Ballona Wetlands

Ballona Wetlands, Ballona Creek, and Marina Del Rey Harbor

Wetlands, 2005.

The Ballona Wetlands are located in Southern California, USA south of Marina del Rey and east of Playa del Rey. The wetlands once included the areas now taken up by Marina del Rey, Venice, and Playa Vista, extending north to about present-day Washington Blvd. in Venice.

It is one of the last significant wetlands area in the Los Angeles basin, and is named for Ballona Creek which now runs through the area as a flood control channel. In the 1930s the Ballona Creek corridor was channelized in concrete, thus greatly reducing the inflow of salt water to the marsh, and eliminating spring floods which brought freshwater to the wetlands.

History

Tongva Native Americans

Main articles: Tongva and Chumash people

Mexican ranchos and early American era

Main articles: Ranchos of California and History of California to 1899

Water control

The Ballona Creek Flood control channel, and the construction of Marina del Rey in the late 1950s, reduced the 2,100-acre (8.5 km²) estuary to some 700 acres (2.8 km²).^{[citation needed]} Additional open space east of the wetlands was converted to agricultural uses by the early 20th century, with cultivation continuing into the 1990s, when these became some of the last farm fields in the Los Angeles Basin. In the 1940s, much of these farm fields became the private Hughes Airport. In first decade of the 21st century that land was developed as Playa Vista, a planned mixed-use community east of Lincoln Boulevard.

Land owners and Issues

Main article: Nature reserve

The State of California owned wetlands, just over 600 acres (2.4 km²), are crossed by Culver Boulevard, from Playa Del Rey to Culver City, and bordered by the 90 Marina freeway to the east. 83 acres (340,000 m²) of the Ballona Creek estuary were included in the state acquisition, previously privately owned by Howard Hughes, his corporate heirs and the subsequent developers of Playa Vista.

These estuary wetlands, and the remaining open space, have been the subject of a battle between developers and environmentalists that has been ongoing for decades. Numerous environmental lawsuits and the acquisition of a part of the Wetlands by the State of California has helped to protect a portion of this area, including nearly all the open space west of Lincoln Blvd. (including all of the remaining tidal wetlands). In 2002, remains of California Native American Tongva villages, artifacts, and buried ancestors were found during excavation on the Playa Vista site.

Natural history

See also: Estuary

Flora - plants

Main articles: California coastal salt marsh, California coastal prairie, and Coastal Strand

The Ballona Wetlands, is a habitat of a marine Estuary with its surrounding ecosystems. Historically the outlet-mouth of the Los Angeles River switched, between San Pedro Bay and the Ballona creek watercourse to Santa Monica Bay, several times a century. It last came through Ballona in the early 19th century. The alluvium it left makes up the soils below. Some unique plants here are: the Ballona Wallflower, Southern Tarplant, Lewis' Primrose, and Lupines.

Chaenactis glabriuscula var. orcuttiana — Orcutt's yellow pincushion, is a rare native plant limited to the coastal dunes of southern California. The Ballona Wetlands and Bell Avenue Sand Dune Park in Manhattan Beach, each had var. orcuttiana populations newly discovered in Spring 2010. The variety is listed by the California Native Plant Society as endemic to California coastal dunes ecosystems and significantly declining.

Fauna

The estuary is home for such wildlife as: Great Blue Heron and Snowy Egret rookeries, the California Killifish, the California Least Tern, and the Belding's Savannah sparrow. The Ballona Wetlands and the adjacent city-owned lagoons are a stop along the migratory Pacific Flyway.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Ballona Creek
• Santa Monica Bay
• Wildlife corridor
• Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation
• Estuaries and Coasts
• Los Angeles River (history)

External links

• Heal the Bay
• EPA Santa Monica Bay Watershed Profile
• Ballona Wetlands Land Trust
• Restoration Project Homepage
• Birds of Ballona
• Gallery of Bird photos at Ballona
• Friends of Ballona Wetlands
• Video of The Ballona Wetlands
• The Early Native Americans of Playa del Rey