, a group led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, hired a management team from Orange County with a more suburban orientation than Mr. Rising, said Ruth Galanter, a former City Council member who was elected because of her opposition to Summa’s plans for Playa Vista. Land was sold to 15 separate builders and the design standards were sacrificed, she said.

Many design and planning specialists fault Playa Vista for its narrow sidewalks, the uniform height of its buildings and architecture they regard as uninspired. “It’s such a comedown from what Maguire Thomas initially proposed,” said Richard S. Weinstein, a professor of architecture and urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It’s one of the biggest pieces of undeveloped land of any city in the U.S., and you build exactly what you would produce on any corner lot.”But Mr. Soboroff, a former president of the City Parks Commission, who joined Playa Vista in 2001 after the project was under way, dismissed such complaints as the grumbling of purists. “This is not a purebred, this is a Prius,” he said. “If we were doing pure, we’d still be an airport.”And Ms. Galanter, who was instrumental in forging a plan to save much of the wetlands from development, said there was still much to admire in Playa Vista, including a new fresh-water marsh, a first-rate water management system and housing discounts for police officers, firefighters, nurses and teachers.“Playa Vista fell short of what it could have been,” Ms. Galanter said. But, she said, it was “a lot better than any other development of the same size that I know of, certainly in Southern California

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LAX Northside's 350 acres could be added to preserved Ballona open spaces....(November 21, 2006)

L.A.'s department of airports will post "preliminary concepts" for reuse of hundreds of acres of vacant land north and east of LAX ontheir website by November 28th. They will then hold public "outreach meetings" on December 6 and 9 to hear from us.The properties are known as LAX Northside and Manchester Square.The LAX Northside land is 350 acres spanning from Sepulveda Blvd. allthe way to Pershing Drive, around 2 1/2 miles long by 1/4 mile wide,that formerly contained 3500 homes that were removed due to airport noise during the 1970's. In the 1980s, a 4.5 million square foot commercial office and hotel project was approved by the City Council, although no developer chose to lease land from LAX to build anything. The extremely high commercial vacancy rate near the airport, which remains to this day, makes more commercial development there unlikely. Except for the construction of the six-lane Westchester Parkway down the middle of the land and a newly built fire station, the Northside land is almost completely vacant.Manchester Square is a 1/2 mile by 1/2 mile neighborhood of houses and apartment buildings which the airport department began purchasing inthe late 1990's. Most of the houses are gone, but the apartments which form the outer ring of the area remain. The land was acquired with varying purposes, first, to eliminate homes in the high-noise zone and to be replaced with airport-related. Later public parkland was the stated goal. However, neither of these has happened.Due to its location between sensitive natural areas such as the ElSegundo Dunes and the Ballona Wetlands, there is a lot of potential for open space restoration at the Northside site. Should the Northside property be reused as recreational fields, as native plant and wildlife habitat restoration, and as a treatment wetland for polluted stormwater in the LAX and Westchester areas? These are all possibilities which are needed by our communities, and in the case of stormwater treatment, required by the federal Clean Water Act. Being that expansion of the airport has not been an acceptable nor viable plan, now is the opportunity to plan for public needs on theseproperties.To read the concept plans posted by November 28th, go tohttp://www.laxmasterplan.org/publicMeetings.cfm?more info is available at 1-800-919-3766The meetings will be: Wed. December 6, 6 pm to 9 pm and Saturday December 9, 9 am to 12 noon both at the LAX Flight Path Learning Center 6661 w. Imperial Highway

August 18, 2006

More Housing Boom at Playa Vista

Yet another Channel 4 story on Playa Vista's explosive gas leakage problems aired Wednesday, August 16th...http://www.nbc4.tv/video/9691938/detail.htmlThe video shows a public hearing staged by the City of L.A. coverup department, ooops, Chief Legislative Analyst and Bureau of Engineering, to hear from the public about Playa Vista's toxic problems. In Tuesday night's, (August 15th) hearing held at Venice High School: When asked about apparently overlooked problem areas at Playa Vista, the City officer running the hearing, Jerry Miller, responded that "he doesn't know if the study covers all the problem areas." This is a good example of why last October the California Appellate Court ordered that a review of the methane mitigation systems at Playa Vista comply with the California Environmental Quality Act.NEWS FLASH: The City's website shows no timely response by the City to recent contempt charges filed by Grassroots Coalition and Dan Cohen:(1) The City failed to include the exact language of a court order to "proceed according to the California Environmental Quality Act"(2) The City has given approval to methane mitigation permits after the Appellate Court ordered the vacating of the methane mitigation measures. Thus it would appear that the City is not contesting our contempt charge! The tv report is the latest episode in a series of investigative reports about the potential health and safety hazards from toxic and explosive oil field gases at Playa Vista and to the surrounding areas as well - hazards exposed by Grassroots Coalition.More details: http://grassrootscoalition.org/

PLAYA VISTA: development a bad investment for all involved

For details about the huge taxdollar giveaways and corporate welfare received by Playa Vista, read this report: http://radio.weblogs.com/0138798/stories/2007/09/27/isThePublicPayingForPlayaVistasAffordableHousing.html

and to learn more about Playa Vista's pleading poverty to the tax collector while claiming huge land values to the State parks department, read this report: http://radio.weblogs.com/0138798/stories/2007/09/27/isPlayaVistaGettingASweetheartDealInWetlandsSaleToState.html

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Want to read more about how Playa Vista's "smart growth" promises didn't pan out?Read How Playa Vista's Promises Disappeared into the Swamp http://radio.weblogs.com/0138798/stories/2004/07/16/ballonaBaloney.html

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Playa Vista has also been a crummy deal for their investors. Read the words of the head of their company from this L.A. Business Journal article..."Playa Vista President Steve Soboroff expects the return to be modest on what's estimated to be a $1.2 billion investment by the time construction wraps, probably no sooner than 2010."Would these guys get together in a room and do it again? They would say 'No,'" said Soboroff. "Will they get any sort of return on their money? De minimis, but that's because everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong."http://radio.weblogs.com/0138798/stories/2004/07/02/playaVistaPresidentRevealsFinancialTroubles.html


http://la.curbed.com/archives/2006/07/development_new_3.php
This comes from a website run by several real estate agents...it's mostly propaganda...but there is some interesting stuff on how the other side thinks:"Playa Vista: A friend had the chance to speak with some folks from Playa Vista who recounted the struggles to get stuff built at the site. She reported back to us on the state of development affairs that is squashing the development potential of many sites throughout the city. Our friend emails back the highlights of the conversation: "CEQA is now being abused by extremists to stop things from being built and it's too easy to hijack the process. The State tried streamlining CEQA but there were too many conditions. If there was no CEQA, [Playa Vista] would physically look the same, but there would be 8,000 dwelling units for $350k each instead of 2,000 dwelling units for $800k each as there is now. It costs too much time and money to make an EIR bullet proof."Our response is:"If there was no CEQA, [Playa Vista] would physically look the same, but there would be 8,000 dwelling units for $350k each instead of 2,000 dwelling units for $800k each as there is now."BALONEY!As a litigant over development by Playa Vista, I can report that CEQA is mostly a toothless law that has little effect on housing prices. Rarely does CEQA ever stop a development.The reason that Playa Vista has approvals for 5800 homes, instead of 13,000 as was in their most recent plans, is because the TAXPAYERS paid $140 million for around 193 acres of the Ballona Wetlands. Playa Vista sold off their development rights in 2003 at top-dollar as appraised by the State. This 193 acres is land that Playa Vista swore to the County Tax Assessor merely 5 years before the sale was worth under $20 million, based on what they had paid for it.After receiving this huge profit from the taxpayers, yes Playa Vista COULD have sold their condos for $350K. But they didn't, because their business model has been to bribe politicians with campaign cash, spend millions on the biggest law firm in town to crush opponents, and fill the local press with propaganda about how much they care about the environment. They spend more money on advertising congratulating themselves for their charitable gifts, for example, then the amount of charitable gifts they make. They're in the business to make the maximum cash possible, then split town and move on to the next project.They could care little about providing affordable housing. In fact, one telling example is their latest billboards, with a "buyer" saying why buy a fixer-upper when you can buy a new condo at Playa Vista. Well, the answer is that existing homes with back yards are available near PV at the same prices. But the big difference is the HUGE property taxes and homeowner's association fees at Playa Vista. Because Playa Vista's developers didn't want to pay for their roads and parks and street lights, they saddle their condo-buyers with property tax rates that are double those of nearby residents. It's called MELLO-ROOS and what it means is that a buyer of a $700,000 home at Playa Vista pays $14,000 a year in property taxes, while nearby "fixer-up" homebuyers pay only $7000 a year. The difference is because Playa Vista could care less about their customers. They have the morals of oil company executives.

