L.A. River Clean-Up and Day of Service Tomorrow

L.A. River Day of Service - click for full flier image - art by Leo Limon

It’s covered on plenty of sites elsewhere, but Creek Freaks should definitely plan to come to tomorrow’s Friends of the Los Angeles River La Gran Limpieza – the annual Great Los Angeles River Clean-up. Clean 9am to 12noon Saturday April 30th 2011 at over a dozen sites from Long Beach to Tujunga. This year the multi-site event is combined with city of Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa’s Day of Service. The riverly day concludes with a 12n-2pm celebration at Rio de Los Angeles State Park – including a free concert by Ozomatli!

Development Threatens Santiago Creek in Orange County

The city of Orange's Sully Miller site, where Santiago Creek is theatened. Photo courtesy Joel Robinson

An Orange County Creek Freak contacted us about helping get the word out on an effort to preserve a natural stretch of Santiago Creek, located in the city of Orange. In his initial email to us, Joel Robinson, the Watershed Coordinator for the Santiago Creek Watershed Preservation and Restoration Project, stated:

There are a few significant pieces of open space threatened by inappropriate developments along Santiago Creek.  Least Bell’s Vireo [endangered songbird species] occur in the area and the developer has already removed habitat within the floodplain and plans to develop in an area where open space is very limited.

Though I grew up not far from there, and know the area where Santiago Creek meets the Santa Ana River, I confess that I am not familiar with the actual threatened area, called the Sully Miller property, after a former sand and gravel company located there. It’s located in the northeast edge of the city, near the interesection of East Santiago Canyon Road and Cannon Street – just downstream of Santiago Oaks Regional Park.

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Here’s an aerial that details the site: (Santiago Creek is, of course, the green band meandering near the top of the image.)

Aerial photo showing Santiago Creek through the Sully Miller property - courtesy of Joel Robinson

Jessica and I asked Joel Robinson to contribute an article about the threat to this stretch of Santiago Creek. His piece apears below. For additional information, see the Orange Park Acres Community Action website.

Over 100 acres of open space are threatened along Santiago Creek within the sprawling community of East Orange!  The Sully-Miller property, serves as a major wildlife corridor for large mammals, including bobcats, coyotes, and deer. It has the potential to be a neighborhood nature park with interconnected trails, various wildlife habitats, and a natural flowing creek.  It supports the occurrence of  the endangered least bell’s vireo (federally protected bird), pacific treefrog, the heron family, Nuttall’s woodpecker, northern flicker, California quail, roadrunner, red-tailed hawk, and many other wildlife species.  Unfortunately, the owner known as JMI Real Estate (John Martin) plans to break the rules set by almost 40 years of planning in our neighborhoods in Orange Park Acres and East Orange.
 
The rules were established long ago:
Orange Park Acres Specific Plan (1973)
East Orange Community Plan (1975)
Santa Ana River/Santiago Creek Greenbelt Plan (1973)
Santiago Creek Implementation Plan (1976)

Now Martin and his investors want to rewrite all the rules so they can profit from a 265 unit high-rise/high-density development plus a 130 unit-housing tract, and an 81,000 square foot YMCA building.  (The average Wal-Mart is 97,000 square feet)  JMI invested $40,000 in political contributions in the 2010 Orange elections, but they can’t buy the support of the neighbors who will have to live with the traffic and the negative impacts on our homes.

JMI bulldozed extensive wildflower meadows, mature willows, mulefat scrub, and vernal pools to accommodate a temporary landfill and concrete recycling center.  In addition, JMI closed a local farm and produce stand.  The Ridgeline Country Club, a valued community recreation center, was closed to be redeveloped as estates.
 
When Fieldstone tried for tract housing in 2003 over 9,000 people in the city of Orange said NO.

For more information and to get involved, go to Orange Park Acres Community Action.

Levee alternatives study for Compton & Dominguez channels

County of LA review of channel flood capacity reveals that portions of Compton and Dominguez channels fail to meet flood standards, which if unaddressed will result in FEMA decertification and increases in flood insurance rates for property owners next to the channels.  And while the County’s engineers have been soberly preparing to address this through studies and planning, fear-driven spectres of disaster scenarios have also been hinted at by public authorities – forebodingly called ”Katrina West” by some. 

Here’s the details on the meetings tonight and next week to give the County feedback on alternatives they can pursue to meet the flood standards.

Tonight, April 28, 6-8pm, Carson Community Center, 801 East Carson Street, Carson CA 90745

May 4, 6-8pm, Siverado Park, 1545 West 31st Street, Long Beach, CA 90810.

Thanks to James Alamillo at Heal the Bay for the heads-up about the meetings.

Now, about this “Katrina West” rhetoric. Dan Rosenfeld, a deputy for Mark Ridley-Thomas, gives us its meaning: “(o)ne of Los Angeles County’s biggest concerns is the adequacy of the levees downstream in minority communities – the Katrina West phenomenon. “ 

The La Tuna Canyon SPS

A seasonal wash is shaded by mature Coast Live Oaks. Upon approaching the grove from the only probable entry route, there are no signs of potential human intervention to be found. It is only when you travel to the upstream side of the wash that you can see an aluminum survey tag on every tree in sight. Standard survey practice or intentional deceit?

