I hope to see you there!!
Thank you.
Veronica
Save $5 per ticket by purchasing in advance. Also many groups are planning local action for October 24th, the International Day of Climate Action. Stay tuned for details!
Purchase tickets online at http://www.scdsevents.org and stop by and say hello at the Transition and other tables!
Bill McKibben to Speak in Sonoma County,Oct 2nd
Renowned American environmentalist and writer Bill McKibben will speak about the first global-scale climate change movement, the 350.org campaign, as well as the significance of the number 350 and the upcoming International Day of Climate Action on October 24th.
This event is hosted by Sonoma Country Day School in partnership with the Climate Protection Campaign, Post Carbon Institute, Sierra Club Sonoma County, Peace and Justice Center of Sonoma County, and the Network for Spiritual Progressives of Sonoma County and 34 other community organizations.
Friday, October 2, 7pm
Jackson Theater at Sonoma Country Day School
4400 Day School Place
$10 in advance/ $15 at the door
A reception and book signing will follow the presentation.
McKibben says that “350 is the most important number in the world” – the number that leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide measured in “parts per million” in our atmosphere. “If we can make this number known across the planet, that mere fact will exert some real pressure on negotiators. We need people to understand that 350 marks either success or failure for these climate negotiations.”
With carbon dioxide levels already exceeding 350 parts per million, Bill McKibben, the Paul Revere of our time, is traveling the world to awaken people to the dire threat of global warming. In this special appearance, he’ll explain how Sonoma County can join thousands of others to send its own unique message through a countywide day of climate actions on October 24. “Our hope is for a powerful and unified call to action- a call that is global, scientific, and specific.”
Monthly Archive for September, 2009
Hi everyone!
On October 1st, sometime after 8:30 (probably 9 AM) the North Coast Regional Board will consider final approval of the MS4 Storm Water and Non-Storm Water Discharge Permit for SCWA and Santa Rosa at their office at 5550 Skylane Blvd.
In general, this is a good permit in terms of addressing storm water runoff issues. (toxic runoff occurring during early rain storms in the late fall) What I am deeply concerned about however, is the cavalier treatment of “incidental runoff” which will carry out the recent approval of the Basin Plan Amendment to legalize summer irrigation runoff when streams are most vulnerable.
Board staff have been giving me the run around on this issue for a long time now. They have not adequately addressed my concerns about environmental impacts resulting from this practice (they claim all runoff will be infrequent and inconsequential) and they are giving me the run around about limiting my ability to submit new information and constraining my ability to address the Board by limiting my comments to 3 minutes (something they have not done in a very long time). I also don’t think they will allow me to submit recent pictures of irrigation overflow to Board Members.
Let me tell you the key issue, but first:
Santa Rosa gives Rohnert Park treated wastewater to use for irrigation. There is a reclamation permit constraining the use of that wastewater. There have been very few violations reported and those were always reported by outside observers. The Cities are allowed to do their own monitoring and of course almost never find anything wrong.
I have known for a long time that Rohnert Park irrigates excessively. This August, Dawna Gallagher and I went out at different times, early in the morning (I got there at 7 AM) and took many pictures of irrigation water running off into the drains. Because most of the sites irrigate before dawn, I could not get all the pictures I wanted. At 7 AM there were many damp pavements where it was apparent that water had run off earlier. I did not take pictures of those. Nevertheless, we got almost 100 pictures of irrigation water going into the streets and into drains, some of which we will submit to the Board, but it is likely that they won’t admit them into the record or allow Board members to see them until the item is resolved They have done this to me many times. They hold on to things I want distributed at the meeting until the item is over.
Santa Rosa has a reclamation permit that makes them ultimately responsible for RP’s irrigation runoff. I am most concerned because I believe that the severe nutrient pollution in the Laguna and tribs and the resulting massive Ludwigia growth is at least partially a result of this over watering. (Take a look at the Bellevue-Wilfred Channel on the Stony Point Bridge just south of Rohnert Park Expressway sometime
The Reclamation Permit states, among numerous other things, “Recycled water shall be applied in such a manner so as not to exceed vegetative demand or field capacity.” We have pictures of water running into pavements and into drainages. Almost every site where we saw sprinklers going, there was runoff. Some of the sites were over irrigating with water and not wastewater, even though RP claims great conservation savings.
