News of the Arroyo
Title: | Don't reinvent wheel |
Subtitle: | |
Date: | 2004-11-04 |
Summary: | November 4, 2004 - In a letter to the Star News, Arroyo Brigader Ray Dashner lays out his views on how to restore the Arroyo Seco. |
Author: | Ray Dashner, Letter Writer |
Publication: | Pasadena Star News |
Content: | It\'s been many months since any news has come from the agencies that are studying the elimination of the Arroyo Seco \"ditch.\" I think there are a few red faces among the many bureaucrats involved in this study. They\'ve come to realize that my solution is better than theirs, and because it wasn\'t invented by them, it\'s a big problem to adopt the most sensible method. How does it get done? First, a few things have to be considered: A) To remove the vertical walls of the concrete \"ditch,\" steps have to be taken to support the adjacent soil now used as pathways and horse trails. What better support can there possibly be than the vertical concrete surfaces that are already in place? B) Once the concrete is totally removed, what do you use to fill the trench? Where will you get the hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of material needed to fill this chasm from the South Pasadena line all the way to Devil\'s Gate? (Of course, the exceptions are the natural portions of the Arroyo Seco stream bed that are not channelized north of the Colorado St. Bridge.) C) How would the neighborhood cope with the noise of jackhammers and thousands of trucks needed to take apart the concrete? Never mind the question of where it all gets dumped, plus the question of the effect this bedlam would have on the Arroyo habitat. Here\'s the solution, folks: Use electrified conveyor belts to carry the huge cubic volume of silt, rocks and boulders from behind Devil\'s Gate Dam to fill the existing \"ditch\" to the top of the existing supporting concrete. Take down the atrocious fences on both the north and south sides of the newly formed stream bed, restoring the original natural appearance of the Arroyo Seco River. In this way, we will have reclaimed the lost water storage capacity behind the Devil\'s Gate Dam, making more storage available for spring runoff from the San Gabriel\'s, while secondly we have created a new riverbed using virtually the same kind of material that once flowed downstream when there was no dam at Devil\'s Gate in the early part of the 20th century. The city of Kobe, Japan did exactly this same kind of thing by moving a mountain top located north of the city, conveying the material down through the city on elevated electric-motor-propelled conveyor belts, filling a nearly useless shallow bay for one square mile. It is now called Portopia, a thriving mini-city with hotels, convention facilities, residences and many businesses in a new district served by an automated train system linking downtown Kobe. Our bureaucrats think it\'s better to invent another new wheel than follow an example already implemented successfully elsewhere on the planet. Ray Dashner Pasadena |
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