Ballona Wetlands Community Restoration Project SCC #18-121 Final Report

The Bay Foundation (TBF), in partnership with California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), Friends of Ballona Wetlands (FBW), and community volunteers conducted a project to remove invasive vegetation while broadening public involvement and stewardship in the tidal portion of “Area B” in the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve (Fig 1). This report is a summary of the monitoring results from the June 2019 through July 2025 and serves as the final monitoring report for the “Ballona Wetlands Community Restoration Project”, specifically for the wetland area south of Culver Boulevard. (Fig. 1; CDP# 5-15-1427). For the duration of the project, the work was focused on the five tasks that were defined in the California State Coastal Conservancy Funded Work Plan (SCC# 18-121; Table 1). Early on, these tasks included permitting, coordinating and subcontracting with project partners, and baseline monitoring, which was conducted on 24 September 2019. Once the restoration efforts began on 6 December 2019, the tasks shifted to public outreach and community engagement, further restoration efforts, scientific monitoring, and site maintenance, as circumstances allowed. TBF and partners hosted 30 restoration events with the public, interns and/or staff between 2019 and 2023. A total of 301 people having worked on the site. More than 10,600 pounds of non-native vegetation were removed. The project spanned the COVID-19 Pandemic, which required that TBF redefine the community engagement and project goals in 2020-2022. The last restoration event occurred in March 2023.