Reggie's home to get much needed clean-up

From the Daily Breeze on 4/26/10:

Cleanup of Machado Lake planned 
By Donna Littlejohn

The City of Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering is proposing to rehabilitate the Wilmington Drain and Machado Lake located adjacent to and within Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park. A snowy egret leaves its perch on a containment boom which keep debris from further flowing down the Wilmington Drain under PCH in Harbor City. (Sean Hiller/Staff Photographer) 
Daily Breeze Photo Gallery

Driving by Harbor City's 231-acre regional park, Machado Lake looks to be a serene and picturesque oasis. But close up, the reality is harsh. For years the lake, which holds runoff storm water from the area, has collected everything from pesticides to swarms of mosquitoes and piles of trash. What once was a pristine spot for bird watchers has deteriorated through the decades. The park now draws homeless encampments and has become a haven for lewd activity.

As Palos Verdes/South Bay Audubon Society member Martin Byhower put it back in 2003: "That park is a microcosm for everything that can go wrong in a regional park." Next year, work begins to address those long-standing ills. The entire project - formally titled the Wilmington Drain Multi-use and Machado Lake Ecosystem Rehabilitation Project - is expected to be finished by mid-2013. Work on the Wilmington Drain that feeds into the lake begins in the summer of 2011 and is expected to take 1 1/2 years. Work on Machado Lake begins in the fall of 2011 and will take 2 1/2 years. Funding comes from the 2004 passage of Proposition O, a statewide measure to clean urban runoff and improve water quality.

The $117 million cleanup of Machado Lake and the Wilmington Drain will include a series of steps, from installing trash nets and circulatory equipment to dredging the bottom of the lake. Floating islands will be created for nesting areas to support native habitat. Benches and other park amenities also will be added to the 231-acre Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park that surrounds the body of water. Expanded recreational uses - possibly a "catch-and-release" fishery for example - will be decided upon later by the city's Recreation and Parks Department. "There are four goals: water quality improvements, recreational enhancements, wildlife habitat improvements and flood control," said Michelle Vargas, public information officer for the city of Los Angeles. "Clearly this will be a major improvement over what we've seen in decades of neglect," said Jess Morton, also of the Audubon Society. Nets and other filters will be installed to keep the lake and drain connections cleaner, Vargas said. The water level also will be maintained at 8 feet to ensure more oxygen to support the fish and other wildlife. "You won't see the summertime die-off of fish and birds caused by nutrient loads," Morton said. Algae, pesticides and pollutants such as metals from area industry are likely to be found in the sediment at the bottom of the lake once dredging begins in 2011.

Once known by locals as "the slough," the area was owned by the Dominguez family in the 1700s and American Indians remained prevalent around the lake. The property later went to the Sepulveda family. It was annexed in 1906 to the city of Los Angeles and eventually was designated as a regional park. In the 1990s, the park was named for Ken Malloy, a San Pedro environmentalist who died in 1991 at the age of 78. Malloy came upon the undeveloped area in the 1930s when his car bumped into some cows grazing on the property and spent years nurturing it. Convinced it could someday become a grand regional park, Malloy later formed the 62-acre Machado Youth Campground within the park. He was instrumental in planting hundreds of trees in the park as well, working with the California Conservation Corps. Public meetings about the project have been held and comments are still being solicited for the draft environmental report and will remain open until May 3.

donna.littlejohn@dailybreeze.com


Machado Lake: What's next? What: Comments on the draft EIR can be made through May 3. The document is available at the Harbor City/Harbor Gateway Library, 24000 S. Western Ave.; Wilmington Library, 1300 N. Avalon Blvd.; and at the office of Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, 638 S. Beacon St., Suite 552, San Pedro; and online at www.lacity.org/DPW/dpwhome.htm.  Information: www.lapropo.org; 213-978-0333; bpw.pao@lacity.org.

[USA Today] Natural playgrounds the new trend

Natural playgrounds are growing into a national trend
By G. Jeffrey MacDonald 
 

BOSTON — The playground of the future is beginning to take shape — and it looks a lot like the backyard of the past. Designers of children's play spaces are increasingly looking beyond slides, jungle gyms and other plastic-coated structures in their quest to create fun, safe, healthy environments. As a result, kids are running outside and discovering play areas dotted with old standbys: sand, water, boulders, hills and logs.

