The Left Bank, aka the Aliso Creek Trail East in Aliso-Woods Park has reopened after a year-plus-long closure during which a pipeline adjacent to the trail was replaced.  Those of you who have long been familiar with the trail--or who perhaps discovered it during the early days of COVID--will remember it as a singularly peaceful place, a sort of riff on a country road, where one might see bunnies peering from the grasses, roadrunners dashing madly down the track ahead, and even a coyote or two (Ed once saw a mother and her pup).  When you go back to see what it looks like now, you are apt to be disappointed, even shocked.  A great deal of the landscape next to the road has been bulldozed and torn up, and the road itself has been replaced by a 12' wide (almost twice the width of the original) expanse of decomposed granite, rolled flat and smooth, that practically begs for illegal e-bikes to turn it into a racetrack.  But there we are:  the damage has been done, and the need is to move forward from where we're at right now.  In late February, Ed and I joined Betty Burnett, General Manager of the South OC Wastewater Authority (the entity responsible for the pipeline), and David Baranowski, Senior Engineer with SOCWA, to visit the reopened trail and to discuss our concerns.  I am heartened to report that they also want to see the damage repaired and the trail returned, insofar as may be possible, to its former delightful state.  Now, I am not naive.  The process of re-vegetation will not happen overnight nor be finished instantly.  The important thing, for all of us who have any stake or interest in the matter, is for it to be done right.  And it will need to be done with transparency and good communication, so that everyone knows what's happening and is more or less on the same page and that no one goes off half-cocked because of a misunderstanding.  So, what we ask of you is this...  Get out there and have a look at the trail. Let us know if you notice something in particular (like a tree or prominent shrubbery) that is no longer there and ought to be replaced.  Or if you have other thoughts on how it might be made more inviting again, starting from where we're at now, please share them too.  As things begin to happen, or to be decided, I will be getting back to you.