Of Nexus and Navigability: Part 5 – USACE: no ifs ands or boats!

Here’s an internal email that was forwarded to one of my friends over at the Friends of the Los Angeles River.  The email is from a high level staff person at the Los Angeles District of the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE.)  I’m including it verbatim, other than omitting names and contact information.

From: [name 1]
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 10:39 AM
To: DLL-CESPL-AM; DLL-CESPL-AM-A; DLL-CESPL-AM-A-AZ; DLL-CESPL-AM-AF; DLL-CESPL-AM-AF-AT; DLL-CESPL-AM-AF-FRP; DLL-CESPL-AM-A-NV; DLL-CESPL-AM-CW; DLL-CESPL-AM-CW-PA; DLL-CESPL-AM-CW-PR; DLL-CESPL-AM-DOD; DLL-CESPL-AM-DOD-IS; DLL-CESPL-AM-DOD-R; DLL-CESPL-AM-DOD-R; DLL-CESPL-AM-OM; DLL-CESPL-AM-OM-EE; DLL-CESPL-AM-OM-OM; DLL-CESPL-AM-OM-OM-AZ; DLL-CESPL-AM-OM-OM-CA; DLL-CESPL-AM-OM-OM-M
Subject: Film Permits and the Los Angeles River
Importance: High

Ladies and Gentlemen:

This is to provide specific guidance to all of you who currently participate in the review and approval of film permit requests and/or who monitor filming pursuant to an approved Permit — or who might have occasion to perform these tasks in the future.

It is the policy of this District that boating of any sort is NOT PERMITTED in the river — no ifs, no ands, no buts — no boats/boating, kayaks/kayaking, canoes/canoeing — no floatable vessels of any sort.  No swimming either.

ANY request for an exception must be made in writing to the Commander, through the Chief, Asset Management Division and must be accompanied by written justification.

Film Permits are to be executed on behalf of the Government by ME or [name 2] — such authority is not delegated below the level of the Deputy Chief.

[name 3] will be amending the language of our film permits to include standard, specific language regarding these prohibitions.

If you are in any way unclear regarding this instruction — generally or with respect to a specific situation– please bring your questions to me or [name 2].

Thank you

[name 1]
[title, name of division]
“The Mighty” Los Angeles District
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
[phone number]
[fax number]
[email address]

It could almost go without comment, but, as I am prone to expatiation, I will add some of my own reactions, too.

First of all, I think that this is just another document proving that the river is indeed navigable! Like the river koan Creek Freak posted a while back, a sign or an email that says “no boating” and “no swimming” is actually evidence that a water body is boatable and swimmable. The navigability discussion is actually very important these days. The Los Angeles River’s legal protections under the federal Clean Water Act depends on whether the river is a navigable waterway.  Creek Freak has a series of earlier posts exploring this controversy (parts >1, >2, >3, and >4.) The issue is currently before the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to be decided any day now and Creek Freak encourages you to write to them in support of protecting the Los Angeles River.

When I first saw this, I self-importantly assumed that someone from the USACE had read my earlier blog describing a less-than-entirely-up-front use of film permits for the three-day kayak trip down the L.A. River. Then I realized that it was probably the more recent videotaped excursion made by Conan O’Brien, which, I have to admit, may have reached just a handful more viewers than L.A. Creek Freak does.

Video Capture from the other L.A. River Kayak Expedition (click to watch)

I also found it fascinating that the email went to twenty distribution lists. Count ‘em! Twenty!  It’s a powerful issue that needed to be disseminated far and wide.

Lastly I was glad to see, in the author’s signature block: “The mighty” Los Angeles District.  I write and say “the mighty Los Angeles” now and then, but in a fairly tongue-in-cheek way. It’s reassuring that the USACE chiefs say it too – apparently it’s in this person’s recurring signature block.  It probably goes out to hundreds of people every day.

Time to dust off my kayak and videocamera and head out to the river. Care to join me?

