Stream Bed

The developer of a long-delayed Thousand Oaks housing project faces additional delays and possible punitive measures for cutting down oak trees and disturbing a stream bed. Westlake Triunfo Canyon Inc. received approval from the City Council last month to build 35 single-family homes near Tamarack Street and Hartglen Avenue after the project had been delayed for more than a decade.

The former live-work compound of artist Sam Francis is on the market in Santa Monica at $18.75 million. The reinvented property features two houses, waterfalls, a bridge, glass walkways over stream beds and Japanese gardens on nearly half an acre. There are eight bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, a bar, a media room, an office, a wine cellar and a sauna in an 8,000-square-foot main house and a 4,400-square-foot secondary home. Francis, who died in 1994 at 71, was a painter, muralist and printmaker whose works were influenced by Abstract Expressionists and, later, Zen Buddhism.

A sand and gravel company has been charged with illegally dumping a waste clay solution that hardened into a concrete-like layer along a stream bed in the southern part of the county. Prosecutors, acting on a complaint filed by state fish and game officials, filed two criminal misdemeanor charges against the El Toro Materials Co. late Monday. The firm is charged with dumping the solution into an Aliso Creek tributary.

As nature goes, the Hahamongna basin is not pristine. The wide, sandy arroyo, bounded by oak woodlands, sits just north of Devil's Gate Dam on the border of Pasadena, Altadena and La Cañada Flintridge. A gravel operation there, closed decades ago, has left scars on the landscape, and a Frisbee golf course threads in and out of the oaks. Noise from the 210 Freeway on the south end and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the north is ever-present. And if all that weren't enough, the Environmental Protection Agency has declared this part of the Arroyo Seco a Superfund site because of groundwater contamination by JPL, which once dumped solvents and rocket fuel in the area.

To get there, Ronald Curtis heads out of Mt. Baldy Village along the Glendora Ridge Road until he reaches a metal gate riddled with bullet holes. He opens the gate and aims his dusty Jeep Cherokee down a dirt road, winding along a rocky flank of Mt. Baldy. After a lurching eight-mile ride, he pulls into the bottom of Cattle Canyon, where a herd of Nelson bighorn sheep forage along the stream bed, scampering nervously up the sheer sides of the canyon as the Jeep approaches.

As nature goes, the Hahamongna basin is not pristine. The wide, sandy arroyo, bounded by oak woodlands, sits just north of Devil's Gate Dam on the border of Pasadena, Altadena and La Cañada Flintridge. A gravel operation there, closed decades ago, has left scars on the landscape, and a Frisbee golf course threads in and out of the oaks. Noise from the 210 Freeway on the south end and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the north is ever-present. And if all that weren't enough, the Environmental Protection Agency has declared this part of the Arroyo Seco a Superfund site because of groundwater contamination by JPL, which once dumped solvents and rocket fuel in the area.

Their zest in protecting oak trees and stream beds from developers has earned Agoura Hills officials the reputation of being steadfast environmentalists. But a dispute over responsibility for a creek that meanders through the city's most affluent residential neighborhood has converted those officials into hard-nosed pragmatists. City Council members say insurance liability problems could force them to pave a scenic stream bed that has been carefully preserved as a 43-acre neighborhood greenbelt.

Taking steps to minimize potential damage from the winter rains, the Board of Supervisors has agreed to spend $3.8 million to clear stream beds in areas damaged by recent wildfires. Without the improvements, the channels could become plugged with ash, mud and sediment from the fire-scarred hillsides. "Provided my guys can get some contractors lined up, we will start work very soon," county Public Works Director Art Goulet said Tuesday. "The watershed was severely damaged in the fires.

You know your project's in big trouble when someone brings up the plastic trees. The fake trees were "planted" on Jefferson Boulevard in Los Angeles during the '70s on the theory that they would be cheaper to maintain than live trees. They attracted thieves, vandals, protests from bird lovers and howls of laughter from around the country before the city was forced to yank them out.

