It’s back to nature for Medea Creek




DIGGING IN—Agoura Hills Mayor Illece Buckley Weber, center, joins other Agoura Hills leaders in the Aug. 13 ground-breaking ceremony for the Medea Creek Restoration Project. The old concrete bed will be dug up.

DIGGING IN—Agoura Hills Mayor Illece Buckley Weber, center, joins other Agoura Hills leaders in the Aug. 13 ground-breaking ceremony for the Medea Creek Restoration Project. The old concrete bed will be dug up.

The concrete Medea Creek flood channel in Agoura Hills began its return to a natural state last week when dignitaries from several agencies broke ground on the project.

Members of the Agoura Hills City Council, the Las Virgenes Unified School District, the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District and former Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky as well as local residents attended the event that launches a new era of environmentalism for the city.

Yaroslavsky, who helped the city with a seed grant to start the naturalization project, spoke to the group that gathered at the creek by Chumash Park.

Yaroslavsky said that some people have mentioned that nobody will really see the change in the creek when it’s naturalized. “The environment sees it, the environment feels it,” he said. “We’re going to roll the clock back on concrete. It can be done creek by creek, river by river. It won’t be finished in our lifetime, but this will,” he said of the 450 feet of the channel that is undergoing the naturalization process.

Mayor Illece Buckley Weber said the restoration will bring wildlife back to the creek.

The funding for the one portion of the project amounts to $1.7 million. While he was in office, Yaroslavsky gave the city $165,000 to begin the project and the city won a full $1.2-million grant to proceed with the project. She credited a lot of team- work between the city, the county and even the state.

Stephanie Bertholdo


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