By Caleigh Wells for KCRW.
Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

The deluge of rain over the weekend flooded streets and damaged infrastructure across California. One place that didn’t flood? The Los Angeles River.

That, of course, is by design. It’s exactly why local officials starting excavating the river and lining it with concrete 85 years ago, and ever since, most of the LA River’s 51 miles from the Santa Susana Mountains to the San Pedro Bay have served primarily as a flood management system.

But a changing climate and changing ideas about how Angelenos want to live with nature are now sparking a debate about LA’s relationship with its straight-jacketed river. Is it too late for a better way?

The rewilding argument

A nonprofit called The River Project says no, and is advocating for restoring the original river ecosystem Angelenos enjoyed 100 years ago.

The River Project’s founder, Melanie Winter, dreams of the LA River as a natural, uninterrupted public space void of steep, concrete walls. She’s referred to one such section as LA’s version of Central Park.

A version of that dream actually already exists at the Sepulveda Basin in Encino. There, the river is a naturally babbling brook weaving around rocks and between trees.

“It has become the place that I bring people to talk about the river,” Winter says. “We're sitting in the middle of a 2,000-acre, undeveloped, federally-owned piece of property that's designed to flood.”

It smells like mud and wet plants, and during a 50-foot walk from a nearby grassy lawn to the river bank, the temperature plummets 10 degrees.

“If you allow the water to slow down, you're going to get healthier soils, you're going to get groundwater recharge, you're going to get richer habitats, you're going to get reduced fire risk, and because you're allowing the river more space within this vast open space, you're going to get more flood detention capacity,” says Winter.

LA County officials say community members have told them they want a more natural, open river with trails and trees. The River Project submitted a proposal that reimagined the river in the Sepulveda Basin and prioritized its historic natural behavior.

A case for concrete

But today, most of the river is still lined with concrete and the current plan is to keep it that way. Changing it would mean a complete overhaul of our decades-old urban environment. After all, the city originally prioritized flood management for a reason.

When it rains, rivers flood. The extra room the river needs to do that is called a floodplain, and the LA River’s concrete channel has allowed thousands of people to build their homes safely in that floodplain.

The river “needs to flow to provide these adjacent communities with the protection that they need, so that they're not worried about floodwaters damaging their property, their infrastructure, or their houses, and then also their lives,” says Genevieve Osmena, a senior civil engineer with LA County’s Department of Public Works. “The river would have to be widened anywhere from three to seven times to provide that more natural river I think that folks might be really wanting,” she says.

“The urban community that we have, was allowed to thrive and sprawl up through the last century because of the flood protection that was provided.”

So now we’re stuck. Returning to a natural river would mean relocating miles of neighborhoods along the river’s course. “It would be called displacement,” Osmena says. “It's a sacrifice that I'm not sure all communities or all neighborhoods would be willing to accept or volunteer for.”

Changing climate, changing needs

Winter says she’s heard that argument before, but it’s a conversation worth having as the climate crisis worsens storms and flooding.

“These communities that you say would be displaced by floodplain reclamation will be displaced in a much more violent way if we don't do something,” she says. “These engineering marvels have a shelf life. And sometimes they create more problems than they solve. … The entire system is not built for what we're facing.”

Scientists have run the numbers, and in a 1000-year atmospheric river flood, cleverly named an ARk storm, the LA River could overflow, forcing thousands of people living in its natural floodplain to evacuate and face devastating damages. Osmena says as the climate crisis makes extreme weather more common, the county is aiming to design the river to withstand a 100-year storm. 

Winter calls that inadequate. “We're looking for more open space in communities that lack them. We're looking to secure local water supply,” she says. “There's never been a better opportunity to show how important the river is to a climate-resilient Los Angeles.”

So stakeholders are faced with this question: do you make the best river for the planet’s health, or the best river for the safety of the people living near it?

“There's something in the middle.”

Candice Dickens is the CEO of Friends of the LA River and lives in Downey, right on the river, in the floodplain. She sees room for compromise.

“We don’t believe that nature-based solutions and safety are mutually exclusive,” she says. “And it's tough to go to the table with the city and be like, ‘So when are we going to get these folks to move?’ That's a little tough to do.”

As an alternative, Osmena points to an area in Long Beach about a dozen miles before the river meets the ocean. An old water quality detention pond sits next to the concrete channel where the LA River flows in damp times. In the late 90s, LA County officials engineered this area into a wetland. If a big storm hits that risks flooding, the water can go back to the concrete channel. 

But most days, the water flow is low enough that officials can divert it through the wetland.

“We have it meander through these channels that go back and forth with carefully selected plants and vegetation that will clean the water and improve the water quality, as well as foster habitat and ecosystem. It attracted I think, a lot more biodiverse range of animals, birds. I think people come here to watch birds,” Osmena says.

Having access to the land to do this kind of thing is rare, but in Cypress Park and Glassell Park, and where the Rio Hondo meets the river on the edges of Downey, South Gate and Lynwood, LA County has already found a few other chunks of the river to try out bringing nature to the parts of town that need it most.


Caleigh Wells wrote this article for KCRW.


