Featured Author: We are happy to announce that Jenny Price, published author, environmental writer, and advocate, will be writing the feature article in our Symbiosis newsletters. To learn more about Jenny, please visit her page on the LA Observed: www.laobserved.com/writers/jennyprice.php


Yes, L.A. has a River! By Jenny Price


And everyone seems to be talking about it, and to know that something big is happening there. For decades, it was best known for the drag race in Grease, the cyborg-vs.-Schwarzenegger chase in Terminator 2, and a great many more Hollywood scenes of menace and mayhem. Still, if you asked people about it, they’d ask, “L.A. has a river?” It’s been America’s famous forgotten river. Today, however, the abundant ongoing projects to revitalize the concrete river all add up to one of the biggest and most ambitious efforts to create a greener, cleaner, and all-round more sustainable future for Los Angeles.


What Is Happening?


The story of the river’s future has to begin with its past, and with this fact: the L.A. River is the reason that L.A. exists. It’s one of the most reliable water sources in Southern California, and Native American communities lived on its banks for thousands of years. In 1781, the pobladores (the original 44 settlers) founded L.A. on the river, near the Arroyo Seco confluence. They described it as a gorgeous spot, with the best above-ground year-round water supply in the L.A. basin.


The L.A. area is a land of rivers and streams—one of the city’s basic natural facts, which we too often forget. The L.A. River drains big chunks of the area’s three major mountain ranges. It runs 51 miles through the heart of L.A. County, and is the central artery of L.A.’s major watershed. The growing town relied on the river (and the groundwater beneath) as its sole water source for over 130 years. In 1913, however, the city sent Owens Valley water flowing through the first aqueduct, and declared its preference for imported water.


The trees create natural habitat along the L.A. River, providing a resting spot for Cormorants.


Summer 2011 3


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