Tag Archives: water

Water Isn’t Just a Local Issue: We Need a National Water Policy Now

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While this blog is mostly focussed on LA, it would be foolish to think that Angelenos live in a magic bubble that isn’t affected by what’s happening in the rest of the world.  (Thought we often act that way.)  Crucially, we need to understand that the water shortages affecting this area aren’t just local, they’re global.  In order to understand LA’s water problems, we have to look at the larger context. 

This morning I read an interview with Jay Famiglietti that lays the situation out in the starkest terms.  It’s a disturbing message, but one we all need to hear.  Famiglietti is Executive Director of the Global Institute for Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan, and formerly lead researcher at NASA’s water science program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.  He’s spent years studying the water landscape and he knows what he’s talking about.

First, please take a look at the graphic above from the U.S. Drought Monitor.  It shows that all of LA County is in severe or extreme drought.  Looking at the rest of the state, you’ll see that almost all of California is experiencing conditions ranging from severe drought to exceptional drought.  My only problem with this map is that they use the word “drought”, which doesn’t describe the situation any more.  “Drought” implies we’re in a dry period, and that things will eventually go back to normal.  That’s no longer true.  Because of climate change, scientists agree that our fresh water resources will continue to decline for the foreseeable future.  This is the new normal.

This isn’t just a problem for LA or California, this is a problem that the whole country needs to deal with.  Famiglietti talks about how we need a national water policy and we need it now.  We can’t afford to wait while cities and states bicker over what they can and can’t do, while lawsuits are filed and politicians posture.  We need to take action as a nation now.

Famiglietti isn’t the only one saying this.  Back in 2009 the Clean Water America Alliance published a paper explaining the need for a national water policy.  Here’s a brief excerpt….

Each day, more and more Americans are confronting an unsettling fact of life in the 21st Century – our supplies of clean, dependable, economical water are more fragile than at any time in our recent history. Population growth, economic development, changing weather patterns, new energy supply strategies, and the needs of endangered ecosystems are threatening to overwhelm both the physical infrastructure and management systems that have previously provided for our water needs.

What have we done since then?  Not much.  And we can’t afford to wait.  Things have gotten much worse over the last decade, and many scientists believe that climate change is accelerating. 

Here’s the Famiglietti interview.  Read it and weep.  No, seriously, don’t weep.  Take action.  Contact your representatives in the House and Senate and ask them what they’re doing about creating a national water policy.  If their answer isn’t good enough, keep after them. 

As Colorado River Dries, the U.S. Teeters on the Brink of Larger Water Crisis

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LA’s Water Resources: It’s Getting Scary

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Graphic from NASA Earth Observatory

The water situation just keeps getting more dire.  A brief recap: Last August the US Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) declared a Tier 1 shortage on the Colorado River, the first time it had ever taken this step.  This was not good news for Southern California, which relies heavily on water from the Colorado.  Then, in March of this year, California water officials announced that they’d be cutting allocations for the State Water Project (SWP) to 5% of requested supplies.  Another blow to Southern California, which also gets much of its water from the SWP.    

Things got even worse today, when USBR announced the first-ever Tier 2 shortage on the Colorado River.  This will not affect California immediately, since the State has senior water rights, but the way things are going it’s likely that we’ll be impacted in the next couple of years.  Scientists are predicting that the Western US will continue to get hotter and drier for the foreseeable future. 

The City of LA is in especially bad shape.  While some cities in Southern California have significant groundwater resources, Los Angeles’ supply is relatively small.  In recent years, groundwater has made up about 10% of what we use annually.  We do get water from the LA Aqueduct, but that’s not as reliable as it used to be, since snowpacks in the Sierra Nevadas have continued to decline in recent years.

Recycled water?  LADWP has been talking about that for years.  While there are big plans to reuse more of our water, right now recycling only accounts for about 2% of our supply.  It will be years before that number grows much.  Then what about desalination?  It’s very costly, very energy intensive, and causes significant environmental impacts.  There are other experimental processes out there, but nothing we can scale up quickly to replace what we’re losing from the SWP and the Colorado.

