LA County supervisors ask Biden, Congress to expand San Gabriel Mountains monument
The expansion of a national monument in the rugged San Gabriel Mountains to include front-facing canyons with accessible trails and picnic sites while protecting natural rivers received an injection of support on Tuesday, July 12.
By unanimous vote, the Los Angles County Board of Supervisors backed legislation by Rep. Judy Chu, D-Pasadena, to expand the 346,177-acre San Gabriel Mountains National Monument established by then-President Barack Obama in 2014.
Chu’s bill, H.R. 3681, would broaden the monument boundaries by adding about 109,000 acres of federal land carved out from the Angeles National Forest. Much of the additional forest land was left out of Obama’s declaration. It includes the Chantry Flat area, made up of close-in picnic, hiking, and camping areas just north of Arcadia, Sierra Madre and Monrovia as well as Placerita Canyon near Santa Clarita.
Chu’s San Gabriel Mountains Protection Act would expand the monument to the west, designate 31,000 acres as new or expanded wilderness areas, and add 45.5 miles to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.
The board directed its Chief Executive Officer Fesia Davenport to move ahead to support the bill by sending a letter to Chu, the Los Angeles County congressional delegation and the chair of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Federal Lands to advocate for passage.
In addition, the supervisors made a point of saying they will ask President Joe Biden to use the power of the Antiquities Act and declare the added section as part of the monument lands. In short, finishing what Obama started nine years ago.
“I want us to collectively urge President Joe Biden to expand that national monument using the Antiquities Act of 1906 to protect nearly 110,000 acres of the San Gabriel Mountains,” said First District Supervisor Hilda Solis, a former labor secretary in the Obama administration when Biden was vice president.
“These lands are a gateway to our forest and should be included in our national monument legislation,” Solis added. “They are part of the backyard to open space for L.A. County.”
The motion to send letters of support to Congress and to the White House was put forth by Fifth District Supervisor Kathryn Barger, whose district includes the forest areas in question, as well as the foothill cities of the San Gabriel Valley and Santa Clarita.
“This is protecting a unique and beautiful landscape,” she said of Chu’s bill. “We urge President Biden to issue a proclamation to expand the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument. We need to keep the momentum going.”