Whittier Narrows Master Plan meeting Wednesday

A meeting to solicit comments from the public on a new master plan for the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area is scheduled to take place Wednesday from 2 - 4 p.m. in Pico Rivera.

The location of the meeting is the Pico Rivera Parks and Recreation Department's community room, 6767 Passons Blvd.

The meeting is being called by the Watershed Conservation Authority, a joint powers authority consisting of the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works.

How is bulldozing dozens of mature trees and paving over wildlife habitat in a county Significant Ecological Area to build a meeting center for bureaucrats and a 150-car parking lot in any way compatible with conservation or restoration?

The information I've picked up from the project's Notice of Preparation and from an article in the Whittier Daily News raise a few questions.

First, why is the WCA the lead agency on this rather than the landowner, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers? (USACE's Sepulveda Basin Master Plan is also being revised, but there the corps apparently hasn't ceded control of the planning process.)

Second, why is the Whittier Narrows scoping meeting being held midweek, 2 - 4 p.m.? Is the WCA intentionally trying to suppress public participation? Or is the WCA staff simply disinclined toward weekend or evening meetings? (Again, contrast this with USACE's Saturday, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m., meeting regarding Sepulveda Basin.)

And third, why is the Discovery Center being proposed for what is identified in the new master plan as a conservation and restoration zone? (See map above.) How is bulldozing dozens of mature trees and paving over wildlife habitat in a county Significant Ecological Area to build a meeting center for bureaucrats and a 150-car parking lot in any way compatible with conservation or restoration?

The logic stays screwy when you read in the Whittier Daily News that Norma E. Garcia, deputy director for Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation, says they "didn't want to intensify the use of Whittier Narrows."

How is doubling annual visitation of the natural area to 120,000 people without first analyzing the potential impacts of such growth anything other than intensifying use of Whittier Narrows?

Perhaps the county and the RMC need to get their story straight.