Army Corps destruction in SF Valley preserve a preview of agency treatment of Whittier Narrows?

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is the land management agency ultimately in charge of most of the Whittier Narrows Natural Area, including most of the 11 or 12 acres the Discovery Center Authority needs for its water museum project. The corps' clear-cutting last month of 43 acres of land rich in plant life and wildlife in the San Fernando Valley's Sepulveda Basin wildlife preserve offers a cautionary tale for those of us concerned about the fate of our own wildlife sanctuary on the San Gabriel River.

As Los Angeles Times journalist Louis Sahagun wrote on Dec. 29: "An area that just a week ago was lush habitat on the Sepulveda Basin's wild side, home to one of the most diverse bird populations in Southern California, has been reduced to dirt and broken limbs — by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers." 

Sahagun reports that the corps had reclassified the preserve as a "vegetation management area," with a new mission to replace existing plants with new vegetation in order to "improve access for Army Corps staffers, increase public safety and discourage crime in an area plagued by sex-for-drugs encampments." The agency declared that no environmental impact report was necessary,  posted a Finding of No Significant Impact to its website for 15 days of public comment, but according to the Sierra Club "informed no one of its existence."

By Dec. 28, Sahagun wrote, "nearly all of the vegetation — native and non-native — had been removed. Decomposed granite trails, signs, stone structures and other improvements bought and installed with public money had been plowed under."

Reaction was swift and utterly predictable -- except by the corps apparently. Local chapters of Audubon, Sierra Club, the Native Plant Society, local neighborhood groups, state and federal representatives all voiced their shock, disbelief and disapproval of the corps' actions. And while the attention brought to the destruction of wildlife habitat and recreational resources and the failure to consider, inform and include the public in any meaningful way won't bring back those 43 acres, it might help to prevent such destruction of other areas managed by the corps and by other agencies.

That includes the Whittier Narrows wildlife sanctuary.

Is Discovery Center to be capitol of RMC empire?

Throughout history, empires have announced and reinforced their power through architecture meant to dominate. Be it Rome or London or Madrid, or the capital of any other current or former power, these places announce the hegemony, past or present, of the men and women who built them.

The proposed San Gabriel River Discovery Center seems exactly this kind of announcement of empire, with the empire-builder this time being the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy.

The RMC building an empire? you ask incredulously. Come now, you can't be serious.

Well, how else to explain the fact that an agency created primarily to "provide open-space, low-impact recreational and educational uses, water conservation, watershed improvement, wildlife and habitat restoration and protection and watershed improvement within its territory" is focused so intently on putting up a building -- over the objections of so many -- that would harm many of those same values?

"They've placed themselves too high." -- Sally Havice on the RMC

How else to explain its use of the "joint powers authority" across the San Gabriel Valley and southeast Los Angeles County? Could it be the RMC's way of getting around the prohibition against its use of eminent domain and of cementing its influence in areas that were previously and largely the responsibility of local governments?

How else to explain the RMC inserting itself into the management of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-owned Whittier Narrows Recreation Area? In 2008, one of these JPAs, the RMC-led Watershed Conservation Authority, launched a Whittier Narrows Master Plan development project that, to all appearances, was the real thing. But in late 2009, we learned that the project "is not a formal update to the existing USACE Whittier Narrows Master Plan. . . ."

What is it then? And how much is it costing the taxpayer?

On a recent Sunday afternoon, former state legislator Sally Havice visited with the Friends and other critics of the Discovery Center. Havice, co-author of the legislation that created the RMC more than a decade ago, said that, at the time, "there was no discussion about bricks and mortar and buildings," though there was to be start-up money for various projects. "But no empire building," she said.

The goal was, Havice said, "to preserve, enhance and create parks, green space and habitat."

But of the RMC today she said: "They've placed themselves too high. They're too far removed."

Somewhere along the road, the RMC lost its way. As it grows more powerful, cities and communities grow less so, and we all start to look more and more like petitioners, or, for the "lucky" few, like princes at court abasing themselves before the monarch.

Thanks for comments on environmental assessment

I just want to say thank you to everyone who was able to submit comments to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on its San Gabriel River Discovery Center environmental assessment.

It felt like a chore to me to find the energy to comment on the EA after we put so much energy into commenting on the draft environmental impact report. But it had to get done, and it got done.

So again thanks for taking the time to review the EA and submit comments.

It looks like some of the next important steps are to be taken by the San Gabriel River Discovery Center Authority and the Army Corps of Engineers.

The authority, I believe, will review and address the comments and then decide whether it is ready to issue a final EIR, which would include the alternative the agency had decided to pursue.

Similarly, the corps will review and address the comments on its EA and then decide whether a full environmental impact statement is required.

Please don't treat the above as gospel. I'm new to this environmental review business, so please consider these comments as the work of a a novice.

Double charges for discovery center environmental review? USACE releases environmental assessment

I'm certain many of us have had the experience of seeing mystery charges on some of our bills. Well, something similar may be going on with the San Gabriel River Discovery Center.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released its environmental assessment on the discovery center.

Wait, you say, how does this differ from the draft environmental impact report?

Why weren't these two environmental documents rolled into one?

Excellent questions.

USACE owns most of the land that would be used for the discovery center project. But in a situation such as we have here, it is common practice to create a single environmental document rather than have every agency produce its own. Saves the taxpayer money.

Not only were two separate but similar documents produced at significant taxpayer expense--but both were written by the same consultant: EDAW, Inc. EDAW certainly hit the jackpot with the discovery center.

Remember, folks: its YOUR money.

The public review period for the EA ends Aug. 20.