Also, last week Rep. Adam Schiff (D.–Burbank) held a press conference to demand a Taylor Yards health assessment from MetroLink. Elysian Valley residents have forced changes to the agency’s maintenance facility, which appears in the lower-right frame, but a health assessment measuring the amount of diesel particulate matter in the air and its effects hasn’t yet occurred.
About 100 volunteers at Steelhead Park today helped clean up the Los Angeles River as part of the Friends of the L.A River's annual event. The goal was to fill up a nearby 40-yard industrial trash bin with all manner of garbage from the river, while not disturbing any wildlife that make the waters their home. FOLAR volunteers could be seen at numerous sites along the river's 51-mile stretch.
As you can see from the photo, that trash included an old tire, as well as bags of plastic refuse.
Brian Talbot and his two young children, Marley and Miles, of South Pasadena, even found a keepsake metate-style pestle for grinding herbs and spices, while they plucked throwaways from the river's green space.
Last week, the Mountain Recreation and Conservation Authority filled up two 40-yarders in preparation for the recreational pilot program that begins Memorial Day. The MCRA is charged with administering the program that will continue until Labor Day.
This brown got fooled by a lot of elk hair caddis on a size 14 hook. (Jim Burns)
Opening Day in the Sierra is almost upon us (April 27), and according to writer Darcy Ellis, it heralds at least a decent season. Ellis penned “Epic season taking shape,” but after reading her piece in the Inyo Register Eastern Sierra Fishing Guide, I’m not sure “epic” is exactly the word the average fisherman would use.
“All of the elements have come together in 2013 for a banner fishing season: plenty of water, even more fish and lots of angling-related action for fishermen and their families,” read the article’s lead sentence.
Ample water is based on an interview with a Dept. of Fish and Wildlife environmental scientist, quoted as saying that “… we’re not anticipating low water this year.” Adequate water is one of the key criteria before the DFW will plant fish.
With the Monrovia fire still smoldering as I write this, it may surprise parched Southern Californians to hear this sort of prognostication. It also surprised the California Dept. of Water Resources.
“The snowpack is at 54 percent of normal, so it’s not looking good,” said Jennifer Lida, an information officer for the department.
The last manual survey of the year, in which DWR surveyors actually go into the mountains instead of relying on electronic sensors, is scheduled in about two weeks on Echo Summit, near Lake Tahoe. This measurement traditionally documents the wetness of any given season. Snowpack normally provides about a third of California’s water as it melts into streams, reservoirs and aquifers. The short-term good news is that “most key storage reservoirs are above or near historic levels,” according to the department.
Given this scenario, I’d get my fishing in early. Last year in the Golden Trout Wilderness, one favorite creek had turned into runs of unconnected water by August.
Still it looks like there will be lots of trout in the middle Sierra, the L.A. mecca for fly fishing. According to Ellis’s article, DFW plans to plant just shy of 1 million pounds of trout this season. You can check the planting schedule here.
Finally, there certainly will be family events during the summer. One that’s new is Trout Fest on June 29 at the Hot Creek Hatchery outside Mammoth. The flier promises kids going to the event that they will be able to “catch a fish, feed a fish, taste a fish, touch a fish.”
“Mad as a March hare,” that’s how the old saying goes.
College basketball fanatics anticipate March Madness; Catholics, the beginning of Lent and, for everyone, the last big-gulp gasp of Mardi Gras: “Laissez les bons temps rouler.”
Crafty fly tyers may litter their vises with March Browns to celebrate the beginning of spring.
Smaller males surround a larger female carp on their way up the Los Angeles River. (Derek Bourassa).
And for those of us plying urban waters, it’s time for the semi-annual parade of the carp.
“I think they end up in Balboa Lake. I’ve spotted some huge fish in there,” guide David Wratchford told me yesterday at the Fisherman’s Spot. That would be miles, and miles, and miles upstream from where they begin the migration, probably in the Glendale Narrows.
Earlier in the week, he’d left me a voicemail — with some urgency — that the spawn was on.
