Community rejects discovery center at EIR meeting

Last week, community members and supporters of the Whittier Narrows Natural Area sent a clear message to the San Gabriel River Discovery Center Authority:

"Don't build your $30 million, 18,000-square-foot regional watershed visitor center on our open space, our wildlife sanctuary, our center of outdoor education."

On June 24, the Discovery Center Authority held a public meeting at South El Monte High School to discuss the discovery center and its draft environmental impact report.

Of the 12 people who spoke during the oral comment period, not one spoke in favor of the discovery center.

Two people spoke of areas the EIR might have missed and said that public comments should be posted to the discovery center website.

The other 10 speakers offered sometimes sharp criticism of the project, its supposed objectives and many of the assumptions behind it.

People spoke of the importance to them of Whittier Narrows and the Natural Area when they were children.

Other said the Natural Area offered a unique experience to families and to school children, some seeing wildlife in the wild for the first time.

Some speakers said there was no sense in building a nature center on top of the very nature its supposed to teach about.

Another speaker said that the discovery center project threatened to destroy the local legacy of environmental conservation history in America.

And a few people spoke of the outsized costs of the project, the likely introduction of user fees and the failure to look at more economical alternatives for water education.

With so many arguments for protecting the Natural Area and preserving the current nature center, you'd think the discovery center would have no chance of advancing or of winning the approval and support of elected officials and government agencies.

But the project seems to proceed, in apparent contradiction to the will of the people. And thus the basis for the frustration expressed by another speaker becomes clear.

“Are you really listening to the public," she asked, "or is it just what the agencies want to do and not hear what the people say who live here?”

The public comment period for the discovery center EIR closes on Aug. 3.

A DAY WITH ASSEMBLYMAN ENG AND UPPER WATER DISTRICT

A good day bringing people together.

Veteran of environmental campaigns to speak Sunday, ahead of this week's DEIR public meeting

Ray Williams, professor of biology and a veteran of successful environmental campaigns, will speak Sunday, June 21, on tackling environmental impact reports and will focus his comments on the San Gabriel River Discovery Center draft environmental impact report.

His talk comes just a few days before the first of two public meetings scheduled on the San Gabriel River Discovery Center DEIR, which was released June 5 and is in its 60-day public comment period.

Ray's talk is scheduled for 1 p.m. in the picnic area of the Whittier Narrows Nature Center. The Nature Center is at 1000 N. Durfee Ave., South El Monte, across from South El Monte High School. (Map)

The first public meeting on the discovery center DEIR is scheduled for Wednesday, June 24, 7 - 9 p.m., at South El Monte High School, 1001 N. Durfee Ave. (Map)

The second public meeting is scheduled for Saturday, July 18, 2 - 4 p.m., also at South El Monte High School.

Please join us in commenting on the problems with the discovery center and about alternatives that would deliver true benefits to the community while protecting the only wildlife sanctuary on the San Gabriel River.

The DEIR is available at http://discoverycenterauthority.org/env_doc/env_doc.html

A strange model of environmental stewardship

For a project that is ostensibly designed to promote environmental stewardship, the San Gabriel River Discovery Center is pretty hard on the environment.

The project is planned for the Whittier Narrows Natural Area, the only wildlife sanctuary on the San Gabriel River, part of the Whittier Narrows Significant Ecological Area and part of an Audubon Society Important Bird Area. But the impact on such an environmentally important area was of little concern when it was selected as the site for the discovery center.

The summary of environmental impact (in the executive summary) states, "The EIR identifies potentially significant impacts requiring mitigation for Biological Resources, Cultural Resources, Hydrology and Water Quality, and Noise."

The Discovery Center Authority and its member water districts have achieved quite an irony. The project is intended to "deliver a program about all aspects of watershed education," but the first step in the project causes so much damage to the watershed that mitigation is required.

The Discovery Center Authority and its member water districts have achieved quite an irony. The project is intended to "deliver a program about all aspects of watershed education: geologic setting, natural history, water quality and conservation, human reliance on river resources, flood
management, and river restoration." But the first step in the project causes so much damage to the watershed that mitigation is required.

And California law now requires projects to look at their contribution to global warming. How does the discovery center, a project that we are told is to be a model of environmental design, do with regard to this issue? Again the executive summary: "the proposed project would contribute to a significant cumulative impact related to global climate change."

