A River Runs Through It

Witness the San Gabriel River, a north-south waterway with an array of populations, some of them precious and protected, some of them worrisome to nearby residents, but both of them receiving attention.

The precious and protected are green sea turtles, locally mysterious as they are readily found in tropical environments like coastal Mexico, but unexpected in our local waters,

According to Cassandra Davis, education volunteer coordinator and in-house sea turtle expert at the Aquarium of the Pacific, “They are very difficult to track,” spending most of their time in the Pacific. After about 50 years of study, “a lot of what we know comes from fishermen,” not from science. “We do know the population is improving,” likely because they are a protected species.

Similar insights will be evident at the eighth annual Southern California Urban Ocean Festival to be held at the Aquarium of the Pacific on the weekend of April 29 and 30 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. In this area, the urban ocean is defined as the coastline from Santa Barbara to Mexico, Long Beach being the heart of this phenomenon in more ways than one, considering the port, the breakwater and metro flood control channels that empty into the ocean.

“The Urban Ocean Festival is a celebration of the relationship we share with our unique urban coast,” said an aquarium email. “The festival will utilize the aquarium, our dockside front plaza, and the ocean itself through our poetry cruise and urban ocean cruises to demonstrate how all citizens of our coastal community can utilize and appreciate the coastline through arts, music, lifestyle, and food.”

Elements include an urban ocean “trashin’ fashion” contest as well as art contests in painting and drawing, photography and sculpture categories. Winner of last year’s sculpture contest, William Kieffer entered a fish of ground up paper and glue he dubbed “Perpetuity Reflecting Upon the Chapter of Man.” 

The blue and gray scales of the sculpture were created from found objects to beach junk. When he embarked on collecting this debris, Kieffer wondered if he’d to find enough for his work. He found all he needed within 15 feet from his starting point on the beach.

The San Gabriel River’s worrisome population is the homeless. During a meeting held by Fifth District Councilwoman Stacy Mungo, a few of the 50 or so attendees described a large palm tree fire adjacent to the bike path near the Wal-mart, assumed to be the work of a homeless person on the previous Saturday night.

Mungo responded that laws relating to the homeless and their possessions make uprooting these temporary homes in the riverbed difficult. “If their belongings are left in a public place, and a reasonable person would expect they belong to someone,” then there are strict rules to which the city must conform.

Parks Recreation and Marine Director Marie Knight stated there is a requirement for a  72-hour posting before picking up the belongings. “Then when we pick them up, we have to store items for 90 days. So people move the items, and we have to post them all over again.”

“The county law gives them 14 days to move their tent. We have 170 parks and it’s something we have in any park. So they pack up for one day, then the city goes out, then they come back.” Even though the city has “a lot of great outreach” to help the homeless population, “When we cleaned out 70 people from Willow Springs, one person accepted help.”

One park cleanup cost $500,000 to complete the job; another cost $70,000, which involved dismantling a tunnel system, city park and bus benches and overheads which had been taken over by the homeless population.

Mungo stated someone begging on a street corner can make $400 a day at “not one of our better corners.” A comparable day of employment at a big box retailer can bring about $80 a day in earnings before taxes. Mungo recommended, instead of cash, “Give out cracker packages and granola bars.”

A discussion of coyotes versus cats brought a heated exchange over whether cats should be kept inside homes at night. Coyotes can move more than 30 miles in one night, said Knight. Autopsies show 95 percent of what coyotes feed on isn’t small animals, Knight said.

The meeting began with a description of the long-awaited $2.45 million Heartwell Park irrigation upgrade. The park has three sections and based on how antiquated the systems are in each of the sections, the heaviest usage and number of distressed or diseased trees as well as number of calls, it was decided the upgrade would be in the middle park between Bellflower  Street and Woodruff Avenue.

It is uncertain whether there is enough money to complete the work, which will be added to or subtracted from according to funding. Work will likely begin at end of year, meaning there will be an extended time before the remainder of the park will be addressed.

steve@beachcomber.news