County to Hold May 26 Meeting on Proposed Truck Route for Dam Clean-out

The County Department of Public Works is holding a meeting on May 26 at to get public inputs on a dam clean-out plan that could put public works trucks on the streets of Altadena and La Cañada Flintridge as early as June 17.

The plan is to haul 25,000 cubic yards of dirt out of theHahamongna Watershed Park and would involve a steady stream of trucks running up and down city streets for at least two months this summer.

Currently, the department has three proposed routes, two through Altadena.  One would involve trucks traveling up through a JPL parking lot, then onto the streets starting at the intersection of Windsor and Ventura.  The trucks would then travel up and down Windsor to the 210 Freeway.

The second in Altadena involves heading through even narrower residential streets on La Canada Verdugo Road and Oak Grove Drive over to Windsor.

On the La Cañada Flintridge side, the third route would go on to Oak Grove Boulevard to Berkshire Avenue and the freeway, passing right by La Cañada High School.

While those are the current proposed routes, the department is open to other proposals, according to Bob Spencer a spokesman for the department.  He said that there is no ideal route.

"They've each got their benefits and their own downsides," Spencer said.

Ultimately, the trucks may not only use just one route either, according to Edel Vizcarra, the planning deputy for Supervisor Michael Antonovich, Altadena's representative in the county.  He said a combination of the routes might be the best way to avoid the downsides of each one.

"On La Canada you've got the Methodist Church and the high school, so you've got concerns over noise and traffic at certain times," Vizcarra said.  "In Altadena you have the issues that you're putting them on more residential streets that are narrow."

One possible plan would be for the trucks to run through La Cañada Flintridge when the church and schools are not in session, and through Altadena when they are, he said.

The project is just a warm up for a much larger plan that could result in truck traffic on the same streets for years.   In the long term, department officials have said they will need to remove more than 1 million cubic yards of dirt from the dam over several years. 

The full plan, which involves removing dozens of acres of mature black willow trees, will require a full environmental impact report (EIR), a step county officials had originally hoped to bypass.  The County Board of Supervisors after local wildlife and open space advocates objected to the plan.

The 25,000 cubic yards that will be removed this summer is pressed right up against the dam, will not involve any removal of trees or other vegetation, so county officials are comfortable carrying out the work without an EIR.

In Altadena, Town Council member Tecumseh Shackleford said at a Tuesday meeting that he has been passing out flyers informing people in the affected neighborhoods of the May 26 meeting, so a large turnout is likely.

The meeting starts at 6 p.m. at