Good start for new L.A. River project

Weedy and industrial, the concrete channel near the football field at Canoga Park High School scarcely looks like a notable site.

But the spot where Calabasas Creek meets Bell Creek—be it ever so humble—is actually a landmark: the beginning of the Los Angeles River. And this week, it came a big step closer to getting the kind of makeover that would allow it to finally shine.

The Board of Supervisors accepted a $1.97 million state grant to help launch construction of the Los Angeles River Headwaters Project, which eventually will create more than a mile of recreational trails at the point where the storied urban river starts near Canoga Park High School in the San Fernando Valley.

Tentatively scheduled for completion in 2013, the Headwaters Project is part of a larger plan to reclaim and revitalize the river, which runs for some 50 miles through 13 cities, including Los Angeles, before it empties into the ocean at Long Beach. (Click here for an artist’s rendering of the project.)

The grant, authorized under the Proposition 84 state park program and awarded by the California Natural Resources Agency, will be a substantial down-payment on the headwaters improvement, which is expected to add some $9.3 million worth of pedestrian paths, landscaping, signage, water quality improvements and decorative fencing to an area now closed to the public and mostly used for flood control and maintenance.  

Officials from the county Department of Public Works say it is the first of several grants for which they’ve applied in the hope of mitigating the cost of the project. And, they note, the City of Los Angeles has applied for an additional Metropolitan Transportation Authority grant to add a bike path to the area.

“Right now, it doesn’t look like a place anyone would want to visit,” says Terri Grant, principal engineer for the county Department of Public Works.

“But when it’s done, it will enhance the community, and draw people to a new area of open space where they can enjoy themselves and relax.”

Posted 7/13/11