Indexed News on:

--the California "Mega-Park" Project

Tracking measurable success on preserving and connecting California's Parks & Wildlife Corridors

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Saturday, September 24, 2011

SMMC-MRCA 9/26/2011

Another speculator looking for a spanking...Developer Seeks to Mansion-ize the Calabasas Peak Trail in L.A.


--and another wants to wreck the Santa Susana Mts north of there

and other items from the Santa Monica Mts Conservancy agenda for 9/26/2011

CALABASAS PEAK--comment letter to Los Angeles County on the Notice of Preparation for the Calabasas Peak Motorway Residential Development Project, Calabasas Highlands, unincorporated Los Angeles County. [Attachment 1] [Attachment 2] [Map] [Comment Letter] [Resolution]

 (Rocks on Calabasas Peak--click on photo to enlarge)

MAP OF THE TRAIL WHICH WOULD AFFECTED:
http://photos2.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/7/4/b/9/highres_42089881.jpeg

(THE 4 PROPOSED MANSION PARCELS ARE IN RED OUTLINE)

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SANTA SUSANA MTS--comment letter to the City of Los Angeles on the Final Environmental Impact Report for the Hidden Creeks Estates project in Browns Canyon, unincorporated County of Los Angeles. [Resolution] [Map 1] [Map 2] [Comment Letter] [Attachment 1] [Attachment 2]


--------------------------------

SIMI VALLEY--Consideration of resolution authorizing a comment letter to City of Simi Valley on Simi Valley General Plan Environmental Impact Report, sch# 2009121004. [Comment Letter] [Attachment] [Map 1] [Map 2] [Map 3] [Map 4] [Resolution]

MALIBU--Consideration of resolution authorizing a comment letter to City of Malibu on Trancas Highlands Water System and Utility Improvements, and Two New Single Family Residences on Anacapa View Drive, Initial Study No. 07-005, Mitigated Negative Declaration No. 07-005, and Coastal Development Permit Nos. 06-051 and 07-121, Trancas Canyon and Steep Hill Canyon watersheds, City of Malibu. [Comment Letter] [Resolution] [Attachment 1] [Attachment 2] [Attachment 3] [Map 3]

EAST L.A. HILLS--Consideration of resolution authorizing the addition of the Elyira Canyon Park Expansion project to the Conservancy’s Acquisition Workprogram, Mount Washington, City of Los Angeles. [Staff Report] [Resolution] [Map]

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

WCB 9/2011: Less Sprawl, more trails...

State’s Wildlife Board saved 19,952 acres in September 2011 meeting

HIGHLIGHTS:

Mono County: 56 acres
Riverside County: 169 acres
San Diego County: 1284 acres
Tulare County: 0.5 acre
Humboldt County: 114 acres
Stanislaus County: 1603 acres
Kern County: 14,945 acres
Lassen County: 1781 acres

FOR PHOTOS AND MORE INFO:




MORE DETAILS:

Wheeler Ridge, Expansion 4, $730,000 Mono County
a grant to the Eastern Sierra Land Trust for a cooperative project to acquire fee title in 56± acres of land. 9/13/11 WCB

Allensworth Ecological Reserve, Expansion 26, $2,900 Tulare County
To consider the fee acquisition of 0.5± acres of land for expansion of the Department of Fish and Game's Allensworth Ecological Reserve, to increase protection of grassland areas that benefit special status species, including the San Joaquin kit fox, located approximately 30 miles south of Visalia in southern Tulare County. 9/13/11 WCB

Western Riverside County MSHCP, $1,042,500 Expansions 10 and 11
acquire in fee two separate properties totaling 169± acres. 9/13/11 WCB

Carlsbad/Northwest San Diego County MHCP $1,256,250 HCPLA/NCCP 2010 (Perkins)
acquire in fee 156± acres at the northern terminus of Lone Jack Road and west of Rancho Summit Road. 9/13/11 WCB

