Wetlands Plan Sparks Debate

A proposal to convert up to 300 acres of San Fernando Valley parkland into wetlands to filter treated sewage has sparked an intense debate among environmentalists, city officials and homeowners.

The wetlands project has been touted as a natural way to avoid costly construction of a new plant to meet tougher purity rules for the Los Angeles River.

But it has raised howls of protest from neighbors, some of whom live within a quarter-mile of the marshland proposed for the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area, the Valley’s second-largest park.

The proposed flooding from the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant would cover 20% of the area.

“The basin was designated for recreation and flood control, not to be a sewage treatment facility,” said Gerald Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino. “This is bait and switch.”

Areas tentatively proposed to eventually become wetlands, planted with cattails and bulrushes, include much of Woodley Avenue Park, some cricket fields, and land used by model-airplane enthusiasts.

At a time when environmentalists are fighting tooth and nail to protect the Ballona Wetlands from development, the Valley wetlands project opens another front in the battle over conflicting public needs and how Los Angeles uses open space.

Sanitation Bureau officials plan to move ahead with a demonstration project, using up to 50 acres as early as 2003. They still must work out agreements with interested parties, including the Army Corps of Engineers, which owns the basin.

The demonstration project site being considered is just south of Burbank Boulevard, west of the Los Angeles River and north of the Ventura Freeway.

Carvel Bass of the corps said his agency is waiting for a formal application to consider, but added, “We have heard about this proposal and we don’t have any objection theoretically.”

“We need to operate it for one year and collect data that show it will work,” said William Straub, a senior engineer and assistant division manager overseeing the project.

A draft study conducted for the city by consultants CH2M Hill concluded that the plan would work and provide added public benefits.

“The polishing of this waste water through treatment wetlands will increase the quality of the water discharged to the Los Angeles River, create significant habitat for wildlife and provide recreational and environmental education opportunities for area residents,” the consultants’ study concluded.

The Sanitation Bureau plans to spend $20 million to treat the soil, plant vegetation and reshape the land so that water from the plant will flow across it.

Dorothy Green, a founder of Heal the Bay and president of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers Watershed Council, praised the concept.

“Wetlands can provide many benefits to the region, not just removing nitrates, but also providing a natural habitat, green space and educational opportunities for kids,” said Green, who brought the idea to the city’s attention.

New standards require lower levels of nitrates in sewage effluent dumped into the Los Angeles River, Straub said.

Tillman puts Valley sewage through three levels of treatment and discharges 80 million gallons of treated effluent daily into the Los Angeles River.

The water is relatively clean, but not clean enough to drink or swim in, and high nitrate levels cause problems of excessive algae growth in the river.

One alternative would be to build a treatment plant putting the effluent through additional filtering, but the cost of such a plant, which Straub estimated at $100 million, is considered prohibitive.

Both the vegetation and the soil would have the effect of filtering out nitrates and other problem elements from the water, according to a draft proposal.

Treatment wetlands have been used in the U.S. since the 1970s, with more than 600 in existence nationwide, officials say.

Still, residents near the basin say they will fight the loss of recreation lands.

They also are concerned that the project could create odor problems and a mosquito nuisance.

“It sounds awful,” said Ellen Bagelman, president of the Lake Balboa Neighborhood Assn. in west Van Nuys.

Straub said any final plan will mitigate mosquito problems, and the water will be constantly moving, not standing, so that smell will not be an issue.

Not all city officials approve. One city recreation supervisor who has been briefed on the plan said it could significantly harm recreation uses in the 1,500-acre basin.

“Three hundred acres is excessive,” said James Ward, a Recreation and Parks Department supervisor responsible for the basin. “It would shut down a lot of our recreation activities.”

He said some of the property targeted is scrubland with its own environmental value.