EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Bimini Slough Ecology Park
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Ballona Creek Watershed Management Plan
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Los Angeles County Department of Public Works Watershed Management Division
BAC
KG
ROU
ND
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Bimini Slough Ecology Park
Ballona Creek Watershed Management Plan
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Ballona Creek Watershed Task Force
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executive summaryBefore extensive settlement and urbanization, BallonaCreek was a meandering perennial stream, lined withdense vegetation that met the Pacific Ocean in a broadexpanse of tidal lagoons, salt marshes, and wetlands.Numerous tributary streams supplied the creek withstormwater runoff, with perennial springs and marshesat some locations. The Ballona Creek Watershedsupported a diverse range of aquatic and terrestrialecosystems and was home to several villages of indigenousresidents.
Today, Ballona Creek drains an area of approximately130 square miles, including most of the City of LosAngeles west of downtown (and generally south ofMulholland Drive), the cities of Beverly Hills, CulverCity, West Hollywood, portions of the cities of SantaMonica and Inglewood and portions of the HollywoodHills and the Santa Monica Mountains (refer to Figure 1).With more than 1.6 million residents, the Ballona CreekWatershed is highly urbanized, with most drainagecourses lined with concrete and approximately 85 percentof the land area occupied by homes, businesses, roads,and similar uses. As a result, surface and groundwaterquality has been degraded, natural hydrologic functionsmodified, plant and wildlife diversity and movementreduced, wildlife decreased, and water quality taintedin Ballona Creek and Santa Monica Bay. While floodprotection has traditionally been a high priority withinthe watershed, efforts to improve water quality, habitat,and open space have not been coordinated acrossjurisdictions and therefore have been less successful.
Ballona Creek
Ballona Creek Watershed Management Plan
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Ballona Creek Watershed Task Force
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Figure 1 Cities within the WatershedSOURCE: EIP Associates, 2004
LOS ANGELES
Ballona Creek Watershed Management Plan
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Ballona Creek Watershed Task Force
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In recent years, various community organizations, cities,and agencies have worked to transform Ballona Creekinto a valued community asset, preserve and enhanceopen space in the Hollywood and Baldwin Hills, and torestore the Ballona Wetlands. To build upon and supportthese efforts and achieve more specific water qualityimprovements, this watershed plan has been developedto encourage broader participation in activities toimprove and expand open space, optimize waterresources, preserve and restore habitat, and create anintegrated network of trails and bike paths throughoutthe watershed.
The watershed planning area includes the coastal interfacezone and surface waters of Marina del Rey, the OxfordFlood Control Basin, the Venice Canals, Ballona Lagoon,and Del Rey Lagoon, as water quality in these areas areinterrelated.
Bimini Slough Ecology Park
A. GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
The Ballona Creek Watershed Task Force (BCWTF), astakeholder group convened by the County of LosAngeles, the City of Los Angeles, the Santa Monica BayRestoration Commission, and Ballona Creek Renaissance,articulated a broad goal for this Plan:
[Set] forth pollution control and habitat restorationactions to achieve ecological health.
In response to perceived environmental, recreational andeconomic problems in the Ballona Creek Watershed, theBCWTF also adopted the following more detailed goals.
Hollywood Reservoir
WATER
� Improve Quality of Surface Water and Groundwater
� Maintain Flood Protection
� Restore Hydrologic Function to Ballona Creek andTributaries where feasible
� Optimize Water Resources to Reduce Dependenceon Imported Water
� Improve Aquatic, Estuarine and Riparian HabitatQuality and Quantity
Ballona Creek Watershed Management Plan
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Ballona Creek Watershed Task Force
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Kenneth Hahn Recreation Area
View from Baldwin Hills
LAND
� Improve Habitat Quality, Quantity andConnectivity
� Improve Access to Open Space and Recreation forAll Communities
� Improve Pedestrian and Bicycle Access and Safety
� Practice Stewardship of the Landscape
PLANNING
� Coordinate Watershed Planning Across Jurisdictionsand Boundaries
� Implement Multi-Objective Planning and Projects
� Use Science as a Basis for Planning
� Involve the Public through Outreach and Education
Ballona Creek Watershed Management Plan
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Ballona Creek Watershed Task Force
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� Utilize the Plan in an Ongoing ManagementProcess
� Realize the Potential of Watershed Restoration forSustainable Economic Development
For each goal, the Plan also identifies objectives that wouldlead to the realization of that specific goal and contributeto the overarching goal of restoring the ecological healthof the Ballona Creek Watershed.
