Action Alert TODAY: Comments Due on the East Bay Tree-Felling Plan

June 16, 2013 Leave a comment

The deadline for comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the East Bay Tree-felling plan is TODAY.  From the FEMA website:

Submitting Comments on the Draft EIS

Written comments must be submitted or postmarked by midnight on June 17, 2013. Oral and written comments may be made at any of the three public meetings. Written comments may also be submitted through:

  •     via email at EBH-EIS-FEMA-RIX@fema.dhs.gov,
  •     via fax at FAX: (510) 627-7147, or
  •     via mail to P.O. Box 72379, Oakland, CA 94612-8579.

If you’re considering submitting a comment, please do so now.  The Draft EIS is available HERE; it’s a long document. The Executive Summary is quite short – and telling. It’s here as a 16-page PDF: Executive+Summary-East Bay

Please ask FEMA not to fund a futile Native Plant restoration project that will only increase the fire hazard by:

  • Destroying the wind-break;
  • Converting living trees into dead fuel on the ground;
  • Reducing landscape moisture from fog drip during the summer; and
  • Encouraging the growth of  more-flammable plants.

It will also use  thousands of gallons of toxic pesticides on steep hillsides where they can get into the watershed.  It will  release carbon emissions on a huge scale. This project is not only environmentally destructive, it is a huge waste of funds that should be used to actually reduce hazards, not increase them.

Ask them to approve the No Project alternative.

THE PROJECTS

The East Bay Hills projects include three related projects by UC Berkeley, the City of Oakland, and the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD). They all seek money from FEMA to cut down trees as a “fire hazard.”

The first two projects (UC Berkeley/ Oakland Hills) will essentially clear-cut all the non-native trees in the projects areas: eucalyptus, Monterey Pine (yes, it’s “non-native”!) and acacia. This would be around 77,000 trees. They will chip the smaller trees and branches, leaving a mulch up to 2 feet deep on the ground. The larger branches and logs will be left unchipped. Pesticides – Roundup, Garlon, and Imazapyr – will be used to prevent re-sprouting and to kill non-native shrubs. They hope that native plants and trees will move into the treated areas, creating an oak-bay woodland.

The third project (EBRPD) is slightly different, in that it proposes to “thin” the forest and cut down some 409,000 trees  but leave around 60 trees per acre standing. It proposes chip the felled trees, spread the wood chips as mulch to a depth of 4-6 inches and burn the rest. It also plans to use prescribed burns to control the understory.

You can read about this plan and the tree removal calculations HERE.

Even though this has been positioned as a fire hazard reduction project, it is clearly targeted at native plant restoration – using Federal Emergency Management funds.  All the management actions are likely to increase fire hazard. Those pushing this plan have emphasized the flammability of eucalyptus (which isn’t actually more flammable than most trees) but avoided the more important comparison: Will the landscape that will replace a felled eucalyptus forest be even more flammable?

mg_ecowatch_3536 east bay express

East Bay Express article. Photo credit East Bay Express

There’s a good article about this in the East Bay Express, HERE

A LOSE-LOSE-LOSE PROPOSITION

In fact, this is a Lose-Lose (actually a Lose-Lose-Lose-Lose-Lose!) Plan. Here’s why:

  • Those seeking a reduction in fire hazard – which is, really everybody – will find that instead the fire hazard has increased, as we’ll explain below.
  • The Native Plant enthusiasts who hope that Native Plants and trees will recolonize the treated areas will be disappointed. There’s no plan to replant or to garden those areas; the only tools are a deep mulch of eucalyptus chips and non-selective pesticides. This article suggests that the most likely plant to move into such areas would be broom – which is non-native and considered invasive because it can actually deal with the kind of conditions that will result.
  • Anyone who loves trees and the environment, which will suffer from the loss of carbon storage and pollution control, not to mention the beauty of the trees. Actually, most of the residents of the Bay Area.
  • FEMA, which could have used the funds for competing projects that reduce, not increase, hazards.
  • The taxpayer who will be paying for this anti-environmental mess.

The worst of it is that it is essentially irreversible.  If the planners realize that most of what the opponents say is true, they cannot grow back trees that took decades to become what they are now. They cannot sequester the carbon they’ve released. They cannot cure the people whose health has been adversely affected by pesticides.  All they can do is declare victory and move on.

Is there a potential win for anyone? Well, maybe. It will empower the people who will be giving out the contracts, and benefit the contractors who actually do the work and the pesticides suppliers.

And UC Berkeley’s Long Range Development Plan calls for building 100,000 square feet of additional space in the hills. It would undoubtedly be convenient to have the tree removal funded by FEMA.

