Nature holds its ground at lower Compton Creek

Decades of storm drain runoff and illegal dumping have devastated lower Compton Creek, choking its foliage with trash and lacing its knee-deep water with pesticides and industrial waste.

But a surprising variety of wildlife clings to a 1/4 -mile-long stretch of creek hemmed in by a casino, a Metro Blue Line station, a freeway and a mall under construction. Turtles chase minnows in the murky, barely moving water. Green herons stand like sentinels on discarded automobile parts covered with muck. Mallards relax in the weeds.

Wildlife can be found south of this spot, closer to where the creek flows into the Los Angeles River. But that part of the channel is wider, flatter and surrounded by heavy industry, and doesn’t have the same concentration of critters residing there.

Leaning against a rail on an Artesia Boulevard bridge, Ken Frederick of the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority took in the scene at the forlorn wetland.

“Amid all this mess, nature wants to come back, and we plan to help it along,” said Frederick, a planning analyst for the authority.

Saving this rare remnant of soft-bottom, or “dirt-floor,” creek south of downtown Los Angeles depends on the negotiations to buy it from the developers of the adjacent Gateway Towne Center mall. The conservation authority wants to create a pocket paradise where crayfish, egrets, shoppers and gamblers can peacefully coexist.

The negotiations between the authority, which is a local public entity dedicated to preserving open space, and developer Brook Morris of Newport Beach-based PRISM Realty Corp. involve the amount of land available and its price. The land is in the southeast corner of Compton, about 1 1/2 miles from the junction of the 91 and 710 freeways.

The authority wants to buy as much square footage as possible on each side of the creek to create a buffer zone wide enough to protect the habitat and accommodate bicycle trails and park benches. The Crystal Casino and Hotel sits on the west side of the creek. To the east is the mall being built by PRISM.

In an interview, Morris said he has offered to donate some land along the creek as easements and sell a nearby one-acre parking lot. The lot is adjacent to the river on the northern end.

“I could give them 15 to 20 feet on each side of the creek; we have project restraints that won’t allow more than that,” Morris said. “The parking lot could be torn out and turned into a nice park.”

How much a park would cost is uncertain because the ultimate size of the parcel is being negotiated. But Morris said that land in the area has been appraised at about $1.6 million an acre.

If all goes according to plan, title to the property will eventually be handed over to the city of Compton, which has agreed to maintain it. Environmental groups, including Heal the Bay, the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Watershed Council and the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy, have offered to help revitalize the area by planting sycamores, alders and oaks.

The goal is to provide the park-poor, mostly blue-collar black and Latino community with a taste of the outdoors alongside the mall, which is expected to generate sorely needed sales tax revenue.

Compton has 93,500 residents, 28% of whom live below the poverty line -- twice as high as the proportion of poor people statewide. The median household income is $31,819.

A longtime crusader for preserving the creek is City Councilwoman Yvonne Arceneau, who has lived near the waterway all her life and leads the Compton Creek Task Force.

“We are very hopeful that this will be turned into a beautiful place for our community,” Arceneau said on a recent weekday, as a great blue heron landed in the stream bed just a few yards away from the commotion of heavy equipment.

She also sees no conflict in having a mall rise nearby. “The mall, which is the only real shopping center in Compton, is also long overdue,” she said. “So what we’re seeing here is a synergy of political will and commitment.”

A victim of geography and explosive urban growth, 20-mile-long Compton Creek has for centuries drained a 42-square-mile watershed. By the 1920s, however, residents were pleading for protection from floods that inundated homes and downtown businesses.

Today, the upper stretch of the creek is a concrete-lined flood control channel that cuts diagonally through Compton, carrying water to the Los Angeles River and to the ocean at Long Beach Harbor. Tons of trash and debris deposited in the creek by storm drains are hauled away during annual cleanup campaigns sponsored by Heal the Bay.

The creek’s dirt-bottom portion winds through some of the most densely populated and highly industrialized regions in Southern California. Access to the channel is limited, but the quarter-mile stretch being eyed by the conservation authority is suitable for a park, officials say.

“Who would believe the people of Compton have turtles and ducks in their own backyard?” said Barbara Romero, director of urban projects for the authority. “True, it’s not Griffith Park. But it is a little sanctuary for this neighborhood, and that’s worth the investment.”

louis.sahagun@latimes.com