September 8, 2001    

OUT THERE
Into the Wild Blue to Look for Green Below

Flying service that helps monitor environmental patterns and problems 
from above aids effort to find land for an open corridor in Arroyo 
Seco.

By JOE MOZINGO, TIMES STAFF WRITER

The small plane lifted off the Pacoima airstrip with the wiggle of a 
simpering dog. The engine groaned as the gravel pits and taco shops 
melded into the gray dinginess below. Donald Dawson worked the 
controls, gunning for nearby mountains yet to be seen through a late 
summer dishwater sky.

The Cessna Turbo Centurion was headed over the Arroyo Seco, where 
three of Dawson's passengers, all environmentalists, wanted to survey 
the terrain for undeveloped pieces of land that could be tied 
together in a belt of open space from the San Gabriel Mountains to 
the Los Angeles River.

The flight over the nation's second largest city marked a new 
direction for LightHawk, a nonprofit flying service more likely to be 
found surveying clear cuts in Northern California or tracking caribou 
herds in northern Alaska. For more than 20 years, LightHawk has 
provided flights for environmentalists who, for whatever reason, 
wanted to see an area from above. The volunteer pilots have helped 
keep track of deforestation in Central America, toxic waste dumping 
in Missouri and whale migration in the Pacific.

Now, with a growing movement to preserve open space in Los Angeles, 
LightHawk's services are in demand here.

"A lot of our flagship issues were way out in the Pacific Northwest," 
said Terri Watson, the executive director, who is based in 
Wyoming. "Now we're also showing the importance of green space, or 
the impact of sprawl moving up into the hills."

Although LightHawk does not take on causes of its own, it provides 
services to environmentally minded scientists, political leaders and 
activists. With a staff member, Maureen Smith, based in Los Angeles, 
the peripatetic group plans to begin operating more often in the area.

"People just don't know us in Southern California yet," Smith said.

Pilot Michael Stewartt established LightHawk in 1979 to spot clear 
cuts, which are often hidden from the highway. He and mountain 
climber Bruce Gordon began flying two Cessna 210s over forests in the 
Pacific Northwest.

"Clear cuts usually can only be seen from the air," Gordon said. "The 
roads are left as scenic corridors lined with trees."

When winter weather interfered with flying, the pair flew down to 
Belize and began conducting similar missions in Central America, 
monitoring deforestation. In the mid-1980s, they started picking up 
grants and donations while recruiting other pilots to volunteer their 
planes, fuel and time. An old friend of Gordon from Aspen, Colo., the 
late singer John Denver, became a spokesman for the group.

According to LightHawk, its aerial reconnaissance has helped catch a 
Chicago politician who was taking public money for a recycling 
facility, while just dumping the recyclable items on his farm. 
LightHawk flights spotted chemical dumpers at a lead mine in 
Missouri. And Gordon and Stewartt noticed an extraordinarily pristine 
slice of rain forest in Belize that they later helped save as a 
national park.

Now the group has about 120 volunteer pilots. They are doctors, 
pharmacists, teachers, oil field roughnecks, hunters and retirees 
like Dawson. LightHawk requires them to have at least 1,000 hours of 
flying time. It wants pilots who can maneuver a plane for a 
photographer's best angle in tough conditions but who won't test the 
aircraft's limits for the sake of a picture.

Dawson fits the bill. All business, with no tolerance for PR stunts, 
he has a bitter taste in his mouth from one mission over the Silicon 
Valley to view the site of a controversial high-tech facility. He 
felt that the flight was staged by environmentalists just so they 
could hold a news conference and get publicity for their cause.

"I like to do something useful," he said. "It's not a joy ride."

'Not a Red-Hot Activist'

Dawson is 81 and appears as fit as a 60-year-old. The wiry member of 
United Flying Octogenarians has only flown a few missions for 
LightHawk, all in Northern California, and was itching to take off in 
L.A.

Dawson used to volunteer for Air Lifeline, flying people who needed 
medical attention. Several years ago, he decided to sign up for 
LightHawk .

"I'm not a red-hot activist," he said. "I'm an old engineer who wants 
to help people do things on a considered, analyzed and studied basis."

Robert Gottlieb, a professor of environmental policy at Occidental 
College, approached LightHawk about working locally on issues related 
to land preservation along the Los Angeles River. The Arroyo Seco 
River, a tributary, offered the best opportunity for a maiden flight.

"How better to view a watershed than to see what it encompasses from 
a LightHawk flight?" he asked.

The flight provided a broad perspective of the terrain that would 
have been impossible to get from the ground. And it yielded 
information that a map could not. A blank spot on a map, after all, 
might look great for a park, but in reality be a landslide or already 
graded for homes.

At the Pacoima airport, Dawson forked over his own credit card for 
the gas, as is routine for LightHawk pilots. With three urban park 
proponents and a reporter in tow, he planned to fly over the Arroyo 
Seco River from its headwaters in the San Gabriels to its outflow 
into the Los Angeles River.

"I want you guys to tell me exactly what you want to see and how you 
want to see it," Dawson said. "I'll try not to jiggle the plane 
around. If you get uncomfortable, there's sick sacks behind all the 
seats."

Bouncing off thermal updrafts like a boat in rough seas, the plane 
was headed for communication towers on top of Mt. Wilson. Below, bony 
fingers of rocky debris reached down shadowy ravines, but soon gave 
way to rolling carpets of pine in the higher reaches.

Stomachs Roiled

Timothy Brick of the Arroyo Seco Foundation narrated from the front 
seat. He and Lynne Dwyer, executive director of the nonprofit group 
Northeast Trees, wanted to see the 21-mile arroyo from above as part 
of an effort to link natural areas along it and improve wildlife 
habitats. The trip could help map out potential acquisitions, as well 
as expose major degradation of the watershed, such as erosion.

Not long into the flight, the passengers found themselves in a 
sweltering cabin, hovering over the shoulder of Mt. Wilson before an 
awesome, swooning drop into the arroyo watershed. Dwyer immediately 
noticed the debris let loose by the road cuts along Angeles Crest 
Highway. The plane was descending at about 120 mph into Pasadena when 
Dawson banked hard to the left to circle in the canyon, bumping off 
the rising thermals, roiling stomachs.

"I was thinking, 'My God, we're going to hit the mountain,' " Dwyer 
said later.

He pointed out erosion that had resulted from brush clearance in La 
Canada Flintridge. But the bump-and-roll was creeping up on the two 
other passengers, who were now dead silent, drenched in sweat and 
eyeing their sick bags.

The watershed passed in a matter of minutes--then came Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory, the Rose Bowl, the Pasadena Freeway and, at last, the 
L.A. River. A helicopter might have been better for viewing such 
precipitous terrain, but as far as Dwyer and Brick were concerned, 
the flight was worth the discomfort.

"It's big if you're walking in it," Dwyer said. "But it's very small, 
you realize, flying over it. Projects seem more doable." 

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