Why sacrifice the Natural Area for a regional museum when the region's chockablock with 'em?

The San Gabriel River Discovery Center Authority likes to argue that the communities around Whittier Narrows are underserved in the areas of environmental education.

How accurate is that claim?

The SRGDCA is planning a 25-mile service radius around the discovery center, so I decided to figure out what other nature, science and education-focused museums lie within 25 miles of the Whittier Narrows Natural Area. (Or, to look at it another way, what museums include Whittier Narrows in their own 25-mile service range.)

As I noted in the first post to this blog, the Aquarium of the Pacific and its new permanent watershed exhibit and education program, "Our Watersheds: Pathway to the Pacific," are within 25 miles of Whittier Narrows. (See accompanying graphic.)

The aquarium's "It all flows to me" program--available as a field trip or a mobile education offering--leads students "on a journey through their watershed from the mountains to the coastal ocean. . . . By exploring the link between watersheds, ground water and pollution, students will learn how they are part of the water cycle and discover how they can change their environment for the better."

All that without spending $30 million dollars, destroying wildlife habitat or robbing the community of its public parkland.

But what other museums can be found within 25 miles of South El Monte, Whittier, Montebello and the other communities around Whittier Narrows? Here's the list I was able to assemble:

• California Science Center, Los Angeles
• Los Angeles County Natural History Museum, Los Angeles
• Discovery Science Center, Santa Ana
• Kidspace Children's Museum, Pasadena
• Children's Museum at La Habra

And the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium is almost exactly 25 miles away.

Add to the above list the mobile water education program offered to many of the cities near Whittier Narrows through a partnership between Golden State Water Company and the Discovery Science Center, and its becomes clear that we who depend on the Natural Area for its outdoor education and recreation offerings already have access to a wonderful variety of museums focused on nature, science and kids.

The Natural Area offers the community what these other facilities cannot: firsthand experiences of the natural world; free access to the only wildlife sanctuary on the San Gabriel River; opportunities for low-impact recreation that entire families can take part in, from the youngest child to the beloved abuelita.

Why the Discovery Center Authority is blind to the jewel already in the community's possession is beyond me.

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.

Food (and water) for thought

How many permanent watershed exhibits does an area need?

The San Gabriel River Discovery Center Authority (DCA) envisions a 25-mile service radius for the science museum it’s proposing to build on the Whittier Narrows Natural Area. That means most of the communities from the San Gabriel Mountains southwest to the Pacific Ocean—including all the communities in the vicinity of Whittier Narrows—would be served by two museums with large-scale exhibits focused on the exact same topic.

If you received the most recent issue of the Auto Club’s Westways magazine, you may have seen the brief piece on the Aquarium of the Pacific’s new exhibit and classroom, “Our Watersheds: Pathway to the Pacific.”

Robin Jones reports that in the exhibit, “water cascades from the canopy overhead onto a model of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel watersheds. Plants native to the watersheds fill the garden beds around the exhibit.” Jones continues, saying that “Our Watersheds” offers tips for home water conservation and discusses solutions to the water-supply problem.

The aquarium and the exhibit, which opened in November of last year, are tremendous regional and community resources. And if you extend a 25-mile service radius from the aquarium (as the DCA would for the discovery center), you see that Pico Rivera, South El Monte, Whittier and all the other communities around Whittier Narrows are already within the service range of a large, permanent watershed-focused museum exhibit. (See the accompanying graphic.)

The aquarium’s president and CEO says the primary goal of the exhibit “is to motivate visitors to improve the quality of life for people and the environment by making sustainable choices for the future of our local watersheds.”

The Discovery Center Authority might want to consider the possibility that a redundant and massive science museum that requires the destruction of critical plant and wildlife habitat and robs the community of open space doesn't quite qualify as a sustainable choice.