The River Entombed

All across the land, cities have rediscovered the rivers that run through them. From Chicago to Atlanta, urban rivers have been freed of their concrete entombments and once again offer their free-flowing charms to their hometowns.

If you’ve ever wandered along the Potomac in Washington, or the American River in Sacramento, you understand the restorative power of a living river curling through a city. Even in cities such as Cleveland, whose Cuyahoga River once was declared a fire hazard, citizens have risen up to rescue their waterways.

It is happening everywhere. Except here. A fledgling effort in Los Angeles to restore our namesake river has just been swatted down. The swatting down, carried out by the County Department of Public Works, may well condemn the Los Angeles River to another half century of burial in ever more concrete.

What is this spite that we seem to hold for our river? We ignore it, make jokes about it, pretend it doesn’t exist. Perhaps our contempt stems from 50 years of official policy that has treated the river as a sewer. It is fenced off like a sewer, hidden like a sewer, channelized like a sewer.

Still, the river remains, however hidden. Contrary to common belief, the Los Angeles River flows year-round and once delivered enough fresh water to supply the city with its needs. The original pueblo of Los Angeles was founded in present-day downtown precisely because the river was there.

What’s more, our river offers some of the greatest benefits of any urban waterway in the country. It flows through the entire San Fernando Valley and could serve as a unifying, green riverway. In the east valley it curves past three major movie studios--Warner Bros., Disney and Universal--and its banks could be exploited for untold commercial uses. Ditto for parts of downtown and some of the lower reaches of its 52-mile course.

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In truth, the late fledgling effort to restore the river did not propose anything so grand. The history of the sad affair is brief: Friends of the Los Angeles River and some other river supporters sued the county last year, claiming that a planned flood control project along the river failed to seriously consider any strategy other than pouring more concrete.

The plan called for the county and the Army Corps of Engineers to spend $312 million on the project, mostly for raising the channel walls ever higher in the lower sections of the river. Ironically, the need for more flood control grew out of the artificial nature of the upstream reaches of the river: Little of the runoff now gets absorbed by the watershed. It runs off the streets, out of subdivisions, and shoots straight down the concrete sluiceways.

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The Friends group wanted the agencies to add other strategies to the flood control mix, techniques known as “nonstructural flood hazard reduction.” In short, that means less concrete. Nonstructural techniques include collection basins and the restoration of a natural river bottom to increase seepage. When not in use for flood control, these areas could offer all kinds of recreation possibilities.

One of the greatest examples of this strategy is the Sepulveda Basin, used by millions every year when it’s not doing flood control duty, which is 99% of the time. It also just happens to contain a wonderful, short stretch of restored Los Angeles River.

At first the county seemed willing to compromise on their plan. For months the Department of Public Works negotiated over the make-up of a “task force” that would consider modifications of the all-concrete plan.

Then, this spring, the hammer dropped. Rather than waiting for the formation of the task force, the county announced it would proceed with all phases of the project as originally conceived, awarding contracts for the construction of higher walls even as the negotiations continued.

When that ploy failed to scare away the environmentalists, the county insisted that the Friends group waive its right to ask for the county to pay its legal fees. The demand, in effect, meant bankruptcy for Friends. They have an annual budget of less than $40,000 and their legal bills amounted to $100,000. The Public Works budget is $800 million.

That one did the trick. The Friends group pulled out of the negotiations and the concrete trucks began to roll.

“The Department of Public Works decided years ago what they wanted,” said Jan Chatten-Brown, the Friends’ attorney, “and that did not include a multipurpose project or anything resembling a restoration of the river.”

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As it now stands, Friends is promising to go back to court. The county and the Army Corps is proceeding according to their plan. And the river is getting buried a little deeper in concrete every day.

In other cities, powerful coalitions have come together to rescue their rivers. These coalitions have included mayors and business leaders as well as environmentalists, all of whom recognized the enormous benefits of having a healthy, attractive river flowing through their city.

But here, nothing. Since the county bureaucrats successfully sabotaged the river task force, not a word has been heard from any supervisor. Nor the mayor. Nor anyone else with the clout to make a difference.

Almost as if we didn’t have a river. And, in a way, we don’t.