What's the deal with the L.A. River?

[Cleveland Steamer]

One of my favorite ways of getting into downtown l.a. is crossing the river on 4th or 1st street. The bridge leading into the city is picturesque but the area surrounding the bridge is horribly depressing. I read a year ago in the times the city council planned to revitalize the LA River much like Phoenix did with the Tempe town lake. I haven't heard anything since and I don't believe I've seen the LA river discussed on these forums.

Imagine L.A. having a riverfront! That would be the icing on the cake on the downtown revitalization. It just seems like such an overwhelming task to turn this bare, ugly and paved land into a lush, green riverfront.

[savvysearch]

Well, last month LA County passed a $500 million bond to clean up the LA River. And after that passed, a $3 million dollar study was commissioned that is taking place currently on how to design the river waterfront. I think the property around the LA river is a development goldmine that's just waiting to be bought up.

I think the natural and first thing to do, besides water cleanup, would be to take out the concrete that lines some of the river. It would be great to widen the river as well.

[Thinkahead]

The irony and the reality of this LA River is that it was originally designed to keep rain runoff to potentially create mudslides and damage to the sandy silty soil that exists in that area.

The other constraint is that in order to make this a success they would have to address the freight tracks that line much of the river and the many industrial tracts that use the proximity to the railroad as a means to locate the factories. I'm not being pessimistic, I'm just being a realist.

If they want to tear that down to the groundwater to run through the best, easiest and practical solution is to treat the existing concrete channel like a terra cotta flower pot. When we really break down the differences between Terra Cotta and Concrete (At least how they mixed this batch) they are really the same elements/composition.

Same implications as you would potting a plant:
Base layer of Charcoal/aggregate and compacted sand
Middle Layer of Soil/sand
Top layer of moss and or sod (in certain locations)or some means to disperce and efficently insulate the topsoil.

[savvysearch]

The best solution would be to widen the river in order to take out the concrete. Or atleast keep the concrete and line the walls with rock which has been done for a lot of channels in Los Angeles and remove the concrete at certain sections as has already been done.

The biggest problem may be the houses rather than the railway. I imagine public outcry about possible homes being torn down have the strongest voice and the most power.

Either way, some redefinition of that urban space will inevitably get done, as everyone in every decade keeps gnawing at the city to do something about it.

It seems most high density cities have concrete rivers running through the city. The huge difference being that their rivers are filled with water. One of the river advocates had a wonderful suggestion of damning the river with inflatable dams to keep water in the channel year round.

[SChristopher]

Isnt it a little far from the financial district and behind skid row, I could be wrong.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

THE RIVER RETURNS
The city seeks proposals to free a once-wild Los Angeles River and make it culturally relevant again

~ By IDAN IVRI ~

~ Underneath all that concrete is a living, breathing river ~

y March 3, 1938, it had been raining in Los Angeles for five days. More than 30 inches fell in nearby mountains, engorging the Los Angeles River to biblical proportions. Water covered Encino, completely cut off Van Nuys, and wrecked the rail bridges downtown. Despite flood control levees, almost 90 people died.

So, after irrigating the land for millennia with its unpredictable flows, the L.A. River as it was then known was all but eradicated by the U.S. government. Over the next 20 years, the Army Corps of Engineers encased the river within a labyrinth of concrete sluiceways, storm drains, and fences, burying it by 1959 like some unspeakable subterranean monster.

But both technology and social priorities have changed since then. Communities bordering the river have fought for years to improve their environment and restore some of the river’s natural qualities. Finally, on February 1, the city Bureau of Engineering released a comprehensive Request for Proposals (RFP) for plans to revive the river’s ecosystem, freeing the neighborhoods on its banks from the blight of the graffiti-covered, fenced-off, industrial channel in their backyards.

The proposal will be immense, planning to remake a swath at least 250 feet wide on either side of the 32 miles of river that fall within the City of Los Angeles, along with five larger quarter-mile targeted “nodes” at various points. The RFP is soliciting a 50- to 100-page proposal to win the right to draft a master plan over 18 months – which itself will guide a revitalization effort that could take a generation. The city will pay the winning consultant $3 million to put the master plan on paper.

The activist momentum for this effort began about 20 years ago, with the founding of the Friends of the L.A. River (FoLAR) in 1986, a group called Northeast Trees in 1991, and the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers Watershed Council in 1995. The county even issued its own master plan for the river in 1996, albeit with a far smaller scope than the one being solicited now.

