2001

The River Project was founded January 17. We organized The Coalition for a State Park at Taylor Yard and led the successful fight to establish the first state park on the Los Angeles River.  Rio de Los Angeles State Park is a bustling example of community engagement which led to ownership. With funding from the Taylor family heirs, The River Project coordinated the design of the park’s colorful interpretive elements in partnership with local students, park activists, and artists.  We continue to advocate for the realization of the community’s vision—returning nature to the river through integration of the bowtie and G2 parcels—to form a seamless 100-acre Rio de Los Angeles State Park.

2002

We began work on the Valleyheart Greenway in Studio City, directly engaging elementary-age students in the design. Working together with County staff we implemented the collaborative design and interpretive elements as the County’s first greenway. We also undertook a surface water and groundwater study of the LA River through the Elysian Valley; and built a hydrodynamic model of the Tujunga Wash—since adopted by the Army Corps—and analyzed alternatives to improve water management and support future restoration.  

2004 - 2007

We initiated a stakeholder-driven process to develop a comprehensive watershed management plan for the upper Los Angeles River. Through partnerships between the City and County of Los Angeles, and the Department of Water & Power, nearly two dozen projects identified in the plan have since been completed, and another half dozen are in the planning phase.

2008

We took part in the expedition to help secure the LA River’s status as a navigable Water of the US. That trip inspired The River Project to develop the “Paddle the River” program to allow all Angelenos to experience the river and come to appreciate it as much as we do.

2009

Our Tujunga–Pacoima Watershed Plan was honored with the "Innovation in Green Community Planning" award from the American Planning Association.

2011

We partnered with LADWP to design and implement the Woodman Avenue Median Retrofit, identified in our Tujunga–Pacoima Watershed Plan. The ¾ mile project transformed acres of asphalt into a community amenity that provides habitat, shade, cleaner water, 55 AFY (18M gallons) of local water supplies, and reduced flood risk in the community of Panorama City.

2012

We kicked off the Water LA neighborhood retrofit program which was developed to maximize water capture, conservation, and reuse on individual residential properties in Los Angeles County.  The program provides homeowners with simple and cost-effective strategies to capture and use rainwater while supporting the county's larger water-use goals to capture stormwater runoff, which might otherwise be channeled straight to the ocean through the region's channelized waterways.

2013

We organized the “Room for the River: Los Angeles” symposium, designed to expand upon plans to revitalize the Los Angeles River by learning from the experience of the Netherlands and its “Room for the River” initiative. TRP’s artifacts, artwork, and oral history were also featured in the Smithsonian Museum’s exhibition Reclaiming the Edge: Urban Waterways and Civic Engagement.

2014

The first phase of Water LA was implemented on more than 30 individual homes in Panorama City (22) and Studio City (11).

During the first phase of the program, it became evident that the Water LA program needed to be scaled to meet the needs of the greater Los Angeles area.  Knowing the power of collaboration, The River Project formed the Water LA Collaborative to leverage the strengths of mission-aligned organizations across the region to support the goals of the program.  The Water LA Collaborative draws on expertise from a range of local NGOs, green businesses and local government agencies, to explore possibilities for residents of Los Angeles to play a substantial role in the efforts.

2018

The Water LA program expanded to four under-resourced communities across the County of Los Angeles: Florence-Firestone, Los Nietos, Basset, and Altadena.  This second phase is realizing an additional 150 implementations in partnership with more than 50 families. Monitoring of our parkway basins clearly demonstrate their effectiveness in reducing peak flood flows.

2021

The River Project and its partners produced a Feasibility Study to examine the potential to restore hydrologic function to 8 miles of river and tributaries through Sepulveda Basin - a 2,000 acre flood management facility in the heart of the San Fernando Valley.

The River Project continues to actively engage in the development of water and land-use policy at both the local and state levels, where we advocate for inclusive, comprehensive, stakeholder-driven approaches to watershed management and climate resilience in Los Angeles and California.