Floating to save the L.A. River: Army Corps biologist facing possible dismissal defends her actions
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 30, 2008 at 5:28 amFrom the Los Angeles Times, a commentary by Heather Wylie, the Army Corps biologist who took part in a kayak trip down the LA River to protest possible revisions in the Clean Water Act and to prove the river is “navigable in fact”. She defends her actions and explains why she felt compelled to participate:
A kayak trip I took this summer may cost me my job. I am a civilian biologist working for the Army Corps of Engineers. On my personal time, I joined a trip down the Los Angeles River to protest actions by my own agency to undermine the Clean Water Act.
My superiors scoured the Internet for proof and found two photos of me on a blog. Claiming that my “participation undermined [its] authority,” the corps has proposed suspending me for 30 days, a punishment one step below termination. More than two months after advocating this penalty, it has yet to make a decision.
In July, a dozen kayakers took a three-day journey down the 52-mile L.A. River; I joined them for 20 miles. The purpose of our regatta was to show that the entire river is “navigable-in-fact” — a classification that is crucial to preventing the rollback of Clean Water Act protections throughout the watershed — and to highlight similar threats facing waterways across the nation.
More than 30 years after its enactment, the Clean Water Act is now in legal turmoil. A 2006 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Rapanos vs. United States, first muddied the waters. The court held that to continue to regulate pollution under the Clean Water Act, the government has to prove there is a “significant nexus” between the wetlands in question and “navigable-in-fact” waters.
The term “navigable-in-fact” comes from 140 years’ worth of court rulings. Waterways that have or can generate interstate or foreign commerce through boating (including seasonal, hazardous or solely recreational use) are navigable-in-fact and thus subject to the provisions of the Clean Water Act. So our kayak trip was meant to underscore that the L.A. River — and all the streams that feed into it — deserve protection under that law.
Read more of this commentary in the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
L.A. River kayak trip gets government biologist in trouble
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 9, 2008 at 6:27 amFrom the Los Angeles Times:
A federal biologist was threatened with a 30-day job suspension over a kayaking trip she took to protest perceived government threats to the Los Angeles River and other waterways, according to documents released Wednesday.
Heather Wylie, a project manager with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Los Angeles, went kayaking on the river one Saturday in July to draw attention to a proposal by the Corps that could have exempted parts of the Los Angeles River from federal clean water protections. Shortly thereafter, her supervisors told her they were proposing to suspend her for 30 days without pay because of the “unsafe and unauthorized boating expedition” and also because of an “unauthorized and inappropriate e-mail message” she had sent to co-workers about the clean water issue.
The group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility announced plans Wednesday to file a whistleblower complaint on Wylie’s behalf, and released the letter she received from her supervisors.
In an interview, Wylie said her employers were violating her First Amendment rights. “It’s really silly because it was on my day off, it’s my freedom of speech, I have the right to say I don’t agree with what you’re doing,” said Wylie, who said she’s worked for the Corps in Los Angeles for 41/2 years. “I was doing the right thing and that’s what you’re supposed to do in a democracy.”
Read more from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
Tide may be turning on Long Beach’s beach pollution
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 16, 2008 at 6:04 amFrom the Long Beach Press-Telegram:
Trash, chemical residue and yard clippings surging down the Los Angeles River and onto local beaches were a problem long before anyone seriously tackled the environmentally detrimental trifecta of dirty trucks, polluting locomotives and soot-spewing cargo ships in the city’s port and harbor. But in spite of the vigor in which regulatory agencies, industry and elected leaders have attacked the latter problems, a consensus on how to deal with the so-called “river problem” seems far from certain.
Solutions range from diverting the river, lowering or completely removing the rock breakwater protecting Long Beach’s harbor to doing nothing, and so far, the leave-the-breakwater-and-river-alone crowd have prevailed.
But the tide may be turning.
Recent decisions by the City of Long Beach to fund a $100,000 breakwater study and newfound support from local Congressional leaders to fund breakwater research indicate that the city may be growing weary of its title as home to one of California’s dirtiest beach fronts - an ignominious designation bestowed upon the community in annual Heal the Bay beach report cards.
Hoping to keep momentum going, Surfrider is hosting a public forum on the river and pollution this evening. Find out more from the Long Beach Press-Telegram by clicking here.
