Grading Lessens Strain On L.A. Irrigation Project

Chuck Arnold, community outreach coordinator for NET - a nonprofit urban forestry organization dedicated to planting an urban forest in northeast L.A. - said a park project in the Elysian Valley area of L.A. required a natural look with limited maintenance requirements. "There was a need to try to make it as sustainable as possible. Interestingly enough," he explained, "what we did to create less of a strain on the irrigation system and water resources wasn’t necessarily a product of the irrigation being done a certain way, but doing the grading a certain way."

In coming up with the design for the Elysian Valley Steelhead Park, NET landscape architects and planners looked to transform a half-acre public area amidst the hustle and bustle of L.A. into a park with public access to the Los Angeles River Bike Trail. "Since we’re working in public spaces and we’re creating parks that aren’t going to be soccer fields, we’re creating passive parks," Arnold explained. Unlike city recreation areas, passive parks provide a natural, relaxing setting sometimes augmented with picnic benches, water fountains and shaded areas.

Planning and designing Steelhead Park resulted in using the layout of the land combined with careful plant selection to create a sustainable plot. Therefore, NET chose to install drip irrigation only around the perimeter of the park and use grading to allow water to run towards the center area of the park - a depressed area filled with yarrow instead of grass.

"[The yarrow plot is] kind of a demonstration area as a lawn alternative for people that’s very drought tolerant," said Arnold. "Because [the center of the park] is this depressed area, it picks up all of the irrigation from the trees that are above it. So it’s really grading that created a unique irrigation system in which the water will run down to the low point in the park and water this drought-tolerant material."

Arnold said NET consistently designs for non-intrusive solutions to protect open spaces and improve what are often seen as neglected parcels in the urban core. "That’s just part of the training of landscape architecture: not only to design something for the community but design something that’s sustainable," he said. "The irrigation plan ends up being a product of solving those needs from the conceptual plans."

For more information about North East Trees visit www.northeasttrees.org.