Worst of all, there was a large amount of over irrigation with wastewater ON RP’s OWN CITY PROPERTIES.
The Laguna is severely impaired and is due to soon be studied in order to determine waste load allocations of nutrients. This is no time to be pushing a summer wastewater irrigation program until that study is complete.
The State has approved a Water Recycling Policy and are heavily promoting the use of wastewater for irrigation in order to save potable water. This sounds like a notable goal, but in the case of Santa Rosa, an urban irrigation program WILL NOT SAVE ANY WATER. They will just stop some of the irrigation and reclamation they are doing now and transfer it to the urban area. Furthermore, given SCWA’s recent change in direction regarding additional water supplies, there is likely to not be as much wastewater produced, and most of that is under contract to go to the Geysers and be reclaimed there. So the goals of the State’s Water Recycling Policy are already being realized in our area (to the City’s credit) and the urban irrigation program with wastewater IS UNNECESSARY. (as more and more lawns get replaced, such an irrigation program can turn out to be a huge waste of money
At any rate, the MS4 permit fails to specifically numerically define “incidental runoff” or non-storm water runoff as they call it now. They merely define it as runoff that is infrequent, low volume, accidental, etc. The problem is that they are not at all clear in how that will be assured. The Regional Board will rely on BMPs and self monitoring for regulatory compliance. This in light of a severely impaired water body that would receive the runoff. The Regional Board WOULD CONDUCT NO OVERSIGHT OTHER THAN READ ANNUAL REPORTS PRODUCED BY THE CITY OF SANTA ROSA.
Santa Rosa developed a Water Recycling Manual for their planned urban irrigation project (ultimately to cost as much as $150 million) The plan is to have third party contractors who will oversee new city irrigation sites. One of their requirements is to check the system EVERY WEEK OR TWO!!!! So tell me, how much wastewater can be released from a broken sprinkler head in two weeks?
This irrigation program would be almost impossible to enforce. (During this summer SR had “water cops” going around checking for over irrigation with potable water and found 40 incidences a week of people over watering. Now if that were wastewater, think of all the pollution!!) They would need frequent checks (hourly?) to assure that “incidental runoff” is truly incidental. OTHERWISE, IT IS SIMPLY LEGALIZING SUMMER WASTEWATER DISCHARGES!!
So now Santa Rosa will have this permission to allow incidental runoff. When it happens, it will get into the creeks and streams at a time when flow is low and they can be heavily impacted by nutrients, pesticides, herbicides, soil amendments, and all the unregulated stuff in the wastewater itself! People who recreate in the river may have to now further worry about antibiotic resistant super bugs, now found to be proliferating in water treated with UV disinfection (as SR’s system is).
THIS IS POTENTIALLY A HUGE PROBLEM AND THE REGIONAL BOARD IS JUST GIVING ME THE COLD SHOULDER AND PUSHING IT THROUGH. I NEED YOUR HELP. PLEASE SEND EMAILS TO CAT KUHLMAN PROTESTING THIS. USE ANY OF THE INFORMATION IN THIS LETTER AND PLEASE COME TO THE MEETING NEXT THURSDAY TO PROTEST. PLEASE ASK REGIONAL BOARD NOT TO ALLOW THIS RUNOFF UNTIL A NUTRIENT TMDL IS DEVELOPED FOR THE LAGUNA.
Brenda
Correction: rate-payer money fighting rate-payer money.
Stephen
There’s something very wrong about tax-payer money fighting tax-payer money.
Ray
In Judge Tansil’s courtroom this afternoon, SR’s complaint to compel a temporary restraining order against SCWA’s Board of Directors to keep them from hearing and acting on their agenda items Tuesday morning was denied.Judge Tansil found that there was no compelling reason to prevent SCWA BoD from acting, and that no harm had been done to the complainants at this point. SR’s outside counsel promised that they’d return next Monday to file again, with claims that permanent significant harm will be done, by SCWA’s adoption of new water strategies, and abandonment of the WSTRP, its EIR, and any applications for new water rights in front of SWRCB.
I don’t know what SR is thinking, but it isn’t good. SR filed a huge stack of paperwork, looking like some 1000 pages, from their attorneys, with statements from Miles Ferris and Mayor Susan Gorin. SR claims that it has depended on the promises of more water for the past 15 years, and can’t do without it now. SR was joined by NMWD and Valley of the Moon WD in the failed complaint. More to come.
