Here's What Could Happen To The Ballona Wetlands

PLAYA DEL REY, CA — The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has made a decision about the Ballona Wetlands in Playa del Rey, the agency announced Wednesday, approving one option to restore the wetlands but opting not to put a parking garage or visitor center at some of the last remaining marshes along the Los Angeles coast.

The state agency selected Alternative 1 for the full-scale restoration of the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve. Environmentalists are against this decision, saying it is not a restoration, and that it will damage the sacred land and hurt the species of animals living there.

"The Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve (BWER) project will enhance and establish native coastal wetlands and upland habitat on 566 of the reserve’s 577 acres south of Marina del Rey and east of Playa del Rey," the CDFW said. "It will restore ecological function to currently degraded wetlands, preserving sensitive habitat for future generations and build climate resilience on a coast vulnerable to sea-level rise."

The decision will be in two phases and covers the largest area. Now, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will complete its engineering plan in a process expected to take approximately two and a half years. During this time, the Department of Fish and Wildlife plans to acquire the necessary permits.

"Alternative 1 is the only alternative that adequately adapts to sea level rise, which is one of the biggest threats to the wetlands and California," Friends of the Ballona Wetlands said in a news release Wednesday. "Without adapting to rising ocean levels, the wetlands will have nowhere to move and will eventually become open water. Alternative 1 allows for marsh habitat to migrate up earthen levees as the ocean rises. This is critical - especially for the endangered Belding's Savannah Sparrow that relies on pickleweed salt marsh habitat."

The plan includes replacing approximately 9,800 feet of existing Ballona Creek levees.

“This is an important step in state certification of the EIR. It’s been a long time coming and we need to do this if we’re to realize the full potential of the property," Chuck Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish & Wildlife, told Patch.

Bonham said Ballona “could be an open space to rival Griffith Park.”

"Our vision is selecting the most restorative option because the ecological reserve is hurting and we need to fix that," Bonham said. "The status quo won’t cut it.”

By choosing the most restorative option, Bonham said you’re going to reduce or eliminate the threat of sea-level rise.

“Science matters; facts matter,” he said.

The decision Wednesday is a certification of the EIR under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the state’s most broad-based environmental law and is the first major step in a process that now includes the Army Corps of Engineers and requirements under the federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) which requires the Corps to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement.

Bonham said because the Corps took a policy position that the state had to have reached a project design level of 60% — and the state was at a 30% level they worked jointly on the EIR and EIS. With DFW’s action Wednesday, Bonham said, the agencies will now be working with the Corps to reach the 60% design level.

While Bonham admitted the Ballona timeline has already spanned several years, he said restoration won’t be a quick process. After Wednesday, Bonham estimated it would take two-and-one-half years for the Corp to complete its EIS and issue permits. The state will also be working with the Regional Water Quality Control Board and the local Flood Control District.

“We don’t let a lot of people out there now,” Bonham conceded. “It’s a safety risk.”

And when restoration actually begins, there will be a lot of earthmoving equipment involved. One of the reasons the wetlands has been degraded is because over the years millions of cubic yards of dredged sediment has been dumped on the land as the result of Marina del Rey and other development – and in some areas the dirt is 20 feet deep.

“You can’t remove all that dirt with shovels and wheelbarrows,” he said. “You need to remove that dirt to restore habitat.”

"Alternative 1 also restores the largest acreage of wetland habitat," according to a statement from Friends of the Ballona Wetlands. "This is important because 91% of California's coastal wetlands have been lost, and this is Los Angeles' last remaining coastal wetland. It is critical to maximize wetland habitat wherever possible."

Environmental activists have been staunchly against the project, claiming any restoration would be destructive to the area and the species that inhabit the region. The wetlands are also considered a sacred site for the Gabrielino-Tongva tribe, certified as a sacred location by John Tommy Rosas years ago. Anthony Morales is authorized to represent the Native American community and oversee projects at the Ballona Wetlands, but it's unclear if the state has worked with the native community to make the decision.

Rosas died in 2019, but left behind documented information, maps and video about the historical site and its significance to the tribe, including the fact that it's a burial location of Tongva descendants.

"He worked so hard, day and night, for years and years and years to save this special site," Kathy Knight of the Sierra Club said last month. "And I just feel you know really blessed that we had somebody like this documenting everything.”

Some Tongva descendants are concerned that both known and unknown sacred burial lands could be unearthed during this process.

“We are not federally recognized Natives, and that holds so much back for us," Jessa Calderon said. “Nowadays, with the Fish & Game, it is possible for us to figure out how to gain permits. People in Fish and Game, Cal fire, these type of people, they don’t respect us, so it’s a lot of work.”

Many want the land to remain untouched—without restoration.

"I actually was born and raised in Los Angeles and so I've seen how the city once had so much nature, and it's all disappeared and everything is concrete," Michael Fujimori told Patch. "This is the last coastal wetlands in Los Angeles and we need to preserve it. There are 1,700 species of animals and wildlife here. If we destroy this area they will be destroyed, too. It's just not right. It was their home before us."