PROBLEMS WITH THE PROJECT AND THE DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT

  • This plan will convert living trees full of moisture into fuel – dead wood and wood chips on the ground. These are much more flammable than any living tree. In fact, even one of the research papers the EIS quotes says as much: “Sites where the activity fuels piles had not been burned or where they had been masticated (mechanically chipped into small pieces and spread over the treatment area) were excluded from the study because research suggests these additional fuels increase fire severity.” (Malcolm North and Matthew Hurteau, “High-severity wildfire effects on carbon stocks and emissions in fuels treated and untreated forest,” Forest Ecology and Management 261 (2011)) 
  • The wood chips could take up to 20 years to decompose. According to the EIS, they have a “half-life” of 5 years, meaning that half of it will be gone in five years.  A pile that’s 2 feet high would be 12 inches deep in 5 years, and 6 inches deep in 10 years – leaving a fire hazard there for decades. And there’s also the potential for subsurface smouldering fires that can burst out under the right conditions.
  • Wind speeds will rise since the wind breaks provided by the trees would be gone. Fires in the East Bay are wind-driven fires, and eucalyptus and other tall trees actually fight fire by breaking the wind-flow. Even the EPA recommended preserving large and tall trees in place (according to Appendix K2 of the EIS).
  • The replacement landscape will be more flammable. Removing trees will encourage grasses and shrubs, making for a more flammable landscape of faster-moving fires that can reach structures more quickly. The forest shade tends to inhibit the growth of these plants. The plans intend to encourage the growth of native plants – but doesn’t provide for planting or tending them. They assume that the existing seed banks and seeds from adjacent areas will grow there. Actually, it’s more likely that  broom and other fast-growing non-native species will take over. When these dry out, they are much more flammable than the trees. In any case, the native chapparal is also very flammable.
  • The loss of shade and the moisture harvested from the fog will make for a drier, more fire-prone landscape. The EIS suggests that the harvested moisture is compensated by the trees using moisture from rain, so the net amount of water is the same. This is just silly: the fog comes in California’s dry season, and provides additional moisture at a time when the landscape is dry and thus lessens flammability.  During the rains, the landscape is green and not flammable.
  • If some of this acreage does actually become oak-bay woodlands, as the land managers hope, there’s another problem: Sudden oak death, which is spreading through California and could provide dead trees as fuel. The EIS ignores this threat entirely.
  • The Draft EIS significantly understates the effect on carbon sequestration. The trees will no longer store carbon; instead, they will be releasing thousands of tons of it into the atmosphere. But the EIS ignores the carbon stored in the branches, leaves, and roots of the felled trees, and in the soil. They also miscalculate the amount of carbon that will be released in the EBRPD section of the plan. They may have ignored 80% of the actual carbon emissions caused by the project.
  • Thousands of gallons of toxic herbicides will be spread over the East Bay.
  • Prescribed burns will further affect air quality, and could get away and cause wildfires and serious damage.
  • Erosion and landslides could occur on steep slopes when the tree roots no longer stabilize the slopes.
  • Increased wind speeds with the loss of wind-breaks will affect quality of life, and likely cause the wind-throw of non-targeted trees.

WHAT ELSE YOU CAN DO

sign for East Bay Hills

Sign a Petition

If you have not yet done so, sign the Hills Conservation Network petition. It has over 5500 signatures already.

Contribute. Hills Conservation Network are also raising funds for potential legal action. If you would like to contribute, their website is HERE and includes a Paypal button.

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Most People Oppose the East Bay Tree-felling Plan

May 20, 2013 6 Comments

We’ve received some reports about the last public hearing (on May 18th at 10 a.m.) on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) of the East Bay plan to fell up to 500,000 trees – 86,000 in Berkeley and Oakland, and another 400,000 in East Bay parks.  There was overwhelming opposition to the Plans.

lake-chabot cropped Photo credit MillionTrees dot meTo recap: Three owners/ land managers are involved:

  • University of California at Berkeley (60,000 trees on 284 acres)
  • City of Oakland (26,000 trees on 126 acres);
  • East Bay Regional Parks District (400,000 trees on 1,650 acres).

They would use Garlon to prevent resprouting (which would require thousands of gallons of this very toxic herbicide), and glyphosate (Aquamaster or Roundup) to discourage the growth of non-native plants. The first two projects plan to remove all the non-native trees in the project areas. The third plans to “thin” the trees to about 60 trees per acre, removing around 90% of the trees on the project area, and using prescribed burns in addition to pesticide.

You can read about this plan and the tree removal calculations HERE.

MEETING REPORT

An estimated 160-175 people attended, and the meeting, scheduled for 2 hours, ran nearly twice that long. There was standing room only, with people crowding the sides of the room and sitting on the floor. Of the 56 people who spoke, 48 opposed the Plans to fell these trees. That’s over 85% of the speakers.

The themes:

  1. They didn’t know about these plans, even though they live nearby. They heard about them from friends and from social media. The outreach was poor.
  2. People were very concerned about the use of pesticides. Roundup in particular was criticized. (Most people are not familiar with Garlon, which is probably even more toxic than Roundup – and also included in the Plans.)
  3. They were also concerned about greenhouse gases, which are causing climate change. Trees store carbon; not only will they stop doing that, but felling and “mulching” so many trees will release carbon dioxide into the air.
  4. If the intention is to reduce the fire hazard, other alternatives should have been considered.
  5. Most people wanted to preserve the ecosystem and trees that are already there; it would be  unconscionable to wreck it.
  6. All the areas are on hillsides; speakers were concerned about soil erosion.
  7. They were also worried about contamination of streams/watershed.
  8. Some commenters felt Hills people were arrogant, more concerned about property than people.
  9. Some speakers declared we should stop interfering with nature, and keep as many trees as possible to protect us from the pollution we have created.
  10. Clear-cutting and spraying the ground with chemicals will create a wasteland.

There’s a report from The Berkeley Patch HERE: Plan to Cut 85,000 Trees in Berkeley and Oakland Hills Draws Crowd. In the photograph with that article, two people hold signs:

“FOLLOW THE MONEY“  and “WILLFUL DESTRUCTION OF AN ENTIRE ECOSYSTEM IS A CRIME AGAINST NATURE.”

Others reported signs saying things like “KILL THE PROJECT, NOT THE TREES” and “NO CHEMICALS IN OUR PARKS.”

STILL TIME TO COMMENT

Though all the public meetings are now over, you can still comment on the Plan in writing up to June 17th.

FEMA has published the Draft Environmental Impact Report for these projects, and will accept comments until June 17th, 2013. That is available HERE; it’s a long document. The Executive Summary is quite short – and telling. It’s here as a 16-page PDF: Executive+Summary-East Bay You may submit written comments in several ways:

  1. Via the project website: http://ebheis.cdmims.com
  2. By email to EBH-EIS-FEMA-RIX@fema.dhs.gov
  3. By mail: P.O. Box 72379, Oakland, CA 94612-8579
  4. By fax: 510-627-7147

sign for East Bay HillsThe Hills Conservation Network’s petition is gaining momentum; it has over 1875 signatures as we write this. If you haven’t signed and would like to do so, this button will take you to the petition.

Hills Conservation Network are also raising funds for potential legal action. If you would like to contribute, their website is  HERE  and includes a Paypal button.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THESE PROJECTS

We bring you some of the criticism of these projects (this is based on a critique from the Hills Conservation Network). These projects would:

  1. Shift the ecosystem from trees to flammable dry brush. These projects would permanently alter the Berkeley/Oakland hills ecosystem, and make it much more – not less – flammable.  UC and Oakland plan to clear-cut mature, healthy trees, including huge 100-year-old trees taller than ten-storey buildings. You won’t see tall trees in the hills any more. What you will see, as soon as the rain stops, will be weeds and highly flammable brush, brown, dry, and ready to burst into flame. This easily ignitable chaparral (including scrub oaks), weeds, grass, hemlock, thistle and broom will burn more easily than trees. It’s lower, finer, and dry as kindling. Thick trunks don’t burn easily, and fire does not reach the crowns of trees unless there are ladder fuels (like weeds, grass, etc. under them).
  2. Waste our money. If you include the matching funds, this is going to be a $7 million plan to destroy forests miles from homes. Instead, that money could be used as originally intended: actually reducing fire hazards by, for instance, creating defensible space around houses and other structures.
  3. Slather the hills in herbicides. To prevent trees from resprouting, the hills would be drenched with massive amounts (30,000 + gallons) of toxic pesticides.  In addition, pesticides will be sprayed throughout the watershed to knock down the weeds, hemlock, poison oak, thistle and broom  that will emerge with the loss of canopy. Toxic sediments will seep into our creeks and could permanently alter the watershed. Garlon causes cancer and so does glyphosate (Roundup) when sprayed broadcast over large areas. Tons of pesticides will be needed to maintain the site—to kill the weeds—after the trees are removed.  Making matters worse, UCB has not posted signs when pesticides are sprayed.
  4. Use a two-foot mulch doesn’t work and raises ignition risk. They’re planning to chip the trees on site, leaving up to 24 inches of chip litter on the ground.  There’s danger of subterranean fire under the chips, as well as spontaneous ignition in the hot sun – as in a hay stack. Anyway, areas where it’s been tried have been invaded by hemlock, thistle, broom and poison oak.
  5. Release stored carbon and change the microclimate. As the chips decompose, they release carbon, adding to global warming. Nothing stores carbon like big trees; we’ll permanently lose the carbon storage these trees gave us. Tree loss will also cause local climate changes: more wind, more dry air, less fog, more air pollution.
  6. Cause Habitat loss and ecological imbalance. The plans would destroy an enormous amount of habitat; the tall trees favored by raptors such as owls and hawks would be lost forever. Without raptors to keep them in check,  the rodent population will undoubtedly increase. We saw this after the 1991 fire. And what about the federally protected Alameda whipsnake?  It’s unrealistic to believe they can be trapped and translocated until after completion.
  7. Cause erosion and landslides. Without tree roots to hold the soil in place, erosion and landslides will increase.
  8. Make for visual blight, daily road closures, and constant chainsaw noise for 3 years.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE DRAFT EIS

Comments that are specific about the flaws in the EIS will be most effective:

  1. The fire model is wrong. It compares the fire danger of standing forests with the fire danger (zero) after the trees are cut down to stumps. It does not consider the fire risk danger—much worse—of what will replace the trees.
  2. This is Native Plant gardening, not fire mitigation.  Fostering the growth of native plants such as bay trees, chaparral and oaks is native plant restoration.  It has nothing to do with fire risk mitigationFEMA funds were not intended to promote a particular plant ideology.
  3. It doesn’t adequately address impacts on Greenhouse Gases. It uses an inappropriate baseline, and also does not properly estimate the loss of ongoing carbon sequestration. The EIS needs to be reworked.
  4. It doesn’t properly address the costs and risks from the huge increase in toxic herbicide use.
  5. It does not adequately analyze reasonable alternatives proposed for fire risk mitigation. Far less costly, far less environmentally damaging, and far more effective methods have been proposed, but the EIS fails to consider them. The EIS needs to be reworked to analyze reasonable alternatives rather than simply dismissing them without any analysis.

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Nearly Half a Million Trees Threatened in East Bay

May 8, 2013 6 Comments

Another Draft Environmental Impact Report, another threat to trees. Now we’re no longer counting in thousands or tens of thousands. This time, it’s hundreds of thousands.

In the East Bay, there are three inter-related plans to cut down nearly 500 thousand eucalyptus and other trees on 2,000 nearly 1500 acres of land.

lake-chabot cropped Photo credit MillionTrees dot me

Forest at Lake Chabot – Photo credit: MillionTrees.me

Three owners/ land managers are involved:

  • University of California at Berkeley (60,000 54,000 trees on 284 acres)
  • City of Oakland (26,000 23,000 trees on 126 acres);
  • East Bay Regional Parks District (400,000 409,000 trees on 1,650 1,060 acres).

They would use Garlon to prevent resprouting (which would require thousands of gallons of this very toxic herbicide), and glyphosate (Aquamaster or Roundup) to discourage the growth of non-native plants. The first two projects plan to remove all the non-native trees in the project areas. The third plans to “thin” the trees to about 60 trees per acre, removing around 90% of the trees on the project area, and using prescribed burns in addition to pesticide.

You can read about this plan and the tree removal calculations HERE.

WHAT THEY HOPE AND WHY IT WILL FAIL

The plan is described as ‘fuel reduction’ to lessen the fire hazard. In fact, is likely to have the opposite effect.

  • Wind speeds will rise since the wind breaks provided by the trees would be gone.
  • With the trees and shade gone,  finer fuels like grasses and shrubs will grow instead.
  • The loss of shade and the moisture harvested from the fog will make for a drier, more fire-prone landscape.
  • The felled trees will be left in place, contributing dead wood to the fuel load.

The plans intend to encourage the growth of native plants -  but doesn’t provide for planting or tending them. They assume that the existing seed banks and seeds from adjacent areas will grow there. Actually, it’s more likely that blackberry and broom and other fast-growing non-native species will take over. If some of this acreage  does become oak-bay woodlands, as the land managers hope, there’s another problem: Sudden oak death, which is spreading through California and could provide dead trees as fuel.

ENVIRONMENTAL BLIGHT AND WASTED MONEY

The Plan will be a blight on the environment.

  • The trees will no longer store carbon; instead, they will be releasing thousands of tons of it into the atmosphere.
  • Thousands of gallons of toxic herbicides will be spread over the East Bay.
  • Prescribed burns will further affect air quality, and could get away and cause wildfires and serious damage.
  • Erosion and landslides could occur on steep slopes when the tree roots no longer stabilize the slopes.

The plan is to fund the first two projects, and about a third of the East Bay RPD project, from FEMA grants. This takes money that’s needed to respond to or avert actual serious disasters and uses it for a doomed Native Plant conversion project.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

  • sign for East Bay HillsSign a Petition. The Hills Conservation Network has a petition up; the button will take you to the petition.
  • Contribute. Hills Conservation Network are also raising funds for potential legal action. If you would like to contribute, their website is HERE and includes a Paypal button.
  • Speak at public meetings. FEMA will host three public meetings in Oakland, and  taking public comments. Two are on May 14, 2013 (at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m.) at the Richard C. Trudeau Center, 11500 Skyline Boulevard  Oakland, CA  94619.  One is on May 18, 2013 (at 10 a.m.) at Claremont Middle School, 5750 College Avenue  Oakland, CA  94618.
  • Comment on the DEIR. FEMA has published the Draft Environmental Impact Report for these projects, and will accept comments until June 17th, 2013. That is available HERE;  it’s a long document. The Executive Summary is quite short – and telling. It’s here as a 16-page PDF: Executive+Summary-East Bay   You may submit written comments in several ways:
  1. Via the project website: http://ebheis.cdmims.com
  2. At the public meetings listed above
  3. By email to EBH-EIS-FEMA-RIX@fema.dhs.gov
  4. By mail: P.O. Box 72379, Oakland, CA 94612-8579
  5. By fax: 510-627-7147

[Edited to Add: Further analysis showed the number of threatened trees to be "only" about half a million instead of the 900,000 reported earlier. This article has been updated where needed to show the revised calculations.]

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The UCSF Plan for Mount Sutro Forest – Video

April 30, 2013 Leave a comment

San Francisco’s hidden urban treasure is at risk. The Sutro Forest is the single largest urban forest in San Francisco. Three-quarters (61 acres) of it is owned by UCSF, which officially calls it the Open Space Reserve. The contiguous 19-acre Interior Green Belt area to the east of it is city-owned.

Now, UCSF is planning to remove 90% of the trees and vegetation on 5 acres of forest – around 3,000 trees. Then its considering extending the same idea – removing 90% of trees and 90% of understory habitat, and potentially using large amounts of herbicides glyphosate (Aquamaster/ Roundup) and Garlon (triclopyr) to prevent it from coming back.

This video summarizes the risk to Mount Sutro Cloud Forest from UCSF’s “Management Plan” – in just 8 minutes. Please watch it, and if you like it, pass it on!

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Save the Forests! Meeting on Sunday April 21, 2013

April 14, 2013 Leave a comment

Mt Davidson at sunrise - Lori D'Ambrosio

Photo credit: Lori D’Ambrosio

forest-girlThe San Francisco Forest Alliance  and  Save Sutro Forest  are holding a meeting on 21 April 2013 to talk about the planned felling of trees on Mount Sutro — and on Mount Davidson. These actions would gut two important urban forests in San Francisco and irretrievably alter the landscape.

We’re going to address questions such as:

  •     How many thousand trees do they plan to cut down on Mount Sutro? On Mount Davidson?
  •     Who’s “They”?
  •     What about Pesticide use?
  •     When will this happen?

For answers to these questions and more, come to the meeting!

WHERE: Miraloma Park Clubhouse,  350 O’Shaughnessy Blvd,
San Francisco, CA 94127

WHEN:  April 21st, 2013 (Sunday) – 4.30 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.

Felled trees - Interior Green Belt

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Photo of San Francisco’s Wild Turkey on Mount Davidson – by Tim Cashman

April 12, 2013 3 Comments

wild turkey in SF - edited from photograph by Tim Cashman

Wild Turkey on Mount Davidson in San Francisco – edited from photo by Tim Cashman

Tim Cashman got photographs of San Francisco’s wild turkey, the same one Jacquie and Ron Proctor saw on March 30th 2013.  Here’s his account and the photographs (printed with permission):

Wild turkey San Francisco - photo by Tim Cashman

Wild turkey San Francisco – photo by Tim Cashman

“I was working at my computer when something large and black flew across the large picture window we have that looks directly west. Nothing unusual here as large crows fly by often. A moment later came a commotion on our rooftop, two stories above, that sounded like two animals in the midst of a fierce fight. When I stood up to go upstairs and see what was going on, a large bird like creature flew off the roof, beating its wings ferociously. I at first thought it was a hawk, but a hawk is graceful and this was not. It alighted in my neighbor’s tree and sat very still. It was only when it finally turned in silhouette that I could see it was a wild turkey. It was still in the same spot about a half hour later when I left. I’m familiar with wild turkeys as I play golf frequently at a course in Marin County that is loaded with them. “

Wild turkey San Francisco by Tim Cashman

Another view of the San Francisco Wild turkey by Tim Cashman

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Wild Turkey On Mount Davidson

April 7, 2013 1 Comment

Wild turkey in Marin

“For you wildlife watchers, I just saw a wild turkey cross the north trail on Mt. D today,” wrote Jacqueline Proctor.  “He flew off toward Glen Canyon when we tried to get a better look and picture. I have never seen one up there before or heard of them being in SF for that matter.”

Neither had the birders on the Yahoo Birds list. They wanted to know more. Jacquie confirmed the sighting: March 30th, around 1 p.m.  But there were no pictures. (The picture here is of a wild turkey in Marin county, not the bird that Jacquie saw.)

