Featured image credit: Chris Cooke
If you’ve been to the movies in the last 50 years, you’re familiar with the LA River. Now, whether you recognized it as a river when you saw it is debatable. It’s where the T-100 and John Connor tried to outrun or outgun a semi-driving T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. It was the center of the real-life water wars that inspired Chinatown’s conflict. Stained with Grease’s grease and Blood In Blood Out’s blood, the LA River survived countless car chases, drag races, shoot-outs and blow-outs. Throughout it all, its concrete hasn’t cracked. Not significantly anyway. So what’s the story behind the river that looks nothing like a river? And could it one day return to nature?
There Was a Time When the LA River Belonged to Mother Nature
It may surprise you to learn the LA River wasn’t always a brutalist waterway of unyielding concrete. As recently as the 1930s, it was a real deal, naturally-occurring river. Thick oak forests teeming with pumas, deer, coyotes, and even bears opened up onto heavily flowing waters populated with robust steelhead trout, rainbow trout, and Chinook salmon.
For most of the year, it cut its way across the plains between the region’s hills and mountains. The exception was the summertime when hot, arid conditions would sometimes dry out the river completely. But the winters, when rains would build the river into a raging flood, would frequently make up for it.
The Evolving Relationship Between People and the River
Before Spanish missionaries arrived, the Indigenous Tongva people of Southern California learned how to live alongside the natural river. They used the river’s bounty to irrigate their crops, even incorporating water wheels to harness its resources. But the wayward river refused to be tamed, illustrated by its meandering mouth. Some years it emptied out in Long Beach. Other years at Ballona Creek.
Over the decades, settlers kept moving closer to the natural LA River, finding consistent value in its resources. But occasionally, the river would grow beyond its banks, flooding the farmland of the low-lying plains, destroying crops, structures, and even lives. Even as the city rose around the river, these conditions periodically returned.
The Contamination of the LA River
During this period, the LA River was the city’s primary source for fresh water. But with increased population came an increased strain on the river. People started using it as a makeshift sewer. Dead livestock were simply dumped into the current to be taken out to the ocean. Sometimes dead people were as well.
Recognizing the unsustainability of the river as a reliable freshwater source, the water department erected the controversial Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913. Today, we collect a fraction of the city’s water from the LA River. But countless streets and approximately 2,000 storm drains empty directly into the river, polluting it with agricultural chemicals and runoff from the city.
From Farmland to Floodland
In February 1938, the dam finally broke, so to speak. A year’s worth of rainfall poured down upon Los Angeles in a day. Waters consumed homes, smashed through bridges, and flooded streets from Echo Park to Venice. As a true litmus test of a bad situation, the Academy Awards pushed back its star-studded ceremony by a week. In all seriousness, around 100 people lost their lives and approximately 1,500 homes were damaged beyond repair in the legendary flood.
Responding to the tragic flood, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took action on a plan to lock the river into a predictable flow using a concrete channel. Over 20 years and 3.5 million barrels of cement later, they’d created a modified LA River that wouldn’t flood its surrounding communities. But its concrete banks also prevented polluted water from seeping into the earth. Instead, it continued flowing out into San Pedro Bay.
The completed LA River, preserved in concrete, stretches approximately 51 miles, snaking its way through 17 distinct cities. Its official point of origin lies in the Canoga Park community, at the nexus point of Arroyo Calabasas and Bell Creek. These days, even the dustiest summers can’t completely tap out the flow of the river. You can follow it to its terminus, just past the Queen Mary Hotel in Long Beach.
Friends of the LA River
From the concrete casting of the LA River in the late 1930s until the mid-1980s, a chainlink fence prevented public access. But, encouraged by whiskey, writer Lewis MacAdams and a few of his friends decided to reclaim the river. Armed with a pair of wire cutters, they opened up the fence one fateful day in 1985.
