Wildfire Woes: California Regulators Halted Palisades Fire Prevention Project to Save Rare Shrub
In 2019, the LA Department of Water and Power (LADWP) set out to replace aging wooden power poles - some nearly a century old - with fire-resistant steel poles and widen fire-access lanes in the wildfire-prone Topanga State Park. The $2 million project was designed to bolster fire safety after the area was deemed an "elevated fire risk."
"This project will help ensure power reliability and safety, while helping reduce wildfire threats," the LADWP stated at the time, the NY Post reports.
But the effort came to an abrupt halt when an amateur botanist hiking through the park noticed that some of the rare Braunton's milkvetch shrubs - an endangered species with only a few thousand wild specimens - had been damaged during the work. Conservationists raised alarms, accusing the city of working without proper permits, and California's Coastal Commission ordered the LADWP to stop the project, replant the damaged shrubs, and pay $2 million in fines.