L.A. River Revival Effort Adrift, Officials Agree

Despite several years of hopeful rhetoric, efforts to revive the once-beautiful Los Angeles River are stagnating because the various agencies with authority over the mostly concrete channel continue to work at cross-purposes, river proponents and local officials said Tuesday.

“The issue is drifting, and we’re trying to bring focus to the issue and get it done,” said Robert Van Dyke of Los Angeles Beautiful, an educational and civic gardening group that sponsored a panel discussion about the river in Elysian Park.

But instead of finding harmony among the Army Corps of Engineers, the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, the city of Los Angeles and the county Department of Public Works--all of which have some power over the river--the discussion showed that there remain a number of barriers to making it more than an elaborate plumbing system.

“We’re very far from resolving the real conflicts and divisions of missions that exist,” among the various agencies, said Robert Harris, dean of the USC School of Architecture and the session moderator. “It’s a real question as to whether we’re going to be able to do it now, and without strong public interest in it I don’t know if we can do it at all.”

Most of the river was lined with concrete by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers after a disastrous 1938 flood. Although much of its 58 miles run through the city of Los Angeles, the county is responsible for maintaining the concrete flood-control channel.

In recent years, the river and its banks have been considered for parks, bike trails, and even white-water canoeing in an unpaved stretch in the Sepulveda Basin. Others have talked about establishing commercial districts that would front the river, making it possible to stroll along the stream and to dine outdoors.

But more utilitarian uses continue to vie for attention. The Transportation Commission is set to consider building a three-story-high traffic lane along the river between the San Fernando Valley and downtown--right where the city plans to build a bike path. And the commission has already decided to build a maintenance facility for its commuter rail project on the river’s edge, near Elysian Park, although the same area has been considered for parkland. Both projects were cited by those attending Tuesday’s session as examples of agencies working at cross-purposes.

The problem, said several civic leaders and officials attending the panel discussion, is that authority over the river is divided and no agency--such as a Los Angeles River Authority--is able to consider the river’s various uses.

For example, a task force on the river set up nearly two years ago by Mayor Tom Bradley to explore innovative and ambitious ways to revitalize the waterfront will instead propose three mini-projects that amount to little more than landscaping small areas.

Julianna Riley, a landscape architect who represented the city Department of Recreation and Parks on the task force, said the projects include planting a nature garden at the Downey Community Building on Spring Street near downtown, landscaping a 6.2-mile bike trail being designed by the city near Griffith Park, and adding landscaping and river accesses near Lake Balboa in the Sepulveda Basin.

“They are only cosmetic solutions, but there is no master planning” effort in place that would allow broader efforts to be accomplished, acknowledged Riley.

To help resolve such issues, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has authorized the Department of Public Works to write a master plan for the river that would consider such issues as where parks should be built and wetlands restored. The plan could take four years to complete.