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August 2008
California Oak Report
Educational Outreach
COF works to assist counties in meeting the state’s environmental laws, an example follows:
July 28, 2008
Calaveras County
Board of Supervisors
891 Mountain Ranch Road
San Andreas, CA 95249-9709
Re: Oak Resources
Honorable Supervisors:
The California Oak Foundation (COF) writes to advise the Board of Supervisors that COF has begun monitoring all Calaveras County mitigated negative declarations and environmental impact reports for compliance with California Environmental Quality Act oak resource standards.
This review is prompted by Calaveras County's failure over the past two years to adopt consequential local oak resource conservation measures.
During this time period Placer, El Dorado and Tuolumne Counties have approved comprehensive oak conservation policies and programs. Like Calaveras County, Amador County lacks meaningful oak conservation measures but it has learned to properly apply proportional oak mitigation standards. For example, the Jackson Hills (Jackson) project FEIR requires the applicant to preserve off-site "an equal number [127 acres] of existing oak woodland/savanna habitat for each acre of oak woodland/savanna habitat converted by the project." The Wicklow (County) project DEIR preferred mitigation alternative proposes mitigating impacts to 172 acres of oak resources with 172 acres permanently conserved off-site. COF is confident that the Gold ush Ranch (Sutter Creek) project will mitigate its 400 acres of oak resource impacts in a similar manner.
The Sierra Business Council (2008) reports that, "Oak woodlands comprise nearly one-quarter of the California’s Sierra Nevada acreage, concentrated in the private lands of the western foothills between 450-4,500 feet. Between 1945 and 1985 roughly 800,000 acres of the 4.7 million total were lost due to changes in land use or vegetation types...Tuolumne County experienced a 42% decline. Other counties with high loss rates during that time period include Calaveras (29%) and Amador (28%)."
Since 1985 Calaveras County has converted many thousands of oak woodland acres to non-forest use and thousands more are at risk of development by 2040.
Conservation of oak woodlands is a wise and cost-effective means of ensuring sustainable business in communities dependent on scenic values, clean air and safe drinking water. COF urges the Board of Supervisors to consider these benefits in its future oak resource deliberations.
Respectfully,
Janet S. Cobb, President
California Oak Foundation
cc: Planning Department
No Backsliding Allowed
California Oak Foundation has joined local environmental organizations to challenge the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors’ approval of an Oak Woodland Management Plan (OWMP) that violates the General Plan and past legal agreements.
In a petition filed in the County’s Superior Court on June 6, 2008 by the Center for Sierra Nevada Conservation (CSNC), El Dorado County Taxpayers for Quality Growth and COF, the groups charge the Board of Supervisors with breaking an agreement that settled the years long General Plan litigation, as well as violating the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
In 1996, residents and environmental groups legally challenged the Board of Supervisors for adopting a General Plan that failed to provide protection of the county’s water and critical wildlife habitat. To settle that lawsuit, the county promised in 2004 to adopt an Integrated Natural Resources Management Plan, which was to include the Oak Woodland Management Plan. The purpose of the OWMP was to protect the most critical oak woodland habitat and provide wildlife habitat connectivity along the Highway 50 corridor.
"Not only are they are thumbing their noses at the minimal wildlife habitat protections included in the General Plan, but they are ignoring their earlier settlement agreement," observed Ray Griffiths, a former county planning commissioner and member of El Dorado County Taxpayers for Quality Growth. "This plan is a recipe for the systematic destruction of the county’s oak woodlands," added Karen Schambach, CSNC president.
In the 2004 revised General Plan Environmental Impact Report, the County incorporated an analysis done on behalf of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection on the projected impacts to oak woodlands in El Dorado County by development under the 1996 General Plan. The study projected substantial fragmentation adjacent to Highway 50 as the area built out. The consultant hired to create the OWMP developed a strategy to purchase conservation easements in corridors through the area to preserve north south connectivity. However, in the fall of 2007, the Supervisors deleted those portions of the plan and dedicated any mitigation funds towards purchasing conservation easements in isolated grazing lands unlikely to be subject to development pressure. In addition, the mitigation fees were substantially under-funded.
The environmental organizations are asking the court to order the Board of Supervisors to comply with the General Plan requirements for developing the Natural Resources Management Plan, including an Oak Woodland Management Plan that fully mitigates for the loss of oak woodlands to development.
Picturesque Franklin Canyon Preserved
Ending a 20-year debate, the non-profit Muir Heritage Land Trust has announced that it has negotiated a sales agreement to buy 423 acres of Franklin Canyon oak woodlands and grasslands located in Hercules (Contra Costa County). Muir has two years to raise the $1.8 million purchase price through contributions and grants. Franklin Canyon, with its sweeping views of San Francisco Bay, will join Muir’s Fernandez Ranch to form a 1,100-acre contiguous swath of protected open space between Hercules and Martinez.
"When you drive along Highway 4, you look up and see a great corridor of hills," said Steve Kirby, who helped write the Hercules ballot measure that blocked a proposed 500 home development. "It would have been very disappointing to see this developed." The most recent development proposal, misnamed GreenPark, would have graded the hills extensively and removed more than 3,000 oak trees. The 2004 passage of Measure M by 63 percent of Hercules voters stopped the project.
The Muir Land Trust plans to kick off its fundraising dinner for the Franklin Canyon property with its Fresh Aire Affaire from 5 to 9 p.m Aug. 16 at the John Muir National Historic Site on Alhambra Avenue in Martinez. For more information, visit www.muirheritagelandtrust.org.
New to Our Website
Investigating the Oak Community, our curriculum for 4th through 8th graders, will be available as a free download on a new page we’ve designed with kids in mind. The website www.californiaoaks.org/html/kids.html will be up and running this month and people of all ages are welcome to use these lessons about oaks.
Merchandise
The Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada by John Muir Laws
published by the California Academy of Sciences and Heyday Books
366 pages of 2,800 original watercolor illustrations. Over 1,700 species of Sierra trees, wildflowers, ferns, fungi, lichens, fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals, insects and other small animals have been catalogued. Paperback, $24.95, members 22.46, plus tax, shipping and handling.
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