Pacoima’s Bradley Plaza and Green Alley
Creating Multi-Benefit Projects for Communities and the EnvironmentjuLY 21, 2022This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. When industry or agencies pollute our region’s waterways, LA Waterkeeper leverages this landmark federal law to ensure they are held accountable for mismanagement and damaging decisions. We celebrate these victories in our Litigation = Impact report. Here’s one example of how we’ve leveraged litigation to make a real impact to benefit the low-income community of Pacoima.
Pacoima alleyway prior to transformation.
The background: turning trash into treasure
LA Waterkeeper’s successfully litigated using the Clean Water Act against a waste hauling and recycling facility in the Sun Valley neighborhood of Los Angeles. The company was required to pay $200,000 towards Supplement Environmental Projects (SEPs), financial settlements that force polluters to provide tangible water-quality solutions in the communities affected by their actions. In this case, the funds were directed through Liberty Hill Foundation to improve stormwater pollution for the nearby LA River and its tributaries. The funding was used in part to fund the Bradley Plaza and Green Alley, a project led by Pacoima Beautiful that transformed a run-down alley into a greenway for residents to walk, bike and recreate.
Pacoima Beautiful is an environmental justice organization founded to empower residents to fight against the pollution and disinvestment in their low-income community in the northeast San Fernando Valley. Key aspects of the Bradley Plaza and Green Alley project were started in 2015 and continued into 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, which made it clear that hyper-local outdoor spaces are essential for personal health, resiliency and community well-being.
Across Los Angeles County, the average park acreage per 1,000 people is 3.3 acres of park space. In Pacoima, the average is just 0.6 acres per 1,000 residents. Bradley Plaza and Green Alley provide refuge for more than 8,500 residents who live within a 10-minute walk. The project’s green features capture and filter 2 million gallons of stormwater runoff annually that recharge a groundwater aquifer with water that would otherwise be wasted and contribute to the runoff pollution in the LA River.
“Bradley Plaza and the Green Alley are examples of projects that provide multipurpose benefits, including improving local water quality and giving our residents a safe place to recreate,” said Veronica Padilla, Executive Director of Pacoima Beautiful. “Pacoima is a community that needs more investments to remedy decades of environmental issues and disinvestment, and LA Waterkeeper’s litigation work is making it possible for us to get the justice we deserve.”
Green Alley, a new recreational greenway perfect for walking and biking.
The park provides community members with a sense of agency and pride while addressing equity issues such as heat island effect, providing a safe gathering space, and reducing flooding in the area. Pacoima Beautiful’s Urban Green Vision plan aims to build more green space and active transportation infrastructure that addresses environmental issues and improves health resources for the community.
LA Waterkeeper is happy to have had the chance to support this vision through our legal victory. To learn more about this and other community SEPs, and other ways LAW’s litigation has improved the health of LA’s waters and communities, check out our Litigation = Impact report.