| This middle Tonner Canyon issue finally came to a boiling point in 2000, when the City of Industry purchased most of the Firestone Boy Scout Reservation, over 2000 acres, located within Tonner Canyon, stating their intentions for a reservoir to meet future water needs (Darmiento, 2000). The Scouts accepted this deal from Industry even though it was for $1.5 million less than conservationists were offering in a simultaneous last ditch offer to save the canyon (Hills for Everyone, PDF_Files/summer_2004.pdf). The Scouts reason for selling the land in the first place was to raise money, so why they would accept the lower offer is puzzling. Industry had already purchased 2,700 acres in upper Tonner Canyon, known as the Tres Hermanos Ranch, in the late 1970’s. Even though this land was not only outside of Industry’s city limits but also outside of its county as well, the purchase was never challenged and so they have clear title to the land. They purchased that property with Urban Development Agency funds, which were never intended for open space acquisitions. That property was originally zoned to allow for 3000 housing units, but Measure U passed by the City of Chino Hills reduced this number to an unprofitable 300 units and it will take a vote by that city to change this new density limit, so therefore the idea of a reservoir first began to emerge (Hills for Everyone, PDF_Files/summer_2004.pdf). But having the adjacent middle Tonner Canyon property, with its additional 2,500 acres, would certainly make that easier to accomplish. The proposed reservoirs, dams, and road could then span both parcels. Far from not being aware of the potential environmental impacts of these projects, the Industry Urban Development Agency conducted studies on the proposed projects and found that the Firestone property constituted "a unique biological area and resource due to its large size, its undisturbed nature, its [contiguous] contact with recreational, ecological and other natural areas, and its high population of wildlife”, and that the region "is rich in numbers and diversity of animals," while "the bird diversity and population numbers [are] fantastic”. The Agency, despite raving over the property’s biological value, then proceeded to recommend the purchase of the Scout property for the proposed projects (Repository, law/page2.html). Remaining true to form, Industry used Redevelopment Agency funds to purchase the Firestone property, just as they had done with the Tres Hermanos deal twenty years prior. This time, however, people did object to this strategy. WCCA, the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, and others filed two lawsuits to block the sale. The first suit pointed out that Redevelopment funds can’t be used to purchase non-developed land, especially land that was not within city limits. Industry responded by negating the deal, and then immediately re-purchasing the property with city general funds (money seems to be abundant in all City of Industry departments). The second lawsuit, which will be discussed in more detail later, highlighted that Industry never completed an Environmental Impact Report, which is required by law before land can be altered in any way that will have a negative impact upon its ecology (Repository, tonnernews/newsletter7.htm). A reservoir would certainly qualify as a negative impact on the canyon. 2. City of Industry’s Plans for Tonner Canyon Industry made this reservoir intention clear when they purchased the Firestone property. “We need water," the mayor (of Industry) said. "There just isn't enough of it to go around (Yi, 2004)”. This is curious, since the City of Industry itself claims that it is “well supplied with water sources, both for present needs and for the future” (City of Industry, 2005, services/serv_2). Perhaps they were counting on this prospective new reservoir when they made that statement. The Metropolitan Water District will certainly support the idea, since they now offer local agencies (cities?) financial incentives to increase water storage. The Chairman, Wes Bannister, said that “We’re now looking at every spare acre and inch in Southern California as a potential storage spot.” (Metropolitan Water District, mwdh2o/pages/news/press%5Freleases/2005%2D10/water%5Fstorage.htm). The idea of a reservoir of such a large size in Tonner Canyon is very controversial, and has drawn a lot of responses. Details are difficult to gather from the City itself, but they were well publicized by various environmental groups that were privy to the information during numerous lawsuits, meetings, and court appearances over the Tonner Canyon sale to Industry. Hills for Everyone, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving these hills, points out that in fact the “reservoir” would be a group of several connected reservoirs, and that building the 4 major dams needed for this project would require scraping the canyon bare to remove all organic debris (Hills for Everyone, 2004, PDF_Files/Summer_2004.pdf). A sister website states that this 88 billion gallon reservoir will inundate 65% of the canyon and need a 300 foot dam just above the city of Brea (Save the Missing Middle, 2005, industry.htm). A study conducted by the Conservation Biology Institute to assess this and other proposed projects along the middle section of the Corridor with respect to maintaining biological diversity concluded that a reservoir would “reduce the size of the Chino-Tonner subcore and its capacity as a source of animals that disperse into the rest of the Corridor system (Spencer, 2005, ix)”. |
| Tonner Canyon and its Significance to the Puente/Chino Hills Wildlife Corridor |