David
Abandons More Diversion in Favor of Conservation and Reuse
Frank Robertson, Sonoma West Staff Writer, September 16, 2009
SANTA ROSA – Despite opposition from its water customers the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors this week adopted a dramatic new plan to divert less water from the Russian River to supply future urban growth in Marin and Sonoma counties.
In a landmark decision that will change the way Sonoma County develops for the foreseeable future the board voted unanimously to abandon its long-held strategy of eventually pumping up to 101,000 acre feet per year (afy) from the Russian River to supply projected regional growth demands through the year 2030.
The “redirection” given to the Sonoma County Water Agency and its 600,000 customers this week means greater water conservation and recycling methods will come into play as the Agency strives for more efficient use of the existing 75,000 afy of Russian River water the Agency already has a right to take.
“We have a lot of hard work in front of us,” said Sonoma County Water Agency Assistant General Manager Grant Davis.
Tuesday’s decision drew staunch opposition from Water Agency contractors who said more time and studies are needed to rationalize such a sudden radical change.
“Our biggest concern is time,” said Santa Rosa Assistant City Attorney Suzanne Rawlings, who unsuccessfully argued in court on Monday to have this week’s strategy decision blocked by a temporary restraining order.
“Take the time now to consider the consequences” of abandoning the 15-year-old Water Project that was based on the Water Agency getting rights to an additional 26,000 afy from Lake Sonoma, said Rawlings.
Chris DeGabriele, manager of the North Marin Water District which depends on the Water Agency’s ability to supply North Marin customers, questioned whether the “unilateral action” by Sonoma County Supervisors, who are also the Water Agency’s board of directors, constituted a legal “breach of contract” that could end up in court.
The new direction, announced only last month, surprised and alarmed Water Agency contractors such as the Marin Municipal Water District, whose General Manager Paul Helliker said he first learned of the change while having lunch last month with Sonoma County Water Agency General Manager Randy Poole and Assistant General Manager Grant Davis.
“We were a little shocked,” Helliker told the board this week. With local cities’ long-term general plans for growth all relying on the Water Project pumping 101,000 afy, “We urge you strongly … to reject” the new direction until new projected growth and demand studies are done, said Helliker.
“We believe the haste at this point is unnecessary,” said Helliker.
Sonoma County Water Agency staffers agreed this week there had been poor communication between the Agency’s staff and its customers, which includes the Town of Windsor and the cities of Rohnert Park, Cotati, Petaluma and Sonoma. But they said a changing economic and environmental landscape compounded by drought, global warming, a recession and federal orders to lower summer flows in the Russian River to improve threatened and endangered native salmon and steelhead habitat make the new direction imperative.
“It’s clear that communications are at an all-time low,” said the Water Agency’s Grant Davis, but the abandonment of the Water Project is a critical move now to preserve the Agency’s existing rights to 75,000 afy. With a mandatory conservation order in effect this summer the Agency has managed to keep all its customers supplied with about 55,000 afy.
The Water Project, which may have required a $500 million pipeline from Lake Sonoma to the Russian River through prime north county vineyards, is no longer feasible, said Water Agency Chief Deputy Engineer Jay Jasperse.
The bottom line is “The Water Project is not affordable,” said Jasperse.
The new strategy direction also drew vocal supporters such as Russian River Watershed Protection Director Brenda Adelman who said time is already running out for the Russian River’s endangered fish.
“We don’t have time for another 15 years of collaboration,” among water users, said Adelman.
Whether diverting another 26,000 afy will ever be economically or environmentally feasible is unknown, said Adelman.
“To keep pretending there’s 101,000 acre feet available is not facing reality,” said Adelman. “We’re all going to have to bite the bullet and learn how to live with less.”
Sonoma County 4th District Supervisor Paul Kelley said it was clear that it could be irresponsible to be asking for more and costly water in the middle of a drought, a recession and with federal and state officials demanding lower River summer flows to protect endangered native fish.
Other jurisdictions involved with the federal Endangered Species Act have actually lost water rights by failing to comply with federal orders on how to improve habitat to help the survival of species that are threatened or endangered with extinction.
“Would we jeopardize the water we have by asking for more?” said Kelley.
It’s a “painful decision” said Kelley, but “jeopardizing what we have by asking for more is not the way to go.”