"This is an emerging national trend of some significance," says Richard Dolesh, chief of public policy for the National Recreation and Parks Association. "Parents and other adults want natural opportunities for kids ... The question is: how do you ensure safety with the inherent challenges that nature brings?" Natural play spaces, as they're called, are becoming more common as municipalities, schools and child care centers seek sustainable ways to invest in new or aging playgrounds. Seattle is adding at least six natural play spaces to existing city parks. Boston-area institutions have at least four in the works. Similar projects are either underway or recently completed in Phoenix, Chicago, New York and Auburn, Ala.

Kids seem to get the concept. Jada Horne, 4, knows just what to do one April morning at a new natural play area at the Boston Medical Center's SPARK Center. She grabs a bucket of sand, adds water from a conveniently located spigot and gets to work. "I'm making soup!" she explains, tossing in a few handfuls of woodchips for flavor. Supporters of natural play spaces say they make sense on multiple levels. Child development experts say kids learn creativity and autonomy when they're engaged with "loose parts," such as mud and sticks. Funders in these lean-budget times are sometimes pleased to forgo five- and six-figure expenditures for manufactured play equipment. Some even argue that natural places are safer.

"They don't get boring," says Mav Pardee, program manager for the Children's Investment Fund, a financier of natural spaces and other educational experiences for Boston-area kids. But even some believers say built playgrounds are not going to become obsolete. They see equipment as an essential complement to natural play spaces. In Seattle, natural play spaces have engaged children at city parks since the late 1990s. Though kids at first enjoyed playing with sand and a cave at Carkeek Park, they tended to get restless and be excessively hard on the natural features, says Randy Robinson, a senior landscape architect for the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation. "Once they'd dug in the sand a little bit, they'd be running up and down the hill, but there just wasn't enough for them," Robinson says. "People who are promoting environmental education don't want to hear that. (But) parents made a request to get some conventional play equipment installed nearby." Now kids burn energy by swinging or climbing and then use the natural play space when they're ready for creative downtime.

Makers of playground equipment say they aren't opposed to natural play spaces, since kids benefit from nature. But playing only with natural elements isn't adequate for a child's healthy development, says Joe Frost, a retired professor of education and a paid member of the Board of Advisors for the International Playground Equipment Manufacturers Association's Voice of Play outreach campaign. The campaign touts the benefits of playgrounds for kids. "Certain physical skills are established through built equipment that are difficult to provide through natural materials," he says. "For instance, they need climbing structures." Natural play spaces may appear simple, but getting one launched can mean overcoming multiple hurdles. Municipalities often struggle to get insurance because insurers aren't sure how to assess the risks involved, says Robin Moore, director of the Natural Learning Initiative at North Carolina State University.

Oversight boards sometimes resist proposals for natural play areas because they mark a departure from the playground norm, says Gail Sullivan, president of Studio G Architects, which designed SPARK's area. What's more, even natural play areas need money: SPARK's cost $80,000 to design and build. What's involved in caring for them remains a matter of some debate. Maintenance costs can be minimal precisely because nature is the whole idea, says Ron King, president of the Natural Playgrounds Co., a designer and builder whose gross sales doubled from $139,000 in 2007 to $279,000 in 2009. "Everybody says, 'What about maintenance?' " King says. "Our response is: 'It's a natural area. Let it go.' ... That's nature. That's what it's all about." But Linda Cain Ruth, a building science professor and playground expert at Auburn University, says natural playgrounds need careful maintenance to remain safe. "A lot of people think that because it's natural there's no maintenance, and that is not true," Ruth said. "Wood rots. ... You have to make sure you have a good surface for (kids) to fall on."

Image by By Josh T. Reynolds, for USA TODAY

Why again a "jogging trail" at Mulholland Fountain?

Blogger Petra called it back in February.  Spending DWP money on a very small jogging path LaBonge claimed was for the seniors across the street made no sense.

