"Mud Wrestling" in Native American L.A.

Andre Coleman (pasadenaweekly.com, 2-23-17); Xochitl, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

You're a Native American. I'm European. There's no reason for us to wrestle in the mud.

Pasadena foothills, JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab), Hahamongna Watershed Park (wiki)

Arroyo Seco ("Dry Wash") runs under bridge through Rose Bowl grounds to join LA River

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Mud Wrestling

Outlet of Devil's Gate Dam

(PW) A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge struck down the Devil’s Gate Dam [at the reservoir in Hahamongna below JPL] sediment removal plan when he ruled the project’s environmental impact report (EIR) was critically flawed.

Judge James Chalfant ruled that the EIR fails to provide an adequate mitigation program to address the project’s significant impacts on rare and sensitive riparian lands resulting from the project’s proposed destruction of 51 acres of prime stream-zone habitat. 

• AUDIO: New setback in plan to dredge Devil's Gate Dam (KPCC, Feb. 14, 2017) ...LA Superior Court judge issued a ruling in long-running battle...on the impacts of a massive dam clearance project at Devil's Gate Dam in Pasadena....wildlife in the Hahamongna Watershed Park behind the dam. 
• Save Hahamongna (savehahamongna.org) A better plan to shore up Devil s Gate Dam: Editorial, Feb. 17, 2017: Pasadena Audubon...is going to court...

Raging waters at Hahamongna Watershed

The ruling stops the county’s plan to remove 2.4 million cubic yards of sediment from the basin until another EIR is approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

As part of the project, LA County wants to make 425 truck trips a day over five years to remove the sediment.

Chalfant said the EIR was flawed in its conclusion that the hundreds of diesel trucks would have no impact on the area’s air quality.

The judge also took the county to task for simply stating that the Flood Control District would mitigate habitat loss damage on a one-to-one basis, meaning they would enhance one acre for each acre destroyed for not providing an adequate mitigation plan and for not documenting why it believed that a one-to-one mitigation ratio was adequate.

“We are proud of the accomplishments of our lawsuit so far and grateful to our attorneys, Mitchell Tsai and Christina Caro, who have done a fine job of presenting the case,” said Tim Brick of the Arroyo Seco Foundation, which along with the Pasadena Audubon Society sued to stop the project.
 

Hahamongna Coop Nursery volunteers

The last time the county removed a significant amount of sediment from the area was in 1994, when workers hauled out 160,000 cubic yards of soil.

Since then, about 2.7 million cubic yards have built up around the dam. An additional 1 million cubic yards of debris were dumped into the area by the Station Fire in 2009, which burned 160,000 acres in Altadena, Pasadena, La Cañada/Flintridge, and Acton.

The county contends sediment compromises the dam’s ability to contain debris and floodwaters. If it is not removed, locations along the Arroyo Seco ["Dry Riverbed"] downstream from the dam -- including the Rose Bowl, the Pasadena (110) Freeway, and neighborhoods in West Pasadena -- could be in danger of flooding.

Rain in mountains and foothills of northern LA County rushes down Hahamongna watershed

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HCN: Buy native plants (ArroyoSeco.org)

Last year city officials were monitoring the dam due to rumors of a monster-sized El Niño weather condition that was predicted but did not materialize.

“We are very glad that Judge Chalfant agreed with us that this EIR is flawed, and we remain hopeful that we can find a way to keep the dam safe without causing so much environmental destruction in Hahamongna,” said Laura Garrett, conservation chair of the Pasadena Audubon Society. More

• Scientists announce discovery of microfossils in rocks dated 3.77 and 4.28 billion years old from N. Quebec, Canada -- the oldest known fossils of life on Earth 
• The best scenic drives Los Angeles has to offer

(SCPR.org) Spent enough time in a car this week? Michael Juliano, an associate editor at Time Out LA, has suggestions -- from the Arroyo Seco through Linda Vista, from Angeles Crest Highway to Mulholland Drive, he tells KPCC about his favorite routes.