There are no easy answers.  Scientists do not see a turning point in the near future.  We’re going to have to learn to live with less water.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Over the past few decades, the City of LA has already cut its per capita water usage by quite a bit, and there’s still more we can do.  But remember, we don’t know how far this trend is going.  It’s likely we could learn to live with the level of water deliveries we’re getting now, but scientists predict that our snowpacks will continue to decline and our climate will continue to get warmer.  We haven’t seen the worst yet.

I have to say, the older I get, the more I question the wisdom of building a city of 4 million people in a place with such limited water resources.  People talk about how Hoover Dam and the State Water Project were great accomplishments, and yeah, in a way they were.  But as the water level in Hoover Dam continues to decline, as the State Water Project continues to suck the life out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, I have to wonder where this is all going.

Right now, it doesn’t look good.

Here’s an excellent breakdown of the current situation from CalMatters.

Four Things to Know about Colorado River Water in California

California’s Water Crisis: Promising Way More than We Can Deliver

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Source: US Drought Monitor

Even if you don’t pay attention to the news, you’re probably aware that Los Angeles has been unusually dry for the past few years.  If you do follow the news, you may have heard that right now California’s snowpacks are well below their 20th century average.  And if you really pay attention to this stuff, you probably saw the news that the past 22-year period is the driest the American West has experienced in over a millennium.

Scary stuff.  And as the impacts of climate change grow more pronounced, there’s a good chance things will get even scarier.  Since it doesn’t seem likely that government officials or the public at large are going to make any real progress in cutting back on fossil fuels, the weird weather we’ve been seeing for the past couple decades is likely to get a whole lot weirder. 

So what can we do?  Well, the first thing we should do is stop lying to ourselves about how much water we have access to.  A recent study from UC Davis shows that water rights allocations to California’s water users are about five times the state’s annual runoff.  In other words, we’ve promised to deliver about five times more water than we actually have. 

How did this happen?  Well, back in the 20th century, when everyone was convinced that California was going to keep growing forever and that we had endless supplies of everything, Federal, State and regional agencies built a ridiculous number of dams and canals to deliver lots of water to everyone who wanted it.  Two decades into the 21st century, it should be clear to all of us that we can’t keep growing forever and that our resources are definitely limited.     

CalMatters recently ran an excellent piece by Carolee Krieger, Executive Director of California Water Impact Network, where Krieger clearly states the most important takeaway from the UC Davis report: We have to manage our water resources based on the amount of water that’s actually available.  Here’s the link to Krieger’s article. 

Here Is the First Step to a Sustainable Water Policy

California faces huge challenges in meeting its future water needs.  The first step is to be honest about how much water we actually have.  Let’s stop pretending.  It’s time to get real. 

FOLLOW-UP:

I want to add some additional info as a postscript to this post.  I was looking at On the Public Record, a blog I follow that deals with water issues in California.  (I recommend it highly.)  The author wrote a post on Max Gomberg’s resignation from the State Water Resources Control Board.  While the post itself is well worth reading, one of the comments raised questions about the accuracy of the UC Davis report that Carolee Krieger cites in her CalMatters post. 

There are lots of comments, but I’d ask you to scroll down to those written by Waterwonk, who questions the methodology used by Theodore Grantham and Joshua Viers, the authors of the UC Davis report.  According to Waterwonk, Grantham and Viers make the mistake of adding up the face value of water rights without looking at terms and conditions and overlapping rights.  For instance, Waterwonk says that some users have the right to divert water, store water, and then redivert the stored water.  Waterwonk asserts that Grantham and Viers added up the face value of the water in cases like this, when in fact these separate rights apply to the same water. 

Waterwonk believes that Grantham and Viers got some things right, but says their claim that California has handed out water rights amounting to five times what’s actually available is grossly overstated.  I don’t understand these issues well enough to judge who’s right, but I think Waterwonk makes effective arguments.  I wanted to include them for those readers who are interested in digging further.  Here’s the post from On the Public Record.