Jogging Path for Seniors:

LaBonge has some money, so he's gonna build that jogging path for the seniors even if they have to cross one of the busiest intersections in all of Los Angeles to get there. Even if there's more room on the other side of the street - where the senior citizen's center is actually located - for a bigger, better path. He's throwing in some native plants to appease greenies, too.

Whipping that crystal ball out again, we're thinking Avon's Walk for Breast Cancer is probably the real target user group. The Mulholland Fountain makes for mighty nice high profile photo ops. --


And from today's LaBonge CD 4 Newsletter, the confirmation:

- The Relay for Life Griffith Park Community, which is chaired by Mrs. LaBonge, is looking for volunteers to work short shifts at the event on Saturday, June 5 - Sunday, June 6. The Relay for Life Griffith Park Community will be held at the Mulholland Fountain, at Los Feliz Boulevard and Riverside Drive 

For more info on the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life, please click here: http://www.relayforlife.org/relay/. If you'd like to volunteer, email Brigid LaBonge at: Relaygpc@gmail.com 

As Mulholland Terrace said, "It's Labonge's park. We just watch him - and the missus -  play with it."

Park pic of the day

Image by Patrick Kreidt, www.pawkphoto.com

[Sierra Club] Above the City of Angels

This important article from the Sierra Club outlines the extensive impacts we Angelenos are having on the beautiful San Gabriel mountains, as well as the community's fight to have the San Gabriels named a National Recreation Area - a protection that would bring funding and resources to help protect this precious resource.

These same impacts affect Los Angeles's larger regional City parks, too, including Griffith Park, Hansen Dam, O'Melveny Park, Sepulveda Basin, etc. There are lessons to be learned and strategies to be developed by all agencies that protect these vital resources if they are to survive and thrive.

From the Sierra Club.
------------

Above the City of Angels
Retreat, reverie, and a skull or two in L.A.'s mountains
By Brendan Buhler

The mountains that Angelenos love—the sheer high-desert backdrop that defines the boundaries of their megalopolis and offers them a wild escape that's nearer and more varied than any other in the country—are trying to kill them. Or is it the other way around? It can be hard to tell in a relationship as complicated as that between the citizens of Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Mountains. Consider the most recent development in their 230-year-old union: Heavy rains in early February caused a catch basin to fill and mudslides to sweep down the mountains and into a neighborhood of La Canada Flintridge, damaging 43 homes and 25 cars.

The suburban culs-de-sac share space with the catch basin, a structure best thought of as an empty, perforated dam, built to capture the mud, rocks, and trees that people expect to come sliding down the mountainside. It was overwhelmed when a 10-ton boulder tumbled and blocked a key drain, which soon caused a 35-mile-per-hour tide of mud and bowling ball-size rocks to sweep into the streets, tossing and crumpling cars like tinfoil toys. The mud filled houses like they were cake molds. If you had been standing in the kitchen of one of those houses, you would have been chest-deep in what geologists call debris flow—a fast-moving mix of water, rocks, dirt, and detritus—except, of course, you would not have been standing. You would most likely have been killed. Fortunately, no one was.

The La Canada Flintridge slide was nature's payback for the largest wildfire in the modern history of Los Angeles County. The Station Fire rampaged through the San Gabriels from the end of summer until mid-fall 2009, burning 160,000 acres. Investigators believe the fire was intentionally set alongside Angeles Crest Highway. (A vast majority of California wildfires are started by humans, either by accident or as acts of arson. Of the 20 largest fires in the recorded history of the state, only 7 had natural causes.)

Nonlocals hear about the San Gabriels only when they're ablaze or falling on people. But when they're doing neither, they are much more interesting: an untamed wilderness coexisting with one of the world's largest metropolises, a safety valve for the psyches of 18 million jangled humans. The 1,000-plus-square-mile Angeles National Forest, which encompasses the mountain range, is where hikers and campers find solitude within 30 miles of the country's second-most-populated region. It's where children learn about nature, snowboarders carve, those without air conditioning seek relief, hunters and fishermen bag prey, off-roaders crack axles, motorcyclists experiment with asphalt skin grafts, gun lovers practice the rhythms of pop-pop-pop, and the religious test their faith by being baptized in the waters of a canyon sometimes called "Diaper Alley." And that's just what's legal; it doesn't include the potential of finding (or becoming) a bullet-punctured human skull.

