Ballona Wetlands
The Ballona Wetlands are located in Southern California, United States south of Marina del Rey and east of Playa del Rey. The wetlands once included the areas now taken up by Marina del Rey, Venice, and Playa Vista, extending north to about present-day Washington Blvd. in Venice.
It is one of the last significant wetlands areas in the Los Angeles basin, and is named for Port Ballona and Ballona Creek which now runs through the area as a flood control channel. In the 1930s the Ballona Creek corridor was channelized in concrete, thus greatly reducing the inflow of salt water to the marsh, and eliminating spring floods, which brought freshwater to the wetlands. Among groups dedicated to protecting the wetlands is the Friends of Ballona Wetlands.
The Ballona Creek Flood control channel, and the construction of Marina del Rey in the late 1950s, reduced the 2,100-acre (8.5 km2) estuary to some 700 acres (2.8 km2). Additional open space east of the wetlands was converted to agricultural uses by the early 20th century, with cultivation continuing into the 1990s, when these became some of the last farm fields in the Los Angeles Basin. In the 1940s, much of these farm fields became the private Hughes Airport. In first decade of the 21st century that land was developed as Playa Vista, a planned mixed-use community east of Lincoln Boulevard.
The State of California owns and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) manages the wetlands. Approximately 577 acres (2.34 km2), are bisected generally east-west by the Ballona Creek channel, from Playa Del Rey to Culver City, and bordered by the 90 Marina freeway to the east. 83 acres (340,000 m2) 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.
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