De Anza College students conduct wildlife research in Coyote Valley

Coyote Valley has long been known to be a vital wildlife corridor linking the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Diablo Range. Now, with publication of "Safe Passage for Coyote Valley," students at De Anza College have brought attention to the role Coyote Valley plays in wildlife movements in South Santa Clara County:

"De Anza students have documented over 200 wildlife species that cross Coyote Valley, located in southeastern San Jose between the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Diablo Range," said [De Anza environmental studies professor] Julie Phillips. "Their work has been pivotal in influencing decision makers to conserve the area."

De Anza also recognized CGF for partnering with students in this project. CGF has fought for years to preserve Coyote Valley as open space.

"[We were] fighting for Coyote Valley when we didn't have a lot of hope," said Brian Schmidt, who was acknowledged for his advocacy with the Committee for Green Foothills. "This is an honor being associated with it."

Read the full article at:  http://www.lavozdeanza.com/features/environmental-studies-program-influences-local-conservation-1.2877701#.T9-ScLXZCSo

Support Caltrain Modernization

For nearly 15 years, environmentalists have supported the electrification of Caltrain. Caltrain modernization offers much more – cleaner, quieter, faster service that will draw thousands more people off the highways and roads of our community, out of their cars and onto the train.

From an environmental perspective, Caltrain modernization will reap tremendous benefits, particularly to air quality.  The modernization program will reduce emissions along the Peninsula rail corridor by a stunning 90 percent.  Improving our region’s air quality has obvious long-term health benefits. We know that poor air quality leads to asthma, heart disease, and even cancer.  By lowering diesel emissions, we can reduce childhood asthma and other diseases, which means lower health care costs and a better, healthier, standard of living.

Modernization will have ripple effects beyond our region’s air quality.  Electrification will allow Caltrain to operate more service to more stations, drawing as many as 30,000 more passengers each weekday away from our congested highways, thus reducing harmful emissions.  Electrified service will also lower energy consumption by 64%.  All of these benefits will help address climate change, and will help reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.

Modernizing Caltrain will support more transit-oriented development – walkable, liveable communities effectively and efficiently served by a core mass transit system.  The Peninsula’s downtown areas will be revitalized, and real estate values will be strengthened.  Real estate values for homes near the rail corridor will also benefit through improved air quality, reduced noise and vibration resulting from Caltrain electrification.

Improved air quality and health, reducing reliance on fossil fuels, strengthened real estate values, and revitalization of our transportation corridors – these are benefits that are within reach now with the early investment in the modernization of Caltrain’s corridor. 

We urge our lawmakers in Sacramento to act now to improve the health of our region. 

Fund the Caltrain modernization program.

LAFCO Has Productive Goal Setting Workshop

The Santa Clara County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) set some important goals for itself in the next few years during its strategic workshop including working with special districts on transparency and accountability, revisiting policies, and education and outreach.

LAFCO commissioners also discussed what they felt should be key elements of their mission as they seek to craft a more comprehensive mission statement reflective of future goals. In addition to their core mission of promoting efficient growth, discouraging sprawl, and preserving agriculture and open space, they proposed elements such as:

1. encouraging cities & districts to take advantage of fiscally beneficial opportunities arising from regional planning
2. bolstering collaboration and partnerships (e.g. to aid in finding regional solutions)
3. providing better oversight (e.g. of special districts) and resources (e.g. more comprehensive municipal service reviews) to other agencies and the community
4. increasing monitoring (e.g. of special districts it periodically reviews)
5. strengthening policies (e.g. agricultural policies) and their authority to better fulfill their mandate

The workshop began with a presentation of the abysmal history of land use planning across the county (and state) between 1950 and 1980 which brought about the creation of LAFCO.  It served as a valuable reminder of the continuing need for LAFCO to uphold its critical role of ensuring orderly growth most notably in the southern part of the county.  Development pressure continues to threaten the majority of the irreplaceable farmlands there and thus the capacity for - and sustainability of - local food production in the county. 

All in all, LAFCO had a productive goal setting workshop.  One which we hope will bear fruit.