My question: why now?
Turning to the bible of carp fishing, “Carp on the Fly” by Barry Reynolds and friends, I found the following water chart:
Water Temperature Remarks
39 degrees Carp begin active feeding.
41 degrees Carp begin pre-spawn move to shallows.
61 degrees Sustained temp lethal to carp eggs.
63 degrees Probable lower limit for spawning.
66 degrees Optimal temp for carp.
72 degrees Metabolism increases rapidly.
75 degrees Probable upper limit for spawning.
79 degrees Sustained temps lethal to carp eggs.
90 degrees Metabolism at a high rate.
97-106 degrees Lethal temp limit for carp.
So, once Mother Nature’s spring water thermometer hits the correct temperature, the carp are off and running. And do they ever run, up into the shallows, and the concrete steps that dot the semi-natural surface of Glendale Narrows and beyond.
If the March hare’s madness springs from its wacky mating behaviors — including jumping into the air for no apparent reason — the same holds true for carp.
“I saw sea gulls attacking a whole group of them. The fish were almost completely out of the water. I don’t know. It looked like they were trying to pluck out their eyes,” said one old timer I met yesterday.
Another younger guy, dressed in surgeon’s scrubs, told me he thought he’d seen a rock on one of the concrete flats. That rock, of course, turned out to be a monster carp.
“Its back was completely dry,” he said, and added that he couldn’t resist picking it up, then setting it back down in the water. I met him and his two friends with poles in hand, hoping to find more spawning carp.
What does this mean for you? Get fishing before the weather turns. Take advantage of this fine spring weekend. Heck, you might even exchange your normal Glo-Bug for a Mad March Hare’s Ear.
Lighting struck physicist Richard Muller, converting him from skeptic to believer about the human causes of global warming. (Jim Burns)
Activist physicist Richard Muller spoke at Occidental College today, explaining to a mostly student audience exactly why he became a “converted skeptic” about the human causes of global warming. In 2011, Muller testified to the U.S. House Science, Space and Technology Committee confirming an overall global warming trend, for which he later said: “Humans are almost entirely the cause.” But he also explained that his healthy initial skepticism came from reading untenable conclusions based on inadequate research.
His talk was both amusing and frightening. He repeatedly took former Vice President Al Gore to task, and reminded the audience of the little-known fact that a British judge would allow Gore to distribute his Oscar-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” free to school children only if he included a list of nine errors, including that Greenland would melt, causing a massive ocean rise. Gore declined. He also reprimanded the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for publishing in its fourth assessment report that the Himalayas would melt by 2030, which was not based on any science.
Muller blamed research “cherry picking,” as well as the politicizing of research contents as the culprits, and reminded the students to “remain objective.” He cited media reports as widely off the mark when it comes to global warming, saying that his own data show that there are no more hurricanes or tornadoes today than there were at the beginning of the century.
“This is something you all need to master,” he said.” How do you go about looking at a subject in a purely objective way? I would say that the thing that characterizes our civilization more than anything else was the discovery of objectivity. Remember that word and think about it.”
The professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and Faculty Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory as well as the founder of Berkeley Earth is also the best-selling author of “Energy for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines” (2012).
On the frightening side were graphs showing rapidly increasing carbon emissions from the developing world, notably China and India. Muller, who drives a Prius, said that it did no good in solving global warming because the average citizens in those countries can’t afford to buy one. Rather, Americans should embrace affordable examples. His dual saviors were solar energy and natural gas.
Muller endorsed controversial fracking — coaxing natural gas and oil out of rocks through horizontal drilling — as the way to get China off carbon-producing coal and into cleaner natural gas. As U.S. carbon emissions slow, he said, this was the most efficient way to stop the heating up of the planet.
