Updated: Forest Service to Cancel Plan to Dynamite Boulder in Millard Falls

A plan to inspect and possibly dynamite a boulder in a waterfall in the Millard Campground have been cancelled so the idea can be studied further, according to Sherri Rollman, a Forest Service spokeswoman.

The Forest Service had planning to go forward with plans to dynamite a boulder at the top of Millard Falls sometime this week, according to e-mails between Forest Service employees that were forwarded to Altadena Patch.  The emails were sent to notify local cabin owners of the possibility of a loud boom from the dynamite.

The operation would be to remove a boulder stuck at the top of a waterfall in the Millard Campground area that was a potential safety hazard.

That plan will not happen without careful environmental study, Rollman said Tuesday afternoon.

"The boulder project is cancelled because we want to make sure that it is properly evaluated and see if there is a need to remove it or not," Rollman said.

The boulder, which has been stuck in the waterfall for years, apparently shifted slightly during the winter rains this year, Rollman said, and Forest Service officials are concerned it could pose a danger to visitors to the site, once it is fully open to the public again.

She said that a team that the emails say was set to go out there this week was going to evaluate whether or not it would need to be removed before using the dynamite.

The emails make it sound as if the decision to remove the boulder had already been made.

In an email to others in the Forest Service, local ranger Mike McIntyre wrote: "Our plans to dynamite the rock at the falls apparently all came together and will be done this week. Would you send this out on the network for me to notify the cabin owners there may be a large boom?"

Mike Alarid, the supervisor for the service's Bear Divide Hotshots team, which was the crew scheduled to do the work, said he had been expecting to go to the site Tuesday morning but had the call for service cancelled at the last minute.

"I'm not sure what the reasons were [for cancelling it]," Alarid said. "I couldn't tell you who made the decision."

Alarid and local Forest Service Supervisor Mike McIntyre had sent out an e-mail to cabin owners in the area, and the e-mail was forwarded to Altadena Patch and others by local wildlife advocate Lori Paul, who has expressed concerns that the operation could hurt animals who live in the stream bed.

Altadena has had similar problems at Millard Canyon and elsewhere in the past.

A similar situation arose last summer when a local water company diverted a stream flow through a Millard Canyon creek bed without notifying the public.  After protests from Paul and others, the Forest Service issued a cease and desist letter to the water company over concerns that action could have on local wildlife.

In addition, in 1998 in Rubio Canyon, a chunk of a hillside collapsed into the stream bed there during repairs to pipes by a local water company.

Rollman said that if a determination is made in the future to remove in the boulder it will be done only after careful environmental study and the public will be kept updated during the process.