Lawsuit protecting Whittier Narrows wildlife sanctuary for community and nature continues

Our lawsuit targeting the controversial, expensive and destructive San Gabriel River Discovery Center project continues to protect the community’s prized Whittier Narrows Natural Area, a historic wildlife sanctuary of tremendous ecological value.

We filed the suit in February, under the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, which the Planning and Conservation League calls the state’s “premier environmental law” and a “powerful tool for public participation.” The suit charges that the Discovery Center Authority failed to meet its legal obligations under CEQA and the Seismic Hazards Mapping Act when it certified an inadequate final environmental impact report and approved the project.

The authority’s own records show that meetings, VIP tours and special events aimed at water district executives and government officials make up the vast majority of new programming for the $22 million taxpayer-funded facility.

CEQA violations cited in the suit include the authority’s failure to fully disclose and evaluate the environmental harm the proposed water museum and meeting center and its sprawling compound of structures would cause. The suit also charges that the authority ignored the project’s public safety impacts from seismic hazards and failed to prepare a feasible, funded and legally enforceable plan to mitigate the project’s adverse environmental impacts.

The authority has relentlessly marketed and greenwashed the Discovery Center as an environmental project for more than a decade, yet it has done little or nothing in that same period of time to preserve or restore habitat at the natural area or to enhance existing educational programs there. And the authority’s own records show that meetings, VIP tours and special events aimed at water district executives and government officials make up the vast majority of new programming planned for the $22 million taxpayer-funded facility.

For more information on our organization, the Friends of the Whittier Narrows Natural Area, and our efforts to protect an important community resource, please see the following links:

• Our website: http://naturalareafriends.net/
• The text of our lawsuit is available at http://naturalareafriends.net/eir
• Our press release on the suit is available at http://naturalareafriends.net/media_room

Sierra Club refuses to endorse Discovery Center

In a serious blow to the controversial San Gabriel River Discovery Center, the local chapter of the Sierra Club in May refused to endorse the proposed water museum and meeting center that threatens important community and environmental resources in east Los Angeles County .

One Sierra Club member said the center appeared to be a monument to water districts and county agencies. Another said the project would “destroy the atmosphere of local community — something that is as rare and valuable as remnant habitat.”

The executive committee (board of directors) of the Angeles Chapter opted instead for neutrality toward the $22 million taxpayer-funded project proposed for the Whittier Narrows Natural Area.

The significance of the Sierra Club move cannot be overstated. The local chapter has been involved in the project since 1999. For the organization to turn around now and refuse to give its blessing — after presentations by Belinda Faustinos, director of the Discovery Center Authority, and Russ Guiney, director of Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation — is an important indication of the serious, unanswered questions that surround the project and the joint powers authority attempting to build it over the opposition of the community.

In discussions leading up to the chapter decision, local Sierra Club leaders questioned the wisdom of the project. One member said the center appeared to be a monument to water districts and county agencies. Another said the project would “destroy the atmosphere of local community — something that is as rare and valuable as remnant habitat.”

Project opponents within the Sierra Club and outside it (the latter including Bill Robinson, a director at one of the authority’s member water districts) made the case that too many grave doubts exist regarding the authority’s goals and priorities, the questionable environmental ethics and educational need for the Discovery Center , and the project’s financial viability.

For more information on our efforts to protect the natural area, please visit our website at http://www.naturalareafriends.net/.
--
Photo: John Muir (Library of Congress)

Protecting corridors there, threatening them here

The Whittier Daily News and other Los Angeles-area media are reporting that the U.S. Forest Service wants to bring lands that stretch from the Santa Monica Mountains to the San Gabriel Mountains "under federal protection and would study the possibilities of trail development, land acquisition and preservation of wildlife corridors that connect different sections of open space in the area."

At a recent event at Pasadena's Eaton Canyon Nature Center, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff said: "These are incredible wild areas that are loosely connected corridors that allow for wildlife to pass through. If the areas become disconnected we lose those corridors."

The five-year study that was recently initiated to look into creation of the "Rim of the Valley Corridor" is not without its critics, but there still appears to be much to recommend the idea.

The agencies and water districts pushing the proposed San Gabriel River Discovery Center should take a page from these efforts. The Discovery Center, Lario Creek and other related projects, instead of enhancing the Whittier Narrows wildlife sanctuary and habitat connectivity, promise to destroy habitat and likely threaten habitat connectivity. (See the accompanying connectivity map, taken from the San Gabriel River Corridor Master Plan, and note where most corridors intersect .)

It's tragic that a few organizations charged with stewardship of our evermore scarce resources -- financial, ecological, recreational -- can be blind to reality and deaf to reason. But it's heartening to see that at least a few officials, such as Mr. Schiff, appear to be working for the good of the community and the environment.

It's NATURE not human nature that keeps humans alive

Ed Barajas teaching kids and their parents about NATURE.. the old fashioned way! Out IN IT!

