Could LA beaches become a national park? Surprisingly, the answer is maybe

Yosemite. Yellowstone. The Grand Canyon.

RAT Beach in Torrance?

Maybe. An announcement from the National Park Service on Thursday — that beaches from San Pedro to Santa Monica are being studied to someday become a national park — is making the rounds and raising lots of questions.

Chief among them: Huh?

The proposal appears to come from Biden-era appropriations legislation.

The Park Service website sets out four criteria for studying whether an area should be recommended to become a national park. It must:

1. Contain nationally significant natural and/or cultural resources.
2. Represent a natural or cultural resource that is not already adequately represented in the national park system or is not comparably represented and protected for public enjoyment by another land-managing entity.
3. Be of sufficient size and appropriate configuration to ensure long-term protection of the resources and visitor enjoyment and capable of efficient administration by the National Park Service at a reasonable cost; important feasibility factors include landownership, acquisition costs, life cycle maintenance costs, access, threats to the resource, and staff or development requirements.
4. Require direct NPS management that is clearly superior to other management approaches.

We’ll let you decide whether the Venice Boardwalk, say, meets the brief.

The Park Service is holding two virtual meetings, the first of which is next week:

Feb. 11, 1 p.m to 2:30 p.m. PT

• Webinar link: https://bit.ly/4t8oWXW
• Join by phone: 1-202-640-1187, Conference ID: 990571600#

March 11, 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. PT

• Webinar link: https://bit.ly/4akUPVE 

• Join by phone: 1-202-640-1187, Conference ID: 362420885#

LAist will dig deeper into this idea in the coming weeks. Until then, just imagine park rangers … playing volleyball in Manhattan Beach.