Subject: Lucky 13 Stipulations
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2011 12:57:15 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Craig Dremann
To: sschectman@openspace.org
CC: "BOARD" <BOARD@openspace.org>, "Managers"
<Managers@openspace.org>
Dear Ms. Schectman, Board and Managers,
Thank you for your email.
I mis-counted and find that there are actually
13 Stipulations, so let's
call them the Lucky-13 Stipulations, because if they are agreed
to by the
District, then the natural resources at Russian Ridge may have
the good
luck and good fortune to receive some attention from the District,
to live
and survive into the future:
1.) Stipulate that the District acknowledges
that the State of California
considers the District's non-serpentine native wildflower fields
and
native bunchgrass habitats, are among the rarest and most endangered
plant
communities in California--considering the tiny percentage of
existing
relicts in 2011 when compared to their original statewide coverage
in
pre-European times.
2.) Stipulate that the Russian Ridge preserve
wildflower fields are the
best non-serpentine examples of that habitat in northern California,
within a 200 mile radius.
3.) Stipulate that a public resource agency
should never use such a rare
and endangered natural resource--the best example of non-serpentine
wildflowers in Northern California at Russian Ridge--as a fire
training
site for five fires, without doing any before-and-after vegetation
impact
monitoring, nor doing any EIRs, without offering any alternatives,
and
ignoring numerous reports of measured cumulative damages done
to that rare
resource by the five fires.
4.) Stipulate that a full EIR should have been
written for each of those
Russian Ridge burn projects, with thresholds and analyses,
before-and-after monitoring, alternatives given to the public
including
the no-project alternative, and that the Board or CAL FIRE should
have
held CEQA scoping meetings to get input from the public before
the burn
projects proceeded.
5.) Stipulate that the Board knows that it
cannot Categorically Exempt
itself from CEQA, to avoid ever having to write an EIR for "Management
of
existing native vegetation,"--which is what the Board tried
to do in their
2001 resolution--and that exemption is illegal under CEQA, is
vague,
arbitrary, capricious, and unenforceable, and that error will
be amended
by the Board with another Resolution at a Board meeting set for
a date
certain, out of court.
6.) Stipulate that the planned burn by CAL
FIRE for the Russian Ridge
preserve was canceled in 2010, according to the June 18 CAL FIRE
email,
for "CEQA issues", and the District will outline in
detail, exactly what
CEQA issues CAL FIRE is talking about, that caused the 2010 fire
to be
postponed.
7.) Stipulate that all of the burns conducted
by CAL FIRE, were done
without an EIR under CEQA, and that any pre-burn checklists done
by CAL
FIRE for the five Russian Ridge burns, are not legal substitutes
for an
EIR.
8.) Stipulate that the District acknowledges
that damages have been done
to the wildflower and native grass resources by the five fires
at Russian
Ridge.
9.) Stipulate that those damages can be measured
by comparing the 1996
weed map and mapping the extent of the weeds today, plus comparing
Erik
Goetze's Russian Ridge panorama wildflower pictures on the web
with a
survey of those sites today, and that the Board is going to have
that work
done by September 1 of this year.
10.) The District also stipulates that it could
be as much as $20 million
to lower the weed cover and increase the natural resources back
to
pre-burn levels, and the Board is going to get an independent
quote for
the total costs, out of court, and inform the public what those
costs will
be.
11.) The District stipulates that it is solely
responsible for any
mitigation costs for damages caused by the five burns conducted
by CAL
FIRE, including the $20 million in natural resource damages, in
part
because of the hold-harmless agreement between the agencies.
12.) The District stipulates that it will repair
the fire damages to
Russian Ridge, to control the weeds back to their pre-burn levels,
and
restore the extent of the wildflower fields and bunchgrasses to
their
preburn levels, with an EIR written before the project is begun,
small
scale test plots conducted to test and develop successful methods,
and
annual reports for the public published of their progress by September
1
of each year, and the fire damage mitigation project to be finished
by
June 1, 2015.
13.) Stipulate that the District will conduct
a full EIR for any native
plant management project or any weed management project in the
future,
that is conducted within any grassland habitats on any of its
preserves.
==============
I am hoping that some of the easier Stipulations
could be agreed to
immediately by the Board, and put in writing, like the first two.
Plus, it should be very easy to explain exactly
what issues CAL FIRE was
talking about in their email when they canceled the Russian Ridge
fire
last year, because of "CEQA issues".
And it should also be very easy for the Board
to show good faith in public
natural resource management, by passing a Resolution to cancel
the illegal
CEQA Categorical Exemption that it passed in it 2001 Resolution,
about
being exempt from writing any EIRs for management of existing
native
vegetation?
Right this very minute at Russian Ridge, hundreds
of millions of native
seeds are germinating, and the seedlings that are about an inch
tall
today, but many will die, because of the weeds spread by the fires.
Those native seedlings are in the process of
being killed and covered by a
tsunami of weed thatch and weed seedlings, as a direct result
of the
cumulative fire damages to the environment, that must be repaired,
for the
survival of the resource.
Sincerely, Craig Dremann
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