View from Baldwin Hills
B. METHODS ANDMECHANISMS
To achieve the goals and objectives articulated by theBCWTF, the Plan also identifies a series of actions foreach objective that, if implemented by individuals,neighborhoods, organizations, cities and local, state andfederal agencies, will address the problems identified bythe Task Force and improve the ecological health of thewatershed. Although this Plan addresses a wide range ofgoals, those actions related to improving water qualityand habitat are identified as priority actions because theplan was funded primarily by a Proposition 13 grant.
To improve the quality of stormwater runoff and dry-weather flows (or urban runoff ), the Plan identifies arange of Best Management Practices (BMPs), whichincludes storage, infiltration, filtration, conveyance,practices, and outreach. Compliance with stormwaterpermits (under the National Pollution DischargeElimination System [NDPES] program) will requireimplementation of BMPs by cities, agencies and otherentities. Compliance with Total Maximum Daily Loads,pollution limits established to meet applicable waterquality standards, may also involve implementation ofBMPs.
Porous pavement, Plummer Park
The Plan includes an inventory of pending and proposedprojects in the watershed that were identified by cities,agencies, groups and individuals, including projects inthe lower Ballona Creek area, and projects that addresswater quality, restoration of native habitat and vegetation,transportation and trail improvements, site retrofit, andurban stream restoration. For the Plan, eight conceptualdemonstration projects were developed to incorporate arange of features to improve water quality, reduceimpervious areas, introduce native vegetation, including
Ballona Creek Watershed Management Plan
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Ballona Creek Watershed Task Force
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improvement of existing parks (Mar Vista RecreationCenter, Ladera County Park, and Lafayette Park), andschools (Culver City High School, Middle School, andFarragut Elementary School, and University HighRetrofit/Kuruvungna Springs), development of a newtrail and bike path from the Baldwin Hills to BallonaCreek Trail (along a Los Angeles Department of Waterand Power easement), enhancement of the Oxford FloodControl Basin (next to Marina del Rey), and modificationof a residential street to reduce paved areas and retainstormwater runoff.
C. COMMUNITY-BASEDMONITORING
Several cities, agencies, and stakeholder groups currently
collect data on water quality, and to a lesser extent, on
habitat, in the Watershed. To consolidate and coordinate
these efforts the Plan includes a Community-Based
Monitoring Program that documents existing monitoring
Ballona Creek Estuary
efforts, identifies data gaps or redundancies in these
existing monitoring programs, and recommends a
program to track progress towards the water quality and
habitat goals and objectives adopted by the BCWTF.
D. OPPORTUNITIES FORSTAKEHOLDERINVOLVEMENT ANDFUNDING
To make progress towards all of the goals identified bythe BCWTF, individuals, neighborhoods, communityorganizations, school districts, colleges and universities,cities, and local, state and federal agencies all have rolesand responsibilities that may be employed inimplementation of the Plan. To foster stakeholdercommitment towards watershed restoration, the Planincludes a list of potential actions for specific agencies,entities, and organizations.
Ballona Creek Watershed Management Plan
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Ballona Creek Watershed Task Force
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To restore ecological health to the watershed, substantialfinancial resources will be needed. The Plan identifiesvarious public and private funding sources and evaluatesthe eligibility of the demonstration projects for statefunding from Propositions 40 and 50.
E. NEXT STEPS
To achieve the vision of the future for the watershed andrestore its ecological health will require the combinedefforts of federal, state, and regional agencies, localmunicipalities, nonprofit groups, community-basedorganizations, and individuals. Decades may pass beforesubstantial progress is realized and appreciated, but initialkey steps can be taken to demonstrate the feasibility ofthe actions proposed in this plan, build support forwatershed restoration, and illustrate the power ofcoordinated stakeholder action to make positive changes.These actions include: establish, implement and monitorTotal Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs), complete aprioritization project of BMPs, reauthorize the NDPESstormwater runoff permit for Los Angeles County,complete the Lower Ballona Creek Ecological RestorationStudy (by the Army Corps of Engineers), developlandscape guidelines specific to the Ballona Creekwatershed, develop additional GIS based information
University High School
on the watershed’s characteristics, develop andimplement a plan to restore the Ballona Wetlands,implement the Baldwin Hills Park Master Plan and theSanta Monica Mountains Comprehensive Plan, continuemeetings of the Ballona Creek Watershed Task Force,implement recommendations of the Ballona Creek andTrail Focused Special Study, and continue meetings ofthe Lower Ballona Creek Interagency Task Force (toidentify options for joint management of natural resourcesin the lower Ballona Creek area).
Stone Canyon Creek
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