The White House is sending a top-level cabinet member who oversees the U.S. Forest Service to the San Gabriel Valley next week to hear from the public as to whether President Joe Biden should expand the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.
Homer Wilkes, under secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for natural resources and environment, listen to a discussion about adding historic sites from the Great Hiking Era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, plus areas that contain ancient tribal relics. Both were left out of the monument declared by President Barack Obama on Oct. 10, 2014.
The public is invited to hear from Wilkes and Jennifer Eberlien, regional forester for the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Region, as well as Roman Torres, supervisor of the 700,000-square-mile Angeles National Forest which includes the monument.
All three are making a rare public appearance in Southern California at the meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 7 at the California Army National Guard Building in Azusa.
“It is a chance for the community to speak directly to the Biden Administration,” said Daniel Rossman, California deputy director of The Wilderness Society and a Pasadena resident. “The fact that they are coming is a testament to growing community support that has been building since 2014.”
Biden nominated Wilkes as under secretary in 2021 and he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Feb. 8, 2022. The veteran administrator with the USDA has a history of working on conservation and restoration of public lands. In 2010 Wilkes oversaw cleanup of the Gulf of Mexico after the vast BP oil spill, caused when the oil drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank.
As under secretary, Wilkes has been meeting with senators from New Jersey, Illinois and recently, Nevada, and providing grant money for forest projects including $4 million for post-wildfire restoration at the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest in Nevada.
Support for expanding the San Gabriel…
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