Earth Day Comes of Age as a Major Event

Earth Day, an event considered radical and activist 20 years ago, will be a mainstream celebration this time around. Throughout the cities and towns of the San Gabriel Valley, lectures, bike rides, tree plantings and hikes will focus on environmental problems and solutions.

At Eaton Canyon county park in Pasadena, inventor Paul MacCready will lecture on what pterodactyls and butterflies can teach humans about economy in nature. Azusa Pacific University students and faculty will gather for a day of seminars on biblical teachings about “Christian stewardship” of the planet, and an environmental invocation will be given as part of University of La Verne ceremonies.

In Glendora and El Monte, trees will be planted. Even the Azusa landfill company, Browning-Ferris Industries, which is embroiled in a controversy over expanding its operations, will plant trees at a local park. The company also has sponsored an Earth Day essay contest.

Although the involvement of the landfill firm and other companies has been questioned by some environmentalists, the aim of Earth Day is to make everyone more aware, said Ben Lovejoy of Sierra Madre, who is coordinating Earth Day activities in eastern Los Angeles County.

“We want astronomers, plumbers, Hells Angels, Girl Scouts--we want everybody to be involved. The crisis cuts across every color, sex and religion. We want every man, woman and child--every church, school, home and business--to do something: Plant a tree. Insulate your water heater. Don’t drive your car. Recycle.

“It’s a last-ditch effort to get people participating in saving the Earth.”

The official observance is next Sunday. But many activities will take place before that. Some Earth Day-oriented events started months ago.

At Caltech in Pasadena, several hundred environmentalists of every stripe gathered in January for what was billed as a town meeting to ponder the future of the planet. Sponsored by the western San Gabriel Valley Sierra Club and the Pasadena chapter of the United Nations Assn., the meeting launched a series of ongoing environmental discussion groups.

On a series of Saturdays in March, tree plantings and hikes were staged throughout Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco, along the western edge of the city from the San Gabriel Mountain foothills to the creek bed’s border with South Pasadena.

And at the Claremont Colleges late last month, “Global Releaf,” a program sponsored in part by the South Coast Air Quality Management District, focused on how trees act as filters for smog, thus improving air quality.

With plans for attracting 20,000 people, Pasadena’s celebration this Saturday very likely will be the biggest in the San Gabriel Valley. Organizers have billed it as “a major West Coast Earth Day event.”

The city has even hired an Earth Day coordinator, Tim Brick, Pasadena’s representative on the board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

The Pasadena celebration will take place in and around the Arroyo Seco. Officials will set up nine “villages” devoted to environmental themes. There also will be educational and scientific talks.

At the upper end of the arroyo, the city’s Water and Power Department will host exhibits on water treatment. Nearby at Oak Grove Park, city solid waste experts will explain trash recycling. A Dixieland band will entertain at the Devil’s Gate Dam. At Brookside Park by the Rose Bowl, San Gabriel Valley governmental agencies and businesses will sponsor exhibits on environmental products. Also at Brookside Park, musicians and storytellers will perform for children.

Automobile use will be discouraged and shuttle buses will provide transportation from the Ralph M. Parsons Co., 100 W. Walnut St.

The day’s events will begin at 8 a.m. with a U.S. Cycling Federation-sanctioned bicycle race. The race will start near the Rose Bowl, at the corner of Rose Bowl Drive and Arroyo Boulevard.

Noting that Pasadena is the home of Caltech, and worldwide engineering and scientific facilities such as the Ralph M. Parsons Co. and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Brick said he hopes Earth Day will help diverse elements of the community to join together for a common environmental good. “We want to establish Pasadena as a real center for solving environmental problems.”

Officials at the South Coast Air Quality Management District in El Monte say they are taking Earth Day to heart by sponsoring four days of activities beginning with a celebrity-studded pep rally for agency employees on Tuesday. AQMD officials would not release names of the celebrities expected to attend.

“We deal with environmental issues all the time,” AQMD public adviser John Dunlap said. “But it’s really exciting to sit back and focus on what we can do ourselves as an agency.”

The AQMD, he said, is asking its employees to share rides to work this week. Employees are also encouraged to reduce midday traffic by bringing a bag lunch or eating in the agency cafeteria. As part of an ongoing effort, the AQMD also will join Tree People, the Sierra Club and Cal Poly Pomona in planting trees at local schools during the week.

Another San Gabriel Valley agency, the West Covina-based Foothill Transit Zone, has made Earth Day its theme for a Wednesday seminar on commuter rail proposals.

An Earth Day fair with the theme “Our City. Our Family. Our Earth” will be held Saturday at West Covina City Hall.

And the Glendora Preservation Foundation will plant a tree to join 125 others in a citrus grove started by the group last year. The tree planting is to call attention to the organization’s campaign against what they described as unnecessary cutting of trees in the foothills.

“Glendora has been named the smog capital of the United States,” president Jane Negley said. “If we lose any more trees, we’re going to be in trouble. We’re starting to make headway. But we need to keep the trees and plants and heavy foliage to keep the air cleaner.”

Besides the tree planting, the Glendora City Council has declared next Sunday Glendora Trails Day. Mel Crudge, landscape maintenance supervisor with the Parks and Recreation Department, said the California Recreation Trails Committee and Trails Day Cooperation Assn. will widen, clean and extend a trail in Glendora Wilderness Park next Saturday and Sunday.

Recreation Equipment Inc., known as REI, a retail outdoor sporting goods store in San Dimas, is also one of the sponsors of the trail work and will support similar efforts by two other trail groups during Earth Day weekend in the San Gabriel Mountains.

The San Gabriel Valley is an appropriate place to consider environmental problems, Lovejoy said. He noted the issues of water pollution, toxic landfills and development in the foothills. “We’ve got some terrible problems in this end of the county,” he said. “We’ve got the worst air in the U.S. right here.”

But noting reforestation efforts under way in Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco, he said Earth Day may be cause for optimism. “We’re hoping that the greening of the arroyo is a model that can be applied worldwide.”