Dr. Jeffrey Tipton held a party at the Oak Room Saturday night to celebrate a July 7 decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that the Los Angeles River is navigable and protected under the Clean Water Act. That designation overturned an earlier ruling by the Army Corps of Engineers that only four miles of the river were navigable. “This is huge because full protection has grand implications,” said Tipton, a Pacific Palisades resident who fought for the river’s protected status. “It means that the river will have to be put back into a state where it can be used for recreation.” More than 70 people gathered at the Swarthmore eatery, including L.A. River activists and comedian Ro Delle Grazie, a Bronx native who joked, “This river would not work back East because there’s not enough water to cover the bodies.” Tipton’s campaign on behalf of the river began as a joke when he and wife, Evelyn Wendell, made a silly video in September 2007 about a man, George Wolfe, who was so frustrated with L.A. traffic that he kayaked to work in a suit, via the L.A. River. Activists used that video, “George’s L.A. River Commute,” which is on YouTube, to show that the river was navigable. “Some people didn’t realize it [the video] was a kind of joke,” said Tipton, director of student health services at Cal State L.A. and owner of the Palisades Integrative Medical Clinic in Pharmaca. Joke or not, Tipton was not laughing when he learned that the river, which originates in the San Fernando Valley, flows past downtown L.A. and empties into the ocean near San Pedro, lost its designation as navigable in 2008. Palisadian Fran Diamond, chairman of the L.A. Regional Water Quality Control Board, told the Palisadian-Post in 2009 that a rancher wanted to fill in a dry creek bed in the Santa Susana Mountains north of Chatsworth in order to develop property. (Those mountains are part of the watershed for the L.A. River.) After the rancher argued that the river itself was a dry streambed, the Army Corps of Engineers reviewed the stream, determined that less than four miles was navigable and removed its protected status. A 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling stated that the Clean Water Act’s protections against pollution apply only if it had a “significant nexus” with “traditional navigable waters.” “George Wolfe and I decided to show people [especially the Corps of Engineers] that you could actually navigate it, and we organized the L.A. River expedition, in July 2008,” Tipton said. With kayaks donated by Sports Chalet, the 12-member group began its two-and a-half day journey in the San Fernando Valley. Although people are not allowed to kayak, wade or play in the river, the group received permission to kayak the 52-mile length because they had a film permit. As he paddled, Tipton was amazed by the landscape surrounding the waterway. “In sections near Encino and Glendale, it was like a mini-jungle with birds and trees,” he said. “We saw people fishing at Atwater Village near Los Feliz, and for six or seven miles there’s no concrete on the bottom of the river. There are even artesian wells underground.” The group’s journey was covered on television and in newspapers. A few weeks later, the L.A. Times reported that the EPA had told the Corps of Engineers that it would consider whether the river and its tributary streams were ‘traditional navigable waters.” In changing the river’s designation to navigable, the EPA considered factors beyond whether the river’s flow and depth can support navigation, and included recreational and commercial opportunities, public access, susceptibility to restoration, and the presence of ongoing restoration and educational projects. “I have attended public hearings and other L.A. River events over the past two years, pushing for this designation to occur,” said Tipton, who blogs about it at survivingla.com, and will help with upcoming expeditions that allow people to kayak portions of the river. “Small efforts can do a lot,” he said. “You never know. If something in the world bothers you, speak up about it. This may lead to change.” Visit: www.lariverexpeditions.com
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