Batman’s Ballona Watershed Hideout: Touring the Ballona Headwaters with Councilman Tom LaBonge

For three short TV seasons beginning in 1966, nearly every kid in America watched Batman and Robin scream out of the Batcave entrance in their George Barris-created custom Batmobile, off to fight such notable villians as the Riddler, the Joker and the Penguin.  Those are now just memories, but the Batcave remains, solid as the metamorphic rock of the upper Ballona Creek Watershed.

On November 4, Friends of Ballona Wetlands staff had the privilege of touring the Batcave (known as Bronson Caves) and other areas of the Ballona Creek Headwaters with the Honorable Councilman Tom LaBonge, who represents Los Angeles’ Council District 4.  LaBonge was honored last spring as the Friends' Ballona Watershed Warrior for 2013, due to his ardent support for preserving and maintaining public access in natural areas in his district, which include the 4,310-acre Griffith Park.  When the Ballona Wetlands are restored, they will be the city’s second-largest public open space area, second only to Griffith Park.

The Ballona Creek Watershed encompasses 130 square miles of the City, shaped like a broad necklace circling from Westwood to the northeast along the crests of the Santa Monica Mountains and Hollywood hills, then curving south over the Baldwin Hills and finally west to the Ballona Wetlands, the jewel at the end of the necklace (see the map). Every drop of rainwater, cigarette butt or Starbuck’s latte discarded in the watershed eventually makes its way downstream to the Ballona Wetlands and the Pacific Ocean at the watershed’s mouth.  Councilman LaBonge understands this connection and teaches his constituents and council colleagues the importance of preserving watershed land, capturing our waste and keeping rainfall runoff from becoming a foul urban street soup.

Councilman LaBonge personally took the wheel of our city van to our first destination; the Bronson Caves.  Originally a quarry for roadbed of the Pacific Electric Railway San Vicente route, the Caves were later used in countless movie and television productions.  From the Caves you can easily hike to the Hollywood Sign atop Mt. Lee, which marks the part of the watershed most distant from Ballona Wetlands.

From Mt. Lee we could see across the entire Ballona Watershed all the way to the wetlands in Playa del Rey.  It’s difficult to appreciate the size of the watershed until you can gaze across its entire length and breadth.

From Mt. Lee, the Councilman drove us downhill to the Wilshire Country Club between Hollywood and Hancock Park, through which one of the last undisturbed tributaries of Ballona Creek meanders freely through the golf course, seen only as just another water hazard by the duffers, hackers and sandbaggers.  This tributary goes underground south of the golf course, as most do in Los Angeles, and then emerges further south in the Creekside area of Hancock Park.  Through an overgrown fence on West 8th Street near Longwood Avenue, we could see the tributary emerge from underground, now a little larger from accumulated residential irrigation runoff, winding its way between the backyards of homes on its way to the Ballona Wetlands.

Thank you, Councilman LaBonge for the best ever “Star Tour” of Hollywood; the headwaters of the Ballona Wetlands!

Enjoy your Ballona Wetlands, and its entire Watershed!

www.ballonafriends.org