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Tujunga Wash restoration begins its second stage in the Valley
Joggers race alongside the completed first phase of the Tujunga Wash Greenway.
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Corey Bridwell/KPCC
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Mark Pesrella from LA County Public Works, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, and Colonel Mark Toy break ceremonial ground on the Tujunga Wash Restoration Project.
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Corey Bridwell/KPCC
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Colonel Mark Toy (right), LA District Commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky prepare to break ground.
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Corey Bridwell/KPCC
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The hardhats and golden shovels standing before the groundbreaking.
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Corey Bridwell/KPCC
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Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and Colonel Mark Toy (right) talk to community members before the groundbreaking ceremony.
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Corey Bridwell/KPCC
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Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky gives his speech before the groundbreaking ceremony.
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Corey Bridwell/KPCC
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The finished product of Phase I of the Tujunga Wash Greenway. This view is from the opposite side of the intersection where Phase II broke ground this morning.
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Corey Bridwell/KPCC
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You can see this sign for the Tujunga Wash Ecosystem Restoration Project at the intersection of Vanowen St. and Fulton Ave. in Valley Glen.
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Corey Bridwell/KPCC
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Phase II of the Tujunga Wash Restoration Project broke ground here, just opposite the intersection where Phase I came to completion in 2007.
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Corey Bridwell/KPCC
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Tujunga Wash restoration begins its second stage in the Valley
Colonel Mark Toy speaks to reporters at the ground breaking.
About 30 people gathered Wednesday on a dirt path near a river in Valley Glen to break ground - literally - on a project designed to restore open space and a sustainable stream system to the San Fernando Valley.
Phase two of the Tujunga Wash Ecosystem Restoration project continues where phase one left off, targeting a "natural greenway" left over from the 1970s. The entire to-be-renovated stretch goes for about half a mile.
"We are in the process of restoring the ecosystem," said L.A. County Supervisor Zen Yaroslavsky in a speech at the event. "[...] and, all in all, taking an area that has been barren for half a century or more and restoring it to a relatively lush, verdant kind of an environment."
When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers channelized the Tujunga Wash 50 years ago, that flood control effort starved the river ecosystem. But Yaroslavsky says setting this waterway on a route to recovery will happen much faster.
"In transportation terms, we get a five-month delay, that’s a great project," said Yaroslavsky. "This whole project’s gonna be done in five months."
Sprucing up the area from Vanowen Boulevard to Sherman Way will link an earlier phase of restoration with a greenway that’s been around since the seventies. Bike paths, vegetation, nicer fences and educational signs will line nearly two and a half miles of river, says Colonel Mark Toy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
"They’re going to have a gravity-fed water source which will flow this area," said Toy. "And then, you’re going to get some wildlife that gets in there, and that’s going to create a difference from an eyesore that you see here."
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He added that the community had provided numerous feedback to the project.
"You gotta get their buy-in to make it really successful," said the engineer.
The Army Corps and the county are jointly running the $7 million project. Local officials hope restoring the waterway can serve as a good example for getting permission and money to do the same thing for the Los Angeles River just a little further downstream.
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