On Your Watch

There are lots of comments, including from Carolee Krieger.  You’ll have to scroll down a ways to find Waterwonk’s arguments. 

But whether or not Grantham and Viers’ work is accurate, there’s no question that State agencies and local governments have been over-promising for decades when it comes to water.  The status quo is not sustainable.  We have to be more realistic about how much water is actually available.

Can the City of LA Keep Growing If Its Water Resources Keep Declining?

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The City of Los Angeles couldn’t exist without the water it imports from sources far beyond its borders.  While the ratios vary widely from year to year, on average we get about 10% of our annual supply from groundwater within the city limits.  The remaining 90% has to be imported from places hundreds of miles away.

Which means we really should pay attention to the Water Supply Alert issued by the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) on August 17.  The entire State of California, and in fact much of the Western US, is experiencing extremely dry conditions.  At this point the MWD is asking for citizens, businesses and public agencies to make voluntary reductions, but there’s a good chance that stricter measures will be needed in the not too distant future.  Through careful planning and good stewardship, the MWD has managed to build up significant reserves which might provide a buffer for the next year or two.  But we can’t be complacent.  This year the California Department of Water Resources has cut allocations from the State Water Project to just 5% of requested supplies.  It’s possible that next year the allocation could be reduced to zero.  On top of that, for the first time ever, the Bureau of Reclamation has declared a shortage on the Colorado River.  Lake Mead supplies much of the water that Southern California relies on, and storage there has been declining faster than even the most pessimistic observers predicted.  Right now the water level is lower than it’s been at any time since Hoover Dam was constructed. 

Which leaves us with the LA Aqueduct.  At the beginning of the 20th century, Los Angeles business leaders were working hard to promote the city’s growth, but they knew that the area’s water resources were limited.  In looking for solutions to this problem, they set their sights on the Owens Valley, over 200 miles away.  Using secretive and dishonest means, the City of LA managed to purchase rights to much of the water in the Owens Valley, and then began construction of the LA Aqueduct under the supervision of William Mulholland.  In LA the completion of the Aqueduct was hailed as an engineering marvel, and for a time Mulholland was celebrated as a hero.  Needless to say, the people of the Owens Valley didn’t see things quite the same way.  For them, the diversion of water resources to the Aqueduct resulted in disastrous environmental impacts, and set the stage for decades of litigation.

Mulholland Memorial Fountain from DWP Photo Collection at LA Public Library

In 1940, five years after Mulholland’s death, a fountain was built at the intersection of Los Feliz Boulevard and Riverside Drive to honor the man primarily responsible for the construction of the LA Aqueduct.  The choice to create a fountain was considered a fitting way to commemorate the role Mulholland played in securing the water that was necessary for the city’s growth.  For decades cool, crystalline plumes arched into the air and cascaded into the rippling pool below.

Today the fountain is dry and it’s surround by a chain link fence.  While a search on the net didn’t reveal any explanation, it seems likely that LADWP shut it down in response to the looming water shortage.  This is certainly a sensible step to take, but it should also raise questions about LA’s future.  Mulholland was celebrated because of his efforts to provide water that would support the city’s growth.  If the fountain is now dry, maybe this should be a cue to start asking how much LA can realistically grow in the future?

While government officials and the media routinely describe the situation as a drought, I don’t think that’s accurate.  In fact, I think it’s seriously misleading.  “Drought” is generally defined as a prolonged period of dry weather.  This implies that at some point the drought will end and things will get back to normal.  But there’s growing evidence that this is the new normal.  Both the State Water Project and the LA Aqueduct are fed by snowmelt from the Sierra Nevadas.  The Sierra snowpacks have been declining for years, and climatologists predict that they’ll continue to decline for the foreseeable future.  As for the Colorado River, California, Nevada and Arizona draw more water from this resource than it can deliver on an annual basis.  The construction of Hoover Dam masked this fact for decades, but the rapid decline of Lake Mead should be a wake-up call for all of us.  Right now it seems inevitable that water allocations to all three states will have to be reduced, but this will be a long, contentious, brutal process. 

