Officials Launch Lake, Park in Encino but the Water Will Come Later : Outdoors: Lake Balboa is to be filled in two years. But the 160-acre site is the latest addition to the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area.

With grins, handshakes and backslaps all around, city and federal officials Thursday dedicated a new fishing and boating lake in Encino.

That the lake had no water in it bothered them not at all.

Indeed, the 26-acre Lake Balboa will not be filled for another two years.

But that didn’t stop officials from gathering near the dry lake bed to open a new 160-acre park surrounding it as the latest addition to the 2,100-acre Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area, the San Fernando Valley’s largest and most popular park.

Although the lake is empty, and newly planted, leafless trees surround the spaces where picnic benches have yet to be installed, officials said they opened the park so the public can enjoy the biking and jogging trails, small playground and other amenities already in place.

“We thought we ought to open it up for people to use. We’ve got places where people can picnic, fly kites and throw Frisbees around,” said Jim Hadaway, general manager of the city’s Recreation and Parks Department.

Hadaway and officials including Rep. Anthony Beilenson (D-Los Angeles) and City Councilwoman Joy Picus talked up the new facility before a sign reading: “Lake Balboa. Water Due in 1992.”

Hadaway said the lake will be filled with reclaimed waste water as soon as pipelines and a $2-million pumping station are constructed at the Tillman waste water recycling plant. The plant, about one-third of a mile away from the lake, recycles waste water from local homes and businesses.

Lake Balboa will not be filled with fresh water for swimming because of the drought, said Frank Catania, director of planning for the parks department.

The park area, which is owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, together with the rest of the Sepulveda flood control basin, is being turned over to the city for operation and maintenance. It was financed with $10 million in federal money, an amount the city will match to pay for the pumping station and other improvements.

Although officials agreed the park looks barren now, they said it will become more attractive as dozens of sycamore, ginkgo and crepe myrtle trees mature and several hundred picnic tables are installed.

Picus, who praised the lakeside park during her public remarks, later told a reporter “it is underutilized,” saying that she supports construction of the controversial proposed Arts Park L.A. within Lake Balboa Park.

“I think there’s not enough to do in it,” she said. She acknowledged that recreational facilities and concessions proposed for the recreation area in the past--including a much criticized suggestion for a race track--have stirred intense public opposition.

“People really cherish this open space, and they don’t want anything to detract from that,” said Picus.

The proposed Arts Park--a $70-million complex of theaters, workshops and exhibit spaces that would spread over 60 acres near Victory and Balboa boulevards--has been bogged down in litigation between environmentalists and the Army. That litigation was recently settled.

Proponents are drawing up an environmental impact report, a draft of which is due this fall, Catania said.

But the spindly trees and empty lake hardly fazed one of the park’s first visitors, Edith Rubinstein of Encino, who showed up just minutes after the government types departed.

“They did it beautifully,” she exclaimed, gazing out over the green expanses. “In another two years, the trees will be taller and it’ll be nice.”