Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve (pronunciation: "Bah-yo-nuh" or "Buy-yo-nah") is a protected area that once served as the natural estuary for neighboring Ballona Creek. The site is located in Los Angeles County, California, just south of Marina del Rey. Ballona—the second-largest open space within the city limits of Los Angeles, behind Griffith Park—is owned by the state of California and managed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The preserve is bisected generally east-west by the Ballona Creek channel and bordered by the 90 Marina freeway to the east.
Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve is one of the last significant wetlands or marshes left in Los Angeles County, wetlands being "areas that are periodically, seasonally or perennially flooded that also have specific types of vegetation." Ballona is a "fragile, self-sustaining bog, fed by both fresh and salt water…This and other major wetlands of the Los Angeles Basin, including Bixby Slough…have been largely filled in for urban development." The value of Ballona is that "wetlands teem with life and are among the earth's most productive environments."
Geography
The original extent of Ballona Wetlands likely ranged between and . The wetlands can be roughly divided into five ecologically distinct areas: saltwater marsh (wetland fed by the ocean), freshwater marsh (wetland fed by creeks and streams), riparian corridor (creek bottomland), sand dunes and bluffs.
Habitat types present in the wetlands include coastal prairie, coastal willow woodland, coastal shrubland, salt pannes and pools, vernal pools, and coastal urban forests.
In addition to functioning as a tidal river estuary, Ballona Creek also acts as a flood control channel, and the construction of an estuarine harbor and port called Marina del Rey in the late 1950s, increased the urbanized estuary by .
Additional open space east of the wetlands was converted to agricultural uses by the early 20th century. Many of these farm fields became the private Hughes Airport with other fields staying under cultivation continuing well into the 1990s, when they became some of the last farm fields in the Los Angeles Basin. In the first decade of the 21st century the Hughes Airport land was developed as Playa Vista, a neighborhood east of Lincoln Boulevard.
Land rights
The remaining open space of what was once the vast Rancho la Ballona has been the subject of a battle between developers and environmentalists that has been ongoing for decades.
of estuarine wetland were included in the state acquisition, previously privately owned by Howard Hughes, his corporate heirs and the subsequent developers of Playa Vista. Numerous environmental lawsuits and the acquisition of a part of the Wetlands by the State of California has helped to protect nearly all the open space west of Lincoln Blvd. (including all of the remaining tidal wetlands).
Southern California Gas Company has a facility in Area B related to underground natural gas; oil drilling of the land took place in the 20th century and infrastructure from that era remains.
Ballona Freshwater Marsh
Ballona Freshwater Marsh (BFM) is a marsh fed by water from the nearby Bluff Creek, a remnant of Centinela Creek. The freshwater marsh, located on the corner of Lincoln and Jefferson, was built in 2003 by the corporation that was building the adjacent Playa Vista neighborhood.
The land had previously been a derelict celery field
that supported approximately 50 bird species. The creation of the Freshwater Marsh has been described as "wildly successful, providing rich native habitat and regulated access for people, where degraded land once dominated." Some 250 species of birds have now been recorded at the Freshwater Marsh.
Subdivisions
The Ballona Wetlands are typically divided into four sections for planning and study purposes.
Area A: West of Lincoln Boulevard, north of the creek
Area B: West of Lincoln, south of the creek
Area C: East of Lincoln, north of the creek, west of Marina Freeway
Area D: Playa Vista neighborhood including Bluff Creek riparian corridor
Ecology and biodiversity
"These marshes are more than for just the birds. They're also fish nurseries, water and air filtration systems, places for groundwater to refill aquifers, and buffer zones that help protect human homes and other property from floods."
Wetland flora includes pickleweed, alkali heath, saltgrass, salt marsh dodder, arrowgrass, glasswort, and upland species like coyote bush and goldenbush.