For Now, L.A. River Walk Best Done by Chopper

Good news for my shoes: During an hourlong helicopter ride over the Los Angeles River the other day, not a single city engineer got airsick. Nor did I.

The chopper trip was provided by the city of Los Angeles for staff and consultants hired as part of an effort to restore the imprisoned L.A. River.

The idea is to keep the river’s flood control function intact while, in the language of the bureaucracy, finding “areas of opportunity” to build parks along it, provide more wildlife habitat, improve public access and possibly lure cafes to the water’s edge.

Yes, brunch along the L.A. River could be in our future. Actually, it has been in our future for years: There is no time line, and it will probably require a few hundred millions dollars to accomplish anything significant in the long-anticipated project.

The river is “a brilliant piece of engineering but it was built for a single use, and this is a broader vision,” said Bill Wenk, a landscape architect from Denver hired as part of the restoration team.

The 32 miles of river that flow through the city are often so hidden by fences and homes that the only way to really see the waterway is from the air.

And it’s a remarkable thing -- a sterile half-straw of concrete in many places, a thick tangle of vegetation in others. Homes, swimming pools, mini-malls, horse barns and freeways sit just a few feet from the river’s banks.

One of the big problems with restoring the river is that the water quality isn’t exactly great. The city is trying to clean it up, and that raises the question:

Question: Could a pair of goldfish survive in the L.A. River?

Answer: “They’ll most likely die,” said Edmund Orellana, a salesman at Bird Man pet shop, in Highland Park, before selling The Times $30 in goldfish paraphernalia that he believed would extend their lives to “a few months.”

The water came from a stretch of the river near Taylor Yards, the old railroad facility in Cypress Park being converted to a 40-acre park. The bottom there is unlined, featuring deep pools, boulders and thickets of trees.

The spot could almost be mistaken for a gurgling stream in the Sierra -- if not for the industrial shops on the far bank, the dozens of plastic bags stuck in branches, the high-tension wires overhead and a nearby idling Metrolink train.

The fish were released into an aquarium in my City Hall office at 1:44 p.m. March 6. A sculpture of a tiny junked car was put in the tank to remind them where the water came from.

The fish were named Little Ed and Little Antonio, after a certain councilman and mayor who’ve sworn they’re going to possibly rip out some of the river’s concrete while not causing a major flood. As of last night, both fish were still doing the front stroke.

Q: Exactly how nasty is the river water?

A: During dry weather -- such as when the water for the fish was scooped -- the flows largely consist of treated sewage water. Sounds gross, eh?

City officials, however, have long insisted that such water -- germwise -- is very clean but acknowledge that the public isn’t lining up to do shots.

The big problem, which the city is spending millions of dollars to fix, occurs during wet weather, when hundreds of storm drains dump traces of heavy metals, pesticides, fertilizers, and dog and horse manure into the mix.

“In wet weather, all the filth of society washes off our streets into the L.A. River; and I doubt if you scooped the water then, your goldfish would do as well,” said David Nahai, head of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board.

As a child, in the summers, Councilman Ed Reyes swam in the river near the Taylor Yards and lived to tell of it -- although he did become a politician.

Reyes now heads the City Council’s river committee and considers river restoration his legacy project. He wasn’t entirely surprised that Little Ed was thriving and swung by the Times’ office in City Hall to bear witness.

“He’s losing his hair too,” Reyes joked.

But the councilman also seemed deeply pleased that even with all the river’s problems, perhaps Little Ed and Little Antonio represent hope.

Q: What about that other river Los Angeles has a little history with?

A: Department of Water and Power officials recently began construction on a project to restore flows to the Owens River in the eastern Sierra by early summer 2007.

This is news.

The DWP began diverting most of the river’s water into the Los Angeles Aqueduct near the town of Big Pine in 1913, and much of the lower Owens has been dry since.

Under the new scenario, some of the Owens water will be allowed to stay in the riverbed and flow for an additional 62 miles south. Then, just before Owens Lake, much of the water will be pumped back into the aqueduct for its journey to L.A.

The DWP had been promising to complete the project since the early 1990s. After years of delay, a state judge finally threw the book at the agency in September and began fining it $5,000 a day until the work was done. The total is up to $950,000.

“In California we’ve lost 90% or more of our riparian habitat of willows and cottonwoods, and this project puts 62 miles back,” said Mike Prather, the outreach coordinator for the Owens Valley Committee, one of the environmental groups that took the DWP to court. “It’s going to be 62 miles of oasis for deer and elk, neotropical songbirds, swallowtail butterflies and bobcats.”

Prather said he’s pleased that the DWP’s construction is finally underway. He added, “I’m hopeful, but I’m not a fool. I’ve been doing this too long.”

Q: Back in the land of tiny-women-who-drive-huge-cars, what has the City Council done lately for motorists who wish to occasionally make a left turn?

A: City traffic engineers despised left-turn signals for years, believing they impeded the flow of through traffic.

So, they weren’t exactly racing around town to install left-turn arrows. In the meantime, motorists who wanted to turn left learned the art of dodging oncoming traffic, running red lights and cursing.

Earlier this month the City Council approved a plan by member Wendy Greuel that would install about 436 left-turn signals at 158 intersections around L.A. over the next four years. Many will be of the so-called smart variety, meaning they’ll activate only when there are more than a few cars sitting in the left-turn lane.

The city has yet to put on its website the long list of intersections that will be getting the signals. Good thing no one in L.A. is obsessed with their commutes. For the motorists who do care, however, South Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley and the Westside look to be the big winners.

Downtown commuters waiting for left-turn signals at 1st and Broadway -- one block from City Hall -- will have to wait. That intersection isn’t on the list.

Q: Was the council’s debate over left-turn signals scintillating and provocative?

A: Of course.

“We’ve taken away from the discretion of the drivers -- I have a problem with red left-turn arrows,” said Janice Hahn, who nonetheless voted for the plan. “We wait a long time” for green arrows, “only to find that they’re three seconds long.”

As usual, it was Tom LaBonge who took the debate in a fascinating direction.

“I believe in synchronized lights, but we need synchronized drivers,” he said.

Sounds like a plan.

Attention all motorists: At exactly 6 tonight, swerve wildly to the right.

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Jump right in

City officials want citizens’ ideas for restoring the river before drawing up a master plan. Give ‘em an earful at these meetings:

* March 25, 10 a.m., Birmingham High School, 17000 Haynes St., Van Nuys.

* March 28, 6 p.m., Glassell Park Elementary School, 2211 W. Avenue 30, Glassell Park.

* March 29, 6 p.m., International Institute of Los Angeles, 435 S. Boyle Ave., Boyle Heights.

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Website: For more information, go to www.lariverrmp.org