Journey down the Los Angeles River
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 4, 2008 at 6:33 amFrom the Palisadian Post:
If you’ve never kayaked before, you wouldn’t start by going down the Los Angeles River, a stream that travels along a mostly cemented riverbed. But Palisadian Dr. Jeffrey Tipton was a willing participant this July when he joined a 12-person group that wanted to convince the Army Corps of Engineers that the L.A. River is a navigable waterway and thus deserves protection under the Clean Water Act.
The river’s fate was suddenly at stake this spring when it lost its federal designation as navigable, according to Fran Diamond, chairman of the L.A. Regional Water Quality Control Board. She told the Palisadian-Post that a rancher wanted to fill in a dry creek bed in the Santa Susana Mountains north of Chatsworth in order to develop property (Those mountains are part of the watershed for the L.A. River). After the rancher argued that the river itself was a dry streambed, the Army Corps reviewed the stream and determined that less than four miles was navigable and removed its classification on June 4.
While the classification might seem unimportant for a cemented urban riverbed, a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling stated that the Clean Water Act’s protections against pollution apply to a stream or wetland only if it had a ’significant nexus’ with ‘traditional navigable waters.’
Congressional representatives, state legislators, environmental groups and citizens such as Tipton were outraged at the Army Corps decision. ‘It is a critical issue,’ said Tipton, who is also the director of student health services at Cal State L.A. and owner of the Palisades Integrative Medical Clinic in the Pharmaca building.
‘The Army Corps was looking at the L.A. River as an ephemeral river, one that comes and goes, as more of a storm channel,’ said Tipton, who noted that taking away the designation would eliminate control of the pollutants added to the water. ‘How could they turn our river into a sewer?’ He asked. ‘It’s a living thing.’
Read the rest of this story from the Palisadian Post by clicking here.
Los Angeles River may get protection through the Clean Water Act
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 19, 2008 at 6:32 amFrom the Los Angeles Times:
The Los Angeles River, the urban waterway often besmirched by graffiti, pollution and Hollywood car chases, has finally gotten a break: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has stepped up as its protector.
In an unusual move, the EPA has told the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that it is stepping into an obscure debate over whether the river and its tributary streams are “traditional navigable waters.” The bureaucratic designation helps determine whether the upper reaches of the river’s watershed in the foothills around Los Angeles deserve protection under the federal Clean Water Act.
“It’s import for us to protect urban rivers and waterways around the country,” said Benjamin H. Grumbles, an EPA assistant administrator for water. “We are stepping up to ensure that the Clean Water Act tools are applied consistently and fairly and we all work together to protect the L.A. River.”
After the Army Corps of Engineers said the river was not navigable, determined kayakers took to the cemented and graffitied river, kayaking the length to prove them wrong (see post here). Apparently that has had some effect, with the Corps now saying some miles are indeed navigable:
The EPA agrees with the Corps’ designation that some of the miles are navigable, Grumbles said. “We think it’s important to look at the rest of the river.”
He also said the EPA was stepping in to clarify issues raised by the Supreme Court decision and figure out what “navigable” means in the arid West, where rivers typically flow only during wet seasons or when filled with treated water from sewage plants.
Grumbles declined to prejudge a final decision on how much of the river might be considered navigable, and therefore on how much of its 834-square-mile watershed should be protected.
Read more from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
Ha! The Army Corps said it couldn’t be done, but determined kayakers prove the LA River is navigable!
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 28, 2008 at 9:25 pm
From the LAist:
They did it. Geroge Wolfe and the gang kayaked, from end to end, the LA River, proving that claims by the Army Corps of Engineers that the river was not navigable, thus not a river, were wrong. Looking at all of these photos says something to us. It says “we need this river for the people!”
The journey began on Friday afternoon (photos), continued through Saturday (photos) and finished yesterday (photos below). LAist Photographer Tom Andrews stuck with the group all weekend long and here are photos from yesterday…
More pictures from the LAist by clicking here.
Keeping Western waterways clean: The L.A. River deserves protection under the Clean Water Act. Will the feds step up? asks editorial
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 22, 2008 at 9:31 pm
From the Los Angeles Times, this editorial:
Over the course of almost 40 years, the Clean Water Act — which compels landowners to secure permits from the Environmental Protection Agency before dredging or discharging pollutants into “waters of the United States” — has become the cornerstone of our water-quality law, helping states and local governments make development decisions that keep the country’s watersheds healthy.
