Page 7 - mwoty2020women

Dianne Erskine-Hellrigel 7
Director,
Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society;
President,
Community Hiking Club;
Vice President/Executive Director,
St. Francis Dam National Memorial Foundation
Nominating Organization
Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society
Organizations
Community Hiking Club, president, 20 years; SCV Historical Society, Director, approx. 5 years; St. Francis
Dam National Memorial Foundation, VP, since inception
Organization Impact
See bio below
Other Contributions
See bio below
Biography
Dianne Erskine-Hellrigel jumped at the chance to help Dr. Alan Pollack turn the St. Francis Dam Disaster site in
Saugus into a National Memorial and National Monument, giving the 400-plus victims of the 1928 disaster the
recognition they deserve. Having worked with members of Congress on both sides of the political aisle to draft
and pass critical wilderness-preserving legislation over the past two decades, Dianne had the experience and the
connections to turn the dream into reality. For 90 years, the St. Francis Dam Disaster was mostly a “local” story,
told in the Santa Clarita Valley and the downstream communities where lives were lost and families uprooted –
Piru, Fillmore, Santa Paula, Saticoy, Montalvo – as the floodwaters swept local residents to the sea. In truth, it
wasn’t just a “local” disaster. Lessons were learned that impacted construction of the Hoover Dam and altered
dam engineering and approval processes forevermore. Had it been anywhere else, the disaster site would have
been a National Monument long ago. But there’s no history in California, right? Wrong. Dianne drafted initial
versions of “St. Francis Dam Disaster National Memorial and National Monument” legislation and won the
support of Buck McKeon, who introduced it in the House, and his successor Steve Knight, who saw it through.
With assistance from the City of Santa Clarita, Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein carried it in the Senate,
and President Trump signed it into law in 2019. As a result, the Santa Clarita Valley is home to only the second
National Memorial in California, and it is the only one in the country to be managed by the U.S. Forest Service.
(Most are managed by the National Park Service.) As president and executive director of the Community Hiking
Club for 20 years, Dianne has rolled up her sleeves to keep Santa Clarita beautiful. She has spearheaded trash
cleanups, graffiti removals, Santa Clara River cleanups, non-native plant removals and non-native fish remov-
als. She has worked to keep wildlife corridors open and clean, documented all of the native flowers in the area
and GPS’d local endangered species. She mapped and wrote an environmental report on Magic Mountain (the
mountain, not the theme park) and Pleasant View Ridge, which resulted in them becoming wilderness areas.
She also worked on Piru Creek, which became a Wild and Scenic River as a result of her work, and she was
involved in the effort to designate the San Gabriel Mountains a National Monument. The list goes on to include
Rim of the Valley legislation, the Angeles National Forest Monument Plan and more. Today she is working with
the U.S. Forest Service on “next steps” for the St. Francis Dam site, and she serves as executive director of the
St. Francis Dam National Memorial Foundation, which is tasked with raising funds for a physical memorial –
something long overdue.