Sierra Club works on bill to expand San Gabriel Mountains National Monument

A wilderness experience awaits right next door. You can hike, ski, picnic, camp, ride horses, play in the water, or just sit and enjoy nature within an hour’s drive of downtown Los Angeles.

You can see Nelson’s bighorn sheep, California condors, plus more than 300 native species that grow and thrive only in the San Gabriel Mountains. The area in the middle of L.A. County and a bit of San Bernardino County is part of the major wildlife corridor of Southern California, and its watershed provides a third of L.A.’s drinking water. However, being close to more than 11 million people has its downside.

How do we protect the ecology of the area from overcrowding, while at the same time encouraging and assisting accessibility to the mountains from nearby communities? While the Trump administration is seeking to reduce the size of some national monuments (more on that later), Sierra Club is working with a forward-looking elected official to expand land protection in L.A.'s newest monument.

Congresswoman Judy Chu (D-27th District, which includes Pasadena) seeks to help. Last summer, she introduced a bill to expand the present San Gabriel Mountains National Monument on the north side of the Los Angeles Basin. Her bill, the San Gabriel Mountains Forever Act, HR 3039, proposes expanding the area by 31,000 acres to cover all of the San Gabriel Mountains, expand existing wilderness areas and add two new wilderness areas, Yerba Buena and Condor Peak. In addition, she also proposes protecting 25 miles of waterways as wild and scenic rivers -- parts of the San Gabriel River and Little Rock Creek.

Chu’s bill is the latest step in a long-standing history of efforts to protect the mountains, and is a good comeback to the new administration’s effort to challenge and belittle national monuments established by President Obama.

Trump-appointed Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke has reviewed all the recent national monuments, proposing to eliminate or shrink them and to open them for development, mining and oil drilling. In 2003, then-Congresswoman Hilda Solis asked for a feasibility study on how to increase protections for the San Gabriel Mountains. I was part of a group that went to Washington, D.C. to advocate for two areas that were designated as wilderness (Pleasant View Ridge and Magic Mountain). We were all honored by a spectacular flyover of five condors at the dedication.

John Monsen, Co-Chair, Sierra Club Angeles Chapter Forest Committee, adds to our history:  “The Sierra Club is part of the San Gabriel Mountains Forever coalition, which has worked for a decade to better protect the San Gabriel Mountains and improve access for all. The coalition includes 13 environmental, community and social justice groups. One primary goal of the coalition was to achieve an alternative designation for the San Gabriel Mountains — since Congress refused to legislate our ideal — wilderness. Working with Rep. Chu, we urged President Obama to create a San Gabriel Mountains National Monument,” which he did on October 10, 2014, protecting 346,177 acres, including three more wilderness areas.

The coalition also sought to expand access to and educate the public about the San Gabriel Mountains. Providing bus transportation to parts of the San Gabriels has been very successful, as has its Leadership Academy, attended by Sierra Club staff member Roberto Morales. Morales says: “I would not be doing this work with the Sierra Club if it wasn’t for the SGMF Leadership Academy. The Academy has been instrumental at effectively engaging ethnically diverse youth from communities all over the L.A. region to be advocates and stewards of our public lands.”

Now the story takes a new twist. The coalition is working to defend the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument against all threats from the Trump administration. The coalition generated thousands of post cards and comments supporting our monument. A small group recently went to the nation’s capital again to support protection of the existing monument, as well as to promote Rep. Chu’s new bill to expand the national monument.

To support this campaign, contact John Monsen at wildernessjfm@aol.com.

Sandra Cattell is Santa Clarita Group Chair and a member of the Sierra Club’s National Wildlands Team.