City of Carlsbad $3,214,000 Habitat Management Plan/NW HCPLA 2009 (Bridges)
San Diego County
acquire in fee 97± acres. 9/13/11 WCB

Hollenbeck Canyon Wildlife Area, $708,000 Expansion 4, San Diego County
acquisition in fee of 563± acres. 9/13/11 WCB

Long Potrero East $1,498,000 San Diego County
grant to the Back Country Land Trust to acquire in fee 468± acres. 9/13/11 WCB

Arcata Community Forest Expansion $1,956,000 (Morris) Humboldt County
acquire in fee a total of 114± acres. 9/13/11 WCB

Conifer trees top a green and golden hillside
(Arcata Community Forest expansion)

Leavitt Lake Conservation Easement $1,705,000 Lassen County
acquire a conservation easement over 1,781 ± acres on the north shore of Leavitt Lake, 5 miles southeast of the City of Susanville. 9/13/11 WCB

Grasslands and hills under partly cloudy sky
(Bass Hill Wildlife Area north of Susanville, in Lassen County. John Ranlett/Ducks Unlimited photo.)

Gualala River Forest Conservation Easement $19,030,000 Mendocino County (reconsideration—same as on 6/2/11 agenda))
grant to The Conservation Fund to acquire a conservation easement over 13,913± acres. 9/13/11 WCB

View of lush conifer and pine forest, mountains in background, blue sky
Gualala River Forest, west of Cloverdale in Mendocino County.

Dos Rios Ranch $5,410,000 Stanislaus County
acquire in fee 1,603± acres of valley floodplain and riverine habitat. 9/13/11 WCB (WITHDRAWN FROM AGENDA)

Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains, $5,010,000 Rudnik Ranch, Kern County
grant to The Nature Conservancy for a cooperative project with the Department of Fish and Game, Sierra Nevada Conservancy, Caltrans and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to acquire fee interest in 14,945± acres. 9/13/11 WCB

A ranch and trees in dry hills
Rudnick Ranch

SCC 7/2011 to 9/2011: State saving 70 acres in Marin and San Mateo Counties...

Two Purchases by the State on the Coast

From the 7/21 and 9/22/2011 agenda of the State's Coastal Conservancy
http://scc.ca.gov/webmaster/ftp/pdf/sccbb/2011/1107/index.html
http://scc.ca.gov/2011/09/09/coastal-conservancy-public-meeting-september-22-2011/

SAN GERONIMO RIDGE

disburse up to $450,000 to the County of Marin for acquisition of an approximately 20-acre open space property on San Geronimo Ridge near the town of Forest Knolls, Marin County. 9/22/11 Coastal Conservancy

WAVECREST

disburse up to $2,650,000 to the Coastside Land Trust to acquire the 50-acre coastal parcel of the Wavecrest property in Half Moon Bay, San Mateo County, to design and plan the California Coastal Trail through the property, and to produce a conceptual design for extending the Coastal Trail south to Redondo Beach. 9/22/11 Coastal Conservancy

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AND RESTORATION OF SOUTH L.A. COUNTY'S LAST LARGE WETLAND:

disburse up to $225,000 to the Los Cerritos Wetlands Authority for preparation of a conceptual restoration plan for the Los Cerritos wetlands complex in the cities of Long Beach, Los Angeles County, and Seal Beach, Orange County.
(Recent purchases of the Los Cerritos wetlands parcels are labeled "LCWA" and "City of Long Beach")

More info on recent purchases is here: http://www.lbreport.com/news/may11/wetdel1.htm
and http://lcwetlands.org/board/2011_08_10/Board_Report_August_2011.pdf
------------------------------------


PLUS A BATTLE OVER L.A. BEACH ACCESSWAYS:

disburse up to $20,000 to the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority to manage public beach accessways in Malibu.

