Monrovia Weekly_11/20/2023

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California launches new ‘Outdoors for All’ strategy

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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20-NOVEMBER 26 , 2023

VISIT MONROVIAWEEKLY.COM

VOL.27,

NO. 147

Fire-damaged 10 Freeway in downtown LA to reopen by Tuesday

The historic claims that put a few California farming families first in line for Colorado River water

By City News Service

By Janet Wilson, The Desert Sun, and Nat Lash, ProPublica

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he fire-damaged portion of the Santa Monica (10) Freeway in downtown Los Angeles is expected to reopen earlier than anticipated and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is saying Friday “this is what happens when we work together with urgency.” In a major schedule advancement, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that the freeway will reopen with five lanes in both directions by Tuesday. The original estimate for the repair work was three to five weeks, with officials saying structural repairs were needed on not only the freeway deck but on as many as 100 support columns that were damaged in an early Saturday morning fire that erupted in a storage yard beneath the roadway. “That is a significant improvement on the basis of our original timeline, three to five weeks,” Newsom said at an early evening news conference at the construction site. “By Tuesday of next week, trucks, passenger vehicles in both directions will be moving again. And that is simply due to the extraordinary work again of the folks behind me. ... “Things continue to move favorably in our direction,” he said. “That is not guaranteed. We still have chemical sampling that comes in on a daily basis, but the bridge structure itself seems to be in better shape than we anticipated.” Newsom thanked workers “who have been working around the clock, we’re on track to open the 10 before millions of Angelenos hit the road for Thanksgiving.” A beaming Bass proclaimed, “This is a good day in Los Angeles.” “All of the stars have been aligned, been aligned on behalf of Angelenos,” she said.

This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

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from the area. That work was completed two days ahead of schedule. The initial fire was reported Nov. 11 at 12:22 a.m. in the 1700 block of East 14th Street, two blocks west of Alameda Street, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department’s Margaret Stewart. Firefighters from 26 companies worked feverishly to contain and extinguish the major emergency fire, which started in one downtown pallet yard, spread to another and consumed a fire engine that became stuck in its path, Stewart said. The first pallet yard was 40,000 square feet in size and fully involved with flames that engulfed multiple trailers when firefighters arrived. The flames spread to the second pallet yard of similar size between Lawrence and Elwood streets. Stewart said that by 2:33 a.m. on Nov. 11, pallets in both yards were mostly consumed by the flames and firefighters were using bulldozers to move debris and put out hot spots. Firefighters success-

raig Elmore’s family history is the stuff of Westerns. His grandfather, John Elmore, a poor son of a Missouri preacher, arrived in California’s Imperial Valley in 1908 and dug ditches to deliver water to homesteaders. Thanks to his marriage to a citrus magnate’s daughter, reputed good fortune as a gambler and business acumen, he amassed the Elmore Desert Ranch, part of roughly 12,000 acres that two branches of the family still farm. All that land in the blazing-hot southeastern corner of California came with a huge bonanza: water from the Colorado River. In 2022, the present-day Elmores consumed an estimated 22.5 billion gallons, according to a Desert Sun and ProPublica analysis of satellite data combined with business and agricultural records. That’s almost as much as the entire city of Scottsdale, Arizona, is allotted. That puts the Elmores in exclusive company. They are one of 20 extended families who receive fully one-seventh of the river’s flow through its lower half — a whopping 1,186,200 acre-feet, or about 386.5 billion gallons, the analysis showed. The Colorado River system, which supplies 35 million people in seven U.S. states and Mexico, nearly collapsed last year. Even after a wet winter, it is dwindling due to overuse and climate change. But no matter how low its reservoirs sink, the historic claims of these families and all of Imperial County place them first in line — ahead of every state and major city — for whatever water remains. How a handful of families and a rural irrigation district came to control so much of the West’s most valuable river is a story of geography and good timing, intermarrying and shrewd strategy, and a rich but sometimes ugly past when racist laws and wartime policies excluded farmers of color. Together, they winnowed the greatest access to these 20 clans, who today use more of the river than all of Wyoming, New Mexico or Nevada. A vast, laserleveled green quilt of crops covers this naturally bone-dry valley, all of it grown with Colorado River water. The water is held “in trust” by the Imperial Irrigation District and two smaller agencies, meaning they are legally required to deliver the water to any county landowner for use on their property. But many farmers here see the river water as virtually their private property, though nearly all acknowledge it can’t be sold apart from their land. “It’s not a public resource,” says Rachel Magos, executive director of the Imperial County Farm Bureau. “It’s called prior perfected rights.” That phrase, “prior perfected rights,” is shorthand for legal decisions spanning 100 years, including three by the U.S. Supreme Court, that have perpetuated those rights since early would-be developers staked claims for the Imperial Valley that amounted to the river’s entire flow. Blood ties, and the ceaseless buying of lands from less successful farmers or descendants who want a “windfall,” have

See 10 Freeway Page 32

See Colorado River Page 16

Charred debris and damaged columns reflect the aftermath of the storage-yard fire under the 10 Freeway in downtown LA. | Photo courtesy of Caltrans

Bass announced Friday additional traffic officers will be working at special and sporting events over the weekend to help alleviate congestion. They will be at: -- Los Angeles Clippers at Crypto.com Arena Friday evening -- USC vs. UCLA football game at the LA Memorial Coliseum on Saturday -- Los Angeles Kings at the Crypto.com Arena on Saturday -- Los Angeles Rams at So-Fi Stadium on Sunday -- Los Angeles Lakers at the Crypto.com Arena on Sunday -- LA Auto Show at the LA Convention Center Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday Bass thanked commuters who have heeded warnings to avoid driving through the freeway closure area between Alameda Street and the East LA Interchange, noting that people opted to either stay home, find alternate routes or rely on mass transit to reach their destinations. “The last few days have been difficult, but everybody has cooperated and I want to say thank you, thank you,

thank you,” Bass said. “What a gift for Los Angeles to have right before a holiday to know your commute will be better.” In the immediate aftermath of the overnight fire Saturday morning, officials feared the freeway might be out of operation for as many as six months if the damage was severe enough to require the structure to be demolished and rebuilt. However, earlier this week Newsom said testing on samples of rebar and concrete on the freeway deck and support columns showed the damage was not as bad as initially feared, meaning it could be repaired rather than rebuilt. That pushed the timeline back to three to five weeks, but the latest update now reduces the wait to a matter of days. State officials announced Wednesday that contractors had removed all of the debris and hazardous materials from beneath the damaged freeway stretch. Caltrans officials said about 264,000 cubic feet of material was removed, enough to fill four Olympicsize swimming pools. More than two dozen burned vehicles were also removed


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