BOXER, MCKEON INTRODUCE LANDMARK SAN GABRIEL MOUNTAINS WILDERNESS BILL

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) have launched a bipartisan legislative effort to protect over 470,000 acres of wilderness and 52 miles of Wild and Scenic Rivers in California. The legislation—The Eastern Sierra and Northern San Gabriel Wild Heritage Act—would also designate as wilderness 28,000-acre Pleasant View Ridge, which Sierra Club volunteers have been working to protect for over 20 years.
“Pleasant View Ridge is the most spectacular potential wilderness area in the San Gabriel Mountains and is the home to many Sierra Club hikes,” said Erik Counseller, co-chair of the Angeles Chapter’s Forest Committee and chair of its hiking section. “We’ve been working very hard to develop public support for the area and it looks like it’s paying off.” Forest Committee volunteers have been leading hikes into the area, helping map potential wilderness boundaries, and sending postcards to Congressman McKeon asking for wilderness protection for Pleasant View Ridge.
The Pleasant View proposed wilderness area is located roughly 30 miles northeast of La Canada, north of the Angeles Crest Highway where the San Gabriel Mountains slope north to meet the Mojave Desert. The area features 8,200-foot Mt. Williamson and other dramatic peaks, formidable cliffs, the headwaters of Little Rock Creek, remote backcountry and some of the most magnificent canyon country in the San Gabriel Mountains. The proposed wilderness area contains a section of the Pacific Crest Trail and is home to bighorn sheep and the mountain yellow-legged frog, Joshua trees and old-growth pine.
The Eastern Sierra and Northern San Gabriel Wild Heritage Act will give wilderness designation—the highest level of protection and conservation for federal lands—to over 470,000 acres of federal public land in California. Specifically, the bill designates an additional 430,671 acres of wilderness in Mono and Inyo counties and establishes more than 45 miles of the Owens River headwaters and Amargosa River as Wild and Scenic Rivers. The bill also designates an additional 42,000 acres of wilderness in Los Angeles County, and it establishes more than seven miles of Piru Creek as a Wild and Scenic River.
All of the lands in the bill are in Congressman McKeon’s sprawling 25th Congressional District, which runs all the way from Santa Clarita northeast through sections of the Sierras and the White Mountains to the Nevada border. In addition to Pleasant View Ridge the new wilderness legislation includes 13,000-acre Magic Mountain (not to be confused with the amusement park of the same name) in the San Gabriel Mountains about 10 miles east of Santa Clarita.
Seven Sierra Club volunteers attended the news conference hosted in late May by McKeon, waving a variety of homemade signs they had created, including one saying “Families Love Wilderness.” At the press conference, Congressman McKeon spoke very highly of Magic Mountain and Pleasant View Ridge—as five California condors miraculously executed a flyover as if to salute the new wilderness bill. Laurie Ender, Councilwoman for the City of Santa Clarita, also spoke on behalf of the new legislation as did Connie Bullock on behalf of the Santa Clarita Casting Club and Trout Unlimited.
“Wilderness” is the gold standard of federal land designations, adding a new level of protection to public land that precludes development,roads and off-road vehicles as well as power lines and dams. The last wilderness addition to the San Gabriel Mountains occurred in 1984 when congress designated the 42,000 acre Sheep Mountain Wilderness which includes the highest point in the San Gabriel Mountains, 10,064 Mt. Baldy (also known as Mt. San Antonio).
The land protected in the Sierras under the bill includes the White Mountains, America’s largest and highest desert mountain range, according to a press release issued by Boxer and McKeon The second largest unprotected roadless area in the lower 48 states, the Whites are home to the world’s oldest living trees--the ancient Bristlecone Pines--which live almost 5,000 years. The new legislation would also makes additions to the Hoover Wilderness, a classic High Sierra landscape of deeply carved glacial valleys dotted with tranquil alpine lakes and forests of lodgepole pine. The Amargosa River, which the bill also protects, is the only river flowing into Death Valley, and it sustains biologically rich wetlands and riparian forests as it makes its way through ancient, rugged canyons.
“Getting this bill passed will not be easy with only a few months left in the congressional session,” said Juana Torres, who works for the Sierra Club’s San Gabriel Mountains Campaign. Complaints about the bill have already surfaced in pockets of Congressman McKeon’s generally conservative district, including a series of negative comments in the Inyo Register published out of Bishop. “We really need to support Senator Boxer and Congressman McKeon in their efforts and continually remind them that there is wide public support for the wilderness bill,” Torres added.
As large areas of undeveloped open space dwindle in urban Southern California, protecting our ability to enjoy beauty and solitude in our nearby national forests becomes all the more important. The best ways to help support the new bill are to join the San Gabriel Mountains Campaign (visit: http://www.sierraclub.org/ca/socalforests/ ) and to attend the next Forest Committee event. The Forest Committee has sponsored a bimonthly series of well-attended public programs at Eaton Canyon Nature Center, in Pasadena. The next event will be a potluck picnic at Eaton Canyon at 4 p.m. Sunday, July 27. Come and learn how you can help out.