A Patch of Blue at Playa Vista

Coots, white egrets, hummingbirds and great blue herons lately have made a springtime home of a freshwater marsh created by the builders of the Playa Vista development near Marina del Rey.

When the marsh opens to the public Saturday, it will mark a watershed, after nearly two decades of protests and lawsuits over coastal Los Angeles’ last large undeveloped property.

The developer of the adjacent condominiums and apartments will join with one contingent of environmental activists in celebrating the opening of the $18-million preserve -- complete with an L-shaped expanse of open water and stands of California sycamores, cattails and other native plants.

A representative of the Gabrielino Indians, whose forbears fished in the wetlands, will bless the marsh. Many of the engineers, ecologists and environmental activists involved in the project feared that this day might never come. “I’m thrilled to death it has actually been built,” said Eric Strecker, a storm-water management consultant from Portland who has been advising Playa Vista since 1986.

But another group of environmentalists -- die-hard opponents of Playa Vista and all that goes with it -- plan a protest not far away. They say the plan to feed the preserve with street runoff makes it a dumping ground -- a far cry from the restored saltwater marsh that some experts recommended.

‘It Is a Mistake’

“Playa Vista’s pitch is this marsh is great because it’s going to help clean Santa Monica Bay and Ballona Creek,” said Steve Fleischli, executive director of Santa Monica Baykeeper. “But my view is it’s a water of the United States, and the water in it should be clean. They shouldn’t be using the marsh to make it clean.”

Joy Zedler, a noted wetlands ecologist at the University of Wisconsin, agreed that the developer failed to make the most of the restoration.

“If you think about where it is and what it could be, it is a mistake,” said Zedler, who has studied the property. “I’m on record as saying that the highest and best use would have been to put a salt marsh there.”

Supporters of the freshwater marsh note that it has already become home to many birds and that much of the other acreage to be preserved west of Lincoln Boulevard has been earmarked as an area for a saltwater marsh, where ocean tides might one day flush the landscape, as they did in historic times.

A series of gates to improve the flow of saltwater to the wetlands is scheduled to be opened next week. Whether the developer or the state would be responsible for the saltwater wetlands restoration remains unclear, since negotiations are ongoing to sell the property into the public domain.

On a preview tour one recent morning, the stillness of the freshwater marsh was disturbed only by the chattering of birds and the gentle ruffling of the water by a breeze wafting from the sea, 1 1/2 miles to the west. Michael Josselyn, a binocular-toting wetlands ecologist working for Friends of Ballona Wetlands, said he spotted 30 species of birds, including mallards, ruddy ducks and black-neck stilts.

It soon became clear that this is no passive pond.

“The freshwater marsh will serve three functions,” said Catherine Tyrrell, Playa Vista’s director of coastal and environmental affairs. In addition to creating habitat, it is designed to control flooding and to treat storm-water runoff.

Tyrrell pointed to drains that will bring storm-water runoff into the marsh. They’ll have a big job. The runoff from about 1,000 acres -- half within the Playa Vista development to the east and half from the Westchester Bluffs, Lincoln Boulevard and other nearby areas -- drains into the marsh.

Wetlands serve as natural filters. Plant materials in shallow, heavily vegetated areas will slow down flowing water, and sediments carrying oil and other pollutants will settle to the bottom, designers of the marsh say. Plants will take up minerals such as nitrogen as nutrients. The maintenance plan calls for the marsh to be dredged every five to 20 years to get rid of built-up pollutants, Strecker said.

In addition to paying to create the marsh, Playa Vista has agreed to cover the annual maintenance costs, in perpetuity. That cost is projected to be $200,000 to $500,000 per year.

The marsh is the first phase of what will be a 51-acre freshwater wetland system. It is bordered by native grasses, shrubs and trees typical of Southern California marsh ecosystems. Eventually, Playa Vista plans to develop a narrow stream that would run along the base of the Westchester Bluffs and connect to the marsh through a storm drain.

Among the native plants installed so far are bays and black walnuts; Fremont cottonwoods; sand bar and arroyo willows; and wild rose, Mexican elderberry and a ground cover called mule fat. California poppies, lupines and other wildflowers are in bright spring bloom. Once completed, the 26-acre marsh will feature 3,000 trees and 10,000 shrubs and native plants.

At the southern end, cattails that were planted individually 15 feet apart in October 2001 have filled in to create a lush landing zone for red-winged blackbirds. As one zoomed off, its flight path paralleled that of a Boeing jet that could be seen through the morning haze taking off from Los Angeles International Airport, 2 1/2 miles south.

Touring the marsh in a small dinghy, Tyrrell fished out a 7-Up can coated with algae. Foam cups littered the many islands within the marsh, designed to create nesting grounds for fowl away from predators.

Tyrrell said much of the trash should be trapped by a system of nets to be installed by Caltrans in the storm drains later this year. Other filtering systems are also planned.

Across Lincoln Boulevard, where thousands of condos and townhomes are nearing completion at Playa Vista, earthmovers created a constant background rumble.

The marshland, too, was once slated for development -- condos, a golf course and exclusive senior citizen housing. In January 1984, the California Coastal Commission approved plans by the late Howard Hughes’ Summa Corp. to develop the property and restore 175 acres of wetlands.

In and Out of Court

Friends of Ballona Wetlands, led by activist Ruth Lansford, a transplanted New Yorker, sued late in 1984 to void the project, but the commission recertified the land-use plan in 1986.

Three years later, Maguire Thomas Partners, the project’s new owner, began settlement discussions with the Friends of Ballona. Eventually, the firm agreed to design a freshwater marsh on that corner patch of land, which had long been used to grow barley and lima beans.

Various federal and state agencies approved the plan in the early 1990s. But then in 1997 a group of activists staunchly opposed to Playa Vista, including the Wetlands Action Network, challenged the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ permit for the project in U.S. District Court. Construction was put on hold for three years.

In early 2000, the court ruled in favor of Playa Vista, which Maguire Thomas by that time had sold to the group of investors who now own it. Planting of the marsh was completed in October 2001.

With 95% of wetlands along California’s coast destroyed by development, some view the marsh as a small but important victory.

“We were very nervous about it until the marsh was actually in there,” Lansford said in an interview at her beachside home in Playa del Rey. “Now, it can never be developed.”

The marsh features a 1.2-mile trail with interpretive signs. Parts of the trail will be open to the public, whereas other portions will be open only to groups that book tours led by Friends of Ballona Wetlands docents.