Public hearing, consideration, and Conservancy determination as to whether Access for All (AFA) has failed in its obligation to properly manage the Ackerberg Easement located at 22486 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, California for public access to the shoreline; and, if so, possible authorization for the Conservancy to accept the Ackerberg Easement or designate another entity to accept the Ackerberg Easement. 9/22/11 Coastal Conservancy

http://scc.ca.gov/webmaster/ftp/pdf/sccbb/2011/1107/20110721Board11_Ackerberg_Public_Access_Easement.pdf
7/21/2011 Coastal Conservancy

MORE ON THE L.A BEACH ACCESSWAY ISSUE:

http://rare-earth-news.blogspot.com/2011/09/news-about-la-trails-and-mountain-parks.html

"Their distant relatives are doing OK in Mexico, so why not kill them here?"...


Right Wing Group sues so it can kill the songbird that has saved thousands of acres of land from Ventura to San Deigo County

Developer Group's Lawsuit calls for removal of federal protection of gnatcatcher habitat

By Melissa Pamer Staff WriterPosted: 09/20/2011
http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_18931507

A small songbird that makes its home in sage scrub habitat on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and elsewhere on the Southern California coast should no longer be protected by federal law, a new lawsuit argues.
The California gnatcatcher, which was named a threatened subspecies by the federal government in 1993, is the subject of litigation from the Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sacramento law group that successfully sued several years ago to remove Endangered Species Act protections for the bald eagle.
In a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in San Diego, the group seeks to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to respond to the law firm's 2010 request to "delist" the gnatcatcher. The 4-inch bird lives only in coastal sage scrub, a type of California plant community that has been reduced by up to 90 percent by development, according to some estimates.
Pacific Legal Foundation - which files litigation in pursuit of "limited government, property rights, free enterprise, and a balanced approach to environmental regulations," according to its website - argues that the California gnatcatcher is not a separate subspecies in need of protection, and that a healthy population of its genetic relatives in Mexico ensure the bird's survival.
"If you look at the entire gnatcatcher population across the border, it's clear the population is doing fine and the entire species is not threatened with extinction," said Damien Schiff, the lead attorney on the case.
Protections for the bird - and for about 197,000 acres of its federally designated critical habitat across six Southern California counties - are an example of "unjustified, job-killing regulations," the foundation said in a news release.
The bird's listing causes environmental mitigation and permitting costs for developers and homeowners, along with limitations to building on desirable land, Schiff said.
He pointed to a 2007 federal analysis predicting the bird's status will cause an economic impact of $915 million through 2025.
On the Palos Verdes Peninsula, the gnatcatcher's federally protected status has had a wide impact, forcing developments - including the predecessor of Trump National Golf Club and the luxury homes of Oceanfront Estates - to set aside habitat and change plans to accommodate the bird, said the city's community development director, Joel Rojas.
Homeowners working in their own backyards have been affected too, he said.
"It's not uncommon for people to go out and start removing what they think is vegetation and they find out it's federally protected habitat," Rojas said.
Even the city's own public works projects have been impacted by habitat protections, Rojas said. Those concerns in part prompted Rancho Palos Verdes to create its celebrated 1,400-acre Palos Verdes Nature Preserve under a state program - Natural Community Conservation Planning, or NCCP - designed to encourage jurisdictions to create large-scale conservation plans to coordinate development and habitat protection.
The most recent gnatcatcher survey, done in 2009 before a fire burned coastal sage scrub habitat, showed about 40 "territories" for mating pairs within the city's preserve, according to Danielle LeFer, conservation director for the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy, which manages the acreage. With offspring, that could mean there are about 100 California gnatcatchers in the preserve.
Increasing the bird's numbers is one of the main goals of the conservancy's ongoing habitat restoration projects.
The local gnatcatcher population appears to be relatively stable, LeFer said. The black and blue-gray songbird, which calls with a sound like a kitten's mew, is popular with bird-watchers.
"People love to see it because it's so rare still. They're secretive. They're not that easy to see and they're a little bit hard to recognize so people love it when they have a chance to see it or hear it," LeFer said.
he Pacific Legal Foundation argues that new science shows that the coastal California gnatcatcher should be considered part of one species that ranges from Ventura County into Baja California, where the bird is more widespread.
A 2000 scientific paper that looked at the gnatcatcher's genetic makeup found no basis for labeling the northernmost population a subspecies, in contrast to previous studies. The service's scientists said that study was not sufficient reason to disregard the classification, according to a review of the bird's status issued last year.
"It's clear the service has a different understanding of the science than we do," Schiff said.
Schiff and his foundation are representing a San Diego County homeowner who could not subdivide her land because of gnatcatcher protections, a group of landowners in Riverside County, and a Santa Barbara County coalition of business, agriculture and labor interests.
The scientific substance of that disagreement would be at issue in a future lawsuit if the gnatcatcher is not delisted, Schiff said; the current lawsuit seeks simply to get the Fish and Wildlife Service to respond to the foundation's request for delisting.
Jane Hendron, a spokeswoman for the service's office in Carlsbad, said her agency could not comment on specifics of the lawsuit.
She said the service has been crafting a response to the foundation's April 2010 request to have the gnatcatcher delisted but was overwhelmed with other lawsuits.
"We are working on responding to that petition, but what we're up against is that we still have to address high-priority court-ordered items," Hendron said. "Our ability to set our own priorities has largely been taken over by litigation-driven actions."
The agency's overdue response to the legal group's petition - required within 90 days - is what prompted the new lawsuit.
Hendron could not give a date when the response would be issued.

