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September 2008
California Oak Report
Environmentalists Call To Arms
The Ridge at Trinitas. Remember that name. Trinitas is a 6,800-yard PGA tournament golf course, including electronic scoreboard, allegedly constructed for private use by the developer's family and friends. This Sierra course was built without any plans or drawings being filed in the public domain, no permits and zero environmental review. Now, a private/public golf course and expanded resort, including $50,000 individual and $75,000 corporate memberships, an overnight lodge and initially 13 exclusive home sites, are being proposed in a revised draft environmental impact report (RDEIR).
Trinitas acknowledges that the 116-acre golf course site has been extensively transformed from a contiguous oak woodlands habitat to a picturesque but unnaturally fragmented recreational landscape. By the developer’s own admission many old-growth oaks were removed to finance the golf course.
The project record indicates that the Trinitas golf course developer moved to Calaveras County in 2001with the express purpose of building the investor-driven golf resort currently proposed. Assisted by delinquent County officials, the usual permits and environmental review weren't required. Neither the applicant nor county should be rewarded for these transgressions.
Trinitas’ circumstances are unprecedented in the nearly 40-year history of CEQA and the RDEIR is as deceptive as the golf course that spawned it. This project in fact violates the very essence of CEQA. Therefore, the only appropriate project alternative is Alternative 1, no project, removal of the existing Trinitas golf course.
Individuals and conservation organizations concerned about Sierra natural resources are urged to send some email Trinitas public comments to the Calaveras County Planning Department or Robert Sellman, Planning Director, 891 Mountain Ranch Road, San Andreas, CA 95249. Comments must be submitted by September 29, 2008 at 4:00 p.m. COF's The Ridge at Trinitas public comments are available upon request.
California Oak Foundation thanks you.
For an update on COF's Sierra oak woodlands conservation efforts, see the recent TSPN-TV, Amador County news feature and the Stockton Record - (type "Calaveras hits stump in tree law ordinance" in the "Search" box) article.
CA Court: EIRs Must Address Climate Change
The Riverside County Superior Court has invalidated an environmental impact report (EIR) for the 1,766 acre Palmwood project in the Coachella Valley. Palmwood proposed nearly 2,700 homes, 1 million square feet of commercial space, a 400 unit hotel, a commercial amphitheater, and golf courses comprising 45 holes.
The Court cited the EIR's failure to analyze the project's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other climate change impacts. Specifically, respondent City of Desert Hot Springs contended that a climate change analysis was not required because it would be entirely "speculative," given the absence of any formal regulatory guidance, framework, or the necessary analytic tools or methodology. Rejecting this argument, the Court held that the City should have at least made a "meaningful attempt" to analyze the Project's climate change impacts. By failing to do so, the City did not proceed as required by law. The Court further held that the City should have considered the cumulative impact of GHGs:
"Respondent may well be correct about the absence of regulatory guidance ... and that if respondent had made a meaningful attempt to analyze the project’s effects upon greenhouse gases or global warming that it would have concluded that such an analysis was entirely speculative. But respondent failed to make such a meaningful attempt and therefore did not proceed as required by law." [Center for Biological Diversity, et al. v. City of Desert Hot Springs, et al. (Riverside County Superior Court Case No. RIC 464585) (August 6, 2008)]
This case settles that minimally, lead agencies must make a "meaningful attempt" and "use its best efforts to find out and disclose all that it reasonably can" regarding a proposed action's climate change impacts. Moreover, this decision reinforces the fact that CEQA requires local jurisdictions to analyze CO2 emissions from the conversion of oak woodlands to non-forest use. The analytic tools and specific methodology for measuring oak woodland carbon sequestration or release are described in the California Air Resources Board’s Forest Protocol. There is nothing speculative about these scientific standards.
Oaks Losing Leaves Early
Most years, deciduous oaks trees’ color change coincides with signs of autumn -- Halloween pumpkins, Thanksgiving cornucopias, shorter days and cooler nights. But the 2008 drought already has some blue oaks in the Sierra Nevada foothills changing color and losing their leaves.
"In 1987, during a severe drought, many oak trees in the Sierra Nevada foothills, as well as in the Coastal and Transverse Mountain Ranges, began turning brown and dropping their leaves in August" said University of California Cooperative Extension oak specialist Douglas McCreary.
Oak trees’ ability to shed foliage early is a survival mechanism. All plants and trees require moisture to survive. Their roots pull moisture from the soil, channel it through the trunk, branches and stems in water conducting tissues called xylem, and into the leaves. Some of the moisture is released into the atmosphere through small pores in the leaves called stomata.
The pores allow carbon dioxide to enter the leaves and be converted into food through photosynthesis. When faced with low soil moisture, the trees can either keep their foliage and continue losing water through the leaf pores, or drop their leaves and conserve moisture. Shedding foliage does suspend photosynthesis, but in the long term it helps prevent the trees from becoming fatally parched, McCreary said.
"Trees in dense stands are particularly apt to turn brown since there is greater competition for soil moisture," he said. "Trees in shallow, rocky soils or on south facing slopes will be affected more than those in valleys or swales."
Scientists at the UC Sierra Foothill Research and Extension Center in Yuba County researched oak trees during the 1987 drought and found that trees that lost leaves early suffered no detectable long term damage.
"Drought does stress the trees, so they usually grow slowly and become more susceptible to insect and disease attacks," McCreary said. "The long term consequences of repeated droughts are probably harmful. But we expect that most of the trees that change color and drop their leaves early this year will probably recover during the winter and leaf out normally next spring."
Early leaf loss may be more harmful to the ecosystem than to individual trees. Loss of leaves can hamper acorn development and maturity, reducing the number of acorns that will germinate and develop into seedlings. Reduced acorn production also adversely affects the many wildlife species that rely heavily on acorns for food.
Merchandise
Life of an Oak by Glenn Keator, illustrated by Susan Bazell, co-published by Heyday Books & the California Oak Foundation (1998), takes an intimate look at all aspects of the genus Quercus, from an examination of cellular processes to the spread around the world of this remarkable, diversified family. 256 pgs. 75 full-color photographs, 30 full-color illustrations, 21 black and white diagrams. Paperback $17.95, Members $16.16, plus shipping and handling.
New to Our Website
Investigating the Oak Community, our curriculum for 4 through 8 graders, is available as a free download on our new Kids page. People of all ages are welcome to use these lessons about oaks.
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