Here in Southern California, the Clean Water Act limits the sewage and industrial waste that flow into streams, rivers and, ultimately, the ocean. It protects washes and other seasonal waters from being bulldozed over, helping to maintain habitat for birds and other wildlife. But today, just as elaborate plans for a long-awaited Los Angeles River restoration have begun moving forward, the river and its already stressed watershed could lose some of the law’s protections.
Lay the blame on legalese, courtesy of the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 2006 rulingin Rapanos vs. U.S., Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote that the term “waters of the United States,” to which the Clean Water Act still applies, should be interpreted more narrowly as “navigable waters” and wetlands with a “significant nexus” to them.
It was left to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which shares enforcement responsibilities for the act with the EPA, to figure out how to define those and other muddy terms, and it chose to do so, critics say, literally and narrowly. By the corps’ definitions, according to a memo released June 4, only two short stretches of the Los Angeles River are “traditionally navigable”: 2 miles in the Sepulveda Basin and 1.75 miles in Long Beach.
No one knows, just yet, what the consequences will be for Los Angeles — the river or the watershed — because the corps has not yet determined whether specific waters are or aren’t covered by the act. Once that process begins, the corps says, the entire Los Angeles River should remain protected because it meets the definition of “relatively permanent.” People won’t be able to start dumping into the waterway with impunity. The corps says that it maintains its commitment to restoring the river, and that it will be open to reevaluating the “navigability” of the currently “non-navigable” stretches.
Read the full text of this story from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
Glendale Narrows section of the L.A. River gets a deep cleaning
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 15, 2008 at 6:29 amFrom the Los Angeles Times:
Seen from its banks, the Los Angeles River is familiar — gripped on both sides by gray concrete. But in this stretch, just southeast of Griffith Park, the river’s bottom isn’t paved over. It’s covered with dirt and smooth stones. Water trickles around islands of green trees, giving refuge to mallards and their ducklings. Still, they live in spots littered with plastic bags, foam cups, beer bottles, spray paint cans and smashed shopping carts.
So on Saturday morning, more than 2,500 volunteers, most of them teenagers, showed up at the Glendale Narrows as part of a massive cleanup of the L.A. River.
Most of the helpers were members of the Pacific American Volunteer Assn., which brought in students from as far away as Camarillo and La Habra and has chapter clubs at dozens of middle and high schools in Southern California. About 500 were members of the Anahuak Youth Soccer Assn. in northeast Los Angeles.
Some of the teens squealed in disgust at the sight of the river. Others took on their mission with gusto.
Read more on this story from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
Will work for Korean BBQ: Community L.A. River cleanup Saturday
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 13, 2008 at 6:13 amFrom the Emerald City Blog:
Love Korean BBQ? Missed the Great L.A. River Cleanup? Here’s your second chance — a big clean up of the Glendale narrows section of the L.A. River’s happening this Saturday morning. You’re invited to join in the cleaning fun — then nosh on Korean BBQ afterwards.
When: Saturday, June 14, 8:45 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Where: Griffith Park Recreation Center, 3401 Riverside Dr., Los Angeles
Cost: Free. Just show up with a hat, sunscreen and drinking water.In addition to cleaning up the river, the event’s intended to bring together an ethnically and culturally diverse group of volunteers “for a day of hands-on environmental stewardship and cross-cultural connection,” according to Heal the Bay’s press release. The Glendale Narrows is a community hub, Heal the Bay says: “Only if all communities work together will we be able to restore and revitalize California’s natural settings.”
Find out more from the Emerald City blog by clicking here.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers confirms non-navigable status for most of L.A. River; The ruling sparks sharp warnings that it will weaken federal Clean Water Act rules protecting the river’s sprawling 834-acre watershed
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 5, 2008 at 7:51 am
This is a picture of the headwaters of the Los Angeles River (picture by the River Project). What is so non-navigable about that? From the Los Angeles Times:
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials announced today that they are standing by their decision that most of the Los Angeles River is not navigable.
The ruling sparked sharp criticism from some other regulators and conservationists who warned that it will weaken federal Clean Water Act rules protecting the river’s sprawling 834-acre watershed.
They believe the ripple effect of the decision will make is easier to develop large areas of the Santa Susana, Santa Monica and San Gabriel mountains because landowners will not be required to obtain certain federal permits. Some federal and state officials fear that the decision also may undermine rules against discharging wastewater and storm water into the river’s tributaries.
