Controversial L.A. River Project OKd : Environment: Critics say flood-control walls will be unsightly and harm ecosystem. But officials in county’s southeast area hail decision.

The county Board of Supervisors on Thursday approved a controversial flood-protection plan for the southern reaches of the Los Angeles River despite opposition from environmentalists who complained that concrete walls along the waterway will destroy habitats and parkland.

County public works officials said the walls are necessary to contain a so-called 100-year flood that would overrun river banks and devastate cities in southeast Los Angeles County. The water, they say, would soak 82 square miles and cause more than $2 billion worth of damage in 10 cities, including Long Beach, Compton and Pico Rivera.

Concrete walls up to eight feet high will be added atop levees along 12 miles of the Los Angeles River and an additional nine miles of Compton Creek and the Rio Hondo Channel, which feed the river. The $312-million project will be completed within nine years.

Officials from southeast cities said progress on the project will help relax federal flood insurance requirements that property owners will soon have to pay for.

Friends of the Los Angeles River, which had submitted two alternative plans, criticized the county for taking a narrow approach to flood protection. The group said that more concrete would ruin the river’s beauty, its fragile ecosystems and recreational uses. Representatives of the group who attended Thursday’s hearing said they are prepared to sue the county to stop construction, which is expected to begin by summer.

“They chose graffiti walls instead of re-creating a real urban treasure,” said Jim Danza, a Friends of the L.A. River board member. “It’s really a missed opportunity.”

The group had recommended storing surplus rainwater in gravel pits above the Whittier Narrows Dam, north of Pico Rivera, and widening and deepening the river toward its mouth in Long Beach.

Officials of the county Department of Public Works and the Army Corps of Engineers, the project’s two architects, said the environmentalists’ plans offered no promise of success.

“Friends of the Los Angeles River does not have enough technical data to support its alternatives,” said public works staffer Diego Cadena.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky had urged a delay on Thursday’s vote to study the levee project further and to address concerns about graffiti and additional storm debris washing down the river.

But his colleagues--Gloria Molina, Deane Dana, Mike Antonovich and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke--voted to approve the levee project.

Molina said the county wanted to move ahead for fear of losing federal funds promised for the project. The county will spend $105 million and the federal government will pick up the rest of the tab.

However, officials said that if construction does not start before Oct. 1, the beginning of the federal fiscal year, all federal monies could be lost. Nearly two dozen officials from southeast-area cities testified at Thursday’s hearing, all calling on the Board of Supervisors to approve the levee project.

“This project is the most economical and expeditious solution to providing needed flood control for our residents,” said Long Beach Mayor Beverly O’Neill.

After the meeting, the leaders celebrated the decision and called the levee project essential to protecting lives, homes and businesses in their communities.

“This is a big day,” said Downey Councilwoman Diane Boggs. “This starts a project that will protect my constituents from disaster.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has identified the southeast area as a flood hazard zone. FEMA has studied the river and concluded that it cannot contain a 100-year flood--a major deluge that has a 1% chance of occurring in a given year. It would require substantially more rain than January’s deluge to cause such a flood.

Property owners in such flood-hazard zones are required to buy costly flood insurance and elevate all new buildings to flood levels. In the southeast area, that would mean raising new structures 15 feet above ground in some places.

But FEMA agreed to establish a special zone for the southeast area--as long as a levee project was under way--that would provide subsidized insurance rates and building elevations of no more than three feet above the ground.

“Without this (special zone), the flood insurance would be devastating to senior citizens and the business community in Lakewood,” Mayor Joseph Esquivel said.

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Flood Protection Under a plan approved Thursday concrete walls up to eight feet tall will be added to levees along parts of the Los Angeles River, the Rio Hondo Channel and Compton Creek. Source: FEMA, L.A. County Dept. of Public Works, Army Corps. of Engineers