A quarter-century ago, the few Angelenos who knew of the Los Angeles River thought of it as a drag strip or a storm drain. Today, its restoration as “a greenway from the mountains to the sea” is a widely shared civic goal, inspired by Friends of the Los Angeles River’s 25 years of organizing an annual river clean-up. From humble beginnings with only 10 volunteers in 1989, “La Gran Limpieza” drew 3000 volunteers over three weekends to the river’s banks and pulled approximately 25 tons of trash out of it—trash that would otherwise end up in the Pacific Ocean.
Because of its growing civic importance, the river clean-up spans three consecutive Saturdays, starting in the Sepulveda Basin, moving last weekend to the Glendale Narrows, and concluding this past Saturday in the lower river near Long Beach.
Text courtesy of Friends of L.A. River. All photos by Nicholas Noell
Read more:
- Two Long Beach Sites Part of 24th Annnual Great L.A. River Cleanup
- Restoring the L.A. River, One Beer at a Time
- OP-ED: Los Angeles River Restorations Should Start at the End
- Report Shows Long Beach Spends Nearly $13M Annually on Litter Abatement
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