Please help us protect our Oakland parks and prevent wildfire.
We have until
5:00 p.m. on December 12, 2019 to send comments to:arobinsonpinon@oaklandca.gov
The simplest choice is to vote for NO Project.
Dec. 2019 My response to the Oakland Vegetation Management Plan
I vote for the option of “No Project.”
The most disturbing part of your plan is that it introduces pesticides into the parks and open spaces where it is now banned. This will cause more cancer and chronic illness in humans as well as killing animals, polluting the earth, air, water. Saying it will be “limited” is not good enough. There is no rational reason to do this other than for money.
You must know that Marin parks and Open Spaces, including the Marin Municipal Water District, which manages most of Mt. Tamalpais, has stopped all pesticide use so you could also. (The last group who insisted fragile Ring Mountain in Marin had to be sprayed were stopped by law, and the brush cutters used instead worked perfectly.) Again, I am left wondering how much money from the poison manufacturers like Monsanto influence your decisions.
The main focus is about fire prevention, but this plan is more likely to cause catastrophic fire than prevent it.
Most fire has one cause: Man — whether it’s PG&E, avoidable accidents (fireworks, barbecue, cigarettes, etc.) or deliberate arson. (Your plan opens the parks in ways that make them far more welcoming to arsonists than a closed, dense, dark forest full of poison oak and blackberry thorns.) Local news stations reported that PG&E caused at least 7 of the recent major fires, and over 2000 other ignitions. The CPUC determined that PG& E was responsible for the most catastrophic fire in California history. The documentary on PBS by Frontline, actually shows PG&E starting the Paradise fire: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/fire-in-paradise/.
Every branch or limb cut, every shrub or vine or tree killed, increases the heat and dryness and eliminates moisture from the parks and the earth. I’m not even going to refer to “carbon sequestering” or saving the “canopy” because those divert from the real issue, which is that the parks need to be left alone, to grow as dark and dense and moist as possible, which they can do without human harassment. There is no need to spend money on making our parks more in danger from fire. If we eliminate the money to be made from killing the trees and opening up the parks, then there is no rational reason for most of this plan.
Wind is the major fire problem besides heat and dryness. Wind increases the dryness that leads to fire and spreads fire. So why on earth do most agencies’ plans want to open our parks to more wind? Recommending thinning “mature pine or cypress stands to reach an average 30-foot horizontal spacing” is an enormous distance and makes no sense. The so-called “defensible space” recommendations also increase fire risk. There is absolutely no reason to prune or “limb” or make space between trees by “thinning” unless you want to increase wind and thereby increase fires, especially since every cut on a tree opens it to disease. Trees also don’t compete for water and resources, but work together. It’s been documented that if one tree needs help, the nearby trees try to provide the moisture, food, etc. Why on earth do humans think they know better than the trees and other plants how want to live? Haven’t humans done enough irreparable damage to the Oakland hills forests, once the tallest in the world?
The 1991 firestorm was caused by humans when the original grass fire was not fully put so the next day firefighters inadvertently kicked up embers. The wooden houses caught fire quickly while the streets acted as wind tunnels, spreading the fire, but still, it did not go into the parks. Yet trees are blamed.
Meanwhile, Oakland has had devastating fires in the flatlands and other parts of the city far from parks and maligned trees. The Ghost Ship fire is one example, so why are trees targeted in this enormous money-making plan, when there has been no fires in our parks in all these years?
The revised document looks like a patchwork that is missing awareness of the connection with nature that make up our parks. One section refers to wanting to increase rare species of plants and animals, while another section is about eliminating them. You can’t so damage a forest and expect to still have diverse animal and plant habitat.
If you want to see what a healthy, more natural forest looks like, go to Muir Woods. It’s relatively tiny, but it has the rare Spotted Owl, Pileated Woodpeckers, Barred Owls, Giant Pacific Salamanders, etc. and incredibly rare wildflowers. You can see that the ground is covered with what would be considered a fire hazard elsewhere, but is actually the opposite. It’s a shambles of fallen trees and debris with signs saying to not remove a single twig because the birds need them.
Another, very different forest example is on EBMUD land in Moraga, by a creek and reservoir. It’s not natural at all, but has become a wildlife sanctuary because of how EBMUD maintains it. They allow dead trees to stand so the acorn woodpeckers can use them as granary trees and other birds nest and hunt in them. They allow Poison Oak to climb over 30 feet into the Monterey Pines. (In spite of that being called a “fire ladder,” it’s the opposite, because living plants do not easily burn and also limit wind.) They allow the beautiful native Monterey Pines (yes, they are native) to continue so that the new baby trees grow to replace the old trees. Why on earth kill them when they enrich the soil like no other tree, bring down fog drip, and feed so many animals? (This is a wonderful place to see unusual bird species as well as bobcats and coyotes.)
There are only a few Eucalypts, who are large and old, proving that they do not easily spread. They provide ideal nesting for large raptors because they are safer for the fledglings to learn to fly in than the shorter, denser oaks and bays. There is an amazing variety of birds, but I have also seen three rare species of snakes, including the Alameda Whipsnake, who was in a particularly dark dense part of the forest, and not what the Oakland Veg. M recommends. You say you’d like the Dusky-Footed Woodrats to return, but do you know they need a dense forest with fallen branches and twigs to build their enormous nests (some taller than humans) that have chambers where other species, including some endangered, live? I’ve never seen as many Woodrat nests as at this Moraga site. (I can show anyone who wants to see fifty of them in a short walk.) This site also has the Western Pond Turtles that the OVM plan wants.