River Bike Path Groundbreaking in Elysian Valley

Panorama of Today's Elysian Valley Bikeway Groundbreaking

This morning was the groundbreaking for the new Los Angeles River Bike Path under construction in Elysian Valley. This is one of the very nicest parts of the Los Angeles River, with plenty of willow trees, birds and fish. The bikeway will be built where plenty of folks already bike and walk unofficially on the existing access road. The road does have uneven surfaces today – dips where rainwater drains, and buckling pavement where the cottonwood tree roots are asserting themselves.

Officially, this is called Los Angeles River Bike Path, Phase 1C. It will extend from Fletcher Drive to Barclay Drive – about 3 miles. L.A. Creek Freak covered the tortured background of the project in an earlier post.

There was a crowd of 40-50 folks at Steelhead Park to celebrate the groundbreaking. Most were city and agency staff, but also present were folks from the neighborhood, the Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Commttee, Friends of the L.A. River, the L.A. County Bicycle Coalition, Los Angeles Conservation Corps River Keepers, and even a TV crew from KABC 7.

Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti opened the event, telling his stories of coming to the river as a kid. He said that he hoped that the bikeway would be a step toward putting bicycling on an “even footing” with other modes of transportation. He also looked forward to a future bike/ped bridge which will eventually connect Frogtown with Taylor Yard, and said that he hoped to celebrate the opening of the new bikeway “later this year.” More on the project timeline below.

City Engineer Gary Moore marshals future bike path riders

City Engineer Gary Moore took the podium next, commenting on what a “gorgeous stretch” of river the Glendale Narrows is. Moore credited the Bureau of Engineering’s (BOE) Senior Real Estate Officer Sam Y. Wong for the project’s heavy lifting of securing the 66 individual property easements. Wong took over after the BOE’s venerable Rick Brown retired as the project got underway. The long process of securing complicated right-of-way (including going to court for condemnation of the final hold-out) held this project up nearly 10 years.

The Bureau of Street Service’s Hugh Lee, Department of Transportation’s Mike Uyeno, and the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority’s Barbara Romero rounded out the speakers. Romero commented that the MRCA had partnered with the city to incorporate some additional greening and stormwater best management practices.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Ed Reyes

Action shifted to a pile of dirt placed on the path. Gold-painted shovels and children were rounded up for the photo opportunity. Councilmember Ed Reyes, who had been detained in committee meeting, arrived just in time and enthusiastically addressed the crowd. Reyes has been a longtime champion of both river revitalization and alternative transportation. (Interested party note: I used to work as his deputy from 2002-2004, during which time, I tried to get this project moving.)

Construction should be underway this week, with the most significant part of the project being the construction of an underpass below Fletcher Drive. The project is supposed to take six months to complete, though it was suggested that that is slightly optimistic, and could easily take up to eight months. Pardon the dust, and look for a brand new bikeway opening in January or February 2010!

I hung out a bit with LA BAC past chair Alex Baum and present chair Glenn Bailey, spoke with city bikeways staff, then biked over to Atacor for yummy potato tacos with LACBC, FoLAR and Metro folks!

Breaking Ground on the Latest L.A. River Bike Path

(See additional coverage of the event at Councilmember Reyes’ Blog)

Woodburied Creek

1900 era USGS in vicinity of Woodbury Creek

1928 USGS Altadena quadrangle in vicinity of Woodbury Creek

USGS with the stream’s estimated alignment outlined

Woodbury Creek alignment in blue, County of LA stormdrains in orange

There’s been a lot of interest in the past few years in restoring the former stream through Washington Park.  Yesterday, LA Creekfreak got a specific request about this creek, the poster, Stanley, said it is believed that the creek’s name was Woodbury Creek.  I believe this may have also been the area of interest to my mystery emailer, “Chris” whose email I had lost.  So here goes….

