You may have seen it on the news or in a Hollywood car chase — the concrete channel known as the Los Angeles River. Most people think of it as “that box channel off the freeway.” The flood-control channel has been considered a possible alternative route to clear up clogged freeways, but is now being considered for a more natural use.
Conservationists from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy would like to turn the fifty-one mile waterway into a federal wildlife sanctuary. It will take millions of federal dollars to buy up the land along the concrete waterway and destroy some of the channel to make way for nature to return. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy hopes to have backing from Congress and a refuge proposal by the end of the year.
First, they need to convince residents and city officials that the Los Angeles River has the potential to become a wildlife sanctuary — many people who live right near the channel don’t even realize that it is a river. The river travels from the San Fernando Valley through downtown Los Angeles and on south to Long Beach, where it empties into the ocean. Most of the river was paved in the 1930s to help control flooding; only about eleven of the fifty-one miles still have unpaved beds. During the winter rainy season, the water level rises; in the drier months, treated sewage and litter take up residence in the channel.
Despite the concrete and garbage, the Los Angeles River is a home to more than two hundred species of birds — including great blue herons, egrets, and a half-dozen different kinds of ducks. Most of the wildlife sticks to the unpaved areas, where trees thrive and the shallows are full of grasses.
Supporters of the project hope that the wildlife refuge can become Los Angeles’ own version of Central Park and create much-needed parkland. An estimated seventy-five percent of children in Los Angeles have NO park within walking distance of home. A committee from the Los Angeles City Council hopes to put together a long-term plan that includes improving the thirty-two miles of river within the city and adding parks, amphitheaters, and nature walks.
Not a bad future for a so-called “refuse refuge” that hosted the car chase from TERMINATOR 2 and the drag race from GREASE.
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