After the fire: erosion and jackasses

The fire was long over, but the senseless  tree-cutting continued. I was quite upset. I just couldn’t accept that the best thing for a park that had lost thousands of trees, would be to tear out 1000 more trees. Not to mention the growing erosion problem. And I felt like a wimp because I hadn’t crossed the forbidden barriers and gone into the burned areas, scout-like, on my own, to find out exactly what the Forestry Division was doing up there…

photo by Martin O. Garcia, taken May 10, 2 days after the fire, on his daily hike. His own caption: “Griffith Park, AFTER.”

Griffith Park Master Plan Meeting

No one had notified me about an earlier meeting that drew 500 people, so I missed it. (Nice snappy write-up here, though!) But the city was prepared for a lot of concerned citizens on June 4, the meeting of the Griffith Park Master Plan Working Group (Could their title be any scarier?) held in the large Friendship Auditorium, in Los Feliz. I had never been there, and it was an easy drive and great parking. (I love a place with great parking!) Bottled water and cartons of OJ were set up on tables in the back of the room, as well as bowls of granola bars. Yes, energy bars.

It was sort of sweet, and sort of annoying, as if most attendees were likely to come in, stamping their boots, hat in hand, with a rucksack or backpack over their shoulder. And what they really craved after a hard day in the outdoors was…a cold granola bar on ice. Oh, well, less mess for the janitors, I guess!

I would estimate the crowd at about 150, a sizable turnout for a meeting with a name like that. The first order of business was to introduce many experts advising on fire restoration, from the Department of Agriculture, the US Forest Service, DARE, the USDA National Conservation Service, CAL Fire, Department of Fish & Game, and more. They hadn’t exactly been hired as consultants- no money from the city – but I guess the various departments sent them anyway. (update: I now believe that agencies who aided will be sending the bill to FEMA, not the Park or the City. Hey, FEMA, call me.)

Erosion after the fire, natch

The most immediate problem was erosion, and strangely enough (not), the worst erosion was from heavy equipment the city itself sent in to a) fight the fire and b) clean debris afterwards. So the city cheerfully created its own problem.

Even without any rain, the soil could be loosened and clog waterways and streams, the LA River, etc. (Greg Randall, the wildlife expert, had told me he was trying to help a coyote with burned paws, who could hardly walk, and Greg sank so deep into the soil that he was afraid he couldn’t get out of it – like quicksand!- and the coyote got away easily, poor thing.) Wet, the ask and loose soil could avalanche down onto roads and houses.

One of the Experts, I’m not sure who, brought up an interesting upside to the whole situation, however; he said since the hills and acreage hadn’t been clear and accessible like this for so long, maybe even for 100 years or more, this was an opportunity to look for anything unusual from earlier times, and they would bring in scientists to do this careful excavation. I thought he meant arrowheads, pottery, or archeology type stuff, which sounded fascinating, but he was so vague and delicate about it I think now that he also meant they would be looking for burial grounds and cemeteries and bodies. Or for some more answers about serial killers like the Hillside Stranglers….You knew that was in Griffith Park, right? :)

A couple Griffith Park Council members asked questions as the meeting went on, and Bernadette Soter asked a leading one, in her calm, cool, direct way: Did the city have the $50 million emergency aid Griffith Park had been promised, as reported in the Times and elsewhere? The answer: ah, no.

Sometimes you get what you need

Kevin Regan, Rec & Parks Assistant General Manager, was Chair of the meeting, and at this point he turned the topic to trees, and why they were STILL cutting down trees in the park. My heart started to thud very hard, and I was actually shaking. My one experience with Kevin was unpleasant, and I didn’t trust him. He went on to talk for almost 8 minutes straight.

He said tree removal was part of the “emergency debris removal,” and that the public had “a reasonable expectation to be safe,” especially around the picnic grounds. He said there was a lot of regrading going on, and along with that was the need for safety. He said there had been hazardous tree assessment by lb, who was certified by IAS, and that they targeted trees which could fail. They applied “acceptable risk” to these dangerous trees. He said eucalyptus were prone to breaking off branches (and at this point he used latin names for a bunch of trees. We were all suitably impressed.) The City was concerned that some trees “could potentially fail,” if they were in a stressed state. The City didn’t want to take any liability chances… He said Andy Lipkis, founder of the Tree People, said the Park did a good job, by “reacting so quickly.” He praised the Forestry Division. He paused.

My cheeks were bright red by this time, wondering where he was going with his posturing and build up of how important it was that the park continue to cut down its own trees. And what I would do to try to stop this. Then the shocker: he wrapped up his little speech by saying: The Forestry Division and Street Services WERE BOTH DONE WITH CUTTING TREES AS OF THAT NIGHT. And he added, tree restoration and planting would all be done with direction from the experts in the future.

Oh. My. Gah.
Now, I’m sure I’m not the only person who made all those calls about how foolish it was to destroy even more trees after a fire. But I was surely one of the most persistent! And the city actually did the right thing!!! I was so thrilled.

Annoying questions from the audience

NO, I’m not going all soft on ya! But this meeting was held at Friendship Auditorium…

Then some geologists talked, with a slide show about soil (because someone asked what erosion was…I just report this embarrassing stuff, folks), and then we had a Q & A from the audience, with a 3 minute limit each. The first person that Kevin recognized to speak was a man who told us that the Gay & Lesbian Fair was the next weekend, and where it would be held, and who the guests were, and how to get tickets.

I was so embarrassed for the fellow I looked down at my feet. Surely Kevin would shut him up. No, not at all. The man continued to tell us about the Gay & Lesbian Fair and some organization, and when the audience began to titter, and there was a small buzz, he switched the topic to how Los Angeles should study other countries to learn how to recover from fire. (He didn’t say if that was his country; he had a strong accent, so I didn’t catch every word.) I was so angry that this guy was advertising his political group in the middle of a meeting about a major fire. Kevin didn’t react.

The next man to speak complained about how many trails were still shut down, and asked why. Someone else gave a generic answer about not safe for the public, debris, etc. The man continued to ask why, and explained he and his wife lived near the park, and they liked to hike every weekend.

Finally Kevin found his foot and put it down. “I told you some trails are SHUT DOWN. That’s the answer. Hello, are there any Rangers here in the audience? Where are the guards? Can someone escort this man out of the room?”

Well, of course there were Rangers in the room, but no one made a move to escort the man anywhere. Kevin, honey? Pick your battles and grow up.

I left soon after. On the whole, it was a good meeting. I guess my biggest regret was that they didn’t hand out any Chapstick on a lanyard, to hang around your neck, as we moseyed out the door to saddle up and ride home.

*Update to the post below this: Laura B. called me back recently to confirm that indeed, all tree cutting stopped the day Kevin Regan promised it would. She said a total of 1187 living trees had been cut down after the fire. She added that “a significant number of the trees, maybe most of them, were cut down by the Los Angeles Fire Department, to get access to the burning areas.”

Laura, Laura, Laura. Listen, I know what Angry Firemen sound like, and it isn’t pretty. Are you sure you’re ready for that?

And, liar, liar, pants on fire. In my earlier investigations, you and others emphasized that each tree was looked at separately, to make a decision as to how dangerous it could be, so you could think up some reason to get rid of it. Somehow, I don’t think firemen had time to make those kinds of decisions…