$7.4 Million to Improve Sepulveda Basin : Panel OKs Funds for 26-Acre Lake

A congressional committee Thursday recommended that the federal government provide $7.4 million for improvements, including the rest of what is needed to put in a lake, in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area, the San Fernando Valley’s biggest park.

The House Appropriation Committee recommendation must be approved by the full House and Senate and President Reagan.

The Administration has yet to take a position on the appropriation. But, last year, $2.6 million in federal money was provided with the President’s support to start work on a 26-acre lake on land now leased for farming southeast of Balboa and Victory boulevards.

Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles), who sought the funds for the park in his district, said, “Prospects for a large appropriation for the basin are now very good.” The $7.4 million was the full amount requested by Beilenson.

Joel Breitbart, assistant general manager of the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department, said the $7.4 million would be used to provide landscaping, parking, picnic tables and other recreational facilities in a 160-acre area around the lake. The area will be named Bull Run Park, after the creek that cuts across the property.

Size Scaled Down

Plans for the lake were approved by the City Council in 1981. The city has to match the federal share for the park improvements.

When government officials last September announced plans to create the lake, they said it would cover 40 to 50 acres. Breitbart, however, said Thursday that the city was forced to scale down the size of the lake to 26 acres because of design problems.

The lake, to be known as Lake Balboa, is one of two planned for the park. An 11-acre wildlife lake is planned on marshland just west of the San Diego Freeway and north of Burbank Boulevard.

Lake Balboa, about twice the size of Echo Park Lake, will be open for fishing and rowing, but swimming will not be allowed. The lake will be filled with treated water from the city’s nearby Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant.

Work on the lakes will begin next January and they are expected to be completed in mid-1987, Breitbart said.