But the Planning Commission sorely lacks a majority of reasonable persons. Watching them in action, it is very clear that most of the commissioners do not represent the public interest, but are the servants of special interests, i.e., agriculture, timber and development. Attending the meetings has left us with feelings of frustration and disgust. We expect that they will send a very weak and faulty document to the Board of Supervisors, who will pass an even more ineffectual version. Eventually, the people of Mendocino County might have to take matters into their own hands and put an environmentally protective grading ordinance on the ballot.
The following are the Mendocino Environmental Center's comments made to the Planning Commission, August 1, 2002.
In the 1980 General Plan/ Environmental Impact Report Soil Resources section, the county expressed goals of reducing soil loss, sediment pollution, and all forms of erosion, including that of stream banks. It then proposed to meet these goals in part by adopting a grading ordinance "within the next twelve months," (p.94). The Plan again stressed the need for a grading ordinance in Part IV., Impact Analysis, where the county set out specific mitigation measures it said were needed to avoid significant, adverse cumulative effects. Then again stated that a grading ordinance "shall be adopted and implemented within the next twelve months." A grading ordinance is an essential environmental mitigation of the General Plan.
Through various Board resolutions the county stalled and the deadline for approval was pushed to February 1985. But, again, nothing happened. On December 9, 1991 (GP 21-90), the Board deleted the deadline. The County then hired a consultant to write a grading ordinance which was never adopted, largely due to efforts by the Farm Bureau and the Employers Council to block it. The Planning Department in 1996 proposed a much weaker version of that ordinance, but again it was blocked. The county presently runs under the Uniform Building Code (UBC), which addresses safety but not environmental concerns.
In 1998, Supervisor Mike Delbar, representing Farm Bureau interests presented Ordinance 3971, to exempt agricultural reservoirs from the standards of the UBC. The ordinance passed unanimously but was challenged successfully in court by the Willits Environmental Center, et. al., for failure to meet California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) standards.
The Board of Supervisors, in a motion made by Delbar and seconded by Patty Campbell, ordered the Planning Department to restructure the same ordinance under terms that would meet CEQA. This motion was apparently never acted upon. Instead, the Planning Department has been automatically exempting any agricultural grading, including reservoirs, under Section 7003(b) of the UBC: "isolated, self contained area if there is no danger to private or public property." In the spring of 2001 a large pond exempted by the county gave way and caused danger both to the public and its property, as it spread mud and water across Highway 101, causing closure of the roadway. That's business as usual in Mendocino County.
So here we are today, after twenty frustrating years, the requirements of the General Plan are still not satisfied. It took two more lawsuits and a Grand Jury Report to spur on this most recent effort put forth by the Grading Ordinance Committee. After spending $80,000 and months of hard work, the committee's ordinance pleases no one.
For the past twenty years standing Boards of Supervisors have been controlled by the timber, agricultural and business interests. They have failed to pass a grading ordinance because it conflicts with the agenda of these same interests. After months of negotiating with representatives of the very industries that this ordinance is supposed to be regulating we realized that:
They chose self-interest rather than to respect the intention of the grading ordinance.
The process was fatally flawed and heavily stacked in favor of those same interests.
The committee's decisions were short on environmental protection and irreparably compromised.
We did not want lend our names to or give the slightest hint of support to this totally inadequate document.
Therefore, three of the four environmental groups walked away in frustration and disgust with the process and business as usual attitude, to write an ordinance that would actually comply with the requirements of the General Plan and ensure that environmentally sound grading practices were part of our county's future.
We, a coalition of environmental organizations, are here today asking that the county comply with state law and its own General Plan. We ask that you remember that the intention of the grading ordinance is to protect the environment now and in the future. This action is more than twenty years overdue, during which time immeasurable environmental degradation has occurred.
Therefore the regulatory aspects of the grading ordinance should give equal treatment under the law with no exemptions, no mitigations, no special chapters, no special rules, no entitlements, just fair and equal treatment for everyone. If we had done it right the first time and had a grading ordinance twenty years ago, there might have been room for some exemptions or mitigations. However, "business as usual" has contributed to stream degradation, loss of habitat, topsoil and fish.
So, we find ourselves right down to extinction time, surrounded by whining rhetoric regarding taking of property for environmental protection which the Supreme Court has ruled is not a taking under the Fourth Amendment. The only recognized "take" comes under the Endangered Species Act and the new "4-D" rules, developed by the National Marine Fisheries Service for the protection of Coho and steelhead salmon. Farmers are not exempt from the "4-D" rules nor should they be. In fact, they hold enough property in Mendocino County that if protected from grading regulations their cumulative affects would invalidate the efforts of all those trying to comply.
We need strong language devoid of weakening words such as "where practical," "if feasible" and "may be." We need erosion control plans, and serious enforcement with penalties for violations. We must have serious protection of watercourses, lakes, ponds, wetlands and the fish, wildlife and birds that inhabit them.
Remember, the client to be represented is the environment and the rights being protected belong to the future.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2002
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