Hahamongna: the Good News

This past July 7th, 23 local bloggers raised their collective voice to protest the construction of soccer fields in our watershed. Our voices joined the chorus of other citizens and we were heard; instead of two soccer fields, now only one is proposed. Not perfect, but a damned sight better.

For our efforts, the Hahamongna Bloggers will be awarded the Best Advocacy award at this Thursday's Arroyo Verde Awards.

Quoting the Arroyo Seco Foundation's website: "The Arroyo Verde (Green Arroyo) Awards are the most prestigious local environmental awards. The awards recognize those who have made a valuable contribution to protecting and improving the Arroyo Seco watershed and our local communities during the past year."

I'm proud and pleased that we've won an award. Even more, I'm thrilled that we joined forces to speak together and help protect our beautiful watershed.

Our voices may be required again in the future, but for now we get to congratulate ourselves. If you were a Hahamongna Blogger and I haven't sent you the information, email me! Let me send you the info so you can come to the party!

Zen Monday: #123

photo by John Sandel

It's Zen Monday, the day you experience the photo and give us your thoughts rather than me telling you what I think the photo's about.

I look for a photo worth contemplating or, failing that, something odd or silly. And I stay out of the comments box until the end of the day to avoid influencing the discussion, unless you people get totally out of control. So far that hasn't happened but there's a first time for everything.

There's no right or wrong, we're here to have fun.

WTF

The Hahamongna basin fills up with rain and silt every year. The Devil's Gate Dam has a job to do--keep all that stuff from flooding Pasadena, South Pasadena and beyond.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Works Water Resources Division Flood Control District (LACDoPWWRDFCD for short) has a job to do, too--keep the dam in working condition.

Well, the LACDoPWWRDFCD's been busy, you know? So many dams (14), so little time. The sediment behind the Devil's Gate Dam has been building for some time and could have continued to do so. But the 2009 Station Fire scorched the mountains so severely they couldn't retain their soil. In early 2010, along with ash and debris, it all came flowing into the basin by the ton. Actually, it came by the cubic yard--almost a million of 'em.

Last year was an average rain year. Another year like it will bring the dam near to "uncontrolled flow at the spillway," according to Ryan Butler of the LACDoPWWRDFCD. Last Tuesday, Butler and Ken Zimmer of the LACDoPWWRDFCD presented the Postfire Sediment Removal Project (PSRP) at a meeting of the Hahamongna Watershed Park Advisory Committee (HWPAC).

Beginning in September of 2011, long after this coming winter's rain (which, you may recall, could bring the dam near to "uncontrolled flow" if it's an average year), the LACDoPWWRDFCD will first create a road into the basin from Oak Grove Drive near La Canada Flintridge High School. Then they'll remove 15 acres of native willow trees from the basin. By then they figure the rains will set in so there probably won't be much sediment removal next fall and they'll cease working until the spring of 2012.

Then (two rainy seasons from now, I guess we should pray for drought?) the emergency work begins in earnest. That will be 300-400 trucks per day, 7:30am-5pm Monday through Friday between May and December, hauling sediment out of the 50 acres closest to the dam to sites in Irwindale and Azusa. The job is expected to take 3 years at a projected cost of $35 million.

The "emergency" status of this project gives the LACDoPWWRDFCD a California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) exemption, meaning an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) isn't required (even though there's still more than a year to do it--but you know, so many EIRs, so little time). The LACDoPWWRDFCD still has to get permits from the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG), the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board (LARWQCB) and the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). Each of these agencies may require some sort of mitigation, environmentally speaking.

More questions will be asked. The city of La Canada Flintridge will have to weigh in. Mary Barrie of Friends of Hahamongna wrote an excellent report about the LACDoPWWRDFCD presentation. Arroyo Seco Foundation Managing Director Tim Brick expressed, among other things, his belief that this should be an issue in our upcoming municipal elections.

The stuff's gotta go. But does it have to go like this? The outgoing chairperson of the HWPAC, Tim Wendler, asked if other plans were considered before this one was chosen. "There's not a lot of options," said the LACDoPWWRDFCD's Zimmer. He added, "Deferring clean-outs doesn't work." Seeing as the LACDoPWWRDFCD has been deferring clean-outs for some years now, I guess we could say we have proof that he's right. Zimmer had the second-best line of the evening when he said, "Believe it or not, this is the fast track of the county."

The best line of the evening came from HWPAC member Maria Isenberg: "Can we get rid of that nasty little soccer field?"

I will bring you good news about Hahamongna later this week, I promise.

Here's good news about the PDP/PPM Contest:
Steve Scauzillo of Temple City (Daily Photo) is this week's winner of the PDP/PPM books contest! Steve was among those who answered correctly, "Who were the original architects of Pasadena City Hall?" It was the San Francisco firm of Bakewell and Brown. I took this week's poo bag to the Pasadena Farmers' Market and asked the beautiful daughter of one of my favorite merchants to draw a name at random from the correct answers. Steve won a copy of the lovely book At Home Pasadena from Prospect Park Media.