So if all of the city’s water resources are declining, our public officials need to let go of the myth that LA can keep growing forever.  LA’s 2020 Urban Water Management Plan (UWMP) assumes that all it will take is more stormwater capture and a concerted effort to conserve.  Unfortunately, stormwater capture doesn’t really work when you’re hardly getting any rain.  And while Angelenos have shown a willingness to save water in the past, current forecasts seem to indicate that we’d have to push conservation to a whole new level.  The more you cut, the harder it is to cut further.  The UWMP’s conservation projections are extremely optimistic.  It’s hard to say whether they’re realistic.

The Mulholland Memorial was intended as a monument to the man who oversaw the construction of a massive infrastructure project that allowed the city to grow rapidly.  In the state it’s in now, it seems more like a monument to the folly of those who believed you could build a city of 4,000,000 people in an area with minimal water resources.

We Need to Start Talking about LA’s Water Crisis Now

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Map from US Drought Monitor, May 6, 2021

Most people who live in LA are probably already aware that this year has been an especially dry one.  We’ve gotten less than half of our average rainfall.  But it’s really important to say that it’s not just LA and it’s not just this year.  Actually, much of the Western US is dangerously dry, and there’s an increasing amount of research which seems to indicate that this could be a long-term trend.  In other words, it’s likely that things will continue to get drier and hotter in LA, California and the West. 

I’d been wanting to write about this for a while, but LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik saved me the trouble.  He recently wrote an excellent piece laying out the serious challenges California is facing, both in the near term and the long term.  To put it briefly, all of California’s water resources are declining.  The snowpacks that feed our rivers and lakes are shrinking.  We’ve depleted much of the groundwater that was so plentiful at the beginning of the 20th century.  And because western states have been taking more water from the Colorado River than is actually available, we’ll probably continue to see reduced deliveries from Hoover Dam for the foreseeable future. 

This is all very bad news. 

Whether or not this dry spell is partly the result of cyclical changes in the weather, research increasingly shows that climate change is going to take a serious toll on LA and the West.  It seems inevitable that some farmland will have to be taken out of production, though that will be a difficult and hugely controversial process.  Many species of California’s trout, steelhead and salmon will probably be extinct by the end of this century.  And while we’ve all seen the horrific damage that wildfire has caused in California’s vast natural forests, we should also be worried about the less visible but still serious impacts to our urban forests.   

Here in LA we may be spared from having to take immediate action to deal with this crisis.  The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the Metropolitan Water District have been managing our resources carefully, building up reserves that could see us through the next few years.  But I’m afraid this is creating a false sense of security.  The way it looks now, it’s not just a matter of riding out a few dry years until things go back to normal.  This is the new normal.  Even if annual precipitation stays roughly the same in the future, shrinking snowpacks and the decline of the Colorado River mean water deliveries to the LA will continue to fall, and we have limited groundwater resources.  Unfortunately, our local leaders don’t seem to want to deal with this situation.  LA’s Mayor and City Council have been silent on this issue, and I don’t hear anything from the Board of Supervisors, either.  Maybe they think that if they just ignore the problem it will go away. 

This problem isn’t going away.  We need to start dealing with it.  Hiltzik explains how serious and how widespread the challenges are.  The time to act is now. 

Water Created California and the West. Will Drought Finish Them Off?

Is a Hard Rain Gonna Fall?

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DSC00841

Let me start off by asking, Do any of the Angelenos reading this post remember the drought we were dealing with a few years back? If not, don’t worry about it. Most of the people living in this city have forgotten all about it. We had a couple back-to-back seasons of heavy rainfall in 2017/2018 and 2018/2019, so everybody assumes we’re back to normal and there’s nothing to worry about. This is understandable because folks at the state and local level told us a while ago that the drought was over, and why would you waste time worrying about a problem that’s been taken care of?

Unless, of course, it wasn’t really taken care of.

