You are invited to a meeting to learn about San Mateo County’s watersheds and to participate in the development of recommendations to protect and enhance watersheds, including a potential ordinance.

San Mateo County Hall of Justice
Monday, April 7, 7:00 p.m.
Board of Supervisors Chambers
400 County Center, Redwood City

County staff will present information about San Mateo County’s 34 watersheds, threats to the watersheds, current and anticipated regulations and potential actions to enhance watershed protection.

Following the presentation, members of the public are encouraged to comment and make recommendations.

The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors in December 2007 directed staff to engage the public with a series of workshops. Following these meetings in Spring 2008, staff will present public comments and recommendations to the Board of Supervisors at a public meeting.

To facilitate the outreach process, staff will present concepts that:

• Focus on activities such as grading on hillsides with slopes over 10 percent and in areas near streams.
• Apply existing County requirements, like the Local Coastal Program riparian policies, to all unincorporated areas to ensure consistency and reduce unnecessary new or duplicating requirements on property owners.
• Use a simple permit system that addresses environmental concerns but still allows most activities.
• Use a fair and reasonable approach for existing development on slopes and near hillsides, such as grandfathering in structures and activities that exist at the time the regulation is adopted.
• Allow reasonable exemptions for matters like routine maintenance, existing agricultural work outside riparian areas, or those activities that are already subject to comparable state, federal or local permit conditions.

For more information, please visit http://www.co.sanmateo.ca.us/OurWatersheds or call the County Manager’s Office at (650) 363-4123. The site also provides the opportunity for members of the public to comment and to view comments from previous meetings.

Please note that visitors to the Hall of Justice are required to pass through airport-style security.

Oceans need our help now more than ever. Declining fisheries, increasing quantities of marine debris, erosion problems, and oil and toxins polluting near shore waters are just a few of the threats facing our oceans today.  Save Our Shores, a Santa Cruz-based non-profit that once had an office in El Granada, held a 4-day Ocean Leadership Conference from March 12-22 in order to provide a forum for those interested in engaging with these issues.

The Conference agenda included discussions on Marine Protected Areas, problems and consequences of marine debris, as well as more regionally-focused issues such as dredging at the Pillar Point Harbor, water contamination of local coastal watersheds, and the debris problem in Pilarcitos Creek.

The conference also engaged Coastside residents in a community assessment exercise that encouraged residents to identify local areas for concern and ways they wanted to see them addressed.  Some of the more prevalent issues discussed included the amount of trash on local beaches and creeks, the need for more educational resources focused on the hazards of marine debris, the need to identify point and non-point sources of pollution in the watershed, and the lack of coordination between local environmental organizations.

Conference participants will now work with Save Our Shores staff to further assess the needs of Coastside communities and then design and implement activities to engage their community in ocean conservation. 

In order to help address one of the more pressing issues, marine debris in the local watershed, Save Our Shores staff along with conference participants will be hosting a creek cleanup at Pilarcitos Creek on May 17th from 9am-1pm.  This event will be the first of many efforts to help address community needs and is a great opportunity to get involved and have your voice heard. 

Save Our Shores has been successful in coordinating thousands of volunteers in Santa Cruz County to remove marine debris from creeks and beaches.  They have also developed educational curriculum that is an interactive and informative approach to teaching youth and adults about the importance of marine conservation. Strengthened from the core, Save Our Shores now has the resources and programmatic capacity to provide valuable tools to Coastside residents who are interested in becoming more actively involved in the fight to save our precious marine environment.

Please come and lend a hand at the May 17th Pilarcitos Creek Cleanup. Save Our Shores staff are excited to work with Coastside residents and hope to engage with many more volunteers and concerned community members.

People interested in learning more about the Leadership Conference and the issues and concerns that were voiced can find speaker notes on the Save Our Shores website at http://saveourshores.org or call Emily Glanville the Programs Coordinator and Half Moon Bay contact at Save Our Shores (831) 462-5660 ext. 6.

Next month, the State Park and Recreation Commission will be holding a hearing in San Jose to take public testimony about the park closures and lifeguard staffing reductions.

In San Mateo County, Portola Redwoods State Park is also threatened with closure.  This park includes stands of virgin redwoods and its trails provide essential links with other parts of the open space system in our area. Check Bay Area Hiker for a hike you may want to take while you still can. There’s a great story about the potential closure of this park by Julia Scott on the Palo Alto Daily News site:

“There are so few opportunities to camp in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Unless you go all the way down to Castle Rock State Park, or Big Basin Redwoods State Park or Butano State Park (the only other campground in the county). It’s much more accessible to folks on the Peninsula side,” said Bill Young, who leads hikes through Portola Redwoods and other local parks for the Loma Prieta chapter of the Sierra Club

Among the 48 parks targeted for closure, the largest is Henry Coe State Park, which is mostly in Santa Clara County.  At 87,000 acres it is the largest State Park in Northern California and the second-largest in the State.

The public hearing will be on Tuesday, April 15 at 6pm at the Santa Clara County Government Center, 70 West Hedding Street, San Jose.  You will have a chance to speak and also to submit written comments.

