After serving the public for 16 years, we are now in the hands of the community, where news belongs.
Support our work; become a member today. Be part of it.
Long Beach's most read source for local news, investigative reports, arts & culture, food, business, sports, and real-estate.
OP-ED: Los Angeles River Restorations Should Start at the End
A little over a week ago, the United States Army Corps of Engineers released the Draft Integrated Feasibility Report and accompanying Draft Environmental Impact Study for restoring an 11-mile stretch of the Los Angeles River, largely within the City of Los Angeles.
The study area includes the Los Angeles River and immediate vicinity from Griffith Park through downtown. The Los Angeles River within this study area generally reflects the character that most recognize; the concrete flood control channel that was constructed nearly a century ago as engineers attempted to conquer nature.
The plan studies various alternative design elements including “creation and reestablishment of historic riparian strand and freshwater marsh habitat to support increased populations of wildlife and enhance habitat connectivity within the study area, as well as to provide opportunities for connectivity to ecological zones…” for purposes of “reintroduction of ecological and physical processes, such as a more natural hydrologic and hydraulic regime that reconnects the river to historic floodplains and tributaries, reduced flow velocities, increased infiltration, improved natural sediment processes, and improved water quality” as well as opportunities for passive recreation that respects the habitat.
Of the four finalized plans, the Army Corps recommends an option that costs nearly five hundred million dollars while the City of Los Angeles and river restoration activists support more comprehensive options, price-tagged at over one billion dollars.
The stretch of the Los Angeles River that is being considered for restoration is neither the beginning nor the end of the waterway, but instead happens to be through the government seat of the second largest city in the nation. The 48-mile long Los Angeles River begins in Canoga Park (also within the City of Los Angeles) at the convergence of two smaller tributaries and ends at the Pacific Ocean in Long Beach. It travels through the San Fernando Valley, skirting Burbank and Glendale before passing back through Los Angeles proper.
South of the Ecosystem Restoration Study area, the Los Angeles River then travels its remaining length through the Gateway Cities; the smaller cities located between the 710 and 605 freeways including the City of Long Beach at the river’s terminus nearly 20 miles away. Interestingly enough, this portion of the Los Angeles River parallels the Interstate 710 Freeway, a heavy freight corridor that links the Port of Long Beach and Port of Los Angeles to intermodal rail yards in the cities of Vernon and Commerce.
While the combined infrastructure corridor provides essential utility and mobility for the region and the nation, it is a 20-mile long gash in the urban fabric. It severs dozens of communities east-west by a quarter-mile wide concrete and steel canyon with hundred foot tall towers that together visually and physically separate homes from schools from commerce from civic functions. Walking or biking (or even driving) from Long Beach proper to the Westside, Coolidge Triangle or Starr King neighborhood on the other side of the Los Angeles River and 710 Freeway is not a simple exercise.
This infrastructure corridor is not only a physical and visual obstruction to the adjacent communities, it is also a public health crisis for those occupying the surrounding environ as tens of thousands of diesel trucks carrying freight up the I-710 Freeway emit air pollution and urban stormwater runoff (including accompanying trash and chemicals) wash down the Los Angeles River into the ocean. State regulations and court orders have attempted to reduce such trash from entering the Gateway Cities via the river to little avail while the Port of Long Beach’s Clean Truck program has begun to address air pollution from freight movement along the 710.
Instead of reducing impacts to the Gateway Cities located along the Los Angeles River, current proposals to expand the 710 Freeway threaten to further negatively affect the health of those residents. Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Agency and a consortium of government agencies are proposing to significantly expand the capacity of the Interstate 710 Freeway between the Port of Long Beach and the rail yards in the Cities of Commerce and Vernon. After nearly a decade of planning, the Draft Environmental Impact Report/Study (EIR/EIS) for the 710 expansion is currently being revised to address deficiencies in the analysis and consider additional alternatives including potentially the community recommended Community Alternative 7.
While there is an 11-mile length of the Los Angeles River being studied for naturalization and recreation to better serve communities in need of open space, there is no catalyst for implementation. Instead, the proposal to expand the Interstate 710 freeway, which potentially alters the Southern California Edison transmission corridor and Los Angeles River, presents the opportunity to reimagine the entire corridor more comprehensively. The 710 plan currently focuses almost entirely on moving more vehicles (specifically trucks) along the freeway with changes to the SCE corridor and Los Angeles River proposed only to serve the freeway expansion.
{loadposition latestnews}
An alternative would be for the 710 expansion project to consider modernizing the freeway while improving the environmental conditions along the corridor by utilizing excess right-of-way and naturalizing the Los Angeles River. The Recirculated Draft Environmental Impact Report/Study (RDEIR/RDEIS) 710 freeway modernization project could thus also include the “creation and reestablishment of historic riparian strand and freshwater marsh habitat to support increased populations of wildlife and enhance habitat connectivity within the study area, as well as to provide opportunities for connectivity to ecological zones…”
Such an effort would also build on the Long Beach Riverlink Plan developed by the Parks and Recreation Department a decade ago that has resulted in significantly more open space alongside the eastern bank of the river, including the Deforest Wetlands project which is supposed to break ground in North Long Beach later this year. While there is political momentum behind restoring the Los Angeles River between downtown Los Angeles and Griffith Park, greater focus should be applied on the portion of the river adjacent to the 710 freeway expansion as there is a need for reducing impacts from the freeway.
As proposed, the 710 project would be the largest infrastructure investment in the nation, an extra $1 billion to naturalize the adjacent Los Angeles River could be part of the mitigation strategy for this major project. It could expand open space and recreational opportunities for the adjacent communities while improving connectivity and reducing current and future impacts from the 710 freeway.
The Draft Los Angeles River Ecosystem Restoration Study is available for public comments for 45-days until November 5. The study and additional information is available here.
Read more: