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For thousands of years, a rich web of life has provided deer, squirrels, rabbits, songbirds, foxes, salamanders, and a host of other species with all that they've needed for survival amidst the oak woodlands of our region.
Neither drought, storms, or wind have permanently altered the foothills' web of life. Lightning-ignited wildfires or fires intentionally lit by the MeWuk have burned countless times across the region, yet the fire-adapted plants and wildlife have managed to recover or to thrive.
More than two centuries of livestock grazing and the introduction of non-native plants has markedly altered the landscape of the foothills. Dams and diversions have stopped the widespread springtime flooding that historically spread far beyond the riverbanks of the Tuolumne, Mokelumne, and Stanislaus River systems. Yet even with the loss of the perennial grasses and native wildflowers and the loss of the deep watering from spring snowmelt, the wildlife and oaks of the foothills have been remarkably resilient.
So today, many of us look with a sense of awe and connection to the beautiful oak woodland habitat that still blankets much of the foothill region. We take pride in the scenic beauty that the oaks, brush, and grasslands provide, and we recognize how critically important the oak woodlands are for hundreds of wildlife species that depend upon that ecosystem.
Yet now, more than at any time in history, the oak woodlands are being gouged, bulldozed, cleared, leveled, graded, and fragmented by rampant development. The ecosystem is under attack due to the incredible profits that come with developing the rural landscape of the region.
Calaveras County has become the prime example of booming development spreading unleashed across the landscape -- mostly unchecked by any limitations or General Plan restrictions.
One giant project (Oak Canyon Ranch) gained approval last year for the construction of two golf courses, a massive commercial complex, roads, parking lots, resort facilities, and up to 3,450 housing units near Copperopolis. Another large project, Tuscany Hills, would create a golf course and create 300 new residential lots close to Tulloch Reservoir.
In the Wallace and Valley Springs area, one development project after another is adding up to an onslaught of environmental impacts. New subdivisions and roads are carving up the beautiful oak woodlands and chopping the hills into building pads, driveways, and flattened ridgelines. CSERC staff recently visited the Ponte Ranch project where developers hope to gain approval for over 900 homes and commercial development.
Many smaller subdivisions have easily gained County approval and are in various stages of build out. On one property, roughly 100 acres of oaks were bulldozed, piled, and burned. Elsewhere, instead of working with the terrain and retaining the beauty of existing oaks, developers are flattening building sites and landscaping with non-native plants.
Calaveras County has a General Plan that already allows a massive amount of development across the foothills, but General Plan amendments add even more of a threat to the oak woodlands. Anytime that developers want to modify the General Plan in order to increase their profits, they have routinely gained County approval for changing the Plan. As just one example, the Copper Mill development south of Highway 4 would create an entire new commercial shopping center on land now mostly designated for agriculture in the County's General Plan, but numerous county staff and decision-makers have already glowingly endorsed this high profile shopping complex, despite its conflict with the General Plan.
What all of this boils down to is this: wildlife habitat and wildlife values are falling like dominoes across the foothills. Bears, mountain lions, bobcats, and other predators are being squeezed further and further into the remote river canyons as scattered development projects fragment the oak woodlands. Migratory songbirds are finding fewer acres of suitable habitat as oaks are cleared and brush is graded into building pads. Sediment from development washes into streams and reservoirs, and the extension of new roads, waterlines, and sewer connections pushes ever further into the countryside.
For the past decade, CSERC has been a leading force responding to this onslaught of sprawling development. With private property rights being such a high profile priority for many Calaveras County officials, the best that CSERC can gain in most circumstances in that County are revised development plans that better protect the environment. In Tuolumne County, our level of credibility and expertise on wildlife, water, open space, and traffic issues have helped us to gain significant changes in many projects even before the development goes forward for approval.
Again and again our fieldwork, detailed written comments, and testimony before planning commissions and boards of supervisors have led to changes in project conditions. In some cases we've gained greater protection for oaks and stream corridors. In other cases we've gotten traffic mitigation requirements and requirements for wildlife surveys to look for rare species. In our most successful efforts, we've managed to gain broad open space protections or gain avoidance for threatened heritage oaks and other important wildlife values.
The bad news is that as profits soar, the incentive for developers to carve up the oak woodlands grows and grows. In response, our staff is carefully reviewing each and every development proposal, attending every major opportunity to testify, and lobbying intensely for broad policies that will provide long-term protection for water, oak woodland, and air quality values.
Your support of our programs is vital to this critical work. Thank you for being our partners in this struggle to hold back wave after wave of proposals and threats. |
