COMPTON — Acting on a motion by Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, the county Board of Supervisors last week urged the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin a Compton Creek Ecosystem Restoration study.

“This plan should incorporate multiple-benefit opportunities,” said the supervisor. “Including flood protection, water quality and water conservation improvements, reduction of blight, illegal dumping and non-point source pollution, recreation opportunities and restoration of natural resources.”

The study, according to Mark Pestrella, deputy director of the county Flood Control District, can cost anywhere from $2 million to $10 million. In addition, it could take three to five years to complete.

However, the study could take longer, he said, depending on how quickly the federal government responds in distributing funding to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency currently in charge of maintaining the creek.

The corps has already received $245,000 in stimulus money along with about $400,000 to $500,000 in regular appropriations, said Kathy Anderson, project manager with Civil Works for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, “to develop a storm water management plan for the L.A. County drainage area, which includes more than Compton Creek.”

Pestrella said the study would “identify the needs of the community and the watershed, lay out an action plan and develop an implementation or a construction plan to develop projects to address those needs.”

According to Jay Field, chief of public affairs for the Los Angeles District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the study is being urged mostly because the information they currently have on the creek is old and needs to be more in-depth to meet long-range federal standards. The last major study was conducted in the late 1990s.

Compton Creek, a 42.1-square-mile sub-watershed of the Los Angeles River, is the combination of a concrete box channel and a soft-bottom v-channel. Most of the waterway has been paved with concrete and the surrounding area has been overly developed. The soft-bottom portions are one of the only sections of the creek that is deemed habitable, as are they some of the last pieces of undeveloped land.

“As a result, recreational opportunities in the surrounding communities and along the creek are limited, water quality is degraded, water conservation opportunities have not been realized and open space and natural resources, such as plant and wildlife, have been greatly reduced as well,” Ridley-Thomas said.

In light of this, the county Flood Control District and the Army Corps of Engineers will likely “remove concrete [where feasible] but also supplant concrete with other types of materials that can act to protect the levy system or protect the channel system,” Pestrella said.

Removing concrete from certain areas, he added, would have to be done precisely and with much consideration because the concrete portion of the creek helps water flow through much easier because the surface is smooth versus the soft-bottom portion, which can collect water.

According to Ridley-Thomas, restoring the creek to its natural state will benefit education, recreation, public health and the overall economy for the county. 

The Flood Control District is seeking to improve the habitat in the creek and make it livable for wildlife, as are they looking to make it a recreational area where residents can fish, bike and walk. Neighboring schools would then have a chance to visit the area and learn about the history of the creek as well as the wildlife that lives in the area.

More importantly, Pestrella said, “We are also very much interested in and is the key mission of the [county] flood control district and the corps to improve flood protection for the community and that’s the primary mission of both agencies and that is to look at flood protection and water conservation as key components to the study.”

Flooding and over-topping, he added, is a risk that all tributaries and creeks face, particularly during storm events. “It just depends on the level of storm event you might see in an annual year at any given time and whether or not that stream has a capacity to hold the flood waters that occur during an event,” Pestrella said. “Now, Compton Creek has a tremendous capacity for flood protection and you don’t see flooding occur in that area very often. It did occur in 2005. We had a storm event in which there was some flooding and it was localized in the area. So, we are concerned about the capacity to meet federal standards in a hundred year storm event.”

The board has also asked the two agencies to address illegal dumping and graffiti, which have been major issues for the city of Compton, posing blight and risk to wildlife who inhabit the soft-bottom portion of the creek. Currently there are water fowl, predator-type birds, lizards, rabbits and a small number of fish.

Dumping also impacts the L.A. River. Because Compton Creek feeds into the L.A. River, said Dan Rosenfeld, senior deputy for economic development for Ridley-Thomas, trash washes into the river and finally into the ocean.

To address it, fencing has been placed along the creek. Between January and May of this year, the corps has retrieved approximately 51 tons of debris from the creek, both in the hard and soft-bottom portions.

Around November, according to Tomas Beauchamp-Hernandez, chief of operations and maintenance for the corps’ Los Angeles district asset management division, a net will be placed in the creek above the soft-bottom portion to accumulate as much trash in hopes of expanding conversations about placing a permanent catch basin or net.

In addition, the city of Compton has placed metal ballards at entrances and main dumping sites to keep vehicles out.

At least twice a year, the creek is mowed and at least once a week personnel from the corps remove debris. Graffiti is removed once a month.
Graffiti, Beauchamp-Hernandez said, is “always a challenge because you can cover up the graffiti and the next day some one paints over it again. It’s like a never-ending saga.”

The two agencies are expected to report back to the Board of Supervisors within 60 days with a “description of project management, governance, budget, and a timeline that facilitates inter-agency cooperation,” said a statement by the supervisors. “And maximize opportunities for soliciting federal, state and grant funding for the development and implementation of future projects.”