Arroyo Seco (Los Angeles County)

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For other uses, see Arroyo Seco.

The Arroyo Seco (meaning "dry streambed" in Spanish) is a stream and watershed in Los Angeles County, USA, that has been called the most celebrated canyon in Southern California. The watershed begins at Red Box Saddle near Mount Wilson in the Angeles National Forest of the San Gabriel Mountains. As it enters the urbanized area of the watershed, the Arroyo Seco stream flows between La Cañada Flintridge on the west and Altadena on the east, then through Pasadena, South Pasadena, and the neighborhoods of Highland Park and Montecito Heights in Los Angeles before emptying into the Los Angeles River near Elysian Park, north of downtown. [1]

Historic floods and mitigation

File:Devil's Gate Dam.jpg
Enhanced profile of the Devil's face next to Devil's Gate Dam. The dam was rebuilt in the 1990s, although the granite image of the devil was known of over two decades before that.

Although dry much of the year, the Arroyo Seco is periodically inundated by torrential floods from its steep, erosion-prone mountain watershed. Historically, these floods would race down the stream bed and overflow through adjacent communities all the way to the Los Angeles River. The reputation of Arroyo Seco floods led the early settlers of Los Angeles to situate their pueblo out of the way of the confluence of the Arroyo Seco and the Los Angeles River. As Los Angeles developed into a city and grew outwards, the damage from these floods was particularly severe in 1914 and 1916.

In 1920 flood engineers from the Los Angeles County Flood Control District built Devil's Gate Dam in the Arroyo Seco, the first flood control dam in Los Angeles County. Named for a rock outcropping which resembles the face of a devil, Devil's Gate gorge, located in Pasadena between La Cañada Flintridge and Altadena, is the narrowest spot in the Arroyo Seco.

Above the dam is the flood basin which captures the flows of the mountain watershed of the Arroyo Seco. This area is now called "Hahamongna," a phrase meaning "Flowing Waters, Fruitful Valley," a remarkably different designation than the name given the area by the Spanish explorers. Hahamongna also refers to the original Native American tribe of the Tongva Indians who once inhabited the area. Pasadena is developing the Devil's Gate/Hahamongna flood basin into Hahamongna Watershed Park, a 1,400-acre (6 km2) regional park, which emphasizes the unique natural values of the park.

Below the dam, most of the Arroyo Seco stream, with two short exceptions, is contained in a concrete channel that captures stormwater and municipal runoff. This channel and other similar flood control structures throughout the Los Angeles Basin and along the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains were built following the devastating Los Angeles Flood of 1938.

The Arroyo Seco Stream

The Arroyo Seco stream, which is fed by a 46.7 square miles (121.0 km2) watershed, helps to replenish the Raymond Basin, an aquifer underlying Pasadena that provides about half the local water supply. This is one of two major streams that capture rainfall and storm water in Pasadena, the other being Eaton Wash on the eastern side of the city, a tributary of the Rio Hondo watershed. [2]

Just below Devil's Gate Dam, the channelized stream passes underneath the Foothill Freeway; it then proceeds southward through Brookside Golf Course, past the Rose Bowl, and Brookside Park. After passing under the Ventura Freeway and the Colorado Street Bridge, the stream crosses the Raymond Fault at the southern boundary of Pasadena. The channel continues along the western boundary of South Pasadena, then into the northeast Los Angeles, flowing through Highland Park, Montecito Heights and Cypress Park. The Pasadena Freeway, also known as the Arroyo Seco Parkway, parallels the channelized stream until it reaches the Los Angeles River near Elysian Park and Dodger Stadium.

Arroyo Restoration Efforts

For more than one hundred years, the great natural beauty of the Arroyo Seco and its proximity to a large urban population have inspired efforts to protect and preserve it. Charles Lummis founded the Arroyo Seco Foundation in 1905 for that purpose, and residents in Los Angeles and Pasadena contributed generously to efforts to buy up open space in the great canyon to protect for future generations.

In recent years, up and down the Arroyo, citizens, neighborhood groups and governmental agencies are collaborating to better manage the watershed for nature and for people and to pass on its splendor and riches to future generations.

