Public’s Help Being Sought in Managing Big Tujunga : Forest lands: A plan is being prepared to curb impact of 5 million annual visitors on the canyon near Sylmar. Residents can respond today and Monday.

People visit for a taste of the country, but they leave all too much of the city behind.

That’s the opinion of U.S. Forest Service officials, who want the public to help write a new plan to manage Big Tujunga Canyon, a heavily used section of Angeles National Forest sullied by graffiti and tons of litter.

A new plan is necessary to reduce the impact of 5 million annual visitors on the 75,000-acre canyon north of Sylmar, said Julie Molzahn, a U.S. Forest Service official in charge of the project.

Proposals being considered by Forest Service officials include limiting the number of visitors in certain areas and improving Big Tujunga Canyon Road, a narrow, winding route used by Antelope Valley commuters, Molzahn said. Options include widening the road and building more turnouts, she said.

It will take two years to prepare the plan, which is subject to approval by forest supervisor Mike Rogers, she said. The public will have several opportunities to comment, including an open house today from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and one Monday from 4 to 8 p.m. at the South Zone Training Center in the canyon.

The new set of guidelines will replace a 15-year-old plan that does not go far enough to protect the canyon, Molzahn said.

“At this point, anything you find down in the city, we have here,” Molzahn said. “We have 5,000 commuters at peak hour driving through here.”

“Gangs use the area to fight in,” she said. “People wash diapers in the creek. There’s vandalism, littering and dumping.”

Park rangers and volunteers hauled out more than 30 tons of trash from a mile-long section of Big Tujunga Creek in September, she said.

Among the proposals being considered to protect the canyon is a parking fee to raise money for maintenance.

The Forest Service began collecting $3 parking fees last year in San Gabriel Canyon, another heavily visited area of the forest, said Peggy Hernandez, head ranger for the Mt. Baldy District.

In fiscal 1991-92, the Forest Service collected $64,000, Hernandez said. The money was used to fund so-called “Eco-teams,” groups of inner-city youngsters who pass out garbage bags and otherwise educate visitors about how to properly treat the area, she said.

This year, the money may also be used for portable toilets, graffiti abatement programs and bear-proof dumpsters, Hernandez said.

Environmental activists are supportive of the Forest Service’s effort to protect Big Tujunga Canyon.

Martin Schlageter, executive director of Friends of the Los Angeles River, blamed the degradation of Big Tujunga Canyon on the lack of park space in Los Angeles County. He said there are 16.2 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents in the county, contrasted with 46.7 acres in San Francisco and 21.3 statewide.

“People are so deprived of natural land that many areas are overused,” he said. “But we have to manage what we do have so it lasts.”