La Canada Residents and Community Leaders Throws Support on Lawsuit Against Devil’s Gate Reservoir Sediment Haul

A group of La Canada residents and community leaders recently threw their support behind a lawsuit challenging the county’s plan to begin a five-year sediment haul at the Devil’s Gate Reservoir in the fall.

The lawsuit believes the county’s environmental impact report did not fully address environmental concerns posed by engineers and activists.

The sediment overhaul was approved by county supervisors on Nov. 12 and challenged by a lawsuit filed one month later by environmental groups the Pasadena Audubon Society and the Arroyo Seco Foundation.

Also, a group called the Save Hahamongna campaign believes the sediment haul project would destroy part of a biologically valuable stream zone habitat in the process of bringing sediment levels way lower than the basin has historically held since the 1930s.

“We want a moderate program,” Tim Brick, managing director of Arroyo Seco Foundation, explaining the impetus for the suit, told The Los Angeles Times. “And we want to be able to sit down with them (County of Los Angeles), and they’d have to really treat us seriously. We want to get a much better program out of the county — that’s really our goal.”

Several La Cañada city and school officials have raised concerns about the effects of the project, which could see as many as 400 trucks per day moving hauled sediments to dumps in Sun Valley and Irwindale.

La Cañada resident Shannon Griffin told The Times that she organized a discussion last week to inform people who still might not know much about the immense work being planned for Hahamongna Watershed Park, or how it might impact them.

“We tried to get our word out there, but the response was very dismissive,” Brick told the newspaper. “So when the county came out with their final plan, we just felt that we had to take one more step in order to ensure that the public will is implemented.”

“If people learned more about it and felt strongly enough, I think that’s actually the best hope of slowing what’s going to happen,” La Cañada parent resident Ingrid McConnell told The Times. “A groundswell is what we need.”