Stop Giant Music Festival from Harming Sepulveda Wildlife Reserve

Update: AngelFest now proposed for Oct 2017. Issues are the same.

In the teeming metropolis that is Los Angeles, few spaces have been set aside to accommodate resident and migratory birds. The Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve in the heart of the San Fernando Valley is one of the best designed and most available to the public. The Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with the Reserve’s management, has been asked for permission to conduct a gigantic, three-day music festival -- along the lines of Coachella. Expected attendance is 65,000 visitors a day, eating, drinking and celebrating. Three of five planned music stages, with huge amplifiers, intense lighting and pyrotechnic displays, will abut our precious and unique Wildlife Reserve.

Mid-October is the middle of Fall migration season. Birds habitually depend on the Reserve’s open spaces and its large lake for rest and nutrition on their long voyage South. The record of large music festivals is not one of low-impact, drug-and-alcohol-free co-existence with neighbors, much less wildlife. The Angelfest promoters seem well intentioned, but it is hard to imagine even the best outcome not having a significant negative impact on the Reserve. In addition to festival-goers trampling through the area, time for set-up and take-down will total 26 days, making a large portion of the eastern Basin unavailable.

In all of L.A. County, there must be a better place to stage a music festival than right up against a nature preserve!