""She was a voice for nature and a voice for the river," said Rita Kampalath, L.A. County's chief sustainability officer and a longtime friend of Winter's. "She had such strength of her convictions, and she was so clear-eyed in the vision that she wanted to push forward. And I think that inspired a lot of people.""
""I think what always drove her was the sense of, it was a river that had been contained in concrete ... and that nature-based solutions could do a better job," said Conner Everts, a friend and leader of the Southern California Watershed Alliance. "Her goal was to re-create a natural meandering river, with the ability to recharge into the [San Fernando] Valley and restore nature"
Melanie Winter, 67, devoted nearly three decades to reimagining the Los Angeles River as a natural asset and led the nonprofit River Project. She promoted "unbuilding," removing concrete where feasible and reactivating natural floodplains so the river could spread out and meander. She advocated rewilding channel segments, restoring riparian forests, recharging groundwater, and reducing flood risks. She helped create riverfront parks and neighborhood "urban acupuncture" projects that replaced asphalt with permeable paving to allow rainwater to percolate. Winter continued attending local water meetings while battling lung cancer and died in a Los Angeles hospital with friends visiting.
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