The Ballona Wetlands Land Trust, founded in 1994, is a non-profit community organization dedicated to the acquisition, restoration and preservation of the entire Ballona Wetlands ecosystem. Our ultimate goal is to facilitate in creating a world-class wildlife refuge and public park. The Ballona Wetlands Land Trust has over 3,000 members and seven directors on its board.

Our Accomplishments

Though many locals had fought for years to stave off development on Ballona, a number of them were willing to accept building on a large part of the land in exchange for restoration of a small part of the wetlands. The Land Trust held to higher expectations and led community-organizing efforts that helped facilitate:

• The legislation transferring the 73-acre parcel, known as Ballona Northeast, into the public trust for permanent protection. Our community organizing resulted in over 6,000 hand-written letters sent to Senator Bowen– the most she had received on any issue during her time in office;
• The public acquisition of 600 acres of the Ballona Wetlands ecosystem (west of Lincoln Blvd. and north of Ballona Creek)
• The continued interim restoration of the 600 acres of the Ballona Ecological Reserve, started in December 2004, by Tom Francis.

Our Strategy

1. Educate the community about the impacts of the proposed Playa Vista development project and the value of coastal wetlands ecosystems and of open space.

2. Educate the public on the importance of a Natural Treatment Wetland at Ballona Southeast (East of Lincoln and South of Jefferson) which is currently privately owned and threatened with development.

3. Organize the community in speaking out to our elected officials and the media.

4. Raise the capital necessary to facilitate the acquisition of Ballona Southeast from the Development Company in order to preserve and protect it for future generations. We are working to identify and secure city, state and federal funds.

5. Ensure that existing laws are followed by both the Development Company and our elected officials and work to foster and protect laws that protect the environment.

Current Action

The Playa Vista developers recently released a revised Environmental Impact Report (RS-DEIR) which they hope will overturn the court decision of 2007, when all Phase II construction was forced to stop. Playa Vista's Environmental Impact Report for the proposed development was found deficient in its analysis of environmental impacts related to land use, archaeological resources, methane, waste water, and water supply.

The Ballona Wetlands Land Trust is currently preparing comments on this RS-DEIR, which we have found insufficiently addresses the above issues, as well as the global warming impact.  We want to show Playa Vista that they cannot evade California's environmental requirements by submitting ponderous and inaccurate documents.

To read the City's notice of the release of the RS-DEIR, click here.

To read the RS-DEIR, click here, then go to Environmental --> Draft EIR --> Village at Playa Vista, then click ON THE TEXT of “Village at Playa Vista” to view the PDF entitled “Re-circulated Sections of Draft EIR (January 9, 2009).”

Due in part to BWLT action, the deadline for comments to the City was extended, and comments are now due by Thursday, April 30th.  We encourage our supporters to add their voices in opposition to the development.   Send a letter of opinion to David.somers@lacity.org, or fax to: 213.978.1343.  Mail should be sent to David Somers, Dept. of City Planning, 200 N. Spring Street, Rm. 750, Los Angeles, CA 90012.

Environmental Impact Reports are long documents with hefty technical components.  Realizing that most people have neither the time nor desire to delve too deeply into them, the Land Trust has worked up a summary of our take on the RS-DEIR, highlighting its main failings. Click here to read this summary!