My watershed is remarkably altered, and so is yours, every day, by vineyard and housing development, ponds, and road construction, both residential and logging. When grading clears the land and rain hits bare earth rather than grass and trees, soil washes away into streams, creeks and rivers. The silt in the bed of the waterway is a death trap for fish eggs, as they sink down and cannot be fertilized.
When rain hits rooftops and cement, it isn't absorbed by the earth, but is channeled along intentional or unintentional courses, cutting new waterways with sometimes disastrous results. New and existing poorly built and maintained dirt roads are leading culprits. The brown rivers and lakes around us are graphic evidence of pollution from sediment.
Currently Mendocino County is unique in not having restrictions on moving dirt, except what little is covered in the Uniform Building Code. California Department of Fish and Game and National Marine Fisheries Service have regulatory authority over silt and other waterway conditions affecting fish, but their enforcement resources and priorities have done little to stop the declining fish count, and what goes on upslope from the stream is seldom challenged. The county General Plan calls for a grading ordinance, but the Board of Supervisors have not taken action to implement this requirement over the past ten years. As a result, unregulated grading continues and litigation has been brought against the county several times, including two recent lawsuits.
The Board of Supervisors finally moved to develop an ordinance early this year. A Grading Ordinance Committee was formed, which will make a recommendation to the board. This 17-member advisory committee includes representatives from the MEC and the Willits Environmental Center, as well as two watershed groups, Friends of the Garcia and Friends of the Navarro.
In addition to residential and new agricultural development, roads and ponds, provisions the Grading Ordinance Committee will be considering include percent of slope on hillsides, and width of buffer zones or setbacks from waterways for riparian habitat protection. These buffer zones play a part in preventing diseases, such as Pierce's Disease, as well.
Agricultural land being converted to another crop typically is exempt, as long as it remains within the current footprint, despite that a conversion from orchards to vineyards is a significant change in the ecosystem. The people representing environmental interestsÑthe MEC and WEC, and the watershed folksÑwill draw on the expertise of people in Napa County, where loopholes in their ordinance have allowed grading to cause extreme degradation of the Napa River, resulting in citizen lawsuits, and Sonoma County, where the Hillside Ordinance process and product created strong opposition among environmentalists.
Educate yourself about the issues associated with earth moving. The MEC has material you can review.
Attend the Grading Ordinance Committee meetings every other Thursday from 1:30 to 4:30 pm. They are open to the public and there is time for public comment. Call the MEC or the county Department of Planning and Building for specific dates and locations.
Talk with committee members to let them know your concerns and opinions.
Attend the Board of Supervisors meeting when the Grading Ordinance issue is on the agenda. Call the MEC to get on the notification list.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2001
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited