The Most Amazing Park Expansion You’ve Never Heard About

Rim of the Valley Photo by Steven Gute
The Most Amazing Park Expansion You’ve Never Heard About Adam Schiff, Donald Trump and the Existential Urgency of the Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act
By
December 1, 2020

Renowned for its concrete expanses, smoke-choked suburban sprawl and traffic-clogged freeways, Los Angeles isn’t widely recognized for its biodiversity. Yet, just beyond the subdivisions and sprawl of greater Los Angeles rise the steep slopes of an intricate network of mountain ranges that surround the entire basin. The varying ranges are connected, geographically at least, to the coast by the Santa Monica Mountains. The Santa Monica Mountains run from Griffith Park in Hollywood west through the Malibu coast and on up into Ventura County. The mountains provide critical habitat for endangered red-legged frogs, deer, the rare Western pond turtle, bobcats, coyotes and more than a thousands plant species, including a variety of oak and sage woodlands.

Oh, and mountain lions. Los Angeles is one of only two megacities in the world that host the notoriously shy big-cats within city limits. The other is Mumbai, India.

The biodiversity makes sense when you consider that Los Angeles has the greatest elevation gain of any county in the U.S., rising from sea level to 10,064 feet at the top of Mount San Antonio—Mt. Baldy to locals—in the San Gabriel Mountains that form the north and east boundaries of the Los Angeles basin. Within the county’s confines are beaches, wetlands, woods and grasslands. So, it’s not surprising that mountain lions live in the area. The most famous of them is P-22, the beloved and resilient lion that lives in Griffith Park, prowling around the Hollywood Sign at night, hiding from thousands of less-famous human neighbors who live in the Hollywood Hills by day.

Mountain lions thrive in wide open spaces, and P-22’s territory is tiny by typical standards, cut off from his natal habitat in the Santa Monica Mountains and isolated from other lion populations by multiple-lane freeways that also cut off the several ranges surrounding the city—the Santa Monicas, Simi Hills, Santa Susannas, Verdugos and San Gabriels (clockwise from the coast)—from each other.

This sort of isolation is of increasing concern for the health of the Santa Monica Mountains’ lion population. About 80 individuals roam the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, but the lions’ gene pool is suffering from inbreeding and insufficient genetic diversity. The biological imperative to improve the gene pool is what sent P-22 from his birthplace in the western end of the range, across the 101 Freeway and up into the densely urban Hollywood Hills.

Though he ended up looking for love in all the wrong places and, barring a miracle, is at a genetic dead end, his gambit is understandable. The right place is getting increasingly hard for these mountain lions to find as urban development continues to isolate the region’s clans from each other.

Rim of the Valley Unit Map

According to a recent Los Angeles Times report, biologists with the Santa Monica National Recreation Area are starting to see a growing number of physical deformities among local lions related to inbreeding. This is a sign that time is running out to increase the genetic diversity among these populations. There is hope, though, in the form of a bold proposal to expand the Santa Monica Mountains Recreational Area. Known as the Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act, the expansion wouldn’t just preserve a greenbelt around the city for humans to enjoy, it could be the key to preserving the area’s rich biodiversity, including mountain lions’.

***

Many in Los Angeles are unaware that they live on the edge of a vast national park. Added to the National Park Service in 1978, the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area encompasses a multitude of land-owners, jurisdictions, bio-regions, landscapes and 500 miles of trails. Connected to the park is a mosaic of open spaces managed by local, state and federal entities that the park also helps manage and protect.

It’s a vast green jewel in an intensely urban environment where picnics are popular and hiking and trail running are becoming increasingly mainstream. Now a long-brewing plan to nearly double the size of the nation’s largest urban national parkland (and the Los Angeles area’s only national park) is one step closer to fruition.

Congressman Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), who has been working on the expansion for nearly two decades, introduced the Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act in 2017 and it was passed by the Democrat-held House of Congress in February 2020. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris brought companion legislation to the Senate where it recently made it out of committee on a bipartisan vote. The House has added its version as an amendment, or rider, to a pending defense spending authorization bill. Though significantly closer to becoming a reality, the expansion for now remains in something of a legislative limbo.

If it comes to pass, the act would double the amount of federally protected land in the Los Angeles-area mountains, adding an additional 300 square miles (191,000 acres) to 234 square-mile recreation area. It would buffer much of the city with protected green space. To get an idea of how simultaneously vast and urban the expanded park would be, consider that nearly half of California’s population could reach it with a two-hour drive if and when the expansion passes.