Their water is 230 miles away...

12,000 Homes Planned for Bay have no Water, actually



MORE ON THIS STORY:

Water agency leaders oppose deal for proposed Cargill Redwood City development

8/24/2011

An Arizona company's plan to build the largest housing development on the shores of San Francisco Bay since the birth of Foster City more than 50 years ago is hitting a potentially significant new hurdle: lack of water.
DMB Associates of Scottsdale, Ariz., has proposed to build 12,000 homes in Redwood City east of Highway 101 on vacant lands once used by Cargill Salt.
On Tuesday, however, leaders at two prominent Silicon Valley water districts said they are opposed to helping the project acquire water through a complex transfer involving farming interests near Bakersfield.
"I'm not going to support something like that," said Don Gage, chairman of the Santa Clara Valley Water District's board. "It entangles you in a situation where you don't want to be. It doesn't do any good for the water district to be put in that position."
Similarly, Walt Wadlow, general manager of the Alameda County Water District, said his agency isn't interested in partnering with DMB to shift the Bakersfield water through its system to Redwood City.
"Alameda County Water District is not participating and has no intention of participating in providing a water supply for the DMB-Cargill Project," Wadlow said. "Numerous environmental issues have been raised with regard to this project and we have no interest in contributing to the ongoing controversy."
Environmentalists called the news a major setback. They have raised concerns about traffic, sea level
rise, and other issues, and say they want the whole property converted back to wetlands for fish and wildlife.
"This is very significant," said David Lewis, executive director of Save the Bay. "I don't know which of the problems will be a fatal hit, but the project should have been dead on arrival when it was first proposed. This is just one of the reasons."
On Tuesday, David Smith, a vice president of DMB, said the news that leaders of the two agencies were rejecting the plan doesn't mean the transfer is dead or the project is in jeopardy because DMB has not made a formal proposal to either one yet.
"No request has been made," he said. "We would hope that when a request is made to any agency or any individual who has a say in it that they would receive the totality of the proposal and consider it on its merits."
Smith said DMB is studying desalination, use of recycled water and tapping groundwater around Redwood City, along with the transfer idea. The project's exact water plan won't come out until next year, he said, when the environmental impact report is under way.
The water dilemma is simple.
The Redwood City site is roughly 1,400 acres of mostly salt-encrusted lands that Cargill used for decades as crystallizer beds for making salt for roads, food and medicine. Sitting adjacent to the bay, the property does not have sufficient water for a new community of 25,000 people, and state law requires developers of more than 500 housing units to identify a water source before starting construction.
When it first proposed the project, DMB said it would try to use groundwater from the site. But in 2009, the company purchased 8,400 acre feet of water a year from Nickel Family LLC, a Bakersfield farming operation. DMB bought the rights to that water -- 2.7 billion gallons a year -- for 70 years.
The trouble is, there's no way to move the water 230 miles north from Bakersfield to Redwood City.
To do that would involve a complex transfer that in all probability only two water agencies in the Bay Area could broker: the Santa Clara Valley Water District and the Alameda County Water District.
Under the most likely scenario, DMB would pay one of the districts. That district would then take water from the delta that would have otherwise gone to the Bakersfield farming family, moving it through the State Water Project and Bay Area pipelines and aqueducts to Silicon Valley.
To finally get the water to Redwood City would involve another deal using the Hetch Hetchy water system, which serves Redwood City, San Francisco, the Peninsula and parts of the East Bay. In short, the Alameda County Water District would keep the delta water and allow some of its water from the Hetch Hetchy system to go to Redwood City. The Santa Clara Valley Water District also could have one of its customers, like the cities of Palo Alto, Sunnyvale or Mountain View, that receives Hetch Hetchy water give up some of that water to Redwood City, on the condition it would be replenished by the Santa Clara Valley Water District.
But if the Santa Clara Valley Water District and Alameda County Water District don't participate, that sharply limits, if not kills, the transfer plan. That's because both control vast networks of pipes needed to move water around the South Bay and both are contractors of the State Water Project, which allows them to buy water from the delta.
"We're looking at every possibility out there," Smith said. "We are turning over every stone and exploring every avenue."

