Jane Velez-Mitchell and the Ballona Wetlands
Editor:
Many who read the Argonaut’s exposé on former local TV news anchor and journalist Jane Velez-Mitchell (Argonaut, 3/25/21) will laud her activism on animal care and climate change issues. Her views and actions on the Ballona Wetlands Restoration Project, however, are seriously misguided and grossly uninformed. As a journalist, “unchained” or not, she should know better than to ignore the facts. Her publicly stated views on Ballona at local meetings and events simply parrot decades of outright lies fabricated by other activists who are well-known opponents of the state’s restoration plan. Her advocacy will only serve to harm, not help, either nature or people at Ballona and should be soundly rejected.
The so-called “gentle” restoration alternative, now the rallying cry of Ms. Velez-Mitchell and her allies, was carefully evaluated and unequivocally rejected by the in-depth scientific and legal review performed through the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Environmental Impact studies. This “gentle” approach was rejected because it does virtually nothing to undo and correct the extensive ecological damage inflicted upon Ballona by Marina del Rey’s construction and many other development infills over the past century.
The “gentle” alternative also does nothing to replace the obsolete, massive and tide-choking concrete Ballona Creek channel, which the Fish and Wildlife plan will replace with modern, vegetated flood control features. Neither does the “gentle” alternative protect lower Playa del Rey from the inevitable tidal flooding that will threaten that community as sea levels rise. The Fish and Wildlife plan resolves all of these problems.
The “gentle” plan cannot be practically implemented on the 200 acres of weed-infested state lands south of Fiji Way without employing heavy, mechanized earthmoving equipment – the same bulldozers hypocritically vilified by the opponents in their own criticisms of the Fish and Wildlife plan.
Lastly, the “gentle” approach violates the foundational California state laws that not only protect our coastline from development, but mandate that we reclaim and restore all former tidelands to maximum ecological productivity.
The recent fire in the southeastern Ballona Wetlands occurred in an area of “stranded” pickleweed marsh – stranded because for decades it has been cut off from the ocean’s tides by the concrete Ballona channel. Pickleweed is a virtually fireproof wetland plant that normally exists only in wetlands that enjoy the periodic tidal flushing required for its long-term survival. Having been denied the ocean’s salty and weed-suppressing tides at Ballona, the pickleweed marsh burned there because it has been gradually infested by flammable, dry-land weeds which spread and thickened with each winter’s rainfall.
The Belding’s Savannah Sparrow, one of only three listed endangered species in the Ballona, depends entirely on this pickleweed marsh for its life cycle. The Fish and Wildlife plan will, among many other good things, not only restore nourishing, weed-proofing tidal flows to those long-stranded pickleweed marsh areas, but will add another 70 acres of pickleweed. This new marsh and Belding’s habitat will replace the dry, weedy Marina construction fill south of Fiji Way that buried former pickleweed marsh a half century ago.
Incredibly, Ms. Velez-Mitchell’s allies are suing to stop the Fish and Wildlife project, claiming in their court filings the project will irreparably harm the Belding’s, when in fact it will do just the opposite. Similar successful pickleweed enhancements at countless other tidal restorations prove it.
It will take a few years for the proposed project to withstand these legal assaults. In the meantime, all in the community should get educated on the facts and truth about the Fish and Wildlife plan for Ballona, lest they be flimflammed by the fictional narratives of self-serving activists.
David W. Kay, D. Env
Playa Vista
Climate Change
Editor:
Please call natural disasters for what they really are: climate disasters. Scientists warned decades ago that climate change would cause more extreme and frequent adverse weather events. The fires in the west, the repeated hurricanes hitting our coasts, and the droughts across the country are not random occurrences – they are the direct result of global warming.
Scientific evidence that global warming has been caused by human activity is unequivocal. For hundreds of thousands of years, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have never risen above 300 parts per million.
In the past 50 years, carbon dioxide levels have risen to above 400 parts per million at a rate of about 100 times faster than previous natural increases, including after the end of the last ice age. A global rise of over 2 degrees Celsius will cause massive destruction to life as we know it. It is time to cover the crisis correctly!
Ozzy Simpson
Pasadena
David Kay,
The public cannot take anything you say seriously because you have a huge conflict of interest in this matter. Your business buys electricity from gas powered generating operations that buy gas from the SoCalGas storage facility at the Ballona Wetlands – a facility that would benefit from the construction project masquerading as a “restoration.”
You can shoot at the messenger with wild conspiracy theories if you wish, but you cannot rebut the facts of the message. Scores of other scientists and environmental professionals affirm the message. After all, they performed the decades of research, analysis and engineering to develop the state’s restoration plan. I’m merely an enthusiastic student of their dedicated work.
Mr. Kay has attacked Ms. Velez-Mitchell, saying “she should know better than to ignore the facts,” and goes on to accuse her of “parroting” outright lies. Mr. Kay should remember the parable about people living in glass houses throwing stones.
