Politics & Government

Hahamongna Dam Cleanout Could Put Trucks on Altadena Streets Starting in July

The interim plan to clean out the Devil's Gate Dam in the Hahamongna Watershed Park could send a constant stream of trucks out through a JPL parking lot on the border of Altadena and Pasadena.

A plan to haul 25,000 cubic yards of dirt out of the east side of the Hahamongna Watershed Park could involve a steady stream of trucks running up and down Windsor Avenue for months, starting as soon as July.

The 25,000 cubic yards of earth, left behind from floods on dirt hills burned bare by the Station Fire, would amount to about 2,500 truckloads of dirt, according to Chris Stone, a DPW assistant deputy director, who gave a presentation on the project to the Altadena Town Council on Tuesday night. The project will take three to four months to complete. 

The project is part of a larger plan to remove more than 1 million cubic yards of dirt from the area 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.

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The 25,000 cubic yards, which 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.

That small amount of work would be just a warm-up for the main event: that would involve about three years of removal work, with trucks going in and out of the park throughout the day for nine months out of the year.

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Mary Barrie, a local wildlife advocate and member of the Friends of Hahamongna group, which advocated for the department to do the full EIR, said she has no objection to the work being done since no vegetation would be removed.  She said her main concern for the interim work is the number of trucks that will have to be put on the road.

For that part of the plan, the trucks could ultimately drive up out of the wash area either up through the east side access, or through the west to La Canada Flintridge, or to both, according to Kerjon Lee, a DPW spokesman.

The east route would involve the trucks driving through a JPL parking lot and out onto the intersection of Windsor Avenue and Ventura Street, then heading south to the 210 freeway.

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

Several members of the Town Council expressed concerns about the project, with Tecumseh Shackelford, a West Altadena representative, saying that people in his district will likely have a problem with the trucks' presence.

Lee said that the department is looking to find the least intrusive way possible to haul the dirt out.

"We're working with the city of Pasadena and the Altadena Town Council and everyone else concerned to mitigate those options as much as possible," Lee said.

Starting the work as soon as possible is critical, Stone said, as the dam could be at real risk of being overrun by sediment in the coming winter storms if no removal is done.  


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