The National Wildlife Federation - Credit Living Habitats LLC/National Wildlife

It’s not just pristine backcountry that will be protected, though there’s enough of that for the National Parks Conservation Association to call it one of the most biodiverse spots in the world. But local parks and well-trafficked public spaces, too, will be covered, including much of the Los Angeles River, which is undergoing its own ambitious retro-greening project, Spanish Missions, the Autry Museum of the American West, Griffith Park, home of the iconic Hollywood Sign, and El Pueblo De Los Angeles, the original settlement in downtown Los Angeles. “It is our best shot of protecting the existing ecosystem,” says Dennis Arguelles, Los Angeles program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association.

Arguelles, a former Cub Scout who grew up in the area, epitomizes the environmentalist motto that to enjoy is to protect it. Getting out into the areas protected by the park is how his large Filipino-American family spent their weekends. “My connection to nature started as a child at the ocean, the lakes and streams. I fished in the streams with my family,” says Arguelles, who now lives at the base of the Verdugo Mountains in Glendale and has long advocated for the Rim of the Valley expansion. “Getting people outdoors is how you get them to love and protect it.”

If his years of advocacy pay off, the mountains behind his home will become part of the national park and key link in a wildlife corridor that is critical to one of the area’s most charismatic and imperiled predators—the mountain lion.

***

In the fall of 2013, three mountain lion kittens were born in the Santa Monica Mountains. A male known as P-32 and two females, P-33 and P-34. The “P” stands for puma—what we call mountain lions. The numbers correlate to the order in which the National Park Service finds and fits the cats with radio-transmitting collars. Rangers discovered the kittens at three weeks old and as pictures circulated on social media, they became furry, environmental celebrities. They may have been briefly famous, but the litter was born into a stressed habitat and struggling population with a range bounded by the ocean on one side, freeways on the other and encroaching human activity everywhere else.

The average mountain lion requires more than 100-square miles of territory. This area was already filled with too many blood relatives competing for food and looking for mates. The lions living in the Santa Monica Mountains have the tightest quarters and the least genetic diversity of any population on the West Coast. Think of P-22, the famous Hollywood Sign mountain lion, making due with eight square miles of territory, boxed in by freeways in every direction.

Not surprisingly, this litter was inbred. Their father was also their grandfather. Inbreeding like this can cause birth defects and lead to sterility among individuals and, if the gene pool isn’t increased, an entire population. Following the drive to increase genetic diversity, the female in the litter, P-33, made history when she became the first collared female mountain lion to cross the 101 Freeway’s six lanes of traffic in March 2015. She entered Simi Valley, in the northeastern part of Ventura County, and eventually made her way to the Los Padres National Forest. There, she could find a genetically distinct population of mountain lions, spurring hopes among park biologists that she would find a suitable mate.

“It is our best shot of protecting the existing ecosystem.”

In some ways, males have it even harder when looking for mates. Along with highways, they must contend with each other. When P-32 outgrew his den, he became competition for the breeding males in the area. Attempting to get out of Dodge, P-32 followed his sister’s path to the new territory, crossing the 101 Freeway in April 2015. He was the third collared mountain lion to traverse the freeway. He made it through the residential areas of Thousand Oaks and then crossed the 23 Freeway into the patchwork of open spaces connecting the city of Simi Valley and the San Fernando Valley.

The lion then headed east towards the Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park in Valencia, a dry, hilly exurb of Los Angeles before crossing the 126 Freeway into Fillmore. There, he headed uphill and roamed around Lake Piru before finally making it to the Los Padres National Forest, having crossed four major freeways to get there.

His luck ran out on August 10, 2015, when he was hit by a car while running across the I-5 Freeway near Castaic in northeastern Los Angeles County. A month later, a jogger found his brother dead on a trail in Point Mugu State Park not far from where the three-kitten litter was born. A necropsy revealed he died from rat poison. P-33 may have made it into the wilder spaces of the Angeles National Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains, but her two brothers had a more common fate for lions born in the Santa Monica Mountains—a short, genetically unproductive life.

The stories of Los Angeles mountain lions’ life-and-death struggles often take on a life of their own on social media. As Congressman Schiff posted on his Facebook page: “Our mountain lion neighbors are one of Los Angeles’ greatest natural treasures. They capture our hearts, and their journeys around our open spaces captivate us.”

Similarly, Schiff’s Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act, is both a tangible asset and a symbolic stick in the eye of the least environmentally friendly president in generations, one with whom Schiff has been engaged in a near operatic battle since Trump took office. Of more importance to the mountain lions, are the wildlife corridors the expansion would offer, easing the way for distinct populations to range through the Santa Monica Mountains, Santa Susanas, Simi Hills, Verdugos Mountains and on into the San Gabriels where opportunities to improve their gene pools beckon.

“This connectivity would ensure mountain lions have the habitat and range needed for food and procreation and would reduce inbreeding among mountain lions in the current park,” says Arguelles.

“Her two brothers had a more common fate for lions born in the Santa Monica Mountains—a short, genetically unproductive life.”

