Why in the world would a Californian environmental preservation, governmental entity, supported by the likes of the Sierra Club, the Metropolitan Water District, funded by billions of tax dollars, want to destroy the environment? Maybe that is a stupid question. This 'agency' is powered by people without ANY science background or have mis-matched backgrounds for the job. You ask, how much damage can an ‘environmental agency’ with people filled with 'ideals' (perhaps, ambition) but, with no oversight, do?
There are three projects in Southern California of similar focus, supporters, design, two of which have been massive financial failures. Two projects are associated with dams in L.A. All three projects are FOR THE CHILDREN. Two are about water and all were supported by the water agencies and governmental environmental groups. One related project, a colossal reservoir built by one of the agencies, may negatively impact S. California’s water supply in this drought emergency. One project is in the planning and public relations stage where disaster can still be averted. All of the projects are museums, one in Hemet, one in Sunland and one in Whittier Narrows.
The lesson - where there is lots of money and no oversight, things go very badly – like Katrina.
What kind of a disaster are we looking at? Certainly financial, but because of the lack of oversight by experienced people who ASK QUESTIONS and DEMAND ANSWERS the promise of being for the community, for the children and therefore for the future, the community gets sold a 'lick and a prayer' and then ends up holding an empty bag of dreams (parks, open space, educational facilities, drinking water) for our hard earned money. This story is about the wrong people with the wrong backgrounds in the wrong job wielding too much power and money without oversight. It's about people who, with their power, first sell each other (the blind leading the blind) and then TELL us what we want. ....CAN much of this be averted???? ...YES! if we stay tuned in to what our governmental agencies are doing and then WE TAKE ACTION. Simple? Well, no... but then, just as we must watch and take care of our children to keep them out of trouble...
Let's begin at the money because this is what fuels everything. Proposition 84 was passed in 2006and it will fund a number of projects concerning water (the economic status of California and the legislature are holding the checks back). It's supposed function was to protect California's water and to fix the levees in Sacramento. What it is being used for by this Southern Californian agency, underlines and perhaps belies the true hidden agenda of the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (RMC). The RMC, a distributor of this and other Bond money, is forming an inter agency army (called the "Authority’) to tear down at least 50 mature trees, build a massive building (18 K square feet) and parking lot (150 spaces) in a natural area with endangered species in the middle of the San Gabriel Basin, the Whittier Narrows Natural Area. The project is a Discovery Center for children to learn about ~ nature and the ecology
There are two outstanding mis-matches here. The RMC’s mission on its website states,
"Our mission is to preserve open space and habitat in order to provide for low-impact recreation and educational uses, wildlife habitat restoration and protection, and watershed improvements within our jurisdiction."
And the head of the RMC, Belinda Faustino, does not have a forestry, biology, hydrology, agricultural degree but was originally in corrections in Chino. Ms. Faustino worked for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy (SMMC) as the Budget Officer and then became for the SMMC, Chief Deputy Executive Officer of the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority and the Wildlife Corridor Conservation Authority. No one that this writer has found, or has heard from others who know the voting Board for the RMC has an educational background in science. (updated) The one staffer who does have a Ph.D is Tim Worley but he also works for MWD (see at bottom of page). Tim's Ph.D. is in Political science. If you sit in a RMC meeting, you find no one says much to Ms. Faustino and everything is passed without question.
Whittier Narrows volunteer with live owl for the visiting school children.
There is a small group of people who are fighting for the Narrows. They are volunteers, retirees, people who love nature and love working for the community and its children. They have monitored the birds, documented the plants and taught thousands of children about the animals and the plants and what they mean to us all. The RMC says their brand new "building will teach the children about nature." Their water project (Lario Creek) is a fake bottom culvert which they say, will enhance the natural area next to their parking lot. And, the thousands of people who will ALL come to the area will enjoy the endangered animals and birds. The Friends of Whittier Narrows understand the irony and try to alert the community to the double speak of the RMC.
