Peace in the Valley : Lake Balboa Offers a Place to Get Away From Urban Life, and It’s Only a Couple of Blocks From San Diego Freeway

Ernestine Fields loves the early mornings, when there is a mist over the water.

“You get a fragrance of green (from the) the grass and the lake,” she says.

Fred Wallin, a retiree, likes walking around the lake or looking down on it from his home in the nearby hills. Next spring he can expect to see fish jumping and cherry trees in bloom.

“I really enjoy this place,” Wallin said. “This is one of the few things the city has done that was right.”

He means the city of Los Angeles, whose Recreation and Parks Department operates Lake Balboa, a new 27-acre oasis of serenity tucked into the urban density of the Sepulveda Basin. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the facility, but every San Fernando Valley resident helps to keep it full every time he or she takes a shower or flushes a toilet. Lake Balboa consists entirely of reclaimed waste water.

But it’s neither a cesspool nor a sewage treatment plant. It’s not even necessary to hold one’s nose there. The water--technically classed as Title 22--is so thoroughly treated at the nearby Donald C. Tillman Reclamation Plant that nobody would suspect it has been used before.

Solid wastes have been removed and bacteria destroyed by chlorination, followed by de-chlorination to allow the introduction of life forms. An aeration system--apparent by lines of bubbles in the middle of the lake--helps to keep the water oxidized.

“The water meets all the state and (Environmental Protection Agency) requirements,” says Steve Moe, the lake manager. “You can use it for a number of different things, depending on your permits . . . irrigation, recreational purposes. In some ways the requirements for Title 22 water are more stringent than for your drinking water.”

With a balanced inflow and outflow of 10 million to 20 million gallons per day--depending, one supposes, on the number of flushes in the Valley--the lake changes its water completely every 4.4 days, Moe said. The discharge goes into the Los Angeles River, which borders the south side.

*

When recreation is permitted on the lake starting Monday, there will be no swimming or wading, and no sailboards or gasoline-powered or inflatable craft will be allowed.

“The County of Los Angeles Health Department and Recreation and Parks have decided not to allow body contact,” Moe said.

Permitted will be canoes, kayaks, rowboats and small sailboats. Rental boats or pedal craft might be offered later. Lifeguards will be on duty during boating hours from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Areas have been designated for remote-controlled model boats and fly-casting, but the latter will be for practice only. The lake won’t have any catchable fish until early next year.

And, Moe says, “The fish will be just fine to eat. We will be constantly monitoring the fish.”

True to their catch-and-release ethic, the 300 members of the Valley’s Sierra Pacific Flyfishers couldn’t care less about that.

“We’re not interested in catching anything,” said Bennett Mintz, who has followed the development of the project. “In fact, we’re going to insist on nobody using hooks (for fly-casting practice).”

The lake already has thriving populations of tilapia, arroyo chub and tiny mosquito fish, which feed on midge fly larvae and in turn are fed upon by a growing population of grebes.

Those nongame species are already present in the L.A. River and in the six ponds on Woodley Lakes Golf Course on the east side. Although fishing isn’t allowed on the golf course, the ponds have catfish up to five or six pounds and will be used as breeding sources for Lake Balboa, Moe said.

The chubs, although apparently healthy, are on state and federal endangered-species lists.

“There aren’t too many habitats left for them because of man’s tendency to concrete everything he sees,” Moe said.

Lake Balboa is concrete only for five feet at the shoreline to discourage overgrowth. The rest of the lake bottom--it is 11 1/2 feet deep, maximum--is natural clay, allowing life forms to survive.

Moe paused during a tour of the lake.

“I’m going to go over here and see how my water lilies are doing,” he said.

The lilies are being grown in limited areas so as not to get out of control, lest they take over the lake. Some paddies will become cover for fish, but surplus concrete pipe has been stacked randomly around the lake bottom as permanent underwater structure.

Moe, working with the California Department of Fish and Game, eventually expects to add largemouth bass and brown bullheads and channel catfish early next year and perhaps trout next winter.

As for the chubs, tilapia and crawfish in the river?

“I imagine those will find their way in on their own,” Moe said. “Tilapia are algae eaters, more of an aquarium fish that has gone wild.”

For the bass and catfish, Moe said, “We will be putting in some gravel for spawning beds, but I’m not going to tell anybody where they are.”

*

Somehow, fishermen will learn. Even without much fanfare, the public was quick to discover the site when it opened in late summer.

“We estimated there were five- to seven-thousand people here on the first weekend,” Moe said. “We had to have park rangers out on Balboa Boulevard to control the traffic--one car out, one car in. It’s always packed on the weekends.”

Only a couple of blocks from the San Diego Freeway and beneath the Van Nuys airport flight path, Lake Balboa is already valued for its aesthetics. The shoreline is curved like a natural lake’s, with deep coves and peninsulas, and there are picnic gazebos surrounded by grassy areas with young trees that will shade future generations. Even on weekdays there is a parade of joggers, power walkers and dog walkers, whose reverie is interrupted occasionally by takeoffs from the airport.

Signs are posted to exclude bicyclists and roller skaters from the concrete paths along the shore, and Moe acknowledges that those enthusiasts are upset.

“But we will have a bike path in the next phase of development in 1993,” he said.

The Sierra Pacific Flyfishers have offered to conduct free casting classes on weekends; Recreation and Parks will teach classes in boating, fishing and water safety and the paved paths make the lake ideal for handicapped access to fishing. Lake Balboa could be a model for urban lakes without using a single drop of drinking water.

“It will bring people who never had the opportunity to try fishing,” Moe said. “To have a lake like this in the middle of a community, where there’s no charge for it, and using the reclaimed water like this . . . it’s a great beneficial use.”

Moe, a 12-year Recreation and Parks Department employee, asked for the assignment to manage Lake Balboa.

“It was a challenge,” he said. “My main job with the city has been moving water.”

Now he can make the water work for people and wildlife.

“That’s great,” he said, noting some grebes flying low over the lake. “That’s telling me that we have fish-eating birds here. Their food base is here. The mosquito fish are proliferating like mad.

“A month and a half ago, we had a hatch of dragon flies around the lake that was phenomenal. . . . (I) came out at 6:30 in the morning and the trees around the lake were glistening with the wings of the dragon flies.”

Fields, walking in a sweat suit, said, “I’m an attorney and I love coming over here to unwind. It’s especially wonderful on the weekend to see all of the families out here. I work with the dependency court, where all I see is children who are abused.

“But on the weekends it’s only a third the size it should be. You can barely do any speed walking. You kind of have to amble along with the group. But it’s wonderful. It’s a great addition to the Valley, having this beautiful lake.”