# Los Angeles River, is open to kayakers for a few weekends. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 21, 2011, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/los-angeles-river-is-open-to-kayakers-for-a-few-weekends/593506 "2011-08-21T04:09:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/los-angeles-river-is-open-to-kayakers-for-a-few-weekends/593506/1 "2011-08-21T04:09:04Z")
This sounds very encouraging. The clean up efforts on the Los Angeles River are slowly improving the river. It’s been heavily polluted for all my life and closed for any recreational use. I’m thrilled to hear they are making progress. It can be done. I recall the Potomac river was just as bad and it’s been drastically improved in the last twenty years. I’d love to do this if I lived closer. [http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/08/20/california.la.river/index.html?hpt=hp\_c2](http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/08/20/california.la.river/index.html?hpt=hp_c2) > [@](#): > > For seven weekends this month and in September, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is allowing the public to make canoe and kayak trips on a 1.5-mile stretch of the 51-mile waterway. > > The Corps’ approval was required because the 1.5-mile segment is located in a flood-control area with a dam called the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area, a 2,000-acre park in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. > > Under the pilot program led by the nonprofit LA Conservation Corps, paddlers drift downstream for 2 ½ hours along the sycamore- and willow-tree-lined riverbanks. The guide-escorted trip evokes a veritable back-to-nature retreat in the middle of L.A.'s notorious sprawl. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/los-angeles-river-is-open-to-kayakers-for-a-few-weekends/593506/2 "2011-08-21T10:04:27Z")
More information on the river & it’s management by the corps. They took a very heavy handed approach for a long time. Not allowing anyone on the water. It sounds like the cleanup and restoration is still in the early stages. I guess they have to start somewhere. I’m always glad to hear any waterway is being taken care of. I bet the sight of those politicians wobbling in kayaks was hilarious. 😉 > **[Launching a new vision of the L.A. River](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2011-aug-09-la-me-la-river-paddle-20110809-story.html)** > > Launching a new vision of the L.A. River > [@](#): > > Frequent catastrophic floods prompted civic leaders in the 1930s to transform the river into a flood-control channel. Nearly the entire 51-mile river bottom was sheathed in concrete except a few spots such as in the Sepulveda Basin. > > Awareness of the river’s recreational potential grew in the 1980s, when environmental groups pressured the county and the corps. The waterway is slowly being transformed into a greenbelt of parks, trees and bike paths, courtesy of bond measures approved by voters. > [@](#): > > The long-awaited Paddle the Los Angeles River pilot program got off to a wobbly start Monday as two dozen civic leaders in hard hats and bulging life vests stepped into kayaks and pushed out through murky ripples in the Sepulveda Basin. > > The group of flood control officials and City Councilmen Tony Cardenas and Ed Reyes was chaperoned by experienced kayakers and naturalists on hand to make sure no one tipped over into the treated urban runoff or entangled themselves in the heavy brush laden with shredded clothing and plastic bags that lines the 70-foot-wide channel. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/los-angeles-river-is-open-to-kayakers-for-a-few-weekends/593506/3 "2011-08-21T10:16:54Z")
Maybe they’ll eventually organize something like this in LA. An event with volunteers is the only way to get enough manpower to clean up trash. This was just held a few weeks ago. At one time the Potomac was one of the most polluted rivers we had. They’ve done a lot of restoration in the past thirty years. 23rd Annual POTOMAC RIVER WATERSHED CLEANUP > [@](#): > > TRASH DATA > > ``` > 228 Total Tons Removed (456,000 lbs) > 6.6 tons of loose trash (bulky items like furniture, scrap metal & debris, etc.) > 20.66 tons of tires > 14,606 bags of trash & recyclables > 167 sharps/syringes > > ``` > > PARTNERS & VOLUNTEERS > > ``` > 11,388 Volunteers > > ``` > > \ [http://potomaccleanup.org/trash\_initiative/trash\_cleanup.shtml](http://potomaccleanup.org/trash_initiative/trash_cleanup.shtml) ---
**Author:** ![ducati](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cc9497/32.png) [@ducati](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ducati)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/los-angeles-river-is-open-to-kayakers-for-a-few-weekends/593506/4 "2011-08-22T17:02:21Z")
All us non-LA people know about the LA river comes from watching Emergency and all the movies with car-chase scenes down the cement [del]pond[/del] crick. Is there ever a possibility of the entire river becoming navigable for kayaks & the like, or is it simply an overflow path for floods, period? I assume with the area’s water needs, they ain’t lettin nuthin get to the ocean! ---
**Author:** ![tr0psn4j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@tr0psn4j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tr0psn4j)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/los-angeles-river-is-open-to-kayakers-for-a-few-weekends/593506/5 "2011-08-22T23:51:35Z")
> [@ducati](#): > > All us non-LA people know about the LA river comes from watching Emergency and all the movies with car-chase scenes down the cement [del]pond[/del] crick. > > Is there ever a possibility of the entire river becoming navigable for kayaks & the like, or is it simply an overflow path for floods, period? I assume with the area’s water needs, they ain’t lettin nuthin get to the ocean! Parts of it have water year round and even sustain wildlife like carp.