“It realistically took us about 60 years to get to this point,” says city Councilmember Eric Garcetti, taking an even longer view. Representing Eastside residents bordering the river near Elysian Park, Garcetti is the vice-chair of the council’s Ad-Hoc Committee on the L.A. River. “[Angelenos] had a period of more than a half-century where we turned our backs to the river and pretended it wasn’t there. Occasionally used it to shoot a movie scene, but that was about it,” Garcetti says.

The winning river design will have to provide for economic development and zoning along the riverbanks (cafés, retail shopping) along with housing and plenty of green open spaces and water recreation. The city wants wildlife habitats along the watershed with walking and biking trails to access them, meaning the water quality needs a drastic upgrade. All these improvements must be built while maintaining the same excellent level of flood control provided by the concrete. The ideal would be equal parts the Seine in Paris, the wild Salmon River in Idaho, and the Colorado downstream from the Hoover Dam.

Admittedly, the river does have some pretty stretches already, like along Griffith Park, where trees and vegetation make for a more bucolic scene. But the Army wasn’t told to make it pretty.

“It works wonderfully as a storm drain,” Garcetti says. “The rains that we had in January were dangerous, and the fact that we had no [damage] by the river is pretty profound – but at the same time, we see other cities able to have both safety and beauty, whether it is Boston or San Antonio, San Jose, or Denver.”

Unfortunately, when the concrete hardened on the river 40 years ago, it trapped a web of legal issues inside it. It became impossible to address beauty (or even ecology) on the river without dealing with the Los Angeles County Flood Control District and the Army Corps of Engineers, who share maintenance responsibilities. The railroads also have a big stake in the banks nearby.

“One of the barriers to doing anything on the river has always been governance,” says Larry Smith, executive director of Northeast Trees. His nonprofit organization has constructed 25 parks in unused land on the river since 1995.

“Every time we do a project, the issues of liability and maintenance are raised,” adds Smith. “Kids could cut a hole in the fence and go play in the water. Every time we have a big rain, somebody is in the channel.”

Smith says there’s never been a single model for how environmental projects along the river should deal with liability issues (like those kids), making the job of improving the river very difficult. Just having a coherent plan for the river, then, could greatly simplify the process for independent nonprofits wanting to pursue projects. “We have to reinvent the wheel every time we do the process. Hopefully this will make our job easier,” Smith says.

Since there is no plan yet, there is also no guaranteed funding source or timetable for the construction. “The $3 million is really seed money,” says Garcetti. “We’re talking about hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars down the line.”

“I don’t know that anything in L.A. [has ever been planned] on this scope with regard to the river,” says Shelley Backlar, managing director of FoLAR. “Demonstration wetlands could bring back habitat, clean the water, and look at ways to secure the banks so we could take up some concrete and still maintain flood protection.”

One of the most difficult and common problems with the river, however, is dealing with privately owned tracts along the banks. Owners will have to be enticed to go along with the plans or sell out. “It would be a completely separate process to get the money and the agreement of the landowner,” says Glen Dake, deputy to Councilmember Garcetti. “That transaction is not the work of the consultant,” he says, and this master plan will have to work around it.

Even beyond that, both Backlar and Smith’s excitement is tempered since the primary relationship proposed by this RFP (between an as-yet unknown contractor and the river communities) remains untested.

“There’s community outreach, and there’s community outreach,” says Smith. “One is papering a supermarket bulletin board with flyers. The opposite would be to identify the people who have the trust of the community, oftentimes church- and neighborhood leaders.” If they don’t trust the process, says Smith, they will not risk their reputations on an unpopular project – and the community will not cooperate.

The consultant is encouraged in the RFP to work with “sub-consultants,” which could be community groups or nonprofits. “We think the river could be an amenity,” says Dake. “The Elysian Valley people, for example, will be able to say, ‘We really want a park in this location,’ or ‘We want zone changes on this land so that a [new] tall building can’t go there.’”

At this point, though, the project is in its infancy, and even some groups dedicated to the river haven’t decided whether to cooperate. “That is a huge question, and we’re not sure,” says FoLAR’s Backlar. “We represent the broad vision, and it’s not clear that being part of a design team is the most effective way to do that.” Backlar adds that her organization is meeting soon to make the decision.
Master plan proposals are due by April 1, 2005, and a committee of five city staffers from various bureaus will make its recommendations on the winning proposal to the city beginning on May 23. Garcetti has hope for the process, saying, “Part of it is going to be real, bringing back the past, and part will be man-made, but it will hopefully be a beautiful thing either way.”

