A sweeping conservation bill introduced Wednesday by U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris would expand the boundaries of the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument to include popular hiking trails north of Pasadena and create a federally designated recreation area along the San Gabriel River, including the western portion of the Puente-Chino Hills.

Harris’ San Gabriel Mountains Foothills and Rivers Protection Act mimics two bills by Rep. Judy Chu, D-Pasadena reintroduced in May 2017 after they languished for two years in a previous Congress without being discussed in committee.

Today, conservation bills, once seen as dead on arrival in a Republican-majority Congress, are viewed by watchdogs as receiving a green light in a Democratic-majority House of Representatives.

Many see Harris’ companion bills as laying the groundwork for merged House-Senate legislation that will require approval by the Senate, in which Republicans hold a slim majority.

“The House looks to be much more conservation oriented,” said Daniel Rossman, California deputy director for The Wilderness Society, a sponsor of the bills. He believes Chu’s bills could move through the House as early as 2019.

“The next question is: Do they move through the Senate? That remains to be seen. It will certainly be a high hurdle.”

Harris and Chu want to add 109,000 acres to the 346,177-acre national monument established by President Barack Obama in October 2014. The monument includes only forest lands and is about half the size of the 700,000-acre Angeles National Forest.

“I believe we have a very good chance for a hearing. And we have a chance to get it out of the House,” said Chu of her bills during an interview Tuesday.

Past omissions

On the night before the signing in 2014, the monument boundary put before Obama removed the most visited areas of the Angeles, such as Mt. Wilson, Chantry Flat, the Arroyo Seco north of the Rose Bowl as well as Sunland and Big Tujunga, the headwaters of the Los Angeles River.

The omission failed to recognize the works of Great Hiking Era pioneers John Muir, Benjamin Wilson, Wilbur Sturtevant, Ben Overturff and Thaddeus Lowe who established stores, camps, resorts and in the case of Lowe, a mountain railroad that hugged the rugged front range above Pasadena.

The Forest Service explained that the 1906 Antiquities Act, used by Obama to create the monument, required the smallest segment of land for designation.

But many said the omission was an attempt to leave out areas where repeated hiker rescues called for more resources, and devastation from the 2009 Station Fire required a massive reforestation effort that would drain Forest Service resources.

“It (Harris’ bill) would really expand the boundaries of the monument to include some of the most precious areas of the San Gabriel Mountains, basically the front range and the upper watershed of the Los Angeles River, which were left out,” said Tim Brick, managing director of the Arroyo Seco Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to restoring the creek and the trails around it.

‘Wild and scenic’

Harris, like Chu, envisions a 51,107-acre San Gabriel Mountains National Recreation Area, a swath of land that hugs the San Gabriel and Rio Hondo rivers from the mountains through El Monte and Pico Rivera, which run east-west parallel to the 60 Freeway from Whittier to Rowland Heights.

The designation would be run by the National Park Service and would protect endangered species living along the river and in the hills, while expanding outdoor recreational opportunities, said Harris in a prepared statement.

Harris would join Chu in designating the natural parts of the San Gabriel River as “wild and scenic,” including a 10-mile segment of the East Fork San Gabriel River from Vincent Gulch to Heaton Flats within the Angeles, and a 2.7-mile segment from Heaton Flats trailhead to Williams Canyon and various segments of the North Fork near Red Box Gap.

Also protected would be portions of Little Rock Creek, including a branch near Mt. Williamson, a once-popular rock-climbing area now closed because of the presence of an endangered frog species.

Also, the bills would establish 8,417 acres of the western Angeles as a wilderness area to protect the California condor and 6,774 acres as the Yerba Buena Wilderness.

Another 13,951 acres would be added to the existing Sheep Mountain Wilderness, a breeding ground for the threatened bighorn sheep located near the “Bridge to Nowhere” in San Gabriel Canyon.