LA Times Greenspace blog on Friends campaign to save Natural Area from discovery center project

The Whittier Narrows Natural Area and our efforts to shed light on the threat posed to it by the proposed San Gabriel River Discovery Center were the subject of an April 15 post to the Los Angeles Times’ Greenspace blog.

“Opponents of a proposed $30-million interpretive center at the Whittier Narrows wildlife sanctuary,” wrote journalist Louis Sahagun, “are ramping up their effort to block the project they fear would destroy a rare expanse of critical habitat in eastern Los Angeles County in order to enhance understanding of the San Gabriel River watershed.”

He continues: “The center ‘would destroy critical habitat, rob our diverse communities of open space, and shift focus away from firsthand experiences of nature,’ the [Friends media] backgrounder says. ‘And it would do so using public dollars to take public lands for a project the goals of which could be better served through less destructive and costly means.’”

Sahagun was referring to the media backgrounder we recently produced and distributed and which is available on the "Media room" page of the Friends website.

The Discovery Center Authority also has its say in the blog post. DCA project analyst Valerie Shatynski said the exhibit areas would be designed to help people understand the watershed and its role in the natural world and in daily life.

But that work’s already being accomplished by the Aquarium of the Pacific’s new permanent watershed exhibit, “Our Watersheds: Pathway to the Pacific.”

The DCA needs to answer the question why it wants to spend $30 million to build another major permanent watershed exhibit only 20 miles from the aquarium and which would compete with the aquarium's exhibit and educational programs.

Additionally, after a decade of work, the DCA’s only been able to raise a third of its construction fundraising goal—and all of that coming solely from our taxes and water bills.

And how do they expect to pay the high costs of maintaining, staffing and programming this giant water palace?

More questions than answers coming out of the discovery center right now.