Those Details the Devil Is In

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Works has completed its draft 20-year Sediment Management Strategic Plan for 2012-2032. The public comment period ends Wednesday, May 30th--which is vague, as they don't say if they mean 8am or 6pm or what--so I'd comment no later than the 29th if I were you at the first email address on this page. I understand the main document is over 500 pages, but a condensed version entitled "Community Meeting Boards" (second-to-last link at the right of the main Strategic Plan page) is said to give a good overview. 

Let's speak up. I understand the Devil's Gate Dam needs to be protected. I want to make sure Hahamongna is protected, too.  

A separate issue, but also important:

The Hahamongna Watershed Park Advisory Committee meets the fourth Tuesday of odd-numbered months--except this month, due to lack of a quorum. So the committee didn't get to talk about the upcoming community meetings to discuss the Environmental Impact Report schedule for the Hahamongna Multi-Benefit Project and the Hahamongna Basin Multi-Use Project.

But hey! We can talk about them here, regardless of the unfortunate mouthful of misleading names.

Because I want to get this right I'm going to quote Mary Barrie of Friends of Hahamongna, who has long been a tireless advocate for open space at Hahamongna Watershed Park. Mary's one of those heroes who reads the fine print, calls a lawyer, compares last year's map to this year's and helps the rest of us attempt to keep the city honest when it comes to Hahamongna:

"One of the important items on the agenda of last night's cancelled Hahamongna Advisory meeting was information concerning the Environmental Impact Report schedule for the Hahamongna Multi-Benefit Project and the Hahamongna Basin Multi-Use Project. Among the projects included within the Multi-Benefit Project are the much contested Sycamore Grove Sports Field and the expanded parking lot so please mark your calendars for these important meetings and pass this information on. The following information is from the city website.

Mary B"

Multi-Benefit - Multi-Use Project

EIR Schedule – the following has been scheduled:

Wednesday, June 27th, 6:30pm – Community Meeting
Pasadena City Yards, 2nd floor Large Conference Room
This meeting WILL NOT kick off the CEQA process. The purpose of the meeting is to provide information only.

Thursday, July 12th, 6:30pm – EIR Scoping Meeting #1
Salvation Army Fellowship Hall, 960 East Walnut, Pasadena, CA 91106
(Parking lot is entered from Mentor, south of Walnut)

Saturday, July 14th, 10:00am – EIR Scoping Meeting #2
Salvation Army Fellowship Hall, 960 East Walnut, Pasadena, CA 91106
(Parking lot is entered from Mentor, south of Walnut)

The Sycamore Grove Field is the same soccer field so many citizens have protested for so long. A couple of years ago we even organized a local blog day, where 23 bloggers posted their arguments for saving Hahamongna. At the ensuing city council meeting, hundreds of Pasadenish spoke out against athletic fields at Hahamongna. Not one person spoke in favor of them. Yet Sycamore Grove Field is still planned, even as the city cuts the budget in other areas.

The meetings listed above will cover other things too, some of which may be good for Hahamongna. It's always complicated, never easy, but it's ours and we do have a say.

Update 5/29: Altadena Hiker Karin Bugge writes about the planned Sycamore Grove Field in today's Patch.

Hahamongna Walkabout

Hello, my name is Boz, and I'll be your guide. Today on the Hahamongna Smellabout we're going to rub our butts on low hanging branches and pee on every single--

What?

Don't you want to pee? Don't you like to rub your butt?

I do not understand you people.

Fine. Go Walkabout then. See if I care.

I saw a lizard.

Hahamongna Walkabout

Saturday morning, March 31

more information here

In related news, tonight's 6pm meeting of the Hahamongna Watershed Park Advisory Committee will be held at Pasadena City Yards, 233 W. Mountain Street, 2nd floor training room, Pasadena, 91103. The agenda is available here.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Recession Fence

Grants are hard to come by these days.

Just kidding. I like the works of Christo and Jeanne-Claude. I drove up to see their Umbrellas when they were in the Grapevine. It's hard to describe the impact of a work that's made not for language but for the senses. People stopped alongside the freeway to look, no one was talking and we were all smiling.

So as you can see, this photo does not depict a Christo/Jeanne-Claude work.

The Hahamongna Watershed Park Advisory Committee meets tonight at 6PM in the second floor training room of the public works building at the City Yards, 233 W. Mountain St. There's plenty of parking and the signs directing you to the room are easy to follow. Come listen, learn and help me decipher the politicspeak.


(Inspiration for the Christo/Jeanne-Claude idea: John Sandel)

Phase I

Remember our Last Day Project? For one year, on the last day of every month we stood in this spot at Hahamongna Watershed Park and looked out over Johnson Field, watching it change with the seasons.

A few hundred yards away, Devil's Gate Dam was backing up with sediment. After years of neglect plus a Station Fire and two seasons of heavy rain, the sediment must now be removed. Much discussion has ensued about how to do so, and it looks like a two-phase plan will soon begin. In order to pacify those who don't want debris-laden trucks on their street, the first phase could involve LA County piling sediment in Johnson Field as soon as the annual toad population clears out.