The forest is heavily trafficked, underfunded in its upkeep, and remote in its steepness, a landscape that John Muir—who knew of such things—called "ruggedly, thornily savage." Muir continued: "Not even in the Sierra have I ever made the acquaintance of mountains more rigidly inaccessible," yet "down in the dells, you may find gardens filled with the fairest flowers, that any child would love, and unapproachable linns lined with lilies and ferns, where the ousel builds its mossy hut and sings in chorus with the white falling water."

Read the rest at the Sierra Club newsletter site.

The Peak: officially saved

The Trust for Public Land has announced that the $12.5 million needed to Save the Peak is in hand. Hurray!

There is a 9am news conference with the insufferable Tom LeBong and the Governator on the subject. snore

Someone should ask LeBong point-blank how the Chicago extortionists ended up with land that was offered to the City before the extortionists bought it. Just how did that happen, Tommy? And how much money will you spend and how many City resources will you waste throwing a big party for yourself and your performing ego?
Also.

No matter. Chicago robs Los Angeles blind, but the park is made whole.

From the Trust for Public Land:
--------------








We Did It!

It's a perfect ending to a Hollywood story. Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner stepped forward with a $900,000 donation, triggering the $500,000 match from The Tiffany & Co. Foundation and Aileen Getty and pushing our Save the Peak campaign across the $12.5 million finish line. Get the full scoop here.

While the deal closed with a large gift, it was the supersized efforts of a generous and energetic community of supporters that made the campaign possible. It's people like you who helped us save Cahuenga Peak, and we are very grateful.

But Wait--There's More

Stay tuned--we have not yet begun to celebrate! Plans are in the works for a special event next month, but the details are under wraps for now.

Packs and Jammers

The Angel City Derby Girls present The Rocket Queens vs The San Diego Starlettes.
Burbank Roller Hockey Rink. April 24th, 2010.

Nuttall's woodpecker (fem.)

Park pic of the day

Watch your step!

Preserving a Landmark

When you think of Los Angeles, what comes to mind? Perhaps it's the glitz and glamor of southern California living. Perhaps it's the Santa Monica Pier, or Grauman's Chinese Theatre. For many of us though, our visions of Los Angeles are those of the Hollywood Sign and the surrounding land that is Griffith Park. Finding nature amongst the high rise buildings and lights in Los Angeles can be difficult. While there are obvious exceptions to this statement, Griffith Park is in a league of its own. Spanning 4,000+ acres in the middle of Los Angeles, it is a true gem for those who enjoy hiking, city views, sightseeing, and relaxing in nature. As the largest municipal park in the US, preservation of Griffith Park in all of its natural glory is imperative.

As many of you already know, today, Griffith Park and the Hollywood Sign are at a crossroads. In 2002, a 138-acre parcel of land (known as Cahuenga Peak) surrounding the sign was purchased from the Howard Hughes estate by a group of Chicago investors. Since then, the land has been zoned for the development of luxury homes, a plan that threatens the future of the sign and the preservation of nature for which the nearby Griffith Park stands. Accessibility to Cahuenga Peak and the surrounding area for hikers and tourists will no longer be available and the land around the sign that has previously remained untouched in its natural state will be used to develop property in an area not intended for development.

However, there is still hope for the Hollywood Sign and its surrounding territory. In an effort to prevent this development from taking place, the Trust for Public Land (TPL), thousands of Los Angeles residents, and a number of high profile organizations and people in support of the land's preservation have rallied together to save Cahuenga Peak. $12,500,000 is necessary to preserve the land for the city and incorporate it into Griffith Park. The TPL has already raised a little over $11,000,000 and Aileen Getty and The Tiffany & Co. Foundation have pledged to donate $500,000 if the Los Angeles and California communities can come up with the additional $1,000,000 needed.