"BOOMING" HOUSING MARKET AT PLAYA VISTA
Playa Vista's toxics problems are heating up again...
Friday, July 14, 2006 - 6:00 pm
A group of activists asked a Los Angeles judge Friday to hold the city in contempt of court for failing to ensure the safety of methane-gas-mitigation measures at the enormous Playa Vista project
http://www.laweekly.com/index.php?option=com_lawcontent&task=view&id=14013&Itemid=122

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Bad Gas : Is city playing fast and loose with potential Playa disaster?
By JEFFREY ANDERSON
Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 6:00 pm
http://www.laweekly.com/index.php?option=com_lawcontent&task=view&id=14058&Itemid=122

----------------------------------Playa Vista management fires back at "professional opponents" of their project.http://argonautnewspaper.com/articles/2006/07/27/news_-_features/top_stories/3pv.txt


------------------------------------Channel 4 Slams Playa Vista on nightly news, 7/27/06
Includes video and transcript of story featuring interviews with Bill Rosendahl, Antonio Villaraigosa and two City insiders whose identities are being shielded to protect their jobs.
http://www.nbc4.tv/news/9588930/detail.html

Playa Vista: Wetlands Development is a Financial Quagmire... for the developer

July 13, 2006

The head of Playa Vista, Steve Soborrof says his project has lost $600 million for its investors...see the last paragraph

http://www.smmirror.com/MainPages/DisplayArchiveArticle.asp?eid=3522

"Panel moderator David Abel put the key question: Can Playa Vista serve as a model for other developments? Can it be replicated? Soboroff said that the project had produced $600 million in losses to three companies and taken 20 years, all because people thought of it as a real estate project instead of a public policy project. “Take 15 years off of that, and yes, it can,” he said. “Real estate people are funny,” he added – they think neighbors are a nuisance, environmentalists are crazy, politicians are on the take, the press is biased, and so I’ll just duke it out. “They’ve got it upside down,” he concluded. "

The Three Options for Cleaning up the Bay--click here

SITE INDEX/MAP:


CLICK BELOW FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Ballona News page

Calendar of Ballona Restoration Events and Meetings: http://www.my.calendars.net/ballona


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BALLONA PARCELS STILL THREATENED BY DEVELOPMENT:

STATUS OF THE OPEN SPACES THAT CONNECT TO BALLONA



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LAWSUITS:
September 2007--Playa Vista loses huge lawsuit

Summary of our phase 2 lawsuit

8/2005 Phase 2 Brief

10/2006 Phase 2 lawsuit Opening brief to Appeals Court
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SPECIAL REPORTS:

Legal Problems with Playa Vista Freshwater/pollution treating marsh

PV Taxpayer subsidies

the Sale of Wetlands to the State
---------------------------------

FINANCIAL PROBLEMS, BROKEN PROMISES, TOXICS AND EXPLOSIVE GAS, ETC:

3-2007 Backers of PV are disappointed

8/2006: channel 4 Exposes Gas cover-up by City

Refuting PV propaganda, and Why Buyers at PV are making a bad investment (just ask the Prez. Of PV himself!)

July 2006--PV Toxics problems heating up again

7/2006--Soboroff says PV has been a huge financial turkey, costing developers $600 million

-----------------------------------------

Ballona History contents page

25 Year Chronology of the Ballona Battle

4/1988 Republicans and Democrat Elected Officials Grease the Way for PV

5/1989 L.A. and Culver City Compete for Gridlock

8/1990 L.A. and Culver City Still Fighting for Right to Have Most Gridlocked Streets

11/95 L.A. Weekly publishes their First Expose of PV Controversy, Subdividing Paradise

5/1997 PV Meets their Match, their Bankers. Begins Campaign to Brand Opponents as Liars:

3/1998 Summary of the Ballona Battle

4/1999 PV Trade Secrets Fall into the Wrong, er, Right Hands

6/1999 PV Greenwashing Exposed

6/1999 DreamWorks runs into Toxics Troubles at Proposed PV Studio:

9/1999 DreamWorks Hits the Road; Ruth Galanter Now Wants to Save All Land West of Lincoln; Landowner Could Probably Never Build There Anyway thanks to Bolsa Chica case decision by California Appeals Court; Explosive Methane Leaks East of Lincoln Blvd. Put Entire Project at Risk; Santa Monica Baykeeper says PV not their friends:

8/2000 PV struggles to Justify City Bond Issue for Roads; the Fake Housing Shortage; the Full story on PV's Explosive Gas Problem:

1/2003 Coastal Commission rejects Lincoln Blvd. Widening; and more in BEEP newsletter

5/2003- PV Opens their Pollution Treating Marsh that they Located on top of Existing Wetlands

9/2004 Community Raises Hell Over Last Phase of Playa Vista

9/2006 Ballona Greenway Newsletter, page 1 Page 1 Page 2 Page 3

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SANTA MONICA BAY CLEANUP/RIVER RESTORATION:

Main Ballona Restoration Page:

5/2006---L.A. City Plans for Cleaning Our Beaches Could be Thwarted by Developers:

7/2006--a detailed summary of L.A. City's runoff cleanup plans, how it is being done elsewhere, and a long weblinked bibliography

8/2006 L.A. County Study Finds that River Restoration is the Best and Cheapest Way to Clean Our Beaches: L.A. City plans hearings on their plan for water pollution

9/2006---What Creek Restoration in San Luis Obispo Looks Like: Restored Creeks Revitalize Our Cities

9/2006: How L.A. City Beach Clean-up Bond is Being Mis-Spent: Politics vs promises in quest for cleaner Bay

-9/2006 CLEAN BEACHES LAWS STRENGTHENED

11/2006----STREAM/RIVER RESTORATION/CONCRETE REMOVAL GETS FRONT PAGE STATUS AT L.A. WEEKLY!

-1/2007 Are L.A. officials mis-spending Bay Cleanup Funds?

3/2007----The Two Competing Plans for Cleaning Up Santa Monica Bay

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NATIVE PLANTS AND WETLANDS:

State Highway Department Threatens Wetlands in Middle of Marina Freeway

-Ballona Native Plants Main-Page and Summary Brochure

-NOVEMBER 2006 STATE FISH AND GAME DEPARTMENT WETLANDS SURVEY SHOWS WE WERE RIGHT IN 2003 THE BALLONA WETLAND IS RESTORING ITSELF NATURALLY!!

