EBRPD substantially expands vegetation removal on the east bay ridgeline
As you are likely aware, HCN sued EBRPD over their 2010 master plant/EIR for the entire 19,000 acre east bay hills ridgeline. We ultimately settled with an agreement that caused EBRPD to make some fairly modest concessions that, we think, resulted in a reasonable compromise plan for the long term management of the hills vegetation.
Needless to say we were surprised to find a substantial number of pines having been cut down in the last month along South Park Road in Tilden Park. When we asked about this we were advised that this project was not actually part of the 2010 plan, and was something new. Something new that was supported and funded by the State.
It seems that EBRPD decided to pursue State funding and evironmental cover to substantially expand tree removal efforts. These projects are large and will substantially change the character of the hills. A change that was not reviewed as part of the 2010 plan.
The way this was done was that the State created a program called the CalVTP, which is a statewide program that achieved CEQA compliance for the programmatic EIR that was adopted several years ago. Subsequent to that, agencies such as EBRPD were able to released project-specific EIRs that were able to leveragee the environmental review conducted by the State. These project-level EIRs were, apparently, not subject to the same level of public comment and review.
Essentially, agencies such as EBRPD were able to implement and fund substantial projects with releatively little public input. This is exactly what happened in this case. While EBRPD published an EIR,
there was little of any opportunity for public input.. The only way we found out about any of this was by happening on a whole lot of dead trees and asking questions.
The EBRPD Cal VTP EIR is laughably bad, and would never had withstood a legal challenge, but unfortunately it seems that the time for such a challenge is long past.
So, what does this mean? A lot. What was thought to be the final plan for managing vegetation on EBRPD's ridgeline properties has been substantially increased. EBRPD plans to eliminate substantial amounts of trees and other vegetation on 2,280 acres, much of it in Tilden and Sibley Parks.
Essentially, commitments made to the public in 2010 have been made substantially less relevant, as large amounts of additional land will be "managed" in the coming years. While we all thought that what was agreed to in 2010 was going to be the defining document for managing the hills forests, we were wrong. While technically not going back on the 2010 plan, EBRPD has expanded the scope of actions it plans to take to such an extent that the 2010 plan is a whole lot less relevant that it was thought to be.
While EBRPD had been acting in good faith for many years since 2010, the adoption of the CalVTP represents a substantial betrayal to folks who live in this area.
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