While conservationists quarrel over what should be done on the surface, deep underground billions of cubic feet of natural gas is being stored until it's needed to heat millions of homes and businesses. Although the state owns the wetlands and DFW manages the property, Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) controls subsurface rights, something that's proved contentious because of the need for surface infrastructure to extract the subsurface resources.

And while the decision has been made, some activists are angry about the move—and the timing.

"I’m despondent getting this news," Jane Velez-Mitchell, journalist and Marina del Rey resident, told Patch.

Velez-Mitchell found it odd that the state decided to make the announcement during the holidays, as surging coronavirus cases hit Los Angeles County.

"That reveals a lot," she said. "If you have a shame-based strategy for announcing it, doesn’t that tell you that there’s a problem?"

"We don’t want the home of 1,700 species, some threatened and others endangered, to be obliterated and destroyed and we are in a crisis right now that stems from our abuse of the natural world and the animals in it," she said. "Even a pandemic doesn’t seem to wake up people who are living in the most progressive state in the union, arguably. We’re doomed. If this can happen in LA this can happen anywhere. Bye-bye wetlands, hello climate extinction."

Velez-Mitchell wants to know why the state agency ignored option 4, and the proposed a 20-point plan for gentle restoration she and other local activists provided.

"Environmentalists provided a 20-point plan for gentle restoration," she said. "They told people about it with a live interview. We wanted the governor to see it so he could see there are alternatives."

"Destroying something is not restoration," she said. "They are hiding behind public access. They are using inner-city children as a shield to conduct their own agenda, which is a money-making agenda, which is not for the benefit of these children. These kids are going to be deprived access of this area for a decade. Kids who are 7 years old today are going to be teenagers going off to college—hopefully. But they’re not going to have access to this."

Climate change is accelerating, she added.

"The whole world is changing," she said. "Society is really being transformed because of the pandemic."

Velez-Mitchell described how in the future, we could head toward autonomous cars.

"Most cars spend most of their time parked," she said.

We could be living in a Uber world someday, she added.

"There’s space the size of cities that are going to be where the parking lots used to be," Velez-Mitchell said. "Those could be turned into parks. There are other places we can turn into parks. we don't have to destroy wetlands to create parks."

"They’re saying basically, let’s just bulldoze the whole thing," she said. "We’re going to provide public access. There’s plenty of ways to provide public access without destroying the wetlands."

Activists want to improve the trails and help people learn about the rich history of the indigenous people, the owls, skunks, foxes and other animals.

"They suggested a nursery to help foster native species," she said. "They could do so anything that would be interactive and be meaningful, but no, 'Let’s destroy the whole thing and make it a giant park.'"

"It’s about follow the money," Velez-Mitchell said. "The bottom line is SoCalGas has to restore its crumbling infrastructure underground. I think it's a combination of the influence that the fossil fuel industry has had on them."

A lawsuit has been filed and activists don't plan to give up the fight to protect the wetlands and speak up for the voiceless animals and generations to come, she said.

"The fight’s not over," Velez-Mitchell said. "We’re going to fight tooth and nail."

Brian Pease, a San Diego attorney filed a lawsuit in August on behalf of Defend the Ballona Wetlands, an unincorporated association and its co-founder Lisa Karlan; the Animal Protection & Rescue League, a nonprofit animal rights group Pease heads which serves as a "fiscal sponsor" permitting Karlan's group to solicit tax-deductible donations, and activists Basler, Marcia Hanscom and her partner, Robert Jan van de Hoek, a naturalist and supervisor for the Los Angeles Department of Parks & Recreation.

Hanscom, a co-director of the Ballona Institute who also chairs the Sierra Club's Ballona Wetlands Restoration Committee, told Patch this was not the decision she wanted for the wetlands.

"I’m disappointed in Governor Newsom that he would allow his agency to run amok like this," Hanscom told Patch. "The California Department of Fish & Wildlife is supposed to be protecting the species that are on its special concern list, as well as on the federal and state endangered species lists. The Director of Fish & Wildlife called me today - he said to give me a courtesy call - but he didn’t even know the correct number of endangered species that rely on the Ballona Wetlands - an ecological reserve under his purview."

Some residents in the Playa and Marina del Rey area are frustrated with SoCalGas, Del Rey resident Craig Barry told Patch during a protest earlier this month.

"I don't trust SoCalGas," Barry said. "They didn't do anything with Aliso Canyon. We've had incidents here. We want them out."

SoCalGas did not respond to multiple requests for comment via email, phone, and in-person at the Ballona Wetlands work site.

Patch Editors Bob Porterfield and Nicole Charky contributed to this report.

Editor's Note: This story was updated at 5:12 p.m. with additional information and quotes.

This article originally appeared on the Marina Del Rey Patch