When I left Pasadena nearly 25 years ago, my water mentor Tim Brick was hard at work on the problem of restoring a semblance of riverness to the Arroyo Seco, the channel that defines that Southern California city’s western edge.

Via a visit by our old mutual friend Larry Wilson to the confluence of the Arroyo Seco and the Los Angeles River, I see Tim’s still at it:

I can say that if you dare to walk down a scary ramp just east of Avenue 22 and Figueroa Street in Cypress Park, underneath where the 110 and the 5 freeways meet, you will find yourself at the confluence of two of the sorriest looking bodies of water you could ever hope to see. Everything is paved. Everywhere is trash.

I’m in favor of Confluence Park.

* With a nod to Aldo Leopold, who argued for “thinking like a mountain“, and Jack and Celestia Loeffler, who took it the next step.