Mountain View News Saturday, July 25, 20265 


CHRISTOPHER NYERGES 

[Nyerges is the author of “Urban Survival Guide,” “ExtremeSimplicity,” and other books. Information about his books and 
classes is available at www.SchoolofSelf-Reliance.com] 

SAN PASCUAL PARK AND THE ARROYO 
SECO WATER REUSE PROJECT 

D 


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Back in the late 1960s, when I was still living 
with my parents, I got interested in how the 
original inhabitants of the Pasadena area lived 
and survived. Among my many mentors who 
taught me about the plant life and animal life 
was a teacher from the Pasadena Continuation 
high school, who told me where to go find 
crawfish. I bicycled down the Arroyo Seco, 
near the South Pasadena and Highland Park 
border to the intersection of San Pascual Ave 
and Stoney Ave. To my south, across the wash, 
was the grassy San Pascual Park, and to the 
north was the baseball field. A little sliver of 
land lay between the ball field, and the cement 
ditch of the Arroyo Seco to the south. 

The little sliver of land was beautiful, a little 
wild area where some water from the Arroyo 
Seco flowed through. You could almost get lost 
in there, and feel that you were a million miles 
away from the city. The area was shaded by tall 
oaks, sycamores, willows, mulefat, toyon, and 
many other trees. I carefully walked along the 
sortof trail, and in the slow -moving waters,
I found the little red crawfish. It was very 
exciting. And yes, I picked out a dozen or so 
and took them home to eat. My father laughed 
at me, telling me that the crawfish were barely 
an hors’deuvre. 

A few years later, now married and living inHighland Park, I took Phillipine inventor and 
engineer, Godofred Monsod to this little sliver 
of land where he could collect samples of the 
water hyacinth plant. Monsod developed 
several important uses for the prolific water 
hyacinth plant, such as vitamin pills, animal 
feed, paper, and particle board. Monsod 
actually obtained a permit from the City of 
South Pasadena to collect water hyacinth in the 
water at the southern end of this sliver of land. 

Over time, I have probably taken 20 field trips 
to that little sliver of land to study wild plants. 

These days, we don’t find crawfish in this 
little wild area, and the water hyacinth has all 
washed away. 

Still, it’s a unique parcel of land, demonstrating 
what the natural watershed would look like if 
it wasn’t all cemented, as with the majority of 
the Arroyo Seco from Pasadena all the way to 
the beach. 

UPDATE 

Some 8 years ago, the City of Pasadena came 
up with the idea to use this sliver of land for a 
stream restoration project. Tim Brick, who was 
then the head of the Arroyo Seco Foundation, 
and former head of MWD, supported the 
project. “They wanted to create a more efficient 
reservoir for water for the golf course and the 
nearby parkland,” says Brick, “but along the 
way, they changed the project from a real 
stream restoration project to a water treatment 
facility,” he explains. 

Numerous environmental groups have spoken 
up about the project, preferring to leave the site 
alone. These include the Sierra Club, Stewards 
of the Arroyo Seco, and environmentalists 
such as Clara Solis, Tim Brick, Jane Tsong, and 
Rachel Wing. 

There appear to be no grassroots organizations 
rooting for this project. The one group that 
has been promoting the project, Active SGV,
is under contract, and paid for, by the City of 
Pasadena. 

The project’s EIR is called The Arroyo Seco 
Water Reuse Project, which is 1440 pages thick, 
with 933 pages of appendices. The full project 
is 3.6 acres on two sites. The San Rafael site is 

1.4 acres, and the San Pascual site is 2.2 acres. 
Those 2.2 acres contain 1.7 acres in South 
Pasadena, and 0.5 acres in Los Angeles. 
Page 4-36 of the EIR says the following for the 
goals of the project. 
To improve water quality.

 Rehabilitate San Rafael Creek by providing 
a natural creek bed for low flow events.

 Enhance the existing site by installing 
nature-based natural treatment wetlands. 

