Tujunga Wash & Foothills

In April 2002, a study published by the Army Corps of Engineers included the Hansen Dam Flood Control Basin among the top-5 flood basins in the southwestern region that had been severely compromised by accumulations of debris which reduced the basin's over-all water holding capacity, thereby INCREASING  the flood risk of the surrounding communities (and millions of people living downstream in Los Angeles).

Despite the above study, and in fact during the same time (April  2002), the Army Corps of Engineers authorized a project intended to import hundreds of thousands of ADDITIONAL tons of debris (construction rubble and garbage-strewn dredgings) into Hansen Dam basin (see Big Lake & Little Lake !   Many different excuses were trotted out by the Corps, in response to community outrage, but the story they continue to repeat most often is that filling in the lakes was part of their plan to support the Los Angeles Department of Recreation & Parks' desire to use the area for recreation. 

In other words, in their zeal to accomodate the desires of one customer (Rec & Parks), the Corps went out of its way to compromise the #1 purpose of Hansen Dam FLOOD CONTROL BASIN, which is to protect the lives and property of millions of other "customers" -- citizens whose tax dollars finance the Corps.

Were it not for the community rising up to protest the dumping, by now the two large lakes in the lower basin (originally over sixty feet deep) could have been completely filled with concrete, rubble and worse, which would have greatly reduced the flood basin's ability to hold water.

How fortunate that everyday citizens understood what perhaps the Corps has forgotten -- the purpose of Hansen Dam is to control flood waters.  

Mother Nature is plenty good at importing sediment and debris herself, without humans further reducing the basin's water-holding capacity.