Kelley called it an “ominous precedent” when there is a “federalizing of state water rights” through the Endangered Species ACt process, “but we have to deal with it.”
The Water Agency’s right to store the additional 26,000 af water in Lake Sonoma for possible future diversion remains intact, said Kelley.
The present situation “is not so much a supply problem, it’s a delivery problem,” said Kelley, who urged water contractors to cooperate on the new strategies rather than fight them in court. He also asked board members to approve $1 million to help “work through” the new strategies with the contractors.
The change in water strategy is an opportunity for “a full transformation on how we look at water supplies,” said 5th District Supervisor Efren Carrillo.
From SR Council Watch
On September 15, 2009, the Sonoma County water bubble burst when Supervisors voted to deep-six a grand design, known as the “Water Plan,” intended to increase future supplies of the wet stuff. After over 15 years of work, the Sonoma County Water Authority (SCWA) no longer saw any prospect of success for the Plan’s central elements: an application to the State for more diversions from the Russian River and building a pipeline to move more water from Lake Sonoma to consumers like those in Santa Rosa.
County Supervisors, acting in their dual capacity as SCWA Directors, bowed to funding and environmental problems. The pipeline and associated facilities would cost $600 million or more, and a recent federal “Biological Opinion” is forcing SCWA not only to reduce water flows in one of its major conduits, Dry Creek, but also to rehab the stream at a cost that could exceed $100 million. Factor in greenhouse gas considerations (from pumping) along with a probable decrease of supply from Eel River diversions, and the SCWA Water Plan could no longer be kept afloat.
In the short term, Santa Rosans won’t go thirsty. The City’s 2008 Water Supply Assessment (WSA) credibly asserted we can sustain projected population growth until 2015 with existing supplies. In fact, said the WSA, those existing supplies can carry us until 2018, as long as the City refrains from connecting up a significant number of services that now use private wells.
Against the above background, it’s hard to grasp why Santa Rosa officials asked the courts to prevent SCWA from withdrawing its water rights application and abandoning the Water Plan. To a water issue newbie, neither of these objectives made much sense – the State was virtually certain to refuse to give SCWA more water rights, and the pipeline really would cost too much money, not to mention adverse environmental impacts. No surprise then, that the judge tossed the City suit overboard.
In their defense, however, city officials were pursuing more subtle objectives. One was the legal argument that any local authority in California should hold its place in a water rights queue to protect its claim in the event that an odd drop unexpectedly becomes available later. An SCWA press release suggested some flexibility on this issue, so the City may have scored a small point.
A second City objective was to buy time to wring more specific information out of SCWA for redoing city plans that depend heavily on SCWA water supplies in the out years from 2015 to 2035. This is far more critical than it might appear, because in all this, Santa Rosa’s serious underlying problem, greatly aggravated by the pipeline’s disappearance, is to demonstrate the City will have enough water to carry out its current General Plan. That document projects a population increase from just over 160,000 today to more than 233,000 in 2035 — and that’s a lot of new water faucets.
The City’s 2008 Water Supply Assessment, mentioned above, was required by law (SB 610) to identify adequate future water for all development foreseen in the General Plan. The WSA asserted that after existing supplies are tapped out in 2015/18, enough water could be found from a combination of SCWA and groundwater supplies plus, if necessary, recycled water and conservation. Sounds good, but with or without the pipeline, this formulation masked some serious causes for doubt — shaky assumptions about SCWA projections, unknowns about groundwater sustainability, and uncertainties about public willingness to accept “stringent” conservation measures as well as potentially high costs of recycle programs.
Put another way, the WSA relied on buckets of “paper water;” that is to say, it assumed supplies that most probably won’t in fact be available when the time comes to open additional taps. But pro-growth City Council Members (and County Supervisors) for years have encouraged optimistic supply projections like those in the now defunct “Water Plan” in order to justify expansive development. When the WSA came up for approval in November 2008, the Council Members in power before last year’s election readily signed off on its questionable long range findings – except for Council Member Jacobi, who voted “no.”
That continued the traditional pattern. But now that the bubble has burst, what comes next for Santa Rosa?
