A Strong Statement for Earth Day, 2022 ~ Ballona Wetlands!

This year's Earth Day, Friday, April 22, 2022, brought environmental and wildlife activists to the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve to celebrate and hear the strong opposition of local leaders to the State of California's proposed plan that would bulldoze and significantly alter habitat that is currently relied on by rare and imperiled species - plants and animals that are increasingly threatened by such projects claiming they will somehow be helped by more interference.

One such leader is Mike Newhouse, former President of the Venice Neighborhood Council and a land-use and planning lawyer who places environmental protection at the top of his list of priorities for the City Council seat he hopes to capture in the upcoming elections. (He's running for CD-11, the Council District where Mike Bonin is now the representative, and where Bill Rosendahl was Councilmember before that.) Newhouse's strong statement released on Earth Day was cheered on by activists from the LA Coastal Protection Coalition and others who have been working tirelessly to stop the plans for a major industrial overhaul that the State has yet to make the case for its necessity. Community leaders from Venice to Pacific Palisades to Del Rey to Brentwood to Mar Vista are opposed to the project and regularly show up at public hearings to state their objections.

"I've waited for nearly 30 years to have a City Council representative that understands and shares my commitment to protecting wildlife, wetlands and other fragile coastal ecosystems in Los Angeles - especially at the Ballona Wetlands. Mike Newhouse's commitment to keep the bulldozers out of this fragile landscape is significant, and marks a renewed commitment of leadership to pay attention to and to respect the wild animals and rare plant populations with whom we share this space," stated Marcia Hanscom*, long-time wetlands and coastal protection advocate who moved to Playa del Rey in 2004, after beginning work to protect Ballona from the Playa Vista development in 1995.

Mike Newhouse's Earth Day Statement includes important points that others have yet to acknowledge - one being the tremendous traffic impacts that a 9-year construction project would bring to an already overcrowded roadway system impacting nearby Playa Del Rey, Marina Del Rey, Playa Vista, Del Rey and Westchester.

Newhouse concluded the project "could cripple traffic at Lincoln & Jefferson. Especially now, we cannot waste public money on a controversial and unnecessary project."

According to the Environmental Impact Report prepared by the CA Dept of Fish & Wildlife, the project that some call a "restoration" includes building one or two bridges over Lincoln Blvd., 351 workers on-site daily; more than 2 million cubic yards of soil to be excavated and moved around on to other locations on the site, and 810 added vehicle trips per day.

Newhouse received the most cheers from community members and activists at this Earth Day event when they heard his unequivocal opposition to the bulldozers being brought in to the area,
Excerpt from April 22, 2022 Earth Day Statement by Mike Newhouse:

"Let me be absolutely clear: NO BULLDOZERS. I am opposed to the “restoration” plan –with excavation and demolition of levees all being too intrusive for a fragile landscape as we have at the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve. Instead, I want to join in with US Rep. Ted Lieu and welcome in the National Park Service to help this community engage in a vision process for how to best protect this land and the entire Los Angeles coast, from Venice to San Pedro. I support his bill in Congress that would do exactly that."

"What a relief to have someone like Mike Newhouse running for Los Angeles City Council. We worked hard for nearly a decade to keep the bulldozers out of the Ballona Wetlands - and we need to keep them out. The habitats are rare, and the plant and wildlife populations supported at Ballona will be decimated if this project ever is allowed to proceed. Mike Newhouse is a hero for standing up to this ecologically unsound proposal," stated wildlife biologist and wetlands scientist Robert "Roy" van de Hoek.

* note: Hanscom's leadership, along with that of numerous others in a large coalition she helped organize, persuaded Governor Gray Davis and his administration to acquire 640 acres of land at Ballona, while the previous deals made would have only preserved 240 acres of land - hardly sufficient to provide the shelter and food that today supports 7 endangered species and dozens of species on the California List of Species of Special Concern and other protected species lists. The Playa Vista developers had to scale down its ambitions and its footprint after years of protests, lawsuits, children writing letters pleading with Steven Spielberg to leave the development business and a full summer of community members locking down to bulldozers that were attempting to get the mega-development started. Finally, a victory in federal court, combined with State Senator Tom Hayden joining forces with Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa earmarking funds for acquisition of land at Ballona in Proposition 12, laid the foundation for the public acquisition of this long-contested land on Los Angeles coast.