Poet and river visionary Lewis McAdams would have been proud to see the next generation of river stewardship unfold. (Jim Burns)
Given the state of everything, I didn’t think that the rec zones, in Elysian Park and the Sepulveda Basin, would open, but I was happily wrong. It’s become a tradition since 2013 to have actual legal fishing (don’t forget your license), bird watching, jail-breaking the pooch, or just hanging out in these two designated areas, from Memorial Day until Sept. 30. This year, because of the pandemic, watch for posted public health guidelines. Know that kayaking is not in the cards this year.
We’ll miss two figures along the water this year, Friends of the Los Angeles River co-founder Lewis MacAdams, and river
Lewis MacAdams by his beloved Los Angeles River.
champion extraordinaire, passed away just over a month ago. Tip your hat to his statue what was Marsh Park and is now named after him. Without Lewis, none of us would be enjoying the water the way we now can.
And we won’t see the friendly smile of veteran L.A. Park Ranger Capt. Alberto Torres, who spent 40 years on the job, in various positions. Alberto defined public service for me, with his kindly manner and sense of humor.
If you love fishing, there is no better way than to celebrate easing the restrictions of the last two months, than to hang out on the banks of our very own river. Maybe I can even catch a carp, if I can remember how to start my car to get there.
Visionary poet Lewis MacAdams pictured by his beloved Los Angeles River.
Update: As of June 10, Thank you for your extraordinary generosity and kindness toward our Dad. Because of your support, we have raised more than $40,000 for his care, from close to 150 people.
Many of you know our dad from his work as an activist for the L.A. River and as a poet. You may have seen him striding across the bank of the river at a clean-up, his eyes on a future he helped to realize; invoking frogs and blue herons in poems that also honored the hard-edged beauty of the city he loves; or writing op-eds and fundraising letters that combined humor with a stubborn insistence that the impossible is possible.
We are writing to ask your financial support at a critical moment in Dad’s life. He is currently living in assisted living facility in Los Angeles, as a result of his Parkinson’s and a stroke he suffered in 2015. Despite these challenges, he is moving ahead with the same stubborn will that helped revitalize the River: he still welcomes regular visits with friends and colleagues and is meeting weekly with journalist Julia Ingalls, who is helping him write an autobiography, entitled Poetry and Politics.
That said, the cost of care is significant and we are seeking to raise $200,000 to support his long-term living expenses and all the medical costs related to it. These costs are not covered by Medicare and his funds are nearly depleted. The need is urgent.
We are hoping you can help Lewis in his time of need.
This year, Frogtown Artwalk, 4 p.m.-10 p.m., is dedicated to the vision of Lewis MacAdams of the Friends of the Los Angeles River (FoLAR), now in its 30th year of protecting and restoring the natural and historic heritage of the LA River. At the Artwalk hub, the Frogspot, an award ceremony at 6 p.m. will honor MacAdams for his work; CD13 councilman Mitch O’Farrell will also be thanked for his involvement in the Artwalk. See you on the river, Jim Burns
Once electric Red Cars delivered passengers all over L.A., which is celebrated in this riverly mural. (Barbara Burns)
Back in the day, Dick Roraback represented the journalist I wanted to become: after being graduated from The Sorbonne, he’d worked on the Herald Tribune in Paris (While on assignment in Africa, he’d somehow bamboozled the desk into publishing his story with the byline “By Ghana Rehah,” which got him suspended.); he was worldly, snide, grouchy, looked very old, and ripped through my fledgling restaurant reviews in a torrent of computer red ink. He seemed to me a refugee on the Los Angeles Times copy desk, a bit of the lion in winter. At the time, I wanted nothing more than to be like him — bold, intelligent and brash, thumbing his nose at the world and having a great time doing it.
I did wonder how this talented writer landed on the copy desk, reading the works of others, but no longer producing himself. Maybe “be brash in moderation,” I thought to myself.
By the time he’d again taken up ink and plume, I’d moved across town to become the travel editor for the Herald Examiner, and I didn’t read his series “In Search of the L.A. River,” published between 1985 and 1986.
In a recent paper entitled “Writing a river: how journalism helped restore the Los Angeles River,” academic Tilly Hinton argues a strong case for Roraback’s contribution to raising awareness about the river, and how this awareness helped to create the political will for change. She credits him alongside poet and FOLAR founder Lewis MacAdams as two pillars of the event.
I think Roraback would feel peeved to think of himself as a pillar of anything, and from what I’ve read MacAdams was none too pleased with the snarky tone Roraback used in his pieces. (For that matter, MacAdams also seems a wholly unlikely pillar, yet that he is, with a recent riverside plaque to prove it.)
