Palos Verdes-South Bay Group wins one for hikers and habitat

The Palos Verdes-South Bay Group scored a significant victory for wilderness and the safe enjoyment of it. In December, the Rancho Palos Verdes City Council, to the surprise of many, sided with the Sierra Club's recommendation for trail usage in the 160-acre Forrestal Nature Preserve. Group vice-chair Hersh Kelly recounts how the group achieved this remarkable success. -Ed.

By Hersh Kelly

The Palos Verdes-South Bay Group has been hiking through what is now the Forrestal Nature Preserve for a very long time. The preserve occupies a prominent site on the south side of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Among its features are a sense of wilderness and particularly striking views of Catalina Island and Catalina Channel. The habitat in the preserve includes some sensitive species and is a prime example of coastal sage scrub. The preserve is located on the site of an old quarry which was closed some time ago. The site has also been the locale for a lot of habitat abuse over the years and contains some old dirt roads which have long since been overgrown.

Photo by Phil Wheeler Palos Verdes-South Bay Group’s Barry Holchin documents trails in the Forrestal Nature Preserve. Information gathered by group activists was key to officials’ decision to limit mountain biking there.

The city of Rancho Palos Verdes (RPV) acquired the site in 1996 with funding from the California Department of Fish and Game and the L.A. County Regional Park and Open Space District. The city then established a Forrestal Steering Committee (FSC). One of the goals of the FSC was to propose a trail system and appropriate trail usage within that system. The committee met for more than one year and held many public meetings to develop their plan.

Last spring we were given a copy of the FSC's plan in which most of the trails were proposed to be multi-use. Multi-use in this context means that the trails would be open to hikers, mountain bikers, and equestrians. As a result of our prior experience hiking in the area, we felt that we should carefully review the plan versus the actual trails. Consequently, we hiked all of the committee-nominated trails and took spot measurements of grade, width, and surface. We also noted the state of the habitat and looked for spots containing sensitive species. Using this information we prepared a "trail matrix" which summarized our observations.

Our basic conclusions were that many of the trails in the preserve are simply too steep, too narrow, or too unstable to permit safe multi-use. While these trails could be reconfigured to support multi-use, such reconfiguration would negatively impact the habitat which the preserve is intended to protect. Accordingly, we developed an alternate trail usage map which (in our view) provided a safer, more stable, and habitat-friendly solution to the problem while supporting multi-use trails where appropriate.

We presented both of these items to the FSC in June 2004. At that time, we did not appear to be able to influence the committee's plan. On Dec. 1, we e-mailed the RPV City Council documents describing our trail configuration and trail usage recommendations, along with rationale for those choices. On Dec. 4, the city staff presented a recommendation to the Council that the FSC's plan be adopted. Given that the City Council was accepting public comment at the meeting, we applied to present our alternative.

The City Council listened to almost a full day of public comment. Up to 100 people attended the meeting, including mountain biking enthusiasts. At our local conditioning hikes, we had been recruiting individuals to participate in local meetings associated with conservation of open space and to otherwise communicate with local government officials. Fortunately, quite a few individuals attended this meeting and spoke out in favor of habitat protection and trail safety.

The Council then carefully deliberated before making their decision, paying particular attention to the issue of public safety. They combined the FSC's trail configuration with the Sierra Club trail usage proposal. We believe the decision made by the Council was responsible and commend them for choosing a trail plan that provides a balance of habitat preservation, recreational access, and public safety.

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