Enforcement and Safety

 

• Illegal dumping and homelessness in National Forest/edge of Forest - i.e. Tujunga Wash/east fork of San Gabriel River. Need help dealing with this issue.

• Could NPS law enforcement/oversight be used to reduce/prevent illegal mining and drunk driving?
• Analysis - visitor use, crime and opportunities for increased law enforcement within the study area.
• Concern about illegal activities and drugs, fires, tagging and dumping. If encourage more use; provide more law enforcement.
• Wilderness areas should be protected through law enforcement before the public is encouraged to use them more.

• Rangers and law enforcement along San Gabriel River including real fines as well as educational and stewardship programs.
• Need more law enforcement, people picking up trash. Can't rely only on volunteers. There are problems with crime which is frustrating to volunteers - car break-ins, vandalism to FS facilities, can't keep up with cleaning up the vandalism.

• Areas blocked off by USFS often done so to prevent dumping, not necessarily to limit recreational access.
• Need services - restrooms cleaned, trash bins emptied, etc. Also enforcement: dumping, illegal OHV use.
• Trash, graffiti issues - FS needs to maintain trails.

• The U.S. Forest Service's chronic budget restrictions and heavy firefighting expenses have meant inadequate resources for enhancing recreation opportunities on the forest. The need for improvement is most apparent in such places as the San Gabriel River, where more trash cans and trash bags are needed, as well as rangers, interpretive signs, toilets, graffiti removal, resource education programs, and safe access trails. But other parts of the forest will certainly need recreational areas restored after the Station Fire of Aug. 26-Oct. 16, 2009. With all of the other demands on the USFS budget, NPS resources could make a big difference over the next several years.
• The San Gabriel Mountains National Recreation area proposal should detail how the National Park Service and the Forest Service will partner together to improve recreational conditions along the San Gabriel River. The San Gabriel River is a gateway for thousands of mainly working-class Latino families who visit the river's east and west forks each year. Improved basic facilities and staffing including more restrooms, access trails, picnic sites, interpretative signs and rangers who speak Spanish would improve public safety and quality of the visitor experience. It would also improve water quality and fishing by reducing the amounts of trash, sewage, graffiti and user-created dams in and along the San Gabriel River.
• I have hiked in the really nice creek here once, but it was covered in litter. It is just too neglected and unsafe at moment.

 

• Over the years we have watched how Forest Service cut-backs have compromised the effectiveness of the National Forest. Drugs, wild life poachers, criminals and vagrants are part of the job, as well as managing multi-use recreation - mountain biking, hiking, camping, hunting, fishing, etc. With more funding, these mountains could be safer for the public - and have less trash.
• Please put resources into protecting the park from abuses. The Rocky Mountain National Park in CO educates those who enter about treading lightly, taking trash out, no smoking, fires etc.
• I worked in the Angeles front country from Altadena to Monrovia and up to Mt. Wilson. There were about 20 different areas that I would go to, some once a week, some that were further back, monthly, but all of these areas were inspected and worked on a continuous basis. Today, almost all of them are NOT inspected at all. There is nobody even doing the simple things such as picking up trash expect the public which is absurd. The forest service employees who depended on a few volunteers for this help cared about the forest as did the volunteers. Today, those who were in charge of this maintenance are no longer doing that particular job. They have been moved to other positions and the service made a mistake when they dropped the volunteer programs who were the ones that diligently took care of all of this that today nobody is doing.
• I wish to put a huge emphasis on Fisheries management (the maintenance of NATIVE wild trout) as well as law enforcement. I see and hear of crimes such as vandalism and theft to autos being all too common. Furthermore, poaching and over-harvesting of fish is also rampant. That said, I urge that DFG code 5937 apply to the reaches below Morris Dam on the San Gabriel River.
• Although mining is illegal in the ANF, it does occur. Placer mining for gold along the East Fork of San Gabriel River is out of control. The Ranger of the San Gabriel River Ranger District and the Superintendent of the Angeles National Forest needs the legal resources to deal with this egregious, illegal mining activity.
• We also need more law enforcement and rangers to support other activities.
• My main concern with this area is the amount of crime, litter, and abuse bestowed upon the easily-accessed natural areas. The ANF receives an amount of visitor use days similar to that of Yosemite National Park, and yet one doesn't see trash all over the place in Yosemite; graffiti on rocks and trees; and cars broken into at many of the parking lots and turnouts. The purpose of the study, as indicated in the presentation materials and the website is to "identify opportunities for public enjoyment and recreation." How can anyone enjoy recreating in a filthy area, full of graffiti and hooligans, all the while worrying about whether or not their car will be intact once back from a hike or picnic? Not only do these conditions detract from the recreation experience, they are also a clear threat to the natural resources within the study area. I highly recommend each alternative concept focus on these constraints to having an enjoyable recreation experience, and provide management strategies to improve on these conditions.
• Angeles National Forest - Vogel Flats and Wildwood Picnic areas as well as Big Tujunga Canyon needs to be closed to the public unless there is sufficient funding to patrol the area from the time it opens until it closes. Every single year the people would leave dirty diapers on the streams, beer bottles, burn their religious candles...no one monitoring these areas ever...constantly setting campfires. Private Residents on Stonyvale Road who own their land were running them off, no one from USFS. Hikers are not a problem on Mt. Lukens. They are clean and respectful. The Hispanic population which is the only one that comes to these areas has no respect for the endangered species or people living there; they are fire hazards themselves, etc. They were even damming Big Tujunga Canyon Creek to make their swimming holes bigger.
• The San Gabriel Plan should promote human health and youth development through physical activity and healthy eating in national parklands. The San Gabriel plan should address improving human health, including physical activity and healthy eating to reduce obesity, in the strategic plan. Human health includes more than reducing obesity and diabetes and includes the contributions of the built environment to the full development of the person and community through youth development and gang and crime prevention.
• The Forest Service should definitely continue to manage wildland fires with support from the county fire departments and NPS. Public abuse of the forest needs more extensive control.