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Climate & Environment


TRASH HEAPS AND WILD PARTIES: BLIGHT INVADES A BELOVED L.A. ESCAPE


Heaps of trash surround an overflowing garbage bin on the East Fork of the San
Gabriel River in San Gabriel Mountains National Monument. Nine years after
President Obama upgraded Southern California’s mountainous backyard to monument
status, trash accumulation remains an issue.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
By Louis SahagúnStaff Writer 
Photography by 
Allen J. Schaben
Aug. 1, 2023 3 AM PT
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Moises Rivera and Marisol Medina had a clear vision in mind when they began
their summer excursion in the mountains above blistering Los Angeles recently —
and that vision definitely included a cooling dip in the East Fork of the San
Gabriel River.

Urged on by images like-minded urbanites have posted to YouTube, Instagram and
TikTok, the couple looked forward to floating in a picturesque swimming hole
where oak and sycamore trees threw shadows over clear, serene waters.

Yet even before they found a place to park, Rivera, 32, and Medina, 27, were
greeted by harsh, unfiltered reality. Chaotic crowds swarmed a 2½-mile stretch
of river whose rocky banks were marred by graffiti. Roadsides were heaped with
all manner of garbage: rotting food, barbecue grills, bottles, ice chests,
soiled diapers and float toys.

“It’s the first thing we noticed,” Medina said. “It’s disturbing.”

Moises Rivera and Marisol Medina encountered a harsh reality when they visited
the popular East Fork of the San Gabriel River last week — piles of trash left
by visitors.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Nearby, a visitor unloaded a carload of excited children and shrugged her
shoulders at the reeking piles of trash. “Not much you can do about it,” she
said.

Nowhere else in San Gabriel Mountains National Monument is a crisis of natural
resource management more beautifully framed than at the bottom of a canyon that
looks like some High Sierra gorge — only covered with trash.

Nine years after President Obama upgraded the region to monument status — an act
intended to foster a cleaner and safer wilderness — park officials and
volunteers have been struggling to cope with the consequences of surging
visitation, particularly in summertime.

It’s a problem that has not only blighted the landscape, but also raised worries
over contamination of one of the region’s largest watersheds.

Just ask Tom Walsh, who for 30 years has helped lead volunteer efforts to clean
up areas of the monument and restore habitat for native wildlife including
bears, mountain lions and federally endangered Santa Ana suckers.

Advertisement




A discarded float toy greets visitors wading into the water at the East Fork of
the San Gabriel River in San Gabriel Mountains National Monument last week.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Trash litters a riverbank in San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

“The East Fork is a filthy mess, and things have only gotten worse since the
monument was designated,” said the 80-year-old. “That’s probably why we’ve been
losing volunteers. There’s no end to the trash.”

Their quarry includes hypodermic needles, discards from homeless encampments,
human waste in thickets near the Oak Picnic area nicknamed “the East Fork
toilet,” and occasional headless chickens and slaughtered lambs believed to be
remnants of spiritual rituals.

Cynthiann Gamboa, 37, who lives on a ranch by the river, described the East Fork
as “a place where heartbreak turns into anger.”

Travel & Experiences


HOW DO YOU FIGHT 50 BILLION PIECES OF LITTER? START BY PICKING UP TRASH ON YOUR
NEXT HIKE

There are nearly 50 billion pieces of litter along U.S. roadways and waterways.
L.A. group Pick Up While You Hike Up shares tips for lessening the litter load.

April 13, 2023

“Families flock to the river to escape the heat, but there are no rules, no
limits and not a ranger in sight once they get there,” she said. “They park
where signs say ‘No Parking.’ They build fires where signs say ‘No Fires.’ They
walk through trash to get down to the river, then leave more trash behind before
heading home.”

The 346,000-acre monument is a beloved destination for those who wish to escape
the heat and grime of the bustling Los Angeles Basin and sits within an hour’s
drive of some 18 million people. The monument was formed by redesignating about
half of Angeles National Forest. However, its creation came with no new
government money, leaving agencies, nonprofits and municipalities to seek
funding from public and private donations and from adjusting the budget of the
U.S. Forest Service, which manages the monument.



“I wish I could flip a switch and make everyone behave,” said Angeles National
Forest Supervisor Roman Torres. “When you get 4.5 million visitors a year, it’s
difficult, and you have trash challenges.”

Angeles National Forest is working on solutions, he said, including trying to
hire 19 forestry technicians who would focus on tasks such as trash removal and
reviewing contract obligations of companies responsible for emptying dumpsters
within the national monument.

“Visitors could help,” he added, “by not throwing trash down on the ground.”

East Fork Road and California 39, the winding mountain highway that provides the
only access to Crystal Lake and other recreational areas north of the East Fork,
are patrolled by Forest Service rangers, the California Highway Patrol, the Los
Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, firefighters and Caltrans crews.

California


VISITORS TO LAKE TAHOE LEAVE A RECORD FOUR TONS OF TRASH DURING FOURTH OF JULY
CELEBRATIONS

Volunteers joined forces to clean up the trash that was particularly heavily on
Zephyr Shoals, one of the least-regulated areas along the shore.

July 8, 2023

On summer weekends, authorities are swamped with reports of rowdy parties,
overturned vehicles, lost hikers, burglaries, dangerous automotive stunts along
California 39, illegal campfires and traffic tie-ups caused by haphazard
parking.

Incidents in the monument can have effects far beyond the wilderness, however.
In 2012, a vehicle driving through dry brush just off East Fork Road sparked a
fire that blackened more than 4,000 acres of the San Gabriel watershed, which
provides Los Angeles County with 33% of its water.