There was an interesting article in the LA Times recently about how the 2019/2020 rainy season hasn’t been so rainy. In fact, it’s been pretty dry. If we were just talking about one year, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But in the Times story climatologist Bill Patzert asks if the drought we were experiencing earlier in this decade ever really ended.

Is California Headed Back into Drought, or Did We Never Really Leave One?

Patzert points out that, while we had a couple of really wet years recently, over the last 20 years LA’s average annual rainfall has been below the historic average. He makes the case that we’re actually experiencing a long-term drought, and that the recent years of heavy rain didn’t begin to make up for earlier losses. If this trend continues, it would have disastrous effects on our water resources.

Patzert is a very smart guy, and I think we all need to take his warning seriously. I have only one problem with the way he states his case. When people use the word “drought” they’re talking about a period of low precipitation that’s a change from normal levels. But what if this is the new normal? Global temperatures continue to rise.  In California, San Francisco and Sacramento have been growing hotter for decades. While the last decade in LA wasn’t our hottest, it was significantly hotter than the previous one. Scientists disagree on how climate change will affect precipitation in California, but based on the patterns of the past 20 years, I think it’s possible that LA just isn’t going to get as much rain as it used to.

Is this really a problem? How much does LA actually rely on rainfall for its water supply? Let’s review a few basic facts….

LA only gets between 10% and 15% of its water from local aquifers. The rest of it is delivered via massive and complex infrastructure from places hundreds of miles away. While the percentages change from year to year depending on a number of factors, we usually get about 30% of our water from the LA Aqueduct, 30% from the State Water Project, and 30% from the Colorado River. So that must mean that even if we don’t get much rain, we still have plenty of water to draw on. Right?

Wrong.

Actually, all of these water resources are declining. We’re dealing with a whole new reality, and we need to wake up to that fact. Most of the water we get in LA comes from snowpack in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. As of February 18, the California Cooperative Snow Surveys report that the snowpack in the Sierras is at 53% of what’s considered normal. Most scientists who have studied this issue agree that climate change will cause continued decline in the Sierra snowpack through the end of this century, with one group saying we could see a reduction of as much as 79% by 2100. Since both the State Water Project and the LA Aqueduct rely on snowmelt from the Sierras, a decline of that magnitude would be catastrophic for LA.

As for the Colorado River, it’s uncertain how much longer we’ll continue to get the allotment agreed on in the Colorado River Compact. Many decades ago researchers began to realize that the allocations granted to California, Arizona and Nevada under the Compact actually add up to more water than the river can deliver. And since we’ve pretty much done nothing to correct the situation, the water level in Lake Mead has been declining for years.

IMG_3935

In this photo of Lake Mead it’s easy to see how far the water level has dropped in recent years.

So while it’s true that a drop in precipitation for the LA area wouldn’t, by itself, mean disaster, when you combine that with the fact that all our water resources are declining, we’re looking at a pretty desperate situation. That’s why it’s important that we take Bill Patzert seriously when he says we might still be in the middle of an extended drought. And that’s why, instead of just assuming that things are back to normal in LA, we need to start asking what the new normal really is.

DSC02398

The River After the Rain

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We had a lot of rain in February. Not long after the storms passed I took some photos of the LA River along the Glendale Narrows. While it was nothing like the raging torrent it had been a few days before, the runoff from the rains was still flowing freely. It was a great day to take a walk along the river.

The river flowing beneath the Glendale Freeway.
A view of the river looking toward the Fletcher Bridge.
The Fletcher Bridge.
A stairway leading from the Fletcher Bridge down to the river.
Underneath the Fletcher Bridge.
Water rushing along the river bed.
A tangle of dead wood.
At this point the river runs right along the Golden State Freeway.
A view of the San Gabriel Mountains in the distance.
A shot of the river looking toward Griffith Park.
Power lines stretching across the river.
The rains swept a lot of trash into the river bed.
Stones and reeds on the river bed.
The river emerges from under the Hyperion Bridge.
On the left the Hyperion Bridge. On the right the pylons that used to support the Red Car.
Under the Hyperion Bridge.
Here the water was smooth and calm.
A view of the river from Sunnynook Bridge.

