Planners say best way to preserve open space is by thinning forests

Commission to vote Thursday on new goal, policies, measures

By Sonia Waraich sonia@calaverasenterprise.com / March 7, 2016

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The Calaveras County Planning Commission has decided the best way to conserve open space in the county is to thin the forests rather than attempt to reach state mandates to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate for the loss of native vegetation.

At the March 3 meeting on the conservation element of the general plan, Commissioner Kelly Wooster suggested a new goal, along with three policies and four implementation measures, to better address forest and watershed management on a local level.

Wooster said that the general plan’s background report should include an “accurate recitation of what the conditions of our lands actually are instead of just pretending that they’re fine.”

“The draft general plan reads as if all is well with the county’s forests, woodlands and rangelands, and it’s not,” Wooster said. “Our forests and our other lands are overstocked with trees and brush, creating way too much fuel, and we need to get these forests and rangelands and woodlands back to the way they were before fire suppression.”

The goal proposed by Wooster, and supported by other commissioners, would increase water supplies and wildlife habitat while decreasing the risk of wildfires by keeping forests, woodlands and rangelands free of overstocked trees and brush and close to the condition they were at before fire suppression policies took over.

Fire suppression policies focus on preventing fires and suppressing them when they do occur. Fire suppression discourages controlled burns to remove accumulated fuels.

“Those rules have got to be changed or else we’re not going to get anywhere,” Wooster said.

Wooster also suggested three polices and four implementation measures that would encourage thinning the forests, collaboration with private property owners, state and federal agencies to manage the watershed, and encourage alternative forms of energy production.

These policies include:

Forests should be thinned periodically and burned to remove underbrush and overstocked stands of trees

Oak woodlands should be thinned and burned if needed to remove dead and dying trees and avoid overstocked conditions.

Lands covered with brush, including live oak, chaparral/chemise and manzanita, should be burned periodically to remove impenetrable thickets and allow diversity of plant life.

Implementation measures include:

Encourage initiatives to utilize vegetation removed from forests, oak woodlands and brush lands for energy production.

Work with water agencies that use water generated in Calaveras County to share costs of watershed management, including vegetation removal to increase water flows.

Encourage the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, state Department of Fish and Wildlife and other interested agencies to support the increased use of prescribed burns on public and private lands.

Work to modify air quality regulations to accommodate prescribed burns on public and private lands.

The rest of the commissioners and all of the members of the public who provided comments supported the new goal, policies and implementation measures.

Bill McManus, of Hanford Hill, said the best way to encourage thinning is to restore funds to yard waste programs and offer incentives, such as relieving the financial burden of disposing of waste.

“Reduce the cost to homeowners whether they do it themselves or hire it out,” McManus said.

The goal, policies and implementation measures will be brought back to the commission at 9 a.m. on Thursday. The rest of the conservation and open space element will not be revisited.

In the rest of the element, commissioners deleted a policy discouraging developers from removing native vegetation before an environmental review has been done on their project. Commissioners also deleted a policy that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions within the county.

Commissioner David Tunno said it would be better to contribute to the overall statewide reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, even though it could result in an increase in emissions within the county.

For instance, a large development project, such as a big box store, would reduce greenhouse gas emissions statewide by reducing the number of miles county residents drive to do their shopping, Tunno said. However, he said, the store would at the same time increase greenhouse gas emissions within the county by also increasing the amount of local driving.

The interim measure to mitigate for the loss of oak woodlands to development projects was also removed. The measure would have continued the current Planning Department’s standard of requiring developers to preserve elsewhere three times the amount of oak canopy lost to a specific project.

The commissioners also changed a policy regarding the removal of invasive plant species to be broader and also address invasive animal species.

Wooster added that could include “people from Mexico,” drawing laughs from the other commissioners and several members of the public.