Echo Park Lake: Neighborhood Ashtray?

LA hosted its annual Coastal Cleanup Day last weekend, and as CBS reports, it extended beyond the beaches into some of the local parks. On the eastside, volunteers turned out at Echo Park, where they picked up 5,017 cigarette butts – that’s 5 lbs. of used smokes laying around a park that isn’t that big. That’s flat-out depressing. I actually went running around the lake a few days ago and realized that it’s is much prettier from a distance. The lotus flowers no longer bloom – no one seems to know why – and the lake had a few dead and dying ducks stuck in some kind of really bad-smelling, toxic-looking spill on one end.To the credit of Parks & Rec, they had workers there pulling out the dead birds, but it didn’t exactly make for a relaxing run. It’s a shame because Echo Park is a great neighborhood, but I just think there are too few green spaces for too many people, and this little patch can’t handle the number of visitors it gets. It’s a big debate – the same one they are having over at Silver Lake Resevoir (here’s an old Curbed LA post on the issue) with endless plans and counter-plans and protests over the opening of the meadow. I do see both sides. Chances are, opening the meadow will lead to more traffic, trash and stress on the fragile environment there. But we do need more parks. So what’s the answer?