Arroyo Seco Restoration Effort

at the foot of the san gabriel mountains of tiny trickle of water slowly winds its way through the arroyo seco new the jet propulsion laboratory standing amidst the willows and alters the shade this canyon and shelter many birds tim break the lights in his pocket away sits next to a jpl parking lot and here we are rick heads the arroyo seco foundation a group founded by journalist charles linus hundred years ago this is the area that the indians actually called har homa which means flowing waters truthful about obviously the spaniards got here i just about this time of year and so they call the arroyo seco which means dry riverbed rick says over the years people have done a number of things that have changed the royal they've taken water out of it and to control flooding from occasional big storms like audi has dammed it and enclosed much of the stream south of here in a concrete channel rick says his group recently released a study and how beer royal could be made more natural we concluded that there's great potential here

for restoration and by restoration winning re establishment of much of the army of black communities we also mean to stream restoration and bring in the strain back to a more natural state the city of pasadena and la county are looking at options for restoring the royal pasadena release the master plan for its pledge of the royal earlier this year has allowed the audience project manager for the city's a rail plan she says it's an ambitious project with many facets ranging from new hiking trails in a campground landscaping and engineering that will keep pollution and sediment downstream i think at the on set the city realized its challenge in trying to strike a balance with four major goals sometimes competing goals and that is a habitat restoration recreation flood control and in the forest standing water resources forty to fifty percent of passing as drinking water comes from water generated and the arroyo

seco now the idea says because the city doesn't have in the parks it's planning for athletic fields for the party the arroyo south of jpl called the hot among a watershed it's the largest relatively natural stretch of the arroyo coyotes bobcats and even the occasional mountain lion live in the area not many people hang out at haha among them is there a few amenities but the city's plan would change that and that's a sore spot for many neighboring homeowners huge balls looks out on high among them from his backyard in altadena he says he doesn't like the way the athletic fields in several parking lots would fracture the landscape from a wildlife perspective you need to develop some more youthful contiguous habitat so that you don't end up with little fragments of habitat restoration that really what they may look nice from a lot less time when they're really nice visit to fragment the arroyo seco foundation's kim greg shares these concerns an oreo or river is really unique natural area we recognize that there needs to be more soccer

fields are but there are other places you can put soccer fields the northern half of the arroyo looks fairly natural that south of hot among them below the two ten freeway almost all of the stream has been enclosed in a concrete channel brick thinks it's possible to eventually rip out much of the pavement he takes us to a stretch of the arroyo south of the one thirty four freeway and large older trees water from city storm drains drugs into prison in canada got a protective of the doorways through using a lot of other kinds of barriers and widening of the strain and other kinds of things like the stray rick believe the devil a dam north of the rose bowl could provide much of the flood protection to some of the concrete were removed ricks dream is that one day the royal movies so natural and steelhead trout will be able to live here city planner rosa love the idea says her city is very interested in naturalizing the royal that it needs to know a lot

more before it would consider letting the screen loops we need to see a demonstration a scientific proof and computer modeling i draw of elgin marbles that can give us a better indication of what the impacts would be to remove will either all or a portion of the channels this city is worried about protecting the rose bowl and the brookside golf course both of which are in the arroyo as well as some nearby homes flooding is also a major concern for darryl dunn general manager of the rose bowl operating company i'll think that's logical channels here for aesthetic value it's here to make sure that the water go somewhere safely the other major human construction and the arroyo seco is the one ten freeway to finish our to regulate oil drilling in washington though homes or

northeast los angeles unified businesses does it say they're still a lot of our ways we want to connect up those parts of the trails ago last year the intersection when tannin might replace rick scott said it especially down here you can see it's all drivers everywhere this is going to be a conference or someone has spray painted the word avatar ten percentage points to the la river rix steps to the river's edge and peers around the overpass to see the end of your lawyer say no as it meets the la river he says the santa monica mountains conservancy is in the process of buying and leasing land here in order to make the area are white like

well why some property and other assad opened up the chapel and create a nice place for people to experience the arroyo seco the los angeles river is bricks hazard than the land is set aside his dream could flow freely here the conservancy is studying that possibility in the meantime it expects to open the part of the public about five years and important step in what could be a decades long effort to naturalize the arroyo say for kpcc news i'm alyssa set sail in the arroyo seco