Corps officials said that they will continue enforcing the Clean Water Act as usual along the river. “This decision does not in any way lessen the protections on the L.A. River itself,” said Col. Thomas H. Magness IV, who oversees the Southwest regional office.
More from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
Find out more about the Los Angeles River by visiting The River Project website. Also, check out Nature Trumps - an LA River blog, and one of my personal favorites, Friends Of Vast Industrial Concrete Kafkaesque Structures.
Is the L.A. River up a creek? If the waterway is not officially deemed to be ‘navigable,’ many of its tributaries could lose important protections
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 1, 2008 at 7:47 amFrom the Los Angeles Times:
Over the years, the Los Angeles River has been redrawn, clad in concrete, tainted with chemicals, invaded by countless Hollywood car chases, dismissed as a glorified storm drain. Now comes the latest slap. The city’s river can’t even float enough boats to qualify as a full-fledged navigable waterway, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.
River advocates are outraged. “They’re just wrong. That’s the simple version of it. We’ve done kayak trips from the Valley to Long Beach a dozen times in the past 10 years,” said poet and writer Lewis MacAdams, founder of Friends of the Los Angeles River.
It doesn’t end there. What might seem a minor bureaucratic tweak by the Corps could have a domino effect across the river’s 834-square-mile watershed, say worried environmentalists and some federal, state and local officials.
Critics say the draft decision issued by Corps regulators weakens federal water protections for many seasonal streams that feed the river. They say this could translate into more mountain development and more dirty runoff flowing through cities to the Pacific. “Practically speaking, the March 20 decision would open up a number of tributaries and streams to the argument that the Clean Water Act doesn’t apply,” said David Beckman, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
But how is the Clean Water Act — among the strongest federal laws guarding rivers, lakes and streams — linked to the ability to float a boat down the Los Angeles River?
Find out by reading the rest of this story from the Los Angeles Times - click here.
Bridges link to Los Angeles history; conservancy is pushing for preservation of the historic structures
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 14, 2008 at 6:08 am
From the Los Angeles Times:
Randal Kleiser, director of the film “Grease,” descended Sunday into a dark tunnel underneath the Sixth Street Viaduct strewn with garbage and covered in graffiti. On the other end was a downtown section of the Los Angeles River he last visited 31 years ago to film the movie’s climatic drag-racing scene. “This is very surreal,” Kleiser said, stepping on shards of glass. “It was clean and sparkly when we were here.”
As he exited the tunnel, Kleiser was struck with a rush of nostalgia. Olivia [Newton-John] was on that wall,” Kleiser said, pointing to the steep concrete slopes across the river just to the side of the viaduct. “This is definitely the place.”
The iconic scene in which John Travolta’s character wins an epic race against the film’s villain has helped make the L.A. River and its bridges some of the most recognizable locations in movies.
The vast concrete channel and its many ornate gray spans have appeared in hundreds of Hollywood films. As a collection, the bridges are a crucial symbol of Los Angeles lore that could one day aid the revitalization of the river, preservationists say. It’s why Kleiser was asked to participate in a guided tour called “Spanning History: The Bridges of the Los Angeles River.” About 400 people attended the event sponsored by the Los Angeles Conservancy, which aims to boost recognition of the city’s 14 historic L.A. River bridges as an ensemble.
The event comes at a time when some of the structures face demolition and replacement. The bridges were built between 1909 and 1938 and have all been designated historic and cultural monuments by the city. “We want to ensure that preservation is on equal footing with replacement,” said Michael Buhler, director of advocacy for the L.A. Conservancy, which cited water damage as one of the greatest threats to the structures.
Read the rest of this story from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
Corps reconsiders decision to exempt parts of the Los Angeles River from federal clean water protections
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 11, 2008 at 6:34 amFrom the San Jose Mercury News:
The Army Corps of Engineers is reconsidering a decision that would have exempted parts of the Los Angeles River from federal clean water protections following a chorus of objections from environmentalists and politicians.On Wednesday, a spokesman for the Corps said they would rescind the draft decision and meet with officials at the Environmental Protection Agency in San Francisco who had raised concerns.
David Beckman, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, and others said the decision had vast implications for streams throughout the watershed as well as rivers in other Western states.