Supporting County Parks Charter Fund

The Santa Clara County Parks Charter Fund is the primary source of funding for county parks and trails maintenance and for acquisition of new park lands. Created by voters forty years ago, not by raising taxes but by setting aside a portion of existing taxes for this purpose, its purpose is to fund parks and trails "of countywide significance," i.e. that benefit residents throughout Santa Clara County. The Parks Charter Fund has never been used to fund small neighborhood parks or playgrounds. However, that may change on June 5, when the Board of Supervisors considers a proposal to allow the Parks Charter Fund to be used for small parks in urban unincorporated areas.

Committee for Green Foothills believes that the intent of the voters to provide funding for regional parks and trails should be respected. However, CGF also recognizes that some unincorporated urban areas do not have nearby access to parks and trails that would provide all residents with the opportunity to enjoy safe, healthy outdoor activity, as well as the natural beauty for which the Bay Area is famous. Therefore, CGF is supporting an alternative proposal that will maintain the Charter Fund's policy of funding only parks and trails of countywide significance, but that will prioritize funding for trails located in urban areas that are deficient in park resources. For example, the Coyote Creek Trail, the Three Creeks Trail, and the Guadalupe River Trail all have the potential to provide opportunities for jogging, hiking, and biking to urban areas that currently have no easy access to County parks resources. These trails, unlike small neighborhood parks, would fit within the current County policy of "countywide significance."

The proposal to change the County policy on the use of the Parks Charter Fund would require an amendment of the County's General Plan and Parkland Acquisition Plan. This permanent change in official County policy would potentially open the door to the Charter Fund being drained of the resources needed to acquire and maintain regional parks as intended by the voters. In finding a middle ground where parks needs of unincorporated urban areas can be met through funding regional trails that run through those areas, CGF hopes to preserve the integrity of the County Parks Charter Fund and maintain our world-class county parks system for the benefit of the whole county.

UPDATE 6/5/12: At the meeting today, the Board of Supervisors deferred the vote on this issue until August.

Stanford Trails issues

Last week, CGF sent out an Action Alert asking for support of Supervisor Liz Kniss' proposal to use the Stanford trail funds for two trail-related projects. Here's part of the text of our Alert:

In 2000, Stanford received permission from the County through its General Use Permit (GUP) to develop about 5 million square feet on its core campus. As mitigation for this campus expansion, Stanford agreed to grant two trail easements across Stanford land as shown on the County Trails Master Plan. After years of negotiation with Santa Clara County over the exact alignment of the trails, Stanford insisted on constructing one of the trails on a different alignment than the one shown on the Master Plan, and insisted that the second trail should be relocated to San Mateo County, along Alpine Road. Over the next few years, San Mateo County rejected Stanford’s proposed trail alignment three times, the final time being in December 2011. At this point, the trail funding was returned to Santa Clara County to be used to mitigate the loss of recreational opportunities due to Stanford’s development.

Now, Supervisor Liz Kniss (whose district includes Palo Alto and Stanford’s land) has proposed that a portion of the $10.4 million currently in this fund be used for two trail-related projects: a bicycle/pedestrian overcrossing over Highway 101 at Adobe Creek, and the completion of the “Dumbarton link” of the Bay Trail, between the Ravenswood Open Space Preserve and the Dumbarton Bridge. The Adobe Creek bridge would provide safe, year-round access between residential Palo Alto, including Stanford, and the Baylands nature preserve. The Dumbarton link would form the final link in the Bay Trail between Redwood City and Alviso, providing 27 miles of uninterrupted shoreline trail. Both of these trail projects would benefit bicycle commuters as well as recreational users, and would be environmentally beneficial in multiple ways: reducing automobile traffic, providing access to shoreline open space, encouraging increased biking and hiking, and drawing attention to the natural beauty of our Bayfront.

Here's our update from May 23:

Thanks to all of you who emailed comments to the Board of Supervisors in favor of the proposal, and an especially big thanks to those who showed up at the meeting and spoke in person! Unfortunately, the proposal was not voted on at the meeting yesterday. The Board of Supervisors decided to delay voting until after other proposals have been submitted for consideration. The Board is expected to hear this matter again in August. CGF will alert our members when the issue comes before the Board again. Thanks again for taking action -- the Board received a lot of emails, so they definitely know the public is paying attention!