Brick is alarmed by the use of the words 
“rehabilitate” and “enhance.” He explains that 
to do this “rehabilitation” project, all the 136 
or so trees would be cut down, and soil gouged 
out. A plastic liner would be placed there, and 
catchment basins would be created. If you want 
to know what a “catchment basin” looks like, go 
into the Arroyo Seco just east of Jet Propulsion 

Laboratory, and you will see a series of these 
basins. 

New trees would then be planted and eventually 
according to proponents, the site will capture 
more water and grow up and look natural. 

“It’s the same old story,” said Brick. “They want 
to destroy the natural ecosystem in order to save 
it, just like they did in the Big Dig” (referring to 
the area just north of the Woodbury bridge and 
Dam. 

Some water from this site currently provides the 
golf course to the south with water. That would 
not change after this project is completed, 
though the water would be “purified.” 

Opponents to the project are against the 
existing habitat for birds, bats, and other 
wildlife being destroyed. Plus, the site already 
acts as a sink for the water table, and will not 
continue to do that with a plastic liner 

According to Brick, “They do not appreciate 
the nature that is there. It’s a nice little area 
with a little habitat. Yes there is some junk in 
there too. But why not simply remove the few 
invasive trees like the castors and the tree of 
heavens, and just clean it up?” 

Brick believes that the neighbors have been 
heroic who want to preserve the area “This 
little area – and there is so little like that spot --
protects them from the freeway. Planners have 
not respected the nature that is already there. 
They want to bulldoze the area and replace it 
with an artificial system. Even the neighbors 
there have been disrespected, neighbors like 
Robert Acosta.” (Acosta is part of the Save San 
Pascual Park group.) 

Brick points out that another problem is that 
the three cities that meet at this little sliver 
of land are not all working together. Though 
Pasadena put the plan together with South 
Pasadena, they did not work with Los Angeles. 

L.A. Councilwoman for the 14th district,
Ysabel Jurado is against the project. 
Also, according to the City Charter, you can’t 
take parkland and turn into uses that are not 
park, which in this case would be an industrial 
clean up building just southeast of the ball field. 

“This is not well planned,” says Tim Brick. “As 
soon as it became something other than a 
natural stream restoration, I was against it. I 
want it kept natural.” 

Roy Payan of the Kizh Nation has been talking 
to residents about this project at the TuesdayHighland Park Farmers Market, at the booth 
for the Save San Pascual Park booth. He shared 
the Native perspective about Native sites up 
and down the Arroyo, including burial sites. 
The most widely known site is the Shelton 
Reservoir, further to the north. 

In 2002, according to neighbor Steve Couch, 
there was a trenching project in San Pascual 
Park (just to the south). Human remains were 
found near the basketball courts, which had 
been unknowingly built in the ‘90s over the 
burial site. Native people were called and an 
archaeologist was called. The project was put 
on hold. It was a woman’s body that was found,
face-down, about 18 inches deep. Then there 
was a reburial ceremony further west between 
the playground and the street, attended byChief Salas and other native people, and 
politicians. Couch was there for part of the 
ceremony. 

Then, Couch noticed that in 2018, the City of 

S. Pasadena was about to create an exercise 
area right on top of the re-burial site. “I went to 
the city hall and told them, and they said theyhad no record of it,” exclaims Couch. But after 
about two weeks, the record of the re-burial 
was found and the project was not done. 
Because of this, Chief Andrew Salas says that 
the entire area – including the proposed project 
area – should be regarded as sensitive and left 
unmolested. 

If you want to read the EIR for this project, 
and leave comments, go to Protecting San 
Pascual Park: Draft EIR is out. Help us protect 
an irreplaceable environmental treasure |
Sierra Club or google “Save San Pascual Park.” 
Comments are requested by August 1. 

For a great summary of this project, read 
environmentalist Jane Tsong’s analysis of 
the project at L.A. Creek Freak: https://
lacreekfreak.wordpress.com 


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