We Need Trees, Not Fees

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T C Vn Bldg 2

The City has a problem. The Urban Forestry Division (UFD) has scores of trees sitting in boxes in storage that it can’t plant. Why is this? In large part it’s because when developers remove trees to build projects, they agree to replace them by purchasing new ones for the City to plant elsewhere. Unfortunately, due to budget cuts, the UFD has no staff to do the planting. And worse, when trees are stuck in boxes for long periods of time, their health declines, sometimes to the point where they’re not viable any more.

Actually, the City has an even bigger problem than this. We’re losing a huge chunk of our urban forest. Years of dry weather has already impacted the health of thousands of trees in the LA area, but now there’s a worse threat. A beetle called the shot hole borer has come to the region. It nests in trees and in the process often kills them. The die-off has already begun, and if it continues at its current pace we can expect to lose millions of trees throughout Southern California over the next several years. This isn’t just a matter of erasing pretty landscapes. As a result of this massive reduction of our urban forest, there will be impacts to our water resources, our air will be dirtier, and our cities will grow hotter than they are already.

So you’d think we’d be doing everything we can to protect the trees we’ve got. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Aside from the natural threats to our trees, development is taking a toll on the urban forest. City Hall is pushing hard to boost construction of housing and hotels, as well as office and commercial space. Which brings us back to the first point. Developers generally want to squeeze as much square footage as they can out of a project. Often they ask the City to reduce required setbacks, or even let them build right out to the property line. In many cases they also ask the City to reduce the requirements for open space. The Department of City Planning (DCP) is usually pretty generous in granting developers’ wishes, especially if it’s a housing project that includes some affordable units.

To give you an idea of how bad things have gotten, let’s talk about the City’s Protected Tree Ordinance (PTO). Some species are considered so important that we should afford them special protection. A while back the City Council approved the PTO in order to prevent their removal except under extraordinary circumstances. So how’s that working out? Not so good. In November of last year Councilmembers Paul Koretz and Mike Bonin introduced a motion to strengthen the ordinance. Here’s a quote.

”Unfortunately, trees are not being adequately protected and departments are not working well together to protect them. Trees are being cut before development permits are applied for, trees are not being protected during construction activities, and building permits are routinely issued without the Department of Building and Safety being aware of the presence of protected trees on the affected properties, all resulting in an accumulating net loss of trees, tree canopy and the accompanying ecosystem services across the City.”

This is serious. We need trees. Our water resources are increasingly stressed. LA’s air quality ranks among the worst in the nation. And temperatures in the city continue to rise. A robust urban forest would help us deal with all of those problems, but instead of enhancing our tree canopy we’re cutting it down.

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The reason I’m bringing all this up is that there’s a proposal before the City right now to allow developers to fulfill the requirement for replacing trees simply by paying a fee. For new projects that remove trees, the City would calculate the required number of replacements (usually at a ratio between 2 to 1 and 4 to 1), and then bill the developer for in-lieu fees of $2,612 per tree. This amount would cover the cost of procurement, planting and providing water for three years.

At first glance, this might look like a good deal. The UFD doesn’t have staff to plant the replacement trees it’s been receiving, and storing them for long periods of time impacts the trees’ health. There apparently has been talk of restoring some of the UDF’s funding in the City’s next budget, which could lead to the hiring of personnel to plant trees. But that’s definitely a roll of the dice, since LA is struggling with a structural deficit, and for years now its budgets have been held together with scotch tape and bubble gum. Many City departments suffered staff cuts during the recession, and they’re all lobbying to restore those positions. So without any certainty over staffing for the UFD, the in-lieu fee probably seems pretty attractive, since the cost of planting and watering is built in. The City is outsourcing a lot of work already, and it could just hire a contractor to do the job.

But really, there are a number of problems with just charging an in lieu-fee….

