Letters to the Editor: Concrete channels won’t save L.A. in a mega-flood. What was paved over might be needed for all of us to survive
Letters to the Editor: Concrete channels won’t save L.A. in a mega-flood. What was paved over might be needed for all of us to survive
The concrete that is now under L.A., the city’s only permanent flood protection system, has been a source of frustration for its residents, the city and federal officials since it was first constructed in the early 1990s.
It doesn’t work as well as expected, though.
One of the city’s key engineering and construction firms admits that the channel, which protects Los Angeles from flood water from rivers and bayous and can help prevent flooding in the downtown business district, has had some “hiccups.”
L.A.’s mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, said Thursday he and city leaders would look for ways to make the channel more effective and less prone to problems. “We’ll take any lessons from what we’ve learned in the last few years as we go forward,” Villaraigosa said at a news conference in an office that has been taken over by federal officials.
The city of Santa Monica, which operates the system along with federal officials, has said it will spend millions of dollars to try to make the concrete under the downtown street to river channel more effective, possibly with a more modern system that can absorb the flow of water rather than just slow it.
The mayor of Los Angeles was quick to point out that his city has a permanent system that is now providing benefits to its residents. The channel, which began when the river was dredged to create wetlands, has since become the city’s most effective flood protection. More than 1,000 homes are protected by the channel, it is open to the public and there are no flood walls or pumps on the street where it crosses the river.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which is in charge of maintaining the channel and the flood wall, has had to replace thousands of feet of concrete, and officials haven’t figured out how to keep the concrete down in the water at the river’s flood stage.
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