Developer withdraws Saltworks development proposal

Big news on the Redwood City Cargill Saltworks project! At the May 7 Redwood City Council meeting, the Council announced that developer DMB Associates had officially withdrawn its application for development of the Cargill salt ponds. While this is very good news, the bad news is that DMB and Cargill are already planning a new development proposal to submit in place of this one. So we can’t relax our vigilance just yet!

After Councilmember Rosanne Foust requested that the City Council look into putting an advisory vote about Saltworks on the November ballot, Mayor Alicia Aguirre announced formation of an ad hoc Saltworks Committee to explore the City Council’s “options” regarding the development. The ad hoc committee recommended that the City Council deny the existing Saltworks development application. The committee’s reasoning was that the application had been pending for 3 years, was still incomplete, and was taking up too many City resources.

The report simultaneously acknowledged that developer DMB has made clear its intention to submit a revised project application, and that the City would have to determine whether and how to proceed on that application if/when it is received. Various options suggested in the report included: conducting a poll of residents via phone, postcard or online survey; holding workshops for public input; and holding an advisory vote on the new project.

DMB announced immediately after the City published its committee report that it would be withdrawing its application and focusing on preparing the new, revised project application, to be submitted at a later date.

The Cargill/DMB Saltworks project would be the largest Bayfill development since the 1960’s. The site is over 1400 acres of former wetlands that could be restored.  Even in their current state, the salt ponds provide valuable habitat to migratory waterfowl. The area is highly unsuitable for development, being below sea level and requiring levees to protect it from sea level rise, as well as being located in an earthquake liquefaction zone. Any development on this site, especially development involving housing that would place residents in this unsafe area, is a bad idea!

- Alice Kaufman, CGF Legislative Advocate

The ongoing saga of the Cargill Saltworks project in Redwood City took an unexpected turn recently when Redwood City Councilmember Rosanne Foust requested the City Council to put an advisory vote on the November ballot, asking voters whether the city should continue with its review of the project. CGF Legislative Advocate Alice Kaufman wrote the following op-ed for the Palo Alto Daily News:

Council shouldn't need an advisory vote to learn most oppose proposal

Like many others who have been watching Redwood City’s handling of the DMB/Cargill Saltworks proposal to build the equivalent of a small city on the Cargill salt ponds, I was surprised by the City Council’s announcement that it will consider placing an advisory vote on the November ballot to ask voters whether they should continue reviewing the project. Considering that the constant message from the City Council for the past several years has been that they will not make any decisions about the project until after environmental review has been completed, this seems like a complete about-face.

            I was even more surprised to learn that the advisory vote was proposed by Councilmember Rosanne Foust, who has been advised by the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) that she must recuse herself from all City Council discussions and votes on the Saltworks project. Due to Foust’s position as President and CEO of a lobbying organization for business and development interests that has endorsed Saltworks, the FPPC determined that Foust has a personal financial interest in seeing this enormous development built on our shoreline.

            This bias was apparent in remarks that Foust made to the Redwood City Patch (http://bit.ly/IyYjBm), in which she stated that the advisory vote would list “all the benefits of the development” in its description of the project. “All the benefits”? What about all the risks and drawbacks? Shouldn’t voters get the whole picture before they decide? The Saltworks project will increase Redwood City’s population by 40% while it paves over restorable wetlands, puts people at risk from rising sea levels, and clogs our roads with thousands more cars daily. Does Foust include these issues among the “benefits” of this project?

The City Council’s willingness to consider Foust’s proposed advisory vote is bewildering. For one thing, the City has already received plenty of public input on this project. With the review process barely begun, already nearly 1,000 pages of comments have been submitted to the City from members of the community – and about 90% of those comments have been opposed to the project. It is hard to imagine what additional information the City Council feels an advisory vote might give them. If the mountain of negative comments they have already received is not reason enough to abandon this project, how will a nonbinding advisory vote help them to make up their minds?

