Digging into the soil of Los Angeles

I wanted to get down and dirty in the City of Angels - beneath the glitz and glamour, the theme parks, the highways - deep down and underground to the essential elements of any place - the soil.

My first impressions of this town lived up to its fossil-fueled mega-metropolis reputation. Coming in to land at LAX through the smog, seeing the endless grid of roads and highways and, once landed, watching a procession of planes - twinkling like fireflies - streaming into the airport in place of a night sky of stars.

In such a massive and complex city as Los Angeles, the second most populated city in the United States, it is hard to imagine that the soils beneath would feature in many people's consciousness. Therefore I am surprised and delighted to discover that there is a thriving dedicated community in LA, working hard to capture resources and use them to rebuild the soil life through composting and regenerative urban agriculture and land care.

All urban soils tend to suffer from the harmful effects of pollution, contamination, compaction, erosion and being sealed over so It's easy to forget that underfoot, below the layers of concrete, roads, structures and tarmac exists a living breathing universe of microbes and critters in relationship with each other and the living and non-living components around them.

The traditional lands of the Chumash, Tataviam and Tongva people (the area now known as Los Angeles) were first colonised in 1781 by Spain, and later taken over by Mexico and then the United States.

The city was established along the fertile banks of the Los Angeles River during the time of the Industrial Revolution, bringing with it roads, railways, factories and a massive population boom. The river suffered as industry and farmland diverted massive amounts of water, extracted the gravel from it and used it as a dump for household and hazardous waste and sewage.

Over millennia the soil in the Los Angeles basin had been made fertile through occasional flooding, which deposited nutrient-rich silt on the floodplain, however, these floods created havoc for the new roads and buildings and after the big flood of 1938 the river was channelled into a concrete drain. As a result, the water that flows down the catchment out to sea does not have an opportunity to be absorbed into the surrounding soil.

Not only was it turned into a massive concrete drain, but Indigenous peoples lost access to the river with its immense cultural importance, farms along the river became barren, wildlife was displaced and the health of the surrounding soil was severely compromised.

However, in recent years, a more holistic way of viewing the river, along with increasing drought conditions for a region that is already semi-arid, has seen authorities and the community rethinking their approach. Community engagement and activist groups such as Friends of the Los Angeles River have been advocating for the river for over 30 years They run education programs, regular cleans ups and field trips to schools and the community to reconnect the people of LA to their river and to advocate for its rewilding (including the "crack the concrete" campaign). I have seen this done beautifully in my own region at Hanlon Park in Brisbane Australia where the ageing concrete channel and almost total lack of life in the creek was transformed into a re-naturalised creek channel with vastly improved ecological health. The creek has now been reconfigured with a beautiful meandering low-flow channel and a wide high-flow channel which is able to handle large volumes of water when the creek is in flood.  Freshwater habitats are supported by riparian planting and far more animals and birds are now seen in the park.  Simple infrastructure design allows the movement of floodwaters with minimum impact due to flood-resilient design. 

The city's Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan was adopted in 2007 which places equal importance upon goals around flood risk, parks and trails, ecosystems, river access, arts and culture, housing affordability, engagement and education, water supply and water quality.

Although confined by a concrete channel and awash with litter, the magnificence of the river is still apparent. Over time sediment and rocks have built up and native willows, shrubs and grasses have taken root creating homes for birds and other wildlife. Riding a bicycle along the path next to the river I saw how well it is appreciated by locals, as they cycled, roller skated, jogged and ambled by. I saw people sitting on the concrete beside the flowing water or removing litter from the water and a number of homeless people have created living spaces under the bridges by the waterside.

Along the side of the river, there are a number of improvement initiatives such as pocket parks, filtration sinks, resting areas, artwork and interpretative signage to improve attitudes and outcomes for the river.

The story of the Los Angeles River illustrates how solutions to the big issues cannot always be solved by creating better technology or controlling nature with engineering solutions. Supporting the community to form connections and find a sense of place to care for and protect leads to longer-term and deeper improvement in environmental outcomes. Building a love and respect for the life-giving river that runs through the city is so important to help communities identify with their natural surroundings.

I visited Griffith Park Regional Compost Hub and spoke to Michael Martinez from LA Compost and Michelle Barton from the City of Los Angeles Department of Sanitation and Environment (LASAN) about composting in LA.

Built on the edge of the desert, bordered by the Pacific Ocean, LA soils have high sand and low organic matter content. The city is often in drought - with the longest drought running for 6 years from 2011 until 2017, so producing and using compost locally is just what is needed here.

LASAN now offers kerbside food and garden waste collection city-wide and the not-for-profit LA Compost supports community compost hubs and food collection points throughout the city for local composting. In their own words:

"LA Compost hubs are built in places where people coexist - in churches, schools, gardens and workplaces... Each hub reflects the community in which it's located, but they all serve the same purpose. They compost organics locally while creating shared spaces for people to connect with each other and the natural world."

Visiting Los Angeles was part of my research for a Churchill Fellowship exploring education methods and partnership models to support community composting. For more details visit my Churchill Fellows Portal where the full report can also be downloaded.