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Wyoming's irrigation infrastructure is aging and the state gets regular requests to update it but in some cases, project benefits may not outweigh the costs.

Parts of the Bighorn Basin are some of the driest in Wyoming, according to state data. The proposed Alkali Creek Reservoir Project would provide supplemental, late-season water to 33 irrigators across 13,000 acres of land, a design in the works since 2007.

Jason Mead, director of the Wyoming Water Development Office, said a recently announced potential design change, from an open irrigation ditch to a pipeline, added about $30 million to the dam's price tag. It also decreases the ratio of benefits to costs, a calculation the office does for any water storage project it works on.

"In regards to the grant and loan, we can grant up to 100% of a project per our criteria," Mead explained. "But it's not to exceed the public benefit."

Benefits include boating and fishing in the reservoir, the short-term benefits of dam construction and the indirect benefits to local and regional economies through increased crop production. Mead noted other considerations are the life expectancy of the dam, the ability and willingness of the users to pay for it and, of course, the direct benefit to irrigators themselves, who plan to use the water mainly for alfalfa, corn, sugar beets and barley. Opponents said the dam will disrupt natural watershed functions.

Dagny Signorelli, Wyoming director for the Western Watersheds Project, said the dam could reduce spring flows in Paint Rock Creek by 33%, in Medicine Lodge Creek by 16% and in Alkali Creek up to 100%.

"In general, dams disrupt natural river ecosystems by altering their flow patterns and reducing the frequency and intensity of natural flooding events," Signorell pointed out.

Signorelli added it could alter habitat for wildlife both upstream and downstream, with special concerns for trout, pronghorn, elk, mule deer and raptors. Plus, according to permit objections submitted by Western Watersheds Project in 2018, greater sage grouse use five breeding grounds within a four-mile radius of the project.


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Oregonians have until July 22 to submit comments on the implementation of new environmental restrictions for the state's largest farms.

When the Oregon Legislature passed Senate Bill 85 last year, regulations were signed into law for Confined Animal Feeding Operations. Now, the Oregon Department of Agriculture is working to implement them.

Brian Posewitz, staff attorney for the group WaterWatch of Oregon, said the new rules will help protect one of Oregon's most important natural resources.

"All Oregonians should care about that, because all Oregonians should care about our water supplies, both in the streams and rivers as well as in the groundwater," Posewitz emphasized. "Because those water supplies are precious to everybody."

The regulations mean more closely monitoring the amount of water used by the large farms and considering the placement of the operations to reduce nitrate contamination in groundwater caused by manure. The move to protect Oregon's water supply coincides with an increase in demand for water as the state reenters its wildfire season.

As important as Oregon's water is, regulations often come with a price tag. Large ag operations could be more limited in their site selection, disposal of waste and use of water. The Oregon Farm Bureau predicted tougher rules will affect people's trips to the grocery store.

Lauren Poor, vice president of government and legal affairs for the bureau, thinks the new rules will make it harder to buy local, and wonders if the changes are justified.

"There wasn't a clear indication that there needed to be changes to this program to protect Oregon's waterways or Oregon's water supply," Poor contended.

According to Poor, the previous regulations were working, and continuously changing them can be difficult for producers. The deadline is July 22 to submit public comments to the Oregon Department of Agriculture before the regulations are finalized the end of this summer.


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The CEO of Austin Master Services - owner of a fracking-waste storage facility in Martin's Ferry, Ohio - will attend a hearing by phone today in Belmont County, facing contempt-of-court charges for failing to clean up 10,000 tons of waste - far beyond what the company was permitted to store.

Advocates and local officials continue to express concerns about the Ohio Department of Natural Resources' handling of toxic fracking waste and oversight of these types of facilities.

Beverly Reed, director and community organizer with the citizens' group Concerned Ohio River Residents, said they are on alert about potential water contamination - noting the facilities' proximity to the city's water supply and football field.

"When you have one of these facilities by a water supply, by where people recreate - anywhere, basically," said Reed, "it's concerning because of what's actually getting into the environment and what could be getting to water. "

ODNR spokesperson Karina Cheung said in an email that the agency is closely monitoring the situation and stands ready to clean up the facility if Austin Master Services fails to comply with the court's order - and that in April, before the court's contempt order, the Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management removed hundreds of barrels of liquid waste from the facility.

Fracking waste contains high levels of radium, volatile organic compounds, and at least one thousand chemicals.

Mayor of Martins Ferry John Davies argued that ODNR hasn't taken enough action to clean up the public health threat as quickly as possible.

"I'd like to see ODNR take responsibility, because they were responsible to permit the waste, and they're the ones that allowed it to go from 600 tons to 10,000 tons," said Davies. "The city has no jurisdiction. So I would like to see ODNR take control of the situation and clean it up."

Davies said he hopes the state shuts the facility down permanently, rather than issuing a new permit to potential waste storage companies that want to buy it.

"We do not want it re-permitted in the city of Martins Ferry," said Davies. "It's too close to our water source, and we're hoping that ODNR doesn't permit another company to enter the facility."

Davies added that the city continues to check it's water supply more frequently to ensure the community remains safe.