Los Angeles River

, name_etymology =

, image = File:Los Angeles River from Fletcher Drive Bridge 2019.jpg
, image_caption = L.A. River from Fletcher Drive Bridge
, image_size = 300
, map = LARmap.jpg
, map_size = 300
, map_caption = Map of the Los Angeles River watershed
, pushpin_map =
, pushpin_map_size =
, pushpin_map_caption=

, subdivision_type1 = Country
, subdivision_name1 = United States
, subdivision_type2 = State
, subdivision_name2 = California
, subdivision_type3 =
, subdivision_name3 =
, subdivision_type4 =
, subdivision_name4 =
, subdivision_type5 = Cities
, subdivision_name5 = Burbank, Glendale, Los Angeles, Downey, Compton, Long Beach

, length = U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
, accessed 2011-05-07
, width_min =
, width_avg =
, width_max =
, depth_min =
, depth_avg =
, depth_max =
, discharge1_location= Long Beach
, discharge1_min =
, discharge1_avg =
, discharge1_max =

, source1 = Confluence of Bell Creek and Arroyo Calabasas
, source1_location = Canoga Park, San Fernando Valley
, source1_coordinates=
, source1_elevation =
, mouth = Pacific Ocean
, mouth_location = Los Angeles Harbor, Long Beach
, mouth_coordinates =
, mouth_elevation =
, progression =
, river_system =
, basin_size =
, tributaries_left = Bell Creek, Browns Canyon Wash, Aliso Creek, Tujunga Wash, Verdugo Wash, Arroyo Seco, Rio Hondo
, tributaries_right = Arroyo Calabasas, Compton Creek
, custom_label =
, custom_data =
, extra =

The Los Angeles River ( es, Río de Los Ángeles), historically known as the Porciúncula River (''Río Porciúncula''), is a major river in Los Angeles County, California. Its headwaters are in the Simi Hills and Santa Susana Mountains, and it flows nearly from Canoga Park through the San Fernando Valley, Downtown Los Angeles, and the Gateway Cities to its mouth in Long Beach, where it flows into San Pedro Bay. While the river was once free-flowing and frequently flooding, forming alluvial flood plains along its banks, it is currently notable for flowing through a concrete channel on a fixed course, which was built after a series of devastating floods in the early 20th century.

Before the opening of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the river was the primary source of fresh water for the city. Although the Los Angeles region still receives some water from the river and other local sources, most of the water supply flows from several aqueducts serving the area. The Los Angeles River is heavily polluted from agricultural and urban runoff.

Fed primarily by rainwater and snowmelt (in winter and spring), the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys (in summer and fall), and urban discharge, it is one of the few low-elevation perennial rivers in Southern California. Some water usually reaches the ocean, even in the driest summers; although there are historical accounts of the river running dry, there has been constant flow of the river every month since recording of stream flow began in 1929. This is helped by the concrete channel, which limits absorption of water into the earth. Flow, while generally low in volume, can be extremely brisk even in summer.

Course

The Los Angeles River's official beginning is at the confluence of two channelized streams – Bell Creek and Arroyo Calabasas – in the Canoga Park section of the city of Los Angeles, just east of California State Route 27, at (the east side of Canoga Park High School). Bell Creek flows east from the Simi Hills, and Arroyo Calabasas flows north from the Santa Monica Mountains. From there the river flows east through a concrete flood control channel and very soon receives Browns Canyon Wash, which flows south from the Santa Susana Mountains. The river then bends slightly south and receives Aliso Canyon Wash, whose watershed adjoins that of Browns Canyon. The river then flows through the district of Winnetka, then Reseda and enters the Sepulveda Basin, a flood-control reservoir formed by the Sepulveda Dam.

As the river proceeds into the usually-dry reservoir, it spills out into a channel that is similar to its historical, non-channeled form. It crosses under Balboa Boulevard and then receives Bull Creek. The river then passes through the outlet works of Sepulveda Dam, from the mouth. It flows again into a concrete channel and crosses under Interstate 405 as it passes through Van Nuys, Sherman Oaks, and Studio City, still flowing east. Paralleling U.S. Highway 101 briefly, it then veers southeast, away from the highway, and receives from the left the Tujunga Wash, one of its largest tributaries, which flows southwest and south from the Angeles National Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains. The river then rounds a bend to the northeast, now in a concrete box culvert, and crosses under State Route 170 and Highway 101, and receives Burbank Western Channel on the left bank, from the mouth.

