Natural Selection : The proposed restoration of the L.A. River would be a costly artificial make-over. Preservation of the pristine Tujunga Wash near Sunland is a wiser choice.

In this era of diminished public resources, the idea of spending an astronomical amount of money for a so-called restoration of the Los Angeles River from Elysian Narrows near downtown south to San Pedro should be considered in the light of common sense.

The movement for such a restoration suffered a setback last fall when Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed a bill to establish a Los Angeles River Conservancy.

But the idea seems sure to come back because of the enthusiasm of quixotic river advocates.

At the same time, a much more favorable natural river for restoration lies only 20 miles upstream from downtown, in the northeast San Fernando Valley.

In reality, there can be no true restoration of the river, because it would always need to be controlled, and because its embankments would still need to be engineered and environmentally decorated. The artificial make-over would cost nearly $1 billion.

The result would be a river still polluted by runoff from city streets. Visitors would continue to be at risk and could not safely fish or swim in a romantically decorated L.A. River.

A better program would involve the selection of a number of historically significant locales along Los Angeles river ways and the installation of site-specific art solutions conceived by environmental artists--solutions that could tantalize and play upon our curiosity, our imagination of what once was.

North of Sunland is the last remaining portion of undisturbed river within the city limits. Starting where the Big Tujunga River pours out of the front range of the San Gabriels north of Sunland, it flows west toward Hansen Dam and is called the Tujunga Wash.

Despite its unromantic name (a wash is a flood plain that is nearly dry most of the time) it is the largest tributary of the L.A. River, joining the main channel just north of Ventura Boulevard in Studio City.

The still-natural area at Sunland--the river and flood plain on either side of it--is partly in private hands and has recently been threatened with a ruinous golf course development.

Hundreds of acres of riparian river wash in the eastern portion of this wash would be plowed under to make way for the private course.

This is a bad idea for many reasons. Fastidiously maintained golf links require the application of vast amounts of insecticides, herbicides and fertilizers.

These chemicals would pose a threat to ground waters contained in the sands and gravels beneath the wash.

The golf course proposal is moribund for financial reasons, but as long as the land is privately held, another bad idea seems inevitable.

The result could be a tragic loss of natural beauty.

The view is best from atop a bluff near Foothill Boulevard and Wentworth Street west of Sunland.

The yawning chasm where the canyon spills out at the head of the wash is unmatched anywhere else in visual splendor, the only transverse mountain range in North America.

To either side lie jagged, steeply plummeting ridges, from off of Mt. Lukens at the right and from Yerba Buena Ridge on the left. Straight ahead, 4,000 feet above the river, stands the pointed apex of Condor Peak.

The scene remains largely as it was seen by Ewing Young and his great friend Kit Carson on their 1829 journey west via a “pass through the mountains” from San Gabriel to the mission at San Fernando.

I suggest that an excellent use for this area, known as Tujunga Valley on a U.S. government map and locally as the Tujunga Arroyo, would be as part of a new, 800-acre park, which would link the Hansen Dam recreation area to the Angeles National Forest.

The eastern end of the arroyo should be purchased for the county by a public agency, perhaps the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, and physically left as it is aside from removing man-made junk and instituting ecological management.

The natural vegetation in the flood plain should be left alone--no roadways, trails or picnic areas; simply as it is and has always been.

Farther west, closer to Hansen Dam, the arroyo has been used as a quarry in the past.

Here the new park could be developed on more traditional lines, with grass, trees, hiking trails and picnic areas.

The armchair naturalists and historical romantics who pine for the long-lost L.A. River below Elysian Narrows should wake up!

One can only wish that a few of them might find their way out of the concrete jungle to visit the Tujunga Arroyo, and after doing so, reflect on where our limited resources should be rightly apportioned.