The L.A. County Public Works Dept. wants to excavate the area behind the Devil's Gate Dam in Pasadena, photographed on Tuesday, June 7, 2011.(Raul Roa/Pasadena Sun)
By Joe Piasecki
Pasadena Sun
County officials may remove nearly three times as much soil from the Devil’s Gate Dam as originally proposed, as part of a wider effort to clean out 87 tons of sediment from area dams over the next 20 years.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Works initially planned to dig out 1.5 million cubic yards from Devil’s Gate in Hahamongna Watershed Park this summer, destroying 50 acres of woodland that’s grown on years of sediment deposits.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors halted the project in March by ordering an environmental impact study. When that study begins, Public Works officials will be calling for removal of as much as 4 million cubic yards.
“If we’re going to take on a project of this type, we have to make it a significant effort,” said Gary Hildebrand, assistant deputy director of the agency’s Watershed Management Division.
