 
RAYMOND
KWAN
Iylene Weiss, February 13, 1997, at the groundbreaking for the Ballona
Lagoon restoration
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THE BALLONA LAGOON is a tidal stream about 100 feet wide,
flowing roughly parallel to Venice Beach, past the Silver Strand subdivision,
where houses sell for upwards of $1 million. Not too long ago, it was to
be converted to high-cost private real estate. The plan was to dredge and
deepen it, get rid of mudflats and marsh plants, face it with concrete,
and convert it into a private marina, with a slip for each house. That
was not a radical plan; it's what had been done to almost all the vast
Ballona wetlands.
 In retrospect, it seems
almost miraculous that this slim thread of wild habitat has survived, providing
food and shelter to least terns, green-backed herons, grebes, egrets, fiddler
crabs, and all the tiny creatures on which the larger species depend. By
July 1997, the lagoon had been enhanced and improved for the benefit of
the wildlife and also the people who walk the trail alongside it. A small
island had been built at the lagoon's north end for birds to rest and find
refuge from marauders, and a new overlook had been completed at the south
end, where schoolchildren gather with their guides to watch, listen, and
learn. Implementation of the lagoon enhancement plan, funded by the Coastal
Conservancy and the City of Los Angeles, was complete except for the planting
of native vegetation, which is to be done this fall.
All this could not have
happened without Iylene Weiss and her small band of allies, who refused
to accept what seemed inevitable and fought to save the lagoon. Weiss was
known for her refusal to accept no for an answer. She was the wife of a
physician, mother of five grown sons, and active in Democratic Party politics
until she took an oceanography course and discovered a deeper interest.
She once told a reporter that she had moved into the neighborhood "to
have an estuary at my doorstep--to me that was heaven." When the Silver
Strand Marina Association applied to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to
"improve" the lagoon by building a 450-boat marina, Weiss and
her allies put in a competing proposal: to restore the lagoon. That proposal
never came into play, but it served notice that the fight was on.
It was a long and difficult
fight. Neighbors did not like the smells of the marsh; they feared noise,
disorder, and outsiders flocking into the neighborhood. But in the end,
the combined weight of all the lagoon defenders' arguments led the Corps
of Engineers to shelve its proposal. Weiss and her allies organized the
nonprofit Ballona Lagoon Marine Preserve and received a grant from the
Coastal Conservancy to enhance the lagoon. She won the battle without ever
filing a lawsuit, thanks to her political savvy, her willingness always
to take on whatever work had to be done, her talent for enlisting others
to the cause, and her determination. "Tell me, 'No, it can't be done,'
and that really gets me going," she said shortly before her death.
She also knew when a fight was futile. "You can't argue with cancer,"
she said in early April. "You can't change cancer's mind." She
died on Sunday, May 11, at age 71.
This fall, when the restored
lagoon is dedicated, many will tell stories of Iylene Weiss and how she
proved that one person can make a powerful difference. 
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