            If the City Council shares Foust’s stated concerns about the “divisiveness” of the Saltworks project (though it is hard to see how the overwhelmingly negative response of the community can be described as “divided”), the City Council should halt the review process now and deny the project without going through the expense and delay of an advisory vote. If they are unwilling to deny the project before the EIR process is complete (which has been their consistent stance all along), then what is the point of the advisory vote? If the Council wants to know how the public feels about the project, they have already received more than enough feedback to answer that question.

Alice Kaufman is Legislative Advocate for the Committee for Green Foothills (www.greenfoothills.org) and a resident of Redwood City.

Go to http://thedailynews.ca.newsmemory.com/publink.php?shareid=13d65f2e8 to see this article on the Daily News website.

Facebook Relocation Will Significantly Impact Air Quality and GHG Emissions

You’ve probably heard about Facebook’s recent IPO, but you may not have heard about their plan to relocate to the former Sun Microsystems campus in Menlo Park, at the foot of the Dumbarton Bridge. Since this is an already-developed site, CGF did not oppose the plan, but due to the projected increases in traffic and potential impacts on the Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge (which borders the new Facebook campus on two sides), we did submit comments on the EIR for the project. Here is an excerpt from our comments:

By far the greatest impact the Project will have on the surrounding area is the increased traffic and associated effects on air quality and greenhouse gas emissions. In spite of Facebook’s mitigation measures with regard to supporting bicycling amenities and other alternative modes of transport, which the Committee recognizes and appreciates, these impacts will significantly impact the environment and the surrounding community, especially taken in conjunction with increased traffic resulting from other projects already approved or planned in the vicinity. It is vitally important for the City of Menlo Park, as well as other local and regional agencies, to recognize the cumulative effect of more and more development occurring in this area, which is isolated from public transit options that could reduce car traffic if the projects were more centrally located. The Committee strongly urges the City to focus future development in underutilized and already-developed areas nearer to public transit corridors.

We will be keeping an eye on future development proposals in this area, including Cargill’s proposal to build a city of 30,000 people on the Redwood City salt ponds.

CGF Welcomes New Legislative Advocate

The Committee for Green Foothills is pleased to add Alice Kaufman to our staff. Alice is a graduate of UC Hastings Law School and the University of Chicago. Her experience as an environmental lawyer includes several years at the Environmental Law Foundation in Oakland, where she worked to enforce laws regarding toxics disclosure, lead paint hazards, and other environmental issues. More recently, Alice has been working as a community activist in Redwood City fighting the massive Cargill/DMB Saltworks development. She is also active with Redwood City public schools and local education issues. Alice’s relationship with CGF began in 2009, when she contributed CEQA comments on behalf of CGF in opposition to a development on the San Mateo County coast. She then joined CGF’s Board of Directors and is now on staff as a Legislative Advocate.

America's first environmental president long preceded Teddy Roosevelt

Found this interesting historical piece, a speech by our fourth president, James Madion:

But although no determinate limit presents itself. to the increase of food, and to a population commensurate with it, other than the limited productiveness of the earth itself, we can scarcely be warranted in supposing that all the productive powers of its surface can be made subservient to the use of man, in exclusion of all the plants and animals not entering into his stock of subsistence; that all the elements and combinations of elements in the earth, the atmosphere, and the water, which now support such various and such numerous descriptions of created beings, animate and inanimate, could be withdrawn from that general destination, and appropriated to the exclusive support and increase of the human part of the creation; so that the whole habitable earth should be as full of people as the spots most crowded now are or might be made, and as destitute as those spots of the plants and animals not used by man. 

The supposition cannot well be reconciled with that symmetry in the face of nature, which derives new beauty from every insight that can be gained into it. 

A nice description of ecosystem services, as well as a statement of value.

According to the link, the speech caught on at the time but was gradually forgotten.  Maybe some version of the idea went on to influence Thoreau and the incubating environmental movement.

-Brian

Unmanned drones - a tool for environmental groups?

