Redondo Beach, along with the South Bay Parkland Conservancy, hosted a lower pond groundbreaking and sign unveiling at Hopkins Wilderness Park on Monday, Aug. 25.
Long-awaited improvements on the lower pond were celebrated at the event.
The pond construction should be completed around Thanksgiving and will "provide a good habitat for species to come back," Redondo Beach Mayor Jim Light said during the event.
"We used to have frogs and salamanders down here," Light said, "and once it got concreted, they don't like that type of environment, (so) they disappeared."
Ducks used to be common at the pond, he said, but "ducklings got eaten by critters," like coyotes and raccoons.
The new pond construction, however, will provide some protection for native wildlife, Light said.
Four interpretive signs -- focusing on native plants, the history of the site and its importance to monarch butterflies -- were also unveiled at the event, as the SBPC is spearheading and overseeing the restoration of native habitats in several areas of the park.
In October, Wilderness Park received much-needed funding when SBPC received a $40,000 grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and decided to use that money on the park's upgrades.
The grant is being used to restore six acres of native coastal sage scrub, which will provide a habit for western monarch butterflies to help them survive the winter months before mating and migrating during the spring.
Coastal sage scrub habitat, which has been decimated because of multiple reasons, from climate change to development, provides a home for threatened species, such as the gnatcatcher, cactus wren and the El Segundo blue butterfly.
The SBPC has helped "re-wild" the park, restoring native plants to several acres since 2017.
At 11 acres, Wilderness Park is the largest in Redondo Beach.
Before it was established in 1977, the area was Nike missle site LA-57 from 1956 to 1963. The sites -- which included nearby locations in San Pedro and Rancho Palos Verdes -- were established during the Cold War.
The federal government turned the land over to Redondo Beach in 1971 for public recreation, Light said.
In 2021, then-Public Works Director Ted Semaan said that besides a drought issue, which instigated the water being shut off at the lower pond, it had become a dumping ground for unwanted pets and garbage, including tires.
After the SBPC started replenishing native plants there, Light said "one of the questions we get most often is, what happened to the lower pond, and are you going to redo it?"
"I took that on as a passion project," Light said. "I convinced my best friend Bill Brand to take it on as his project, and he eventually made it his number one project."
Former Mayor Brand died in February 2024 from lung cancer.
Light was a founding board member of the SBPC, which Brand launched in 2004, and has also served as president.
"We've designed this to have between 30 and 40% native wetlands plants in the water," Brand said, "to help reproduce what would be a normal ecosystem here that will not only help with filtering the water, (but also) keep the nitrogen levels down" to combat algae.
The upper pond is currently home to turtles and koi fish, as well as other wildlife, including an occasional heron.
The city has no plans at this time to add native animals to the lower pond, Light said.