Prototype Issue
La Grande Limpieza
By Karen Apostolina
(page 1 of 1)If you want to see what the LA River could look like, walk across the Fletcher Drive Bridge towards Atwater looking south.
Herons and egrets hang out here in the “Glendale Narrows,” a rare soft-bottom region of the river. Shimmering water gently flows by marshy, riparian habitat. It’s a rare glimpse of nature in our metropolis.
Across the bridge, the scene changes. The cement bank of the channel raises its ugly head. In the 1960’s, The Army Corp of Engineers encased the river in a concrete channel to send water to the ocean as quickly as possible and curb flooding. But this hard casing changed the river forever creating an urban nightmare filled with garbage and lined with graffiti.
Recently, at Friends of the Los Angeles River’s 18th annual “La Gran Limpieza” or “Great Los Angeles River Cleanup,” over 800 students and community members mucked out trash including tires, plastic bags and shopping carts that careen down the channel during storms and catch in the vegetation.
FoLAR wants to restore river habitat for native species and migratory birds. For years, they’ve been promoting the river “as a commodity, not a nuisance.” Parts of the river are seeing an increase in fish recently and this excites diehard angler Carmelo Gaeta, a documentary film producer, from Atwater. Gaeta admits he was first “horrified,” by people subsistence fishing along the river, but decided he couldn’t let the trash stop him from seeing what he could catch. So far it’s been mostly carp. “ We should start with removing the concrete bottom,” Gaeta said. “Then the habitat will take care of itself.”
The movement to create an “emerald necklace” of parks along the 32-mile stretch from Canoga Park to Boyle Heights is now tangible; most noticeably Taylor Yard in Cypress Park and the Los Angeles State Historic Park in Chinatown. The Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan released in April provides a vision for the next 20-50 years that, if realized, could drastically change the river.
Although green-space is good, some residents in river-adjacent communities like Elysian Park, Glassell Park and Atwater would like the plan to include more soccer and baseball fields. A coalition of Latino groups including the Anahuak Youth Sports Association and Mujeres de la Tierra, in a letter to the city said, “Only two parks are explicitly described as active recreation facilities, the Sepulveda Basin Sports Complex… and the East Side Soccer Fields Complex.” That’s out of 239 proposed river projects. With issues of obesity and gang violence, they make a strong argument for kids in southeast communities who need a place to play.
Shelly Billik, VP of Environmental Initiatives for Warner Brothers, who brought 35 people to the river cleanup, said organized sports aren’t the answer. “Our children don’t have enough contact with nature because of video games. We need to re-teach them to play in natural places.”
Ten-year-old Erin Telias from Los Feliz is more concerned about people messing with whatever’s built. “Whenever I ride around, I see graffiti,” he said. When one of his buddies points out that sometimes graffiti is art, Telias shakes his head. “ If it’s on someone else’s property, that’s not art. That’s vandalism.”
Chicano artist Leo Limon knows something about river art. He’s had a permit from the Department of public works to paint “river-cat” faces on storm drain covers for the past 32 years. Limon says he supports anything to do with “…freedom of expression,” and calls graffiti, “…a youthful social phenomenon of this time.” He said using taxpayer money to break up the cement along the river banks will lead to land grabs through eminent domain and the building of “ a new ‘Disney’ river waterway.”
Back atop the concrete channel Miguel Luna, from the LA River Master Plan team, has set up tables with blocks, Lego’s, miniature trees and stuff and is encouraging kids to build what they’d like to see along the river. Two boys are hard at work creating an Army/Air-Force-airport in Chinatown.
Luna says the River master plan is a “vision,” – meaning nothing is funded yet – and that public input is considered. “Out of 35 individual community plans throughout LA, there are 12 that are river adjacent,” he said. “Part of the process will be to assess each plan separately, and when the community is not pleased…it (the plan) changes!”
Luna said the plan could de-fragment communities by connecting them along a 32-mile greenway, create a uniform code for new businesses and improve water quality. He said “though we may not see all the changes in our lifetime, it will happen within someone’s lifetime.”
For more information visit: www.lariverrmp.org There is also a link to a calendar that will list the community-planning meetings slated to begin in July. www.lariver.org
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