Scroll through the gallery above for reference, click to enlarge the images.  The 1900 USGS map shows a little swale topography but doesn’t indicate a stream, however they defined it at that time.  The swale signature, however, means that rain water was concentrating along this alignment, and it is likely that stream habitats coexisted – we see examples of that all the time in our dwindling but still-present riparian areas.  The 1928 Altadena USGS quadrangle shows a more tightly defined “swale” that was likely the stream – or could be the “stream” was the result of an effort by farmers to concentrate and ditch the water running off their property.  In the next image, I’ve traced in the line of stream flow indicated by the swale, and in the 4th image, I’ve overlaid the contemporary street grid and County stormdrains, which don’t overlay much of the creek – I suspect the City of Pasadena may also have stormdrains over the creek, as we all know it is encased in concrete today.  This last image was also overlaid in GoogleEarth, and the .kmz file can be downloaded from the GoogleEarth community forum if you want to view it against aerial imagery (download the attachment that I have posted there).

You will note the stream tapers off without physically connecting to anything downstream.  There could be lots of reasons for that.  Given the alluvial fan soils, it may have just all seeped into the shallow groundwater table, eventually flowing from the groundwater out to one of several surface streams downstream (in the general vicinity of the Huntington Gardens).  That and other creeks in Pasadena will be in other posts.

Good luck, ye of Washington Park – let me know if you need some help with restoration design!

Elysian Valley Bike Path Groundbreaking Next Monday

Steelhead Park, where monday's groundbreaking will take place - photo by Kathleen Bullard, from LAMountains.com

The city of Los Angeles invites everyone to attend the groundbreaking of the Elysian Valley segment of the Los Angeles River Bike Path. The ceremony takes place Monday June 29th at 11:30am at Steelhead Park, located at the end of Oros Street in Elysian Valley.  Map and directions here.

Officially called “Phase 1C” the 3-mile bikeway will extend from Fletcher Drive downstream to Barclay Street, including an underpass at Fletcher.  Yup, that’s the old access road with all the dips and roots.  It’s goint to be all smooth by early 2011!  For more information on the project, see L.A. Creekfreak’s earlier post on this:  River Bike Paths Coming to Elysian Valley and Reseda (scroll to the bottom of that post for the Elysian Valley bikeway information.)

South Pasadena’s old streams

USGS map of the South Pasadena area, approx 1900

I got an email a few weeks (really, over a month) ago and unfortunately lost it.  So today’s post is dedicated to I think his name was Chris, who I wanted to reply to about Pasadena’s creeks.  Alas “Chris”, I’m focusing on South Pasadena’s creeks, but I promise to follow up with something more focused on Pasadena.  I don’t actually know a whole lot about them, but above is a map from 1900 that shows some perennial streams, that appear to infiltrate into the ground, leaving sandy washes downstream.  One was called Mill Creek, I think the other may have been Mission Creek, which flowed right by the old San Gabriel Mission.  Part of Old Mill Creek Road runs past the creek, which current aerial photos suggest is still present in part (I’ve not done the ground-truthing on this).  Most of you have probably heard of Kewen or Wilson Lake, which was filled in and was located where Lacy Park in San Marino is (I’ve also heard that the path marks the outline of the lake).

If you feel like doing the ground-truthing yourself, here’s a map with streets overlaid.  Have fun!  And feel free to post your findings!

Streams of South Pasadena with streets overlaid

News and Events – 12 June 2009

Rachel Garcia as the Great Blue Heron in Cornerstone Theater's L.A. River Play Touch the Water, costume design by Soojin Lee - Photo copywright John Luker

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Shishir Kurup and Joe Linton in Touch the Water - Photo copywright John Luker (enter your humorous caption in comments!)

> “Touch ze water, man”  Cornerstone Theater’s Touch the Water is showing NOW, and continues Wednesday through Sunday through June 21st ( this weekend and next weekend only!)  Come and see your creek freak blogger Joe Linton’s dramatic debut and what the LA Weekly describes as including a “stunning moment of spine-tingling magic that is the raison d’etre of site-specific theater.”   Most performances include pre-play river walks, lead by local creek freaks including Jenny Price, Robert Garcia, Miguel Luna and others.  Make reservations online at the Cornerstone website.  Here are a few suggestions for theater-goers:

• DRESS WARMLY, bring blankets.  It’s outdoors, along the river.
• Like many places on the L.A.River, the site isn’t easy to find!  The address is 2800 Casitas Avenue, LA 90039, but my friends tell me that the Google directions are difficult to follow.  Use the bike/transit directions here or driving directions on the Cornerstone website.
• Make your reservations soon – reserve on-line here – the weekend shows have been selling out!