First, it makes it even easier for the DCP to allow developers to do away with trees. If, in theory, all the trees that are removed will be replaced at a 2 to 1 ratio or better, and if the money collected includes planting and watering, then why would they hesitate to reduce setbacks and open space? Let the developers do whatever they want! Problem solved. But in reality, we have no guarantee that this system will work as promised. Think about it. Supposedly the current system of requiring developers to replace trees was going to solve the problem. And what actually happened? We have a lot of trees sitting in City-owned storage areas. Some have been sitting in boxes so long that they’re no longer viable. And at the same time developers have been cutting down trees and putting hardscape in their place.

But the City would certainly spend the money they collect. Right? Not necessarily. You may recall that back in 2015 City Controller Ron Galperin did an audit of fees collected from developers. He found $54 million that had been sitting in City-controlled accounts for at least three years. This money had been collected, but it hadn’t been spent. Unfortunately, City Hall isn’t always great about following through.

Second, while charging the in-lieu fees may lead to a better replacement rate in the future, there’s no guarantee that the City will do anything about the trees the UFD currently has in stock. If the budget for the next fiscal year doesn’t include funds for additional staff, these trees could easily sit in storage until they die. It’s been suggested that non-profits could step in to do the planting. If that’s a possibility, why hasn’t it already happened?

Third, and most important, this is not a solution, it’s a quick fix. In order to find a solution, you have to first identify the problem, and the City hasn’t done that. It’s proposing in-lieu fees as a way of replacing trees that are cut down for development, but that’s really just one aspect of the situation.

The real problem is that we’re facing a potentially devastating loss of our urban forest.

If we fail to maintain our urban forest, our air quality will suffer, our water quality will be diminished, and LA will continue to grow hotter than it already is.

LA needs a comprehensive, holistic approach to managing our urban forest. We must do a complete inventory of the city’s tree canopy, and also an inventory of space available for planting trees. We then need to use this data to develop a unified policy based on actual science that will address all aspects of the problem. Rather than coming up with quick fixes to deal with tree loss caused by new development or sidewalk repair or insect infestation, we need an integrated approach that brings all these things together.

In other words, we need to gather the data, look at the science, and then develop an actual plan.

If we don’t do this, our urban forest will continue to decline, and we will suffer the consequences.

If you want to take a look at the proposed ordinance, here’s the link.

Tree Replacement In-Lieu Fee

If you want to contact your City Council rep about this issue, be sure to include this council file number in the subject line.

CF-16-0461

And to make sure your comments are included in the file, don’t forget to copy the City Clerk.

cityclerk@lacity.org

Finally, if you want to voice your comments in person, this issue will be considered by the Community Forest Advisory Committee (CFAC) later this week.

CFAC Meeting
Thursday, March 1, 1:00 pm
City Hall, 200 N. Spring St, Room 361
[USE MAIN ST. ENTRANCE.]

For more information, follow the link below.

CFAC Meetings

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Headworks Update

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HW 01 1711 Site

Anybody who’s used Forest Lawn Dr. over the past few years has seen the massive construction site running along the LA River. This is the Headworks project, which involves building two giant underground reservoirs to replace the DWP’s Silverlake complex. I posted about it back in 2014, when phase one, Headworks East, was under construction, and it was completed in June 2015. At that time it was reported that the second phase would be finished in 2017. That didn’t happen. Though the City held a groundbreaking ceremony for Headworks West in 2016, progress since that time has been slow. Apparently this is because of unusual soil conditions at the site, which required extensive remediation.

When completed these two huge concrete tanks will hold a combined total of 110 million gallons. The plan is to cover them with soil and native vegetation, creating a park and wetlands with areas for hiking, cycling, and riding horses.. The project also involves the construction of a hydroelectric power plant.

Now and again I ride my bike along Forest Lawn Dr., and I’ve taken some photos of the site over the past couple years. Here’s a shot from June 2016 that was taken from the edge of the site near the entrance to Griffith Park.

HW 10 1606 Side Road

You may be wondering why I’m bothering to post a picture of a low hill covered with weeds. Now let me show you a photo taken from roughly the same perspective during the first phase of construction.