There has been some possibly-deserved concern about unmanned drone use inside the US, due to civil liberties concerns:

Excitement over America’s use of drones in multiple Muslim countries is, predictably, causing those weapons to be imported onto U.S. soil. Federal law enforcement agencies and local police forces are buying more and more of them and putting them to increasingly diverse domestic uses, as well as patrolling the border, and even private corporations are now considering how to use them. One U.S. drone manufacturer advertises its product as ideal for “urban monitoring.” Orlando’s police departmentoriginally requested two drones to use for security at next year’s GOP convention, only to change their minds for budgetary reasons.

....the use of drones for domestic surveillance raises all sorts of extremely serious privacy concerns and other issues of potential abuse. 

We have to acknowledge these concerns, but at the same time, there could be beneficial uses by environmentalists.  Many environmental violations are hidden on private property or on inaccessible portions of public property.  Remote-controlled aircraft with cameras could help resolve those problems.  For example, a radio-controlled helicopter with a video camera, with 8 minutes of flying time, costing less $100.  This is an approach that environmentalists might want to consider, especially as their capabilities get better.

-Brian

Our new partner in the fight for San Francisco Bay

CGF has a new partner in the fight against the "Saltworks" project -- the proposed city-size development on Cargill's Redwood City salt ponds. A new grassroots community group, called Redwood City Neighbors United (RCNU), has been founded by a group of Redwood City residents, including Alice Kaufman, CGF's new Legislative Advocate, and Nancy Arbuckle, one of CGF's Board members. The group is dedicated to fighting the proposed Saltworks project and promoting responsible growth in Redwood City.

Why this is important

Cargill and its partner, Arizona luxury housing developer DMB Associates, want to build a massive development of 12,000 housing units and 1 million square feet of commercial/retail on the salt ponds between Woodside Road and Marsh Road in Redwood City. This would mean 30,000 more residents -- the size of the population of Foster City -- living behind a massive flood levee and adding to the already-heavy traffic on 101. No bayfill project this huge has been proposed since the 1960's. These salt ponds are former wetlands that were intended to be included in the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge, and they can still be restored to wetlands if Cargill is not allowed to fill and pave them for this development. An estimated 90% of the Bay's wetlands have already been diked or filled in for development, and scientists tell us that we need at least 100,000 acres of wetlands for the Bay to thrive.

What's happening

Cargill and DMB have submitted a project application for their proposed "Saltworks" project to the Redwood City City Council, and a Notice of Preparation under CEQA has been prepared. Over 900 pages of comments in response to the NOP were received, expessing the concerns of Redwood City residents, environmental groups, labor unions, the governments of nearby cities, local businesses, and other concerned parties. Most recently, in early November, DMB announced that due to the high volume of comments received, they would not be issuing a revised project description by the end of 2011 as previously promised, but instead will be delaying the process for an indefinite period of time.

What you can do

We need to keep our opposition to the Saltworks project as strong as ever, in spite of DMB's delays. Please keep in touch with both CGF and RCNU (you can visit RCNU's website at www.rcnu.org) to learn the latest developments on this misguided and irresponsible project.

Thank you!

CGF corrects discussion of its No on E position

(Palo Alto Weekly published this letter from CGF correcting the discussion of the No on E position taken by CGF's Board of Directors.  Where the last line says "Committee for Green Foothills Board of Directors", the Weekly failed to include the words from the letter that started with "On behalf of Committee for Green Foothills Board of Directors".  -Brian)

Editor,

It's unfortunate that the Palo Alto Weekly failed to consult with Committee for Green Foothills before incorrectly characterizing the CGF Board's position, among others, as stating that "parkland should never be repurposed." The CGF Board's statement and supporting material specifically recognizes the need to balance competing environmental interests and makes clear that it examines the issues on a case-by-case basis. In this case, the majority of greenhouse-gas emission reductions that would be done at a loss of parklands can instead be done by a smaller operation at the Water Quality Control Plant with no loss of parkland that has been promised to voters for forty years. Committee for Green Foothills' Board did not make a knee-jerk decision but rather a thoughtful one to support both action to fight climate change and to protect our local parkland and natural open space, by encouraging a no vote on Measure E.

Brian Schmidt

Committee for Green Foothills Board of Directors  (CGF note:  Weekly failed to include the words "on behalf of" here)

East Bayshore Road

Palo Alto