It sometimes takes years, or even decades of persistent advocacy to achieve our conservation goals, and it also takes a lot of teamwork.

When nature photographer Jonathan Coffin discovered active drains in the wetlands in 2013, he alerted another Ballona activist who promptly alerted the California Coastal Commission. The Commission’s research showed that the drains had been installed in the late 90s without the required coastal development permit, and that the drains were negatively impacting the hydrology of the wetlands. In December 2017, the Commission finally voted to compel the removal of the drains.

However, in 2020, the Commission granted an additional five years for this work, citing concerns that removal of the drains could negatively impact existing habitat and cultural resources. This is when the Land Trust became involved, advocating for immediate abandonment (i.e. sealing below grade) of the drains in order to avoid further delay, avoid unnecessary impact, and drastically reduce the cost to the public. It took five years of multiple organizations showing up at meetings and writing letters before the Coastal Commission ultimately adopted this approach.

The drains were finally abandoned several months ago, capping 12 years of community effort!

2025 marked the first full year of collaboration with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife for regular habitat stewardship efforts in Area A of the Ballona Wetlands. We held our last event of 2025 on December 13th, and our first event of 2026 will be on January 10th, from 9 AM to 11 AM. Generally, these stewardship events occur on the 2nd and 4th Saturday of every month. Please contact us for more information.

On June 26th, the Land Trust hosted students from the Anawakalmekac Indigenous School via the the Indigenations Scholars Program, a partnership with UCLA, Native Ways 2 College and others. Anawakalmekak Indigenous School is the only indigenous TK-12 charter school in Los Angeles. The trip was coordinated and made possible by the work of Gabrielle Crowe and Ary Amaya, and the planning and coordination by team member Sofia Morales!

The situation with SoCalGas is complicated. Other advocacy groups have correctly noted that SoCalGas’ long term plans include the drilling of new slant wells just outside the ecological reserve which would reach underneath the reserve. The Land Trust will be weighing in on these new wells when the time comes. However, we welcome the removal of existing wells from the surface of the ecological reserve itself. Abandonment of the second of four wells was completed last week, with a third expected to be completed in January! Thanks to input from the Land Trust, the permits for this work require SoCalGas to revegetate the areas of the former wells with native habitat. We’ll keep the community posted on this issue.

For many years, the Land Trust has been urging the responsible agencies to enforce an existing requirement, established by US EPA in 2012 pursuant to the Clean Water Act, to address the threat of invasive weeds to the Ballona Wetlands. In 2025, we finally started to see progress on that front. In February, the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission adopted a resolution urging CA Fish and Wildlife not to wait for large-scale restoration before addressing the issue across the ecological reserve. And just weeks ago, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board asked for action to be taken to determine the status of the EPA established requirement to address invasive weeks and legacy sediment. We will keep pushing to tangible progress on this issue in 2026.

The Land Trust has been pushing the responsible agencies to revisit larger-scale restoration plans since 2012 based on serious deficiencies in the current plans that have essentially rendered them infeasible. In 2025, both the California Coastal Conservancy and the Bay Foundation ended two decades of involvement in the project, which no doubt helped other agencies see that our concerns are valid and that revised plans are urgently needed. Much like the situation with the unpermitted drains described above, revised restoration plans that substantially scale down the amount of soil to be excavated will drastically reduce the cost of the project (a major obstacle to implementation), reduce the duration of implementation, reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses from construction equipment, and reduce impacts to existing habitat and cultural resources. It is urgently important to begin the process of revising these plans, as sea level rise will take it toll on this ecosystem without a viable plan in place.