L.A.'s ultra-urban rivers wash tons of trash out to sea. There's a plan to change that before the Olympics

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Rivers that wind through Los Angeles County have a trashy reputation.Literally.

In many stretches, you’d be hard-pressed to stroll along the banks of the San Gabriel or Los Angeles rivers without meeting abandoned water bottles, candy wrappers, golf balls, sad-looking teddy bears, even shopping carts.On the rare occasion when rain graces the semi-arid region, it sweeps all that debris into the coastal communities where they drain — and out into the Pacific Ocean, wreaking havoc on an ecosystem where fish, sea lions and surfers frolic.By the 2028 Olympics, a coalition of city, county, state and private partners hopes to change that by deploying trash-intercepting devices in the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers, officials announced Wednesday.The plan is to prevent hundreds of tons of garbage from getting to the ocean.This “almost has a dream-like quality to it for me,” Seal Beach City Councilmember Joe Kalmick said at the news conference.Living in the beach city for more than 50 years, he wondered why nothing could be done about the trash washed in by the San Gabriel River.“The problem always seemed to be too overwhelming and solutions out of reach,” he said.

“I kind of felt like Don Quixote.”Then, about three years ago, he read an article about the Ocean Cleanup, a Netherlands-based nonprofit that develops and deploys trash interceptors around the world.He reached out, but they were busy trying to clean up the Amazon River.A few months later, he saw another story, in The Times, about an Ocean Cleanup-helmed interceptor installed in Ballona Creek, between Playa del Rey and Marina del Rey.Inspired to act, he started reaching out to other electeds and officials, including Assemblymember Diane Dixon, a Republican who represents a swath of coastal Orange County.

She then created the San Gabriel River Working Group.Fast-forward to today, feasibility studies for the S...