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Linear Park to Transform Los Angeles River from a Wasteland

posted by takyon on Tuesday April 28 2015, @12:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the one-man's-wasteland dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

The benighted Los Angeles River, long an eyesore of trash and water treatment plant outflow, is set to be landscaped as a linear park à la the High Line Park in New York.

Today the river is slated for an overhaul, backed by officials including LA mayor Eric Garcetti and even President Obama. Last spring the Corps agreed to remove concrete along 11 miles of the river. In its place: sloping green terraces and wetlands, cafés, and bike paths. (The city is buying former industrial sites for use as parkland.)

But the river will still be a kind of mirage, a trick of human engineering. The floodplain is a major US city. Almost half the flow during the dry season comes from treatment plants. Much of the rest is urban slobber, runoff from Angelenos washing cars or watering lawns. "It's hard to understand how artificial the river really is," says Lewis MacAdams, godfather of the movement and cofounder of Friends of the Los Angeles River.

This isn't a restoration project. Transforming the river is a grand exercise in modern ecosystem manipulation. What Los Angeles is building is more like a monument to rivers—artificial, in perfect LA style, but constructed on ecological principles. A once-hostile environment will be terraformed into a hub of human activity. "This is the beginning of a golden time for the LA River," MacAdams says. "You can almost taste it." Then he reconsiders. "Well, that's not really the word you'd want to use."

The High Line Park in Manhattan has revitalized the West Side, from the Meat Packing District to Hell's Kitchen. New restaurants, businesses, office buildings, and residential high rises have sprung up along its length, and walking along it is lovely, with excellent views of the Hudson River and the Manhattan skyline. Perhaps this park can do the same for Los Angeles.

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:12PM

    by frojack (1554) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:12PM (#176185) Journal

    It could actually help in that tegardSpending lots of money to revitalize the area along a man-made river during a terrible drought. Sounds like a winning plan to me.

    It actually makes sense to to the construction in drought times, because you have less run-off to work around. Easier to manage.

    But also, creating terraced wetlands will retain some of that water in the area, and use nature to help in the water purification, ground water replenishment. (assuming the new wetlands don't have concrete bottoms).
    Its mentioned that sewage outfall is one of the principal sources of water in dry times, and wetlands are one of the cheapest ways to get from secondary treatment standards to tertiary standards (drinkable).

    Add some water falls, or spray fountains and you also add significant cooling.

    I agree that they might find they need additional sources of water if they want to give the appearance of a reasonable amount of water flowing through the system. Maybe there are more sewage treatment plants that could have their outfall diverted there.

    The tricky bit will be to retain the linear park's ability to handle the huge run-off that still happens with flash storms in the area, While rare, these were the reason it was turned into a concrete river in the first place, and they will tear out any wetlands put in place unless there are some sort of flood gates or diversions to keep storm flow from washing the expensive wetlands to the ocean.

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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday April 28 2015, @09:27PM

    by VLM (445) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @09:27PM (#176263)

    Add some water falls, or spray fountains

    I hope their sewage treatment plants are operating properly. Going into plant bypass mode while spraying sounds gross.

    huge run-off that still happens with flash storms in the area

    Maybe its a civeng expression of the fact that the last century was the wettest on record etc etc and its all downhill from here for CA rainfall. I mean, there is talking about it as a likely long term climatic change, and debating, and study, but when the civeng project starts moving earth and jackhammering concrete, that implies the debate is probably over.

    See you have the wettest century on record, and then it ends, and thats not a drought, that just returning to BAU. Sucks for you if BAU is unsustainable, good luck with that. But its not really a drought and you don't really need to build for 1920's anymore if its never going to rain like that again for at least a couple centuries.

    Doesn't mean it'll never rain again or never flood again, just trying this in 1950 might have washed away the wetland every other year, but now in the new climate its gonna last 20-30 years at a time, which is probably good enough.