Draining of Pond Leaves Putrid Residue

Despite the sunny weather, few patrons want to sit on the patio at El Torito restaurant in Encino, with its view of a neighboring pond.

And many would-be diners go elsewhere.

El Torito is one of the victims of The Great Stink.

The stink rises from the pond in Los Encinos State Historical Park on Ventura Boulevard, which was drained to be cleared of sludge. The three-quarter-acre pond, which has been home to generations of ducks and geese, turned out to be carpeted with a layer of fowl droppings and dead fish, which have been stewing in the summer sun.

“Everybody always asks, ‘What’s the awful smell?’ ” assistant manager James Bonet said Monday.

“We’re constantly buying air freshener.”

Bonet said business at his restaurant has dropped by about 25% since the smell began about two weeks ago. The pond lies just outside the windows of the patio dining room, and the restaurant has lit aromatic candles and stuffed cloth under the doors to fight the odor.

Other Neighbors Unhappy

Other neighbors are equally unhappy. “We think it stinks, and stinks very badly,” said Joseph Siegel, who lives across from the park on La Maida Street. Siegel said his wife, who has a respiratory disorder, is particularly troubled.

State officials said Monday that the pond will be refilled this week or early next week, drowning the smell under six feet of water.

Bud Getty, a state parks district superintendent for the Santa Monica Mountains, said sludge had threatened to fill the pond and it needed dredging. So the parks department got $56,000 from the state Legislature last year and hired the Office of the State Architect to do the work.

Homer Lin, a senior engineer at the state architect’s office, said the original plan was to drain the pond, dredge it, and bury the muck in another state park. The project ran into snarls because “nobody really knew the past history” of the spring-fed pond, which was built in the early 1870s, Lin said.

“The only way to find out was to drain it.”

Ground Water Pours In

When the pond was drained about three weeks ago, unexpected ground water kept refilling it, keeping the sludge moist, Lin said.

Earl Carlson, the supervising architect overseeing the project for the state Department of Parks and Recreation, said state officials had incorrectly assumed that the pond had a concrete bottom under about a foot of sludge. What they found instead was sludge three to four feet deep over a dirt bottom, Carlson said.

Lin said the state was told that it would cost $192,000 to dredge the wet sludge by crane and haul it away in more than 50 truckloads. Since the money was not available, the idea of dredging has been scrapped for now, he said.

So the state decided to “put the water back in and do the best we can,” Carlson said.

Other Maneuvers Planned

The sludge problem that will remain even after the smell dissipates may still be alleviated in other ways, he said. Lin said the state plans to fix the sluice gate that controls the pond’s drainage. That will allow officials to flush it periodically, Carlson said. Aerators will also be installed, Lin said, to encourage growth of bacteria that destroy the organic sludge. The state will use any leftover money to pump out the sludge, Carlson said.

Carlson said state health officials told him the exposed muck does not present a public health danger.

As for the wildlife disrupted by the project, Getty said some fish were removed from the pond before it was drained and taken to another state park. Some resident ducks were given away, he said.

The remaining ducks and geese are doing all right for the time being without their pond, he said.