RECREATION STUDY SOUGHT RIVERS PARK IDEA GAINS SUPPORT.

Byline: Bill Hillburg Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of the Interior on Thursday gave a qualified endorsement to a bill that would create the nation's largest urban recreation area along the watersheds of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers.

The measure, sponsored by Rep. Hilda Solis, D-El Monte, and backed by a bipartisan group of Southern California House members, would encompass the lower Los Angeles River and its tributaries, from its confluence with Arroyo Seco near downtown Los Angeles to Long Beach Harbor, and the San Gabriel River from its source in the San Gabriel Mountains to Long Beach.

Solis' bill specifically requests $500,000 for a National Park Service study to determine the feasibility of creating a new national park in the watersheds.

``Open green space is a precious commodity in our region,'' Solis said at a hearing of the House Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands. She noted that her largely Latino and Asian constituents live in a densely populated urban setting that has been fouled by major Superfund toxic-cleanup sites and features less than a half-acre of open recreation land per 1,000 residents.

Researchers in the University of Southern California's Sustainable Cities Program have estimated that a healthy community needs at least three acres of open space per 1,000 residents.

Katherine Stevenson, associate director of the National Park Service, testified that the agency backed the proposal and its goals, but cautioned that President George W. Bush's 2002-03 budget allows for no new parks and is focused instead on clearing up a huge maintenance backlog at sites the nation already owns.

``I hear that every time the Park Service comes before our subcommittee,'' said Solis, who expressed confidence that her proposal would be backed by Congress and the White House. ``President Bush has called for more urban parks and recreation opportunities for people of color,'' she added. ``This park would help him fulfill that commitment.''

Solis said there is ample precedent for developing national parks along urban waterways. The federal park system already includes the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area in Atlanta and the Mississippi River National Recreation Area in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn.

``Our area has long been neglected in terms of natural resources, and the pressure to develop remaining open land grows every day,'' said Monrovia Mayor Lara Larramendi Blakely, who also serves as president of the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments. ``Our hillsides in particular have become the last frontier.''

Both Solis and Blakely, who testified before the subcommittee, emphasized that the park would be developed in cooperation with local cities and private landowners and that eminent domain would not be used to acquire additional property.

The federal park plan would build upon efforts by the state, which in 2000 formed a San Gabriel Valley Rivers and Mountains Conservancy Board. A similar effort to develop riverside recreation was approved in 1999 by Los Angeles County supervisors.

The proposed park would incorporate facilities already established, including the Santa Fe Dam and Whittier Narrows recreation areas and Long Beach's El Dorado Regional Park. New nature preserves and recreation areas would also be developed.

The rivers' extensive systems of flood-control channels, settling basins and dams would remain in place.