If the City faces up to new realities, it will urgently revisit the 2008 WSA and do a lot more than just rework SCWA supply numbers. It must begin to formulate a groundwater management regime (recommended by the Sonoma County Grand Jury in 2004), and take whatever preliminary steps it can to get a handle on groundwater use until essential data comes in from studies to be completed in 2010. It must get moving with new recycle programs and “off peak” storage facilities, while laying out clear scenarios for ratepayers so they can evaluate fee increases required to finance such facilities. It must help people better understand what the limits might be for conservation, and show how its burdens (and benefits) can be fairly distributed.
Above all, the City must relook development plans for the years after 2015/18 and meet the spirit as well as the letter of recent State laws (SB 610 and SB 212) designed to assure that enough real, wet, water will be there when faucets are turned on in 2035.
Jim Wilkinson
Larry,
Food & Water Watch and the McCloud Watershed Council scored a major victory! Nestlé Waters of North America announced it would withdraw its proposal to build a bottling facility in McCloud, California.
There was a long, intense public debate about the bottling plant and its potential impact on water resources in the area–at one point the deal would have allowed Nestlé to pump up to 200 million gallons of water from nearby Mt. Shasta springs.
Food & Water Watch played a big role in the victory. ”The McCloud Watershed Council was very pleased to have Food & Water Watch’s support in our campaign to protect our water from Nestlé. Citizens who are concerned about corporate control of our water resources should become members of Food & Water Watch as their support of local organizations as well as their work on state and federal legislation is crucial to protecting our precious water resources for future generations,” said Debra Anderson, president of the McCloud Watershed Council.
This development is in line with the current trend- communties and grassroots groups having success in limiting or preventing the bottling of local water. FWW supporters provided crucial funding to the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation this summer, contributing nearly $8,000 to the group’s successful attempt to limit the amount of waterNestlé could withdraw in a Michigan county.
Though Nestlé was forced to scale back in Michigan and had to retreat in McCloud, the company already has plans for other areas of the country. Food & Water Watch will be there to lend support wherever we’re asked, and the more members we have, the stronger we’ll be.
Though bottled water sales are on the decline for the first time in five years, Nestlé and other corporations have deep pockets, and they won’t give up without a fight in their attempts to control our food and water.
Sincerely,
Wenonah Hauter
Executive Director, Food & Water Watch
FYI… Brock
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Video Shows Green Practices to Manage Stormwater Runoff
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Botanic Garden produced an on-line video , “Reduce Runoff: Slow It Down, Spread It Out, Soak It In,” that highlights green techniques such as rain gardens, green roofs and rain barrels to help manage stormwater runoff.
The film showcases green techniques that are being used in urban areas to reduce the effects of stormwater runoff on the quality of downstream receiving waters. The goal is to mimic the natural way water moves through an area before development by using design techniques that infiltrate, evaporate, and reuse runoff close to its source.
The techniques are innovative stormwater management practices that manage urban stormwater runoff at its source, and are very effective at reducing the volume of stormwater runoff and capturing harmful pollutants. Using vegetated areas that capture runoff also improves air quality, mitigates the effects of urban heat islands and reduces a community’s overall carbon footprint.
The video highlights green techniques on display in 2008 at the U.S. Botanic Garden’s “One Planet – Ours!” Exhibit” and at the U.S. EPA in Washington, D.C., including recently completed cisterns.
To watch the video: http://www.epa.gov/owow/nps/lid/video.html
More information on stormwater management:
http://www.epa.gov/greeninfrastructure
Patty Scott US EPA, Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds Ariel Rios Building, 4501T 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20460 scott.patricia@epa.gov (202) 566-1292 240-314-7128 (Thursday flexiplace) 703-975-9839 (Cell) Fax (202) 566-1326 URL:www.epa.gov/owow
FYI…!!
At what point of over-appropriation do Water Rights become Water Wrongs??
Brock
Subject: California Water Code 1259.2 Annual Report – 2008
This is a message from the State Water Resources Control Board.
California Water Code 1259.2 requires the Division of Water Rights to
prepare an annual summary of pending water right applications for the
Counties of Marin, Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, and Humboldt.
The 2008 annual summary may be found at:
You can feel it in the air. High Country News recently took note of it. On 14 million acres of California private timberlands and woodlands, trouble is brewing.
Below is an August 25, 2009 press release from the Center for Biological Diversity regarding successful lawsuits filed against the California Department of Forestry for its failure to measure forest carbon emissions in timber harvest plans.