(For my handful of loyal readers:  I promise to blog more once this production is over!)

> The Pacific American Volunteer Association and Anahuak Youth Sports Organization host a Los Angeles River clean-up this Saturday June 13th via Green L.A. Girl.

> Author and Urban Ranger Jenny Price, after leading her pre-play walk this Friday, will lead Friends of the Los Angeles River’s tour of the Lower Los Angeles River on Sunday June 14th.

SOME RECENT NEWS:

> Per the Long Beach Press-Telegram, L.A. County Supervisors have voted to proceed with a Compton Creek Master Plan.

The Glendale News Press reports that Disney is being sued for alledgedly polluting the river-adjacent Polliwog Parcel.  Polliwog is a remnant piece of Griffith Park stranded north of the Los Angeles River when the river was straightened.  The site has been discussed as part of a future Los Angeles River greenway (though today most of the site is separated from the river by the 134 Freeway.)

Relief from the Concrete lets us know that the draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the San Gabriel River Discovery Center has been released and is now open for comments.

According to Science Dude, the San Gabriel River’s sea turtles appear to have established a year-round colony.

LAist talks bull on Army Corps restoration of Bull Creek in the Sepulveda Basin, and talks trash about L.A.’s storm drain covers.

W Roscoe (with my friend Federico) explores the Ballona Creek underground.

Some new video coverage of local waterways:

• KCET’s beautiful multi-media river web extravaganza Departures: L.A. River
• Long Beach artist Carina Downing’s poignant Sespe / L.A. comparison Houses and Homes II
• Time-lapse ride on the San Gabriel River bike path
• Additional proof (or maybe spoof) of river’s navigability

Some creeky new blogs:

• Ballona Creek Watershed News and Information – I enjoyed their coverage of the true story of fishermen who bagged a deer.
• Arroyo Lover – the Arroyo Seco Foundation’s Meredith McKenzie’s blog on restoring the Arroyo Seco, including coverage of the recent Tour de Arroyo Seco bike ride.

Lastly, probably off topic, but about water at least:  see this WaterWired post on a water-computer used to predict changes in the economy.  It’s both elegant and Rube-Goldberg – follow the link on the blog to watch the video.

Waxing quixotic for the Santa Clara River

Let’s say you’re one of those people who thinks the LA River is a sewer, that it makes for a pretty poor nature experience.  And let’s say you know a thing or two about nature experiences.  (we’re playing let’s pretend here, Mr. Turner)

Then, certainly you know about the Santa Clara River. The best living representation we have of what the LA River was.  It is also a rare river in that it (it’s mainstem anyway) is a large undammed river, and home to endangered steelhead trout.  And now facing the same development pressures that LA faced 100 years ago – and guess what – they’re building levees around the river so they can build in the floodplain.  Which means it’s probably just a matter of time before the cycles of catastrophic floods and defensive responses kick into gear – and it ends up looking like the LA River.  Some areas in the upper watershed have already been hemmed in with soil cement levees in lieu of protected floodplains.  

Santa Clara River with soil cement levee after a storm. Image: www.aegsc.org

Santa Clara River, sans levees. Image: Lynne Plambeck, www.scope.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seems like something a good editor who cares about genuine nature experiences would want to investigate and write an editorial about.

 

As to the rest of us quixotic folk, please tilt the windmills!

There will be a hearing on the Newhall Ranch EIR/EIS June 11, 6:30 pm at Rancho Pico Middle School, 26250 W. Valencia Blvd, Stevenson Ranch, 91381. Come at 6:00 if you want to attend a rally with California Native Plant Society folks.  CNPS pointed out two items they will focus on:  the endangered San Fernando Valley Spineflower (once believed extinct) is on the property in question and requesting a 120 day extension for comments as people review the lengthy environmental docs.  If you can’t come to the meeting, send a quick email – Newhallranch@dfg.ca.gov before June 26.