-COMPLETE LIST OF NATIVE PLANTS
-Native Plants of the Ballona Wetlands/Playa Vista Parcels A, B, C, and D
-Unique Ballona Wetlands Plants
-Plants of the Westchester Bluffs
-Plants of the Ballona Westbluffs
-Plants of Playa del Rey Beach area
-Plants of the Marina Freeway Median
-Plants of the Baldwin Hills
-Text of Full Baldwin Hills Plants study
-Map of Baldwin Hills Land Ownership
-Plants of the El Segundo Dunes
-El Segundo Dunes Plants Poster

PHOTO: Ballona Underwater after Storms of 1941

A Collection of Historical Ballona Stories...

_____________________________________________________________

Our long struggle is finally paying off. The following is a chronology of the grassroots efforts to Save All of Ballona. In bold print we have included totals of Playa Vista and Howard Hughes' campaign contributions, and have tried to document every sweetheart deal they got in exchange for their gifts to politicians.

For the full story, click here: Historical summary of Ballona battles 1975-2003

_________________________________________________________________

April 1988--Demopublican Developmentality
DEVELOPMENT AND THE DEMOPUBLICANS
Howard Hughes came to Southern California in 1940, and bought about 1000 acres of farmland and blufftops south of Venice for his new aircraft plant, paying less than $500,000 for all of it. By the time of his death in 1976, Hughes Aircraft had become the largest employer in the State, with defense plants throughout Southern California. Producing missile guidance systems, helicopters, radar and satellites, Hughes lead the U.S. to great advances in technology, all mostly paid for with Federal tax dollars. While their products led to economic prosperity here, they produced an equal amount of suffering among innocent victims of foreign wars whose combatants Hughes supplied.
Hughes left an estate worth billions.
To read more, click here:
Demopublican Developmentality
___________________________________________________________

May 1989--L.A. and Culver City at War over each other's developments
Showdown at the Straits of Prudential
Members of the Venice Town Council voted 68-2 last April 13th to continue a lawsuit the group has filed against the developers of the Marina Place shopping mall, turning down a $9 million package of relief measures. The site is an 18 acre parcel which once was a Hughes Helicopter plant, located on Washington Blvd. just east of Lincoln Blvd… One of the reasons the Culver City Council Oked the Marina Place last year was because "L.A. is building big projects just outside of our City limits, we get all the traffic and L.A. makes all the money". The Culver Planning Commission said "the impact of traffic from Marina Place would be insignificant when measured against the traffic generated by major developments OK'd by L.A. near the project site."
To read more, click here:
L.A. and Culver City at War (against the public)
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August 1989--Lincoln Blvd. Traffic War
LINCOLN BLVD.:
Battleground of the Giants
Can We Take It All?
Can you imagine 540,000 more cars a day in the Westchester to Venice area? That’s what we face if 5 huge developments are built along Lincoln Blvd. as the owners are threatening to do. Two projects, Playa Vista and the LAX expansion will contribute 310,000 cars alone.
According to traffic studies performed by both L.A. and Culver Cities, rush-hour traffic will triple on Lincoln Blvd from what it is now, which is already abominable.
Fresh from ok’ing the Marina Place Mall in March of this year, the Culver City Council has just announced their opposition to L.A.’s Playa Vista, with Mayor Steven Gourley calling it “potentially disastrous”. Culver officials are also threatening a lawsuit over the L.A. City Council’s July 10th ok of the Channel Gateway project, partially in retaliation for a suit filed by the Venice Town Council and L.A. City against Culver City for their approving Marina Place.
Now that both projects are approved, how do the 2 cities plan to deal with the traffic? Well, local businesses lose again to let the giants build…
To read more, click here:
Lincoln Blvd. Traffic Capacity War
________________________________________________________________________
NOVEMBER 24, 1995

The first major news article covering the Ballona battle from our perspective:

SUBDIVIDING PARADISE
L.A. WEEKLY,
BY J. WILLIAM GIBSON

_________________________________________________________________
May 1997: The truth is ugly enough, but Friends of Playa Vista launch campaign to accuse their opponents of lying
click here: Desperate Developer Deception_______________________________________________________________
April 1998--Ballona Baloney
By Rex Frankel
It's Friday afternoon. The rush hour traffic is whizzing by 10 people who are holding signs at a street corner covered with wildflowers south of Marina Del Rey. This curious, devoted group, who call themselves "BEEP!", has shown up every Friday at 5:00 P.M. for the last two years to protest the proposed real estate development, called Playa Vista, which will wipe out these wildflowers, replacing them and much of the marshy Ballona Valley nearby with a square mile of concrete, condominiums, and congested traffic. Vying for the right to pave over this rare L.A. open space are two of wall street's biggest financial powerhouses, Morgan-Stanley and Goldman Sachs, and the producer of many of Hollywood's recent blockbuster movies, Steven Spielberg -- and his multi-billionaire computer-monopolist partner, Bill Gates.
To read more, click here:
Ballona Baloney: the full story
_____________________________________________________________

April 1999
The Playa Vista Papers
STUNNING WHISTLEBLOWER REVELATIONS SHOW PLAYA VISTA/BALLONA WETLANDS DEVELOPER'S SECRET POLITICAL STRATEGY TO HELP RE-ELECT RUTH GALANTER AND BILK THE TAXPAYERS
…What isn't well known, until today, is actually what the current owners of the land paid for it. According to a shocking, revealing, and extremely cynical 188-page internal memo written by Playa Vista’s owners and given to the citizens who oppose this development by an active whistleblowers network inside the development company, the firm Playa Capital LLC only paid $101 million to acquire this fragile urban open space. Galanter, who claims to be a "strong environmentalist", wants the government to help develop 2/3rds of this land with incentives of well over twice what the entire parcel is worth. Galanter is amply rewarding the developer for their huge campaign contributions.
But the Playa Vista developer's assistance to her campaign goes much farther than that. …
To read more, click here:Insider whistleblowers release Playa Vista internal memos
__________________________________________________________

June 1999: Playa Vista hosts "Smart Growth" convention"
DreamWorks can't exemption from responsibility for Toxic Waste at their future studio left by previous tenants
___________________________________________________________

DREAMWORKS BAILS OUT
September 1999
On July 1st, the super billionaires at DreamWorks said "Hasta la Playa Vista". They're out of here! Blaming the high cost of construction and lack of financing, they won't help in the destruction of the Ballona Wetlands…
On August 2nd, Councilwoman Ruth Galanter announced that she has now realized that there are more wetlands needing to be preserved than she has claimed for the past ten years. While she continues to support the first phase of the project, which is east of Lincoln Blvd, she now says that the proposed second phase, everything west of Lincoln Blvd., should be acquired by the government and preserved…
Last month, the Vice President of Playa Vista, David Herbst, admitted that the project "has a methane problem" before the City Council's housing committee…
To read more, click here:
DreamWorks Bails Out
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August 2000--Playa Vista developer's finances in deep trouble;
the full story of the discovery of explosive gases under Playa Vista's condos
click here: Self-Heating Condos
____________________________________________________________

EARLY 2003
PLAYA VISTA OPENS THEIR POLLUTION-TREATING "MARSH"
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/16006/
____________________________________________________________

January 2003
Lincoln Blvd. Widening through future State Park halted; BEEP's alternative gets good review by Coastal Commission; and more in BEEP's Save Our Ballona Park newsletter
_____________________________________________________________

September 2004
If, 200 years from now, your remains were moved to make way for high-end apartments and condos, you'd at least hope your surviving relatives would be bummed. And so it is for some Native Americans, who fear that a more than 200-year-old Gabrielino-Tongva burial site just east of the Ballona Wetlands will soon be paved over with 2+2s and modern living, now that the Los Angeles City Council has given its approval to Phase 2 of the controversial Playa Vista development south of Marina del Rey. Can you say Poltergeist?
To read more, click here:
Community Fights Last Phase of Playa Vista

November 1995,

SUBDIVIDING PARADISE

(The first major news article covering the Ballona battle from our perspective):

L.A. WEEKLY
NOVEMBER 24, 1995
BY J. WILLIAM GIBSON

When you're driving south down Lincoln Boulevard toward LAX, and hit that open stretch between Marina del Rey and the Westchester Bluffs, you don't exactly feel that you're looking at a saltwater marsh. There is no water visible from the road. You have to get out of your car and climb over the fence to see the channels,the mud flats and marsh plants. In the winter, rain collects in the low areas, attracting cranes and ducks as they fly south. Even in the summer, when there is much less water, the marsh is home to a number of bird species as well as to rabbits, foxes and other animals.