Then, the Westside Observer carried a grayscale photograph of  the Mount D turkey, submitted by Kay Curry [bottom of page 8]. And someone else said a lone male turkey had been seen hanging out on Potrero Hill.

If anyone sends us photographs of San Francisco’s wild turkeys, we’d be happy to publish them here. [We did. Thanks, Tim Cashman!]

Meanwhile, it looks like there’s a new addition to San Francisco’s wildlife.

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Thanks for the Great Turnout For Sutro Forest!

February 27, 2013 Leave a comment

We’d like to thank everyone who made it a point to attend the Feb 25th hearing  about Sutro Forest, and especially those who spoke. It was a great turnout, and overwhelmingly opposed UCSF’s plan to remove thousands – or tens of thousands – of trees on Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve.

4 forest feb 2013

Though technically it was a hearing  for comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Report (details HERE), it became a platform for people to speak of their love for this magnificent forest, and the need to preserve it. Around 250 people attended (the room was full); and 47 55 spoke. (Six more had intended to speak, but because the hearing continued past 9 p.m., they had already left by the time their names were called.)

UCSF Public Hearing on Sutro Forest feb 2013

A more detailed account of the meeting is HERE.

A FOREST PEOPLE LOVE

Sentiment ran [better than] 2:1 in favor of preserving the forest, and celebrating its wildness. It was marvelous to hear the emotion resonating through the room; this is a place people love. People spoke of magic, of an emotional connection, of the forest as a place of refuge, even one that is spiritual and sacred.

Channel 2 KTVU was there, and it covered the Sutro Forest story. You can view that here.

You can see the newscaster’s reaction when she encounters the forest… many of us felt that way when we first entered Sutro Cloud Forest.

UCSF’s PLAN WOULD INCREASE THE FIRE HAZARD

But perhaps the most impactful statement of the evening was made by someone who wasn’t even there… a statement from a professional ecologist who has experience with forests nationally and internationally, and who noted that the Plan would increase the fire hazard by drying out the understory and the duff. He ended with:

“The forest on Mt. Sutro is, indeed, a novel ecosystem with many introduced species.  Yet it is a diverse, functioning ecosystem providing many services, the most interesting of which is that it provides a small piece of wild nature in the heart of our city.  The forest is old, but it may not yet be mature.  There is no forest perfectly analogous to what exists on Mt. Sutro – a cosmopolitan mix of species, much like San Francisco.  The fact that the forest is strange to us is not a sufficient  justification for destroying it.”

[Edited to Add: You can read his whole 3-minute statement HERE.]

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Valentine’s Day Bounty

February 14, 2013 2 Comments

Happy Valentine’s Day!

McLaren Park's Flowered Grassland and Forest

McLaren Park’s Flowered Grassland and Forest

We hope you have a chance today to join the birds and the bees in experiencing the natural beauty and bounty created in San Francisco over hundreds of years.

Oxalis
The birds and flowers come early to San Francisco parks and offer spectacular Valentine flowers for people and wildlife alike.  Now is one of the best times in parks like McLaren, Glen Canyon, and Lake Merced – all alive with the chatter of birds in forests and open woodlands planted over the past 150 years.  Even the air is more crisp and alive with the smell  of early springtime’s green grasses and trees.  You can easily find large white eucalyptus blooms – a favorite of nectar loving bees and hummingbirds.  With some luck you’ll see squirrels gobbling up the green Monterey pine cones or birds enjoying the red berries of the cotoneasters.

Eucalyptus
The grasslands are lush green with the wild oat grasses growing rapidly, a legacy brought several hundreds of years ago by the Spanish ranchers.  The first yellow wave of mustard, buttercups, and dandelions have arrived along with the pink and white wild radish that paints the grassland just like when the Spaniards ran cattle here.  Also adding to this naturalized, non-native bounty are a few native plants like the beautiful blue blossoms, California blackberries, and California poppies.

California Poppy
While enjoying your walk you might spot these San Francisco beauties:

TREES

Blue Gum Eucalyptus – non-native
Monterey Cypress – non-SF native
Monterey Pines – non-SF native

SHRUBS
Blue Blossom – native
California blackberries – native
Cotoneasters – non-native
Silver Wattle – non-native

GRASSES AND OTHER PLANTS
Black Mustard – non-native
California Poppy – native
Oxalis (buttercups/sourgrass) – non-native
Dandelion  – non-native
Wild oat grass – non-native
Wild radish – non-native

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UCSF plans to fell 30,000 trees in Mount Sutro Forest

February 4, 2013 8 Comments

This post has been copied with minor edits from http://www.SaveSutro.com, which is a website set up to inform people about Mount Sutro Cloud Forest and to defend it.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

1. Write to the Board of Regents, who will ultimately decide whether to approve this project. Ask them why they are undertaking this controversial, expensive, and ecologically destructive project, and gutting a San Francisco treasure to achieve a “parklike” environment. You can contact the Regents at their website HERE. (Their email address is: regentsoffice@ucop.edu )

2. Write a comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Report. The report is HERE. (It will take some time to load.) The person to write to is Diane Wong, and her email address is at: EIR@planning.ucsf.edu

[Edited to Add: The comments are now closed. UCSF expects to respond some time in May 2013.]

3. Sign the petition to Save Sutro Forest (at the end of this article). PLEASE SIGN (if you have not already). The petition stays alive as long as the threat exists.

Mount Sutro Forest has approximately 45,000 trees in the 61 acres belonging to University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and designated as an open space reserve. This dense forest, with an estimated 740 trees per acre, a sub-canopy of acacia, an understory of blackberry and nearly a hundred other plant species, is functionally a cloud forest. All summer long, it gets its moisture from the fog, and the dense greenery holds it in. Where it isn’t disturbed, it’s a lush beautiful forest, providing habitat for birds and animals, and a wonderful sense of seclusion from urban sounds and sights.

(CLICK HERE to see the Google Map of the forest.)

Mount sutro forest greenery

THE TREE REMOVAL PLAN

UCSF now has published a Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) on a project to remove over 90% of the trees on three-quarters of the area. Only 15 acres – on the steep western edge of the forest – will remain as they are. Tree-felling could start as early as Fall 2013.

[Edited to Add:

Here is the PDF of the DEIR. Mount_Sutro_EIR_1-16-13_with_Appendices

Comments were due on March 4th, but because of the length and complexity of the document, neighbors asked for, and got, an extension. Comments are now due before March 19, 2013.]

On most of the forest (44 acres), UCSF plans to cut down trees to achieve a spacing of 30 feet between trees – the width of a small road – and mow down nearly all the understory habitat. On another 2 acres, they will space the trees 60 feet apart. The stumps of the trees will be covered in black plastic, or else poisoned with Garlon to prevent re-sprouting. Eventually, this will kill the roots, which will start to decay. We’ll address some of these issues in more detail in later posts.

Right now, we want to talk about the number of trees that will be felled. A spacing of 30 feet between trees gives about 50-60 trees per acre. A spacing of 60 feet gives 12-15 trees per acre.

(The easiest way to think about it is that each tree occupies a 30 x 30 foot space, or 900 sq ft. An acre is 43,560 sq ft, so this would give 48.4 trees to an acre. The DEIR calculates it as 61 trees per acre, assuming each tree occupies a circle that’s 30 feet in diameter, 707 sq ft. But there’s no way to arrange circles without wasted spaces between them, so this doesn’t exactly work.)

So on 44 acres, they will retain maybe 50 trees per acre (or maybe fewer). On two more acres with a 60-ft spacing, they will retain 12-15 trees per acre. All the rest will be cut down. Even using the DEIR’s overly optimistic calculation, they will be felling some 31,000 trees. Our calculations are closer to 32,000. Either way, it’s a huge number.

That means that in the 46 acres where UCSF will be felling trees, they will remove more than 90% of the standing trees.

The DEIR says that they will start by cutting down trees that are dead or dying. Aside from their value as habitat (some birds like woodpeckers depend on them), there are not all that many of them in Sutro Forest, which despite everything that has been claimed to to opposite, is a thriving forest. Next in line will be trees with diameters under 12 inches, or roughly 3 feet around – as thick as an adult’s waist. Then they’ll start on the larger trees. Since it’s going to be 90% of the trees, we expect thousands of large trees to be removed.

IT GETS WORSE

However, this is not all. We expect further tree losses for four reasons:

  1. Wind throw. Since these trees have grown up in a dense forest where they shelter each other, removing 90% of the trees exposes the remaining 10% to winds to which they’re not adapted. This can be expected to knock down a significant number of the trees not felled. Since the Plan only calls for monitoring the trees and felling any that seem vulnerable to wind-throw, it’s unlikely any vulnerable trees will be saved.
  2. Physical damage. Damage done to the remaining trees in the process of removing the ones they intend to fell. With such large-scale felling, damage to the other trees is inevitable, from machinery, erosion, and falling timbers.
  3. Something like AvatarPesticide damage. This forest has an intertwined, intergrafted root system. When pesticides are used to prevent resprouting on tree-stumps and cut shrubs and ivy, it is quite possible for it to enter the root system and damage remaining trees.
  4. Loss of support. Compounding the effects of the wind-throw, the remaining trees will suffer from a lack of support as the root network dies with 90% of the trees being removed. This could destabilize them, and make them more likely to fail.

What remains will be a seriously weakened forest with a greater risk of failure and tree-loss, not the healthier forest that the DEIR claims. It is likely that the long-term impact of the Project will be the elimination of the forest altogether, and instead will be something like Tank Hill or Twin Peaks plus a few trees.

