SOUTH EL MONTE - Officials from the Obama Administration will meet with local environmental and community groups at Whittier Narrows on Wednesday to discuss their concerns about the quality and quantity of outdoor recreation opportunities in the San Gabriel Valley.
The event, open to the public, will cast a national spotlight on the San Gabriel Mountains and River and allow local officials to highlight the need for additional federal resources to provide outdoor opportunities to residents of the park-starved San Gabriel Valley, according to event organizers.
"Many people here don't have access to the outdoors, and the mountains are the closest opportunity for them... We are going to see a lot of local voices who are never able to travel to Washington, D.C. given the opportunity to tell federal officials: 'This is where we live. We don't have parks. We are dealing with high rates of obesity. We lack the green space that other parts of Los Angeles have,'" said Annette Kondo of the Wilderness Society, one of the organizations participating in the event.
Specifically, local conservationists want to build federal support for proposals to designate 30,000 more acres in the Angeles National Forest as wilderness - the highest protection under federal law; protect parts of the San Gabriel River as wild and scenic river; and create a National Recreation Area in the region.
They also want to showcase a new partnership between a state agency and an environmental group to clean up an area in Cattle Canyon, along the east fork of the San Gabriel River. The heavily used area does not have the infrastructure to maintain the amount of traffic it receives. Graffiti stains rocks and trash litters trails.
"It's just one of the most heavily used areas in San Gabriel Mountains. It has terrific access, but it's like the rest of the forest, it really needs extra trash cans, extra bathrooms, good parking, signs... so this is a pilot program to show what a little funding, and a few green jobs can do," Kondo said. "It would be great to replicate it with more support."
Senior level officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Departments of Agriculture, Interior and Defense, and the White House Council on Environmental Quality are expected at the Whittier Narrows meeting.
The officials will be in town for a "listening session" the following day at Occidental College as part of President Obama's America's Great Outdoors Initiative. The initiative is aimed at increasing conservation of open spaces and recreational opportunities in them by working with local community projects. That public session will run from 3 to 7 p.m. Thursday at Thorne Hall.
Bill Keener, EPA communications director for the region, said organizers are not certain yet which officials will be in town for the listening session.
"They are trying to get as high and senior people as they can... anything can happen at the last minute with the Gulf oil spill, and other things. I'm certain they will have very senior leadership," he said.
Wednesday's meeting will be held near the Whittier Narrows Recreation Are parking lot at Santa Anita Avenue and Lexington-Gallatin Road.
The discussion will be held from 7 to 8:30 p.pm and will be preceded by a reception and networking session at 6p.m.
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