The Prop 84 opposition group in 2006stated that the proposed bond bill did not have the precise legal wording to protect against waste, cronyism, and incompetence. Perhaps, the opposition group were very correct. The money, $5.4 billion tax dollars, then, is at risk of being spent on at least one frivolous project not directed by science or sound environmental engineering (though much of our tax money has already been spent for that information), if not more. The Yes on 84 people include Metropolitan Water District, and many smaller regional water districts who, take care of each other by donating to each others political campaigns and writing off expenses for traveloutside the US and for rooms at local hotels.
Also, why are so many wasteful endeavors couched with serving THE CHILDREN, when in fact they are hollow projects, literally???? The RMC’s new Children’s Museum is supported by the Metropolitan Water District through a surrogate – the newly formed, Sierra Club Angeles Chapter San Gabriel River Campaign. The Metropolitan Water District has its own Children’s Museum, called the Water Museum in Hemet California (26 K. sq. ft.). This project cost $16 or 26 million (depending on what source is used) and costs Southern Californian water rate payers about a dollar per house hold to fund the empty building’s lights and air conditioning.
The Empty (but with lights and air conditioning on) Los Angeles Children's Museum. The young children's park approx. 150 away had no children playing on the jungle-gyms. The Public library was closed and not to be opened for months. And the newly planted areas were already brown and wilted.
The Whittier Narrows and Dam, between the 605 and the 60 freeways, is surrounded by several cities downstream from the San Gabriel River. The Narrows is an important flood basin built of sand from thousands if not millions of years. It is surrounded by many people in many communities who live below the poverty level (USC's Green Visions GIS Project) and if the floodplain is changed to a degree where it no longer controls for a major flood within the flood plain, the people who live UNDER the dam could be swept away in a large storm. There is a similar case of just a few years ago (2002) at the Hansen Dam and flood plain in the San Fernando Valley in Sunland. The Army Corps of Engineers (who have faint praise for the Whittier Narrows project) were sued by the surrounding communities of Hansen Dam for endangering their lives by changing the flood plain, filling the pools behind the dam with debris from the Whittier Narrows (please read the notes on the website provided).
The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy which spawned the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy, headed by a man named Mr. Joseph T. Edmistonre-vegetated the Hansen Dam area for $ 3.16 million next to the Los Angles Children’s Museum. The Los Angeles Children’s Museum (57 K. sq. ft.) is abandoned but still has it lights and air conditioning running. The cost to tax payers for this disaster was $58.5 million with $2 million too keep it going.
The Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (RMC), transmogrified into another group called, San Gabriel Discovery Center Authority (headed by the same person, Belinda Faustinos) has been planning this Children's Museum since 2000. The RMC spent $136,000.00 on scientific reports that say the sand that fills the Narrows is not stable for river playgrounds, not capable of sustaining man made wetlands, and since the aquifer has dipped below historic and even drinking water standards for most of the surrounding cities, should be carefully managed, instead. One other report suggests, because effluent from the Sanitation Districts, which flow through the Whittier Narrows near the new Children's Center, the authors suggest using algae to test the flowing river water for toxic blooms.
A typical Tuesday at the Whittier Narrows Nature Center. Volunteers taking classes out to see and hear nature under mature trees.
The best places in the world are those that are hidden from the maddening crowd. Lots and lots of people tend to destroy what they cherish as described in the Tragedy of the Commons. Whittier Narrows, which serves cites that have fewer then one park per 1000 people, which, by Southern Californian Association of Governments (SCAG) denotes as ecologically and socially bereft, has been targeted by the RMC and several water districts as a perfect spot for a large building and parking lot.
Snips from El Monte City Council... which supports the building in their only wild open space. You can view the entire meeting on the City's website. Click the YouTube link for more on these two videos.