Our governor has dropped a couple of his (ultra-prominent) appointees to the State Parks Commission for their opposition to running a toll road through a state beach, reports the LA Times.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has dropped his brother-in-law, Bobby Shriver, and fellow action hero Clint Eastwood from the state parks commission after their vigorous opposition helped derail a plan for a toll road through San Onofre State Beach in San Diego County.

The decision not to renew the commissioners’ terms, which expired last week, surprised observers and sent a strong signal that the governor expects loyalty from political appointees.

“This is a warning shot from the governor’s office to all of his appointees: Do what I say, no matter how stupid it is,” said Joel Reynolds, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Los Angeles. “And I know of no project more destructive to the California coast than this toll road project.”

NOTE: The deadline for this appears to have already passed.

Senate Bill 1295 by Senator Denise Moreno Ducheny (San Diego) would eliminate the Coastal Commission’s ability to appeal development permits granted by local governments up and down the coast.  Please write or fax Senator Darrell Steinberg, Chair, Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee.  Tell him you oppose SB 1295, and send a copy to Senator Ducheny.

What’s Happening

Senator Ducheny’s bill would eliminate the ability of the Coastal Commission to appeal coastal development permits granted by local governments.  While members of the public can also appeal these permits, citizens and non-profit organizations do not always have the resources or ability to monitor every single one of the hundreds of local permits up and down the coast and appeal the significant ones within a very short ten-day time frame.

Why this is Important

The California Coastal Act provides for oversight by the Coastal Commission over development proposals along the coast.  While the primary responsibility for reviewing projects lies with local governments, the Coastal Commission acts as an appeal body for projects that could adversely affect sensitive coastal habitats, scenic resources, water quality, or public access. The staff of the Coastal Commission receives notice of all local projects, and under the present law, can appeal them by having two Commissioners sign on to an appeal. Once appealed, the public has the opportunity to address issues of concern to them.  If the Commission’s ability to appeal projects is eliminated, many will fall through the cracks, and our coast could be seriously affected by inappropriate or harmful development.

What you can do

Please write or fax Senator Steinberg and send a copy to Senator Ducheny.  We recommend faxing as all letters must be received by March 18th and faxes have more impact than e-mails.  Please let us know that you have written or fax (650) 968-8431.

Committee for Green Foothills hired Santa Clara county resident Cynthia D’Agosta to lead the organization.  Ms. D’Agosta will take the reins on May 1, overseeing its programs and fundraising as its new Executive Director.  The Committee for Green Foothills, headquartered in Palo Alto, works for open space and natural resources protection throughout San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.

A native Californian, Cynthia’s community involvement and work experiences cover a wide range of leadership and team work on open space planning and natural resource protection.  After receiving her Masters in Landscape Architecture (MLA), from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, and a BS in Science and Fine Arts, from UC Santa Cruz, Cynthia jumped right into the work of protecting the environment. 

She has spent the last 8 years working as the first Executive Director of a new local government agency, the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority.  Prior to returning to the Bay Area in 2000 for this position, Cynthia worked in Southern California on river restoration issues and park and open space planning for the County of Los Angeles and the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, a JPA of the Santa Monica Mountains State Conservancy. She is also a visual artist who uses landscapes as her inspiration and often her medium.

Join us for our Sanctuary Visitor Center Open House Celebration on Saturday, March 22nd from 1 pm – 4 pm.  Short of a three hour boat trip, this is as up close and personal as you may get to the marine life of the Farallones.

Discover why the sanctuary is famous for the “Big Three” (1) giant blue whales (2) white sharks and (3) the largest seabird rookery in the contiguous United States. Enjoy the Habitat Room featuring living marine life including sand crabs, monkeyface eels and more!

As a rare bonus, the historic Tide Station will be open for you to participate in a special lab featuring marine life eggs. Celebrate with the designers, educators, sanctuary staff and volunteers who have helped make the Sanctuary Visitor Center renovation a success.

For directions to Crissy Field Beach and the Sanctuary Visitor Center:
http://www.farallones.org/about_us/directions.php

EDITOR’S NOTE: Bill McKibben is one of my favorite writers. “The End of Nature” is still an important book on global warming, even though it was written 20 years ago. “The Age of Missing Information” changed the way I think about TV. And you’d be surprised just how much I think about TV. His latest book, “Deep Economy”, emphasizes moving beyond growth and focusing on local and regional self-reliance, something that might have lessons for the future of the Coastside.

Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) opens its 15th Annual Wallace Stegner Lecture Series with Bill McKibben. McKibben, a former staff writer for The New Yorker, writes about global warming, alternative energy and the risks associated with human genetic engineering.

McKibben’s new book “Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future”, makes the compelling case for moving beyond “growth” as the paramount economic ideal and pursuing prosperity in a more local direction. Our purchases need not be at odds with the things we truly value, McKibben argues, and the more we nurture the essential humanity of our economy, the more we will recapture our own.
 
Bill McKibben’s lecture will be held at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts on March 20 at 8:00 p.m., and will be followed by a question-and-answer session and book-signing reception.
            
For more information on the Wallace Stegner Lecture Series or to purchase a subscription, please contact POST at (650) 854-7696. Single tickets for Bill McKibben, N. Scott Momaday and Kaiulani Lee are $22 and can be ordered through the box office at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts at (650) 903-6000.