Cross Country
A River Runs Through It-Again
With the turn of a valve that opened an aqueduct gate in the Sierra Nevadas, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa sought to make up with a once green valley that was drained dry by the city's thirst. In Independence, Calif., water gushed into the lower Owens River for the first time since the early 1900s, when L.A.'s founders diverted the flow toward the budding metropolis-a water grab dramatized in the 1974 film Chinatown.
After decades of animosity, lawsuits, and broken promises between the city and the valley, Villaraigosa helped launch one of the country's largest river restoration plans-one that will provide a steady flow of water to 62 miles of the river. "Los Angeles is prepared to own up to its history," he said. But the nation's second-largest city will now have to look elsewhere for water. Conservation might not be enough, and the City of Angels may have to tap some other sources, like the Colorado River.
The Warhorse and the Long Goodbye
It should have been a breeze moving the famed USS Intrepid aircraft carrier from its New York home, on a Hudson River pier, to its new digs in New Jersey just across the way. But it was anything but. In early November, the massive battlewagon buried its keel in thick river mud as tugs tried to back all 36,000 tons of it away from the pier. Millions of dollars in dredging-which removed almost 40,000 cubic yards of mud-was supposed to have solved the problem as the tugs tried for the second time last week. But again it dug in, slipping free only after one tug began to prod at its stern. The Intrepid even fought its rescuers near ground zero, refusing, at first, to unfurl a giant American flag. Eventually, though, Old Glory flourished. Maybe the old World War II veteran just didn't want to go. It'll be dry-docked for repairs and repainting for the next two years in Bayonne, N.J. That's not quite the same thing as entertaining tourists in the Big Apple.
With Will Sullivan, Deborah Kotz, Alex Kingsbury, Danielle Knight, Kit R. Roane and Associated Press
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