02-10-05

[LAuniverse]

I'm mixed on the river. While it would be great to have an artificially maintained waterfront, it would still be artificial. There is no ecological reason for a river being constitutively filled with water. It's more of a watershed than a river - whether natural or manmade.

Plus, I kind of like the gritty feel of the place whatwith all the graff, industry, and such. Just look at the arts district right next to it. It's an awesome, even bohemian area.

[POLA]

No doubt, the river is unique in its industrial feel, but still there is no where to go view it or enjoy it, and it clashes so badly with all areas outside of downtown; a real eye soar in the valley (and the hole damn valley is an eyesore). But I will say this: After the heavy rains in January, I went down to river by griffith park, the part that is soft bottom and has the trees growing out of the river with a park next to it. And even though the walls were concrete and if you looked you noticed a landfill of crap in the waves it was so peacful and serene. I just sat back on the grass and watched the rapids listened to the sound of the roaring water and birds chirping, is this LA? I mean, shit, give me a bench to sit down on at least. People like rivers and its not right to dispise ours, it can be really nice.

[LAuniverse]

But that's the problem. Its only charming and beautiful a few days out of the year. It's nothing more than a storm drain for the other 330 days.

So how would we create a scenic, vegetated riverbank out of a veritable storm drain?

answer, according to some: plug the river for the rest of the year to make an inflate-a-bay. But my question is how will that make LA any closer to having a REAL waterfront? Isn't plugging the LA river eqivalent to creating a manmade lake in some anonymous city park elsewhere near downtown?

I understand that turning the "banks" of the LA river would bring the benefit of an urban park or greenbelt, but it would hardly qualify as, or have the effect of, having a true waterfront as some proponents of a revamp would suggest it would - though still nice.

[POLA]

Well from what I've read, in pheonix they have it so when the water is low its a park with small creek, and during the winter they close the lower level and the park is left to flood. And the LA river by the Griffith is nice even in the summer. the water collects in to wetland pools and promote green veg. wich is nice when everything else is brown. In downtown the idea of using damns could be cool. but elsewhere I think it should remain more natural.

[ProdigalLASon]

Yeah, Phoenix has a different drainage system. I'm originally from L.A. (and plan to come back) so I'm familiar with the concrete ditches. But when I first moved to phoenix, that's one of the first things I noticed: few, if any of their drainage systems are completely covered by cement...some of them are just the natural riverbed, and others have greenbelts and parks within the riverbed.
Then, there's the Tempe Town Lake: basically a dammed-off part of the Salt river. They made it in 1999, and it's been developing into a nice place to go, but it's obvious it artificial.

[CarsonCaliBrotha]

I live in Carson, and the LA river and Dominguez Channel are not too far from where I live. When I'm going over to Lakewood, I see the LA River, not much more than a little stream in the middle of a huge concrete....something. Yet when you go by the Channel, it actually looks like a river! There's water flowing through it, rocks on the sides, etc. It's pretty nice looking. The LA river would be better like that.

[ProdigalLASon]

yeah, they should probably model the project after that sort of thing...but i think its impractical to try and reclaim ALL of the LA river. Maybe just redo parts of the river in key spots where people can actually go and enjoy it. That way you get some of the river back, without losing the benefits of the river as a water channel to prevent flooding...

[LAuniverse]

Though I think this is an encouraging development, it will never be a real riverfront. So those visions of downtown LA even approaching the ability to claim a Thames or Seine much less a major oceanfront, are pipe dreams. Those river-facing condos and boutiques people are envisioning are nothing but codswallop.

At most, it will become an oversized kiddie pool or Mcarthur park #2

[samsonyuen]

It would be great to have a wild river running through LA again. The concrete-lined parts are just dreadful. They might as well have covered it up or buried those parts.

[SChristopher]

Buried, I think that could be disasterous for flooding. When I was small it sure was fun to go down in the river and walk around, it was also a quick way to get places. My uncle used to go 4 wheeling in there so they are not ALL bad lol. ut it would be nice to see some grass on the banks in more visible areas, or maybe a centralized park with a signature bridge. It never ceases to amaze me how many morons go in the river in the winter and have to be rescued, sigh.

[Imperfect Ending]

its majestic