UPDATE: here's the county's sediment removal project.

Bug and Bokeh

A photographer who inspires me is Ibarionex Perello. He's a student of light and color, a fantastic portraitist and an artist to his core.

Ibarionex teaches photography at the high-tech high-fab Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He also teaches online via his hugely popular podcasts at The Candid Frame. He travels, lectures, leads photo safaris and is a very busy guy.

I'm fortunate to call Ibarionex and his wife Cynthia my friends and I want to keep it that way. So when I get a chance to go walking at Hahamongna Watershed Park with them, their dog Spenser and our cameras, I try not to bug the poor guy every second with, "how would you shoot this?" and "what kind of lens is that?"

But Ibarionex can't help but be generous. He let me use his macro lens. I didn't even have to ask, he just offered. And he found this leaf with this bug on it with this light coming from behind and this beautiful background and he pointed it out to me. All I did was focus and shoot.

Spenser fell madly in love with Hahamongna, so Cynthia had her hands full. But she managed to get off some good shots with her iPhone while Ibarionex and I drifted about the Hahmongna basin, just shooting away.

There is important news about the Hahamongna basin, which I'll tell you tomorrow.

I love that macro lens, by the way.

PDP/PPM Books Contest, week 7

Pasadena's City Hall is the centerpiece on our table, the hood ornament on our car, our Sunday hat. We like to flaunt it, take pictures of it, drive out of our way to go by it when we have out-of-towners in the car. "That? Oh, that's City Hall." I like to say there are no bad angles there.

We like it so much, in fact, that we kicked everyone out of it for nearly three years (2004-2007) while we spent a whole lot of money on a seismic retrofit. We aim to keep the place come hell or high water (the "big one" being most locals' definition of hell).

Who were the original architects of Pasadena City Hall?

That's this week's contest question. Once again, I've linked you to the answer. You might have to read a bit to find it, but it's an interesting article. Don't let it be said that I don't promote your erudition here at PDP.

Here are the rules we play by:

1. Email the answer to the contest question to me. There's a link to my email in my profile at the upper left. You have until midnight tonight, Pasadena (Pacific) time. Answers in the comments section will be rudely ignored but probably not deleted unless they're incorrect.

2. That's all you have to do.

3. I'll put all the correct answers into a hat and tomorrow I'll find a willing neighbor/stranger/sucker to draw the winning name. I'll announce the winner in Sunday's post.

4. PRIZES!
What is this, Week 7? Gawd, how many books have I got here? Let's see...five plus one minus two, carry the twelve...Eight. I have (had) eight books I've given away six, so it's this week and next week and we're finished. Let's make it snappy!

The books I'm giving away today and next Friday in the PDP/PPM Books Contest are copies of At Home Pasadena, a beautiful, hardbound, coffee-table book for your drooling pleasure. Designed by James Barkley and written by Jill Allison Ganon and Sandy Gillis, with photos by Jennifer Cheung and Steven Nilsson, the book is loaded with eye candy with sections on gardening, working, collecting--and an out-of-this-world section on bathing--all "at home."

Play to win today and come back next Friday, because I'll have one last copy of At Home Pasadena to give away.

Big thanks to Colleen Dunn Bates and Prospect Park Media for providing us with all these fabulous books!

Reliquary

Over at the Jackie Robinson Center they've got this very cool display about the Negro Baseball Leagues. The display was put together by the Baseball Reliquary which, if I understand correctly, is all about fostering an appreciation of arts and culture "through the context of baseball history." Not the other way around. When you stop by the Center you'll find this display case in the main lobby. Be sure and check out all the details.

Pasadena favorite son Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier by being the first African American to play baseball in the major leagues. But Jackie wasn't the first black athlete to play among whites in American baseball leagues. Before 1890, blacks and whites played baseball together more often than you might think. It wasn't until around 1890 that the minor league circuits began to bar black players.

The Negro National League wasn't official until 1920, but African American players had already formed leagues by the early 1900s and those leagues were going strong. They kept going for a long time. Jackie Robinson played for the Kansas City Monarchs as late as 1945.

Jackie joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 and played for them until 1956. He was elected to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.

Giant busts (big, big busts!) of Jackie and his Olympic star brother Mack sit across from City Hall in Pasadena. When you check them out, be sure and look for the details.

Theme Day: Time

City Daily Photo bloggers (now over 1300 strong) have a theme day on the first of every month. The theme today is "time."

I chose this photo because to me it's timeless: this could be a view into any century, any season. Nature knows no clocks.

Bloggers from around the world participate in theme day and everyone has their own take on the theme. Click here to view thumbnails for all the participants.