Confluence Plaza Dedication Tomorrow – Wed March 30 2011

New fountains at Confluence Plaza

Phase 1 of the multi-faceted Confluence Park project is opening tomorrow evening – Wednesday March 30th 2011.

L.A. Creek Freak covered this project’s plans and construction in earlier articles – follow those links for project details. Confluence Park celebrates the historic confluence of Los Angeles River and the Arroyo Seco – the place described in the earliest written account of the Los Angeles area. Today the spot is probably most familiar to Angelenos as the intersection of the 5 and 110 Freeways.

Confluence Plaza, located adjacent to the parking lot of the Cypress Park Home Depot, features fountains, a plaza, seating areas, and landscaping. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, Los Angeles City Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and
Los Angeles City Councilmember Ed P. Reyes invite the public to attend the dedication - tomorrow – at 6pm Wednesday March 30th 2011. See flier for details.

Another creek faces the pipe – San Fernando Valley edition

April 4^th is the deadline to give comment on a draft EIR that if approved will consign another small creek to permanent pipe-age in the City of LA.

[Updated paragraph] Download  the draft EIR from this City of LA site by clicking Environmental/Draft EIR in the left panel of that page. Then click on the bold-font title of The Village at Westfield Topanga to be taken to a download site.  That bold font fooled me when I first wrote this post, didn’t understand that it was a hyperlink. Thanks to readers for setting me straight! It can also be found at the Central Library, and Woodland Hills, Canoga Park and Platt Branch libraries or purchased on CD-Rom.

The creek – located at Owensmouth and Victory in the San Fernando Valley, has been dubbed Owensmouth Creek by locals. Its history is a little tricky to me, as it doesn’t appear on historical USGS maps.  GIS data from the County of Los Angeles, however, does indicate what looks to be a diversion of drainage from Topanga Canyon Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley, labelled as an open channel.  Navigate LA calls it a city stormdrain, D-17768. But more incontrovertible is photography. Jim Anderson, of the Woodland Hills Warner Center Neighborhood Council, shared with me a photo of the threatened waterway.

Destined for a pipe? Photo: Roger Gerrish, provided courtey Jim Anderson.

Channel?  Bed?  Banks?  Sediment? Water (including seasonal)? Direction of Flow?

Looks like we’ve got a stream that meets the City’s definition. So why again is this small edge of the property being piped and paved, not set aside as a public park, or dare we suggest, part of the Low Impact Development/stormwater mitigation plan?

I’m told it’s needed for part of a Costco members’ service station at the planned Village at Westfield Topanga, folks.

I’ll just leave us all to ponder that for now.

Coverage in the Daily News here.

Send comments by 4/4 to:

Elva Nuño-O’Donnell, City Planner
City of Los Angeles Department of City Planning
6262 Van Nuys Boulevard, Room 351
Los Angeles, California 91401
(818) 374-5070 (fax)
Elva.nuno-odonnell@lacity.org

Updates to Where’s My Creek?

Just letting you know that we’re working to get dynamic creek maps going. It’s awkward, highly imperfect, and kinda groovy. While I’m also embedding it here, I suggest you read about the imperfections/caveats at the Where’s My Creek page. Or follow the “view larger map” link to explore more – and discover the petty frustrations of the map for yourself!

View Larger Map

A Dangerous Journey

Rainy weather always puts me in mind of the historical oral histories taken down by James Reagan in 1914. They highlight how dramatic, dangerous, and long cross-county travel could be – travel that today makes us irate and grumpy when it take a few hours.

The New River mentioned here is the San Gabriel River, in its “new” channel. It shifted course in the 1860s. S.P. is Southern Pacific (rail road). The trip, 25 miles from Downey to Santa Ana.

View Larger Map
The tale of Tom Hutchinson:

Heavy Rains Reveal Creek Streets

After Sunday’s daylong rainstorms, the rains ended and the sky still looked plenty cloudy Monday-yesterday, I bundled up and was bicycling into downtown, when I came to this massive puddle across from LaFayette Park. The photo shows the south side of Wilshire Boulevard between Commonwealth Avenue and Hoover Street. I didn’t get a shot of it, but there was a least a couple of feet of water in the park itself. The southwest corner of the park, normally enjoyed by lots of skateboarders, was being enjoyed by a half-dozen ducks.

