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ACTION ALERT: San Gabriel Mountains study public comment period extended

Jan 13

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1/13/2012 2:01 PM  RssIcon

Public comment period extended until Feb. 13

By Chuck Cushman
American Land Rights Assocation

Congratulations. Your calls and e-mails got a 30 day extension. You now have the time to get comments in opposing this huge land grab. Monday, Feb.13 s the new deadline for public comments on the massive San Gabriel Mountains National Recreation Area . Don’t fail to do your part. Please at least send a letter. Don’t forget the National Park Service is also doing the huge Rim of the Valley National Recreation Area study at the same time covering of the same area but far larger in size. Your comments on the San Gabriel Mountains NRA Study now are critical.

To others fighting land grabs in your area. Your comments now help build the team that will help you soon so please get involved. It is so easy to get involved now and will save you so much money later.

More required -- A 30 day comment period is good but not nearly enough time to get the required number of people involved. You still need to ask that the comment period be extended to 90 days. When you send your comments be sure to also ask for that additional time.

Action Items:

  • Please forward this important message as widely as possible. This is a really big deal. As many people as possible must comment.
  • Call your Congressman at (202) 225-3121 and ask him or her to send a letter to the National Park Service requesting that the comment period be further extended to 90-days on the San Gabriel Watershed and Mountains Special Resource Study. The NPS is planning two huge new National Recreation Areas taking over hundreds of thousands of acres in two forests now managed by the US Forest Service.
  • Call both your Senators at (202) 224-3121 to request the same process as above.
  • Send a letter requesting that the Park Service take the No Action alternative. Tell them management of the San Gabriel Mountains and all the other forests around LA must stay with the U. S. Forest Service.


Go to http://www.nps.gov/pwro/sangabriel to see the Park Service announcement and MAP. Click where it says Executive Summary. You will be amazed.

Look below where we have listed reasons to oppose the San Gabriel Mountains National Recreation Area. Take a few of these comments, put them in your own words and send them to the Park Service requesting that the U. S. Forest Service retain overall management of the area. Request that no action on the Park Service proposal be taken.

Send your comments by e-mail at pwr_sangabriel@nps.gov pwr_sangabriel@nps.gov

No matter where you live, the Obama Administration has large scale land grab plans covering much of the United States. The Obama Administration is looking to control both private land and add controls to Federal lands. By defeating this gigantic proposal, you will help fend off the land grabbers who want to expand Federal control in your area.

All land rights activist must work together. You cannot expect to help yourself from others if you fail to do simple things that can help others who are facing threats. All of us must join together to stop these kinds of land grabs anywhere they occur in the US.

Here are some of the reasons you should oppose the new San Gabriel Mountains National Recreation Area proposal:

