Even though it was late October, I couldn’t help but feel jealous as I watched my best friend Jenny swim into the calm, clear water of the American River near downtown Sacramento.
I was in town to cheer Jenny on as she competed in a long-distance triathlon. Although the race was such a fun experience, that moment on that tree-lined river bank stuck with me. In my home state of Oklahoma, I regularly swam in lakes and kayaked and rafted in rivers. But freshwater recreational opportunities were harder to come by once I moved to L.A.
This all led me to wonder: Will it ever be safe to swim in the Los Angeles River?
A large white bird stands along the L.A. River in the Glendale Narrows area of the waterway near Elysian Valley a.k.a. Frogtown.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
This felt like an especially relevant time to discuss this question, as Friends of the L.A. River will host its annual (free!) RiverFest this Sunday from 2:30 to 7:30 p.m. at L.A. State Historic Park in Chinatown. This year also marks the organization’s 40th birthday.
After reading this edition of The Wild, our weekly outdoors newsletter, I hope you feel as fired up as I do about how we can work toward a day when the answer to my question is “Yes!” But we aren’t there yet. Let’s explore why.
The L.A. River is a 51-mile waterway that flows from the confluence of Bell Creek and Arroyo Calabasas in Canoga Park, ending in Long Beach as it flows into San Pedro Bay near the Queen Mary.
Candice Dickens-Russell, chief executive at Friends of the L.A. River, told me that her organization’s founder spent decades trying to persuade Angelenos to understand that our local watercourse was not a manmade concrete flood channel but actually a river that has been surrounded by concrete.
“I’m feeling like we’re at a tipping point for people to understand that the L.A. River is really a river, which is wonderful because our founder spent his entire life trying to get people to understand that,” she said.
Channelization of the L.A. River started in the mid-1930s after a number of devastating floods and was completed in 1960.
In an early 1936 article, Times real estate editor Charles C. Cohan seemingly praised the channelizing of a nine-mile stretch of the river from Fletcher Drive westerly to Lankershim Boulevard, calling it “one of the greatest stream-channel transformations ever undertaken in the West.”
Ducks hang out in the Glendale Narrows area of the L.A. River.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
Cohan went on to write: “Men and machinery directed by the United States Army engineers are changing that vitally important length of the river from an irresponsible water course into a far larger, thoroughly conditioned channel that will be a vitally important flood protection while at the time conforming to the well-ordered, picturesque region through which it passes.”
It didn’t have to be this way.
Before the devastating flooding of 1938, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce commissioned two major landscape architecture firms in 1927 to develop a report analyzing how the region could develop more parkland in an already park-poor city.
“The report imagined an ‘emerald necklace,’ an urban paradise of parks and rivers and open spaces and public beaches encircling L.A. County, and it also laid out the practical, political and financial mechanisms to make it happen,” Times columnist Patt Morrison wrote in May.
The Glendale Narrows area of the L.A. River.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
The report’s authors wrote about how flood-prone land would make for better park space than business and residential developments, as anything built in these areas would inevitably be damaged during floods. The parks could also serve as their own kind of protection.
“Parkways along the river were intended to reduce the need for structural flood protection features,” according to a 2001 state report.
For political and financial reasons explored in the book “Eden by Design,” that plan was shelved and long forgotten after it was published in 1930. Around 1938, local officials worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to channelize the L.A. River, literally paving the way for what we experience today and what we’ve seen on film in everything from “Grease” to “Drive.”
In recent years, local groups have started advocating for a “rewilding” of the L.A. River, removing some level of concrete and instead using our natural environment and watershed as a means of flood control.
A large bird that appears to be a type of heron flies over the L.A. River.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
“If we develop and retrofit land to capture water, we can reduce the intensity of flood waters and peel back concrete to enable all of the essential functions healthy rivers and soil provide,” according to the local nonprofit the River Project.
This would certainly also change the swimming experience to a much more natural opportunity, rather than feeling like you’re floating about in a large, flowing swimming pool.
The future of the river becoming swimmable, though, depends in large part on how much water is left for recreation, a complicated equation for officials to develop in a region constantly grappling with how to rely less on imported water.
A person rests in the shade of trees along the L.A. River.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
Presently, the L.A. River is fed, in part, by rain and snowmelt in the wet months.
In the dry months, its main water source is three water reclamation plants that release tertiary treated water into the river. “These plants take all the wastewater from apartment buildings, houses and commercial operations and cleans it. Some of that water is used for irrigation at city parks and golf courses. Some feeds Lake Balboa,” my former Times colleague Deborah Netburn wrote in 2018. “But most of it — more than 30 million gallons each day — ends up in the river.”
Dickens-Russell of Friends of the L.A. River said for the last three years, she has sat alongside leaders from government agencies, local nonprofits and more to discern, among other things, just how much water our river needs. (For my fellow nerds who want to Google their hearts out, the full name of this effort is the Los Angeles River California Environmental Flows Framework Project, or CEFF.)
The Glendale Narrows is one of three soft-bottomed areas of the L.A. River.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
For example, the L.A. River has three soft-bottomed areas where plant and animal life thrives. If the river were starved of reclaimed water in the dry months, what would happen to those ecosystems?
“No one is saying the river doesn’t need water — there is no debate about whether there should be water in the river — the debate is … how much water does the river need?” Dickens-Russell said. “We’re trying to establish that baseline.”
The CEFF group will meet for the last time in less than two weeks, and afterward, its members will send their findings to the state water board, which oversees any changes to river flow in California, she said.
The Glendale Narrows area of the L.A. River.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
Even as officials discern the amount of the water the river needs for its multitude of uses, the L.A. River also has to be clean enough to swim in.
