Drought and Rainstorms

A keen observation was made in the “Weather Watch Column” Jan. 19. There is a good reason why we can have floods and drought the same year: The Los Angeles River has been concreted.

City planners in the 1930s attempted to deal with floods by trying to increase the capacity of the Los Angeles River with the smallest channel possible; by concreting it. A better alternative, especially in this semiarid climate, would have been to save as much water throughout the watershed as possible with dams, retention basins and required on-site retention.

The solution to the flood problem, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, is to increase the capacity of the L.A. River with more concrete. The project, known as the LACDA project (or Los Angeles County Drainage Area Project), would construct walls up to eight feet high on the Rio Hondo and lower Los Angeles River. The plan has no water conservation component.

Rather than building a project to quickly eject water into the ocean, it would be a wise investment to design a project that would reduce the amount of water in the river to control floods and allow the virtues of the river to come alive--a project that would conserve rainwater and snowmelt, provide open space and parks, and would allow for the restoration of Los Angeles’ most misunderstood and forgotten asset, the Los Angeles River.

JAMES M. DANZA

Chair, Technical Advisory Board

Friends of the L.A. River