River Modifications
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 colonial settlers and Californios of Alta California. It is dammed five times along its length: once along the West Fork by the Prescott F. Cogswell Dam, then twice more downstream of the forks in the San Gabriel Mountains to create reservoirs at the San Gabriel Dam, and at the former naval test site Morris Dam; 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.
The San Gabriel River course is also the site for companion highways. In the lowlands it is adjoined by the San Gabriel River Freeway (Interstate 605) which replaced an older Rivergrade Road. Into the San Gabriel Canyon it is followed by State Route 39 to a terminus nearly 30 miles upstream.
As with the similarly modified Los Angeles River, the San Gabriel is a notorious symbol of gross environmental degradation and destruction. Efforts to restore its river ecology and riparian habitats are growing. Historically they have had limited success due to the artificial concrete, water pollution and fertilizer runoff.
Read more about this topic: San Gabriel River (California)
Famous quotes containing the word river:
“Other roads do some violence to Nature, and bring the traveler to stare at her, but the river steals into the scenery it traverses without intrusion, silently creating and adorning it, and is as free to come and go as the zephyr.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)