SAN GABRIEL MOUNTAINS : Conservation Organization Acts to Buy Forest Land
A conservation group has purchased options to buy 2,700 acres of private land for the Angeles National Forest, but some environmental advocates have attacked the effort, saying the group is helping create a huge trash dump in Elsmere Canyon east of Santa Clarita.
Acting for the U.S. Forest Service, the Trust for Public Land has optioned seven tracts in the San Gabriel Mountains and foothills that could be traded for Forest Service land in Elsmere Canyon, where Los Angeles and Los Angeles County want to develop a landfill. The city and county would pay the trust for the 2,700 acres and trade the land to the Forest Service for the canyon site.
Foes of the dump say the San Francisco-based trust has betrayed its principles by promoting a deal that would bury Elsmere Canyon under 190 million tons of trash.
But trust and Forest Service officials said the seven tracts are valuable in their own right and that efforts to obtain them will continue even if the dump plans are killed.
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