It wouldn’t just benefit mountain lions, of course. As mentioned, nearly half of Californians (and six percent of all Americans) would live within two hours of the park. Jeremy Wolf, the legislative aide for Democratic California State Senator Henry Stern, who represents parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, calls it the “lungs of Los Angeles.” And lungs are needed—the Trust for Public Land, a park advocacy group, ranks L.A. 49th out of all the major cities for parks. The expansion would bring the park closer to more people.

***

Schiff began championing the Rim of the Valley during the George W. Bush Administration, determinedly building support and momentum for the idea. In 2008, Congress passed the Rim of the Valley Corridor Study Act, which directed the National Park Service to conduct a feasibility study to determine if it would make sense to add all or some of the study area to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. The NPS submitted its findings to Congress and the public in February 2016, recommending more than doubling the size of the SMMNRA to include a lion’s share, so to speak, of the Rim of the Valley Corridor study area.

Then, Donald Trump was elected. The enmity between Schiff, a former prosecutor and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and Trump, the subject of the Robert Mueller Special Counsel Investigation and then the Schiff-run House impeachment, is well known. By default, the Rim of the Valley proposal became a kind of proxy battle in their larger war. As such, the National Park Service’s recommendation to move forward with the expansion lay fallow until Democrats took control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections.

Trump has frequently disparaged Schiff on social media, calling him a “little pencil neck” and the like, but Schiff appears to have played a better hand in this particular confrontation. After the Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act passed the House in February, Schiff tucked it into the pending National Defense Authorization Act as an amendment, which passed with significant bipartisan support in late July.

Vice-President elect, Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) included an even more ambitious land preservation amendment in the Senate version of the NDAA that includes the California Public Lands Bill. It would add sweeping public lands protections around the state, including the areas of the San Gabriel Mountains included in the Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act.

The two legislative branches will go to committee to reconcile their versions of the NDAA as early as late November before sending it to the president to sign into law. It’s unlikely that even Trump would hold up the Pentagon’s budget (with its $2.5 billion increase in spending) for one last chance to get a last dig in at his nemesis, Schiff.* [see update]

The future of the Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act may look bright now, but two years ago, much of the land was scarred black after a former nuclear site caught fire. The November 2018 Woolsey fire that began at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Simi Valley burned almost 100,0000 acres in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area across Ventura County and Los Angeles County. “I was out there right after the fire. The landscape was black,“ says the National Parks Conservation Association’s Arguelles, who walked around the charred landscape and witnessed how the fire radically transformed it.

Woolsey Fire PublicLands Map

Thirty Park Service structures burned down, including Rangers’s quarters. Trails shut for months. The fire also destroyed habitat dedicated to the rare red-legged frog, which the National Parks Service had reintroduced to the area a few years prior. National Park Service biologists were able to recover 28 surviving and move them to suitable habitat.

The park has bounced back pretty well from the massive fire and Arguelles believes the fact that much of the burn area fell under Park Service management has helped. “The park service has access to more resources post-fire,” says Arguelles. “It’s better because the park service has been involved.”

It helps that signature species such as the red-legged frog and mountain lion have conservation programs and resources behind them, but once a species gets in dire straits, it can be hard to come back from the brink. The National Park Service tracked 11 mountain lions in the area when the fire broke out.

Intrepid P-35, whom the park service nicknamed “Coastal Cat” survived the Woolsey fire by staying on the Pacific side of the 101 Freeway during the fire. She was 85 pounds and healthy when the biologists found her. On August 21, 2019 Coastal Cat left the foggier and the cooler temperatures near the ocean and crossed the 101 Freeway, moving northward into the Simi Hills. In the cover of dark, when traffic was light, she crossed the freeway at Liberty Canyon area of Agoura Hills near the border of Ventura County. Liberty Canyon is of special interest to mountain lion enthusiasts because the land is undeveloped on either side of the freeway. It’s a prime spot for a key piece of the wildlife corridor puzzle—the first wildlife crossing built near a major city.

The proposed Liberty Canyon Wildlife Crossing would be built over the busy freeway and would provide animals access to a two-county-wide network of protected areas and green corridors. In so doing, it would link the Santa Monica Mountains to the Simi Hills, both of which fall within the Rim of the Valley expansion area. When completed, the bridge would provide wildlife a pathway from the ocean to 3,000 miles of Los Padres National Forest. Isolated mountain lion populations and other animals could find genetically diverse mating partners and new food sources.

Multiple agencies, including the National Park Service, have been working towards this goal for over two decades. Caltrans approved the project with a design that approximates as much of the surrounding open space as possible. It is on track to break ground within the next two years.