-----------------------------------------

Saturday, Aug 27 2011 11:01 PM

OUR VIEW: Irony abounds in sale of Kern water

Local water wheelers may not have a problem selling off billions of gallons of Kern County water to accommodate thousands of new homes near San Francisco, but thankfully their counterparts up north do.
This week, leaders of the Santa Clara Valley and Alameda County water districts said they had no interest in helping the developer of a huge, controversial Redwood City project, DMBAssociates of Arizona, acquire water for 12,000 new homes from Bakersfield-based Nickel Family LLC. The water districts' opposition casts fresh doubt on the viability of the project and the prospect of the water transfer, since their cooperation is integral to the deal.
California law requires developments with more than 500 homes to secure water supplies before proceeding with construction. The Nickel Family has agreed to sell the needed water to DMB, but the arrangement would involve a complicated system of water transfers that would likely require either the Alameda or Santa Clara water district to act as a middle&discHyphen;man in the deal.
By urbanizing an area that is probably best suited to wetlands, the project would create new congestion issues for the 11th-largest metropolitan area in the nation. Potential sea-level rise is another concern, given the low elevation of the proposed mega-development.
The arrangement raises a different set of concerns on this end: Namely, the implications of transferring water that has traditionally been the lifeblood of Central Valley farms -- and Central Valley economics -- to new, distant homes, especially on the heels of a drought that brought the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to its knees.
The irony of transferring 2.7 billion gallons of Kern County water per year for 70 years to Northern California, even as the state wrestles with the funding and logistics of a water conveyance system to benefit the parched south, is hard to miss.
The sale is perfectly legal, based on our arcane system of water rights. Its logic, from a broader perspective, is another matter entirely.

