By Janette Williams Staff Writer

PASADENA

Monday, October 12, 1998

With the city about to contract for a comprehensive study of Pasadena's 14-mile section of the Arroyo Seco, local environmentalists are afraid that city officials will back away from plans to remove the massive concrete flood channel lining it since the 1940s.

"Although the (removal) plan has not been technically voted on by the City Council, most people thought it was approved as part of the Lower Arroyo Seco master plan a year and a half ago," said Tim Brick, former executive director of the Hahamongna Operating Co. and a member of the Arroyo Seco Foundation.

"For 15 or more years there has been discussion of removing the flood channel, and over and over again the community has said they want a more natural stream," Brick said. "I've always advocated a big party on Earth Day, like removing the Berlin Wall, give everyone a hammer and charge them.

The best way to see what could happen is to stand at the Colorado Street Bridge. One way you see a natural stream, and the other way you see this barren concrete channel."

A 38-acre area of the lower arroyo near the bridge, including 8 acres of stream, was given a $4.5 million restoration in 1997 by Browning-Ferris Industries as part of a legal agreement to expand its Sunshine Canyon landfill.

The flood channel was installed by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1940s in response to a catastrophic 1938 flood, Brick said.

"But now the Devil's Gate Dam is fixed, there's not a lot to flood," he said. "Anyway, (the channel) can only handle about a third of the maximum flow, and people who think it's a definitive solution have a false sense of security."

Although the council approved the master plan for the lower arroyo, the recommendation was for them simply to look at the possibility of removing the flood control channel, said Bob Baderian, the city's parks and natural resources director.

"I believe there was discussion about taking a look at the feasibility only after completion of the Devil's Gate project and a thorough investigation about the outcome if all flood control were removed," Baderian said.

"We are in the process of finalizing the total arroyo impact review, taking a look at the arroyo as a whole ecosystem," Baderian said. "That's where we are today ... I don't believe anybody's got to the point of determining the feasibility, the cost, the time or the impact" on flood control.

Removing the channel would be a major undertaking that Pasadena could not afford to do on its own, he said.

The Arroyo Seco runs about 14 miles through Pasadena, fed by streams in the San Gabriel Mountains, and carries water through Hahamongna via Devil's Gate Dam to the central portion and then into the county Flood Control District's channel to empty into San Pedro Bay.

The three master plans involved for Pasadena's section are for Hahamongna Watershed Park, the Central Arroyo the most heavily used portion that includes the Rose Bowl, Brookside Park, Brookside Golf Course and the Aquatics Center and the Lower Arroyo, which begins south of the Colorado Street Bridge.

Tom Seifert, a member of the recreation and parks commission and the Arroyo Seco Foundation, said modern technology could make removal of the flood channel feasible.

"We realize it's a monumental undertaking, but clearly it's the recommendation of the Recreation and Parks Commission that removal of the flood channel would be of the highest priority," Seifert said. "As long as that water is flowing through the flood channel with no opportunity to percolate into the ground, basically the arroyo will remain a wasteland."

Senior planner Nancy Key said removal of the channel could be complicated by flood control issues in the Busch Gardens housing development built in the arroyo on the Pasadena/South Pasadena border during the 1940s and by the number of jurisdictions involved.

"There's probably some kind of middle ground," Key said. "We envision both the lower arroyo and Hahamongna as more natural 'bookends' with the Rose Bowl in the middle. There are also alternatives (to removal) like covering the channel and landscaping on top ... but we definitely need some form of flood control in the arroyo."

Councilman Bill Crowfoot said removal of the flood channel is "one of these issues that goes on forever" and said he did not expect anything to happen to the channel in his lifetime.

"The channel is there for a reason, someone thought it was a safer way of doing things, and before we do something else we have to make sure it's a safe thing to do," Crowfoot said. "People made the decision about living there with certain assumptions about their safety."