The river then begins to parallel California State Route 134 as it winds through North Hollywood and the city of Burbank. It then crosses under Interstate 5 and makes a sharp bend to the south-southeast as it curves around Griffith Park. It receives from the left Verdugo Wash, which drains much of La Cañada Flintridge and Glendale as it flows from the San Gabriel Mountains south through a water gap in the Verdugo Mountains, and crosses under State Route 134. Here, the river begins to flow over a natural riverbed, but enters another concrete section soon after. Paralleling Interstate 5 for the next few miles, the river runs by the eastern side of Griffith Park and the Harding-Wilson Golf Course. It passes Silver Lake Reservoir, which is to the right, and crosses under California State Route 2, from the mouth.

Making two meanders as it flows in a southeasterly direction, the river parallels the interstate and Riverside Drive then crosses under the interstate and California State Route 110 as it flows east of Elysian Park. It then receives the Arroyo Seco, another major tributary, from the left. The river flows south past the Mission Junction, a large railroad yard on the left. It enters a wider concrete channel with sloped sides, and crosses under Cesar Chavez Avenue, Highway 101, and Interstate 10 as it passes east of downtown Los Angeles, flowing past the East Los Angeles Interchange for Highway 101, California State Route 60, and Interstates 5 and 10 on the left. It then makes a gradual turn east and then turns southeast, flowing a few miles before it begins to parallel Interstate 710 near Maywood, Bell, Cudahy, and Commerce, from the mouth.

Paralleling Interstate 710 south-southwest, the river then crosses under former California State Route 42 and the interstate as it receives the Rio Hondo from the left, from the mouth. The Rio Hondo ("deep river") now serves as a distributary for the San Gabriel River to the east via the Whittier Narrows Reservoir. The river then crosses under I-105 and shifts slightly southwest, then flows east of Compton and west of Bellflower. After crossing under California State Route 91, it receives Compton Creek from the right, from the mouth. After crossing under Interstate 405 for the second time, from the mouth, it draws close to the Dominguez Channel to the west and flows due south to its outlet in Long Beach, under Interstate 710, past the RMS ''Queen Mary'', and into the Port of Long Beach.

History

Until the opening of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, the Los Angeles River was the main water source for the Los Angeles Basin. The river ran dry during the summers and flooded during winter months. Indigenous communities adapted to the climate surrounding the river, maximizing agricultural yields by rerouting the natural flow of the river and constructing water wheels along the river.

The river provided water and food to the Tongva people, hunters and gatherers who lived primarily off fish, small mammals, and the acorns from the abundant oak trees along the river's path. There were at least 45 Tongva villages near the Los Angeles River, concentrated in the San Fernando Valley and the Elysian Valley, in what is present-day Glendale. After the Spanish established Mission San Gabriel in 1771, they referred to the Tongva living in that mission's vicinity as Gabrieleño.

Alta California

In 1769, members of the Portolá expedition to explore Alta California were the first Europeans to see the river. On August 15, the party camped near the river, somewhere along the stretch just to the north of the Interstate 10 crossing near downtown Los Angeles. Fray Juan Crespi, one of two Franciscan missionaries traveling with Portolá, named it ''el río de Nuestra Señora La Reina de Los Ángeles de Porciúncula''. Crespi chose that name, because August 15 is the date of the yearly Catholic feast day in honor of the Virgin Mary's Assumption into Heaven and assuming the role as Queen of the Angels, to which the small Portiuncula chapel, where the Franciscan Order began in Assisi, Italy, is dedicated. The river was thereafter referred to as the "Porciuncula River". In later years, the "Los Angeles" part of Crespi's lengthy name won out.

Possession by the United States

Control of California, along with the rest of the northern part of the republic of Mexico, was wrested by the United States in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). California became a state in 1850, and the Los Angeles area began to boom the following year. Generations of settlers and city managers drained, rerouted, polluted and overpopulated the river and its watershed.

The river was originally an alluvial river that ran freely across a flood plain that is now occupied by Los Angeles, Long Beach, and other townships in Southern California. Its path was unstable and unpredictable, and the mouth of the river moved frequently from one place to another between Long Beach and Ballona Creek. Floods damaged extensive amounts of farmland, destroying houses and killing people and livestock. Severe flooding has encouraged those living near the river to adapt and construct further away from the river in order to prevent loss from flooding. In the early 19th century, the river turned southwest after leaving the Glendale Narrows, where it joined Ballona Creek and discharged into Santa Monica Bay in present Marina del Rey. However, this account is challenged by Col. J. J. Warner, in his ''Historical Sketch of Los Angeles County'':

"...until 1825 it was seldom, if in any year, that the river discharged even during the rainy season its waters into the sea. Instead of having a river way to the sea, the waters spread over the country, filling the depressions in the surface and forming lakes, ponds and marshes. The river water, if any, that reached the ocean drained off from the land at so many places, and in such small volumes, that no channel existed until the flood of 1825, which, by cutting a river way to tide water, drained the marsh land and caused the forests to disappear."

