Manhattan Beach About Town

SB lawmakers try to save

federal conservation fund

A federal program responsible for more than $2 billion of investments in conservation and recreation projects in California —  including the Strand bike path, locally — is up for reauthorization at the end of September. Two South Bay Congressional representatives, Nanette Diaz Barragan and Ted Lieu, are among the co-sponsors of a bill, HR 502, intended to save the program.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund, created by Congress in 1964, helped set aside national parks and forests, wildlife refuges, rivers and lakes, and community parks. Locally, the program is responsible for developing the 19 miles of bike path that runs along the beach from Santa Monica to Torrance, as well as funding improvements to Polliwog Park in Manhattan Beach and the Pier Avenue Community Center in Hermosa Beach.

“South Bay communities would not look and feel the same without the Land and Water Conservation Fund,” said Diaz Barragan, who serves on the

House Natural Resource Committee. “Congress made these investments more than 50 years ago to ensure future generations had access to outdoor spaces, from local bike paths to some of the nation’s most spectacular national parks. We need to continue that investment and reauthorize this critical program.”

The program was established and funded by using revenues from offshore oil and gas. Every year, $900 million in royalties paid by energy companies drilling for oil and gas on the Outer Continental Shelf are put into this fund.

“Our beaches and coastline need Congress to approve permanent reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund,” said Craig Cadwallader, the president of the South Bay chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. “This program has been critical in funding some of California’s most well-known projects, and we must be able to rely on it for future generations.”

The LWCF will expire on Sept. 30, unless Congress approves its reauthorization.

“Failure to reauthorize the LWCF would put hundreds of projects at risk, including in Southern California’s Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area,” said Barragan. “At a time when our public lands are facing an all-out assault from special interests —  including those seeking to open them up to oil and gas drilling — we cannot allow funding for this historically bipartisan program to lapse.”

 

Coffee with a cop

MBPD celebrates National Coffee with a Cop Day on Oct. 3 by inviting citizens to come to talk with detectives and other officers at the McDonald’s at 1203 Artesia Blvd. from 7:30 a.m. to 10 a.m.  

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