Maybe want to review the docs before you agitate?  Follow this link:  http://www.dfg.ca.gov/regions/5/newhall/  Fortunately their online map shows the river’s active area protected- what is not immediately clear is how that stands in relation to the County’s Capital Storm or even FEMA’s 100-year storm boundaries.  I’ll need a little time to sift through the docs to find the answer to that – and after you poke through that website, you may end up wanting another 120 days just to read it all too!

For even more information, also check out Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment (SCOPE), one of whose photos I raided (apologies) above.

Quiet unease on the Rio Grande

Rio Grande as seen from the air, approaching Albuquerque.

The Times piece broke my creekfreak silence.  I was on an unintended sabbatical, my grandfather having passed away, work piling high.  But I’m back now.   Being in New Mexico to be with family, I couldn’t help but also see the waterways.  Looking out during the descent into Albuquerque is always a pleasure – to see the Rio Grande’s welcoming green bosques, the adjacent farmland, cutting through the hot llano, this richness made possible only by the river.  For all our ipods and text-messaging and satellite imagery, it really is this simple an equation.  This is what keeps us going.  

And in New Mexico, as in the former Mexican California, the traditional hispano water-agriculture relationship is negotiated through a community water-sharing system, the acequias (that’s the NM word – zanjas being the angeleno word, both meaning ditch).  

Cottonwoods lining the acequia near my grandfather's house.

The acequias are often lined with cottonwood trees, they might look almost like little streams, except they are in straight lines and have little berms and floodgates.  In Los Lunas, my cousins were telling me to look for pheasants, early in the morning, near the acequias.  Amaranth (”wild spinach” my mom called it), a green as well as a grain, also grows near water, and can be seen alongside the acequias.  They also served as community links – my cousins said – back in the day, anyway – it would be ok to walk along the acequias to get from one person’s house to another.  I might try it to walk over to the Rio Grande, which was a short distance away, they suggested.  The sheltering trees, next to the water, the growing food-stuffs, did create a sense of security and permanence for this city-dweller, but being an angelena, I drove.

Maintaining that permanence is the job of the mayordomo, the traffic controller of the water flows, who sees to it that each farm gets its allotment. My great-uncle held that role for the Acequia del Llano in Santa Fe for a while.  Mayordomos organize the ditch cleanings, make sure gates are opened and closed.  In the world of small-worlds, my co-worker told me he used to get yelled at to go open the floodgates, back when he worked at the Santa Fe Audubon Center years ago.  ”Must have been your uncle” he laughed.  Years ago, when I last spoke to my great-uncle about it (he too has since passed on), he had been thinking of lining the ditch in concrete, to prevent losses to infiltration.  I did notice that some of the ditches in Los Lunas were also lined in concrete, and wondered if that affected the health of the cottonwoods.  This, after all, is the microcosm of the MWDs huge project, lining its canals in south San Diego County to prevent “losses” of water intended for cities and farms, that support wetlands and life south of the border.  

And thus creeps in the unease.  For water and New Mexico have an even more delicate dance than water and Southern California.  The finality of New Mexico’s finite resources are a little clearer than here in LA.  You see that llano out there, ready to move in if the water table drops, and it is dropping while urban development bears down on the desert landscape.  My cousins told me that some acequias are under pressure to sell out their rights.  And here, this is about more than water, it is about a way of life, a bonding with the land, a culture.  You sell out that water and you’ve sold out your culture, your legacy, your land (and, I was hearing, your right to bitch and moan about the changes you’ve sold out to).

Sign in a field in Tomé, New Mexico.

Meanwhile, Santa Fe has enacted very strict water conservation regulations to limit its diversions of water, presumably from the San Juan-Chama Diversion Project.  Did I just say there’s finality to New Mexico’s water resources?  As in Southern California, there is a federal project that diverts water from the Colorado River into New Mexico.  The already over-allocated Colorado River.  