And humans and our behaviors are one of the biggest reasons our river water becomes polluted.
When it rains in cities, that water runs off buildings, driveways and roads, picking up fertilizer from our yards and farmlands, motor oil spilled on our streets and highways, pesticides sprayed on our plants, dirt and bacteria. This untreated runoff makes its way through storm drains and ditches into our local streams and rivers and eventually, the ocean.
Additionally, for years, runoff from industrial sites along the river have added to the problem, an effort that’s been highlighted as climate justice activists work to develop the former Taylor Yard, a railroad maintenance yard, into a park.
This is all part of a much larger problem beyond the banks of the L.A. River. “Polluted runoff is one of the greatest threats to clean water in the U.S.,” according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
The river is especially gnarly after its so-called “first flush,” when L.A. experiences its first big rain after a lengthy dry spell, and everything that’s built up on our roadways flows into the river.
A sunflower-like plant resembling California brittlebush grows among invasive plants in the L.A. River.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
Addressing this pollution to the extent that would make the L.A. River swimmable is not an impossible task, but it’s one that would require significant investment in our local infrastructure — like implementing creative solutions to keep out or remove trash from the river. That’s where public opinion and advocacy come into play, Dickens-Russell said.
Cities across the world like Portland and Copenhagen have successfully transformed their urban rivers into green spaces that offer reprieve from intense and increasingly frequent heat waves in our climate-changed world. Unlike Paris, which made a $1.5-billion investment in cleaning the Seine, our river won’t be ready — unless something substantial changes — for the 2028 Olympics.
The possibility of swimming in the L.A. River, though, is far from a new idea.
“Towards a swimmable, fishable, boatable river,” read the first page of the Friends of the L.A. River’s first “State of the Los Angeles River” report, published in 2005.
Lino Jubilado using a tenkara-style fly fishing rod in the L.A. River in Long Beach.
(Jerry Hsu / For The Times)
Swimming in our river isn’t going to happen with just “one good project,” but instead a mix of people changing their behaviors and also pushing for change, Dickens-Russell said.
“Looking at your question, ‘When will we be able to swim in the L.A. River?’” Dickens-Russell said, “I don’t know that that’s the question. I think the question is what we’re willing to invest to make that possible. A swimmable river is an achievable goal, but it’s going to require sustained investment in water quality and things like habitat restoration and safe and equitable public access. Every project that reduces pollution and restores natural function brings us a little bit closer to that. And yeah, we should be planning for a future where Angelenos can safely swim in the L.A. River. Why not?”
While digging through The Times’ archives for this story, I found a new visual of a river to inspire me: Three boys swimming in the L.A. River in 1936.
“Viewing the dusty Los Angeles River bed last week no one would have thought of swimming in connection with it,” the caption read. “But yesterday Bob Henderson, Stanley Hayden and Archer Bolton frolicked in the flood waters near Bell, thanks to the week-end rain.”
Ninety years later, I’m dreaming of one day doing the same. How long will that take exactly? It’s up to all of us to find out.
3 things to do
Hikers learn about their local ecosystem on a previous hike with environmental educator Jason Wise and others.
(Jason Wise)
1. Celebrate the full spectrum of the animal kingdom in L.A.
Environmental educator Jason Wise and biological anthropologist Natalia Reagan will host a sunset queer ecology walk from 6 to 8 p.m. Aug. 13 in Griffith Park. The co-hosts will dive deep into the world of animal homosexuality, bisexuality, asexuality, polyamory and more. Suggested donation of $30. Register at eventbrite.com.
2. Churn up hills in L.A.
Labyrinth, a trail run club, will host Dirt & Dessert from 7:30 to 10 a.m. Saturday in Griffith Park. Participants will tackle a 5K trail run while churning their own ice cream. Runners should bring their own bag, vest or backpack to hold ice cream-making materials, which will be included in the $14 event fee. Register at eventbrite.com.
3. Nurture native habitat in Northeast L.A.
We Explore Earth needs volunteers from 8 to 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Ascot Hills Park to beautify the park’s hillsides and trails. Participants will remove invasive species and support native habitat recovery. Register at eventbrite.com.
The must-read
Marc Papas cycles past graffiti next to the L.A. River.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
Cyclist Marc Papas is on a mission to bike every public street in L.A., an estimated 7,516.07 miles. Papas moved to L.A. in late 2020 after completing his PhD at Georgia Tech, freelance journalist Oren Peleg wrote for The Times. Papas was initially scared to ride his bike around L.A., fearful of all he’d been told about our city’s car-filled and dangerous streets. Then he found himself asking: “With perfect weather year-round, and a mostly flat topography, why wasn’t everyone in L.A. riding bikes?” His passion evolved into “The Project,” of which he’s already ridden over 78% (about 5,840 miles) of our city’s streets.
Who else feels inspired to jump on their bike?
Happy adventuring,
P.S.
After my friend Maria told me she’d signed up for $10 kayaking classes after learning about them from my Instagram Stories, it made me realize that there were likely many others who’d like to know that information. L.A. County Parks and Recreation is hosting stand-up paddleboard and kayaking classes, and they’re only $10 per session. Instructors will teach participants about proper paddling technique, balance and coordination, and water safety. The classes will be offered at Santa Fe Dam, Bonelli Regional Park and Castaic Lake. August classes have sold out at Santa Fe Dam and Bonelli, but several spots remain at Castaic Lake, which sits north of L.A. and offers amazing views of the San Gabriel Mountains. Sign up by searching “kayak” or “stand” on the county’s activity registration website. A great way to have fun and stay cool this summer!
For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.
