Long Time Studio City Resident, Melanie Winter, Leads LA River Boat Tours

Winter has lived in Studio City for the past 14 years. She moved here because it’s a pedestrian-oriented city, believing that building a sense of community comes easier when people stroll around their neighborhood on a daily basis. Winter enjoys being able to walk to just about anything she needs, including and the t on Sundays, which she designates as her “church.”

Winter established The River Project (www.TheRiverProject.org) in January of 2001, after having spent 4 years as executive director of FoLAR (). The objective of the program, according to Winter, is “to inform Angelenos that the L.A. River is the reason the City was founded,” and that its “channelization is deeply implicated in many of the biggest problems we're faced with in the 21st century,” i.e. social, environmental, economic.

 “Developing an appreciation and understanding of the river is a critical step in moving L.A. towards a sustainable future,” Winter avows. She asserts it’s not just about being a tourist attraction, but primarily “about water supply, water quality, public health, and an improved quality of life” for all residents.

One of the areas central to the Project’s goal is to reduce the amount of rainwater the river carries in order to make removing the concrete bottom more viable, without compromising flood control.

Per Winter, cement removal has numerous advantages, e.g. “soil and plants help remediate storm water pollution, whereas concrete exacerbates it; natural bottomed rivers allow water to infiltrate to groundwater; vegetated river corridors help reduce sequester carbon and lower the heat island effect; living rivers connect communities just as concrete channels divide them; and increased biodiversity is a benefit to all.”

Paddling in a canoe on the river to experience its true value as a natural asset, Winter maintains, is a powerful way to recognize the significance and importance of the manner in which the river can affect the potential for our City to progress forward.

Winter has been paddling down the LA River since 1997, when she first accompanied Denis Schure in the Sepulveda Basin. She calls Schure the “pioneer of LA River boating.”

Winter describes the experience, “I couldn't believe this living river existed in the middle of one of the most-used parks in L.A. and nobody even knew about it. It's just so peaceful and stuns you with the richness of its wildlife. The Great Blue Herons slay me every time.”

Once, when Winter was rowing through Studio City, someone called the cops and helicopters started circling. She recalls, “We held up our film permit number that we’d written out on a huge bright yellow cardboard. In the past, the only way to legally make a trip was to get a film permit.”

Apparently, the sign wasn’t readable because the police kept telling them over loudspeakers to get out of the River. LAPD cars met them at the Laurel Canyon Bridge, where Winter and crew showed the permit, explaining they were competent boaters. Eventually they were persuasive enough to get the helicopters called off, but as Winter recollects, “It was quite a scene for a while.”

Winter rationalized, “I think it just freaks people out to see boats in concrete parts of the river. They've told themselves that there's no water in it, so it causes a lot of cognitive dissonance.”

In 2008, Winter participated in a three day boat trip down the entire 51 mile stretch of the river along with George Wolfe, current director of the LA Pilot Program. Occurring before the EPA deemed the river ‘navigable,’ and without legal authority, the excursion originally interfered with an amenable relationship with the Army Corps of Engineers.

Winter revealed, “It took a lot of effort to rebuild bridges, and a new Colonel in the LA office, before we could really get things moving forward again.” She worked for three years on a program the Army Corps would be comfortable with, calling it a “long, grueling haul.”

Notwithstanding, Winter takes pleasure in the fact that a link to a youtube video of the journey is actually cited in a Federal Record of Decision on the matter of navigability of the LA River.

Winter enjoys leading people down the river, watching them begin to see it’s beauty as she does with “a complete shift in their perceptions.” She finds that once someone has a picture of the river etched in their mind, they can’t help but visualize it whenever they drive over a concrete stretch.

Winter urges Angelenos not to try traversing the river on their own with a caveat that the Army Corps will pull the plug if they see increased non permitted boating, particularly if anyone gets stuck, needs rescuing attempting to ride after a rain, or there’s damage to wildlife.

“Be patient and wait until next year,” she advises. If everything goes well, they hope to have longer seasons and more trips. Stay tuned to Patch for updates.

Contact Melanie at Winter@TheRiverProject.org.

Here's a link to some hints on how individuals can help the River:

http://www.theriverproject.org/projects/paddle-the-river/how-can-i-help-the-river