Monday, September 19, 2011

SMMC-MRCA 7/25/2011 to 9/12/2011

Massive and Dense Housing project proposed for Wildlife corridor between Simi Hills and Santa Monica Mountains

And other news about trails and new parks from the July to Sept. 2011 agendas of the State's Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the Mountains Restoration and Conservation Authority




A proposed 263 unit housing project just north of the 101 Freeway in Calabasas: the SMMC has written a comment letter to Los Angeles County on Notice of Preparation for Hidden Terraces Specific Plan (Project No. PM 070606-[3]), unincorporated Calabasas. [Comment Letter] [Resolution] [Attachment 1_Map] [Attachment 2_Map 2] [Attachment 3 _ Map 3] 8/29/11 SMMC


IN THE SANTA MONICA MOUNTAINS:

possible action on acquisition of La Rocha properties, APNs 5576-009-055, 056, 057, 058, 059, 060, 061, 062, 063, and 064, Hollywood Dell, Los Angeles. [Staff Report] [Map 1] [Map 2] 8/3/11 MRCA

acceptance of transfer of Geffen vertical access way located at 22126 Pacific Coast Highway , City of Malibu from Access for All. [Staff Report] [Resolution] [Attachment] [Staff Report] 8/3/11 MRCA

acceptance of donation of APNs 4383-029-001 and 002 totaling 8.87 acres in Beverly Glen and Benedict Canyons, City of Los Angeles. [Staff Report] [Resolution] [Map 1] 8/3/11 MRCA

transfer from Access for All of lateral public access easement Benton (CDP A-220-80) located at 32340 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu. [Staff Report] [Map] [Resolution] 8/23/11 MRCA

transfer from Access for All of vertical public access easement Young & Golling (CDP 5-85-299) located at 26500 Latigo Shore Drive, Malibu and b) acceptance of Coastal Conservancy grant and/or entering into agreement for operation of public access easement. [Staff Report] [Map] [Resolution] 8/23/11 MRCA

transfer from Access for All of vertical public access easement Goldbaum (CDP 5-88-794) located at 26530 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu. [Staff Report] [Map] [Resolution] 8/23/11 MRCA

transfer from Access for All of lateral public access easement Geffen (CDP 5-83-703 and A1) located at 22126 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu. [Staff Report] [Map] [Resolution] 8/23/11 MRCA

transfer from Access for All of vertical public access easement J. D. Stout (CDP 5-84-137) located at 26664-26668 Seagull Drive and 26612 Latigo Shore Drive, Malibu. [Staff Report] [Map] [Resolution] 8/23/11 MRCA

transfer from Access for All of vertical public access easement Friedman (CDP 5-83-456) located at 19016 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu. [Staff Report] [Map] [Resolution] 8/23/11 MRCA

acceptance of the offers to dedicate trail easements associated with Coastal Development Permit Nos. 5-90-563 (Kivman), 5-90-578 (James), 5-89-1053 (Gittelson), 5-90-144 (Miller), 5-90-534 (Quiros), 5-91-132 (Geren & Soroudi), 5-91-028 (Johnson & Yahraus),5-89-955 (Carlson), 5-90-247 (Fong), 5-91-076-A (Raj), 5-90-246 (Bolton), 5-89-220 (Sack), incorporated and unincorporated Malibu. [Staff Report] [Map 1] [Map 2] [Map 3] [Map 4] [Resolution] 9/12/11 MRCA

acceptance of a conservation easement over a portion of APN 5570-019-021 in the upper Laurel Canyon watershed, City of Los Angeles. [Staff Report] [Resolution] [Map] 9/12/11 MRCA
transfer of control and jurisdiction from State Coastal Conservancy of APN 4458-009-900, 24038 Malibu Road, City of Malibu. [Staff Report] [Resolution] [Map] 7/25/11 SMMC

comment letter to the City of Los Angeles on 2144 Nichols Canyon Road and potential impacts on the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority’s planned Castair Drive to Wattles Drive Trail, City of Los Angeles. [Comment Letter and Attachments] [Resolution] [Map] 8/29/11 SMMC

