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.