  1. The proposed new San Gabriel Mountains National Recreation Area and the Rim of the Valley National Recreation Area areas are likely to cost over $7 billion. That could be grossly understated. The funding required would detract from existing National Parks that are already strapped for funds for basic health, safety and visitor services. The Park Service plans to carry out their grandiose land acquisition and regulatory scheme will have an enormous economic impact on California. It will become a never-ending money pit with Congress having to keep up with public expectations. Lots of land acquisition.
  2. The NPS comment period was deliberately set up during the Christmas New Years period when people were distracted.
  3. Many forms of recreation will but cut off and eliminated. Thousands of landowners will lose their land.
  4. The only producing Tungsten mine in the United States is in the area. No matter what the Park Service says, they are against all mining and will seek to eventually put this mine out of business.
  5. Billions of dollars in important minerals are in the area and will be excluded from exploration and mining, hurting the economy even more. Many strategically important minerals are known to be in the proposed Park Service NRA. These minerals will no longer be available to the country for defense and other purposes. There is a World Class Limestone deposit in the San Bernardino Mountains. Large deposits of Aluminum are there as well.
  6. A large part of the proposed NRA is already managed by the US Forest Service. There is no need for an additional National Park Service overlay.
  7. A huge amount of the area includes cities, towns, homes and private land extending all the way down to Orange County from the San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles. Thousands of people live in the proposed area, are in jeopardy and are not aware of it. Go to http://www.nps.gov/pwro/sangabriel to see the Park Service announcement and MAP. Click where it says Executive Summary. You will be amazed.
  8. There are hundreds of Forest Service permit cabins in the proposed area that are likely to be in danger from the National Park Service. The Park Service does not allow permit cabins. In other areas where the Park Service has taken over Forest Service areas, the cabins were forced out.
  9. A large part of the proposed San Gabriel Mountains NRA overlaps with the proposed RIM OF THE VALLEY NATIONAL RECREATION AREA which is an even larger land grab covering all landowners in all the valleys surrounding the San Gabriel Mountains, San Bernardo Mountains, and the existing Santa Monica Mountains NRA. To see a very high quality map, go to www.landrights.org Scroll down the home page and click where it says Rim of the Valley Maps.
  10. The San Gabriel Mountains NRA and the Rim of the Valley NRA will close existing Forest Service roads as well as many other roads currently used by citizens to access the nearby mountains for recreation, motorized off highway recreation, dirt road exploring, hunting, fishing, camping, floating, mining, ranching and many other uses. If the Park Service gets control, these uses will come to a halt.
  11. The San Gabriel Mountains NRA places the entire Angeles National Forest in jeopardy. When you add in the proposed Rim of the Valley Study which should come out in the next year, the San Bernardino National Forest as well as parts of the Los Padres National Forest could be converted to National Park.
  12. Skiing at existing ski areas in the Angeles and San Bernardino National Forests would likely be placed in doubt. American Land Rights had to save the Saddleback Mountain Ski Area in Maine from the Park Service.
  13.  People in California may think they will get something if a Park Service National Recreation Area is created. Actually, they will lose much of the access and use they currently have to their mountains
  14. 14. The Park Service plans to combine this enormous area with the proposed Rim of the Valley National Recreation Area (Park) covering the rest of the Mountains around Los Angeles. All of this has been planned for years by Joe Edmiston, head of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.
  15. You must ask your Congressman, Senators and the Park Service for a complete Environmental Impact Statement. The Park Service is only doing an Environmental Assessment. Why ask for the Environmental Impact Statement? Because this recommended new park will impact tens of thousands of people and landowners, billions of dollars in economic activity and close off hundreds of thousands of acres to your use.
  16. You may think you will get more recreation. You will actually get much less. And your access will be cut off. The Sierra Club wants even more including converting most of the new area to Wilderness. Then you can’t go there.
  17. The two new National Recreation Areas will create a huge fire hazard. The Park Service will not allow you to clear your brush and they will not clear theirs. The result is likely to be a disaster.
  18.  The proposed San Gabriel Mountains NRA overlaps with the Proposed Rim of the Valley NRA which would surround: the Santa Susanna Mountains; the San Gabriel Mountains; the Verdugo Mountains abd parts of the Santa Monica Mountains and the San Rafael Hills. Nearly the entire Angeles National Forest, part of the San Bernardino NF and adjacent connector areas to the Los Padres National Forests will be made part of the Rim of the Valley National Recreation Area and change control to the National Park Service.
  19. The Rim of the Valley National Recreation Area, which is currently in the study process, would study expanding the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area by adding a corridor encircling large portions of all the mountains surrounding the San Fernando Valley, La Crescenta Valley, Santa Clarita Valley, Simi Valley and Conejo Valley in California on the North side of Los Angeles. This does not include all the new areas proposed in the San Gabriel Mountains NRA.
  20.  The full Rim of the Valley NRA includes part of the Santa Monica Mountains, the Santa Susanna Mountains, the San Gabriel Mountains, the Verdugo Mountains, the San Rafael Hills, and adjacent connector areas to the Los Padres and San Bernardino National Forests.
  21. The Rim of the Valley study area covers 491,518 acres, that’s two-thirds the size of Yosemite. It’s nearly three and a half times the size of the existing Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area which is 153,750 acres. It will run approximately 300 miles giving it a huge scope.
  22. Will control land use within and adjacent corridors by threatening eminent domain (condemnation) of the land. That is how they prevent building and lots of other uses. ALRA saved a ski area in Maine recently that had been continually threatened with condemnation.
  23. The combined length of these Rim of the Valley corridors is likely to run as much as 300 miles long. The Santa Monica Mountains Corridor NRA is only about 40 miles long and is already costing over $1 billion between Park Service and State of California expenditures.
  24. The word Corridor is misleading. By Corridor, the NPS means the entire mountain range. The San Gabriel Mountains NRA will be combined with the huge Rim of the Valley NRA and take control over all recreation and access surrounding the entire LA-Ventura county region.
  25. The corridors will be like a series of giant nooses put around the necks of the many communities in the encircled areas.* Economic and social activities will be greatly inhibited. Access people now take for granted will be lost forever. Frankly, the Park Service has a record of being a very bad neighbor. Go to www.landrights.org  for several socio-cultural assessments and histories of Park Service abuses.
  26. There will be a massive increase in regulations controlling private and community activities with the encircled areas. The combined San Gabriel Mountains National Recreation Area and the giant Rim of the Valley National Recreation Area will interdict transportation corridors, which will mean new bridges and passageways for wildlife corridors throughout the region.
  27.  The NPS will use the wildlife as an excuse for substantial new regulatory controls. They’ll build bridges for the wildlife over the freeways but you’ll be locked out. For example over 90% of Yosemite is now closed off to most of the public. The National Park Service is closing campgrounds and parking lots and soon you will have to take a bus just to get into the park. It will be hard or impossible to get communication towers and other utilities installed in these corridors.
  28. Movie and TV companies who use these areas for films will be prevented from doing their normal work. The Park Service likes naturalness. They don’t really like people. They just want enough to justify their budget.
  29.  Creation of the Rim of the Valley National Recreation Area including the San Gabriel Mountains NRA could require tougher Class I air standards that would have a negative impact on private industry throughout the San Fernando Valley and all the other Valley’s in the area. The economic costs to the local economy will be huge. If you like the notion of viewsheds and soundsheds, you’ll love the Rim of the Valley Corridor bill.
  30. Even though there is very little water, what exists is valuable. The Rim of the Valley will give the National Park Service a large measure of control over all the high ground around all the valleys which are encircled by the Rim of the Valley and San Gabriel Mountains NRAs. Historically that means the agency uses that power to interdict the goals of local communities and business.
  31. The Park Service also seeks to keep communities from allowing landowners to use their land by threatening the cities and towns with the loss of federal funds of all kinds.
  32. The proposed San Gabriel Mountains NRA says it will only buy from Willing Sellers. That is a con job. Bait and switch. They get you to relax now and then take the Willing Seller provision out of the bill at the last minute. Unless the legislation by Congress says willing seller only, promises by the Park Service mean nothing. Even the legislation can, and is likely to be changed later giving the Park Service free reign with eminent domain.