The river was long joined by the San Gabriel River in present-day Long Beach, but in the Great Flood of 1862, the San Gabriel carved out a new course to the east, and has discharged into Alamitos Bay ever since. The arrival of the railroad accelerated the advancement in urbanization, as various government bodies subdued the river by reducing its flow. Until the 1900's the river was known to supply enough water to incorporate a system of wells to be built in order to supply freshwater to the city.

20th Century

The Los Angeles Aqueduct was opened in 1913 The heavy flow of the Los Angeles River presented many issues, as it began to get exploited as a sewer system. Along with these uses, populations surrounding the river often tossed feces and waste into the river, along with dead dogs and horses (occasional human dead), in hopes that they would get washed down stream and released to the open ocean waters.

War on Water Rights

In the early 1920s, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power) (led by the Los Angeles Board of Water and Power Commissioners) negotiated and gradually purchased almost all of Owens Valley farms and their corresponding water rights. The farmers with the most water banded together to form the Owens Valley Irrigation District in order to try to secure a better deal. When the Owens Valley Irrigation District did not succeed, they created three smaller groups in order to try to bargain. These groups were turbulent in their efforts; resorting to violence, trying to get the attention of state and national press, and calling for politician interference to support their demands for more compensation. This conflict was so highly disputed that the national press referred to it as "California's Little Civil War."

The St. Francis Dam was built starting in 1924 (and through 1926), leading to the creation of a large reservoir in San Francisquito Canyon, and provided water for Los Angeles. However, the dam collapsed in 1928. Following the collapse of the dam, there was little appetite for large dams near the homes of Los Angeles' residents.

The 1930s in particular saw rapid urban development in areas prone to river flooding. Despite smaller mitigation efforts than the St. Francis Dam, unpredictable and devastating floods continued to plague it well into the 1930s, including:

* Crescenta Valley flood (1933 and 1934) - a flood on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day devastated the communities of La Crescenta, Montrose, La Cañada, and Tujunga.
* Los Angeles Flood of 1938 - This flood precipitated the recall of then-mayor of Los Angeles Frank L. Shaw), leading to calls for flood control measures.

The incidents revolving around the Los Angeles River resulted in the Army Corps of Engineers blocking its path through a cement wall. The Army Corps of Engineers duly began an ambitious project of completely encasing the river's bed and banks in concrete, with only a trickle of water usually flowing down its middle. The only portions of the river that are not completely paved over are in the flood-control basin behind the Sepulveda Dam near Van Nuys; an 11-mile (17.7-km) stretch east of Griffith Park known as the Glendale Narrows; and along its last few miles in Long Beach.

After World War II

The river was dry for nine months of the year as late as the 1950s. According to an August 2013 article in the ''Los Angeles Times'', the water in the river today is largely "industrial and residential discharge," which originates from the "two giant pipes that collect the sewage from the homes of 800,000 San Fernando Valley residents" that lead to the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant, "before crashing over a man-made waterfall into Lake Balboa. That body of water, along with two smaller ones, puts 23 million gallons of water a day into the river at Sepulveda Basin."

Despite the heavy flood flows of the river during winter months, the LA river has become a refuge for marginalized communities, such as migrant, homeless, and diverse sociocultural communities. For a time, the river itself was a geographical divide between East L.A., which is largely Latino, and predominantly white, wealthy West L.A. These minority groups established themselves along the banks of the river, using fish for food. A distinguished link between the LA river and marginalization can be seen through time as a 1909 New York Times article describes these communities as poor transient communities that consume diseased fish to sustain themselves. The years following the Mexican-American war exemplify these efforts, as articles depict African-American children fishing in the river alongside a "hobo" camp and junkyard.

Remediation efforts in order to tame the river along with the construction of highways in the 1950s and 1960s displaced hundreds of thousands of individuals. These implications lead to poor air quality and increased exposure to diseases that inhibit good health.

In 1983, tensions were at an all time high between Los Angeles county and the citizens of Owens Valley. During this time, the ground water and runoff from Owens Valley comprised eight and sixty-five percent, respectively, of Los Angeles' water supply. The large consumption of water from Owens Valley led to damaging drying of the valley's ecosystem. The residents of Owens Valley tried to uprise against L.A. county, but to no avail.

