OVERLAY MAP: Partial view of Whittier Narrows Natural Area.  The current Nature Center  facilities are in yellow.   The planned Discovery Center is in red with the main building (the length of a football field), a 150-space parking lot, a demonstration "wetland" and the elimination of many mature trees from the riverside habitat.  Run-off detention basin for intended parking lot and buildings, not shown. 

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WHAT IS AT STAKE?

In Los Angeles County, in its San Gabriel Valley, there is a struggle over a rare urban natural area, the Whittier Narrows Natural Area.  In the Natural Area, included within a Significant Ecological Area, are bird species listed as Endangered, Threatened and of Special Concern. The San Gabriel Discovery Center development  would largely replace outside nature education with indoor-oriented activity, principally for water agencies issues.   The Discovery Center Project Manager stated in 2004 that since the beginning the water agency has wanted a site for water issues even before the site was selected. See Updates, November 4, 2004.

Acres of habitat for Endangered Species would disappear under the football-field long "green" LEED building, its 150 space "green" parking lot and lined-bottom "wetland".  $30 million is a beginning price for this first phase of development by the San Gabriel River Discovery Center Authority.  More development and destruction is planned.  The mile long, 80 foot wide, Lario Creek project is the biggest, bigger than the Discovery Center.

The majority of the San Gabriel River Discovery Center Authority Governing Board are from water districts.  The proposed Discovery Center is a first step to undo the 419-acre riverside habitat and nature education site. 

HISTORY

The Whittier Narrows Natural Area has been a wildlife sanctuary since 1939.   It was an Audubon site for many years until 1970, when the County of Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation became the operator of the natural area.  It is located in the flood plain and leased by the county from the US Army Corps of Engineers.

WILDLIFE

Three hundred species of birds have been documented in the Whittier Narrows area, with the 300th species added in late 2007.  Several are listed as Endangered, Threatened or of Special Concern.  (See column note, Birds at Whittier Narrows, at right.) Bird diversity is so great that on one day 102 species were seen.  The intended Discovery Center parking lot would pave over a portion of rare coastal alluvial fan sage scrub habitat, which is also the foraging area for hawks and owls.  

The Whittier Narrows Natural Area is part of the wildlife corridor from Orange County to the San Gabriel Mountains.  Mountain lions and bobcats have been seen in the Whittier Narrows Natural Area in the last three years.  The Discovery Center could become a choke point, and interfere with the movement of the large predators in completing the corridor, a project that began thirty years ago.

ALTERNATE SITES EXIST FOR THE DEVELOPMENT

Three nearby alternate sites for the Discovery Center were studied and available as of January 2005.  None of these three sites are designated as Natural Areas or Significant Ecological Areas.  The Whittier Narrows Natural Area is both.   Earlier studies for other sites were made, but the Discovery Center Authority has yet to make them available.  Below are the available criteria for location selection.  Not one is about habitat and wildlife.  "Favorable Political Climate" is the first of their criteria.  See table, below.

San Gabriel River Discovery Center Education Center Location Criteria* (page 4 of the  May 2006 Schematic Design Report .

Category                                                              Points                                                                                                                                                                    
  1.  Favorable political climate                                      4
  2.  Centrally located                                                   4
  3. Suitable location for participant needs(measured       4    
       against key list of objectives of participants)                          
  4.  Site does not present technical difficulties                3
  5.  Location near freeway                                            3              
  6.  Location available to schools                                   2         
  7.  Location near river                                                 2
  8.  Adequate site space                                               2
  9.  Offers opportunity for outdoor education exhibit       1
 10.  Available site                                                        1
 
* Original criteria used as regional screen in 2001
 

GENERATIONS AS A HUMAN SANCTUARY & NATURAL HISTORY  EDUCATION

Generations of local San Gabriel Valley people have come to know the Whittier Narrows Natural Area as both a wildlife sanctuary and a sanctuary for humans in the urbanizing lower San Gabriel Valley.   A local grandfather tells how his love of nature was encouraged through a school field trip to the natural area over fifty years ago.  He has brought his children and grandchildren to learn about nature at the Whittier Narrows Natural Area.  He continues to come weekly to the natural area to photograph some of the hundreds of bird species that live in or migrate through this remaining natural area and wildlife corridor on the San Gabriel River.

THE MONEY

While the projected monetary costs for this initial segment of destructive development is at least $30 million (The 2006 figure was $27 million.  Per the Discovery Center Authority, construction costs increase 10% each year.), with $6 million spent for just the fiscal year ending June 2008 and just for the yet completed planning stage. The money comes from state and county tax funds, and from the water rate payers of several local water districts.  The water districts are the initiators of the Discovery Center Development.   The current estimate of annual visitors to the Natural Area is 50,000. 

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT (EIR)

The California Environmental Qualtiy Act requires an Environmental Impact Report, and Public Comment, before the development project construction can begin.  As of June 10, 2008 the Draft EIR is postponed once again.  The latest of several postponements is September 2008, when the Public Comment Period will be open for sixty days.  

LA COUNTY REGIONAL PLANNING BIOLOGISTS VOTE: "DISCOVERY CENTER IS INCOMPATIBLE IN A SIGNIFICANT ECOLOGICAL AREA." 