SCAG does not consider the Narrows as a park within the County, because it is a Significant Ecological Area, or SEA, designated by the California Department of Development and is owned by the Army Corps of Engineers and leased to Parks and Recreation. The Army Corps owns the area, just like it owns the area around Hansen Dam - because it is a floodplain designed to protect downstream cities and has important wildlife, including endangered species. The Department of Development's group of biologists gave RMC's new Children's Museum, or the Discovery Center, a thumbs down. That is significant! (not yet up on the web)
I pointed out earlier, with building the Whittier Narrows Children's Discovery Center, the RMC wants to build a flowing water course through the area, for the children, on the flood plain. The RMC wants to double the amount of water from an average of 250 to 400 cubic feet per second (North East Trees and LA County Public Works). They plan to use recycled water from the near by Sanitation District, which will flow right past the Children’s Museum, and then out to the Rio Hondo. The Rio Hondo has problems with perchlorate and NDMAwhich comes from the Superfund site in the San Gabriel Valley Aquifer a major source of water to the Valley which is mixed with water from MWD. The USGS has shown that NDMA, a carcinogen, is removed by the UV light from the sun as it percolates in the ground. There are way too many issues, too many problems, and too many people living around this area to take chances.
On one side is a museum with fossils dug up from the construction of the dam behind the building. The twin building closest to the camera is the empty MWD Water Museum.
And speaking of water, the HUGE MWD’s Children’s Museum stands empty (with lights and air conditioning on) before the Diamond Valley Reservoir. On the other side of MWD's museum is a nice and OPEN museum supported by UC Riverside filled with the Cenozoic animals that were dug out by giant dirt movers to create the 800,000 acre foot reservoir. The Diamond Valley Reservoir was built as an emergency water source for Los Angles and other areas. Southern California has been hit the hardest with drought and increased temperatures then any other state in Union because of Climate Change. The MWD spend 1.2 billion dollars and poured four years worth of water into the valley and it is expected that there will be less water from that source because of the dwindling snow pack in the Rockies. We can also expect the Sacramento River Water Project that brings water to Southern California 440 miles in an open cement trench, to slow or stop, too.
This is a photo-merge of two shots. There is a small inflatable in the water and out buildings at the top to the left side where the water had once lapped. The amount of water loss due to evaporation and usage has decreased the contents 50 or more feet below normal levels in this vast lake scheduled for emergency water for Los Angeles.
The Reservoir in Hemet, built by MWD, behind the MWD's Children's museum, is way bellow the normal levels by 50 and more feet and will not be refilled, according to a MWD employee at Diamond Lake. The reason for not re-filling it is because of a tiny mussel, a quagga mussel (Dreissena rostriformis bugensis) which has invaded Lake Mead’s lower basin and Colorado River Aqueduct System. The MWD will not let Colorado water from the Aqueductflow into Diamond Lake hoping to kill the mussels in the pipes. The mussels came from the dirty hulls of fishing and pleasure boats motoring about in our drinking water. There is no biological remedy for this invasive destructive species as yet and the boats keep puttering about the lakes.
I think the lesson here is, that super large government agencies with a single person in power, and certainly without comments or criticism from peers and betters, is pernicious. The hunger for power grows like a cancer or a perfect (or imperfect, your choice) parasite. It can grow to a point where it kills the host. We citizens must be vigilant and stand up to these people who have more power then background and foresight.
I can also add that economically, we need to be prudent not only with how we spend out tax dollars, but also on what we spend. One selling point the RMC uses is that it will bring people to the area... except, the RMC sees freeways and cars and not public transportation - the reason for the large parking lot (and the large building - it's a circular logic thing).
These groups MUST have joint leaders who have backgrounds that would qualify them for the job they hold. Today, we have laws and tests and curriculum to keep those who call themselves, ‘doctor’ separated from the quacks – though more is needed in this area, too. Environmental groups and those who work in the field (as I do) come from a budding science younger then biology. Way too many people think it can be learned like the push-button sleazy, automated displays in SOME discovery centers. Natural History museums have for more than a hundred years educated scientists, but it took the museum scientists to develop and curate the exhibits.
This story has much more to it. It has been very hard to tease out the truth from the confusion.
The nightmare for us all is... "Ya doing a heck-of-a job, Brownie!"