Hansen Dam

I recently discovered Hansen Dam near the foothills. I have been going there with my dogs since this spring. It's a wonderful nature area with horse trails, lush bushes and a creek that runs into a small lake. As summer approached and the weather got warmer, many families picnicked by the creek and enjoyed the crystal-clear water. Many were working-class families who don't necessarily have a pool in the backyard. Hansen Dam and its creek provided a beautiful setting to enjoy nature, fish and swim in the river.

Atop his chocolate mare JJ, Rene Herrera follows a dirt path from Gabrielino Equestrian Park on the eastern end of Hansen Dam Recreation Area to a nearby creek shaded by cottonwoods. Families with coolers and bags of food have beaten Herrera and two other horse riders there, seeking refuge in the wooded waterside from temperatures in the 90s. While a dozen children splash around in a swimming hole, the adults kick back in hammocks and camp chairs, eating grilled chicken and shooting the breeze.

The Los Angeles Children's Museum is seeking to move ("Children's Museum Urged to Move to Valley Subway Site," March 17). In the article, one of the sites suggested was Hansen Dam. As a principal of a large, year-round elementary school, I am acutely aware of the need for a museum, especially for children, located in the northeastern San Fernando Valley. Hansen Dam would be a wonderful place for the Children's Museum. It's a beautiful area--there are hiking trails, parks and a pool.

The Children's Museum of Los Angeles is probably the most snakebitten cultural entity in Southern California — if you can even call it an entity. Years ago, when it actually existed, its leaders and backers had a vision of transforming what had been a small operation in downtown Los Angeles, affording youngsters hands-on experiences with art, culture, history and science, into a major museum in the San Fernando Valley, adjacent to Hansen Dam Recreation Center at the city's northern edge.

Congress has approved $780,000 to begin restoration of the long-lost lake at Hansen Dam in the Northeast Valley. The funds, contained in the energy and water appropriations bill sent to President Bush, were earmarked for the lake under a federal trust fund. The fund was tapped last year for $200,000, which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is using to develop a master plan for the Hansen Dam Flood Control Basin. The plan is expected to include lake revitalization and recreational facilities.

Hansen Dam Aquatic Center will be making a splash Saturday with its first catfish derby and trout tournament. Last summer, the city unveiled two sparkling new lakes--one for fishing and one for swimming--at the recreation area, revitalizing a north Valley park, once notorious for gangs and drug dealing. Don't know how to fish? Not to worry.

A protracted bureaucratic logjam over restoring a long-lost lake at Hansen Dam has been broken, and residents can expect a 20-acre lake by the end of the year and revitalized lakeside recreational facilities in future years, Rep. Howard L. Berman said Tuesday. "This one looks like the pieces are all together for a successful effort," Berman (D-Panorama City) said from Washington. Community activists also said they felt a major breakthrough had occurred.

The City Council on Tuesday approved the initial study of a proposed Hansen Dam bikeway, finding that the plan would not have an adverse impact on the environment. The project involves the construction of a half-mile bikeway that will connect two existing bikeways, one atop Hansen Dam and the other on Wentworth Street. A quarter-mile horse trail will also be built, parallel to the bikeway.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved on Tuesday a bill containing $272,000 for the continued development of a recreational lake at Hansen Dam. The House also approved language requested by Rep. Howard Berman (D-Panorama City) that directs the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to apply the money exclusively to the development of a recreational facility at the dam. It also directs the corps to continue a dredging operation until the dam basin is fully excavated, Berman said.

Plans by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to undertake a sweeping revitalization of the Hansen Dam Recreation Area has won the enthusiastic support of eastern San Fernando Valley residents. Along with a 10-acre lake that would be used exclusively for swimming, the plan calls for renovation of the sprawling 1,400-acre Lake View Terrace site with hiking and horseback riding trails, wildlife preserve, playing fields and the eventual development of two 15- and 70-acre lakes connected by a stream.