Clearcutting in the Gualala River
watershed in northwest Sonoma County
This result demonstrates that there are no carbon exemptions, even for commercial logging, from the California Air Resources Board forest protocols. Furthermore, this Center victory supports Oak Foundation’s contention that simply planting trees doesn’t represent California Environmental Quality Act proportional mitigation for CO2 emissions due to oak woodlands conversion.
Greenhouse Gas Lawsuits Stop Sierra Logging Plans In response to recent lawsuits by the Center for Biological Diversity, plans to log more than 1,600 acres of Sierra Nevada forest have been formally withdrawn by Sierra Pacific Industries, the timber company that had proposed the logging. The Center filed three lawsuits earlier this month against the California Department of Forestry for illegally approving the plans without analyzing the carbon and climate consequences of the logging.
“Rather than attempt to defend the indefensible, Sierra Pacific Industries wisely retreated from this fight,” said Brendan Cummings, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The cancellation of these ill-conceived and illegal logging plans is an important step toward bringing the timber industry in California into the 21st century.”
Despite well-established law that state agencies must analyze and mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions from a specific project when they approve it, the Department of Forestry had failed to carry out any project-specific analysis of the emissions that would result from Sierra Pacific Industries’ clearcutting plans.
Beyond the three now-canceled plans in litigation, more than two dozen similar logging plans by Sierra Pacific Industries are awaiting approval from the Department of Forestry. Together, these plans would authorize clearcutting over 12,000 additional acres of California forests.
“The California Department of Forestry now needs to reject all pending and similarly flawed clearcutting plans,” said Jan Chatten-Brown of Chatten-Brown & Carstens, co-counsel for the Center in the recent suits. “Unless the Department starts requiring logging companies to disclose, analyze, and most importantly, mitigate the actual carbon dioxide emissions resulting from logging plans, they will likely find themselves back in court.”
The California Department of Forestry is responsible for approving all logging plans on private land in California and must ensure that each proposed plan complies with the California Environmental Quality Act. Under this law, state agencies and local governments approving projects must analyze the projects’ effects on greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, as well as the cumulative impact of related logging. However, rather than calculate the carbon emissions that would result from Sierra Pacific Industries’ actual logging plans, the Department of Forestry has asserted that over a 100-year time frame enough trees would grow back on the company’s lands to render the logging carbon neutral.
The three lawsuits, filed in superior courts in Lassen, Tuolumne and Tehama counties, asserted that the state violated the California Environmental Quality Act and the Forest Practice Act when it approved Sierra Pacific Industries’ timber-harvest plans without addressing the CO2 emissions that will result from the clearcutting.
“Clearcutting is an abysmal practice that should have been banned long ago due to its impacts on wildlife and water quality,” added Cummings. “Now, in an era where all land-management decisions need to be fully carbon-conscious, there is simply no excuse to continue to allow clearcutting in California.”
Below is a recent letter sent by the Oak Foundation to the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors. To date no reply has been received from the Board.
August 12, 2009
Board of Supervisors
Sonoma County Administration Building
575 Administration Drive, Room 102A
Santa Rosa, CA 95403-2887
Re: Sonoma County Oak Woodlands
Honorable Supervisors:
The California Oak Foundation (COF) writes with brief comments and questions regarding current Sonoma County oak woodland policies:
1. Why doesn’t Sonoma County have an oak woodlands conversion ordinance similar to the one it has for conifer timberland conversions, particularly in light of deforestation carbon biological emissions? Notably, the Preservation Ranch timberland conversion proposal commits this vineyard development to compliance with the California Air Resources Board forest protocols methodology, net present value carbon accounting and carbon neutrality. Why are these CO2 emission standards not being applied to the conversion of Sonoma County oak woodlands?
2. Sonoma County claims it is not exercising discretionary approval in its Vineyard Ordinance. COF contends that Sonoma County is in fact exercising discretionary judgment in the Ordinance by its conclusion that oak woodlands deforestation CO2 emissions due to vineyard development do not significantly contribute to climate change.
3. If carbon biological emissions due to vineyard development are deemed significant environmental impacts in Napa County, Santa Barbara County and other wine regions, why aren’t these adverse public health effects considered significant in Sonoma County?
Oak Foundation looks forward to a response from the Board at its earliest convenience.
Respectfully, Janet Cobb, President
California Oak Foundation