Learning from Nature

For more than 34 years, Harry Boyajian has directed and managed site remediation of polluted lands all over the United States. His work has taken him from North Dakota to Arizona, and all up and down California where he’s based. Closer to home, Harry has worked extensively on sites adjacent to the LA River, post-industrial land that was once home to thriving factories and other commerce centers that were left behind once these businesses shuttered. 

“I have done a lot of projects near the LA River, and the reason is because the majority of the industrial sites are built right next to the river for water use. 

Unfortunately, in the process, they impacted and polluted the surrounding soil. We have excavated and sent for treatment close to— I would say—a million and a half tons of material over the 20 years I’ve done work there.” 

Harry’s path to his current profession is one that started thousands of miles away in his native Armenia, along with a little encouragement from his grandmother. 

“When I was a little kid, she used to say to everybody, ‘My grandson is going to become an engineer.’ I guess she knew something I didn’t.” 

Harry grew up exploring and developing an appreciation for the natural world around him. The landscapes of Armenia—in particular its ravines, rivers, and creeks—left a lasting impression on him. Whenever any opportunity presented itself to escape the city, a young Harry was the first to jump on board, preferring to be in rural areas or on a farm. 

“In my earliest years, I grew up in a village and during the school year, we would come back to the city, which I really didn’t like much, to be honest. Even now, I still don’t like it.” 

Then a part of the Soviet Union, Harry, along with his family, left Armenia, immigrating to Lebanon when he was 12 years old, seeking a better life. When civil war erupted in Lebanon in 1975, his father sent them to neighboring Syria where they stayed for the next fifteen years. If Armenia’s stunning landscapes taught him about the importance of the natural world, his time in Syria taught him about the value of the built environment. Living in some of the oldest and continuously inhabited cities in the world, Harry refers to Syria as an “open-air museum”—a testament to human ingenuity and adaptability to their surroundings. 

When Harry was in high school, he worked as a nurse at his father’s outpatient clinic, learning the ins and outs of that line of work. His father mentored him and encouraged him to follow in his footsteps. The year he was supposed to graduate high school, his father fell ill and began to rapidly deteriorate in health. Harry continued with his studies and took the entrance exams, but unfortunately, before his results came out, his father had passed away. 

“I was the eldest son. I have no brothers—I have two younger sisters—and I had to take care of my family. I decided not to go to medical school because it requires a lot of time, a lot of

dedication, and I had to work to support my family. So I made a little detour into engineering.  That was not planned at all.”  

After studying civil engineering for five years at the University of Aleppo, Harry was faced with  one last tough choice. With only four exams separating him from his degree—exams that were  not technical but on other subjects he was obligated to take—he decided to forgo these  assessments for a bigger dream of his.  

“I chose not to take my last four exams, because that meant I could not come to the United  States. At the time, the government would not let me out [of the country] if I graduated as a civil  engineer.”  

In 1990, Harry immigrated to the United States, arriving in Los Angeles to a new reality and a  new environment. Without a degree or any proof of his schooling, Harry made another detour  and became a contractor, but with the added skills and knowledge of a civil engineer.  

“When I came to the United States, I didn’t even have any proof that I went to one year of  college, because they would not even give you your transcripts if you left.”  

Harry worked for various geotechnical, construction, and environmental companies before  starting a business of his own, specializing in infrastructure and remediation work—a perfect  combination of his interests, and a reflection of his upbringing.  

“I loved being around nature, part of nature in the dirt and trees and ravines and the rivers and  the creeks. I loved to play with dirt all my life.”  

To better familiarize himself with his new surroundings, Harry turned to an important character in  Los Angeles geography that others often overlooked: the LA River. In looking at the geology of  the Los Angeles Basin, all of the alluvial plains and topography were created by the river and its  tributaries over thousands of years. While currently encased in concrete, the flow of the river  brought downstream alluvial deposits that made the land fertile; in times of industry, the river  also served to transport pollutants.  

“The LA River created all this—the formation of the mountains, how the contaminants migrated  into the soil. It just depends on the type of geology and the layers of soil you have.Since I’m a  licensed driller, we installed thousands of monitoring wells everywhere—to study and install  them and log the findings.”  

This knowledge has served Harry well in the various remediation projects he’s undertaken along  former industrial lands on the LA River, including one where he’s working on the Bowtie parcel,  part of the former Taylor Yards that once served as the headquarters of Southern Pacific  Railroad. Located along the soft-bottomed Glendale Narrows portion of the river, the Bowtie is  surrounded by the Northeast LA neighborhoods of Glassell Park and Cypress Park. Work is  currently underway to complete the Bowtie Wetland Demonstration Project, led by The Nature  Conservancy, to improve water quality, enhance habitat, increase climate resilience, and provide access to open space for people and wildlife.

Remediation efforts at the site have been straightforward. Construction of the wetlands is limited  to a portion of Taylor Yards where former administrative buildings were located. The other  section of the site, where the heavy maintenance work for the trains was undertaken, is more  polluted, and there is no active work at the moment.  

The Bowtie Wetland Demonstration Project removed the top two feet of existing soil across the 3.5-acre site as part of the remediation process, which was completed in October 2024 and approved by the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) in June 2025. 

“We conducted three rounds of sampling here, and this was probably the least impacted. The  reason is because this was where the administrative building was—it was mostly just the  parking lot. So I don’t think there was any industrial operation conducted in this area.  

We went and removed about two feet of it, and we shipped about 20,000 tons of material that  went to local landfills. Before we shipped it, we took fresh samples because if the results are  more than one year old, the disposal facilities will not recognize them. So we conducted a fresh  round of sampling, and it confirmed that we don’t have much [pollutants] in the soil.

They did find a little trash pit, which the archeologist went and sifted through. We took some  samples, we analyzed it, we profiled it, and the material was sent to Soil Safe for treatment as a  non-hazardous material. Maybe two, three loads, but that’s all we had.”

Completion of the Bowtie Wetland Demonstration Project is expected in 2026, although the site  will be closed to the public for a year to allow for the vegetation to establish itself.  While vegetation is being established, The Nature Conservancy aims to conduct programming for local residents and schools. 

Working on this site has been rewarding for Harry, who, in his more than 30 years of experience  in this field, has seen it all. What surprised him about this project in particular was not the state  of the Bowtie but the passion of the individuals leading this project—a nice change.  

“The most unique quality is not the site—it is the people who spearheaded this project. The  Nature Conservancy is the main driver of this whole thing. I just thought that this would be a  great project for us to do, but I never expected that I would meet a group of people so dedicated,  so goal-driven, and so passionate and insistent about doing these revitalization efforts.  

That was the biggest surprise of this job.”

Harry Boyajian is the President and Operations Manager of El Capitan Environmental Services with over 30 years of corporate and project management experience including Remediation Construction, Shoring, Excavation, Backfilling, Heavy Machine Operation, Demolition, Underground Utilities and Site Restoration.