HW 15 Concrete Corner

The tank that was completed in 2015 lies beneath the soil you see in the first photo. Eventually a park will cover the entire site. Here’s another shot of from a different angle that shows the road which goes around the perimeter of the tank.

HW 22 1606 Mtn Cloud

Moving on to the site for the second phase of the project, Headworks West. You can see a huge mound has been formed by displaced soil.

HW 24 1606 Mound

Here’s a shot of the site as preliminary work was being done.

HW 26 1606 Rows 1

The following images show the site a couple months later, in August 2016.

HW 30 1608 Rows w Fwy

In this photo you can see the exposed side of the first reservoir.

HW 32 1608 Rows Tank 1

And here are some images from November 2017, when the structure was actually starting to take shape. In the first one you see the side of the completed reservoir again.

HW 40 1711 Dark Bed Tank 1

Here it looks like they’re laying out frames.

HW 42 1711 Frames Crane

I’m assuming the wall at the left marks the perimeter of the new reservoir.

HW 44 1711 Wall Frames

The rebar starts to define the shape of the reservoir.

HW 46 7111 Frame

The date for the completion of Headworks West is a little murky. One fact sheet published by the DWP says it’ll be done in 2018. But another, more detailed, fact sheet from the DWP says they’ll wrap it up in 2022. It also says they’ll finish the power plant in 2023, and the ecosystem restoration in 2024. So it could be some time before you’re able to ride your bike through the park.

A few links. The first is a video about the project from the DWP.

Headworks Video from DWP

The second link gives some background, and offers a detailed timeline.

Headworks Background, Fact Sheet and Timeline

And this last link shows a map of the completed project.

Map Completed Project

HW 90 1711 Site

 

LA River Clean-Up: Willow Street Estuary

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LAR WCU 00 Grass Water 1

Yesterday I went down to Long Beach to take part in the annual LA River Clean-Up, organized by Friends of the Los Angeles River (FOLAR). The Willow Street Estuary isn’t far from where the river flows into the ocean, and it’s one of the few stretches where the bottom is earth instead of concrete.

LAR WCU 10 Sign

It wasn’t hard to find the clean-up.

LAR WCU 12 Cones

Dozens of people beat me down there.

LAR WCU 14 Registration

The people working the registration table were keeping busy.

LAR WCU 16 Bags

Everybody got a pair of gloves and a bag.

There were already plenty of people there when I showed up a little after nine. It took just a few minutes to sign the waiver, grab a trash bag and do the orientation. Then I joined the crowd of people climbing down the bank to the river.

LAR WCU 18 Rocks Down

Heading down the bank to the river.

LAR WCU 20 Trees 1

Hundreds of people combing the river bed for trash.

LAR WCU 22 Two Kids

Lots of families showed up.

LAR WCU 24 Kids

Kids were some of the hardest workers.

LAR WCU 29 Face

It wasn’t all trash.  I found this face staring at me from among the rocks.

LAR WCU 27 Duck

A few guys waded all the way across the river.

LAR WCU 30 Trash

This is just some of the trash that was collected.

LAR WCU 28 Wide Stoop

The work wasn’t hard, and it was a great day to be outdoors.

If you don’t know what an estuary is, don’t feel bad. I didn’t either until I looked it up on the net. Generally speaking it’s where a river nears the ocean, and fresh water meets salt water. They’re an important part of the ecosystem, filtering runoff and serving as a breeding ground for fish and birds. Watch this video from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to learn more.

What Is an Estuary?

LAR WCU 40 River Bridge CU

The water is placid as it emerges from under the Willow Street Bridge.

LAR WCU 40 River Rapid

The surface gets a little roiled where the river narrows.

LAR WCU 65 River Long

From the estuary, the river rolls down to meet the ocean.

Aside from organizing the LA River Clean-Up, FOLAR presents events throughout the year. They’ve been working to preserve and restore the river longer than anyone else, and they’ve racked up an impressive list of accomplishments in their 30 year history. If you want to get involved, start by visiting their web site.

FOLAR

LAR WCU 70 Green Bridge