The Board of Supervisors appointed a seventeen-member grading committee reasonably balanced between agency people, agricultural/ development interests, and environmental interests. The committee has met twenty times and is nearing completion with only one or two more meetings. These final meetings will be critical.
Many of the sections previously approved may be seriously watered down or deleted. Two committee members representing the environmental community resigned at the start of the February 1st meeting. At that meeting, following their departure, a motion to weaken the riparian protection passed 7 to 6. The important issue of California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) triggers was also decided without their voices or votes. In Sacramento it is a common expression that legislation is made by those who show up. In the final meeting(s) we will take action on several important matters: "red flags" (thorny issues not fully resolved), definition of terms, and whether or not the ordinance will contain a separate agricultural chapter. This last item is a 22-page proposal exempting agriculture from every regulatory aspect of the ordinance drafted over the prior nine months. It would also make the administering agency of the ordinance the Agricultural Commission rather than the Planning Department. This measure has not and should not be passed, but is on the table for our next meeting.
The situation is fluid and critical but not at all hopeless. It is possible that we will come out of the committee process with an ordinance that will address some of the requirements in the General Plan for the control of sediment and the protection of riparian vegetation. However, it is much more likely that the draft will contain:
Inadequate CEQA triggers;
Alternate or inadequate language on riparian protection; and
Alternate plans of administration, with either a separate agriculture section under the Agricultural Commissioner or a conventional grading ordinance administered by the Planning Department.
The original General Plan of Mendocino County states:
"Mendocino County Grading ordinance shall be adopted and implemented which will include reasonable measures to: i. Retain and restore riparian vegetation, ii. protect and retain natural vegetation in or near construction or road building sites. (P. 1-57)
"An effective grading ordinance which is complementary with Chapter 70 of the Uniform Building Code shall be adopted and implemented. (P.1-67)
"Modify the grading and surface mining ordinances to incorporate the necessary measures to protect and enhance fish habitat, including riparian vegetation protection and restoration, erosion and sediment control measures." (P. 1-30)
This is the focus and strength of our position on the committee.
After twenty frustrating years, these requirements are still unsatisfied. The Board of Supervisors was prompted by recent lawsuits and Grand Jury complaints to respond by establishing the committee. While this has delayed the ordinance by yet another year, the positive aspect is that it has made the process public.
Several meetings back we approved a very good section on protection of the riparian corridor. This section defined the corridor to include all existing riparian vegetation plus a 25-foot drip line and land adjacent to the watercourse that "has the capability to naturally support riparian vegetation" (even though presently bare of vegetation from land use practices). It also prohibited essentially all grading within the corridor. We had arrived at this format after an extensive and futile effort to approve conventional fixed distances from the stream banks. This different "site specific" approach became generally acceptable to the group because it provided protection as far out as existing vegetation extended, satisfying the agency and environmental interests, and on the other hand, would not include non-riparian land, a measure the agricultural representatives favored. This approved measure, which provides protection for all riparian vegetation, is now under attack in the committee with an alternate proposal.
We will vigorously resist efforts to further weaken the ordinance and we will push our agenda until the draft is finished. After the draft comes out, we must all be advocates to strengthen the ordinance at each level of review: the Planning Commission, public hearings and the Board of Supervisors. At the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors, the process will be political and we will need to speak in support of retaining the aesthetic and environmental quality of the county as stated in the language in the General Plan.
The other and more productive opportunity for repairing the ordinance is that it will require environmental review under the requirements of CEQA. Many of the onerous provisions being advocated by others will trigger CEQA review of the ordinance in that, contrary to the express language of the General Plan, they would codify further destruction of riparian habitat. This is where we will have the leverage. Where the ordinance fails to specify adequate measures to "protect and enhance riparian vegetation" and the other requirements of the General Plan, we will have CEQA on our side and be in a technical process with recourse to the courts if necessary. We must have legal guidance through the next stages and we need funds for this. Any contribution to the MEC for this purpose would be a very effective way to support the environmental quality of Mendocino County and would be greatly appreciated.
I have the draft ordinance language available to anyone who would like an e-mail copy. Contact me at dmyers@pacific.net. I urge you to become informed and participants in the process.
Comment to the Grading Ordinance Committee
The following is the comment from the Mendocino Environmental Center Board of Directors made to the Grading Ordinance Committee at their meeting on February 1.
The County established this citizen's group to work on a grading ordinance. The intention of the grading ordinance is environmental protection of our land, air, and water, thereby sustaining our children's future.
According to the Mission Statement of the Mendocino Environmental Center, it is our job to work with a politically and socially diverse community, upholding and promoting environmental and social justice in Mendocino County and beyond, while encouraging integrity, tolerance, non-violence and a sustainable future.
We take our mission very seriously. Therefore, recognizing our shared community, culture and future, we have allowed our representatives to make compromises that we would not ordinarily make. We have tried to act in "good faith" and work with the Farm Bureau and business communities. They have not acted in good faith.
The intention of the grading ordinance, environmental protection, seems to have changed to vineyard protection. The Farm Bureau has "revisited" and watered-down already agreed upon protections. Now, the Farm Bureau wants special treatment for agriculture above and beyond what they have already bullied out of this committee. They want it in the form of a separate "chapter" entirely for regulation of agriculture. In other words they want to be exempt from the current ordinance and write a separate, even more lenient section for themselves.
After months of negotiating with representatives of the very industries that this ordinance is supposed to be regulating we have come to realize that you are not willing to respect our environmental concerns.
The Mendocino Environmental Center is no longer willing to make any compromise that concerns soil, watersheds, fishery protection and a sustainable future for our children. We are instructing our representative, Daniel Myers, to vote for our client, the environment, and seek all maximum setbacks and protections with no compromise.
We would like to publicly thank Mr. Myers for all the hard work, time and energy he has put into the Grading Ordinance Committee.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2002
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