Grading of Historic Parkland in Santa Susanas Is Investigated : Archeology: Five-acre site linked to a Chumash village and a stagecoach route is bulldozed.

Authorities are investigating the apparently illegal grading of state parkland considered to have key historical and archeological significance as the site of a stagecoach route and a Native American settlement.

State park officials said Friday they haven’t determined who bulldozed up to five acres on the rocky slopes of the Santa Susana Mountains--in the process plowing across the Old Stage Coach Trail, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

But park officials said the culprits could face criminal trespass and other charges, along with a civil suit for damages to rehabilitate the area below the Santa Susana Pass.

Illegal grading on parkland is not unheard of, but “I would say this is a major incident,” said Rich Rozzelle, land agent for the Angeles district of the California Department of Parks and Recreation.

The damage occurred on a 666-acre swath of state parkland south of the Simi Valley Freeway and west of the city of Los Angeles’ Chatsworth Park South. State park officials hope eventually to turn the property into a state park or historic site. It is popular with hikers because of its striking rock formations and the old stage trail, portions of which are still visible.

Rozzelle, who inspected the damage by helicopter Friday, said he believes the grading took place Dec. 23 or 24, because hikers reported the damage was not there Dec. 22 but was evident Christmas Day.

Several utilities and government agencies have easements over the property and keys to a locked gate on Larwin Avenue--apparently the access point for the bulldozer operators.

The grading widened an existing dirt track, transforming portions into an earthen boulevard 40 feet to 60 feet in width. Other grading took place near power poles and transmission towers that cross the property--as if to create parking and turnaround areas for maintenance work.

Eloise Barter, associate state archeologist with the parks department in Sacramento, said she had not inspected the site and could not comment on the extent of the damage. But she described the property as “a very significant site,” touched by successive waves of human settlers.

Barter said the site has remnants of a Chumash village. Then beginning in the 1860s, it bore the stage from Los Angeles to Gilroy on a trail blasted from rock.

Later in the century, a rock quarry on the site provided sandstone for construction of important Los Angeles buildings and the breakwater in Los Angeles Harbor. Archeologists believe a crumbling foundation near the quarry was a commissary for the workers.

“What you have there is a layer of history--the Native American occupation, the early California period from 1860 or so, and the era when Los Angeles was expanding,” Barter said.

Milt McAuley, a conservationist and author of hiking books, said the grading was so extensive it appeared to be “more than just a one-man operation.”

“I think it’s highly irresponsible of anyone to disturb any soil without knowing what they are doing,” he said. “Obviously they had no concept of what damage was being done.”

Damage to vegetation appeared limited, because the area already had been scorched by wildfire in October. But Suzanne Goode, associate resource ecologist with the state parks department, said the grading will slow the land’s recovery from the fire.

“Because of the number of incidents such as this that I have seen in the parks in the past few years, it makes me wonder whether we will have any undisturbed patch of ground left 100 years from now,” Goode said.

“Most people think that once land becomes parkland that it is safe and protected, but this is far from the truth.”