IMPLEMENTING THIS PLAN

The project is to be implemented in two phases. In the first phase, trees will be felled and the understory removed in four “demonstration areas” totaling 7.5 acres. They are shown on the map below in yellow, as areas #1-#4. (One of these, #4 “East Bowl”, is the two-acre area slated to have only 12-15 trees per acre.)

hand-drawn map not to scale

One area (#5 on the map) is supposed to be a “hands off” area to demonstrate the untouched forest. However, a trail has already been punched through it in November 2011, even before the DEIR had been published.

During this phase, they would experiment with the 3 acres on the South Ridge, just above the Forest Knolls neighborhood. On 1 acre, they would use tarping to prevent regrowth of felled trees; on 1 acre, they would use pesticides, particularly Garlon; and 1 acre they would trim off sprouts by hand. They could also use pesticides on the understory “consistent with city standards” – presumably those of the Natural Areas Program (See article on NAP’s Pesticide Use.)

In the second year, the plan would be extended to the remaining forest, with the proviso that not more than a quarter of the forest would be “thinned” at “any given time.”

SIGN THE PETITION

Sign a petition to ask the Regents not to approve this plan.

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Frosty Sunny Day in Glen Canyon

January 18, 2013 Leave a comment

It’s been wonderful weather in San Francisco lately – clear, sunny and cold. Early in the morning, there’s frost on the long steps.

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Even with the sad tree-felling near the Elk Street entrance, elsewhere in the canyon, a joyous life continues.

Here are some photographs from Janet Kessler, taken a few days ago in Glen Canyon Park:

A kid hunts bugs on the hillside

A kid hunts bugs on the hillside

Plein-air painting - a huge tree

Plein-air painting – a huge tree

And here's the young artist

And here’s the young artist

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Can you see his ruby crown?

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SFForest Volunteers and Trash Clean-up

January 5, 2013 4 Comments

One of the ongoing problems of the Natural Areas that we wish the SF RPD would address is trash-dumping.  Meanwhile, SFForest volunteers are trying to help.

GLEN CANYON’S 5-YEAR OLD TRASH

trash from Glen Canyon Jan 2013In Glen Canyon below O’Shaughnessy, where it is intersected by Del Vale, there’s trash that’s been littering the slope for over five years. Our volunteers decided to do something about it, even to the extent of getting into poison oak. Here’s one report:

“We spent two hours climbing up the steep slope like a mountain goat, and picked up, among other things, about 8 huge squares of styrofoam, huge pieces of cardboard and plywood, 35 bottles — some very large and some broken, a toaster, 7 hubcaps, garden hoses, pipes, a floor lamp, an oven door, decomposed magazines, old clothing, crumpled up newspapers, plastic bags, paint buckets, plastic cups and containers, etc. “

tire 2 glen canyon“The picture of the day’s haul doesn’t look big, but it is. I called 311 to have the city haul it away. Now, you can look over there, and it doesn’t look like a dump.”

The slope is certainly looking much better – green and clear, not littered with visible garbage. Still, the job’s not finished, the volunteer continues:

“But there is more to take out — feel free to go over there if you want — every 10 minutes will help. And there is stuff for larger guys to remove: old tires, a car hood, a grocery cart.”

rusted shopping cart
Earlier, our volunteers have participated in – or undertaken – trash removal at other parks like McLaren, Lake Merced, and Mt Davidson. We hope to make this a regular activity for SFForest volunteers.

Meanwhile, we routinely pick up and dispose of trash we encounter as we use the parks. We invite our supporters to do that, too.

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Mt Davidson’s Memorial for the Newtown Children

December 28, 2012 1 Comment

Twenty-six white crosses stand beside the Murdered Tree on Mount Davidson,  a memorial to the children and the adults killed by a crazed young  man in the heartbreaking tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. We don’t know who put it there, but it’s a moving tribute on the brow of the hill.

Newtown Memorial on Mt Davidson, San Francisco

Rest in peace, children. Rest in peace, Charlotte Bacon, Daniel Barden, Olivia Engel, Josephine Gay, Dylan Hockley, Madeleine Hsu, Catherine Hubbard, Chase Kowalski, Jesse Lewis, Ana Marquez-Greene, James Mattioli, Grace McDonnell, Emilie Parker, Jack Pinto, Noah Pozner, Caroline Previdi, Jessica Rekos, Avielle Richman, Benjamin Wheeler, and Allison Wyatt.

MtD_Memorial_07

And rest in peace those who died defending the children in their care:

Teachers Lauren Rousseau and Victoria Leigh Soto; teacher’s aides Rachel D’Avino, and Anne Marie Murphy; principal Dawn Hochsprung; and school psychologist Mary Sherlach. Rest in peace.

Mount Davidson Memorial crosses for Sandy Hook Elementary

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