For the series, which began at the river’s mouth in Long Beach and moved up to the headwaters, Roraback invented a character named “The Explorer.” At one point, The Explorer visited a man who kept an aquarium of fish captured from the river:
“Up in Atwater Glen on the other side of the channel, Tom Babel, manager of the riverside Port of Call apartments, allows as his community is a peaceful enough place to live –“You just gotta watch your back.” Just north, it seems, is “Toonerville, where anything goes.”
Even so, Babel likes living by the river, though he keeps his RV primed for a quick exit. “There’s been occasions when the rain got heavy and the river got two feet from the top of the bank,” he says. “I’d already started packing my important papers in the RV, ready to head for the high ground. . . . “
Larry Wickline, Babel’s stepson, takes a kinder view of riparian life.
“After the rains,” he says, “there’s rainbow trout this big! Keepers! You get catfish, carp, crayfish. Come up to my apartment. I have something to show you.”
Indeed he does. In Wickline’s flat is an illuminated fish tank holding an amazing variety of fish — gold, brown, white — all taken, he says, from the Los Angeles River.
“Good fishing when the river comes up,” Wickline says, “Except sometimes you can’t take a step for all those tiny snakes.
“It’s not so much the snakes, though, as the gangs. I wouldn’t go down there without a gun. At night, I wouldn’t go down there at all. . . . “
What I find particularly interesting about this passage is that, if true, rainbow trout were still in the river in the mid-80s, contrary to everything I’ve read about their disappearance from the river decades earlier.
The series certainly sparked interesting letters, including this one from Gene Lippert of Hacienda Heights:
“Just a note of appreciation for all the hard work Dick Roraback put in to bring us his fascinating story of the present Los Angeles River (‘In Search of the L.A. River,’ an occasional series.) I am following his tale with great interest.
“You see I lived my Tom Sawyer youth on the Los Angeles River in the area of the Imperial Highway bridge. That was before the ‘big paving extravaganza.’ We skinny-dipped in the pools, caught crawdads by the dozen and boiled them in an old can filled with river water and a dash of vinegar. We always kept supplies such as salt, pepper, coffee, cigarette butts (good for a couple of more puffs) in tin cans buried in the river bank. Small-sized trout were plentiful and easy to catch on a bent pin (had to jerk the fish out of the water and onto the bank the first time he nibbled or away went your bait). We slept overnight in the river bed most of the summers (dry, clean white sand). We were almost ridden over by a bunch of horses one night while sleeping. We had made camp in weeds four or five feet high and the fire had gone out.
“One time we stole redwood from an irrigation flume and built a boat. We got our caulking by digging the tar from between the expansion joints in Imperial Highway and melting it over a bonfire. The boat was a bust — it kept tipping over.”
So now I find Dick’s shadow once again moving across my writing life. Sometimes unlikely people follow you through time in the most unexpected ways.
Then Councilmember Eric Garcetti opens a part of the bike path along the Los Angeles River in 2011. (Jim Burns)
While river advocates await the public unveiling of the Los Angeles River Ecosystem Restoration Feasibility Study (nicknamed ARBOR), the p.r. battle for Angelino hearts and minds has already begun. In September, after several years of drafting and almost $10 million in cost, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will release four alternatives, each with a different cost, and each with a different impact on the river. The public will then have 45 days to comment before a single alternative moves forward.
“It’s a doozy,” said one person close to the study, which is currently undergoing legal review.
As Carol Armstrong, director of the Los Angeles River Project office, told me last year,“Remember that the fundamental purpose of the study is to improve the ecosystem values in the LA River– and that means riparian habitat that is good for wildlife, including fish species. The study will go public with its alternatives early next year. Once finished, it will recommend one of those as its recommended project, which will then go to Washington, DC, for approval by the federal powers-that-be.”
Think of it in terms of a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon’s menu of procedures. You could go for some Botox injections to temporarily solve that wrinkly face, or throw in for a full-blown, long-lasting, facelift.
The facelift alternative is what the nonprofit Friends of the River advocates with the “Piggyback Alternative,” known to the Corps as Alternative 20. It is the most comprehensive approach to river restoration, according to FoLAR president and founder Lewis MacAdams. The estimated price tag is $1 billion-plus to restore and remake 11 miles of the river between Union Station and Griffith Park.
Today, the Los Angeles River Revitalization Corp, another nonprofit, threw down with its 51-mile greenway project, which aims to have that much yardage in bike paths and foot trails along the river by 2020. That would essentially cover the entire length of the river from the San Fernando Valley to Long Beach. Currently, 26 miles along the river are open to bicyclists before they have to hit the mean streets, just north of downtown. Although not one of the alternatives, the 2020 Greenway plan aligns itself more naturally with Alternative 20 than with Alternative 13, said to be the Corps favorite in these times of tightening budgets.
