Water Reuse Project

The San Pascual project involves the removal of an old-growth forest in South Pasadena to provide reservoirs for their golf course and soccer/baseball fields.

The justification is state compliance to reduce "dry weather" (i.e. when it hasn't rained for 48-hours) TMDL for bacteria (e.g. E. coli) and Zinc present in the trickle.

Most of the trees would be removed. Those that remain would be stressed during the construction process and probably die afterwards due to being poorly adapted for "wetland" adjacency.

City Documents

Pasadena & South Pasadena

May 24, 2022 – cityhallscoop.com/2022/05/24/arroyo-seco-water-reuse-project

May 26, 2022 – Arroyo Seco Water Reuse Project Community Meeting

So as far as the project objectives what I do want to point out is this project is not for flood plain restoration, it's not for bringing flood plains back to their natural state. As a flood plain manager I understand how important that is and the benficial uses of being able to do that but this project specifically is to deal with a mandate that we just don't have a choice about.
11:30 – Christina Monde, Project Manager, City of Pasadena

Site number 2 even if you've been to the area a million times you may not have known that this is here. It's sort of hidden, it looks overgrown. ... It looks sort of overgrown and mess but you start to see some identification of species that would suggest an emergent wetland habitat like arroyo willows and other species that have been there for a long time mixed in with a lot of non-native and invasives.
17:00 – Jenni Zell, Landscape Architect, MIG

And the San Pascual site is actually a rehab or a renovation of an existing stormwater capture project that was built in the 1940s I believe. So this project is really just cleaning it up you could think of it as. So there's an existing diversion which means that's where we're going to take water out of the channel. ... And we're going to change it, to upgrade it, to make it be more in line with today's standards because it is 80 years old and basically the idea is to take the water out of the channel and convey it to a storage area as we've talked about it before. There's an existing storage area, it's become overgrown and no longer is able to handle the stormwater the way that it was intended. So we're going to change that, we're hoping to keep some of the trees, again this is conceptual, so it won't, it shouldn't look like it's just one big hole in the ground. The water would come in here, there would be a wet portion of it, we want to maintain that, to have some wetland habitat, and then there will be a dry portion of it because the infiltration rates are really good. The wet portion of it is going to help feed the stormwater harvesting which is then going to irrigate the golf course. So we'll store some of the water in the storage area and that'll be reused for irrigation at the gold course or the park and then any excess water that comes in will just overflow and go back into the channel.
25:40 – Courtney Semlow, Project Manager, Craftwater Engineering, Inc.

April 27, 2023 – www.cityofpasadena.net/public-works/engineering-and-construction/construction/arroyo-seco-water-reuse-project

November 27, 2023 – www.cityofpasadena.net/planning/arroyo-seco-water-reuse-project

Initial Study Mitigated Negative Declaration

The Project was designed to maximize avoidance of mature trees, particularly native tree and shrub (per the South Pasadena Tree Ordinance) species, and shrubs of a size and/or shape to be counted. A total of 195 trees were surveyed within the disturbance footprints of the San Rafael and San Pascual sites. Of these, a total of 142 trees would be removed, and the remaining 53 trees would be protected in place during construction. Of the 142 trees that would be impacted, a total of 42 are protected trees and all are native species. The Project proposes to plant a total of 193 native trees as well as native shrubs and groundcovers as part of landscaping activities, in addition to retaining 53 existing trees that would be protected in place during construction. This would result in an estimated net total of 246 trees on the San Rafael and San Pascual sites. The native and/or protected tree removals within the Project’s footprint at each site must occur to accommodate the new water treatment infrastructure. At the San Pascual site, there is very dense existing vegetation related to the historic treatment wetland installed at this site that has not been properly maintained. Due to the limited space along the Arroyo Seco to implement the proposed BMPs and existing dense vegetation on the San Pascual site, some native and/or protected tree removals would be unavoidable. p. 2-2

Shallow Bedrock Impact to Stormwater Infiltration: The perched groundwater encountered at the contact between the younger alluvium and bedrock in borings B-1A, B-2A, and P-4A suggests that the site bedrock will significantly reduce the effectiveness of on-site stormwater infiltration. It is anticipated that the general fine-grained and dense nature of the bedrock will impede the downward infiltration of water. It is our opinion that the stormwater will infiltrate through the younger alluvial deposits and migrate laterally along the bedrock/alluvial contact.

Soft, Wet Materials in the Existing Wetland: Based on our subsurface exploration and site observations, the upper materials within the existing wetland area are anticipated to be very soft and saturated and may not support heavy earthmoving equipment. Mudcats, other light track equipment or specialized methods will be involved to work on the wetland bottom. Planned excavations and other earthwork within the existing wetland area should anticipate very soft, saturated soil conditions. Additional evaluation may be warranted to further evaluate the conditions of the wetland area after it has been drained and allowed to dry, such as test pits to observe and sample the existing soils for material type, moisture content, density, and organic content in order to provide appropriate remedial measures and evaluate whether the material can be reused as fill at the site. p. 10

Appendix F-2: San Pascual Hydrology and Hydraulics

Pollutant Removal — Filtration devices remove most of the pollutants that enter it. p. 13

Los Angeles

August 1, 2024 – Los Angeles Recreations and Park Informational Report From General Manager Jimmy Kim

full source

Engineering Informational

www.craftwater.com/projects/reimagining-urban-waterways-arroyo-seco-channel-transformation

Community Opposition

Watch the news coverage: www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/video/highland-park-residents-fight-to-save-beloved-park-threatened-by-stormwater-runoff-project

Sign the petition: www.change.org/p/stop-south-pasadena-s-land-grab-of-san-pascual-park

Contribute funds: www.gofundme.com/f/save-san-pascual-park

Water Quality Control Board

December 19, 2024 – Regional Water Quality Control Board Los Angeles Region

cal-span.org/meeting/rwqcb-la_20241219

56:08 - 1:51:45 – "Presentation by Save San Pascual Park on the Arroyo Seco Water Reuse Project" – [discussion of San Rafael (Pasadena) / San Pascual (South Pasadena) project]

1:32:02 Marissa Christiansen

I think that we've heard extensive comments that were pretty consistent from the community ... I am having a strong reaction to this project because I think that it's an example – a microchosm – of us as a species not having learned our lesson. To hear that you're going to be using public money to recreate riparian habitat – a wetland – after destroying an existing, naturally occurring wetland – is truly dissapointing. And I'm all for water reuse and recycling. I'm all for figuring out how and where we should be placing infrastructure – and grey infrastructure being a piece of that puzzle – but placing it on a piece of land that not just is beloved by the community – I get that maybe that's enough of a motive – but in the era of climate change – the carbon release that will happen from that project, the carbon drawdown that healthy riparian habitats are actually pretty efficient at, the destruction of mature trees in a city that is in a state of emergency for extreme heat and pollution is – again – very dissappointing. We can't move forward solving things like water quality or water independence by also then harming other pieces of our ecosystem – harming our biodiversity that is at an existential level of destruction at this point. We don't have time, we don't have time to do piece meal projects that sort of answer one question but cause a host of other issues. We're out of time and we have to be approaching every project that we do with a lens of multi benefit to the community and to nature.

Mr. Brick was talking about the return of Steelhead trout and I've ran Friends of the Los Angeles River for a number of years and Steelhead trout was one of our rallying cries. I understand that for most people Steelhead trout probably means nothing. Why should we care? Why should we give up our water recycling in the name of this species. The point is that as a keystone species in a riparian habitat that has already been wiped off the face of our region this is representative of bringing additional biodiversity back to the area and starting to repair harm done – harm done to our communities and harm done to the very environment that our survival depends on. So I guess all this to say, I think that this community and our environment deserves sort of a reset to this project. I personally would recommend that you go back to the community and effort a little bit more in the outreach and education – particularly bilingually – but approaching it not just from a place of checking a box but actually wanting to involve people. And the last thing that I'll say is I would hope there's a better reason for implementing this kind of project than to water a golf course. And I think that if there's a way to look at different sites that may address some of your same needs without being destructive that would be a great step forward.

1:36:47 Pasadena Staff

Before we developed Los Angeles many wetlands existed. Many wetlands do not exist or are inoperable. In the San Rafael site in Pasadena there is not an existing wetland – we are creating one. Which is why Senator Portantino supported us and gave the cities the funding from Prop 68 from the California Parks & Water Bond because it was specifically earmarked for recreating wetland systems and natural based systems through partnerships like we created. In the San Pascual the wetlands is not operable and has not been – is overgrown. There are a lot of trees that are tagged to be removed – its different, there's three different cities, two different sites – on the San Rafael site we're only taking out six trees – they're Elderberry, they're not very large. On the lower side in the San Pascual there are 121 trees that are being tasked to be removed. 78% of them are non-native, mostly Mexican Palm Fans [sic] that are invasive and weed out other native species. They do grow very tall, they don't provide ample shade because they grow tall and spindly, they overuse and disrupt the natural ecology that's in that area.

...

There is a tremendous amount of support for these projects within our cities that have come. The communities have seen what other cities do. I heard the "bacteria and zinc". Those are our major drivers in th Los Angeles, specifically in the Arroyo Seco, it's dry-weather bacteria. So these projects were targeted and prioritized especially in Pasadena. The outfall was noted as one of the four highest contributors for dry-weather bacteria so that was the impetus for the projects. Having worked at City of LA there are other options we could do as a municipality such as low flow diversions which is sending the water out of the river over to the sewer system and is lost to the ocean. And downstream of us the other two priority outfalls for the City of LA that is indeed what the City of LA did. We do believe our cities did something above and beyond by keeping the water in using nature-based solutions, working with our communities – although it is clear that we have missed some on our neighboring agency – to do something better ecologically. The communities have asked us to start with very native natural seeds that are grown and propagated and so our cities have taken this additional step that many municipalities don't take to take seedlings and have them propagated specifically ones that are developed in our area so it will take longer to establish but this was a community driven request and we did go ahead and adhere to that. Our cities are always looking to do more. We do have the compliance driver and that is important but our cities feel very strongly about the Arroyo Seco – it is very important to both of our cities – it is a very natural area and we will continue to try to strive to do something ecologically relevant and we really believed we did in this project.

1:41:10 Vice Chair David Nahai

[Nahai] When do we expect to hear this?

[Staff] Staff was not planning to bring this to the board.

[Nahai] It does need to be brought to the board. ... And I'm also hoping that sufficient time will be given to the applicant and to the community to try to work out some of the differences that we've heard about today. I think that, that's very very important, that we heard, that that has been done.

1:50:14 Chair Norma Camacho

I'm really happy to hear that the cities are going to be willing to have further discussions with the community as well so I look forward to our staff being a part of those discussions as well and to get solutions moving forward.

...

I totally agree that this particular project has to be elevated to the board level. There appears to be a lot of community concern. On the other hand too, my hope is that there will be ample discussion and agreement and that maybe it won't have to come to the board level.

...

As part of the county has established or adopted a county water plan and I know that they've put together a blue ribbon committee to try to further define nature based solutions. What that means. What are the components of that. What does that look like. So there can be more consistency in terms of defining and developing those types of projects as well. So I think there's a need for that in the future and it looks like we're going to be seeing a lot more of these projects.

History

July 22, 2023 – southpasadenan.com/fire-in-the-arroyo-south-pasadena-large-brush-fires-next-to-baseball-soccer-fields

August 9, 1937 – FrameFinder Flight C-4666, Frame 21

1939 aerial

full frame