Although obviously written by a child, the sentiment holds. (courtesy Mylariver.org)
The city will host two public meets to present the proposed Los Angeles River Recreational Zone Pilot Program the Glendale Narrows. Come on down and weigh in:
Saturday, Feb 23, from 9:30 a.m.-11 a.m., Dickerson Employee Benefits Conference Room, 1918 Riverside Drive, L.A. or the following Monday, at the Ad Hoc River Committee Meeting at 3 p.m. in City Hall, 10th floor. For courtesy parking, call (213) 473-7001
Meanwhile, the HUD-DOT-EPA Partnership for Sustainable Communities has awarded a community challenge planning grant worth more than $2 million to the newly formed Northeast Los Angeles Riverfront Collaborative. (Could somebody tell me who comes up with these names … geez). The aim is to use the bucks to “re-envision Northeast Los Angeles communities located along the L.A. River into a Riverfront District, focusing on community revitalization, environmental stewardship, sustainable civic engagement and economic growth for the entire city,” according to a press release from NELA RC.
If you want to weigh in on this one, simply go to its new website, http://www.mylariver.org, and complete the sentence “I want my river to be …” Of the 500 responses so far, one read “A nice safe place with no trash and have nice friends.” I penned one about fly fishing for carp, because my fear in all of this is that the fish will be eliminated by the Army Corps because they aren’t indigenous.
And Tony Taylor a.k.a “the birdman” has begun an online petition against any sort of river development short of turning it into a wildlife sanctuary. You can find it at http://www.change.org and of this writing has 15 signatures.
MORNING LIGHT: Yes, that’s the way the L.A. River looks around 8 a.m. in summer. (Jim Burns)
At 7 a.m. on a Friday in the Valley, most early-bird go-getters think about what they’ll do after work. First though, they’ll chug, chug, chug down surface streets to a freeway; then hear the buzz, buzz, buzz as the digital world insistently wonders why not take those eyes off the freeway and get a load of this. A mug of very hot coffee, a few harsh words for other drivers and in due time, they’ll be in their parking spots at the office. That’s life in the Friday fast lane.
But as our group of truant workers donned hard hats, snapped on life jackets and sat our butts just right in kayak bottoms, the workaday world couldn’t have been farther away.
“Usually I’d be at my desk, answering emails and drinking coffee,” one of our group of seven said.
Exactly.
During the two hours we spend on the river, our three corpsmen kept us in line. They taught us not to be afraid of the water (tested and safe, thank you very much); they helped us not to slip and fall during each of three unexpected portages; they rescued at least a few of us from errant willow-branch overhangs and ill-placed sandbars. And they made us feel at home for those two glorious hours as we paddled along, hearing “river right” to spot a white heron just reaching flight, or a mallard honking the right of way over our elongated, colorful crafts.
The real magic happened once our group of seven couldn’t see/hear the freeway. All became country quiet.
“People think it’s somewhere in Louisiana,” said one of our guides, “because of the plastic bags.”
PADDLE UP: The L.A. Conservation Corps guides a group through still waters and overhanging willows. (Jim Burns
True, there was some trash, but as another floater commented, not nearly what we expected.
Hey, there’s a certain thrill to kayaking around a drowned shopping cart. And an authenticity to this very-urban river that’s just beginning to heal from years of our neglect.
Bottom line: Go and experience this yourself. It’s worth the $50.
Prediction: Five-year contract in hand, the Corps going to make this tour an L.A. “must do.”
SAILING, SAILING: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (front of canoe) takes a tour of the L.A. River last year. (Courtesy Sepulveda Basin Wildlife.org)
Yesterday, L. A. River Tours (a.k.a. L.A. River Expeditions) received its tour operator license from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for this summer season of boating. The program will be expanded in terms of the number of people it serves, but apparently not in terms of new areas of the river, which should again be the Sepulveda Recreation Basin.
The program is scheduled to run from July through September, and if the inaugural year was any example, these kayak trips will sell out in a matter of hours, although it’s estimated that the number of participants will expand from 300 to 2,000. Trips will float on Sundays and Mondays with each group averaging 10-to-12 paddlers. The cost will be $50. The Los Angeles Conservation Corps also will be hosting trips, including student groups. The latest info is available on the L.A. River Tours website.
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