Read another article today.... another group of experts talking about Climate Change. This time this group, from the United Nations, says that protecting biodiversity is MORE important then working to stop Climate Change! Then I read that another group of scientists who have grouped together to try to get President Obama to DO something about the BP spill.. but he is setting up another panel to study BP's destruction of this huge water body ... OH, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! But the real problem may be that government types are scientifically ignorant and illiterate. And being on the edge - sort to speak - of a massive global ecological collapse (see articles above) it makes sense why smart things are not done like they are in "DeMovies" (my grandparents, who made their living in the entertainment business, used to say, "In da moo-in pit-tsures!"). Humans have always made terrible messes of their environment (read 'Collapse', by Jared Diamond, and don't forget his other book, 'Guns, Germs, and Steel') and this Discovery Center Authority is just another blip in the paleontological scheme of things.

So, why do I write about this on a blog about a California Governmental Agency... the RMC ... (as per my grandparents, again - Govern-mental) that calls itself a CONSERVANCY (HA!) and wants so badly to build a huge building, with a big parking lot (where's the 'green mentoring' on public transportation????), a giant catch basin for the gas and the (?BP?) oil from the parking lot (of COURSE it won't leak into the soils above the drinking water aquifer!)? And then they say this is all for... da children, to TEACH dem 'bout NATURE? Well, it's kinda the same. Just a smaller tragedy.

Remember, the best Shakespearean tragedies were of smart people with really large-dumb-blind spots which cause them to eventually kill themselves and their loved ones.

Ok.... now I have written this downer article ... I am going to do something positive! Let's stop this stupidity by demonstrating how to teach nature to kids and the adults.

Meet me half way! LET'S GO!

Well, it MET ALL of our expectations!

It was a..... U.S. Green Building

Council's Leadership in Energy

and environmental Design of the

HIGHEST Platinum level!!!!

(not really.... but folks followed the

orders from folks at the top... and

no one questioned their motives or

their deficiencies in their work ethics.)

Photo taken by a Department of Energy Contractor.

BIRD-A-THON! May 14 - 16 ....on your mark, get set...

GO!!!!!!!! BIRD-A-THON!!! COUNT THE BIRDS

(hint: 5 birds, 2 invertebrates on this page)

The Friends are holding their inaugural Bird-a-thon May 14 - 16 to raise money for the cause of saving the Whittier Narrows Natural Area.

The proceeds from the Birdathon, an event in which individuals or teams count birds and collect sponsorships based on the number of species they spot or in a flat amount, will go to the Friends to support their efforts to protect the natural area,including their lawsuit against the San Gabriel River Discovery Center Authority.

The Friends have been one of the few voices consistently defending the historic wildlife sanctuary from ill-conceived and destructive development plans being pushed by water district executives and government bureaucrats. (You can read the latest story to appear on the house of cards that is the Discovery Center here.)

But as they say, all work and no play . . . So the Birdathon is intended as a fun way to raise money and raise awareness of the variety of birds we have in Southern California and of the importance of the dwindling open space we have here.

The great thing about the Birdathon is that you can do it anywhere and for a length of time of your choosing. You might choose to do it at El Dorado Park in Long Beach or sitting in your living room watching birds come and go from your birdfeeder. You don't even have to live in LA to participate. You could do your birding anywhere on the planet and at your own pace.

More information on the Birdathon, including the participant/sponsor form, is available at http://naturalareafriends.net/how_you_can_help

LA Weekly: Lack of money, poor financial planning the 'gorilla in the room' for Discovery Center

Don't miss the LA Weekly's stunning, sobering story on the proposed San Gabriel River Discovery Center: "Pave to Save Whittier Narrows?"

"Funding — including some of the construction money — has not been secured. The Discovery Center Authority does not even have an updated estimate of future operating costs."

While reporter Tibby Rothman looks at the important environmental questions that plague the controversial project, her story focuses on the project's other ongoing green problem: lack of money.

As Rothman writes: "Ultimately, however, the gorilla in the room is not about environmental ethics but about money.

Belinda V. Faustinos, executive director of the San Gabriel River Discovery Center Authority, "concedes that, in fact, that funding — including some of the construction money — has not been secured. The Discovery Center Authority does not even have an updated estimate of future operating costs."

But as Rothman points out -- and as readers of this blog already know -- serious financial troubles have plagued projects too similar to the Discovery Center to ignore or brush off.

"What comes to me is that it's easy to build something [but] it's hard to sustain the operation," says Michael Feeney, executive director of the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County, speaking of Santa Barbara's troubled Watershed Resource Center.

Rothman tells the cautionary tale of Santa Barbara's "largely shuttered" Watershed Resource Center and includes quotes from someone familiar with that troubled project:

"'What comes to me is that it's easy to build something [but] it's hard to sustain the operation,' says Michael Feeney, executive director of the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County.

"Feeney points to the experience of Santa Barbara's Community Environmental Council, which constructed the Watershed Resource Center at a county beach, but no longer owns it.

"'Everyone was excited to build it and there was a lot of enthusiasm at first,' he says. But the officials at the various agencies grew reluctant to devote the funds needed to keep it going."

Southern California taxpayers and ratepayers watched this same sad story play out on at least two other occasions -- first with the Center for Water Education in Hemet, then with the Children's Museum at Hansen Dam -- losing tens of millions of dollars in the process.

Feeney gets the last word in the LA Weekly article, suggesting the fatal flaw of projects that try to graft indoor, entertainment-oriented facilities onto areas where the focus is naturally (no pun intended) on outdoor recreation and education.

"Everyone goes to the beach to go to the beach," he notes. "They don't go to go inside a building."