History



	Human presence in the watershed Less than 300 years ago, much of what is now the city of Los Angeles was a vast rolling plain of grassland scattered with oak trees. The Los Angeles River and dozens of smaller streams meandered through broad valleys to the sea. They carried so much fresh water to the sea that when the Spanish explorer Juan Cabrillo first anchored in San Pedro Bay in 1542, he could haul fresh water (floating on seawater) aboard ship with a bucket. Until the late 1700s, the Bay's watersheds were the province of Native American Venturaño, Chumash, Gabrieleño, and Fernandeño peoples. They maintained a hunting and gathering economy that emphasized plant foods such as seeds and acorns. Coastal Chumash and Gabrieleños fished for Pacific sardine, California halibut, lingcod, and tuna; hunted marine mammals such as dolphins, sea lions, seals, and sea otters; and gathered shellfish from the intertidal zone. Chumash villages were typically located at the mouths of canyons; a Venturaño Chumash village named Maliwu was located near the present day Malibu. Gabrieleño villages were located throughout the Los Angeles coastal plain, generally situated on bluffs overlooking rivers or wetlands. The Spanish occupation began in 1769 with the Portola expedition, marking the beginning of the end of native peoples in the Los Angeles area. Forced to give up their traditional lifestyle and exposed to disease, native Americans both perished and deserted the area. By 1852, there were approximately 3,700 "domesticated" Indians and 4,000 Europeans in Southern California. Spanish and Mexican settlers carved the coastal plain into ranchos for cattle grazing and for crops like corn, beans, barley, and wheat. These ranchos bore names like Rancho Topanga Malibu Sequit, Rancho Ballona, and Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica. To support these farms, coastal scrub was converted to grassland through burning and grazing. The rivers and streams that fed the cienegas or swamps were dammed and free-flowing watercourses were diked and channelized in crude ditches. Thus began the alteration of watercourses, the disappearance of wetlands, and the thwarting of sediment flows to replenish beach sands. In 1850, California became the 31st state and Los Angeles was incorporated as a city. Rapid development of the city began after the Southern Pacific Railroad reached Los Angeles in 1876. Between 1864 and 1885, a whaling station was operated at Portuguese Bend on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and, by 1879, commercial and sport fishing had begun in Santa Monica Bay. For five years in the 1890s, Santa Monica and San Pedro vied for selection as the location of a deepwater port for the Los Angeles area. San Pedro was eventually selected because it was better protected from winds, storms and prevailing westerly swells. With hopes of a shipping industry shattered, Santa Monica entrepreneurs again focused on developing tourist and recreational opportunities. The discovery of oil also brought change to the region. Wetlands were drained and spills polluted and destroyed the freshwater wetlands. Echo Lake, near downtown Los Angeles, caught fire and burned for three days after one spill. Coastal regions near the salt-water marshes like Ballona and Del Rey Lagoons were particularly rich in oil, and derricks sprung up in record numbers. By 1900, Los Angeles had a population of 102,479 and thanks to the development of a network of electric trolley cars, coastal areas became desirable places to live. Developments sprang up in Playa del Rey, Santa Monica, and Venice. The construction of Venice, begun in 1905, consumed 160 acres of marsh as cigarette magnate Abbott Kinney sought to realize his dream of reproducing the ancient Italian city of canals on the Southern California coast. The Los Angeles County Flood Control District was formed in 1915 to alleviate the flooding that plagued the residents of the coastal plain during wet years. That started the transformation of the first crude rancho ditches into the system of storm drains, concrete ditches, culverts, and pipes that today stretches over 5,000 miles and carries millions of gallons of water each day directly to the sea. The "taming" of the Los Angeles River and its tributaries was finally accomplished after World War II and most of the wetlands were history. Today, only five percent remains of the wetlands that existed 300 years ago. With the end of World War II, the Los Angeles region experienced dramatic population growth. Between 1940 and 1960, the population grew from 2.8 million to over 6 million people. By 2000, these numbers increased to almost 9.9 million. This growth has dramatically affected land use as homes, buildings, and roads have been built upon what was once open land. Projected population growth into the 21st century will continue to require substantial augmentations to infrastructure and will potentially result in increased pressures on the health of the Bay.