Effort to bring waves back to Long Beach gets a boost

The effort to bring waves back to Long Beach by dismantling the massive breakwater sheltering its shores is getting a boost from the federal government.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is lending its support to a four-year, $8.3-million study on reconfiguring the breakwater and redirecting the mouth of the Los Angeles River.

The Corps’ decision, part of a 31-page report released Monday, is a victory for surfers and conservationists who have for years blamed the World War II-era, 2.2-mile rock barricade for trapping water pollution, weakening waves and making Long Beach one of the least popular and most polluted beaches in the region.

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Long Beach Shores: The L.A. River’s Dumping Ground

by Keith Higginbotham | City Beat

9:00am | The previous CityBeat touched on how the outflow from the Los Angeles River impacts beaches in Long Beach. Based on comments from readers, it is clear that people wanted more information about why Long Beach suffers so singularly from the cumulative upstream pollution discharged in to the Los Angeles River.
  

The Los Angeles River runs for 51 miles from its headwaters in the Santa Monica Mountains to its mouth in Long Beach Harbor.
  

The river originally followed an at-times meandering course but after severe floods in 1914, 1934 and 1938, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Los Angeles County Flood Control District constructed the concrete-lined structure we see today.
  

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