Action of the Week: L.A. River Expedition
Sunday, July 27
By Carman Tse
One by one they trickled into the stopping point right under the Slauson Street overpass, and to be honest, it wasn’t a very intimidating protest. Behind schedule, scrappy, and sunburned, the dozen or so embarking on the L.A. River Expedition finally arrived at the Maywood Riverfront Point where I had been eagerly waiting for them. I promise you that this isn’t a joke. Yes, some people actually took the effort to kayak down the 52-mile stretch of the river over the span of three days.
Crazy they may be, but according to kayaker Joe Linton, he sees his merry crew of bandits as “Lovers of the river, visionaries, and those that view the river as a resource.” According to the author of Down by the Los Angeles River: Friends of the Los Angeles River’s Official Guide, the goal of this trip was to shine a spotlight on the oft-maligned and ignored resource and to prove that the recent decision by the Army Corps of Engineers declaring the river “unnavigable” was dead wrong.
Alex Kenefick, another one of the kayakers, saw the protest as an opportunity to make the public aware of the cutbacks being made to environmental protection, especially in the West. Declaring the river unnavigable washes away any protection provided by the Clean Water Act, especially with the ruling by the Supreme Court in Rapanos v. United States that narrowed the definition of “navigable waters,” and thus opened the floodgates of a potentially dire future for the L.A. River.
Once the life force of the city that grew up around it, the river was tamed and controlled in the 1930s by the Army Corps to prevent the annual flooding that would haunt the city every winter. Today it is entombed in the concrete that surrounds it for most of its stretch down to the ocean, and remains de jure closed to the public. But according to Kenefick, “People walk along the river every day, making it de facto open. If people kayak the river regularly, the waters themselves will be de facto open. People should have access to the river like they have access to the beach.” Naturally, there’d be no protest without breaking the law, and this group was denied a permit to kayak down the river by the Army Corps. They did, however, get a filming permit. Rock the Boat: The L.A. River Expedition, coming soon to a film festival near you.
As soon as they arrived, they took off for their eventual destination of Shoreline Park in Long Beach! Nelson’s Fleet they weren’t, but they had spirit and their message was clear.
Published: 07/30/2008
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Great article, Carman -- succinct & accurate. Thanks for distinguishing the legal definition of navigable vs. "[traditional] navigable waters," and how that ties into the Supreme Court's decisions that washes away protections to the LA River (& other waterways across the country). Safety concerns ...were mentioned as the main reason not to get permitted access to the river. Carman: You saw those boaters -- did you see anything that seemed unsafe? River characteristics ...are cited as a main reason not to consider the river, essentially, a legitimate river. Were the boaters mostly dragging their boats? How deep was the water? Was there enough flow in the channel to float those boats in a normal boating way?