Arboretum lake needs restoration

Despite recent rains that provided only minor relief from the state of California’s three-year drought, the once picture-esque Baldwin Lake at the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanical Gardens has lost nearly ten feet of depth and is now 30-inches of mostly tainted silt. The Arboretum is assembling a task force that plans to lobby to put the lake on a fast-track for restoration by the L.A. County Dept. of Public Works, which is trying to create basins that filter and store storm water at many sites among the 85 cities throughout the county.

“Three-hundred-thousand people a year are coming here and thousands of school kids, so I think it delivers more value to the community than just about any other site I can think of,” Arboretum CEO Richard Schulhof recently told ABC 7 News in a TV interview. And then there are the numerous movie and TV productions, not to mention weddings, that use the site as a backdrop or event centerpiece for their productions. The lake collects storm water that flows from the foothills above Arcadia, bringing pollution along with it, including grease, oil and other unwanted chemicals.