Forest officials, residents discuss maintenance ideas for Angeles National Forest

Residents who have visited the Angeles National Forest gathered on Monday to share their thoughts on how to improve care of about half of the range that was designated by President Barack Obama last year as the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.

The president’s decision carved out 346,000 acres to be part of the monument, a decree that triggered U.S. Forest Service officials to start drafting a management plan. Supporters of Obama’s direction hope new funding will be approved for additional maintenance, outreach and preservation.

Forest service employees met with residents at the Pacific Community Center to seek their feedback, but some Park Service staffers were also open about what they would like to see in the future.

One of them was Dennis Merkel, a district recreation manager.

“We’re keeping our fingers crossed so that we get more funding … I’ve got five people working for me in a 300-square-mile area,” he said. “I could certainly use more help.”

The Angeles National Forest provides open-space access to about 15 million people living within 90 minutes of the area.

There’s already a management plan in place that will need to be updated, and there’s a three-year deadline to get it done. Some revisions are already mandated by the monument designation, such as halting the issuance of new permits for mineral mining.

A transportation plan aimed at protecting objects of historic and scientific significance is also required.

Glendale resident Roberto Morales said the forest is too big for current staffing levels to manage and, with hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, there’s definitely a need for more improvements to the infrastructure.

“There needs to be better maintenance and better care of trails and also better outreach as far as working with community organizations and volunteers,” he said.

Local resident Dennis Arguelles said he’d like to see a new visitor center and additional outreach programs. While those may draw in more people to the monument and risk leaving a larger environmental footprint than before, there’s also a positive side, he said.

“More visitors means more wear and tear and possible damage, but I think it’s only by bringing in more visitors that you can build that consciousness on why we need to care for the mountains,” Arguelles said.

Looking further ahead past the adoption of the new management plan, Arguelles said he would like to see the borders of the monument expand and include Angeles Forest plots north of Glendale and La Crescenta that have been left out. Mt. Lukens is one of the nearby sites that was excluded from the monument boundaries.

“Those are heavily used areas,” Arguelles said. “I was disappointed to see that part of the range not included, but who knows, maybe there will be an opportunity for that monument to be expanded in the future. This is still a great first step for the overall range.”

A small group of concerned citizens were also in attendance, but more so to get a face-to-face time with Forest Service officials to share their concerns about a potential California High Speed Rail Authority plan to run a bullet train through underground tunnels in the forest to link Burbank and Palmdale.

“This proposal would devastate our springs, destroy our aquifers and create havoc for wildlife,” said Kelly Decker, vice president of the Kagel Canyon Civic Assn.

There will be three more community meetings throughout the 45-day public comment period that will end on July 27.

A final management plan will be drafted by the forest service and will go to Forest Supervisor Jeffrey Vail for final consideration.

Vail attended the meeting and said the goal of the new management plan is to create a vision of a forest that’s relevant to future generations.

“We want to make sure it’s loved in a way that’s sustainable and people will continue to enjoy,” he said.