You can go to the Rim of the Valley website and the San Gabriel Watershed website and sign up for announcements of the progress of the two studies. It is critical that you sign up because there will be important meetings and events that you will learn about by being on the Park Service email and snail mail mailing list. Make sure you sign up.

Rim of the Valley: http://www.nps.gov/pwro/rimofthevalley
San Gabriel River Study: http://www.nps.gov/pwro/sangabriel
Be sure to sign up for Park Service releases at both websites.

Please forward this link ACTION ALERT: San Gabriel Mountains study public comment period extended as widely as possible. The more allies ALRA has the more we are able to help you protect your property rights and your community. It is important for other groups, individuals and communities to know where to go to get help when threatened by the new Obama Administration federal land use control programs.

If you are not already a member, we hope you decide to join and help ALRA help other groups compete in the political process.

You can join easily by going to www.landrights.org or just mailing a check for $25 (New Members) or $35 for regular
membership to PO Box 400, Battle Ground, WA 98604.

You can go online and just make a small contribution. Even $5 or $10 helps the cause. Your support will make a big difference. Many members send extra contributions to help American Land Rights be even more successful. These extra contributions are often the difference in how much success we achieve.

Social Networking update:

  • The American Land Rights Association has a page on Facebook. Please be sure to hit the Like button.
  • Also Executive Director Chuck Cushman is on Facebook.com.
  • You can also find American Land Rights Association and Chuck Cushman on LinkedIn.com. We are especially active on LinkedIn.com so send an invitation to connect and join up.
  • American Land Rights is on Twitter as AmLandrights.
  • Chuck Cushman is also on Twitter under ccushman98604

 or by mail:

Chuck Cushman is the Executive Director of American Land Rights Association. He can be reached at (360) 687-3087 or ccushman@pacifier.com

American Land Rights Association
Attn: Chuck Cushman, Executive Director
 P.O Box 400
 Battle Ground, WA 98604

 

 

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