George Wolfe, a Venice-based kayaker who founded the satire website www .lalatimes.com, helped create a video last year featuring him commuting by kayak on the river in a business suit.
"As a boater with some 30-plus years of boating I can honestly say that it's a perfectly navigable river," he said in a letter submitted to the Corps along with the video.
Some local officials are urging the Corps to conduct its review in public.
"My agency wasn't consulted, wasn't made aware of it," said Tracy Egoscue, executive officer of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, who learned about the decision from the EPA and criticized the lack of citizen input.
Magness said the Corps invested countless hours in the decision and conferred with other federal, state and local officials. "By no means have we done anything without public involvement."
But for Egoscue and others, the designation reaches beyond the thicket of environmental bureaucracy.
Egoscue characterizes the Corps' decision as showing "a fundamental lack of understanding and respect for the resource to come in and make a decision without citizen involvement."
"It's not just about the law and the permits this board writes," she said. "It's about the perception of the river. . . . The Los Angeles River is our Potomac."
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deborah.schoch@latimes.com
