Purchase of Parkland Could Spoil Plans for Garbage Dump

The purchase of 145 acres of pristine woodlands west of Santa Clarita for a new park--a move that could hinder plans by the county to open a garbage dump in the area--was announced Wednesday by an environmental group and state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia).

Davis said the new Towsley Canyon Park, which was immediately opened to the public, is the first step toward creating a proposed 6,000-acre Santa Clarita woodlands state park west of Santa Clarita and north of Granada Hills.

Joe Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, said the 145-acre property is at the mouth of Towsley Canyon, an area filled with waterfalls and groves of spruce trees. The parcel surrounds land the conservancy hopes to buy someday for the proposed larger woodlands state park.

The woodlands are home to a variety of wildlife, including deer, mountain lions and even an occasional bear. “This is the best of the best,” said Laurene Weste, a Santa Clarita parks commissioner and environmentalist, in describing the property.

The purchase is considered a victory for the conservancy, which has been competing with the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts to buy land in and around Towsley Canyon. The sanitation districts have obtained options to buy 760 acres southwest of but not contiguous with the new Towsley Canyon Park.

The park’s grant deed may jeopardize the county’s plans to establish a dump nearby because it will not allow industrial traffic, including dump trucks, along a road that leads to the property under option by the sanitation districts, Edmiston said.

In a recent memo, sanitation district engineers called the property “the only feasible access way from the Golden State Freeway to the potential landfill area.”

The 145-acre parcel was purchased from Rivendale Ranch Co. for $500,000 by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, a joint agency made up of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, the Conejo Recreation and Park District and the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District.