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Up A Creek: Long Beach’s battle to clean up the Los Angeles River

Posted by: Maven on July 1, 2009 at 5:51 am

From the Long Beach Post:

A floating plastic bag travels down the Los Angeles River and enters the Long Beach Harbor, where it joins several metric tons of trash, debris, pollutants. You name it. There could be waste from an upstream sewer spill, or chemicals that found their way into the aqueduct system. All of it combines to fester off the coast of Long Beach, creating what environmental group Heal The Bay recently called a “Beach Bummer” when they ranked Long Beach the 6th worst water quality in California.

So where does this plastic bag come from? How did it get into the river? And how do we prevent it from happening again? Finding the answers to these questions is the job of the city’s Stormwater Program, and while their recent progress may surprise you, no one will deny that there is still a long way to go if we’re going to rid ourselves of the “Beach Bummer” tag.

“We have challenges that other cities just don’t,” says Tom Leary, Stormwater Program Officer. His team manages more than 180 miles of pipes and drains owned by the city of Long Beach, and was a major part of the work the City has done to keep trash out of the rivers and ocean. In their report that listed Long Beach as the state’s sixth worst water quality, Heal The Bay also commended the city for investing in their pipes and drains to prevent water quality from worsening.

Read more on Long Beach’s ongoing efforts to clean up the trash in the Los Angeles River from the LBPost by clicking here.

July 1, 2009 · Filed Under Southern California

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