UC vegetation management roadmap-appeal of Federal Court judgement

UC has posted their roadmaps for vegetation mananagement in the hill campus. We've added it to our documents section for your convenience.

To date they have implemented the majority of their plan for Centennial Drive, having removed most of the vegetation on the North side of the road, with a clearcut at the top of Centennial.

Their roadmap calls for taking similar actions along Grizzly Peak and Claremont Blvd. with timing unclear. These projects are being done under authority of the campus 2020 Long Range Development Plan.

Last week we were advised that UC has launched an appeal of the recent decision to deny them access to the Biological Opinion that was part of the FEMA EIS. Essentially, UC obtained a grant from FEMA in 2007, HCN sued FEMA to challenge some portions of the EIS, FEMA ultimately settled with HCN...eliminating funding for UC while adding the money that was withheld from UC to EBRPD. UC then sued FEMA (the folks who gave them the grant), claiming that they were unlawfully denied the grant. After over a year of (non) mediation, UC then moved forward with their suit. A few months ago the court sided with FEMA (and HCN) against UC and dismissed UC's suit.

UC has now moved to have the 9th District Court of Appeal review this decision. Timing for this is unclear, but should be taken as an indicator as to how important UC feels the Biological opinion is to their new EIR.