The deadline for the TPL to raise $12,500,000 is April 30th. With only a week left to raise the funds, it is now up to the Los Angeles community to join forces and save one of the few areas of undeveloped land left in the city. Los Angeles without the Hollywood Sign is like Las Vegas without casinos, or Paris sans the Eiffel Tower. This land was intended to be used for viewing and admiration of the City of Angels, without which Los Angeles loses its identity.

There are several ways you can help to save the Hollywood Sign and the surrounding land for Griffith Park. Texting the word LAND to the number 50555 will result in a $5 donation on your behalf. If you want to donate more than $5, you can do so at this website dedicated to saving Cahuenga Peak. Now more than ever it is time for the City of Los Angeles to step up and save the land its residents are so fortunate to enjoy and preserve this iconic Los Angeles landmark and its surrounding corner of nature for future generations to enjoy as we already have.

Hat tip for HS image to Flying Jim.

Dantes View of hell

Dante's View engulfed by the inferno during the 2007 Griffith Park fire.

Just a little reminder that fire season is right around the corner. This year promises to be a bad one with all the extra brush growth from spring rains. Without our firefighting park rangers patrolling the parks, the outlook is not a good one.

If park rangers aren't patrolling the parks, where exactly are they?

Ten public officer park rangers have been pulled from park patrol, and are now paid to do effectively nothing. Some are rumored to be using "on duty" time to catch up on their tv viewing. Meanwhile a popular chief park ranger with 30 years experience is sitting in an office downtown, having been moved there by Recreation and Parks with no substantiated reason for having done so. Three of the four remaining senior peace officer park rangers took E-RIP to escape unqualified management, and will not be replaced.

That's eleven qualified park rangers who have been removed from patrol duty, and three veterans chased out of the department. Why?

The Department has no good answer for either. Regarding the ten public officers, the department's only direct public comment answering the question has been that '...the parks are too dangerous for (public officers) to patrol'.*

That's a huge admission, saying that City parks are too dangerous for even park rangers. A darned scary statement, too, given that public officers are a class in the CA Penal Code (sections 830.7, 831) that, although not full peace officers, have a certain level of enforcement ability and the knowledge and training to carry it out. The public officer park rangers'  MOU with the department states explicitly that they can and do perform patrol duties.

The park ranger buck stops with the department's general manager - Jon Kirk Mukri. Drop him a line  - JonKirk.Mukri(at)lacity.org - and ask why. See what reason/excuse you're fed. Then post it here in comments so the public can dissect the baloney.



*Assistant GM Kevin Regan to the Sepulveda WASC Committee (October 2009)

Ranger images hat tip to:  Daylife.com/Getty Images  and MikesPhotos.us

Da Bears Are in LA

From last night via security cam. What a diverse community we truly are.

Meet the Neighbor

Photo provided by Marsha Perloff. Taken by her neighbor in Haines Canyon area of Tujunga. Cat was in backyard not afraid of lights, camera, or human. Since the Station Fire they are traveling a bit closer into town. This one appears to be young judging by paw size.
Keep your pets inside at night!

Reform LA holds first meeting this Saturday

Time to put up or shut up, ladies and gentlemen.

The group organizing to find, fund, and promote candidates in next March's CD 2,4,6, 8, 10, 12, and 14 elections is meeting at  9:45 a.m. tomorrow (Saturday) at the Hollywood Community Center, 6501 Fountain Ave.

According to Ron Kaye, REFORM LA's goal is to "...develop strategies to recruit credible candidates and form a political action committee for the elections...", something that should have been done earlier.

Send City Hall a message - show up and help get this effort moving. You can bet a few spies will be there, too.

Friday in the City

Darryl Gates has passed away from cancer at the age of 83. Thus passes one of the icons of Very Interesting Times in Los Angeles.

Westside White Guy at LA Observed doesn't have much nice to say about a great profile of Ron Kaye by Neon Tommy that ran yesterday. We read the profile, thought it did the-Ron-we-know justice, and wonder what Kevin's problem is this week [tm]. Nah, we don't really care what Kevin's problem is. We do like his in-house cartoonist, tho'.

The Mayor's "budget", such as it is, comes out next week. In anticipation of getting clobbered by a mayor no longer in bed with them, the local unions have published their own solution: $432 million in savings that don't destroy parks, libraries and the other things that make our neighborhoods livable. The $432 mill just about matches the anticipated deficit, too. Sounds good, but make up your own mind - read the whole document here, and OurLA's summary here.

Dick Alarcon and his daughter/Public Works commissioner stick it to the environment, the people, the County, open space, and the rule of law yesterday with a little help from the Mayor's hand-picked Planning Commission. Will there ever be a day in LA when cronyism isn't in charge? Yup - the day City Commissioners are elected by the people.

As MT pointed out yesterday, murder in Los Angeles is up up up. Meanwhile, with the E-RIPping this week of two of the last few remaining peace officer park rangers in Los Angeles, coupled with Rec and Parks' pulling of ten public officer park rangers from field work that they are fully qualified to perform (why?), expect crime in our parks to go up up up, too.

Oh yeah. More mayoral appointees approved the same DWP rate hike yesterday that they turned down just last week, costing the loss of a bond rating in the process. Assholes, the lot.

White supremist rally at City Hall, too. Looks like it's gonna be a long, hot summer in the City this year. Seems eerily familiar, like we're working on a flashback to the Darryl Gates' LAPD era. Full circle.

Park pic of the day

Spot the squirrel in this Griffith Park pic.

More time, challenge grant for Save The Hollywood Sign campaign

Petra was wondering where the challenge grant for the Cahuenga Peak campaign was. And here it is. Also.

Shocker.... with a wry grin.

Give till it hurts.
-----

More Time, More Support, to Save Cahuenga Peak

 

LOS ANGELES - The Trust for Public Land (TPL) and Los Angeles City Council Member Tom LaBonge today announced they have 16 more days and a $500,000 challenge grant to raise the final $1 million needed to save the view of the famous Hollywood Sign by preserving 138 acres of land behind the sign. Aileen Getty and The Tiffany & Co. Foundation said today they will join to make a $500,000 matching grant to challenge the California community to close the gap. Ms. Getty and the Tiffany Foundation, both of whom had each previously donated $1 million to the campaign, will make their gifts if TPL raises an additional $1 million.

From this point on, every donation, from bake sales to on line contributions to lead level gifts, will be matched $1 to $2 until we raise the final million."
                                      -Tiffany and Co Foundation

"We need to raise a total of $12.5 million and today, we're at $11 million," said Will Rogers, TPL President. "Our deadline was originally set for today, April 14, but thanks to the cooperation of the landowners, we now have until April 30. The challenge grant is designed to inspire California donors to take part in this campaign." "We're grateful to have a little more time to reach our goal, and we're going to get there," Councilmember LaBonge said. "Thank you to everyone who is helping us preserve this pristine hillside for the future of Los Angeles."

Aileen Getty, a long time Hollywood resident, has supported this project since early on in the campaign. "I'm proud to support TPL's efforts in conserving this magical place and hope that this challenge will inspire others in LA to help us close the gap. From this point on, every donation, from bake sales to on line contributions to lead level gifts, will be matched $1 to $2 until we raise the final million."

"With the matching gift from The Tiffany & Co. Foundation, we reassert its mission to preserve our natural heritage and important landmarks," said Michael J. Kowalski, chairman and CEO of Tifffany & Co. "We wholeheartedly support The Trust for Public Land, our partners in the Campaign to Save Cahuenga Peak, and I am confident that this historic site will remain a wildlife habitat and the home of a great American icon." There has been a groundswell of support in Los Angeles, including residents who held bake sales, rallies, and a concert on the Sunset Strip. Hollywood leaders donated $3.1 million, including major donations from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, CBS Corporation, The Entertainment Industry Foundation, Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, the Lucasfilm Foundation, NBC Universal, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Steven Spielberg, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and Time Warner Inc., and The Walt Disney Company Foundation. Other Hollywood contributors include Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, and Norman Lear.

