On Tuesday night we received some bad news. Despite years of working with East Bay Regional Park District to cause the Measure CC vegetation management project to be minimally destructive, the EBRPD Board certified the currently-proposed plan and EIR in it’s current environmentally-disastrous form.

This plan will result in the destruction of approximately 1,000,000 trees, resulting in the largest release of sequestered carbon in recent history. It is estimated that in excess of 100,000 tons of carbon will be released, and that the ongoing ability of the forest to sequester carbon will be dramatically reduced.

Removing these tall trees, almost exclusively eucalyptus, pines, and acacias, will decimate raptor habitat, likely resulting in massive rodent overpopulation.

Not to be overlooked is the fact that every one of the eucalyptus stumps will be poisoned with Garlon, a highly toxic herbicide that is known to kill aquatic life, bees, amphibians, and cause birth defects in mammals. The amount of Garlon that will be applied will be orders of magnitude higher than anything this area has ever seen. To make matters worse, it will be necessary to retreat the stumps annually (of more frequently) over a period of up to 10 years. Since the affected area is the ridgeline, there will be substantial Garlon runoff down the eastern and western slopes into the communities below.

The Hills Conservation Network proposed another alternative. One that was species-neutral and that had minimal (if any) reliance on herbicides. In fact, the alternative we proposed would have achieved greater fire risk mitigation with far less environmental damage and at a lower cost. So, why wasn’t it considered? Simple, it’s species-neutral. It is superior to the EBRPD alternative in every way except one. It wouldn’t result in the modification of the landscape to eliminate non-native species...which appears to be the real intent behind the EBRPD project.

The good news is that we can stop this. We have retained a lawyer experienced at this sort of fight, and who has recently had great success in winning some environmental fights with UC.

The bad news is that we need to raise money. That’s where you come in. We estimate that we will need something on the order of $50,000 to win this, and experts agree that we are very likely to win this if we can afford to take this to court.

This is the biggest environmental battle that the bay area has ever experienced. We can win this. Won’t you please help?

We have formed a 501(c)(3) and are now accepting tax-deductible donations. Please send what you can to:

Hills Conservation Network

P.O.Box 5027

Berkeley, CA 94705