San Gabriel Mountains made national monument


President Barack Obama visited the city of San Dimas on Friday afternoon to designate a portion of the San Gabriel Mountains as a national monument.

The San Gabriel Mountains, part of the Angeles National Forest, serve as the backdrop to Los Angeles and offer outdoor recreational space for hiking, biking and other activities. The mountains receive nearly 3 million visitors annually.

Congresswoman Judy Chu, a Democrat who represents the 27th congressional district which includes the cities of Pasadena and Monterey Park, led efforts to grant the mountains monument status. She originally sent a bill to Congress, but when it stalled, she called for help from  Obama, who responded by using his executive powers and bypassing Congress to declare the mountain range a national monument.

“It’s not enough to have this awesome natural wonder within your sight,” Obama said in his speech after designating the mountains a national monument. “You have to be able to access it … [E]verybody in this diverse community, no matter where they come from or what language they speak — can enjoy all that this monument has to offer.”

The Angeles National Forest also singlehandedly accounts for approximately 70 percent of Los Angeles County’s open space, and thus provides some of the last available habitat for species like Nelson’s Bighorn sheep and mountain yellow-legged frogs, making the area even more valuable to conservationists.

The combination of conservation efforts and recent upkeep problems led to calls for national monument status, which advocates believe would help improve the area by emphasizing visitor safety. Monument status allows the U.S. Forest Service to prioritize visitor safety, resulting in the installation of restrooms, trails and other amenities. There is also a possibility of increased funding for the Forest Service in the San Gabriel Mountains.

Last winter, the Colby Fire, started by arson, burned through nearly 2,000 acres of the Angeles National Forest. Gaurav Parti, a freshman majoring in business administration, said that the mountains deserved to be protected. His hometown of Glendora, a foothill community, was located near the fires.

“Although they [the San Gabriel Mountains] may not be the most impressive mountains, the landscape of the foothills is unique to California, so they deserve to be preserved and protected, especially after a portion of them was destroyed by the fire,” he said.

Though some local residents were pleased with Obama’s decision, others, particularly Republicans, opposed the designation. More than 100 protesters gathered outside of Chu’s office the Monday prior to the official designation, and protesters were also present when Obama made the official announcement on Friday.

The protesters believe the mountains’ problems with graffiti, trash and fires are exaggerated and that their new status will restrict access to the mountains to them. The community of Mount Baldy rejected monument status, and residents of other communities had similar worries.

In response, the designated area excluded Mount Baldy and a few other communities outside of the Los Angeles County border. A total of 346,000 of the Angeles National Forest’s 655,000 acres are included in the national monument.

“Although it may be drastic to make the mountains a national monument, hopefully this will be a wake-up call to people to treat the area better, and it could help fix problems like trash,” said Alyssa Perez, a freshman majoring in mechanical engineering from the foothill town of Glendora.