Day of the lotus - without any lotus

The annual Lotus Festival starts two weeks from today in Echo Park and, for the first time in its 31-year history, the guest of honor is missing.

We'll see a jazz fest, an art show, a food court, a health fair, dragon boat races, a Lotus Queen and her court, but no actual lotuses. Not growing in the lake, anyway. After a steep decline, this year's crop amounts to a few sickly leaves.

What's going on? We've heard plenty of theories -- climate change, heavy metals in the water, a disease of some sort attacking the rhizomes -- but the truth is, no one knows for sure. Jenny Burman has been tracking the vanishing lotus on her Echo Park blog for a few years now, and we posted about them on LA Now.

Larry Simonsen, who teaches at the Civitas School of Leadership in L.A., studied the problem with his class in 2007. Based on extensive tests and research, the water in the lake doesn't seem to be the problem. (The class used a thriving lotus pond at Lotusland, a botanical garden in Montecito, as a control and found no difference in the water values.)

So what's the answer? Simonsen found photos that show a lotus pond attacked by disease and says it looks just like what's happening in Echo Park. He's hopeful that when the lake is drained in 2009 (though city officials are now saying the draining and dredging will likely take place later than that) a good cleaning and a new crop of rhizomes may restore the lotus bed to its former glory.

In the meantime, here's a T-shirt created by photog Martin Cox, a long-time resident of The Echo. As he puts it, "I wanted to make sure there would be some lotuses at the festival." (See the jump for a photo of the heyday of the lotus.) And lots more pix here.

-- Veronique de Turenne

Photos: Los Angeles Times

The way it used to be:

Photo: Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Robert D. Skeels]

Although I'd like to agree with the gentrification comment (it seems as more narcissistic anglo hipster came, less and less lotus bloomed), I think it is more important to organize and demand the City take action soon. The lotus bed represents so much to this community.

[Leopold Stotch]

It's because of gentrification. The white man came here and killed all the lotus.