S-P-S, shorthand for Sediment Placement Site, a seemingly benign acronym for a rather mundane phrase from the venerable book of public agency jargon. Yet the mere mention of the term is quickly becoming a harbinger of the ear-splitting sound of old-growth oaks snapping under the weight of heavy machinery and of mournful calls from flocks of birds and bats circling above any empty field that was once habitat. On the morning of January 12th, 2011, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works began an inconceivably rapid, two-day demolition of the Arcadia Woodlands despite significant public disapproval (including a petition with 1,922 signatures). The event cast an critical light on the current, woefully outdated watershed management methodologies of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works. Unfortunately, it appears the destruction of the Arcadia Woodlands was merely a symptom of a systemic disregard for the value of some of L.A.’s last remaining urban wildlands… and the next area to be threatened may be of particular interest to local creek freaks…

Places to Visit: Burbank’s Lake-Providencia Bridge and Compass Tree Park

The 1949 Lake-Providencia Bridge - double parentheses, one in the foreground, the other in the upper right

The Burbank Western Wash runs pretty anonymously through the city of Burbank, and a tiny bit of the city of Glendale, then enters the L.A. River at a confluence just upstream of Bette Davis Picnic Area. As far as I know, it’s all concrete box-channel. There’s not too much going on there, though the city has a few bike paths planned.

I first explored the Burbank Western Wash (sometimes called the Burbank Western Channel) while I was tracking down bridges for my book, Down by the Los Angeles River. A librarian friend found me a Caltrans list of all the bridges in Los Angeles County. I reviewed the date on each bridge and bicycled out to check out every L.A. River watershed bridge built before the mid-1950s.

The anonymous Burbank Western Wash, from Verdugo Avenue

Most of the bridges on the Burbank Western Wash are nice, but unremarkable. In my book, I described them as “unassuming, friendly, neighborhood-scale bridges.” From upstream to downstream, these include:

• Magnolia Boulevard (now frontage road) 1949
• Olive Avenue (now frontage road) 1949
• Verdugo Avenue (now frontage road) 1949
• Lake Street and Providencia Avenue 1949
• Alameda Avenue 1949
• Victory Boulevard 1940
• Riverside Drive 1940 (in city of Glendale – all others in city of Burbank)

The 1940 bridges feature decorative metal railing, with concrete posts, and a modest arch below. The 1949 bridges all feature the same pleasant concrete railing, ending at quarter-circle-shaped approach walls. They’re flat – no arch. Not bad, not spectacular or flashy.

The curved concrete railing of the 1949 Lake-Providencia bridge

When I was exploring these, though, one caught my attention: the 1949 Lake Street and Providencia Avenue Bridge. It’s not much compared to, say, the L.A. River bridges in downtown Los Angeles, but it is nice in its own way – and has a sweet small Compass Point Sycamore Park adjacent downstream.

Off to the Rio de Flag

The Rio de Flag. Photo by Friends of the Rio de Flag.

I’m boarding the Southwest Chief to Flagstaff, home of Friends of the Rio de Flag, a community group organized to ”support preservation and restoration of the natural beauty and beneficial functions of the Rio de Flag stream channel.” I’ll be talking at their annual Membership Meeting on the topic of “An Ecological Los Angeles: Just Add Water Political Will.”

New Exercise Stations at Marsh Park

New exercise station at Marsh Park

Eyes on the L.A. River: I spotted some new exercise stations along the Los Angeles River at Marsh Park in Elysian Valley. Though both of these photos show the stations unused, I was happy to see them being tested out by a mother and her family taking a walk along the new river walk/bike path. Though they’re not listed on the website yet, they appear to be part of the Trust for Public Land’s Fitness Zone program that installs these types of exercise in parks in parks in L.A.’s densely-populated neighborhoods.

Long Beach events for Creek Freaks

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Two events that Long Beach Creek Freaks might like:

Today, Saturday  (happening, er, now) is a trash cleanup at the Willow Gulch/Walnut Springs site. Community members fought hard to spare this site from leveling for sports fields in the early 2000′s. The Gulch has a piped, spring-fed stream running through it. In fact, those springs were Long Beach’s original water source – and the source of water for the little hamlet of Willowville (see photos above). The stream is gone, but some remnant habitat recolonized the site. You can hear tree frogs croaking in a retention basin in the late afternoons. The sports field concept has taken the back burner – I am hopeful a more ecological concept take shape.

Tomorrow, Sunday, the Prisk Native Garden in Long Beach is having its open house. Check out 8,000 square feet of native landscaping in a school setting!

Prisk Native Garden Open House for the general public is Sunday, April 3, from one to four p.m.
We’re on the ground of Prisk Elementary School, 2375 Fanwood Ave., Long Beach, CA 90815. From the north take the 405 Fwy. to the Paloverde exit in Long Beach. When you come down the ramp make a sharp right on Los Arcos.
The garden is about two and a half blocks down on the right near the corner of San Vicente and Los Arcos (around corner from school office).

Here’s some news coverage about the garden: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/home_blog/2010/04/prisk-native-garden-open-house-on-sunday-from-1-to-4-pm.html

Natural Habitat or Grass? South Pasadena Council to Decide

Photo: Barbara Eisenstein.

And today’s ticking time bomb for the remnant wildness of LA is in South Pasadena, along the Arroyo Seco. South Pasadena is considering taking over some undeveloped land between the Arroyo Seco Golf Course and the Arroyo Seco Nature Park. This undeveloped land has lovely habitat – which you can view in some detail at Barbara Eisenstein’s Wild Suburbia blog.