Beilenson Seeks $6 Million for Waterway Projects

In a bid to revitalize the Los Angeles River and expand recreational facilities in the Sepulveda Basin, Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles) will make his case for $6 million in proposed federal funding before a congressional panel today.

If Beilenson’s visions of a greener San Fernando Valley are to become reality, however, they must first survive stiff competition for money in the tight federal budget.

Beilenson will ask for $1 million to study the river’s recreational, transportation and water conservation potential. He is acting at the behest of Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who hopes to transform the waterway--used primarily for flood control for decades--into a greenbelt featuring bike paths and riding trails.

At the same time, Beilenson will request $5 million for additional landscaping, trails and open space in the Sepulveda Basin, which has been called the Valley’s Central Park. The proposal includes $3 million to create parkland from 80 acres at Burbank Boulevard and Woodley Avenue, now leased for sod farming.

Beilenson, whose 23rd District includes the West Valley, plans to present the financing proposals to the energy and water development subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee at its annual “California Day” hearing today.

During this Capitol Hill rite of spring, the subcommittee sets aside several hours to hear from California lawmakers as well as representatives of state agencies and the public about proposed flood control, navigation, harbor, irrigation and water supply projects.

The panel will decide which specific proposals from California and other states will be included in the national Energy and Water Development bill for the 1990-91 fiscal year.

A senior subcommittee staffer said that because of next year’s extremely tight federal budget, projects now receiving funding are far more likely to be financed than new proposals.

“The decision-making process involves more than simply following certain guidelines,” said a Beilenson aide familiar with the process. “There’s a lot of politics, and there’s a lot of subjective judgments involved about which projects will be funded and which won’t. At this stage, there are just too many unknowns to predict whether our efforts will be successful.”

Under Bradley’s initiative, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which maintains part of the flood control channel, would conduct an 18-month study of various proposals to enhance public use of the river. They include establishing bicycle paths, improving existing flood controls and removing concrete paving along the riverbed to create a more natural river environment.

Another proposal to be studied calls for water treated by two sewage plants along the river to be diverted into a cleared area and permitted to seep into the soil, recharging the ground water tables. The treated water now flows into the river and out to the Pacific.

The river begins in the southwest Valley and flows east along the northern base of the Santa Monica Mountains and past downtown Los Angeles to Long Beach.

Bradley’s plan represents only one of several competing visions for the river, which has experienced a recent renaissance in public awareness.

Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda) wants to build a three-lane freeway in the riverbed. The Los Angeles County Transportation Committee has set aside $100,000 to study Katz’s initiative, which would integrate the roadway with parks, businesses and housing along the river banks.

The Army Corps of Engineers, meanwhile, is studying a proposal to spend about $250 million to raise the river’s flood control levees, which are between 20 and 25 feet high, by several feet.

And state Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) is pursuing a plan similar to Bradley’s. Torres persuaded a Senate committee last week to earmark $200,000 for the Coastal Conservancy to prepare a master plan to turn the river into a park and recreation area.

Much of the 2,150-acre Sepulveda Basin is leased by the Corps to the city of Los Angeles for recreational purposes. In the mid-1980s, Congress appropriated $10 million, which the city matched, to develop 160 acres as a park and 60 acres as a wildlife reserve.

Lake Balboa Park, built around a 26-acre fishing and boating lake, will be open to the public later this year. The wildlife area was completed and opened earlier this year.

The $5 million sought for next year would include $1 million for traffic barriers and additional landscaping at Lake Balboa Park; $1 million for trails, terracing and plantings to enhance the creek that runs through the basin; and $3 million for landscaping, parking, picnic tables and restrooms at the 80 acres now leased for agricultural use.

The city, in turn, would put up a matching $5 million for construction of the park’s water supply system and would assume the expenses of operating and maintaining the facilities.

“Green space and outdoor recreation areas are scarce in the San Fernando Valley,” Beilenson said in testimony prepared for delivery today. “These parks will go a long way toward meeting the recreation needs of the 1 1/2 million Valley residents.”