“This determination never should have seen the light of day, but its withdrawal is a step in the right direction,” Beckman said. “The Corps should devote its efforts to restoration of the LA River, not devising ways to deny it critical environmental protection.”
More on this story from the San Jose Mercury News by clicking here.
Artists paint the concrete banks of the Los Angeles River, but now may have to whitewash it
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 2, 2008 at 5:56 amFrom the Los Angeles Times:
It was a graffiti artist’s dream come true: 10,000 square feet of concrete and a permit to paint. Families brought their kids to watch as hundreds of muralists, using their own materials and working for free, sprayed technicolor shades on the steep banks of an ugly, manmade riverbed.
Not everyone was pleased, however, with the results of the civic-minded effort, which had the city’s blessing but has rekindled debates over whether Los Angeles County should condone a practice it pays millions to combat.
Some politicians protested that parts of the mural are obscene and have attracted gang-related tags in a city where graffiti already mars homes, sidewalks and buildings. The county has given organizers until Wednesday to whitewash the mural, and neither side is backing down.
“It would be beautiful if the river went back to its natural state and was actually a river and a park,” said Alex Poli, a graffiti artist and gallery owner known as “Man One.” “But right now we have concrete walls, so the next best thing is to beautify it with art.”
Read more on this dispute over spray-painted ‘river banks’ from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here. For more information on the Los Angeles River, check out Nature Trumps: An L. A. River Blog and FOVICKS: Friends Of Vast Industrial Concrete Kafkaesque Structures.
Los Angeles River trash continues to flow
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 20, 2008 at 6:46 amFrom the Long Beach Press-Telegram:
During the El Niño year of 2004-05, the Long Beach Parks, Recreation and Marine Department picked up 12,255 tons — more than 24 million pounds — of trash along the city’s beaches.
The vast majority of that trash came down the Los Angeles River from cities upstream. Virtually everyone is familiar with the scenario — a cup is dropped on a street in Los Angeles, finds its way into the storm drain and then the river, and ends up on the sand in Long Beach. And much worse than cups find its way downstream.
In 2001, the Regional Water Quality Control Board passed regulations to force cities toward a zero emissions standard in six categories, including trash, metals, bacteria and more. The most visual, and currently most expensive to clean up, is trash of every shape and form.
“Last year, we budgeted $2,174,000 for beach maintenance,” said Tom Shippey, manager of the Maintenance Operations Bureau. “We get $500,000 from the county, which is spread out through the year. We pay the rest.”
A combination of dry years and work upstream has dropped the annual trash “harvest” considerably — until this year. From July 1 to mid-March this year, the city has collected 3,840 tons of trash.
It could have been much worse, according to Mark Pestrella, assistant deputy director at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works and the man responsible for the Los Angeles River Flood Control District. “We are working well in interaction with the cities,” Pestrella said. “But cleaning up the river is very expensive. We’re facing a time where the citizens are going to have to decide how much they are willing to spend, and what the limits on trash there is an acceptance for. We’ve never going to get to zero, even though the mandate is to have zero by 2013.”
Read the full text of this story from the Long Beach Press Telegram by clicking here.
The river has been a source of problems for Long Beach, as it gathers a considerable amount of trash & debris from upstream, which travels down to Long Beach and gets dumped into the ocean. Aquafornia reader John sent me copies of letters he wrote to the Long Beach Press-Telegram regarding his idea for a solution:
February 20, 2008: Eliminate the River
One purpose of a river is to replenish the beaches with sand. In the case of the Los Angeles River, all that is left is the silt shoals near the Queen Mary. The river is cemented and cannot do what the Santa Ana River in Orange County does: deposit sand. Therefore, the river should be changed to a water reclamation basin. There should be dams, reservoirs, storage tanks, pumping stations, and water treatment plants built along the length of the river to process the water for the use of the communities in the Los Angeles Basin. The ground water could be replenished and each city could build extra water tanks for storage. As it stands now, enough water goes to the ocean that would otherwise, if captured, take the stress off the Delta, Colorado River, and Owens Valley water projects.
March 1, 2008
With an almost 800 foot drop in elevation, the upper river could remain undisturbed while the southern portion could be dug out and serve as a catch basin to trap all the water with large pumps and mega storage tanks. A commission should be formed to find out what the yearly water usage is for the Los Angeles Basin and what the flow of water is during rainy periods. At peak flow, there is 183,000 cubic feet of water. That is over 1.3 million gallons per second. The size and number of the water tanks could be determined. The water could be treated and distributed throughout the communities The water might as well be trapped and used because it will otherwise be wasted by allowing it to go into the ocean. There is no water navigation, fish don’t spawn in it, and it is basically wasted.