It would still take plenty of pressure from MacAdams, who founded the Friends of the LA River (FoLAR) organization before the county issued its river restoration plan in 1997. Within the year, a section of bike path was added to the Elysian Valley portion of the river, indicating the county’s earnest commitment to the project.
Yet, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers remained adamant that the river wasn’t fit for public recreation. In protest of this declaration, writer George Wolfe and rebellious Army Corps biologist Heather Wylie kayaked the length of the river over three days in 2008. Further descent came two years later when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deemed the LA River to consist of “traditional, navigable waters.”
Recreational Use of the River
Finding resistance at every turn, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stopped fighting the current. In 2013, they suggested a $453 million project to resurrect 600 acres of the river’s wild habitat between Griffith Park and Lincoln Heights. A hold on federal funding has slowed the project’s progress, though areas of the river already strike a lush contrast to its appearance during the early days of FoLAR’s activism.
Due to its unusual (and, at times, hazardous) nature, recreational enjoyment of the LA River has its limitations. Only two portions of the river, Elysian Valley and the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area, are fit for kayaking and non-motorized boating. With frequently dangerous levels of E.coli bacteria in the waters, swimming in the river is expressly forbidden. However, fishing is perfectly acceptable with a California-issued fishing license. You can even eat the fish you catch*, though there’s no promise you’ll be able to keep it down.
(*Having volunteered with FoLAR for river cleanups in the past, I can confirm picking up discarded items that, even with thick rubber gloves, made me think twice. A colossal pair of women’s underwear, long devoid of elasticity, that I gingerly plucked from the riverside to toss into my garbage bag is forever tattooed in my mind. Needless to say, I wouldn’t eat anything caught in the LA River for any sum of money.)
The New Master Plan
In 2022, Los Angeles County made an ambitious update to its original 1996 master plan for the LA River. This is summarized in 9 distinct goals, summarized below:
Goal 1: Reduce Flood Risks
- Maintain and expand flood risk capacity
- Minimize flow into the river
- Factor in climate research study results
- Maximize emergency planning, public awareness, and river management
Goal 2: Increase Inclusivity
- Cultivate 51 consecutive miles of open space
- Complete the LA River Trail project
- Offer a variety of amenities
- Incorporate multi-use functionality
- Foster an atmosphere of public safety
Goal 3: Support Ecosystems
- Boost habitat and ecosystem functionality
- Diversify plant species with an emphasis on native species
- Fortify connections between habitats and wildlife
- Emphasize environmentally-friendly practices
Goal 4: Promote Equal Access
- Introduce new access points
- Facilitate safe transportation to the LA River
Goal 5: Foster Arts and Culture
- Build a 51-mile arts-and-culture corridor
- Consult artists and cultural groups throughout the design process
Goal 6: Bolster Housing Economy
- Consult the Affordable Housing Coordinating Committee throughout the master plan’s development
- Design mapping and assessment tools
- Expand affordable housing opportunities
- Generate funding for affordable housing initiatives
- Improve outreach efforts to unhoused individuals
Goal 7: Encourage Engagement and Education
- Establish learning centers suitable for all ages
- Develop educational materials incorporating the cultures of Indigenous peoples
- Highlight the relevance of the LA River as an economic asset to local communities
Goal 8: Enhance Water Supply
- Divert and treat stormwater and dry weather flows before they meet the river
- Promote water use efficiency
- Improve operations, maintenance, and measures
Goal 9: Improve Water Quality
- Create water quality projects
- Collaborate with watershed management groups
- Increase public awareness
- Boost facility operations and maintenance
While the world may recognize the LA River as that deserted concrete freeway where all their favorite car chases take place, it’s more than that for the people of Los Angeles. Sometimes it’s less than that too. LA’s relationship with its river is complex, but overall, it’s one worth developing. Because beneath the slabs of concrete runs a historic waterway that was here before any of us. And it will likely be here long after the glimmer of its silver screen accomplishments has been buried beneath a thick green patina.
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