He says “the “gentle” approach violates the “foundational California state laws that not only protect our coastline from development, but mandate that we reclaim and restore all former tidelands to maximum ecological productivity.” But the science says otherwise. A study examining the history of the Ballona Wetlands shows that they have not been a “tideland” (see: “Historical Ecology of the Ballona Creek Watershed”, Shana Dark et al., Page 25). The conclusion these scientists reached was “This area encompassed a tremendous diversity of wetland habitat types, more so than any region within the study area and the complexity of the hydrodynamics of the system. This complexity was likely enhanced by the change in the volume of freshwater input and the assumed frequency of mouth opening associated with the re-alignment of the Los Angeles River… Our data suggests that at most times, this low energy system had only moderate or no tidal influence and was dominated by freshwater inputs from the watershed (see Jacobs et al. 2011). The textual sources indicate complete closure of the system from the ocean through substantial portions of the year, opening only during periods of significant rainfall (LAT 1887; see discussion in Jacobs et al. 2011).”
The myth that that the wetlands were a “tideland” regularly subjected to tidal changes and saltwater flooding is an outdated “theory” disproven by science.
Unfortunately, many of Mr. Kay’s criticisms fail under similar comparisons to the available science.
Sincerely, Marc Saltzberg
Venice
Mr. Saltzberg, respectfully, you are cherry-picking a single passage from a reference which when taken in full actually validates widely held views of recent Ballona hydrology. It does not change the fact that the entirety of Area B today, south of the creek, is living, pickleweed marsh with muted tidal flow. Walk along Culver Boulevard and see it for yourself – even taste the salty water. Pickleweed does not grow or reproduce in non-tidal freshwater, period. Likewise, Area A north of the creek was part of the same expanse of pickleweed saltmarsh before it was buried, as historical geological survey maps, photos and recent core samples show. Both areas are and were tidelands, Sir, and the state classifies them as such. Thank you for your comment. -DK
I am happy that the Ballona Wetlands is garnering the attention of so many people. Yes, the Environmental Impact Report (“EIR”) was certified, but it admits its flaws. The State has to start all over with the Army Corp[s of Engineers because improper flood risk standards were used. The EIR openly acknowledges extensive loss of critical wetland habitats to sea-level rise if the bulldozing option is chosen — please see pages 271-275 of the draft EIR. The wetlands will disappear over time. The so-called “gentle” restoration alternative, the rallying cry of Ms. Velez-Mitchell and allies, was NOT carefully evaluated and rejected by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Environmental Impact studies. It does NOT require bulldozers. It is a nature-based solution.
Additionally, Culver City recently voted to recommend to the governor to close the gas storage facility underneath the wetlands. Other cities in Los Angeles County are considering similar motions because they do not want another Aliso Canyon disaster here. There are methane sensors throughout Playa Vista, and bubbles of methane come to the surface near playgrounds and homes. If the gas storage facility is closed, then what many believe is the underlying motivation for the extensive bulldozing option – to update that facility – would be gone and our communities would be safer.
I feel I must respond to Mr. Kay’s attack on Jane Velez-Mitchell regarding her opposition to bulldozing the last remaining wetlands in Los Angeles – the Ballona Wetlands. Jane is only looking out for the wildlife that will be displaced, lose their homes, and die if this “restoration” is allowed to take place. She is not making a dime from her involvement and is unselfishly speaking out for the innocent and vulnerable creatures who have no voice. On the other hand So Cal Gas and others stand to profit from this demolition and destruction and that’s why they are in favor of it. Let’s go with the gentle restoration. It is the moral and right thing to do and will benefit everyone.
My compliments to the Argonaut for allowing this conversation to occur.
I stand by my statements and the facts stand behind them. I’m sure Ms. Velez-Mitchell is perfectly capable of defending her stance with credible evidence, if that is her choice.
The courts will now decide if the Ballona EIR is factual, thorough, based on sound science and complies with state law. If not, it will be corrected where deficient, but that will not change the ecologically preferable project. I have seen this movie many times before on other projects opposed by those same activists Ms. Velez-Mitchell parrots. The outcome will be the same.
Those who don’t want the bold, ambitious and forward looking project, but instead want the “gentle” No Project alternative should just say so. It’s unnecessary to besmirch the many dedicated environmental professionals whose work supported the full tidal alternative by blindly denying their peer-reviewed science and supplanting it in the media it with a bunch of flood, conspiracy and gas fire and brimstone hogwash. That’s the same shameful, foul tactic climate change deniers use.
Either you trust the scientific community or you don’t. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too. -DK
No “peer review science” oversaw the work that went in to determining the big bulldozing project proposed for the Ballona Wetlands. In fact, no experts who work for CA Dept of Fish & Wildlife – experts who know about the flora and fauna species that are on California’s special concern list were allowed to even review the plans.
There was no “peer review science” was done when the two landscape architects drew the picture of what they thought Ballona Creek should be altered to look like. (they admitted they were the ones who drew the plans up for Shelley Luce, and nothing has changed since then…..except millions of dollars in public funds having been spent to try to justify that drawing.) It was all about what the drawings would look like, not about which species would be helped or harmed.
What do the rare and endangered species need – the ones that currently rely on Ballona? That question was never asked, and that question MUST be asked and be the central point of any changes that could be made at the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve.
If readers will go to this link and review the 20 Pt. Plan for a Gentle Restoration of the Ballona Wetlands, they will see that the points that so many in the community agree with are far from “do nothing” – in fact, they are about PROTECTING the Ballona Wetlands and its many habitat types that support the diversity of species and biodiversity that the Los Angeles coast is so fortunate to already have here. http://bit.ly/20PtGentle