"The proposed project would contribute to a significant cumulative impact related to global climate change."

When your service range is 25 miles in all directions but your location isn't served by public transportation, and when you're expecting so much traffic that you have to quintuple the size of the parking lot (from 33 cars to 150 cars, two bus spaces to three), then it really doesn't matter how green your building is--you're still going to make an oversized contribution to global climate change.

The county's Significant Ecological Areas Technical Advisory Committee couldn't have been more right when it rejected the discovery center project, saying that "there is an irony in ripping out nature to make it available." And while it supported the project in theory, SEATAC was "concerned that built out education center is not actually the model of what it should be in respect and relation to nature."

"The entire building is a showplace for the water districts. Why should that be put in a bird sanctuary?"

The project makes little sense if you approach it from an environmentalist's stance. But when you read the EIR, it's hard to escape the sense that the discovery center is essentially a marketing tool and meeting center for the water districts.

Others have noticed this about the project too.

"The project has now grown into this enormous museum for the entire watershed, and the actual nature center part of it is completely gone," said Grace Allen, a member of the Friends and president of the Whittier Narrows Nature Center Associates, in a recent news story. "The entire building is a showplace for the water districts. Why should that be put in a bird sanctuary?"

A very good question.

Questions to ask when reviewing a draft environmental impact report

Ray Williams, professor emeritus of biology at Rio Hondo College and veteran of many successful efforts to protect threatened areas of the Southern California, provided the Friends this list of helpful tips.

While a draft environmental impact report may seem intimidating at first--the Montebello Hills Specific Plan DEIR certainly intimidated me--they cover a broad spectrum of areas. And even the most technical areas can be scrutinized by non-specialists.

Good, basic questions are important in bringing to light the flaws, inconsistencies and short cuts in a DEIR. As in sports, its important not to neglect the fundamentals.

The list:

1. What are the project's significant unavoidable impacts?

2. Do the alternatives addressed in the draft EIR deal with those impacts?

3. What significance thresholds are used for each impact category?

4. Do the significant thresholds reflect adopted local policies and/or criteria established by a regulatory agency?

5. Does the draft EIR gauge potential impacts against existing physical conditions?

6. Does the draft EIR address all of the environmental topics relevant to proposed project?

7. Does the technical information provided in the draft EIR support the document’s findings?

8. Did the draft EIR include discussion of environmental issues raised during the scoping phase and in responses to the Notice of Preparation?

9. Does the draft EIR adequately define the resources that might be impacted?

10. Does the draft EIR provide a clear line of reasoning in its conclusions related to impacts, their level of significance or non-significance, and the level of mitigation that would be achieved by proposed mitigations measures?

11. Does the draft EIR’s statement of project objective allow for a reasonable range of alternatives?

Discovery center draft environmental impact report released; 60-day comment period open

After two years of delays, the draft environmental impact report on the San Gabriel River Discovery Center was released Friday.

The release of the DEIR also signaled the opening of the 60-day public comment period, which ends on Aug. 3, 2009.

The report, nearly 900 pages in length, is available online at the Discovery Center Authority website.

It's also available in print at three Whittier Narrows area libraries:

• South El Monte Library, 1430 N. Central Ave., South El Monte CA 91733 (Map)
  
• El Monte Public Library, 3224 Tyler Ave., El Monte CA 91731 (Map)
  
• Pico Rivera Public Library, 9001 Mines Ave., Pico Rivera CA 90660 (Map)
  

And the Discovery Center Authority has scheduled two public meetings, at which public comments on the DEIR will be accepted:

• Wednesday, June 24, 7 - 9 p.m.
  
• Saturday, July 18, 2 - 4 p.m.
  

Both meetings will be held at South El Monte High School, 1001 N. Durfee Ave., South El Monte CA. (Map)

If you'd like to comment on the DEIR, but aren't sure how to go about it, Tuesday I'll be posting a brief guide to "Questions to ask when reviewing a draft environmental impact report."

My suggestion is pick a topic (e.g., aesthetics, transportation and traffic, biological resources, cultural resources) that you feel comfortable reviewing or are interested in and just jump in.

But I'll get that guide posted in a couple of days.