And this diversion is holding, just barely, a lifeline to the endangered silvery minnow, minion of the Rio Grande.  Due to overpumping and development in Albuquerque.  Albuquerque has worked hard to wean itself of its prior waterhog ways – it has dropped per capita consumption from 250 gals/person/day to about 135-150.  Still has a way to go to meet Santa Fe’s 109, or Tucson’s 107, or if you believe the stats, LA’s 96 – but we all have a long way to go to compare with Barcelona’s 39 or Queensland’s 40-something.  And it probably will take bridging such a gap if Albuquerque – and the entire state of New Mexico  - seeks to maintain that vital and essential green valley that is the Rio Grande.

Puro teatro at the Times

OK, if you’ve got GoogleReader you can delete my last post on this. 

Restore the L.A. River? It’s a pipe dream – Los Angeles Times.

I take it back.  Sort of.  Well, not really.

Mr. Turner’s words themselves weren’t so harsh as to merit the response I wrote and have since deleted from the Creekfreak.  It is the meaning – the sense of impossibility, and the demeaning of our city’s already demeaned waterway that elicited such a reaction.  And he did it with pretty words and the validity of first-person experience.  Who can argue with one’s personal experience, after all?

The reality is LA as a whole is a neglected landscape, a hodgepodge of bad planning decisions and developer-driven initiatives.  That the river reflects this should be no surprise.  

But why the scorn for it, as opposed to, say, the people who made it that way and would not seek to improve it?  

The LA River means a lot of things to many people.  There is humankind’s contempt for nature in it.  There is also nature’s extraordinary resilience – you give it wastewater, it grows a little paradise.  And then there’s this wellspring of love and appreciation, that you find in the hearts of people who frequent the river, and recognize that resilience.  

“this is a nature experience only for those who have never actually experienced nature.”

Sure, it’s no Thames – but have you ever actually looked at the Thames as it courses through London?  The East River?  The Seine? Pretty degraded habitat, as are most urban rivers. Oh, and I think there’s plenty of dogshit and battery acid washing into all those rivers.  (We should really do something about that.)

But since we’re speaking of personal experiences here, Mr. Turner, here’s one for you.  I found your article to be a dispiriting distraction, what the singer La Lupe called puro teatro. It does not inspire meaningful dialogue, and it gives no direction for the future.  It has wasted the time and psychic energy of a lot of good people who have the audacity to care about this river, and the future of this place we call home.  

It was journalism only for those who have never actually experienced journalism.

River Bike Plan and River Bike Ride

L.A. Bike Plan map for central/west area - click for link to detailed pdf files

Late last week, the city of Los Angeles released its draft maps for its update to its Bike Plan.  Formerly called the Bicycle Master Plan (now just the Bike Plan) and last approved in 1996,  the Bike Plan designates a city-approved network of bike facilities.  These include on-street bike lanes, river/beach bike paths and shared-lane bike routes.  You’ve probably already guessed that L.A. isn’t bike paradise and that the plan isn’t going to get us there tomorrow (and even that the bike planning process hasn’t been as committed, thorough and transparent as it might have been)… but, like the L.A. River plans, this is an important opportunity to take some steps in the right direction.

What I expect that creek freaks will be most interested in are the plans for bike paths along our rivers and creeks.  The bike plan calls for bike paths along the Los Angeles River, Arroyo Seco and Ballona Creek which have been in past plans for quite a while.  It shows new bike paths along portions of the Tujunga Wash, the Pacoima Wash, Aliso Canyon Wash and more of Brown’s Creek – all San Fernando Valley tributaries of the L.A. River.  But there are plenty more Valley tributaries missing… like Bull Creek, Caballero Creek, Arroyo Calabasas, Bell Creek, and others.

Another omission is that some of the bike lanes planned for the Cornfield Arroyo Seco Specific Plan are shown as “unfeasible.”  This is, hopefully, just a matter of the department synching up their various plans.

Luckily, it’s still a draft and the city is asking for our input, so if you’re interested, take a look at the draft plan maps, and submit your comments to the City Planning Department.

And if you’re looking to get some first hand exposure to our local river bike paths… plan to ride the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition’s Los Angeles River Ride – THIS SUNDAY!  There are various distances for the occasional rider to the hard-core centurion.  See you there!