The Los Angeles County district attorney's office has asked a judge to impose stiffer penalties on the Wildlife Waystation for violating terms of a three-year probation for polluting stream beds. The request represents the first criminal action against the animal sanctuary above Tujunga since it was closed to the public two months ago for violating state caging and environmental laws. The refuge has been on probation since 1997 for altering the creeks that run through the 120-acre campus.

The two boys who drowned last month in Long Beach when they fell into the Los Angeles River provide a grim reminder that the swift-water rescue season is upon us. But while much of the attention is focused on large tributaries such as the Santa Ana and San Gabriel rivers, fire officials said that smaller creeks and storm channels actually pose as great a risk--if not a greater one.

The Los Angeles County district attorney's office has asked a judge to impose stiffer penalties on the Wildlife Waystation for violating terms of a three-year probation for polluting stream beds. The request represents the first criminal action against the animal sanctuary above Tujunga since it was closed to the public two months ago for violating state caging and environmental laws. The refuge has been on probation since 1997 for altering the creeks that run through the 120-acre campus.

An arbitration panel has cleared the way for construction of the 352-acre Red Tail Golf Course and Equestrian Center in the Big Tujunga Wash area, rejecting attempts by the state Department of Fish and Game to block the project. The panel, led by retired Superior Court Judge Diane Wayne, ruled this week that the project would not need a special state permit for stream bed alteration as Fish and Game had demanded.

It took 20 years and billions of dollars to bring Colorado River water to Tucson. It took only three years, a funny taste and some burst pipes for voters to restrict its use. On Tuesday, Tucson residents again go to the polls, this time to decide whether to dump the once-prized water into dry stream beds and washes or let die a ban that kept it out of their taps.

The Irvine Co. is proudly advertising Crystal Cove, its latest planned community, as an 800-home jewel to be set among 10,000 acres of carefully protected wild lands. But federal and state officials are sounding alarms about potential effects of the huge new development, which is being built next to and upstream from Crystal Cove State Park, and are questioning a controversial approval that may be granted to the developer. Overriding written objections from the U.S.

The developer of a long-delayed Thousand Oaks housing project faces additional delays and possible punitive measures for cutting down oak trees and disturbing a stream bed. Westlake Triunfo Canyon Inc. received approval from the City Council last month to build 35 single-family homes near Tamarack Street and Hartglen Avenue after the project had been delayed for more than a decade.

A prominent UCLA professor whose do-it-yourself bulldozing project sent dirt and rocks tumbling into a scenic mountain stream and onto state parkland has been ordered to begin a $1-million cleanup project. Biology professor Winston Salser pleaded no contest Thursday to a misdemeanor charge of illegal alteration of a stream bed with the earthmoving above Rustic Canyon Creek in Pacific Palisades.

The Irvine Co. is proudly advertising Crystal Cove, its latest planned community, as an 800-home jewel to be set among 10,000 acres of carefully protected wild lands. But federal and state officials are sounding alarms about potential effects of the huge new development, which is being built next to and upstream from Crystal Cove State Park, and are questioning a controversial approval that may be granted to the developer. Overriding written objections from the U.S.

A prominent UCLA professor whose do-it-yourself bulldozing project sent dirt and rocks tumbling into a scenic mountain stream and onto state parkland has been ordered to begin a $1-million cleanup project. Biology professor Winston Salser pleaded no contest Thursday to a misdemeanor charge of illegal alteration of a stream bed with the earthmoving above Rustic Canyon Creek in Pacific Palisades.

The district attorney's office has launched a probe into possible environmental violations that occurred when the county allowed a contractor to dig up a sensitive area along the Ventura River, a prosecutor disclosed Wednesday. In opening their case, local prosecutors join a growing list of state and federal agencies examining the activities of contractor Tom A. Staben, including citations against him for dumping debris into a Somis stream bed.