Friends of the Whittier Narrows Natural Area
What's at stake
Imagine a place, in urban east Los Angeles County, where no matter your income, no matter the language you speak, you can experience an oasis of calm and a rare habitat that is home to mammals, reptiles, insects and an unparalleled variety of birds, including endangered species. A place where parent and child, teacher and student can explore together and share in discovery, wonder and serenity.
That place is the Whittier Narrows Natural Area, a unique 419-acre wildlife sanctuary and community open space on the San Gabriel River between the Montebello and Puente-Chino Hills. (Map) But that place is also at risk.
The threat
The San Gabriel River Discovery Center Authority, a joint powers agency dominated by water interests, is attempting to carry out a plan that would bulldoze the historic nature center at the Natural Area, acres of wildlife habitat and dozens of mature trees and replace them with a massive meeting place, 150-car parking lot and other unnatural features intended primarily to benefit water district executives and government bureaucrats. Additionally, the proposed San Gabriel River Discovery Center would open the door to further development of the Natural Area—development already proposed by some of the same agencies behind the Discovery Center.
The authority claims the $27-million (and counting) taxpayer-funded facility would serve as an interpretive center, but the project’s draft environmental impact report revealed that, while the authority plans no significant increase in educational programming, it plans a massive increase in meetings, VIP tours and other bureaucratic uses. Over the project’s 10-year history, the authority appears to have spent little or nothing on education, preservation or restoration at the Natural Area.
The Natural Area and its value
The bulldozers-and-buildings focus of the authority contrasts sharply with the incredible ecological value of the Whittier Narrows Natural Area. A wildlife sanctuary since its founding by the Audubon Society in 1939, it forms a crucial part of both an Audubon Society Important Bird Area and of the county’s Whittier Narrows Significant Ecological Area. The ecological importance of the area and the unsuitability of the Discovery Center project were made explicit on May 5, 2008, when the county’s Significant Ecological Area Technical Advisory Committee, deemed the project “incompatible” with the SEA.
The natural area also serves as a vital crossroads for a number of existing and potential wildlife corridors. Together with the San Gabriel River, it connects or could connect the Montebello Hills, San Gabriel Mountains, Puente-Chino Hills and Cleveland National Forest beyond. But in a sad irony for the project, the proposed Discovery Center and the other related development proposals could impede wildlife movement and survival and hurt other conservation efforts.
High cost, high risk
Additionally, the authority's inability to control costs means the Discovery Center is a high-cost, high-risk gamble in which the community loses no matter what the outcome.
Between 2003 and 2006, the estimated cost for the project jumped a whopping 600 percent, from $4 million - $5 million to $27 million for construction alone.
The Discovery Center is following almost exactly the same path as two other failed multimillion-dollar taxpayer-funded facilities, the Children's Museum of Los Angeles and the Center for Water Education in Hemet, Calif.
And if the Discovery Center ever opens its doors, the heavy cost to operate, maintain, staff and program the proposed facility will almost inevitably force the introduction of user fees and, thus, the restriction of community access to firsthand experiences of nature when such experiences are growing rare.
There is hope
Community opposition to the Discovery Center is growing, as was demonstrated at two public hearings on the project's draft environmental impact report in 2009. "Protect the Natural Area. Preserve the nature center," said speaker after speaker.
We at the Friends of the Whittier Narrows Natural Area have been speaking with and listening to members of our diverse community and have developed a cost-effective, environmentally responsible and community-focused alternative that keeps at the Natural Area where it belongs: on nature and access to nature.
Please click on here to learn more.
(Click on a photo for a larger version and additional information.)
The immediate threat . . .
The medium-term threat . . . 
And the long-term threat
A plan to dramatically alter a channel that carries water across the entire Natural Area could hurt water conservation efforts, said the Water Replenishment District's senior hydrologist on Dec. 16, 2009.
The massive public works project, dubbed Lario Creek, could do irreparable damage to the Natural Area. And it's "all part of the multimillion-dollar San Gabriel River Discovery Center," said landowner U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Friends of the Whittier Narrows Natural Area
P.O. Box 3522
South El Monte, CA 91733
(626) 286 3850
Click here for our contact page.
