San Gabriel River (California)
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The San Gabriel River flows 75 miles through southern Los Angeles County, California. It rises in the San Gabriel Mountains, flowing southwest into and through the western San Gabriel Valley before turning southward at the Whittier Narrows to enter the Los Angeles Basin. It forms the boundary between Los Angeles and Orange counties for a brief stretch before it empties into the Pacific Ocean between Long Beach and Seal Beach.
Like most rivers in southern California, the San Gabriel River today bears little resemblance to the river it was before the arrival of early Spanish settlers. It is dammed four times along its length: twice in the San Gabriel Mountains to create reservoirs; at the Santa Fe Dam in the Santa Fe Dam Flood Control Basin in Irwindale; and with the nearby Rio Hondo (to which it is also connected by a short channel) at the Whittier Narrows Dam, between the cities of South El Monte and Pico Rivera. Its channel is lined with concrete for most of its length below the mountains. These alterations were made in response to disastrous flash floods in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During periods of heavy rainfall, the Los Angeles District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can shift flows between the Rio Hondo (a tributary of the Los Angeles River) and the San Gabriel River.
As with the similarly modified Los Angeles River, the San Gabriel is a notorious symbol of environmental depredation, and efforts to restore its ecosystem have had only limited success due to water pollution and fertilizer runoff.
[edit] External links
- Amigos de los Rios (an organization whose goal is to create a necklace of parks connecting the San Gabriel River, the Rio Hondo, and Whittier Narrows)
- Documentary on the San Gabriel River, Ya Don't Miss the Water (A five-part video that documents the major ecological, political, and social problems of the community - approximately 2 million people surround and use the river's water.)