Long Beach floats idea of diverting LA River away from city’s coastal waters
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on February 10, 2008 at 8:35 amFrom the Long Beach Press Telegram:
Each time rain comes to Los Angeles County, it washes away the urban grime of dozens of cities, flushing out the trash, pollutants and all forms of refuse.
But that trash has to go somewhere. Much of it ends up in the Los Angeles River, where it travels miles downstream and into the coastal waters of Long Beach, often forcing beach closures and some say hurting the city’s tourism economy.
To fight this, city leaders have been batting around a singular solution: Remove the river entirely from near downtown Long Beach and the city beaches.
Instead of letting the river empty into Queensway Bay, the idea goes, redirect it to flow into the harbor one mile west, as it once did before the waterway was diverted from its natural course more than 80 years ago.
During his State of the City address in January, Mayor Bob Foster publicly aired the possible solution, which had been discussed by some city and business leaders, and said that improving water quality is a priority. “This year we will look at a host of possible solutions,” Foster said. “One option may even include diverting the mouth of the L.A. River westward back to its ancestral path into the port.”
Could such a plan really work? It’s not impossible, experts say.
Not impossible, but would take cooperation and involvement from the Army Corps of Engineers, plus money - and lots of it. It would probably take decades to accomplish. And wouldn’t it only just accomplish sending the crap somewhere else?
“If we divert flows to one or another water body, you still have the issue of pollutants being in the water,” Pestrella said.
If the river were to empty into the harbor, then the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles would have to deal with the contamination. Art Wong, spokesman for the Port of Long Beach, said Long Beach should look at how to keep trash out of the river upstream. “We would support the city’s search for a way to stop this, but diverting it and dumping it in somebody’s else’s backyard, I don’t think that’s a solution,” Wong said.
But Long Beach businessman and community leader John Morris, who has been a strong proponent of the river diversion, said it shouldn’t be Long Beach’s responsibility either to clean up everyone else’s trash.
Get the full story from the Long Beach Press Telegram by clicking here.
Picture of Los Angeles River by Steven Georges of the Long Beach Press Telegram.
We Southlanders have an odd relationship with the graffitti-infested concrete channel which passes for the LA River. My favorite LA River website is the FOVICKS site, which stands for Friends Of Vast Industrial Concrete Kafkaesque Structures. This person went out and photographed the Los Angeles River from top to bottom in all it’s glory. Check it out by clicking here. Also, check out the Nature Trumps blog on the L.A. River.
Swift water rescue teams patrolling Los Angeles area flood channels
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on January 30, 2008 at 10:40 pmFrom the Long Beach Gazette:
Robert Hamilton drives a red, four-wheel drive pickup truck loaded with lifejackets, helmets, bodysuits and other gear. Next to him in the passenger seat, Scott Mitchell rolls down his window to a gaunt man in frayed clothes standing beside a rusty shopping cart. “You need to find somewhere else to go,” he says to the homeless man. “It’s dangerous to be down here.” The man nods as Hamilton presses his foot gently on the accelerator, the truck steadily climbing up the narrow bike path adjacent to the San Gabriel River flood channel, which on this day runs a few feet deep between two steep, angled cement walls.
“Most of the speed is in the center of the river,” says Mitchell, who wears a red protective bodysuit in case he needs to jump into the channel. “The bottom of the water is (slippery) like ice. It’s slower along the edges, so that benefits us.”
Several storms blew through Long Beach last week, prompting these swift water rescue team members to patrol the area for people who may have fallen victim to the river. It’s a regular protocol for these Long Beach Lifeguard and Fire Department professionals, even through it puts their lives at risk. So far this year, there have been 25 “advisals,” warning people away from the rivers, but no water rescues.
Using their equipment, which includes flotation gear, helmets and other water rescue devices, the team uses every method possible to extract the victim from the water before actually entering the water.
“You’re looking for movement — something out of the ordinary,” says Mitchell, whose rescue experience includes helping pull a man who was under the influence of drugs out of the Los Angeles River in an earlier rainy season.
To read more about the Swift Water Rescue Team, click here.
Photo of the LA River by flickr photographer Peggy Archer.
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