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