Folk Band's Goal for L.A. River Access Reiterated by Obama's Office of Urban Affairs

The Canadian folk band Twin’s stated purpose in paddling down the Los Angeles River in February was to “open the eyes of Los Angeles residents to see that this is their public space, their river, to take care of it, and not let it go to waste.”

That is the intent expressed on Friday by the Office of Urban Affairs in Washington, D.C. stating that President Obama agrees that the public should have access to all rivers.

“President Obama believes that all Americans deserve access to clean rivers, streams and lakes, and that a community’s economy and health benefit from such access," the office released in a statement.

Twin's t by the Los Angeles Police Department  for canoeing down the river—even though t preventing this—and given citations for loitering. 

In April, the City Attorney’s Office for loitering and trespassing. 

In addition, for the six boaters possibly preventing them from returning to the United States to defend themselves against the charges. 

Finally, the when the City Attorney’s Office located proof of Twin’s appearance on the citations.

David Fort, founder of the group and lead guitarist, said Twin was looking for a way “to help people develop a relationship and reconnect to their environment, even after being consumed by the depths of pollution and overpopulation."

He said they wanted to unite the Los Angeles community with their river. “We felt like we were being called to the L.A. River to help celebrate the change not only in Los Angeles, but in the United States,” Fort said, “It’s a turning point in American geographic history, the way it viewed urban space.”

In his own words, Obama indicated, “I was so proud today to stand with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar as well as other Administration colleagues, Senator Ben Cardin, and local city partners to announce a new federal partnership that will reconnect urban communities, particularly those that are overburdened or economically distressed, with their waterways by improving coordination among federal agencies and collaborating with community-led revitalization efforts."

The new partnership, comprised of 11 federal agencies, is called The Urban Waters Federal Partnership and Los Angeles is named as one of the seven pilot cities that UWFP will focus its efforts on.

Also, city officials are planning to offer canoe and kayak trips down the Los Angeles River for a three mile stretch through the San Fernando Valley, pending approval by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. 

Los An­ge­les City Councilman Ed P. Reyes was quoted last week by the Los Angeles Times saying, “this is going to be a historic moment,” and that the pilot program is “needed to enjoy the riv­er's nat­ural beauty and recre­ational opportunities."

Environmentalist and organizer, George Wolfe, expressed that the Valley portion of the L.A. River is a perfect test place as he imagined what it used to be like before all the trash and cement, when there was vegetation, trees, fish, birds and the water flowed slowly and easily.

This reflects the objective of the Twin band for hosting a Los Angeles River cleanup at their Sepulveda Park entry point because they felt incomplete about not having been able to paddle the entire way. 

The group of three men and three women had noticed the huge amount of garbage, dead birds in plastic bags, and an awful smell and wanted the public to know about the deterioration of their once spectacular natural resource.