Mountain Views News          Saturday, June 25, 2011

PACK STATION (from pg. 1)

I had so many questions about 
the pack station’s current status 
and future outlook and her 
answers were very encouraging;

Q: “So Deb, being a corporate 
business consultant, how and 
when did you get involved in such 
an unusual project as owning and 
operating Adams‘ Pack Station?”

A: “My mother, Sue Burgess and I 
owned a cabin in Big Santa Anita 
Canyon, and we depended on the 
pack station to haul our supplies. 
When it became clear that the 
previous owner was struggling to 
maintain the facility, we decided 
to do whatever we could to 
keep it going. My mother, Rich 
Conforti and I went in together 
and purchased the pack station on 
April fools‘ day of 2006, and went 
right to work on it.”

Q: “You have done a remarkable 
job of fixing the place up and I see 
you’ve added lots of animals. How 
many animals do you currently 
have for hauling, and what kind 
are they?”

A: “We have 1 mule and 9 donkeys. 
The mule and 8 of the donkeys are 
pack able and the other donkey is 
only a year old, so she is too young 
to pack, but she goes along with 
the string to learn.”

Q: “Where do get your mules and 
donkeys?”

A: “Most of them are adopted from 
the Bureau of Land Management. 
They capture them from the wild.”

Q: How often do you pack supplies, 
and who are your most frequent 
clients?

A: “We pack every Friday, through 
the main canyon and up to Spruce 
Grove where there are cabins, and 
continue on, ending at Sturtevant 
Camp. Sturtevant Camp used to 
be our most frequent destination 
when it was more active. Saturdays 
are reserved for packing to Winter 
Creek and First Water, but we have 
few requests for packing to those 
areas.”

Q: “You also have goats and 
chickens at the pack station. Do 
they serve a practical purpose or 
are they just for pleasure?”

A: “The goats were donated and 
we thought we could use them for 
packing to remote areas for fire 
clearance, but as it turns out, they 
are the wrong kind of goat. They 
are too small with large rumens, so 
they are just for us and our guests 
to enjoy. The chickens were also 
donated. They lay a few eggs, and 
bring plenty of pleasure to our 
visitors. The children love the goats 
and chickens, so it makes visiting 
us a lot more fun for them.”

Q: “What type of materials do you 
typically pack?”

A: “The most common item we 
pack is propane, but we have 
hauled all kinds of other goods 
as well such as food, beverages, 
lumber, chairs, beds, refrigerators, 
mattresses, cement and lots of 
trash coming out.”

Q: “When is your store open, and 
what type of supplies and goodies 
do you sell?”

A: “We are open Friday through 
Sunday 8:00 to 5:00 and we sell a 
wide variety of cold beverages, beer, 
candy and chips. On Saturdays and 
Sundays we also serve hamburgers, 
veggie burgers, hot dogs, hot links, 
fries and coffee and on the third 
weekend of the month, we serve 
dutch-oven cooked pulled pork 
sandwiches and veggie sausage 
sandwiches. We also sell National 
Forest Adventure Passes, walking 
sticks, books, maps and t-shirts.

Q: ”And I understand you also 
have live music at the pack station 
periodically. Tell me a little about 
that.”

A: ”Yes, on the 3rd Sunday of each 
month we have a concert followed 
by open mic. We have had some 
excellent talent here. There is no 
admission fee, and we draw quite 
a crowd hikers, cabin dwellers 
picnickers and campers. All are 
welcome, young and old!

Q: “You mentioned that this is not 
a money making venture. It must 
take a lot of work & money to keep 
this place in such great condition. 
The animals are healthy, the barn, 
house and outbuildings are clean 
and well maintained. How do you 
do it? 

A: “It is a team effort. Rich and my 
son Jason and I spend a lot of time 
here and we have volunteers who 
help with the animals, packing and 
maintaining the property. We have 
had the support of many friends 
along the way, but we always need 
more help.”

Q: “What can interested 
individuals do to help ensure the 
livelihood of the pack station?”

A: “We could use more help with 
corral and barn maintenance. We 
also need to do fire clearance. 
Donations are always welcome 
to our non-profit, Friends of 
the San Gabriels. We use thesefunds to help with trail work, and 
support bringing disadvantaged 
kids into the canyon.

As I was leaving the pack station, 
the sun was going down and the 
hawks were soaring above when I 
heard another beautiful brassy bray 
fill the air, and I thought how lucky 
we are to have this hidden treasure 
of Sierra Madre right here on our 
back door step, and I hope we can 
keep it there forever.

PEOPLE (cont. from pg. 3)

 It does not take much to figure out 
who that arsonist is and to see why it 
is that they have not been stopped....
as the old wisdom goes, “follow the 
money”. If you do, you will easily see 
that it is the corporations of this world 
that are responsible for the majority 
of the problem, from selling us all our 
consumptive lifestyle and keeping us 
distracted in our pursuit of it, to their 
total disregard for anything but the 
bottom line, to their grossly reckless 
abuse of the environment, to their total 
control over our representatives we 
have entrusted protect our best interests 
and have empowered to do what is 
best for the people of this country. 
Our power as citizens has dwindled 
to the point where we have little input 
into our government, a government 
that was designed at its inception as a 
government “of the people, by the people, 
and for the people”. 

 What is it that has taken our power 
away? The fact that over the last 
century and a half, our government has 
redefined what constitutes a person. It 
has given corporations the same rights 
as people. 