There has been a series of studies conducted to assess and improve the management of the Arroyo Seco Watershed. These include:

Study or Program Year Description
Arroyo Seco Watershed Restoration Feasibility Study 2002 A cooperative partnership of North East Trees and the Arroyo Seco Foundation, this report released in May, 2002, provides a blueprint for restoration and better management for the watershed
US Army Corps of Engineers Arroyo Seco Watershed Reconnaissance Study 2002 Evaluates watershed conditions and determines there is a federal purpose in Arroyo Seco work.
Pasadena Arroyo Seco Master Plan & EIR 2003 Identifies a comprehensive series of projects and improvements for the five mile (8 km) stretch of the Arroyo Seco lying within Pasadena
Angeles National Forest Master Plan - US Forest Service 2005 Defines the plan for the management of the upper mountain watershed of the Arroyo Seco
Arroyo Seco Watershed Coordination Program (Arroyo Seco Foundation) 2004-ongoing Builds the capacity of local groups to cooperate and collaborate in watershed management.
AS Watershed Management and Restoration Study (North East Trees) 2006 Reviews water quality and habitat restoration data and prioritizes projects for water quality improvements
Central Arroyo Stream Restoration Program 2007-2008 This program will improve stream conditions and water quality in the Arroyo Seco stream by habitat restoration, parking lot and trail improvements and trash capture devices.
Arroyo Seco Watershed Sustainability Program 2007-2010 A program to improve conservation, watershed management and governance in the watershed

The Arroyo Seco restoration goals are:
1. Restore the natural hydrological functioning of the watershed
2. Better manage, optimize, conserve water resources while improving water quality
3. Restore, protect and augment habitat quality, quantity and connectivity
4. Improve recreational opportunities and enhance open space[3]

The restoration efforts are being carried out by the County of Los Angeles, the local cities, community based organizations like the Arroyo Seco Foundation and North East Trees, the Council of Arroyo Seco Agencies (CASA), the Council of Arroyo Seco Organization (CASO), and the Arroyo Seco Stream Team, a volunteer band organized the by Arroyo Seco Foundation.

History

A view of Devil's Gate on the Arroyo Seco river prior to any damming. Note the devil's profile in the rock to the right.

Mythology

Above Devil's Gate, the rapids of the Arroyo Seco are so positioned so that the falls make a beating, laughing sound. Mythologically, this is attributed to a wager made between the river and the coyote.

Early settlement

The Arroyo Seco was one of the Los Angeles River tributaries explored by Gaspar de Portola in the late summer and fall of 1770. He named the stream Arroyo Seco, for of all the canyons he had seen, this one had the least water. During this exploration he met the Chief Hahamog-na (Hahamonga) near Millard Canyon. These Indians would end up gathered into the fold of the San Gabriel Mission and with other tribes collectively called "Gabrielenos." The Arroyo Seco can be considered by all historical accounts the birthplace of Pasadena. After the secularization of the Missions, the broad area to the east of the Arroyo was named Rancho San Pascual (see Pasadena, California). On the east ridge of the Arroyo in what is now South Pasadena, Manuel Garfias, the owner of the Rancho and its longest early tenant, built his adobe.

With the establishment of the Anglo community of the Indiana Colony (early Pasadenans) in 1874, the new residents built their homes along today's Orange Grove Blvd., a major north-south street which parallels the Arroyo. However, the Arroyo presented a great barrier to easy travel and transportation to and from Los Angeles. Stories of four and five hours just crossing the chasm, whether exaggerated or not, abound in Pasadena history.[4]

The first recorded white man to live in the Upper Arroyo (north of Devil's Gate) was simply known as "Old Man Brunk". Brunk's cabin stood at a large bend in the canyon, roughly where the Forest Service housing is today. It was said he left San Francisco "for that town's good".[5]

A Major Transportation Corridor

Dating back to the original Tongva residents of the area, the Arroyo Seco canyon has always served as a major transportation corridor. Today it links downtown Los Angeles with Pasadena and the west San Gabriel Valley.

By 1895 a railroad line had been established from Downtown Los Angeles with a grand wooden trestle that cut a straight line crossing from the west side to the east. Eventually this line would hook up with rail lines built from the east to create the cross-country course of the Santa Fe Railroad. For local commutes, an electric traction trolley was put in and operated by the Pacific Electric Railway, a Huntington enterprise, which ran from points northeast into Los Angeles and other points beyond.[6]

In 1900 Horace Dobbins, Mayor of Pasadena, opened his innovative cycleway, an elevated wood structure with a flat planked byway that would allow bicyclers to travel from Pasadena to Los Angeles free from the uncertain schedules of PE trains. Dobbins was only able to build a two-mile portion of the cycleway from the Green Hotel to Raymond Hill before competition from the railroad and the growing popularity of the horseless carriage undermined Dobbin's vision, although to this day cycling activists such as Dennis Crowley are trying to revive the plan for a dedicated cycleway from Pasadena to Los Angeles.

