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Restoring a stretch of the Los Angeles River

Water birds feed in the Los Angeles River near Griffith Park, where the waterway has a hardened concrete bed. The river was naturally an ephemeral, braided stream that would remain dry for months, only to rush with water during storms.

Water birds feed in the Los Angeles River near Griffith Park, where the waterway has a hardened concrete bed. The river was naturally an ephemeral, braided stream that would remain dry for months, only to rush with water during storms.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

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After seven years of study, federal officials have recommended a $453-million plan that would restore an 11-mile stretch of the Los Angeles River but leave much of its banks steep and hard to reach, disappointing advocates who hoped for a more ambitious alternative that would allow more public access.

An urban waterway

The restoration plan endorsed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would restore 588 acres of habitat along several key points of the river from Griffith Park to downtown.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Liquid relief

Glendale resident Sarita Vidal and her springer spaniel Jeni cool off in the Glendale Narrows area of the L.A. River. Advocacy groups say the favored restoration plan falls short and will push the Army Corps to choose a broader, more costly alternative when it makes its final recommendation in the spring.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Debris on the shoreline

A discarded license plate rests on the banks of the Los Angeles River in an area known as the Glendale Narrows. Catastrophic floods in the late 19th and early 20th century led the federal government to encase much of the waterway in concrete and straighten its course from the San Fernando Valley to Long Beach, a project that was completed in the late 1950s.   (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

An egret alights

An egret lands amid the vegetation in the Glendale Narrows area of the L.A. River. In 2010 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared the river a “navigable” waterway under the federal Clean Water Act; it is now legal to kayak down a stretch of it.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

A landing spot

A pair of dragonflies perch on a dried succulent on the banks of the L.A. River near Griffith Park. The plan preferred by the Army Corps, said the chairman of the board of the nonprofit Friends of the Los Angeles River, “does not address the desperate need for open space in the city as it continues to grow.”  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

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