Federal Study of L.A. River Revitalization Is Scaled Back : Public works: Official says improving the waterway’s flood-control capacity has a higher priority than environmental or recreational improvements.

Citing a conflict with its flood-control plans, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday that it has slashed funding for a study of the potential revitalization of the Los Angeles River and expressed pessimism about the project’s prospects.

The corps agreed to release only $250,000 of the $1 million approved by Congress and scaled down the study of possible environmental and recreational improvements in the river. It also reduced the survey’s time frame from 18 months to a year.

At the same time, Assistant Army Secretary Nancy P. Dorn said in a letter to Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles) that any river restoration “would require extensive re-evaluation of the flood-control features, a costly and time-consuming effort.” She suggested improving the river’s flood-control capacity is a higher priority for the Bush Administration than studying its recreational or environmental potential.

Dorn’s comments were a setback for river advocates--including Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley--who seek to revitalize parts of the river, which was converted in 1938 into the region’s 58-mile concrete flood-control system. They aspire to transform stretches of the channel into a swath of green parkways, trails for hiking, biking and horseback riding and possibly even a white-water rafting course. Indeed, a Bradley aide said, “the river could be the string that ties the city together.”

Beilenson, who had the $1 million inserted into the 1992 Energy and Water Development spending bill, said that Dorn’s correspondence raised more questions than it answered.

“We’re investigating why the secretary’s office thinks the study can be done in 12 months instead of 18 as we were originally told and for $250,000 instead of $1 million,” Beilenson said.

“I’m disturbed that the assistant secretary, or someone in the Administration, appears to have already decided that making better use of the Los Angeles River--of greening parts of it, of using it for recreational purposes and environmental enhancement--will not be compatible with flood control even before the investigation of that possibility has been conducted,” Beilenson added.

“Our friends at the corps, at the field office, quite obviously thought these uses might be compatible, and I quite frankly see no reason why they could not be.”

Beilenson said he was uncertain whether the remaining $750,000 appropriated for the study would be used for other corps projects or would be returned to the Treasury. Corps officials were also unable to provide an immediate explanation.

Beilenson said that he has asked Dorn to respond to each of his questions. The assistant secretary was out of town Thursday and was unavailable for further comment, an aide said.

In her letter, Dorn referred to a $7.5-million study that the corps is completing “to determine the feasibility of improving the flood-control capacity of the river.”

These improvements are planned for the Rio Hondo River, which flows into the Los Angeles River at South Gate, and between South Gate and Long Beach. Beilenson said that expansion of flood-control capacity in the southern portion of the river is not necessarily incompatible with restoration in the northern stretches.

As examples of the river’s potential, advocates have focused their attention on sections in the Sepulveda Basin and near Griffith Park where the bottom or sides of the channel were left in their natural state.

Lewis MacAdams, a director of the 1,000-member Friends of the Los Angeles River, said the flap over the recreation study demonstrated that “the corps is afraid to look at a multi-use flood-control channel.”

He said a much-touted change in the corps philosophy--which de-emphasizes concrete channels and gives more weight to more environmentally sensitive flood-control solutions--has failed to filter down to the Los Angeles district.

“The L. A. River was the corps’ first flood-control channel and they are still thinking the same way,” MacAdams said.

Therefore, he said, the corps should not oversee any study that may eventually be done. Instead, he said, the review should be done by an interagency task force on the river being formed by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works. The corps “is only one player, not the only one,” he said.

The corps converted the Los Angeles River into a flood-control channel after a 1938 flood that caused $45 million in damage and killed 113 people. A 1980 flood that caused $300 million in damage and killed 18 persuaded the corps to study whether the massive development in the Los Angeles Basin had outstripped the channel’s capacity.

The corps concluded in 1987 that a 100-year flood--an event of such a magnitude that, in any one year, there is only a 1% chance of it occurring--would inundate 60% of the city of Long Beach and cause up to $2.5 billion in damage.

As a result, the corps proposed to spend $330 million to build walls four to eight feet high on the lower reaches of the river and on the Rio Hondo. Building the higher walls, which would hide the river and could make any environmental enhancements or recreational projects along that stretch impossible, also would require raising or relocating 26 bridges in that stretch.

Dan Young, assistant chief of planning for the corps’ Los Angeles district, said the project would also involve enlarging the river’s channel in some stretches and reinforcing the backside of levees.

The final public hearing on the corps’ plans was held earlier this month and the corps is now seeking the approval of the California Coastal Commission.

Young said Thursday that he was unaware of Dorn’s letter and declined to comment on the proposed reduction in the scope of the restoration study. He did say, however, that the original $1-million survey sought by Beilenson would have focused on the river’s upper reaches and would not have been incompatible with the improvements planned downstream.

Alan C. Miller reported from Washington and Richard Lee Colvin reported from Los Angeles.