George Wolfe set out to save the Los Angeles River and in the process patched a hole in the Clean Water Act.

By Erin Barnes

To most Californians the Los Angeles River is more sewer than waterway. To the rest of the world it’s the cement-banked drainage ditch through which John Connor and the Terminator fled the semi-driving T-1000. But to Van Nuys boater George Wolfe, the river is both a playground and a battleground.

Before moving to L.A., Wolfe spent nine years kayaking in the Pacific Northwest and Vermont. Unaccustomed to life as an Angeleno, he was led to the sludgy Los Angeles River by Heather Wylie, a former biologist with the Army Corps of Engineers, which determines the navigability of the nation’s waters. Wylie had learned that all but two of the river’s 50 miles had been labeled unnavigable — leaving it unprotected by the Clean Water Act.

Drafted when toxic dumping into rivers was out of control, the 1972 Clean Water Act aimed to detox the nation’s waterways in just 11 years. But in 2006, with contamination still plaguing more than a third of assessed U.S. waters, a Supreme Court ruling in the case of John Rapanos — a developer who had illegally filled protected wetlands to build a shopping mall — narrowed the scope of waters protected by the CWA. Rapanos argued that the wetlands didn’t need protection as they weren’t connected to waters that fell under the jurisdiction of the EPA. The Supreme Court decided that if a river is not “relatively permanent,” its wetlands are not protected — leaving many western rivers that rage in winter, but trickle come summer, outside CWA jurisdiction.

After hearing of the Los Angeles River’s new status, Wylie called Wolfe, whom she’d seen in a YouTube video (he played a commuter stuck in traffic who abandons his car, jumps in his kayak, and paddles to work in a suit and tie). She told him he had to get boaters on the river to prove it navigable. It took Wolfe two months to plan the three-day, 50-mile expedition, which he undertook with a cameraman and a dozen other boaters (Wylie included), despite failing to get the requisite permits.

Though much of the river matches public perception — an 18-inch-deep dribble past trash, graffiti, and homeless encampments — there are sections that resemble wilderness. A concrete-free stretch in the Sepulveda Basin, for example, is 12 feet deep and a haven for herons and carp. And the Glendale Narrows boasts a reed-fringed seven miles of Class I rapids.

Halfway down the river, helicopters and the LAPD surrounded the kayakers. With media watching, the Army Corps tried to placate the paddlers, offering them a token film permit. “It said we could film in the water but that we couldn’t put the boats in,” says Wolfe. “We did it anyway.”

Because of the trip, the EPA took river jurisdiction from the corps. “This case provides wisdom on how to treat dozens of rivers,” says EPA regional wetlands chief David Smith. A good thing, as protection is in limbo for millions of acres of wetlands and streams.

Wolfe is now a full-time activist for the river and plans to start an adventure education program to expand access to it for park-starved neighborhoods. “I’d also like to get the Governator in a boat on the river as part of a sanctioned trip,” he says.

More At-Risk River

If you want to save a river near you, start with one of these 10 — the country’s most endangered,
according to nonprofit conservation organization American Rivers

1. California – Sacramento-San Joaquin River System

2. Georgia – Flint River

3. Washington, Oregon, Idaho – Lower Snake River

4. Maryland – Mattawoman Creek

5. Montana – North Fork of the Flathead River

6. South Carolina – Saluda River

7. Pennsylvania – Laurel Hill Creek

8. Alaska – Beaver Creek

9. Mississippi – Pascagoula River

10. Minnesota, Wisconsin – Lower St. Croix National Scenic Riverway

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This article originally appeared in the June 2009 issue of Men’s Journal.