The tract, called Playa Vista, is considered "degraded" wetlands; wetlands are defined as areas regularly flushed with water from tides or a river, and Playa Vista no longer is. Construction of the Ballona Creek channel, the Marina, and the houses in Playa del Rey cut the area off from access to Santa Monica Bay. But in a state that has destroyed 91 percent of its wetlands, Playa Vista just happens to contain the last large piece of coastal marsh left in Los Angeles County. The 1,087-acre parcel is also the last open space in West Los Angeles, the only space remaining where you can feel,for a minute, that you're out of the city.

For at least the past five years, Playa Vista also has been the proposed site of a truly massive, multibillion-dollar mixed-use development of stores, office buildings, hotels, homes, apartments and condos. What developer Maguire Thomas Partners now calls the Entertainment-Media-Technology District - the likely new home of Dreamworks SKG's new studio complex- is but the initial segment of that development (the first component of "Phase I," as it's called). If the full Playa Vista development is constructed according to the developer's current plan, some 29,000 people will live there. and another 20,000 office workers will arrive each day. Thousands more will come to shop. According to an environmental-impact report done for the proposal, these people will generate an estimated192,000 new car trips each day, adding 20,000 pounds of pollutants into the air. As a source of traffic, it will be about the same as building another LAX. Lincoln Boulevard will be stretched to 10 lanes in places, and on-street parking will be banned, not just on Lincoln, but on Jefferson Boulevard and Centinela Avenue too.

Over the years, the plans for Playa Vista have generated tremendous controversy involving multiple developers, government agencies and environmental groups deeply split about the best approach to preserving what's left of the Ballona Wetlands. The area takes its name from Ballona Creek, which was once a natural waterway meandering through the Los Angeles basin. Until 1884it was called the Los Angeles River, but that year, in an effort to reduce flooding along its banks, a new channel was cut that took the L.A. River to San Pedro, leaving the old riverbed with the name Ballona Creek. In&he late 1930s, the Army Corps of Engineers built a concrete channel for the creek, and the region became somewhat easier to drain, reducing the wetlands from what in 1868 had been delineated as 2,100 acres.The area took another hit in the early 1960s, when the county of Los Angeles built Marina del Rey and took a large chunk of the Ballona Wetlands. By the late1970s, Howard Hughes' Summa Corp. was gearing up to build a huge development next to the new fast-lane singles city of Marina del Rey. Summa wanted to cover virtually all its land with commercial and residential developments and a golf course. Under the plan, almost no wetlands would have been preserved.

But because of the newly created California Coastal Commission and a rising tide of ecological activism, the Summa Corp. could no longer unilaterally do what it wanted. Among the opponents to Summa's plan was a Playa del Rey resident named Ruth Lansford. Lansford had lived on the beach since 1959, and she and her family loved it there. She had grown up near Long Island wetlands that had been lost to a marina and a housing development, so to her, Playa del Rey was like reclaiming her childhood home. "My son used to go out in the wetlands all the time," says Lansford. "He'd bring back snakes and toads. I'd go out there with him."

Does the huge Playa Vista development represent a step forward in cooperation between environmentalists and builders, or is it just another blow to the state's dwindling wetlands?
When Summa made its big push for development in 1978, Lansford and six others formed Friends of Ballona Wetlands in an attempt to restrict the development and preserve as much of the wetlands as possible.

It was the beginning of a bitter struggle for Coastal Commission approval. To buttress its arguments, Summa brought in scientists from the-East Coast who, Lansford says, knew little about California wetlands. "[The area] doesn't look like an Eastern wet-land," she says. "In summer it's dry. That was a problem for us. A lot of the tests to determine if the area was really wetlands were performed at the wrong time of year." Summa won the first two rounds of the fight, getting a favorable ruling from the California Coastal Commission and then persuading the city of Los Angeles to annex Playa Vista land and rezone it from agricultural to high density mixed use. The Friends of Ballona Wetlands subsequently sued the Coastal Commission in California Superior Court, stopping Summa cold for five years.

In 1989, Hughes' heirs tried a radically different approach. Maguire Thomas Partners (MTP) was brought in to play "good cop," to create a new design for the property and negotiate a settlement with the Friends of Ballona Wetlands. (Summa didn't sell its land to MTP, but rather became a "silent" partner.)

Maguire Thomas quickly appointed ~ Nelson Rising- a charismatic man long active in higher circles of the Democratic Party - to head the Playa Vista development project. Rising and his associates at MTP took the Friends of Ballona Wetlands seriously, negotiating to come up with a project the group could accept.

In the fall of 1990, the Friends of Ballona Wetlands and MTP signed a settlement agreement to resolve the lawsuit. From the Friends' perspective, the deal's salient feature was a pledge to donate $10 million (later raised to $12.5 million) and approximately 226 acres of what used to be saltwater marsh to a trust, which would over-see restoration and maintenance of the wetlands. The salt water to flood these wetlands would not come directly from Santa Monica Bay - that was thought to be too expensive - but instead from a culvert dug to Ballona Creek, which contains salt water near its mouth at high tide. The plan also called for the creation of 59 acres of freshwater marsh connected to a restored creek bed.

In return for these concessions, Maguire Thomas extracted a price. The saltwater marsh, the freshwater marsh and the creek bed would cover 285 of PlayaVista's 1,087 acres - slightly more than one quarter of the company's total land. The Friends agreed that MTP could develop its remaining 802 acres as it saw fit. Moreover, the group relinquished its right to further protest the development save for continued negotiations on details of the marsh-restoration project. Finally, MTP made the restoration of both the salt- and the freshwater marshes contingent upon all local, state and federal regulatory agencies granting approval for the Revised Playa Vista Master Plan.

It's a well-known phenomenon that hostages often begin to identify with their captors. And the same phenomenon started to occur in West Los Angeles in the1990s. To Ruth Lansford, MTP was not just the lesser of two evils when compared to Summa Corp., but a morally superior force genuinely concerned about ecology. Everywhere she looked, it was others who stood in the way of restoring Ballona Wetlands - either the various government agencies that had to approve the environmental impact report or, later on, ecological organizations that did not approve of the settlement agreement.

In 1994, MTP demanded more. Friends of Ballona Wetlands were asked to sign a supplement to their 1990 settlement agreement. Under the new terms, MTP can require the Friends to appear before a public agency and disavow any statement (made by a group that has at least one current or former member of the Friends) that "criticizes the Wetlands Restoration Plan or states that the Revised Playa Vista Plan will have an adverse impact on the restoration of the Ballona Wetlands." After the Friends denounce the criticism, the supplement requires the group to say that its position is unequivocally to the contrary.

As the settlement agreement was being signed in1990, work was progressing on the massive Playa Vista Revised Master Plan Environmental Impact Report, a document that eventually totaled several thousand pages. The EIR presents an extraordinary vision of an urban village that is the antithesis of Los Angeles. Tired of driving everywhere? Not in Playa Vista. There'll be neighborhood stores every few blocks. And if you want to go to the community center or mall, there will be mass transit with environmentally sensitive vehicles.

