A river runs through it - LA River reborn

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I thought this was interesting
http://www.wavenewspapers.com/news/A...128162853.html
A river runs through it: Long-neglected, ridiculed L.A. River reborn


Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority ranger Fernando Gomez, left, supervises a public paddle down a 1.5 mile portion of the Los Angeles River on Friday, August 19, 2011. (Photo by Michael Martinez/CNN)

By MICHAEL MARTINEZ, CNN


Story Created: Aug 21, 2011 at 8:22 PM PDT




(CNN) — For the first time in decades, the once polluted and ridiculed Los Angeles River is open to kayakers and canoeists this summer under a federally authorized two-month program.


Prior to now, the namesake river of the nation's second largest city was too contaminated for public recreation and was deemed off-limits — but not for mockery and jokes over its condition.

A state legislator opined in the 1980s that the river should be paved over to create yet another highway in automobile-addicted Los Angeles. Because vast lengths of the banks are lined with concrete, some locals belittle it as a "flood control channel."
Now the river — perhaps better known in the national imagination as a setting in such films as "Grease" and "Terminator 2" — is enjoying a landmark step toward its revitalization.

In what local conservationists say is a first in seven decades, the federal government has deemed part of the river safe enough for public recreation and is allowing residents to paddle along one of its most scenic portions, through a recreation area lush with trees, birds and even aquatic life.

For seven weekends this month and in September, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is allowing the public to make canoe and kayak trips on a 1.5-mile stretch of the 51-mile waterway.

The Corps' approval was required because the 1.5-mile segment is located in a flood-control area with a dam called the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area, a 2,000-acre park in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley.

Under the pilot program led by the nonprofit LA Conservation Corps, paddlers drift downstream for 2 ½ hours along the sycamore- and willow-tree-lined riverbanks. The guide-escorted trip evokes a veritable back-to-nature retreat, in the middle of Los Angeles' notorious sprawl.

"This pilot project reminds people that the river is here," said program coordinator Yasmin Mero-Corona of the LA Conservation Corps, which describes itself as "the largest nonprofit youth corps in the nation" working with at-risk young adults on conservation projects.

For outdoor enthusiasts such as George Wolfe, the first federally permitted public paddling has capped one of many longstanding controversies surrounding the river.
In 2008, he and two dozen other paddlers staged an unauthorized three-day journey down the entire river, to where it empties into the estuaries of Long Beach and the Pacific Ocean, he said.

During the three days, he and two dozen kayakers paddled by day and camped overnight in backyards near the river.

The controversial kayaking was worth it, because last year the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency placed the Los Angeles River under the protections of the Clean Water Act — which helped lead to the Corps' permit for public paddling on the river this summer, said Wolfe, 47, of Los Angeles' Venice neighborhood.

"That was to demonstrate that the river could be navigable," Wolfe said of the 2008 river trip, as he paddled his kayak down the river Friday. He is also president and founder of L.A. River Expeditions, which advocates environmental protections for the neglected waterway.

"You know, three years ago, we were opposed to the same agencies we're now partners with," he added, referring to governmental agencies such as the Corps of Engineers. "There's an ironic beauty to it. For now, we're burying the tomahawk and working together."

The nonprofit LA Conservation Corps and its partnering groups say they hope this summer's pilot project will spur federal authorities to issue another permit next year, with a longer season for the public paddling on the river.

So far, public interest is insatiable: the Paddle the L.A. River program sold out its maiden season of 280 seats in 10 minutes earlier this month, officials said. The seats cost $50 each, and the money is used to offset equipment costs and insurance, said Mero-Corona.

"The vision is to revitalize this river," even turning it in an annual tourist draw, Mero-Corona said.

If so, the paddling will depend on the vagaries of Mother Nature. Famous for its sunny, mild weather, Los Angeles is located in a semi-arid Mediterranean climate zone, and the dry season leaves the long miles of concrete-lined riverbank with merely a trickle.
The past year's heavy rainfall, however, nicely filled the portion of Los Angeles River in the Sepulveda recreation area — enhanced by the three-mile-long dam, said LA Conservation Corps spokesman Mike Mena.

By the 1930s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lined much of its banks with concrete for flood control. By the late 1940s, the last native steelhead trout was caught. In the 1990s, the Los Angeles River was so sickly that the conservation group American Rivers placed it six times on the list of the country's 20 most threatened and endangered rivers, and, in 1995, it was named the second most endangered river in the United States, according to The River Project.

Such a dark history was hardly evident during a 1.5-mile downstream float held for journalists and other visitors on Friday.
The river was teeming with plant and occasional wildlife. As guides advised paddlers before embarkation, you never run the same river twice. That's because conditions and obstacles always change.
As narrow as several yards in some sections, the river often widened to 30 or 40 feet in some portions, where blue damselflies hovered above a surface colored iridescent green by patches of duck weed.

Kayakers and their guides spotted mallards, night herons, egrets and a green heron in the waterway — which is home to a more than 200 species of birds including the American coot, great blue heron, belted kingfisher, yellow warbler, red-winged blackbird and cormorant.

Channel catfish and mosquito fish populate the river, though none happened to be sighted during Friday's trip. The river also supports the western pond turtle, red-legged frog and tree frogs. One plant is colorfully called the sticky monkey flower.
The river isn't entirely easy

At the end of float, LA Conservation Corps guide Ignacio Garcia distributed a remedy to paddlers to combat the trash: re-usable grocery bags made of fabric, not disposable plastic.

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They cleaned it up, you say? I bet Cheech and Chong are buried in that river.