Join the Ballona Watershed bus tour on Sept. 23

Take a flyover tour of the Ballona Watershed (above)

Come on the Ballona Watershed Bus Tour to learn more about L.A.'s valuable water resource. The tour is sponsored by the Sierra Club's Airport Marina Group and features these speakers:

-- Jeanette Vosberg of the Sierra Club's Airport Marina Group
-- Elizabeth “Betsy”  Damon, founder of Keepers of the Water and author of “The People’s Water”;
-- Melanie Winter, founder and director of The River Project; and
-- David McNeill, director of Baldwin Hills Conservancy. 

When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 23 (lunch is included)

Where: Bus departs from the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter office, 3250 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles 90010. (You can take the Metro Red Line or Purple Line to the Wilshire/Vermont station or park at New Hampshire One Park.)

What to bring: walking shoes, hat and water

Suggested donation $20

RSVP to Jeanette Vosberg at jeanette@saveballona.org

This year the City and County of Los Angeles committed to “water resilience,” which in laymen’s terms means capturing and using our rainwater. Currently, L.A. imports 89% of its water from more than 200 miles away at over twice the cost of conserving and using local water. Current Los Angeles fresh water imports use about 20% of all our California electricity and 20% of our natural gas. 

With more frequent 500 and 1,000 year floods, L.A. desperately needs to protect its seasonal wetlands. Wetlands absorb and clean massive amounts of fresh water and return it to our aquifers. Wetlands are the kidneys of the earth. Over 80% of our coastal wetlands in California are gone. The precious remainder absorbs and cleans massive amounts of fresh water. 

Wetlands that remain are fought over for shopping centers and housing developments. Sierra Club is committed to protecting these remaining wetlands and uplands by supporting the California Coastal Commission’s protection of remaining wetlands and upland habitat, electing earth friendly candidates for local, state and federal office and being watchful stewards of the earth.

The Airport Marina Group favors creating new wildlife, people and rainwater friendly parks, landscaping private homes with drought friendly plants, trees, swales and catchment basins that attract urban wildlife, and by rehabilitating old parks to capture and infiltrate rainwater. Urban wilderness habitat increases the value of nearby properties an average of 20%. 

The tour

Stops include the Echo Park Lake Bird Sanctuary, Lafayette Park and MacArthur Park/Lake, the Silver Lake Reservoir and Ivanhoe Dam and more. At Fern Dell Park near Griffith Park, we will stop for lunch and take a short walk in the Upper Ballona Watershed where the Ballona Creek is open to the sky for one mile. At Los Feliz Boulevard and Western Avenue, the Ballona Watershed rainwater begins its 10-mile descent through buried storm drains. (Mullholland Drive above the park sits at the top of the watershed.)

Leaving Fern Dell, the tour passes through the Wilshire Country Club on our way to Pan Pacific Park on Beverly Boulevard and Grove Drive. Pan Pacific Park is shaped like a bowl that acts as a perfect place for rainwater to sit and be absorbed into the earth. The tour then heads to Cochran Avenue and Venice Boulevard where Ballona Creek/Flood Control Channel daylights on its way to Santa Monica Bay/Pacific Ocean. The bus will drive along Ballona Creek to the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area, the Inglewood Oil Field and Stoneview Nature Center, a 5-acre community center and garden.