Green Infrastructure Connecting Resilient Communities  

October 13, 2022

The Clean Water Act officially turns 50 this month, and we’re celebrating some of LA Waterkeeper’s most significant legal victories, as highlighted in our Litigation = Impact report. One way LA Waterkeeper promotes environmental justice is to leverage litigation to support Supplement Environmental Projects (SEPs), which are financial settlements that force polluters to provide tangible water-quality solutions in the communities affected by their actions.

The Emerald Necklace is a vision nearly 20 years in the making, a vision to create a 17-mile loop of parks and greenways connecting 10 cities and nearly 500,000 residents in the Rio Hondo and San Gabriel Rivers watershed of LA County’s San Gabriel Valley. Amigos de los Rios, an Altadena-based organization leading the effort, received $20,000 in 2017 toward that vision thanks to LA Waterkeeper’s settlement agreement with a recycling facility that was found to be in violation of the Clean Water Act for discharging polluted stormwater.

Amigos de los Rios used the funding to support the development of a 1.2-mile multi-use trail connecting Peck Water Conservation Park in unincorporated Arcadia and the Rio Hondo corridor in El Monte. With the help of hard-working volunteers, including youth corps such as the California Conservation Corps and San Gabriel Valley Corps, Amigos de los Rios planted 800 native trees and 6,000 shrubs and added interpretive elements and other amenities for walkers and bicyclists. The new green infrastructure helps filter runoff before it flows into the Rio Hondo and San Gabriel Rivers. Additionally, it enhances habitat for wildlife, provides urban forest canopy to shade trail users, and active transit and recreational opportunities such as cycling and birdwatching for low-income communities of color that would otherwise have limited access to outdoor recreational options.

A previously derelict, underutilized, and undervalued space is coming back to life thanks to these efforts. Nowadays, community members from up and down the Rio Hondo and San Gabriel Rivers watershed can be seen exercising, enjoying the green landscape and native habitat, or taking a reprieve from the urban hustle throughout this world-class park network.  

“A vision as grand as the Emerald Necklace requires small investments that get us closer to completing this essential green project,” said Claire Robinson, Executive Director of Amigos de los Rios. “The funding that LA Waterkeeper was able to secure for the project helped us demonstrate what is possible, which we hope helps convince other funders that this is a project worth supporting.” 

While the funding was a critical step, this project was made possible by the power of people and communities coming together to realize a new vision – a sense of place for the Emerald Necklace.