Santa Clarita’s Council Awash With Proposals for River Basin : Environment: A committee called for building white-water chutes, ponds and an amphitheater near the Santa Clara, but opposed a concrete lining.

The Santa Clara River--the only completely natural river basin remaining in Los Angeles County--could be transformed from a usually dry and dusty ditch into a parkway with constructed white-water chutes, ponds and an amphitheater linked by trails and trolleys, according to a study by the city of Santa Clarita.

All it would take is water, money and the political will--sparse commodities in the fifth year of the statewide drought.

But that didn’t stop a committee appointed by the Santa Clarita City Council from including the lush vision in a report that the council is expected to review tonight.

“You can’t attain a goal unless you set one,” said Laurene Weste, a city parks commissioner who served on the committee composed of private consultants and representatives of government agencies and residents groups.

The study, for which the city paid a private consulting firm $74,000, covered a 12-mile section of the river, which meanders 84 miles from Acton to the Pacific Ocean through unincorporated portions of Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

The report opposed lining the riverbed with concrete, which has been done to portions of all other major rivers in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, said John Fisher, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Fish and Game.

“We don’t want it to look like the Los Angeles River,” Weste said.

But the way the Santa Clara River now looks is “certainly not anything to get overly excited about,” according to the report.

The only water flowing through it year-round is reclaimed water dumped daily by two sewage treatment plants in the western portion. But most residents are more familiar with the arid sections visible from roads in the eastern half of the city, the report says.

The river would become far more popular if the city built fishing and swimming ponds and white-water chutes for boaters from “natural looking material,” the report says.

The ponds and chutes would be located off the main channel to protect wildlife and downstream users, and could be filled with a combination of ground water, storm runoff, untreated water purchased from the state in surplus years and reclaimed water from the county sanitation district, said Jeff Kolin, the city’s director of parks and recreation.

Joggers, hikers and equestrians could follow a network of trails from one end of the city to the other if the city implemented the committee’s recommendations.

Although the majority of the report’s recommendations are yet to be debated, the city is already committed to construction of a three-mile section of the trail system along the South Fork. Work is scheduled to begin this spring west of San Fernando Road if Newhall Land & Farming Co. grants the city an easement to use the land, Kolin said.

A company spokeswoman said the firm is likely to grant the city permission. The $500,000 project would be paid for by a combination of city, county and state funds.

Other features of the recreational area proposed in the report are a river plaza with shops, restaurants, reflecting pools and a 100- to 150-seat amphitheater, located either at the confluence of the South Fork and the main channel, in Canyon Country, or just north of Saugus Speedway.

“It sounds like good stuff, but the feasibility of it is something else,” Councilman Howard (Buck) McKeon said, adding that alleviating traffic should take precedence over improving the river.

Even if the city could get state funding under two proposed Assembly bills that would provide funds for improving riverside corridors, council members Jill Klajic and Jan Heidt said they would oppose many of the committee’s recommendations.

“Except for the trails, I prefer the river be kept in its natural state,” Heidt said.