Points of interest

Sepulveda Basin is a flood-control basin to manage floodwater runoff. Except for infrequent but dramatic flood episodes, this dry-land flood control basin, most of which is leased from the Corps by the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, plays host to diverse uses today including athletic fields, agriculture, golf courses, a fishing lake, parklands, a sewage treatment facility, and a wildlife reserve.

The Los Angeles River bicycle path runs through the Glendale Narrows and is accessible to the public at its north end at Riverside Drive, at Los Feliz Boulevard, and at its south end at Glendale Boulevard, Fletcher Drive and at Egret Park in Elysian Valley. The bike path runs parallel to the 5 freeway for the majority of its length and has mile markers and call boxes for information and safety purposes.

Rio de Los Angeles State Park is north of downtown Los Angeles in the neighborhood of Cypress Park on the east bank of the river. The park includes restored wetlands featuring native plants as well as recreational activities.

The river's southern stretch forms the heart of an industrial corridor, stretching nearly unbroken from Lincoln Heights to Long Beach. In this area, the busy Long Beach Freeway ( I-710) and several high-voltage power lines run within a few hundred feet of the riverbed. Several rail yards are located along the river's banks in this stretch, as well. Just outside the industrial corridor lie some of the most densely populated cities in the state of California, such as the cities of Bell, Bell Gardens, Cudahy, Maywood and South Gate; most of these cities are in the river's flood plain and experienced significant flooding prior to channelization.

River parks

List of parks, trails and bike paths adjacent to the L.A. River and tributaries:

* Glendale Narrows Elysian Valley Bike Path
* North Valleyheart Riverwalk
* Griffith Park
* Arroyo Seco Bike Path and Kenneth Newell Bikeway
* LARIO
* Tujunga Wash Greenway
* Browns Creek Bike Path
* Whittier Narrows Recreation Area
* Rio Hondo Bike Path
* Hahamongna Watershed Park
* Cudahy River Park
* Marsh Park
* Sunnynook River
* Maywood Riverfront Park
* Zev Yaroslavsky L.A. River Greenway Trail
* Los Angeles Riverfront Park and Pathway
* Los Angeles River Center and Gardens

Wildlife

Historically, the native species of fish in the Los Angeles River included rainbow/steelhead trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss''), river shrimp, Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha''), Sacramento pikeminnow (''Ptychocheilus grandis''), Pacific lamprey, three-spined stickleback, and Santa Ana sucker. In 1877 Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria published a book about his 1876 visit to Los Angeles, entitled ''Los Angeles in Südcalifornien. Eine Blume aus dem goldenen Land'' (''Los Angeles in Southern California. A Flower from the Golden Land'') which included a description of the fish in the Los Angeles River: "“the salmon, Quinnat salmon (Salmo quinnat), abundant between November and June; two kinds of trout, the brook trout (Salar iridea); and the salmon trout (Ptychocheilus grandis).” These three species are known today as the Chinook salmon, steelhead/rainbow trout, and Sacramento pikeminnow. The native species of the Los Angeles River were extirpated by the conversion of the natural riverbed into a concrete trapezoidal channel in 1938. The last known native species to be caught in the river was a rainbow trout in 1940 by a local fisherman.

There is an abundance today of non-native fish species in the Los Angeles River which include common carp, largemouth bass, tilapia, green sunfish, Amazon sailfin catfish, bluegill, black bullhead, brown bullhead, channel catfish, fathead minnow, crayfish, and mosquito fish. However, Arroyo chub, which was once thought gone since the channelization has made small appearances throughout parts of the Los Angeles River, Most recent being in the area of Balboa Lake/Anthony C. Beilenson Park in the surrounding channels such as Bull Creek, Woodley Creek and around the creeks and main body of the Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve.

There is also a large variety of bird species in the Los Angeles River which include snowy egret, great egret black-necked stilt, great blue heron, green heron, mallard, cinnamon teal, American coot, Muscovy duck, white pelican, Canada goose, osprey, California high desert mourning dove, black-chinned hummingbird, barn owl, and red tailed hawk. All of these species either nest or live off of the resources of the river.
Before the river's channelization the river supported a variety of mammals which included the California golden bear (removed 1897), grey wolf (removed 1890s), coyote, mule deer, and North American beaver.

There is indirect evidence that North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') were native to the river, as the Beñemé ( Mojave) and Jeniguechi ( San Jacinto branch of the Cahuilla

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases