Pasadena Sun
As nature goes, the Hahamongna basin is not pristine.
The wide, sandy arroyo, bounded by oak woodlands, sits just north of Devil's Gate Dam on the border of Pasadena, Altadena and La Cañada Flintridge. A gravel operation there, closed decades ago, has left scars on the landscape, and a Frisbee golf course threads in and out of the oaks. Noise from the 210 Freeway on the south end and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the north is ever-present. And if all that weren't enough, the Environmental Protection Agency has declared this part of the Arroyo Seco a Superfund site because of groundwater contamination by JPL, which once dumped solvents and rocket fuel in the area.
But what I love about the place is that nature has stubbornly refused to give up. The arroyo provides crucial habitat for stressed flora and fauna struggling to survive along the border between urban land and open space, and every time I go there I see something remarkable. A dense forest of willows has grown up along the seasonal stream bed, and it has drawn an amazing array of wildlife. Once, while walking among the trees, I came upon a fox slowly making its way down the path in front of me. I have seen a bobcat in the stream bed and regularly see deer, coyotes and rattlesnakes. A couple of years ago, workers at JPL were surprised to see a mountain lion sunning itself on a rock near the bridge from their parking lot.