Tired of the separation of work from home? Not in Playa Vista. There'll be a job-placement center to help residents find employment on site. Tired of class segregation? Not in Playa Vista. Besides upscale houses and condos, there will be two levels of low-cost housing for the working class. Worried about where your excrement goes? Playa Vista will have a wastewater reclamation facility and an organic-recycling facility. Don't worry about that telltale El Segundo smell, either -there's a mitigation plan for hydrogen sulfide gas.

Playa Vista sounded so wonderful that when MTP, as part of its public-relations program, conducted out-reach meetings with various community groups in the early 1990s, support for Playa Vista grew. Heal the Bay, while not formally supporting the Playa Vista project, was impressed when Maguire Thomas responded to its suggestion to install oil/water separators (of unspecified design) in the storm drains. After that, Heal the Bay representatives met regularly to work on the marsh-restoration plan outlined in the settlement agreement.

It was as if MTP was now a leading force of social responsibility. Doug Gardner, the current head of Playa Vista development, recently explained the project in terms of fulfilling the vision set forth by the Sierra Club in its Beyond Suburbia manifesto, a call for what is known as "urban-infill." Gardner explains: "Most of the open land that exists in this region is in the outlying areas, but the jobs are in the Los Angeles basin. We need to develop more efficient non-suburban patterns to help counterattack the trend evident since the end of World War I1 - the suburbanization of open land at increasing distance from our jobs."

But not all environmental groups agree. The Sierra Club itself disputes Gardner's interpretation of its thinking. Its "Sierra Club Policy - Urban Environment" document explicitly says that within urban areas, "parks, parklike lands, agricultural lands, and sensitive and hazardous areas" should be excluded from infill developments. Wetlands, says the Sierra Club, should be acquired by public and nonprofit agencies and landtrusts. Moreover, the Los Angeles chapter of the Sierra Club has consistently opposed any development on the Playa Vista site west of Lincoln Boulevard since 1988.

In fact, everywhere you look, there are flaws in the MTP package. Several proposed mitigations, actions promised by the company to compensate for environmental damage, vanished when the city of Los Angeles accepted the plan for Phase I of Playa Vista in September 1993. For instance, the letter of acceptance waived requirements that MTP build separate Playa Vista facilities for reclaiming wastewater, treating sewage and recycling solid waste. Two years later, in the summer of1995, it became clear that most of the other mitigations listed in the EIR weren't exactly what they appeared to be, either. The environmentally sensitive mass-transit system; *the on-site job-referral service; the parks, open land and bike paths; the riparian corridor and freshwater marsh; and especially the saltwater marsh - the millions for the Ballona Wetlands restoration - all appear in the EIR as compensation for the damages Playa Vista will inflict, and the implication is that the developer will pay for them.

Instead, in 1994 Maguire Thomas Partners, in coordination with the city of Los Angeles, decided that virtually all of the projects that had been discussed as mitigations were actually community facilities described as"extraordinary public benefits beyond Playa Vista.This designation will allow MTP to avoid paying forost of the mitigation. A special Mello-Roos "Community Facilities" tax district was voted into existence August 7,1995, by two voters - the city of Los Angeles and MTP - and authorized to issue up to $410 million in tax-exempt bonds to be paid for by special property taxes ( up to double the normal 1 percent of purchase price per year) on whoever buys into Playa Vista for the next 50 years or so. True, it's not MTP's money that's up-front," says MTP's Gardner, but "it's not free money in that it influences the cost of units. It changes your marketing plan."

Despite MTP's highly skilled public relations, extensive political lobbying and the tacit threat of Summa Corp. bulldozers, not everyone has gone along with the Revised Playa Vista Master Plan. In1993, local activists who opposed the settlement agreement founded Save Ballona Wetlands. "This mitigation game is a scam," says Kathy Knight, one of the group's founders. "It sounds like they're going to take care of negative environmental impact, but you're really creating the ability for the developer to destroy the environment."

Members of Save Ballona Wetlands are outraged by the effects the Playa Vista development would have on L.A. Public financing makes the insult even worse. "The normal practice is for developers to give land to the public and form assessment districts for maintenance,"says Rex Frankel, the group's president."We the public shouldn't have to purchase that which is mitigation for a developer’s profit."

But as the name of the group suggests,S ave Ballona Wetlands also thinks that there are fundamental flaws with the restoration plan negotiated by the Friends and Maguire Thomas. According to Save Ballona Wetlands' calculations, 517 acres of Playa Vista are either potential saltwater wetlands or presently existing freshwater wetlands called "vernal pools." The group vehemently objects to the idea of retaining only 226 out of 1,087 acres as a saltwater marsh, with another 59 acres for urban storm-water runoff. Nor should the non-wetlands open space or "uplands habitat" be sacrificed, the group insists. In Frankel's words, "The developer is trying to get people to sacrifice uplands to save part of the wetlands. They're pitting habitats against each other."

There are also grave doubts about whether a functioning marine ecosystem could be established with the226 acre plan currently being prepared. Rimmon C. Fay, Ph.D., is a 65-year-old marine biologist who grew up in Venice and has spent his professional life as marine-specimen collector in Southern California waters, principally Santa Monica Bay. Fay contributed to the 1975 California Coastal Plan, and served for several years on the California Coastal Commission. After having been removed from the Coastal Commission because of his strong opposition to coastal development, Fay joined Ruth Lansford's group, the Friends of Ballona Wetlands. But as the group's restoration plan took shape, Fay quit.

The problem, he says, has to do with the design of the marshes. The freshwater marsh would be the drainage basin for all the storm drains of Playa Vista.This urban runoff would be filtered a bit with various marsh plants. But in an average year of participation, runoff from the freshwater marsh would spill over at least once into the saltwater marsh, and in a rainy season like the one Los Angeles had in the winter of 1995, there would be continual storm-water runoff into the saltwater marsh. Moreover, in the current design, the saltwater marsh is supposed to get its salt water from Ballona Creek. The problem isn't just that Ballona Creek is quite often highly polluted. When it rains in the Los Angeles basin, storm water runs through Ballona Creek with enough force to push the ocean tides back. That polluted storm water will then enter the marsh as well. If the marsh had full tidal exchange -meaning that at least 90 percent of its water would be exchanged with the ocean every day - occasional storm-water flooding might not pose an immediate threat to the marine life.

But in the current tidal design, it will take about a week to clear the marsh, far too long. Fay complains,"This is not my understanding of the natural circumstances of how saltwater marshes operate in Southern California. In the winter it will be too cold, with too much freshwater runoff creating too low salinity. In the summer it will be too shallow and too hot, with not enough oxygen for the fish. Flood control is what has been proposed for Playa Vista, not a functional wetland. You're gonna build a fish trap." By a fish trap, Fay means that the marsh will kill the fish and other marine life because of its extreme variations in salinity and temperature.
If flood control is the fundamental natural function for the proposed storm-water and saltwater marshes, what are their main social functions? Selling the idea of the two marshes was the primary sales technique MTP developed to stop opposition to the development. Since the social function of the saltwater marsh was conceived as public relations and sales, it didn't have to be designed as a real, functioning coastal ecosystem.Instead if just had to look like a marsh, to have some plants and birds. The current plan for a few acres of Playa Vista is a wetlands theme park.

