Ballona Wetlands Activists Plan Earth Day Protest

PLAYA DEL REY, CA — Ballona Wetlands activists and Westside residents are planning an Earth Day protest, calling on local leaders to shut down the Playa del Rey oil field and pushing back against what they call a disguised restoration project meant to restore the gas company's infrastructure below the ecological reserve.

The group will start gathering at 10:30 a.m. April 22 near Jefferson and Culver boulevards, just east of the SoCalGas site, and walk to the Playa del Rey oil field area around 11 a.m. to noon for the protest, organizer and Climate Reality Leader Molly Basler told Patch. Basler is a candidate running for Los Angeles City Council District 5.

Residents and activists are demanding that leaders shut down the Playa del Rey oil storage facility located at the Ballona Wetlands before a blowout happens. A 2018 study by the California Council on Science and Technology found that the facility "stands out as a facility with relatively higher risk to health and safety than the other facilities in California."

Los Angeles City Councilmembers Mike Bonin and Paul Koretz have pressured Southern California Gas Company to close its facility, saying that the area is heavily populated and the site could present danger for residents. The L.A. City Council has also called on Gov. Gavin Newsom to close the site at 8141 Gulana Ave., which is close to LAX and has a large population living nearby, and in the event of a gas leak, could become an environmental disaster, according to the 2018 study. The site is also near Loyola Marymount University, Silicon Beach tech companies, including Facebook's office in Playa Vista, and a number of high-end homes and condos.

The Playa Del Rey Field is an exhausted oil field used by SoCalGas since 1955 to store natural gas. It is one of the company's four storage fields, with a capacity of 40 billion cubic feet, second only in size to the infamous Aliso Canyon Field which experienced a major gas leak in 2015 — one of the largest gas blowouts in the history of the U.S. happened.

The PDR oil storage facility is run by SoCalGas, just like the Aliso Canyon site, and sits at the Ballona Wetlands, interconnected to the proposed project to restore the area, which some disagree could actually cause more environmental disruptions than good. Six ongoing lawsuits are now tied to the project.

The debate over the wetlands' future is being fueled primarily by a coalition of nonprofit organizations that include Friends of Ballona Wetlands, Heal the Bay, The Santa Monica Bay Restoration Foundation (commonly known as the Bay Foundation), Ballona Wetlands Foundation, Defend Ballona Wetlands, the Sierra Club's Ballona Wetlands Restoration Committee and the Los Angeles Chapter of the Climate Reality Project, a national organization seeking public action to address the global warming crisis.

While these groups all agree the wetlands must be saved, they don't all agree on precisely how this should be accomplished. In fact, some of the groups appear to be at odds with each other and three have been accused of being influenced by corporate contributions.

Some of the organizations – Friends of Ballona Wetlands, Heal the Bay Foundation - support more comprehensive restoration programs while others, along with individual activists, believe a less aggressive approach should be taken that does not include major construction.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife decided on Dec. 30 about the Ballona Wetlands restoration project, approving one option to restore the wetlands but opting not to put a parking garage or visitor center at some of the last remaining marshes along the Los Angeles coast, Walter Lamb told Patch. Lamb is a President of the Ballona Land Trust and birder.

Lamb is among a group of Westsiders concerned that the project could threaten endangered and important species in the wetlands, one of the last coastal estuaries in Los Angeles, and also put the area at increased risk in the midst of climate change threats, including rising sea level and tsunamis.

"Groups are calling into question whether the project makes sense," Lamb said. "Climate change is actually going to swallow up the wetlands and the species."

Hanscom suggests positions taken by some of the organizations in the debate have been influenced by donations from SoCalGas, and one organization supporting restoration has a SoCalGas executive on its board.

"We're opposed to massive bulldozing that would destroy homes and food sources for thousands of native animals – some of which no longer exist elsewhere on the Los Angeles coast," said Marcia Hanscom, a co-director of the Ballona Institute who also chairs the Sierra Club's Ballona Wetlands Restoration Committee.

Journalist Jane Velez-Mitchell plans to livestream the protest and will also host a panel of experts speaking on the wetlands April 22. To watch or participate, visit: Facebook.com/JaneVelezMitchell.

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