While the bridge is critical to the success of the Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act in terms of wildlife conservation and species integrity, it is also really expensive. Private fundraising efforts to raise $60 million and construction costs are ongoing, though just a fraction has been raised so far. It’s not an easy sell. A wildlife crossing over a freeway defies traditional notions of conservation with its emphasis on preserving breathtaking views. The Liberty Canyon Bridge would be bookmarked by Cheesecake Factory’s corporate headquarters and an upscale doggy day care.

It’s not about our needs, though, it’s about the animals. “Wildlife in the Santa Monica Mountains is essentially trapped on an island of habitat, and a crossing structure would allow two-way migration to increase gene flow generally, and specifically increase genetic diversity for mountain lions,” Seth Riley, wildlife ecologist at the National Park Service said in a public statement.

Crossing Wildlife Species Graphic

***

Marge Feinberg must have sensed the dangers human encroachment into these areas posed for animals like the mountain lions and the red-legged frog. Before they were reintroduced, the last California red-legged frogs were spotted in the Santa Monica Mountains in 1975. The Rana aurora draytonii with the red tones on their hind legs and abdomens was once the largest native frog on the West Coast, but after 200 years of European settlement, the wetlands, drainages and dunes that supported them were drained and bulldozed to make way for flat, sandy beaches and tract homes.

It was Feinberg, who, as a young graduate student from California State University at Northridge, imagined a green belt following the mountains that encircle her city, one that would connect the coast to the national forests inland. Feinberg envisioned a city with a circle of nature that both humans and animals could enjoy. She coined it The Rim of the Valley in her 1974 master’s thesis and the name stuck. The establishment of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in 1978 realized part of that grand vision. The rest is on the table.

“Feinberg envisioned a city with a circle of nature that both humans and animals could enjoy. She coined it The Rim of the Valley in her 1974 master’s thesis and the name stuck.”

Conservation, of course, has different meanings for different people. For 28-year-old environmentalist, Araceli Hernandez, the park provides a meditative break from the fatigue and anxiety of the city. Hernandez, a program organizer with the nonprofit Nature For All, sees the Rim of the Valley expansion as part of the park equity movement. Park equity seeks to increase the public’s connection to the region’s mountains, streams and parklands by increasing public transportation access to trailheads and parklands. To that end, Hernandez created the Transit to Trails guide, a hand-drawn, ‘zine-style map of the San Fernando Valley’s bus routes to hiking trails.

Aerial view of lands

More public access to our natural bounty is not always welcome, though, especially when it’s routed through homeowners’ neighborhoods. A recent outing Hernandez organized for Latino families to take a bus to popular hiking spots adjacent to the foothill city of Altadena ran up against “Keep Altadena Beautiful.” The group of locals living near trailheads wanted to keep buses away from trailhead parking, complaining of noise and pollution. “Keep Altadena Beautiful” lobbied city council members and won its battle. Undeterred, Nature for All scored a subsequent victory working with the City of Duarte on a program that encourages Metro riders to use a shuttle to the Fish Canyon Trail in the San Gabriel Mountains where they can hike up to a beautiful waterfall.

The Rim of the Valley is important to the park equity activists like Hernandez because it would not only protect more greenspace around the greater Los Angeles area, but because it would also put more of it under National Park Service management. The NPS generally provides greater access than city parks and regional parks, which would, in theory, provide more park equity for green-starved Angelenos.

Meanwhile, as the Rim of the Valley expansion awaits its fate, Coastal Cat, the famous highway crosser, has had three kittens, one girl and two boys: P-88, P-89, and P-90. The summer denning season, the so-called “Summer of Kittens” was a big one in the Santa Monica Mountains. Thirteen kittens were born in three months. After a smoke-choked summer of fires and social unrest, the young lions have brought hope, signalling nature’s resiliency. With the Rim of the Valley expansion, more hope could be on the way.

*Update: Since we first published this story, both Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act riders, along with other land-protection measures, were stripped from the final NDAA awaiting the president’s signature. While this puts the act in legislative limbo for now, the Rim of the Valley expansion continues to proceed piecemeal as both a tangible and conceptual conservation effort.

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Natalie Cherot
Natalie Cherot
Natalie Cherot, PhD, is a Ventura, California-based writer, researcher and social scientist. She is currently writing a book about wrongful conviction.

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2 responses to “The Most Amazing Park Expansion You’ve Never Heard About”

  1. Anonymous says:

    Beautifully told and written. “Informative and immersive” is a rare combo.

  2. cbd gummies says:

    Do you have any video of that? I’d want to find out some additional information.

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Our team is working hard every day to bring you compelling, carefully-crafted pieces that shed light on the pressing issues of our time. We rely on caring supporters like you to help us sustain our mission. Your support ensures that we can continue to provide deeply-reported, independent, ad-free journalism without fear, favor or pandering. Support us today and make a lasting investment in the future.