In 1913 the Colorado Street Bridge was dedicated. This elegant structure winds across the Arroyo accessing Eagle Rock, Glendale and downtown Los Angeles. During the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression of the 1930s, the bridge was a jumping off point for many committing suicide, whereby it received the ignoble name of "Suicide Bridge." By the 1980s the bridge fell into disrepair as chunks of concrete dropped from its face to the armory parking lot below. After the Loma Prieta (near Oakland) earthquake of 1989, the bridge was closed as a precautionary measure. Eventually assistance from the Federal Bridge Repair and Replacement Fund and other local governmental agency discretionary funds provided funding for the complete restoration and seismic retrofit of the bridge. The total project budget amounted to $24 million, and the bridge was reopened on Dec. 13, 1993, on time and on budget.

The automobile had long become a mainstay of Southern California life, and in 1940 the first freeway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway, was built alongside the newly constructed flood channel in the Los Angeles portion of the Arroyo. Today it is generally known as the Pasadena Freeway, which passes through downtown and links to the Harbor Freeway, terminating in San Pedro, Los Angeles, California.

The Arroyo Seco Corridor Management Plan was completed for the historic "Pasadena Freeway" in 2004. Created through a partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Scenic Byways Center (Federal Highways), Cal-Trans, National Park Service, the Santa Monica Mountains/Mountains Recreation Authority, and The Center for Preservation Education and Planning (CPEP Inc.). Project Managers for the Arroyo Seco Corridor Management Plan were Dan Marriott, National Trust for Historic Preservation and Jeff Samudio, Executive Director, Center for Preservation Education and Planning, Hollywood.

Jet Propulsion Lab (NASA)

Jet Propulsion Laboratory was established at the mouth of the Arroyo Seco in 1930 by the California Institute of Technology. In the 1950s the laboratory was heavily involved in rocket testing, and the roars of rocket engines could be heard emanating from the canyon for miles. These rocket projects were terminated at the facility by 1958. By the mid 1960s JPL had become highly instrumental in the development, launching and tracking of a number of unmanned near-space and deep-space spacecrafts. One of their most recent projects is the Mars Rover which has returned a number of panoramic photos of the Martian surface.

On a public relations side, JPL has been sharply criticized by local environmentalists for their contamination of the local groundwater with toxic chemicals such as solvents and a rocket fuel accellerant called perchlorate. A monumental cleanup project has been launched by NASA which includes a multimillion dollar pumping and filtration system to pump and treat the groundwater until the contamination level has been reduced to acceptably safe levels. The project is being staffed by a special project team from NASA and duly monitored by the EPA. Frequent public meetings are held and public comment recorded for the record on the progress of the cleanup.

Attractions & landmarks of the Arroyo Seco

The many great places to visit in the Arroyo Seco have made it one of the most popular hiking spots in Southern California. These include in succession from north to south:

Switzer Falls.

Highlights of the Upper Arroyo Seco

The mountainous part of the Arroyo Seco is located within the Angeles National Forest. The Gabrielino Trail, which is a popular journey for hikers, equestrians and bicyclists, travels up the steep canyon.

The following is a list of Forest Service facilities in the Upper Arroyo, from south to north:

  • Forest Service Employee Housing w/ attached public hitching rail and horse trough
  • Teddy's Outpost Picnic Area
  • Gould Mesa Campground
  • Niño Picnic Area
  • Paul Little Picnic Area
  • Oakwilde Campground
  • Commodore Perry Switzer Trail Camp
  • Switzer's Picnic Area
  • Red Box Station (at the canyons head)

Millard Canyon, located near the mouth of the Arroyo, is a delightful canyon with an impressive waterfall. Sunset Ridge Trail skirts the eastern side of Millard Canyon, the eastern boundary of the Arroyo Seco Watershed. This canyon was a major pedestrian thoroughfare for native Americans travelling from the coastal plain to the desert regions of Southern California.

Brown Mountain Truck Trail, which begins near the confluence of El Prieto Canyon and proceeds across the front range of the San Gabriel Mountains to upper Millard Canyon, offers impressive vistas of the San Gabriel Valley. The Burton Trail descends from this road to the upper stretches of the Arroyo near Oakwilde Campground.

Angeles Crest Highway skirts the western edge of the Arroyo Seco Canyon.

References

  1. ^ Information has been derived from the archives of the Pasadena Museum of History and the Arroyo Seco Foundation.
  2. ^ SectionTOC
  3. ^ Arroyo Seco Watershed
  4. ^ Pasadena, Hiram Reid, 1895. Out of Print. A comprehensive history of Pasadena after 20 years of colonization.
  5. ^ Altadena by Sarah Noble Ives, 1938 (Altadena Historical Society, out of print)
  6. ^ Trolley Days in Pasadena, 1985, Charles Seims.
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