Parkland Grading Tied to Fire Crews, Utility

Los Angeles County fire crews and the Southern California Edison Co. were involved in the apparently illegal grading of up to five acres of state parkland in Chatsworth late last month, officials said Tuesday.

State park officials, who have threatened legal action over damage to the historically significant site, will discuss the incident at a meeting next week with County Fire Department and Edison representatives, said Rich Rozzelle, land agent for the Angeles district of the California Department of Parks and Recreation.

“We have an idea who was responsible for it, and we’re proceeding to make them accountable for their actions,” Rozzelle said.

County bulldozer crews apparently graded the area to clear brush and improve road access to an Edison transmission line that crosses the 666 acres of state parkland on the slopes of the Santa Susana Mountains. A source said Edison has maintenance agreements with the county and other fire departments that have heavy equipment in the vicinity of transmission lines.

Officials with Edison and the County Fire Department acknowledged that the county had done work at the site on the utility’s behalf, but otherwise declined to give details.

Al Fortune, a supervisor in the services bureau of the Fire Department, directed a reporter to Edison, saying, “We work directly for them.”

Dan Workman, a regional superintendent for Edison, said county equipment operators “do perform work for us.” But he said he would reserve comment “until we have a discussion with Mr. Rozzelle and get together and figure out exactly what took place.”

The damaged area, south of the Simi Valley Freeway and west of the city of Los Angeles’ Chatsworth Park South, is on land where officials hope to create a state park or historic site. The property, which features unusual rock formations, is considered to have historical and archeological importance as the site of a Chumash settlement and the Old Stage Coach Trail, established in the 1860s and now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Bulldozer operators plowed across the trail in the process of widening an existing dirt track into an earthen boulevard as much as 40 feet to 60 feet wide.

State park officials, who last week learned about the grading from hikers, said the culprits could face trespassing or other criminal charges as well as a civil suit for damages to pay for rehabilitation of the site.