County Receives State Funding for L.A. River Cleanup

In a move that could help clean up the Long Beach waterfront, the state on Friday gave $650,000 to the county to remove trash and debris from the mouth of the heavily polluted Los Angeles River.

The funding is a part of a growing effort on several fronts to restore the urban waterway, which is the largest watershed in the region. Over the years, it has been transformed into a huge receptacle for trash, contaminated runoff and other pollutants.

“This is one of the important steps as we move along in revitalizing the river and our coast line,” said Assemblyman Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach). “We need to look at the river as a resource, not a repository for trash.”

Lowenthal, who worked to secure the funding, announced the allocation during a news conference at the mouth of the river, next to the Golden Shore Marine Reserve, which was strewn with litter from the waterway. He was joined by Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe, Long Beach Mayor Beverly O’Neill and members of the Long Beach City Council.

Officials said the money will be used to install a boom and a trash collection system across the river mouth downstream from a net that is already in place. The funds will also help pay for research into other devices, such as skimmers that vacuum debris from the water.

“This is a very positive step in the right direction,” said Dorothy Green, president of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Watershed Council. “Until we can train the population not to throw trash into the storm drain system, things like this will be necessary.”

Although they are not a total solution, booms have had some success in Ballona Creek next to Marina del Rey. Environmentalists say that during one small storm in 1997, booms captured 13 tons of floating litter and debris.

“There will still be trash coming from Ballona Creek, but not as much as we have had in the past,” said James Alamillo, a spokesman for Heal the Bay in Santa Monica.

Booms and nets are particularly effective during heavy rains that wash enormous amounts of debris and trash into the water. However, significant quantities of garbage can still pass under the barriers.

“The boom is a weak downstream solution to a profound upstream phenomenon, but at least its a start,” said David Sundstrom, chairman of the environmental task force for the Long Beach Strategic Plan, a municipal planning organization.

Cleaning the Los Angeles River is critical for Long Beach, which is on the receiving end of runoff and garbage dumped into the river along its course. The trash problem is particularly serious during the winter rainy season.

Long Beach has been trying to develop tourism as one way to replace the industrial and defense-related jobs lost during the recession earlier this decade, and the downsizing of the military.

Over the last several years, the state’s fifth-largest city has been steadily remaking the downtown waterfront with marina developments, the Queensway Bay project, and the new Aquarium of the Pacific.

The river, however, empties into the ocean next to the city’s prime projects, depositing litter and debris on their doorsteps as well as along municipal beaches to the southeast.

City officials estimate that more than 8,000 tons of garbage and debris ends up along the Long Beach waterfront every year, the vast majority of it from the Los Angeles River. Cleaning it up can cost $500,000 to $1 million a year, depending on the amount of rainfall and water in the river.

“There’s 51 miles of Los Angeles River and we are at the end of it,” said O’Neill. “We definitely need help from all sources on this.”

The funding for the boom coincides with a variety of local, state and federal efforts to rehabilitate the river. State legislation is pending that could establish a conservancy for part of the waterway and to provide up to $20 million for restoration.

On the federal level, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently settled a lawsuit by agreeing to set pollution limits for beaches and waterways in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. The conditions include reducing trash and contaminated runoff.

The lawsuit, filed by Heal the Bay and Santa Monica BayKeeper, charged that for 20 years, the EPA failed to ensure that regional waters were safe and clean as mandated by federal law.

“One of the first pollution limits is for trash,” said David Beckman, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council who worked on the EPA lawsuit. “The boom will help. It’s like a good broom and it is far better than nothing.”