San Gabriel River

The state Department of Fish and Game has granted the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works permission to clear portions of a two-mile stretch of the San Gabriel River south from Valley Boulevard in the City of Industry to Thienes Avenue in South El Monte. Plants, fish and other wildlife have returned to that portion of the river in recent years.

The sister of a hiker who died after he went missing in the east fork of the San Gabriel River is faulting the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for not doing enough to find him. Joe Le, 20, of Anaheim was hiking with a friend across the river at a rope crossing Friday afternoon when rushing water knocked him off his feet and carried him downstream. A volunteer found his body two days later, less than a mile from the crossing. Victoria Le, 27, said in an interview Wednesday that she believes her brother could have been saved if sheriff's officials had put more effort into the search-and-rescue operation immediately after the accident.

About 4,200 gallons of oil from a ruptured Unocal pipeline seeped into the San Gabriel River, coating at least 50 birds, officials said. Workers from the state Department of Fish and Game and Unocal have spread more than 2,000 feet of containment booms along the river to catch the oil. About 36,000 gallons gushed from a 10-inch pipeline after it was clipped Monday afternoon during construction of a Norwalk Metrolink station, south of Imperial Highway near Bloomfield Avenue.

A body believed to be that of a hiker who went missing in the icy waters of the east fork of the San Gabriel River was found Sunday as scores of friends, relatives and other volunteers searched the area, authorities said. Joe Le, 20, was crossing the river at a rope crossing with a friend on Friday afternoon when rushing water knocked him off his feet, carrying him downstream, L.A. County Sheriff's Department officials said. Deputy Benjamin Grubb said that the body of a male adult was discovered about 3:20 p.m. near the Coyote Flats area of the Angeles National Forest, a popular destination for hikers, gold prospectors and other visitors.

The 35 fishermen scattered along the banks of the West Fork of the San Gabriel River last Saturday found the chilly, rainy weather perfect for their sport. But they had traveled to the small stream to cast rocks, not fishing lines. The fishermen spent the morning breaking up man-made stone dams built by visitors to create pools in which they could swim.

What had been for the last six months a vibrant stream teeming with migrating waterfowls and shorebirds early last week became a dry San Gabriel River channel where vultures gorged themselves on ducklings that died when the flows dried up.

Reaching into the chilly waters of the West Fork of the San Gabriel River, Jim Edmondson turned over a slippery rock and gazed at the crawling collection of bugs underneath. Half-inch caddis flies squirmed for cover and dropped into the water; smaller mayflies crawled away from Edmondson's fingers as he probed the underside of the stone.

The state Department of Fish and Game has lost its first bid to change more than 80 years of management practices by other agencies that it says have nearly dried up a four-mile portion of the San Gabriel River.

The California Coastal Commission on Tuesday approved plans to replace a deteriorating 1930s-era bridge over the San Gabriel River that links Seal Beach and Long Beach. The new span will be built with half the number of existing traffic lanes to make room for a bike path and a landscaped median, and have airier handrails to allow for better views. The commission unanimously approved the $5.7-million project in a 15-minute public hearing in Redondo Beach.

Imagine the unwitting tourists, hunkered over the Fodor's guide at the Taco Bell, absolutely flummoxed over where to set up their pup tent on Peck Road. Could this graffiti-tagged stretch of South El Monte really be the national park? The natural destination between Yosemite and Joshua Tree? According to Rep. Hilda Solis (D-El Monte), it could. Or at least she hopes it could be a national recreation area.

In a victory for environmental groups, a federal appeals court panel has found Los Angeles County and the county flood control district responsible for discharging polluted storm runoff that flows down the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers to the Pacific Ocean. An opinion Thursday by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Natural Resources Defense Council and Santa Monica Baykeeper, which argued that the county should be liable for allowing billions of gallons of heavily polluted stormwater to flow untreated each year into the region's rivers and eventually to the ocean, where it can sicken swimmers and surfers.

Tina Cassar spent last week watching rain flood her backyard and overflow from her pool. So when the sun came out Sunday morning, the Los Alamitos resident took her family for brunch and a stroll along Seal Beach. There they encountered a stretch of sand littered with mangled shopping carts, bicycle tires, tennis shoes and thousands of plastic cups and bottles. "It's awful," Cassar, 37, said as she walked along the shore. "It just shows what kind of pollution comes through the river system."

A tipster's recollection of a hazardous substance spill in Los Cerritos Wetlands in the 1950s has led to the discovery of elevated levels of carcinogenic PCBs that could derail a controversial proposal to restore the degraded Long Beach salt marsh, officials say. The Environmental Protection Agency is scheduled to present the results of its study of the contamination to the Long Beach City Council today. "The informant, who wishes to remain anonymous, was an apprentice electrician in his late teens in the early 1950s," said EPA spokesman Robert Wise.

A man was found dead Sunday in the bed of the San Gabriel River near the 60 Freeway, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department asked the public for information about the death. The man, who was not identified, suffered blunt force trauma to his upper body, authorities said. Homicide investigators can be reached at (323) 890-5500. -- David Zahniser

A rehabilitated green sea turtle the size of a manhole cover was set free in the San Gabriel River on Thursday after two months of intensive veterinary care at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Aquarium veterinarian Lance Adams grabbed the two ends of the 44-pound reptile's mossy carapace and let it go in the murky water under the East Second Street bridge south of the 405 Freeway, silently urging it on.

The moment the green sea turtle hit the veterinary emergency ward at the Aquarium of the Pacific, it was swept into a whirlwind of critical care starting with X-rays that revealed broken digits and infected lacerations in two front flippers and a 3-inch gash on its carapace. In a rear flipper, veterinarians found a fishing hook.

They gathered at the base of the cliff, a sheer and imposing mass of granite somehow supporting towering, weathered pines and smaller trees and shrubs, all green and lush. Nearby, a stream bubbled swiftly down a meandering course under the shade of young alders, oaks and willows. Birds darted under the flourishing canopy. Pauline Cathcart was among the crowd of 40 or so that had left civilization behind for a visit to the Glenn Camp area of the West Fork of the San Gabriel River.

In the foamy chop of the warm-water discharge flowing into the San Gabriel River from a Long Beach power plant, a green sea turtle, wide as a manhole cover, materialized Friday just a few yards from shore. A few minutes later, an even larger sea turtle surfaced in the murky water near the plant's thicket of steel scaffolding, steam vents and transmission lines. Green sea turtles usually have tropical haunts -- teeming coral reefs or white sandy beaches where they lay eggs -- but these chunky titans live more than a mile upstream in one of Southern California's most ecologically degraded rivers.

What had been for the last six months a vibrant stream teeming with migrating waterfowls and shorebirds early last week became a dry San Gabriel River channel where vultures gorged themselves on ducklings that died when the flows dried up.