The Playa Vista project is by no means a done deal; more public hearings are scheduled for next year, and groups in opposition to the project are still hopeful they can stop the development. But when Maguire Thomas Partners announced that the office buildings and hotels planned for Phase I were now to become an Entertainment, Media and Technology District, they brought a fitting symbolic closure to their plans. How nice it would be if Hollywood came home to Playa Vista, where it could gaze upon a Swampworld themepark whose basic principles come from the commercial film industry, advertising and marketing.

Major Gas Station-Groundwater Polluters of the Lower Ballona Valley

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THE TWO COMPETING PLANS FOR CLEANING UP SANTA MONICA BAY:

Natural Treatment by River and Wetlands Restoration, or

At Least 20 Hyperion-Style Treatment Plants Throughout the City

(Click on maps to enlarge)

The above map can be found in the City's Integrated Resources Plan, located on the web at http://lacity-irp.org/documents/v3-runoff-management.pdf
(large 8.4 megabyte file)

THE CASE FOR NATURAL TREATMENT METHODS FOR CLEANING UP WATER POLLUTION IN BALLONA CREEK AND SANTA MONICA BAY

By Rex Frankel/March 31, 2007

The Regional Water Quality Control Board has set deadlines for complying with the Clean Water Act for trash, bacteria, and other pollutants in our urban waterways and beaches.

The trash deadlines are very short, a matter of 2-3 years.

The bacteria deadlines are much longer, as compliance is much more complicated, and were set this way:

for the Santa Monica Bay watersheds including Pacific Palisades, Santa Monica, Venice, Westchester, Playa Del Rey and El Segundo, the deadline for full compliance is July 2013 if the Cities choose to merely treat the water and dump it back into the creek or ocean; this is called the standard approach.

the deadline is July 2021 if the cities not only clean up the pollution, but reuse the water, or replenish groundwater aquifers, and/or create wetlands, wildlife habitat and parks as part of the project. This is called the “integrated approach”. If the City chooses this approach, by the interim deadline of July 2013, the City must reduce health code violations at beaches by 25%, and reduce violations by 100% by 2021.

For the Ballona Creek Watershed, including Mar Vista, Del Rey, Culver City, east Santa Monica, Brentwood, Inglewood, Hollywood and West L.A., the final compliance deadline is July 2017 if the standard approach is used, or July 2021 if the integrated approach is used.

Either way, the City needs to get moving as these approaches will take a long time to construct and finance.

For the rest of the City, the water board has not yet adopted cleanup timetables for bacteria in the L.A. River and Compton and Dominguez Creeks.

How Much Water to Capture:
The City’s engineers have determined that in order to comply, they must capture and manage 25% of the City’s total runoff. This is based on the determination by the Water Board that before L.A. was developed, natural sources of bacteria led to high pollution levels on an average of 17 days a year. This is based on a reference watershed, the Arroyo Sequit in west Malibu, which is largely undeveloped and yet bacterial water standards are violated 17 days a year there. Therefore, the City has decided to capture and manage the runoff from all “rain days” except the largest 17 days of flow per year. That’s how the 25% number was arrived at. Since “rain days” include the day of a storm and the next three days (each storm creates 4 days of heavy amounts of runoff), this means that rain days in L.A per year have ranged from 30 in 2003 to 104 in the El Nino of 1998.

As anyone who has seen our creeks flowing on a rainy day knows, this 25% is still an enormous amount of water.

Current City Proposals to Comply with the TMDLS, (called Implementation Plans):

For the Santa Monica Bay watersheds, the Cities of L.A., Santa Monica and El Segundo made this “Integrated” proposal to the Water Board last year:

1. Storage and Reuse sites: use parks, government facilities and schools to capture clean rainfall in cisterns so that it can be reused on-site for landscape irrigation.
Potentially there are 62 acres of vacant urban sites available for this use, too, although 27 acres of this is at LAX Northside. The other acreage is not specified but the only site that comes to mind is at Playa Vista.

2. Divert dry weather runoff to the Hyperion treatment plant or to Santa Monica’s new urban runoff treatment plant. Most of these diversions have been constructed.

If #1 doesn’t work, the Cities proposed these additional “Standard Treatment” projects as a fallback:

3. Three Treatment Plants: at Temescal Canyon Park at Pulga Canyon (the ex-Oxy oil site); South Beach Park in Santa Monica; and LAX Northside (which could be either a treatment plant or a subsurface constructed wetland, which is effectively a gravel filter).

4. Operational Storage Sites: underground storage tanks under all existing beach parking lots would be needed to hold all the water so the treatment plants have more time to treat it; this allows treatment plants to be smaller.

5. Three potential subsurface flow constructed wetlands/gravel filters:
-Will Rogers State Historic Park, using 17 acres of native planted areas out of a total of 34 native planted areas in the park;
-Santa Inez Canyon Park, using 23 acres of native planted areas out of a total of 45 native planted areas in the park;
-El Segundo at Grand Ave and Illinois Street, using 1 acre of native planted areas out of a total of 2 native planted areas in the park;

The Cities’ proposed Implementation Plans proposed to only construct the projects in #1 above, which are projects in 25 parks and government sites, by the interim compliance deadline of July 2013, at which 25% of violations must be eliminated. These sites include 5 parks and street parkways in Venice, 2 parks in Westchester and Playa del Rey, 5 parks in Brentwood and the Palisades, 9 park and civic buildings in Santa Monica and 4 detention basins and the golf course in El Segundo. The problem with this plan is that these 25 projects would only capture around 2% of the Cities’ target runoff goal.

Proposals #3 and 5 could also curtail existing public use of these parks, or could be sited under a landslide (Pulga Canyon)

Based on this huge shortfall, the Water Board rejected this Implementation Plan in April 2006 and directed the cities to present a revised plan by January 2007, to allow the Water Board staff time to analyze it in time for the planned hearing in June 2007. So far, I have not seen nor heard of any revised plan being submitted.

For the 130 square mile Ballona Creek Watershed, City engineers have proposed some similar “integrated” facilities like in the Santa Monica Bay watersheds Plan:

-1. source reduction at schools and parks
-2. redirect dry season runoff to Hyperion sewage plant or to the existing North Outfall Treatment Facility in Culver City
-3. a possible Centinela Creek diversion to a constructed wetlands facility
-4. in-stream treatment by restoration or daylighting (uncovering a buried stream) for dry weather flows

However, because this approach doesn’t add up to managing enough runoff, the cities also proposed these “standard treatment” projects:

-including integrated projects #1 and 2, and eliminating a Centinela Creek treatment wetland and other creek restoration and in-stream cleanup projects; and
-building 3 wet weather treat and discharge (not reuse) plants at a cost of over $900 million in
the upper watershed, probably near La Brea and Venice Blvds., at the lower end of Westwood Creek/Sepulveda channel, and at the confluence of Centinela Creek and Ballona Creeks

Problems with the Cities’ Proposals:

In Neither of the 2 watershed Implementation Plans, or in the L.A. City IRP, is there any consideration of river restoration and removal of concrete or of a citywide network of greenways and treatment wetlands, except for mention in passing. No actual study that makes it possible to compare the merits of the natural treatment and restoration approach to either the source reduction or treatment plant approaches was done. This appears to violate the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires that project approval studies must consider a “reasonable range” of alternatives to the proposed project that could reduce the significant environmental impacts of the proposal. Natural river restoration and treatment wetlands have been documented as an effective and less expensive way to solve our water pollution problems, costing half as much as the “standard” methods. (See L.A. County Public Works Department study summary at this link: http://restore-ballona.blogspot.com/2006/08/river-restoration-is-least-expensive.html)

To read the full final version of the study, click here: Adopted IRWMP, December 13, 2006

Why Go Natural? Alternate Natural Treatment Case Studies:

Natural treatment of water pollution is not some gleam in the eye of environmentalists. It is, in fact, being done right now in communities only a few miles from the Ballona Creek area. We have several examples of natural runoff capture and treatment methods available for us to evaluate their potential, showing that treatment plants are not the only possible pollution solution.

