BIG TUJUNGA WASH, a 650-acre swath of rare alluvial sage scrub habitat, is one of the last relatively undisturbed remnants of this endangered ecosystem in southern California. For more than a decade, groups that want to preserve it have been battling with the landowner, Cosmo World, which is attempting to build a golf course. Although the Los Angeles City Council denied the golf course permit on July 22 by a vote of 10-4, the owners intend to file suit, so the matter may remain in the courts for some time.
The wash is also a seasonal watercourse that flows from the steep walls of Big Tujunga Canyon and ultimately empties into the Los Angeles River, of which it is a major tributary. It is flanked by the residential community of Sunland to the southeast and the sparsely populated foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains to the north. Two stream channels run through it, but most of the flow has been diverted to one, which drains into Hansen Dam and eventually the Los Angeles River.
The Tujunga floodplain provides an important wildlife corridor between the Angeles National Forest to the northeast and wetland habitat below Hansen Dam. The wash itself is home to a wide variety of wildlife and some 250 species of plants, many of which depend on occasional flooding to germinate. The slender-horned spineflower, a federally listed endangered species, grows here.
Gravel used to be mined from the wash, but the City phased that activity out as permits expired. In 1980, the City placed a moratorium on mining until the year 2000 by amending the Sunland-Tujunga-Lakeview Terrace-Shadow Hills District Plan.
In 1987, Cosmo World proposed to construct a golf course and to protect it from flooding by building levees and lining the stream channels with concrete. Because such construction would have affected jurisdictional wetlands within the wash, that proposal required a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and set into motion the federal review process. Review continued until 1994, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied approval on the grounds that the project would adversely impact habitat for the endangered spineflower.
Cosmo World and its engineering consultant, Kajima Corporation, revised the plan so that construction would remain outside Corps jurisdiction. The current design is for an 18-hole golf course, a 25,000-square-foot clubhouse, a 180-space parking lot, and a maintenance facility on a 352-acre site. Cosmo World is eager to move ahead, for it has yet to realize a financial return from its purchase of the wash.
On December 5, the City Planning Commission approved the new design, but 15 days later the California Department of Fish and Game, the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club, Small Wilderness Area Preservation, and several other groups appealed to the Los Angeles City Council. Fish and Game condemned the new design, stating that it would directly impact approximately 160 acres of natural habitat, including alluvial sage scrub and riparian woodlands. William Eick, attorney for Small Wilderness Area Preservation and a leading advocate for preservation of the wash, argues that the project also greatly underestimates the extent of flooding within the wash and that the first major storm will cause extensive damage.
"Although we can't make the golf course bulletproof," says Blake Murillo, engineering consultant for Foothills Golf Corporation, "we have done everything within economic reason to design the course to withstand the natural flood processes. If the course does flood, then we will redesign, once again, around the boundary of jurisdictional waters."
Most of the time the wash is dry, sometimes it is a languid stream, but it can turn into a raging torrent without a moment's notice. The San Gabriel Mountains hold the record for the highest rainfall in a 24-hour period anywhere in the United States (26.13 inches). In winter 1969, a churning stream laden with sediment exploded from the canyon, devastating an entire residential neighborhood and demolishing three highway bridges.
Memories of catastrophe fade quickly during dry spells, however, and Cosmo World has strong allies. The Sunland-Tujunga Chamber of Commerce is lobbying for the golf course. "Everyone knows that a golf course will greatly enhance real estate values and the downtown business district, which is something this area desperately needs," observed Barbara Hughes, treasurer for the Chamber. "I know beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but I can see nothing beautiful about this property. It contains nothing but gravel, weeds, trash, homeless people, and the occasional dead body. It is not the type of place that you'd feel safe hiking in."
What if the golf course is approved and then washed out by a flood? Richard J. Schubel of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles District, has stated in a letter to the City Planning Commission dated October 23, 1996, that a mild to moderate storm "will cause erosion of golf course features and realignment of the active channel within the wash." Under this condition the applicant would be required to apply for a permit from the Corps prior to performing any repair or reclamation work. Based on the Corps' original design concerns, such as impacts on the natural hydrologic regime and endangered species issues, it is unlikely that such a permit would be issued.
In the Proposed Flood Control Strategy for the Los Angeles and San Gabriel River Systems, developed by the Friends of the Los Angeles River, a nonprofit seeking to restore as much of that river as possible, the Tujunga region, including the wash, is important as a floodwater spreading ground. It allows percolation of surface runoff into the ground to recharge the water table. Channelization or removal of a permeable surface will lead to increased storm flows into the Los Angeles River, further burdening an already taxed flood control system.
Hughes contends that if the golf course isn't built, the wash could be used for detrimental development, such as housing or gravel mining. "If it floods with a golf course," she explains, "only grass and dirt wash away, as opposed to buildings and people."
Meanwhile, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy has moved to have the property appraised, as a first step toward possible acquisition, according to Paul Edelman, staff ecologist for the Mountains Conservancy. Cosmo World is currently unwilling to sell, but preservation advocates are hopeful, pointing out that things have a way of changing quickly in the Los Angeles River watershed.

Sean Woods is a master's degree candidate in resource management and environmental planning at San Francisco State University and a graduate intern at the Coastal Conservancy.