In addition, the artists from the new online entertainment show "If I Can Dream" will step out as the next generation of Hollywood to spread the word, and lend their voices to the campaign. The weekly show, created by Simon Fuller and carried on Hulu, has championed the cause to its global online audience, which includes fans in 180 countries. The artists on "If I Can Dream" recognize the Hollywood Sign as a symbol of the hopes and dreams of everyone who dreams of "making it" in Hollywood. The Carl W. Johnson Foundation has contributed $100,000. "The Carl W. Johnson Foundation is thrilled to partner with The Trust for Public Land to help Save Cahuenga Peak. Parks and open space are important for the health and well being of all the people of Los Angeles, and we are proud to be a financial supporter in the effort," said Wallace Franson, President of the Foundation.

Individuals may donate online at www.savehollywoodland.org. Or they may donate via text message. To donate via text, text the word LAND to the number 50555 to give $5. Standard messaging and data rates may apply. On Facebook, more than 25,000 have signed up as fans and Kimpton Hotels, a long-time corporate supporter of TPL, offered to donate $1 for every fan who also became a Facebook fan of Kimpton. On April 15, 2009, TPL signed an option to buy the 138 acres behind, and to the left, of the "H" in the sign, stretching west to Cahuenga Peak. When TPL buys the land, it will be added to the city of Los Angeles and added to Griffith Park.

The land was originally purchased by industrialist Howard Hughes in 1940, to build a home for actress Ginger Rogers. But the relationship between the two fell apart and after Hughes died, his estate sold the property in 2002 to a group of Chicago investors. They put the property on the market two years ago for $22 million. It is zoned to build four luxury homes. Besides TPL, Tiffany and Ms. Getty, other partners include the Hollywood Sign Trust, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, the Los Angeles Parks Foundation, and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

Visit www.tpl.org

Perfection

Zenyatta relaxing after winning the Apple Blossom this weekend to tie Cigar and Citation for most consecutive victories in major open stakes competition (16 for 16).  But unlike Cigar and Citation, Zenyatta is undefeated and essentially unchallenged. Still waiting for the Rachel Alexandra camp to show up for the party.

Like Zenyatta? A close relative, even as horses go, is up for sale in June.

Twitpic by francesjkaron

Condor Peak

[Zev's blog] What's killing Malibu Creek's steelhead?

What’s killing Malibu Creek’s steelhead




Twice in recent summers, Malibu Creek’s fledging population of endangered steelhead have been decimated, leaving the experts baffled and saddened. In 2006, hundreds of the fish turned yellow and died after a heat wave that was accompanied by a foul-smelling black layer of rotting algae and bacteria in the stream bed. The ooze earned a nickname: Malibu Muck. By early 2008, the population of juvenile steelhead managed to edge toward 3,000 again, giving biologists hope that the fish were making a strong comeback. But last year, the die-offs returned with a vengeance. Steelhead, as well as the hardy carp, crayfish and others, died en masse. The Malibu Muck was back, too. This time, the baby steelhead didn’t turn yellow but the population in the creek still plummeted from about 1,300 to just 200 young fish. In the bad years, “everything was dying,” says conservation biologist Rosi Dagit. “And we really had absolutely no clue why.”

Last week, Dagit and other conservation biologists waded into the creek to look for answers, launching the most comprehensive water quality study ever undertaken in the crucial Santa Monica Mountains watershed.
Standing waist deep in Malibu Creek, Steve Williams and Kevin Jonz carefully slid a high-tech measuring device called a sonde inside a plastic housing and dipped it into the algae-green water. They anchored the two-foot cylinder to the creek bed with a steel fence post and then fastened the contraption to a willow thicket with a stout metal chain. In all, five sondes were installed—four in Malibu Creek and one in nearby Topanga Creek. The devices will gather six vital measures of water quality every 30 minutes, around the clock, from April to October. The thousands of data points on water temperature, clarity, pH, algae levels, conductivity and oxygen levels will provide scientists with a full view of the changes in water quality over an entire season, from the high flows of spring to the slack low water of late summer and fall.

Read the rest at Zev Yaroslavsky's blog.