The Sun Valley Watershed project in the East San Fernando Valley (http://sunvalleywatershed.org/) has been launched in an area that does not have any storm drains and therefore, has severe flooding problems. The retrofit project includes construction of cisterns and infiltration basins, and in many cases using existing gravel pits to hold the stormwater. These pits will also serve as parkland on the upper terraces, while habitat and water storage will be in the lower elevations. The project’s goal is for no rainfall/runoff to run into the L.A. River. This means that any street pollution will be captured and kept from our rivers and beaches.

The South Bay Cities including Manhattan, Hermosa, & Redondo Beaches and Torrance have an equal level of concreting of the landscape as the rest of Los Angeles, in that there is very little open space left. But this region has dramatically less wet weather beach water violations than Ballona and the Santa Monica region. (See study of pollution problems at this link, especially on page 3-15. The study concludes
“In general, dry weather exceedances have been more problematic in Jurisdictional
Groups 5 and 6 than wet weather exceedances.”

The reason can be seen in the many open and unpaved water catch basins throughout the South Bay, which are in fact remnants of a system of vernal pool wetlands that once covered large areas of the sand dune system that the South Bay was built upon. Rainfall is now funneled from developed areas into “sumps” featuring wetland vegetation, as these natural basins are called, whereupon any overflow is carried by a storm drain to the ocean. Because the problematic dry season flows are very small compared to storm flows, they can easily be, and, in fact, are being diverted into the L.A. County sewage treatment plant in Carson. Therefore, the cleanup of the remaining water pollution problems in the South Bay is being accomplished much more easily than in the Ballona Watershed, because much of the natural drainage system was never paved over in the first place.

SUMMARY:

In the Ballona and Santa Monica Bay watershed of the City of Los Angeles, these natural treatment methods have a great potential to provide parks and habitat and they require very little maintenance compared to the “standard treatment” methods. Ultimately the taxpayers need to know the pros and cons of all three methods of compliance; until now, these choices have been made by City Engineers in relative isolation from the general public that will foot the bill.

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Are L.A. officials mis-spending Bay Cleanup Funds?

From Dailybreeze.com, January 15, 2007

Water bond projects flow slowly

Some L.A. officials and activists say public should be seeing more tangible results from the $500 million measure.

By Kerry Cavanaugh
Staff Writer

More than two years after Los Angeles voters approved a $500 million water bond, only one project has been completed, others remain mired in bureaucracy and some environmentalists have begun to question city priorities.

Passed overwhelmingly in November 2004, Measure O raised property taxes to fund projects designed to keep trash and pollutants out of the Los Angeles River and Santa Monica Bay

In return, voters were promised solid engineering solutions to the city's water pollution and innovative projects to create parks and green space while cleaning up tainted urban runoff.

Since the measure has passed, the City Council has approved $70 million for 10 projects and recommended $28 million for four others.

But only one project has been completed and just a few others have broken ground, frustrating some city leaders who want voters to see the impact of their dollars faster.

"For people like me and (Councilwoman) Janice (Hahn), as well, we have portions of our districts that have really been mired in serious runoff contamination problems and needing more green space," said Councilwoman Jan Perry, who helped initiate the bond measure. "We have a real sense of urgency to get things proposed, funded and built because it takes so long to get public-funded projects built."

But some environmentalists on a Citizens Oversight Committee that reviews each bond project expressed satisfaction with the projects so far, but complained there is no master plan for spending or measuring projects' effectiveness.

And that has heightened concerns as the panel prepares to weigh two lake restorations that could suck up $200 million -- or 40 percent of the bond.

"The lack of a plan has been a real problem. They should have been working on a plan the day after the election," said Mark Gold, who is executive director of Heal the Bay and sits on the oversight committee.

Deputy Mayor Nancy Sutley has proposed an overhaul of the process, including the passage of a master plan and selection criteria to guide funding.

"We want to be sure the money we're spending is really going toward improving water quality," Sutley said. "In anything like this, it's OK once you've been through the first round to take a deep breath and see what parts worked and what parts didn't." But even as the city wrestles with spending the water bond money, there already is growing concern that it will soon run out if not managed carefully or leveraged with state funds.

While a half-billion dollars sounds like a lot of cash, the estimated cost of cleaning the city's dirty water and polluted bay is $8 billion. Shahram Kharaghani, the city's stormwater program manager who is responsible for implementing the bond measure, said the measure helped the city meet some water-quality regulations. But Kharaghani said he'll need $100 million more to comply with trash and bacteria pollution limits.

And to meet upcoming water quality regulations, Los Angeles will need another bond or two -- which could be hard to persuade voters to approve if money from the first water bond isn't spent well.

"When we spend this money it's literally a drop in the bucket," said Francine Diamond, a member of the oversight committee.

"We're very serious about making sure the money is well spent. We want to be able to say to the voters (the city) did a good job and we're ready for another water bond." But the bond itself may be making that difficult.

Previous bonds raised taxes to build fire stations, libraries and animal shelters -- straightforward projects the city has handled hundreds of times. But Measure O had a more intangible mandate: Clean the water.

Los Angeles is crisscrossed with 7,300 miles of paved streets, littered with trash, stained with motor oil and fouled with pet waste, fertilizers and toxic chemicals. Rain and irrigation wash the muck into concrete drainage channels that carry it into the river and ocean. Under a 1999 settlement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and environmental groups, Los Angeles has 13 years to meet more than 60 water quality regulations on trash, bacteria, metals, salts and other pollutants. The measure was designed to raise money to meet those regulations -- and the owner of a $350,000 home will pay about $34 annually over 20 years to fund it. But the ballot measure was deliberately vague because many of the water regulations aren't even written yet.

And it took a year just to appoint the administrative oversight, citizen's oversight committee and create basic project-selection standards to administer the bond money.

"This is uncharted territory. We took a real leap of faith as a municipality," said Council President Eric Garcetti, who helped draft the measure.

"Part of the risk of being first is you have to learn the technology.

"Now that we have some of the lessons from that, we should be able to spend the money a little more quickly and with less guesswork."

City leaders also wanted the bond measure to address community desires. So in 2005, the city asked environmental groups, neighborhood councils, city departments and governmental agencies for project ideas. They submitted 52 ideas that were whittled down to 22.

But from the beginning, there was uncertainty about what would qualify as a water project. And then community groups and nonprofits were expected to prepare detailed, technical proposals -- for free -- and hand them over to the city agencies for implementation.

Eventually, the city hired a consultant, CH2M Hill, to help groups develop concept reports -- at a cost of roughly $30,000 a piece -- with technical water quality analysis.

Stephanie Pincetl with UCLA's Institute of the Environment recently critiqued the first phase of the water bond measure and found a lack of order and unclear guidelines risk "increasing disillusionment with city government" and could hurt future water bonds.

"We don't want to use this money helter skelter, because this project seemed good and that project seemed good, but they didn't have the cumulative effect we need."

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RIVER RESTORATION IN L.A. ON FRONT PAGE OF L.A. WEEKLY

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Dear Friends,

Our campaign to save the rest of the open spaces in the Los Angeles
area got a big boost with the publication of a huge, extremely
favorable story by Judith Lewis in the November 9th edition of the L.A.
Weekly. To read it, click on this link:

http://www.laweekly.com/general/features/the-lost-streams-of-los-angeles/14973/

The article explains how our beaches and rivers which have serious
water pollution problems can be cleaned up while at the same time
unpaving some of our concrete-covered metropolis, creating more parks
and wildlife habitat and linking together the parks we have.
The article explains how the project to clean up the Bay is mandated
under Federal law and thus presents a great opportunity to restore
natural rivers and wetlands which can help clean up this polluted water
that now runs down our streets, gutters and storm drains straight into
the ocean.

