CLEANUP OF L.A. RIVER PAYING OFF; WATERWAY STARTS GETTING SOME RESPECT.Byline: Lisa Weiss Daily News Staff Writer The haul from this year's 10th annual L.A. River Cleanup on Saturday included everything from big-rig truck wheels to Halloween plastic pitchforks. About 2,000 volunteers at 10 sites from Tujunga to Long Beach spent the morning pulling out an estimated 25 tons of stuff that wasn't supposed to be there. Tujunga Wash Tujunga Wash is a stream in Los Angeles County, California. It is a tributary of the Los Angeles River, providing about a fifth of its flow, and drains about 225 square miles. yields many large items such as discarded furniture because there are city-county jurisdictional problems and people don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. who to call for pick up, said Melanie Winter, executive director of Friends of the Los Angeles River The Los Angeles River is an intermittent river flowing through Los Angeles County, California, from Canoga Park in the west end of the San Fernando Valley, 51 miles (82 km) southeast to its mouth in Long Beach. , which organized the event. ``They just get frustrated frus·trate tr.v. frus·trat·ed, frus·trat·ing, frus·trates 1. a. To prevent from accomplishing a purpose or fulfilling a desire; thwart: and end up taking their stuff to the wash,'' she said. As for smaller debris, Winter said recent ad campaigns urging people not to dump cigarette butts or used motor oil down storm drains storm drain n. 1. A storm sewer. 2. A catch basin. have been working. ``I think it is making a difference. We've seen a significant reduction (in the amount of cigarette butts.)'' ``We brought out thousands of people over the years to discover that the river exists,'' she said. ``We're so used to just driving over it.'' In Sepulveda Basin, visitors to Lake Balboa often don't know the river is there because it is obscured by a fast-growing kudzu-like plant called arrundo. When Friends of the L.A. River formed 13 years ago, Winter said, ``People thought we were crazy. We wanted to bring back the river as a resource.'' Parts of the river resemble the idyllic landscape the word evokes while parts of it are paved, the scene of many a movie car chase. ``One of the contributing factors is that for years and years, the Years, The the seven decades of Eleanor Pargiter’s life. [Br. Lit.: Benét, 1109] See : Time Department of Public Works public works pl.n. Construction projects, such as highways or dams, financed by public funds and constructed by a government for the benefit or use of the general public. Noun 1. had referred to it as a flood control channel Flood control channels are a series of large, concrete, and empty (except when a flood is actually present) open-air channels that extend a ways below the street levels of some larger cities, so that if and when a flood occurs, the flood will run into the channels, and proceed to be , a system that they built,'' she said. ``We're trying to get public agencies to use the `R' word.'' Friends of the Los Angeles River timed the event to coincide with Earth Day, which kicked off two days earlier with the dedication of the Great Heron Gate, part of a park that will eventually span the length of the river. In Calabasas, volunteers participated in the first city-sponsored the first cleanup of Calabasas Creek. CAPTION(S): 2 Photos PHOTO (1) Andrew Matero, 10, of Winnetka collects trash along the L.A. River in the Sepulveda Basin area. (2) Jamie Spielvogel, left, Amela Syhapanha and Faye Luu, all of North Hollywood, carry bags of trash from the river Saturday. Evan Yee/Daily News |
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