3 ms·
the US at the start of the 20th century was sort of a shit-wreck of works projects to impose manifest destiny on whatever part of nature that happened to irk us
by nimbius 3y ago
the US at the start of the 20th century was sort of a shit-wreck of works projects to impose manifest destiny on whatever part of nature that happened to irk us that day. the LA river is what it is today for the same reason anzo borrego has no more natural water, the salton sea is a boiling chemical pit, and the east coast was a toxic dump up until the nineties with things like the love canal projects.
The river flooded in 1938, tearing out bridges and trestles. It killed more than 100 people, trapped movie stars on their San Fernando Valley ranches, and forced a three-day delay in the Oscars. The water tore away the Warner Brothers studio’s prop department.
That flood wrote the real river’s death warrant. It was the Depression; L.A. needed jobs, not a killer river. The river was timbered and troughed and cemented over, mile after mile. Only in parts of its 51-mile bed would it assert itself and remain persistently unpaveable: for about three miles around Atwater Village, and along more than two miles at the broad reach of the Sepulveda dam wildlife area.
It took 20 years and 3.5 million barrels of cement, and now we have a paved river as a testament to the hubris of man. fwiw, it did not solve the floods this year.
- bglazer 3y agoThis is very well written and the last paragraph really drives home what a disaster this is
- card_zero 3y agoSeem needlessly harsh to humans, is there some less hubristic animal? The other animals don't even know the word, and they'd pave over rivers too if they even were capable of having bad ideas, I mean it's not like beavers or termites are exercising wise restraint.
- defrost 3y agoBeavers are arguably beneficial to the bigger picture in their area, they don't make concreate waterways, they make large shallow lakes with lots of boggy areas. Hellish for humans to walk about and navigate, sure. Very good for temperature stabilisations, wetland life, water retention in areas that would otherwise drain and dry out, etc.
- card_zero 3y agoDefinitely, beavers are excellent, but not on purpose. When we say "human hubris" we're thinking of ourselves as bad for being able to think of things. Bacteria, by comparison, cause less havoc, but that's because their activities are limited by what's evolutionarily adaptive. They caused a mass extinction once, but that was a couple of billion years ago. None of the other creatures are being deliberately good. Neither are humans, on the whole, but at least it troubles our minds sometimes.
- xkcd-sucks 3y agoAlso arguably bad in some places they're edging out the locals (South America) or contributing to greenhouse gas emissions (the warming Arctic), if you believe in "invasive species" (some people don't)
- lazide 3y agoBeavers completely monopolize the area, if they can. They literally drown their competition. That has pluses and minuses. For one, it’s really terrible living in an area that beavers insist on turning into swamps, if you don’t prefer swamps. Having some swamps somewhere, does help nature though. Just like it’s terrible not having a roof over your head, or getting flooded out. Having some flooding somewhere is good for nature though. Prior generations optimized for getting housing in place quickly and cheaply, and having predictable flooding behavior even if it looked ugly. And they got it. What should we optimize for now? pick your poison. Pros/cons, etc.
- nerpderp82 3y ago> and they'd pave over rivers too if they even were capable of having bad ideas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuous_truth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuous_truth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
- akira2501 3y ago> to impose manifest destiny on whatever part of nature that happened to irk us that day. To use available technology and information of the day in an attempt to improve outcomes for millions of people. > It killed more than 100 people I guess that doesn't "irk" some people. I suppose they've adopted a mindset that the dead somehow "deserved" it for some imagined choice they made, or that humanity as a whole "deserves" to be doomed. > as a testament to the hubris of man Engineering is an act of compromise. One that has mostly worked in our favor. You can either give up because we are incapable of perfection or you can dig in and try to make the next incremental improvement. https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-02-08/lives-saved-and-water-lost-the-los-angele-river-dilemma https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-02-08/lives-s...
- throwaway5959 3y agoGiven how much water ended up in the ocean instead of downtown, I think it did a damn good job.
- metabagel 3y agoI don’t know about Los Angeles, but in Orange County our concrete flood channels occasionally fill up with water. When that happens, I feel like maybe they weren’t such a bad solution after all. They are terrible, but I think the alternative was probably not to build in places like Huntington Beach (population 200,000).