Author's Note: This piece, in abbreviated form, was published in Current News, the publication of Friends of the Los Angeles River, in March of 1998. A short time later, NorthEast Trees secured the necessary grants and permits, and miraculously, began landscaping a series of "meditation zones" separated by plantings of native trees and bushes, linking an entranceway near Los Feliz Boulevard with the original garden reconstructed by the Creative Writing Club. Work on our garden is continuous. Donations of native plants and elbow grease are always welcome.

Although it appears that, for now, the battle over access has been won, four prison fences have been erected just south of our garden, and erection enthusiasts continue to press for even more of the steel and barbed wire monstrosities. This tale is presented as a caution: Without our constant vigilance, it could all happen again.

If you wish to get a full historical perspective of the Los Angeles River and view more pictures, click here.

A few months ago, a group of Cal State L.A. students built a small rock and succulent garden above the banks of the Los Angeles River in Atwater Village. That strip of riverbank, near the Sunnynook Footbridge between Glendale and Los Feliz Boulevards, has been "unofficially" open to access for over fifty years. The garden drew immediate neighborhood support. On any given evening, you could find an elderly gentleman sitting on a rock amid the foliage, watching the sun set. Neighbors paused from their daily walks to rest and look at something really quite special, a sign of caring intent along an otherwise desolate stretch of weeds. A few days ago, work crews apparently hired by the Army Corps went through and tore out every living thing. The carnage was tossed, unceremoniously and perhaps illegally, into the River. The message was loud and clear: Don't even think of beautifying the River.

I tell you about this tiny garden plot because it is symptomatic of the desecration of the River, which we all know has been going on for a long, long time. However, the appetite for riparian destruction has taken on powerful new momentum in recent months, perhaps in reaction to growing public consciousness of the inestimable potential we have in the River for aesthetic and recreational development. By accident of history and geology, sleepy little Atwater Village may some day be remembered as the place where the battle to green the Los Angeles River was taken to the streets. At stake is the very heart and soul of more than just a single neighborhood.

On Saturday evening, February 28, at the Lasung Evangelical Church behind the Jackie Goldberg Memorial Toys R Us in the heart of Atwater, Congressman Xavier Becerra presided over a hastily convened meeting of residents concerned about the River and its future in their neighborhood. At issue was the erection, by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, of a series of eight foot tall, barbed wire topped, rusty, dangerous, surplus prison fences at the ends of cul-de-sacs in Atwater Village. These eyesores, which many locals fear would turn their community into a nickel-and-dime version of Cold War-era Berlin, are the official solution to the complaints of several Atwaterians who have experienced gang- and/or youth-related activity on their streets.

Erection enthusiasts are fond of quoting Robert Frost's famous line, "Good fences make good neighbors." They misrepresent the poem, which after all begins with a vision of nature's inherent disgust at human meddling: "Something there is that doesn't love a wall." It's not just nature that doesn't love these walls. It is also the majority of Atwaterians.

Nobody at that meeting or in the area wants to see their neighbors besieged by urban blight. We all understand the fears of those residents who requested additional fencing in an attempt to protect their cul-de-sacs. But the question raised again and again at the meeting was, simply: how does fencing off the River and denying law-abiding citizens access to it in any way do anything but create a safe-haven for increased unlawful activity? The bandaid-on-a-cancer approach taken by federal and local officials won't work. When it comes to crime prevention, fences always do more harm than good. Atwaterians, by and large, know it. In just a few days, a small group of neighbors and I gathered the signatures of more than two hundred Atwaterians opposed to the fence scheme (only six persons contacted declined to sign). In fact, the people who live directly adjacent to the River in this part of Atwater overwhelmingly do not want those fences. In these places, it turns out, convenient, quiet (albeit officially "illegal") access to the River has actually increased the safety of the residents.

One would think these arguments would be compelling enough to make our good Congressman pause to think a moment or two. Sadly, they were not. At the end of the meeting, after facing a crowd of over a hundred Atwaterians who condemned the fence scheme, the Congressman all but announced that three more prison fences were going up, joining the one already erected at the end of Glenmanor Place (and which is already rusting and falling apart). What future plans the Army Corps has for Atwater's stretch of the River remain veiled in secrecy. We do know that the original plan was to fence off Atwater completely. And for what purpose?

I have walked along the River for more than ten years. Daily. At all hours. I have never felt less than utterly safe or gone without at least a glimmer of awe. Hundreds of avian species live in and around the foliage that clings to rocks on the natural river bottom. In the spring, the mallards, wood ducks and coots tend to their broods of chicks, circling in and out of the reeds. In the summer, children capture fat crayfish along the banks. Last fall, I watched a middle-aged couple sit by the silver water, enjoying the sunset, quietly celebrating a wedding anniversary. In the ten years I have walked the River, I have yet to confront a single gangsta. I have, however, spotted many a Great Blue Heron and on one occasion, even a pair of vermillion flycatchers.

The River in Atwater has over the years come to be a neighborhood recreational area frequented by hundreds of local residents who go there to walk their dogs, socialize with neighbors, watch the variety of avian species, and generally enjoy one of the few places in this city where we can experience nature. At the meeting, some officials present, incredibly, made us River supporters feel like the criminals -- in fact, it became a running joke, as many citizen speakers prefaced their comments by attesting to how many years they'd been illegally accessing the River. But the dark humor aside, many of us wondered long before we face arrest for the simple act of walking along our River.

What happens in Atwater Village has consequences, environmental and political. I pray that FoLAR's plan to design more aesthetic replacements for the prison fences actually happens. If Atwater has one singular quality that distinguishes us, it lies in our proximity to what is arguably the most beautiful stretch of the L.A. River in Los Angeles city. In the end, we Atwaterians will be judged by our stewardship of this great natural resource.

Lao Tzu observed, "When men lose a sense of wonder, there will be disaster." To rip the River from our hearts with a series of prison fences is to strip us of one last vestige of wonder, and the disaster that will follow lies not just in the hands of those we have elected to serve us. It lies, mainly, in our own. We can stop it. We must. And my neighbors and I are going to rebuild that tiny garden. Again and again, if that's what it takes. For that elderly gentlemen who likes to sit there taking in the day's last light. For all of us.