Yesterday's post-rainstorm pond, Arroyo de la Brea re-emerging on Wilshire Boulevard across from LaFayette Park

Creek Freaks will recall (from Jessica’s earlier article Commerce over creeks at Wilshire + Hoover and other mentions since) that this particular dip in Wilshire Boulevard, and this part of LaFayette Park, were historically Arroyo de la Brea – a creek tributary of Ballona Creek.

Students Envision Landscaping along Dominguez Channel

Viviana Franco’s Spaces of Blight (SOB) project is turning its focus onto the Dominguez Channel in Hawthorne. Through the assistance of the Friends/Amigos of the Dominguez Watershed, From Lot to Spot/Spaces of Blight received a Wetlands Recovery Project grant to work with youth to assess a reach of the Dominguez Channel bike path, design native landscaping to abate erosion, treat runoff, and create beauty. Students and volunteers will be installing the plants over the coming months.

Check out photodocumentation of student analysis and design here.

The project complements a landscaping project underway by the County of Los Angeles along the Dominguez Channel.

SCOPE hosts Heather Wylie talk on L.A. River 3/19

Santa Clarita Organization for Planning and the Environment is having a special meeting Saturday, March 19th with guest speaker Heather Wylie talking about her participation in the Los Angeles River kayaking trip that proved its navigability. Creek Freak blogger Joe Linton was also part of that excursion.

Here’s the deet’s:

WHEN: Saturday, March 19th, 2PM

WHERE: St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Spurling Hall Community Room, 24901 Orchard Village Rd. Valencia, CA 91355

Refreshments will be served - Regular Business meeting to follow speaker

More info: www.scope.org 661 255-6899

 

Bicycling Against 710 Freeway Expansion

Bike the L.A. River, oppose freeway expansion

** Updated 25 March 2011: POSTPONED – due to rain predicted! **

The Coalition for Environmental Health and Justice (CEHAJ) is hosting a bikeathon event on the Lower Los Angeles River on Saturday March 26th 2011. The event’s slogan is “Communities Over Freeways.” The goal is to raise awareness and funding – in opposition to the widening of the 710 Freeway. It’s a fairly short bike ride (about 8 miles) and all on bike path, so almost anyone can do it! Suggested donation is $5.

There are two starting points (both register 9:30am, depart: 10am) : 

1. Los Angeles starting point: the Atlantic Boulevard entry point of the South County Los Angeles River Bike Trail – at the intersection of Atlantic Avenue and District Boulevard (in the city of Vernon, near Maywood.)
2. Long Beach starting point: Ocean Boulevard entrance to the LARIO L.A. River Bike Trail – next to the Golden Shore Wetlands, on Golden Shore Drive, just south of where the 710 Freeway crosses under Ocean Boulevard.

Both rides meet up in the middle at Coolidge Park in North Long Beach, just south of Artestia Boulevard, on the west side of the river. Full details on the flier here: front / back.

Organizers are looking for a few volunteers to assist with basic bike repair duties – if you can help out, email mark [at] cbecal.org.

Local Tsunami Images

With the gravity of the situation in Japan still very much on the mind, here’s some imagery of the tsunami reaching local shores, perhaps more of a curiosity (the film-makers are relatively light-hearted, probably more a counter-reaction to local hype); but for me, a reminder that powerful forces can touch us from far away.

On Ballona Creek, by AmericanFilmProdComp

At Catalina Harbor, by Isthmus101

Where would I be without Facebook (and “real-life”) friends like Sabrina Drill and Jeff Chapman who post these links? Thanks!

“this makes me nervous…it used to be part of Tokyo Bay…”

Eerie echo/demonstration of Why Coastal Wetlands Matter –  or a bay, apparently.

Thanks to J. Gonzalez for the link.