Laurel Canyon and Mulholland Acquisition Project, City of Los Angeles. [Staff Report] [Resolution] [Map 1] [Map 2] 8/29/11 SMMC

-----------------


EAST L.A. HILLS:

acquisition of Elephant Hill Open Space (APNs 5306-006-906, 907, 908, 909, 910; 5306-017-905, 906, 907, 908, 909; 5307-023-901, 906, 907, 916, 917, 918; 5306-006-912, 5306-007-900), El Sereno, City of Los Angeles. [Staff Report] [Resolution] [Map] 8/3/11 MRCA

acquisition and improvements at Elephant Hill, El Sereno, City of Los Angeles. [Staff Report] [Resolution] [Attachment 1] [Attachment 2] [Map 1] [Map 2] 7/25/11 SMMC

acquisition and improvements at Elephant Hill, El Sereno, City of Los Angeles. [Staff Report] [Resolution] [Attachment 1] [Attachment 2 _ Map] [Attachment 3 _ Map 2] [Attachment 4] [Attachment 5] 8/29/11 SMMC

acquire Burnell Avenue properties abutting Elyria Canyon Park and authorizing acquisition of APNs (5464-028-26, 027, 028, 029, 042; 5464-030-037, 038, 039), Mount Washington, City of Los Angeles. [Map] [Staff Report] [Resolution] 9/12/11 MRCA

-------------------------------


OTHER AREAS:

grant of mitigation funds (West Sylmar Overhead on Interstate Route 5/14) from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy for a riparian habitat restoration and creation project on Authority property in the Los Angeles River watershed. [Staff Report] [Resolution] [Attachment 1] [Attachment 2] 8/3/11 MRCA

LA River pilot public access project. [Staff Report] 8/29/11 SMMC

Thursday, September 8, 2011

L.A. Sierra Club fundraising appeal

8/28/2011
Dear Fellow Sierran,
We're fighting locally every day to keep our open space open – and we need your help!

 
The Sierra Club Angeles Chapter is working to stop poorly planned commercial and residential development that is chipping away at our few remaining nearby ecosystems. 
We must preserve open space for the good of the environment, local residents, and nature’s creatures!
Our ongoing battle to preserve open space takes stamina and coordinated plans of action from our members in L.A. and Orange Counties -- and it also takes money!
Donate now to keep our open space open!
Here are some of the ongoing efforts your donation will support:
  • The Santa Monica Mountains Task Force has been instrumental in blocking the Sweetwater Mesa Development in Malibu where U2 guitarist and international humanitarian The Edge wants to build a residential colony and access roads atop a pristine ridgeline.
  • The Montebello Hills Task Force has intervened to protect the hills from a Texas oil company's plans to build 1,200 homes on the last remaining large area of open space between the Los Angeles River and the Rio Hondo -- a rare coastal sage scrub habitat that is home to the federally-threatened California gnatcatcher and the Red-tailed hawks that soar above.
  • The Banning Ranch Task Force continues to fight residential development on the 412 acres of wetlands and adjacent bluffs in Orange County, and to promote a permanent public open space, park, and coastal nature preserve that will improve air and water quality, and provide space for relaxation, education, and recreation.
  • The Coyote Hills Task Force is promoting a park and reserve with access for recreation and education, instead of the 760 residential units plus a commercial strip proposed by Chevron's developer. This 510-acres is the largest remaining undeveloped wild land site in north Orange County with a host of rare and endangered species and threatened habitats.
  • The Santa Clarita Group Conservation Committee is working to curb the developments planned on Newhall Ranch, including the Landmark Village and Mission Village, in order to protect the last unpaved river in Los Angeles and to preserve more of the remaining pieces of open space in the Santa Clarita Valley.
Please donate today to ensure that these large residential and commercial developments are stopped in their tracks!
Help us preserve our open spaces for the next hundred years. The planet deserves it and so do you!

Sincerely,

Hersh Kelley
Chair, Angeles Chapter

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