Toads hang out in wet places. They're about the size of a thumbnail and the color of a pebble. Because they run and hide when I come near them the pictures I've gotten are lousy, but Walt Mancini of the Pasadena Star-News got a good one. The toads will go away when the water dries. It's drying now.

I'm glad the County is willing to wait for the toads to leave. Let's be honest, these little guys are being saved long enough to get eaten by snakes and coyotes, but that's better for the ecosystem than a pile of sediment. Then again, a pile of sediment is better for a city than a failed dam in a flood.

So it looks like we might have a decent compromise, at least for now. Nobody gets everything they want but everybody gets something. That's democracy, and it's beautiful when it works. The coyotes and snakes will need to go somewhere when the trucks come. They know all about compromise. They'll likely end up in the yards of the people who didn't want trucks on their street. Are coyotes in the yard better than trucks on the street? If you live alongside Hahamongna, you may not have a choice.

I'm not crazy about piling sediment in Johnson Field, but I'm crazy about compromise. It's the only way unless we want a monarchy, and I wouldn't vote for that.

There will be a Phase II.

The next meeting of the Hahamongna Watershed Park Advisory Committee will take place at 6pm this coming Tuesday, July 26th at the Pasadena City Yards - Training Room, 233 West Mountain Street, Second Floor, Pasadena 91103. On the agenda: Update on the LACDPW Post Station Fire Sediment Removal Project.

Reminder

Last time I posted about the Hahamongna Watershed Park Advisory Committee meeting, folks asked me to remind them about the next one. Thanks to Rosa Laveaga, I have the info:

The next meeting of the HWPAC will be
Tuesday, March 22, 2011 @ 6:00 p.m.

Meeting Location:
Flintridge Retreat Center, Room 117
236 W. Mountain Street
Pasadena, CA 91103
(across from Pasadena City Yards)

The committee meets the fourth Tuesday of every other month at 6pm. The location varies. But you can mark your calendars for next week as well as for May 24th, and put a little reminder on your smart phone or whatever you use. Close to meeting time, you can also check the city's HWPAC page for info, including location and agenda.

I like this picture but it reminds me of black lace. Unfortunately black lace reminds me of a bad boyfriend; fortunately he's long gone.

Sediment and Sand

Although the January 25th meeting of the Hahamongna Watershed Park Advisory Committee was well attended, it was a low-key affair. Folks were calm and polite. But if there had been any sand at Casita del Arroyo, one might have seen toes drawing lines in it.

Many citizens don't want Hahamongna to be another Arcadia Woodlands disaster,
LA County is all set with its Post Station Fire Sediment Removal Project for Hahamongna
and
the Committee (HWPAC) has procedures to follow. It's not always easy to know which way they're going to go.

But Tuesday night their toes were showing.

Highlights of the discussion:

Past Committee chair Tim Wendler expressed that he would like to see alternatives to the current plan that would "cause less environmental impact." (Basically, the 50 acres just north of Devil's Gate Dam will be freed of vegetation and kept that way, if the County is true to its word.)

LA County's Ken Zimmer said there are no alternatives to the plan.

Apparently not satisfied with Mr. Zimmer's answer, a Committee member whose nameplate I couldn't see asked him if alternatives had been studied.
He said there were no alternatives.
The Committee member rephrased her question. "Did the County study the possibility of reinforcing the [Devil's Gate] dam without tearing out acres of wildlife?"

"That possibility was not studied," said Mr. Zimmer.

The committee asked the County to return with alternatives to the current plan. Whether the County will do so remains to be seen. Maybe they don't have to. Maybe they can just kick that sand in the public's face.

Obviously I don't have a good feeling about this. I hope to be proven wrong.

The next meeting is currently scheduled for March 22nd, 6pm. As soon as I know the location, I'll notify you.

In the photo:
Pasadena city staff member Loren Pluth operates the computer as staff member Rosa Laveaga watches the screen. Committee members had visited nature centers in other cities to get inspiration for the Environmental Education Center planned for the Hahamongna Annex. But that's another story.

Check out Laurie Barlow's Post about it here.


UPDATE:
THIS JUST IN from Altadena Patch:
If you want to find solutions and prevent the destruction of Hahamongna Watershed Park, come to an organizational meeting of environmental activists:

• Where: 1750 N Altadena Dr, Pasadena, CA 91107 (Eaton Canyon Nature Center)
• Date: January 29, 2011
• Time: 10:00am

• In the wake of the destruction of the Arcadia Woodlands and concerns over the sediment removal plans for Hahamongna, a group of local environmentalists are meeting to discuss forming a local environmental coalition.
  The idea would be to have a group that could help influence public environmental policy in a positive direction.
  Members of the local Sierra Club, Audubon Society, and other organizations will be in attendance.
  The meeting will take place at the Eaton Canyon Nature Center.  All are welcome.
• Features: Open to All, Volunteer

• Email: dczamanske@hotmail.com 

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.