Longtime Ballona advocates were interviewed for the story and we are
very pleased with the result! (We are featured starting in the middle
of the article.)


Also, with the passage by the voters of Proposition 84 last week, more
money is available to buy and preserve parks. The last park bond
approved by voters in 2002 led to public acquisition of 600 acres of the
Ballona Wetlands and the 3000 acre Ahmanson Ranch, two long-fought-over
nearby open spaces.

------------------------------------------------------------
more on river restoration from Judith Lewis' blog:

http://blogs.laweekly.com/judith_lewis/prop-84-dig-up-the-culverts/
Prop 84: Dig up the culverts!

by Judith Lewis, L.A. Weekly

California voters on Tuesday approved Proposition 84, a $5.4 billion
bond measure for clean water and coastal protection that I would have
pushed hard for were I not playing journalist these days. And I was
worried about it-- 84 had been polling inauspiciously.

Coincidentally, the story I wrote about Jessica Hall and her search for
L.A.ís buried streams is on the cover this week. Money from 84 could go
to some of the projects discussed in this story: It’s been earmarked
for projects that prevent toxic runoff from entering the ocean--which
in many ways means returning natural waterways to as close to their
natural state as possible. Nature already did what infrastructure
continually fails to do. I began researching this story thinking that
Hall’s ambitions were sort of far off and visionary, but over the six
months I spent figuring it out, daylighting streams began to seem like
an utterly sensible way to fix our urban water problems. I’m hoping
people get that from the story.

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CLEAN BEACHES LAWS STRENGTHENED

L.A.'s Water Board voted unanimously (9/14/06) to enforce Clean Beaches laws; Polluters not happy...

http://www.healthebay.org/assets/pdfdocs/pressreleases/2006_09_15_bacteriatmdl.pdf

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Restored Creeks Can Revitalize Our Cities

HERE'S WHAT A CREEK RESTORATION IN A MAJOR CITY LOOKS LIKE:

DOWNTOWN SAN LUIS OBISPO, CALIFORNIA

Includes sidewalks and dining areas on walkways elevated above the creekside on stilts; a big difference from the concreted-over and the vertical-concrete-walled creeks in Los Angeles

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Politics vs promises in quest for cleaner Bay

Monday, September 11, 2006

L.A. Weekly's Judith Lewis exposes the politics behind cleaning up Santa Monica Bay and how the promise of Proposition O and Cleaning up the Bay is being compromised by politicians' pork-barrel pet projects.

http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/the-story-of-o/14260/


An excerpt from the voter information pamphlet describing Proposition O:

"A YES VOTE MEANS:
Development, and purchase, of land to create water-cleansing landscapes and parkways along and surrounding the Los Angeles River and Ballona Creek to reduce storm water pollution and bacteria that wash into these waterways, through natural filtration and treatment. These parkways provide multiple benefits such as controlling storm water runoff and flooding through increasing percolation areas and by creating open space for habitat preservation and recreation."

http://www.smartvoter.org/2004/11/02/ca/la/meas/O/

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River Restoration is least expensive Santa Monica Bay Cleanup plan; L.A. City plans hearings on their plan for water pollution

Thursday, August 10, 2006

This is Scenario three, which creates connected parks and wetlands throughout L.A. County to help clean up our beaches and rivers.

_____________________________________________________________

L.A. COUNTY'S STUDY SHOWS RIVER RESTORATION IS THE LEAST EXPENSIVE AND MOST COST-EFFECTIVE WAY TO CLEAN UP SANTA MONICA BAY

A great study has just come out of the L.A County Public Works Department (August 2, 2006) that analyzes three scenarios
for cleaning up the County's polluted runoff that now fouls our beaches.

The results are: natural river restoration is the least expensive and has the most benefits!

Scenario three is strictly river restoration with treatment wetlands and parks along the rivers, a plan
which we support, and which could include the remaining 200 acres of unpaved private land at the
Playa Vista development site in the Ballona Creek floodplain.

Scenario one is similar to the plan L.A. City has been pushing as part of their TMDL and integrated resources
plan with small mechanized runoff treatment plants throughout the city and minimal land purchases.

Scenario two is a hybrid of #1 and river restoration concepts with large basins and treatment wetlands
scattered throughout the county, but not along the major waterways, and would require a lot of land
acquisition.

The results are that scenario 1 costs $47 billion and has $7.5 billion in benefits; scenario 2 costs $53
billion and has $8.1 billion in benefits.

Scenario 3, however, only costs $27 billion and has $12.5 billion in benefits. The experts have now
spoken: river restoration and natural treatment of urban runoff is not only the best plan, it's also
least expensive.


The full report is available at

http://ladpw.org/wmd/irwmp/docs/August%202,%202006%20Workshop%20Materials/IRWMP%20Workshop%20Presentation.pdf

To See the three plans:

And to learn more, go to http://lawaterplan.org and click on the "Documents" tab at the top of the page.

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L.A. City Releases Final Report on Sewage, Greywater and Storm Runoff Plan

August 8, 2006

The Final Environmental Impact Report for L.A. City's Integrated Resources Plan was released in early September. It can be read at the City's website, http://lacity-irp.org/

Public hearings have not been scheduled yet, but could take place as early as October. Here's the City's news release from August, which mis-stated when public hearings will be held:

To: Neighborhood Council Leaders

From: Department of Neighborhood Empowerment

Subject: Joint DWP & Public Works Board meeting Notification of an Upcoming Joint Department of Public Works and LADWP Board meeting to consider adopting an Integrated Resources Plan and related Environmental Impact Report for wastewater, recycled water, and stormwater management. As a result of a joint effort between the Bureau of Sanitation of the Department of Public Works and LADWP, an Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) and Environmental Impact Report (EIR) was developed which:

· integrates planning for the three interdependent water systems of wastewater, recycled water and stormwater;

· reviews the City's water and wastewater needs for the next 20 years; and

· identifies necessary infrastructure improvements and policy recommendations.

The IRP and EIR were developed after an intensive 4-year process was undertaken that was built upon stakeholder preferences. During the process 21 initial alternatives were narrowed down to 4 alternatives that were carried through the environmental review process. These alternatives will meet a 20 percent projected increase in wastewater flow while maximizing the beneficial use of recycled water and urban runoff. This will optimize the use of our existing facilities and water resources, reduce pollution and Los Angeles' dependence on water imports. The Draft EIR for the IRP was issued for public review in November 2005. Thereview period ended on March 2006. This is an advance notice on the near completion of the Final Environmental Impact report (FEIR) for the Integrated Resources Plan (IRP). It is anticipated the FEIR along with the IRP recommendations will be forwarded to Council for certification after consideration by the Board of Public Works and the DWP Board of Commissioners (Boards). The consideration by the Boards will be at a joint meeting around the second half of September 2006 with Council action scheduled around the middle of October 2006. A copy of the Draft IRP recommendations, a copy of the FEIR and the IRP plan will be posted on the website www.lacity.org/san/irp before the joint meeting of the Boards. If you have any questions or would like to provide some feedback, please contact Mr. Adel H. Hagekhalil of the Bureau of Sanitation at (323) 342-6225 or Mr. Bill Van Waggoner of LADWP at (213) 367-1138.

Please also see http://lacity-irp.org/ for more information

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Marina Freeway wetlands threatened by highway bridge construction

Read our lawsuit brief