The Whittier Narrows Natural Area is also a Significant Ecological Area, a designation intended to protect open space.  After four hearings in a year the biologists of the Significant Ecological Area Technical Advisory Committee (SEATAC )voted NO on May 5, 2008 to the Discovery Center.  See our Updates page for SEATAC chronology and the SEATAC minutes  for their discussions.  SEATAC minutes are available at May 7, 2007 and January 14, 2008.  The March 2007 minutes are no longer posted.  The May 5, 2007 minutes will be available after SEATAC meets in June 2008.

WHAT KIND OF EDUCATION?

Proponents of the Discovery Center state that children visiting on school trips would first visit the building, a football field in length, with its automated, and often push-button displays, and then, if time permits, go outside for the remainder of field trip.  A lesson from the 2006 book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv, is that indoor environments, like the Discovery Center museum displays, have about the same level the complexity and predictability as the children's home living rooms, and do not lead children to stay healthy the way a natural environment can.  The outside natural area experience provides an always unrepeatable experience, unlike the predictable replay of the indoor displays.

According to the lead naturalist of the county natural areas, children who arrive by bus for their field trips to Los Angeles County Natural Areas learn best by going directly to the trails as soon as they arrive, and not going indoors to a museum, no matter how good the museum.  To build over and pave over a natural area and then tell children (and adults) how important natural places are is exactly the wrong lesson.

CORPORATE "PHILANTHROPY" AND BRANDING?

Fundraising presentations for the Discovery Center at its monthly board meeting indicate that “corporate philanthropy” and “branding” are being developed.   

PUBLIC FUNDING PRIORITIES

Why is Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina promising $3 million for this environmentally damaging project while county clinics and other services are under threat of cutback or closing?  Please ask her.  E-mail or write or call supervisor Molina at 3400 Aerojet Avenue, Suite 240 El Monte, CA 91731 Phone: (626) 350-4500, Fax: (626) 448-1573.  Many millions of dollars of State of California funds and labor have already been spent.  Why? Ask your Assembly Member and State Senator.

DO GOOD PROJECTS NEED A $188,000 PUBLIC RELATIONS FIRM?

At the November 2007 Discovery Center Authority Board meeting  a public relations firm was hired for $188,000.  In the presentation to the Discovery Center board, the PR firm assured that the opposition to the project would be “neutralized”.  Since then another $90,000 has been approved for promotion of the project, with another $50,000 pending approval.  One water agency, the Central Basin Municipal Water District has provided two separate “grants,” one to cover the unbudgeted public relations firm, and another for $100,000.   Why, after seven years of planning, does a project, if a sound one, need a public relations firm and over $300,000 in promotion?  
 

Join Friends of the Whittier Narrows  Natural Area in activities:

• Sundays at 8:00AM.  Nature Walk in the Whittier Narrows Natural. Meet in the parking lot of the Whittier Narrows Nature Center, 1000 N Durfee Avenue, South El Monte.  The walk will be led by experienced, trained docents who know and care for this remaining natural area on the San Gabriel River.  Learn about what will be lost if the false green Discovery Center complex is built.

 • Sundays at 1:00PM. Participate in Friends of the Whittier Narrows Natural work and report back meetings.  We meet in the picnic area of the Whittier Narrow Natural Area.  Look for our signs.

HOW TOO BIG IS THE PROPOSED DISCOVERY CENTER BIG BOX DEVELOPMENT?

CONTRAST:

• Audubon Center in Debs Park, Los Angeles:

Buildings,  5,300 square foot.  Parking, 28 spaces. Site area, 17 acres.

               TO

• Proposed Discovery Center in the Whittier Narrows Natural Area:

Buildings, (ONLY the main one) 18,230 square feet. Parking, 150 spaces. Site area, 11.3 acres.

BIRDS AT WHITTIER NARROWS:

•300 SPECIES 

• ENDANGERED  SPECIES: 7 ARE STATE LISTED AND 5 ARE FEDERALLY LIST.

• THREATENED SPECIES:  2 ARE STATE LISTED AND 3 ARE FEDERALLY LISTED

• SPECIES OF SPECIAL CONCERN: 9 LISTED (FEDERAL ONLY)       

The Whittier Narrows Natural Area is the last remnant of Coastal Alluvial Fan Sage Scrub Habitat on the San Gabriel River between Santa Fe Dam and the river's end at Seal Beach. 

The intended Discovery Center's 150-space parking lot would eliminate acres of this rare habitat, a foraging area for birds, including hawks and owls. It would affect the habitat of the Endangered Least Bells Vireo.

  Red tail hawk settles to  tree perch at the Whittier Narrows Natural Area.

 
As of June 10, 2008 the EIR has again been postponed.  This time from  "sometime this summer" until September 2008. See Updates for the history.

May 5, 2008  COMMITTEE OF THE LA COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF REGIONAL PLANNING  BIOLOGISTS VOTE:  "DISCOVERY CENTER IS INCOMPATIBLE IN A SIGNIFICANT ECOLOGICAL AREA."

LA TACO on the Whittier Narrow Natural Area & Center (with photos)

 "We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." - Native American Proverb 

"Why would this 70 year wildlife sanctuary be replaced by a megabuilding focusing on water shed issues? Really, the focus here and throughout should be ecology which incorporates the vital role of water.  Forget the building, lets build community" - Angelica Sauceda, Rio Hondo College student & Friend of the Whittier Narrows Natural Area

LINKS: 

Children and Nature Network

Friends of the Bernard Biological Field Station

Coyote Hills

Pasadena Audubon  Society

Center for Biological Diversity

Heal the Bay

Above, School children on field trip in area that would become a 150-space parking lot.