They then redefined speech, so that 
now money equals speech. So who now 
has the loudest voice?...those with the 
most money....and who has the most 
money and the power to keep it that 
way?... the corporations of this country. 
How do we change that? We must 
stand up on a grassroots level and take 
personhood and our government away 
from corporations and put it back in the 
hands of “we the people”. Throughout 
our nation there are hundreds of 
communities that have revised their 
local charters or passed ordinances 
that state that within their boundaries, 
corporations ARE NOT PEOPLE. Many 
of these communities have gone a step 
further and recognized the rights of the 
natural environment, guaranteeing it 
the right to exist and to be unharmed. 
A group of over 100 townships in 
Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and 
Maine have joined together to form an 
alliance of townships that have taken 
personhood away from corporations 
and have granted nature the right to 
exist unharmed and have taken back 
the power to govern themselves. So 
too have entire countries changed their 
constitutions to redirect their priorities. 
Both Bolivia and Ecuador have 
rewritten their constitutions to give 
nature the right to exist and flourish. A 
true democracy such as our founding 
fathers intended and prescribed in 
our constitution, was to be run by us 
and it is time for us to take our power 
back before we are stripped of our 
personhood .

 Sierra Madre has always been a free 
thinking and independent minded 
town. Our community has always had 
a voice and our people have been a 
strong and guiding force. It is time for 
us to step forward and help to lead the 
rest of the nation’s cities to being as 
empowered as we have had the fortune 
to be in this town. Let us amend our 
charter or pass an ordinance to take 
personhood away from corporations 
within our boundaries and to preserve 
and support our natural environment 
and our citizen’s personhood that we so 
dearly value in Sierra Madre. If anyone 
is interested in pursuing this with me, 
please feel free to get in touch. 

 To see what others have done, check 
out the following websites.

http://www.sustainlv.org/index.
cfm?organization_id=11&section_
id=2147&page_id=9030 (PA)

http://yestolocalrights.org/?page_
id=101 (Shasta, CA)

4

AROUND SAN GABRIEL VALLEY

Mountain Views News Saturday, June 25, 2011

By Lori Abbott

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Please, leave 
the trees: that's what conservation 
groups who've filed a lawsuit against the 
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are saying 
about a policy that requires all trees 
and shrubs be removed from California 
levees. The federal policy aims to improve 
flood safety by removing vegetation 
that the Corps maintains weakens 
the levees. 

However, Kelly Cattlett, California representative 
for Defenders of Wildlife, 
says there's clear evidence that the levee 
trees, which represent the last 5 percent 
of riparian habitat in California, are vital 
to endangered wildlife. 

"It provides habitat for species; it stops 
erosion, so it actually strengthens the 
levees with the roots of the vegetation; 
and the overhang provides shade, 
which cools the water, which is good for 
aquatic species."

The policy was put in place after Hurricane 
Katrina devastated the Gulf of 
Mexico coast. 

Cattlett says California's needs are different, 
and contends a "one-size-fits-all" 
policy doesn't work.

"It's clear that this is a very ill-thought-
out policy change. And when they did 
it, it seemed to be a knee-jerk reaction 
to what occurred in Louisiana during 
Hurricane Katrina."

There are other critics of the federal 
policy. The California Department of 
Water Resources has said removing the 
levee trees will cost billions of dollars 
that would be better spent on projects 
to make levees stronger. Cattlett agrees. 

"In order to comply with the policy, levee 
owners are going to have to divert 
limited funds that they have already allocated 
to do things like strengthen their 
levees and prevent under-seepage."

The Corps maintains that trees can blow 
down during storms and take parts of 
the levee with them, and that the roots 
may provide a path for water to seep 
through the levees. 

The lawsuit filed on Monday alleges 
the federal policy is illegal because the 
Corps hasn't prepared an environmental 
impact study or consulted with federal 
wildlife agencies. 

More information is at www.defenders.
org

LAWSUIT CHALLENGES FEDERAL POLICY TO 
REMOVE TREES FROM CALIFORNIA LEVEES

NUCLEAR 
NEIGHBORS: 
POPULATION 
SOARS NEAR 
US REACTORS

Map of census data shows a 
17 percent increase in residents 
within 10 miles in a 
decade

http://www.msnbc.msn.
com/id/42555888/ns/
us_news-life/

Who's afraid of nuclear 
power? Not the American 
people, judging by where 
they choose to live.

A new map of data from 
the 2010 U.S. Census shows 
that the number of people 
living within the 10-mile 
emergency planning zones 
around nuclear power plants 
rose by 17 percent in the 
past decade, compared with 
an overall increase of less 
than 10 percent in the U.S. 
population.

If the circles on the map are 
widened to a 50-mile radius 
(the same evacuation area 
that U.S. nuclear officials 
recommended for Americans 
living near Japan's 
troubled Fukushima Dai-
ichi reactors), they would 
cover one in three people in 
the U.S. That's 116 million 
nuclear neighbors, up from 
109 million a decade earlier, 
according to the analysis 
conducted for msnbc.com 
by Longcreative, a data analysis 
and design company.

The population within 10 
miles of Pennsylvania's 
Three Mile Island reactor 
grew 11 percent. At Pilgrim, 
outside of Boston, the increase 
was 41 percent. Near 
San Onofre on the California 
fault lines, 50 percent.

Among the 100 most populous 
cities on the new census 
map, 26 have a nuclear plant 
within 50 miles: New York, 
Chicago, Philadelphia (3 different 
plants nearby), Phoenix, 
San Diego, Fort Worth, 
Charlotte (2 plants), Detroit, 
Baltimore, Boston (2 plants), 
Washington, Virginia Beach 
and Norfolk, Omaha, Raleigh 
and Durham, Miami, 
Cleveland, Minneapolis and 
St. Paul (2 plants), New Orleans, 
Pittsburgh, Toledo 
(2 plants), Newark, Baton 
Rouge, and Rochester, N.Y.