The Hansen Dam Recreation Center is an intersection in the San Fernando Valley where open space and the suburbs clash head-on, a place blessed with willows and water and plagued by homeless encampments, crack dens and off-roaders. It is also prone to fires, such as one May 13 that destroyed 80 acres of nesting grounds for a remarkably diverse avian population, including one of the world's rarest songbirds, the federally endangered least Bell's vireo.

Firefighters on Sunday were battling a brush fire in Lake View Terrace that had scorched nearly 80 acres in the Hansen Dam Recreation Area, Los Angeles fire officials said. The blaze, reported about 2:40 p.m., was being battled primarily from the air because it was burning in a difficult-to-access ravine filled with brush that was up to 40 feet high, said d'Lisa Davies of the Los Angeles Fire Department. Ground crews were working around the perimeter of the fire, Davies said.

The makeshift city sprang up in a matter of hours, situated near water's edge like most great civilizations before it. But instead of occupying brick-and-mortar buildings, the nearly 2,000 people at the Hansen Dam Aquatic Center in Lake View Terrace huddled under umbrellas, tarps and tents -- whatever it took to create a little slice of shadow in the middle of an unforgiving day. In a land without shade, sometimes it's necessary to bring your own.

Re "A Shocking Water Noncrisis," editorial, June 15: So, the California Water Plan aims toward regional management and "wringing every bit of utility from every drop of water"? Why then in the last five months have thousands of gallons per minute of water run through Hansen Dam, where it is allowed to flow into the L.A. River and become immediately polluted and useless as it runs out to the ocean? This isn't farm or grazing land runoff, but pure mountain water from Big and Little Tujunga Canyon streams.

Early on New Year's morning, when most people were burrowed deep beneath their blankets, a few brave souls stripped down to their swimsuits and jumped into Hansen Dam Swim Lake in Lake View Terrace. After absorbing the initial shock of the 46-degree water, they gingerly waded into waist-high water the length of the 200-yard, man-made lake as a handful of spectators cheered. It was over in five minutes. The swimmers emerged shivering but exhilarated.

After a year of disappointing attendance in Castaic Lake, the San Fernando Valley Fair will return in 2004 to the Hansen Dam Recreation Center, organizers said Thursday. The fair was relocated last June to Castaic Lake in the Santa Clarita Valley mainly because renovations at Hansen Dam had left inadequate parking, organizers said.

The Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Commission voted Monday to approve proposals by the Los Angeles Children's Museum to build campuses in the Hansen Dam Recreation Area in Lake View Terrace and the downtown Art Park area near Little Tokyo. The commission action, which still requires approval by the City Council, authorized a dollar-a-year lease for the museum on city-owned property at Hansen Dam.

Federal legislation appropriating $780,000 to restore a lake and recreational facilities at Hansen Dam in the northeast San Fernando Valley has been signed by President Bush, and a state bill awarding another $475,000 for the project won Gov. George Deukmejian's approval Monday. The federal and state money are to fund the first step in the creation of at least one lake for swimming, fishing and boating, as well as picnic areas, playgrounds and, possibly, hiking and horse trails. The U.S.

Get your rebar out of our lake. That was the message Wednesday from the Los Angeles City Council, nine months after the Army Corps of Engineers dumped chunks of concrete laced with steel rebar into a lake at Hansen Dam, a recreation spot popular with joggers and horse riders in the northeast San Fernando Valley. Last summer, residents noticed blocks of concrete under the water, discarded there by the corps after it rebuilt a nearby swimming lake.

A Van Nuys man was killed and a 13-year-old girl wounded in an early-morning shooting near Hansen Dam Park, police said Monday. Alejandro Jado, 23, was pronounced dead at the scene after the shooting, which was reported about 1 a.m. Sunday in the 12200 block of Osborne Street in Lake View Terrace, said Lucy Diaz, a Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman. The 13-year-old, who was not identified because of her age, was wounded in both legs, Diaz said.