SPI clearcut litigation debated at State Supreme Court

  After years in the court system, a lawsuit by Ebbetts Pass Forest Watch and CSERC finally was argued before the State Supreme Court on March 5th.  As John (CSERC’s director) sat in the audience, he felt extreme frustration to hear the attorneys representing the State Department of Forestry and Sierra Pacific Industries base a key portion of their case on the claim that SPI only applies herbicides once in 80 years on a site.  In truth, SPI foresters have told CSERC that herbicides may be applied four times to a clearcut unit in just a 10-year period.   The judges were also misled by SPI’s attorney’s claims that although the information was not contained in the Timber Harvest Plan, he asserted that SPI foresters carefully evaluated cumulative impacts to wildlife from the clearcuts.  In truth little consideration is ever given to the big picture effects of hundreds of clearcut logging units gauging huge holes in the forest’s web of life across our local region.  As of the newsletter going to press, the court had not released any decision on this pivotal case.

CSERC urges USFS to delay Enduro event to protect at-risk wildlife

  As in past years, the Forest Service is once again favoring the desires of a motorcycle club over the needs of at-risk wildlife.  CSERC is fighting to change the agency’s current plan to allow the Little Polecat Enduro event in May on the MiWok District of the Stanislaus Forest.  At that time, young goshawks and spotted owls are still on their nests and are highly vulnerable if parent birds fly away from noise caused by the event.  At least 150 motorcycle riders are expected to ride 78 miles of routes through the forest.  Many of the route segments are unauthorized routes.  CSERC is simply asking the Forest to shift the date into mid-June -- a time that agency biologists agree is far less likely to cause harm for the raptors, rare plants, and other resources.

State scolds Calaveras County for Williamson Act violations

  Echoing the same concerns that CSERC has frequently voiced before Calaveras County decision-makers, State officials have publicly reprimanded the County for violating Williamson Act requirements.  As one example, the County allowed a property owner to construct the Trinitas golf course on his supposedly agricultural property while he was receiving a tax break under the Williamson Act.  CSERC continues to support the Williamson Act’s benefits for property owners practicing true agriculture.

Tuolumne County supervisors reject environmentally-positive ordinances

  A core majority of Tuolumne County supervisors continues to reject calls for better land planning protection for the quality of life and the environment in the county.  First, the supervisors last fall rejected a long-awaited oak protection ordinance.  Although the board finally agreed to ask staff to draft a Premature Removal ordinance (to eventually penalize developers who clear oaks before engaging in the CEQA process), even that decision delayed action for months.  Then the board rejected a Noise ordinance that had been strongly supported by the board’s planning committee and a broad, diverse range of community representatives.  Most recently, the County is moving to adopt new Planned Unit Development policies that will create loopholes so that the County can approve almost any project, even if it violates normal planning requirements, if supervisors simply judge it to provide adequate benefits for the County.  CSERC has been actively engaged in all of these policies and continues to monitor the ordinances.

Wolverine photo ripples through science community, media

  As many readers have seen in either e-mails or newspaper coverage, a wolverine was photographed on the Tahoe National Forest at a photo-detection station similar to the ones that CSERC sets up and maintains on the Stanislaus Forest.  The photo (not the stock photo of the wolverine at right) raises the hope of scientists and the public that free-ranging wolverines are not extinct in the Sierra Nevada, as feared.  CSERC is working to prove that fishers are similarly still in existence in the local national forest, despite a decade without any proven detections.  Our cameras do capture photos of rare martens, but so far, no fishers or wolverines have posed