Litter surrounds a sign promoting environmental stewardship in San Gabriel
Mountains National Monument.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Last year, a car that veered off East Fork Road dripped oil and gasoline into
riverbed sands marked with the paw prints of squirrels, foxes and coyotes for
five months before it was hauled away by the CHP, officials said.

“We’re very concerned about an obvious lack of law enforcement and maintenance
at the monument,” said Mark Stanley, executive officer of the state San Gabriel
and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy. “We recently visited the
East Fork area and were shocked.”

Refuse has been a health concern in the area since 2000, when the California
Regional Water Quality Control Board ordered the Forest Service to reduce trash
levels in the East Fork to zero within three years.

In response, rangers and volunteers were stationed at popular picnic sites to
direct visitors to roadside trash bins and provide them with information about
environmental issues and litter laws. They also posted “No Littering” signs
printed in English and Spanish.

That strategy was abandoned a few years later because of budget cuts.

Now, there is renewed talk of devising strategies to limit visitors and instruct
them on how to be better stewards of the environment.

Graffiti dots the landscape along the East Fork of the San Gabriel River in San
Gabriel Mountains National Monument.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The flood of ill-behaved tourists isn’t the only reason for the area’s problems.
Implementation of a management plan for the East Fork, finalized in 2019, was
stalled by COVID-19 and a lawsuit.

“We desperately need an East Fork stewardship plan that is adequately funded and
staffed,” said Isaac Brown, a senior scientist at Stillwater Sciences, a
consulting firm specializing in restoring rivers and floodplains.

Advertisement


The Forest Service has long complained of high turnover rates in management,
chronic budget cuts, and being unable to pay wages high enough to attract
sufficient numbers of “forestry technicians” to remove all the trash that
accumulates each day along the East Fork. Pay for such positions in Angeles
National Forest start at about $43,600 a year, officials said.

Most of the Forest Service’s budget is set aside for wildfire protection, as
well as repairing campgrounds, roads and infrastructure damaged by torrential
rains earlier this year, officials said.

Some critics see a connection between chronic overcrowding and the promotional
efforts of large nonprofits that seek to increase access to the monument.
Critics say the organizations have failed to take into account the toll on
wildlife and habitat.

Piles of trash have not only blighted the landscape in San Gabriel Mountains
National Monument, they have also raised contamination concerns for one of the
region’s largest watersheds.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Belen Bernal, executive director of Nature for All, a coalition of environmental
and community groups that has long campaigned for more parks and safe outdoor
opportunities in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States,
agrees — up to a point.

“It’s true that we are looking at increased access,” Bernal said. “But during
the summer months it’s a whole different ball game. This is a management issue.

“We’re not entirely happy about the situation in the monument. Just a year away
from its 10th anniversary, it still doesn’t have enough restrooms, dumpsters or
even a visitor center.”

California


77 TONS LESS TRASH MADE IT INTO THE OCEAN THANKS TO THIS EXPERIMENTAL L.A.
COUNTY DEVICE

The Ballona Creek Trash Interceptor 007 collected nearly 155,000 pounds of trash
in the first rainy season of its two-year pilot project.

May 11, 2023

In the meantime, the East Fork consistently earns an “A-plus” water quality
rating from the nonprofit Heal the Bay in an online report card on the health of
Southern California’s waterways — despite trash and alterations of natural flows
due to illegal man-made dams built out of rocks, carpet strips and limbs ripped
off nearby trees for the creation of swimming holes.

Those ratings, however, are based on water samples typically collected in the
morning, before the onslaught of large crowds hoping to escape the heat, said
Karin Wisenbaker, a senior scientist at Aquatic Bioassay and Consulting
Laboratories in Ventura, which conducts the analytical work.

Advertisement




When temperatures soar in the summertime, large crowds make their way to the
cooling waters of the East Fork of the San Gabriel River.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

“We don’t necessarily test at popular swimming holes,” she said, “and we have
found potentially harmful higher levels of E. coli bacterial concentrations in
them around the summer holiday weekends.”

Overall, she said, “we have seen horrible amounts of garbage in the river, and
we are deeply concerned, even disgusted, by that.”

For Kevin Nunez and his son Nathan, Native Americans who have long family
history locked within the rugged and geologically active mountains, volunteering
to help remove the flotsam and jetsam of tourists is a solemn duty.

Their cultural connections and reputations for eloquence have also made them
essential consultants in ongoing projects aimed at recovering aquatic species,
restoring habitat and avoiding disturbance of carefully guarded touchstones of
the past: burial grounds, remnants of ancient villages and rock art.

“The critical needs are obvious,” Nathan Nunez, 23, said. “They include
controlled access, effective and consistent trash removal services, strictly
monitored designated parking areas, more law enforcement officers and meaningful
conservation programs.”

Even with those improvements, however, Kevin Nunez believes there is a limit.

“I cringe when I hear large social organizations promoting programs designed to
increase visits at the monument,” the 53-year-old said. “It’s already suffering
from more people than it can handle.”


Climate & EnvironmentCaliforniaTravel & Experiences
Louis Sahagún

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Louis Sahagún is a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times. He covers issues
ranging from religion, culture and the environment to crime, politics and water.
He was on the team of L.A. Times writers that earned the Pulitzer Prize in
public service for a series on Latinos in Southern California and the team that
was a finalist in 2015 for the Pulitzer Prize in breaking news. He is a former
board member of CCNMA: Latino Journalists of California and author of the book
“Master of the Mysteries: The Life of Manly Palmer Hall.”

Allen J. Schaben

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Photojournalist Allen J. Schaben began his career at the Los Angeles Times
shortly after he earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism with minors in art
and psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1994.


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