California Coast & Ocean

South Coast Wilderness
The Conservancy approved $175,000 in Proposition 12 funds to the City of Laguna Beach for the acquisition of a 10.38-acre ridgetop parcel near the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park and the Aliso and Wood Canyons Wilderness Park. The property features a ridgetop trail with views of the ocean, the wilderness, and coastal urban communities, and contains high-value coastal sage scrub habitat.

To help with expenses associated with future acquisitions and with restoration of trails on recently acquired properties, the agency approved up to $120,000 to the Laguna Canyon Foundation.

Santa Monica Bay Projects
The Conservancy approved up to $2,840,275 for 11 projects in the Santa Monica Bay Watershed, to implement the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Plan approved by the Conservancy in 2001. The projects are meant to improve coastal water quality, habitat, and public access, in keeping with the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Plan.

The funds are to be disbursed as follows:
• A total of $600,000 to the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Foundation, to prepare a historical ecology study for the Ballona Creek watershed, develop
a water budget for the Ballona Creek watershed, and to prepare final designs for parts of the Ballona Greenway Plan, including landscape guidelines for a plant palette;

• A total of $350,000 to the State Parks Department to provide the matching funds needed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to complete its evaluation of the various alternatives for removal of Rindge Dam on Malibu Creek; and to enable State Parks to identify suitable habitat before attempting to reestablish the California red-legged frog in the Santa Monica Mountains;

• Up to $200,000 to the Los Angeles Conservation Corps for restoring beach bluff habitat at Dockweiler State Beach, north and south of the new youth development center;

• Up to $322,143 to Community Conservancy International for the second phase of the Green Solution Project, which is working to identify sites suitable for conversion of impermeable urban land to permeable surfaces;

• Up to $100,000 to Santa Monica Baykeeper to continue restoration at Stone Canyon Creek, on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles;

• Up to $1 million to the City of Los Angeles to implement stormwater best management practices in the Ballona Creek watershed;

• A total of $268,132 to the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy for habitat restoration and access improvements on the bluffs at Point Vicente, and in McCarrell’s Canyon.

Funding for these projects is provided by Proposition 12, the 2000 bond act, which earmarked $25 million to the Coastal Conservancy for restoration of Santa Monica Bay in accordance with the goals and priorities of the Bay Plan.