With the upcoming river cleanup happening Saturday, it’s an appropriate time to check in with California State Senator Kevin De Leon SB1201, a bill that could bolster efforts to open up the Los Angeles River for lawful recreational uses, such as fishing. For context and the finer points, read this excellent summary from Legal Planet, a collaboration between UC Berkeley School of Law and UCLA School of Law. The site defines itself as “providing insight and analysis on energy and environmental law and policy.”
As a fly fisherman, here’s my beef in a nutshell: I’m tired of being in a legal access morass as soon as I cast into the water.
“We want to see legal access to the river for kayaking, fishing, and swimming. This won’t be the panacea that changes the river over night, but it will create a legal basis for people to come down to the river, FoLAR’s Lewis McAdams said to the wonky The Planning Report late last month.
“Fishermen have been ticketed. The City just uses a loitering ticket because they don’t have any L.A. River tickets. Of course it usually gets thrown out, but people have to spend the day downtown dealing with it. We want people to feel that the river is open. When I started Friends of the Los Angeles River, my first official act was cutting a big hole in the fence, declaring the river open. It’s only taken 25 years to get to this point. We’re at the point where the river is about to be opened, and we’re pushing the door gently open wider.”
Once electric Red Cars delivered passengers all over L.A., which is celebrated in this riverly mural.(Barbara Burns)
This from Lewis MacAdams, founder of Friends of the River:
Dear River Lovers,
Last week State Senator Kevin de Leon introduced a bill (SB 1201) into the State Senate that would significantly widen access to the Los Angeles River.
Authored by Friends of the Los Angeles River in collaboration with the Environmental Law Clinic at UCLA, the Bill would amend the 1915 Los Angeles County Flood Control Act, which limits the County Department of Public Works role on the River to flood and stormwater control, to add recreation and educational purposes to its mandate.
The Bill would also establish a State Los Angeles River Interagency Access Council whose members would include the State Department of Fish and Game, the State Lands Commission, and the California EPA, chaired by the Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency, to coordinate the actions of State and local Agencies with responsibilities for River access.
We strongly urge you to write or e-mail Alfredo Medina in Senator De Leon’s office (alfredo.medina@ sen.ca.gov) in support of the SB 1201 immediately And as soon as you do that we want you to join FoLAR. If you like what we do on the River, in advocacy, science and education, if you’ve gone on one of our river walks, or taken part in our River Clean-Ups, and our river walks, then send us $50 for a one-year membership. For almost 25 years, we have been the voice of the River. the Voice of the River Users, your voice on the Rio de Los Angeles.
About a hundred attended the City of L.A.'s River Update event Thursday evening. (Jim Burns)
“The River Study is moving. For the first time, it made it to the President’s budget,” Carol Armstrong said to a group of about 100 participants at the River Update event, held this evening at the L.A. River School.
Armstrong, the point person for the city’s many river projects, went on to explain how Councilmember Ed Reyes, Nancy Steele of the Council for Watershed Health, Lewis MacAdams of Friends of the Los Angeles River and others went to Washington to talk to legislators about the important of funding the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers L.A. River Ecosystem Restoration Feasibility Study. The study is key to virtually all future plans to restore the river to a more natural state. Begun in 2006 with the city as the local partner, it looks at the 10-mile stretch of soft bottom that stretches from Glendale Narrows, plus Headworks Reservoir in Burbank, through downtown to First Street. This area, part of which is across from Griffith Park, is the most popular with fly fishers looking to hook carp. Besides having a soft bottom – as opposed to concrete – it contains what the Corps calls “ecological value” and has the most water in it year around.
Although only $100,000 will come from the 2013 federal budget, the Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power contributed $1 million, as did the leadership of the Army Corps, committing $350,000. When completed in 2013, the study will have cost almost $10 million.
In 1995, political restoration activities began with the county, which led to the City Council’s approval of the Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan in May, 2007, created with $3 million from the Department of Water and Power’s deep coffers. The plan contains many items, including revitalizing the river, greening adjacent neighborhoods and creating value through economic opportunities
As Josephine Axt, the Army Corps lead planner told the audience, don’t expect any real result until June, 2013. Still, the funding was good news for river advocates.
This year, Frogtown Artwalk, 4 p.m.-10 p.m., is dedicated to the vision of Lewis MacAdams of the Friends of the Los Angeles River (FoLAR), now in its 30th year of protecting and restoring the natural and historic heritage of the LA River. At the Artwalk hub, the Frogspot, an award ceremony at 6 p.m. will honor MacAdams for his work; CD13 councilman Mitch O’Farrell will also be thanked for his involvement in the Artwalk. See you on the river, Jim Burns
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