If the OVM team truly wants the Special-Status Animal Species you mention, like Golden Eagles and White-tailed Kites (who are also at the Moraga EBMUD site), then don’t remove any trees. Those animals need to have decent habitat, which means not eliminating herbs like Fennel (which is edible to humans, as well as medicinal), which feeds small birds and rodents, who then would feed the raptors and other predators. Fennel also feeds beautiful Anise Swallowtails, so why are they targeted other than being “non-native”?
In spite of Cotoneaster’s red berries feeding many bird species, including Cedar Waxwings, in your plan, Cotoneaster is said to be “thought capable of invading intact ecosystems, where it competes with native vegetation for water, nutrient, and light resources.” Sorry, but did the person who wrote that ever see one? They are quite short, barely qualify as a tree, do not spread, and I have only ever seen them in already very disturbed environments and not wilderness parks. Considering how many native animals they feed, how are they a problem? But it’s like this with all the targeted plants, such as the incredibly beautiful flowering and edible brassicas, mustard and radish. How are highly flammable dead grasses better than these flowers who maintain moisture and stay green throughout the dry season, and also provide shelter for and feed animals? I’ve seen rare long-tailed weasels playing in them. Why kill impressive Pampas grass that helps prevent erosion? Or the artichoke relative, Cardoon, who is both beautiful, with large electric blue flowers, but also edible, and sold in gourmet produce stores? Yellow Star Thistle blooms brilliant color when all else is dead and dry, providing significant nectar for honeybees, yet is extremely hated. What do you want instead, bare earth? (These plants are simply targeted because they are not native and are called “trash” by nativists.)
Mulching isn’t an improvement when it’s chipped trees that can spontaneously combust, and mulching also eliminates native bees who need bare ground to nest. As honeybees are killed by pesticides, we might soon need those native bees for pollination. This is the problem when focusing only on one plant to kill alters the entire eco-system.
The list of “invasive” plants in the plan is bizarre because it includes trees and other plants that aren’t even in this area outside of a Botanical Garden and if they did appear magically, would not spread at all.
The plan itself says: “researchers in Marin County, California, were unable to burn a mature, uncut broom stand, and a young uncut stand had only spotty combustion” (Odion and Haubensak 2002). So why target broom species? They bloom bright yellow in the dark of winter and have the most delicious scent imaginable. Even more importantly, they fill in and cover highly flammable dry, dead grasses, and when the trees return, the broom fades. They are ideal in helping move grassland to forest.
But instead, “The Weed Worker’s Handbook” in your plan recommends putting poison on every plant listed to kill what is considered a problem, but poison is the problem, contaminating the earth, water, air, killing animals and unintended plants. And pesticides kill humans, no matter how it’s applied. Yet your concern is less “about the potential to affect non-target vegetation and/or wildlife,” and more about “public concern regarding potential health impacts from herbicide use.”
You can say that the poisons are to be safely applied by a licensed professional, but that does not stop the harm it does. If you have ever seen a California Newt dying an excruciating death after walking through a recently sprayed area, you wouldn’t be so casual. We know that glyphosate (which is already in all our bodies) and other poisons kill humans too. There is no safe way to use it, no safe dose, and it also pollutes where it’s manufactured. How about if the next people who die from it are those who order the spraying, rather than the workers? Plus, how do we trust any agency when I saw poison illegally sprayed from an unmarked container in an EBRP? (And no, saying they are just “dabbing” or otherwise applying it does not reassure me.) Also, how can we trust anyone who uses such shockingly patronizing misinformation and propaganda as at this influential site? https://www.cal-ipc.org/…/Cal_IPC_Symposium_2019_Chris_McDo…
Of course they never answer how or why there is any reason to use the poisons — or where the water goes that they recommend washing off the clothes, equipment, etc. Not one more death or case of chronic illness justifies these poisons. But this con will convince people to keep exposing themselves.
Part of what makes me skeptical of intent are the myriad contradictions, like the bizarre piles of dead branches often left lying around in park lands, even while living trees are killed as “fire hazards.” The “masticators” and other heavy machinery that damages the earth are recommended to kill plants yet actually leave shredded branches that are extremely flammable, but no one notices?
Most people don’t realize that the European invaders drastically altered California weather — from eliminating most of the once extensive inland lake (where birds still migrate) which affects the delta and the Sierra snow pack (which is likely why the Sequoiadendrons are suffering), to clearcutting what had once been the largest estuary Oak forest in the world in Oakland (hence the name), to clearcutting the largest Redwoods in the world in the Oakland hills. Those Redwoods would have brought down massive fog drip, filling the creeks to the bay. Parts of Oakland would have been wet year round. The way they destroyed the earth with their machinery permanently altered the land, killing the rare plants that OVM wants to return. But people can learn from this, knowing that continuing to kill trees and other plants will continue damaging the land. You can see in Marin, on Mt. Tamalpais, that the logging there did not do the same damage. There is a wonderful variety of rare wildflowers still growing under the baby (but now huge) Redwoods. They also have the exquisite Douglas Fir that can grow taller than Redwoods and together they bring water down from the fog. (There was a small trail in Redwood Park in Oakland that had some beautiful rare wildflowers, but EBRPD mistakenly ordered everything cut to the ground, apologized, and then brought in heavy machinery that destroyed what was left. It’s so easy for a supposed mistake to have permanent consequences. Now, if we want to see those rare wildflowers, we have to travel to another county.)
Lauding the “Friends of Sausal Creek” as a “stewardship group active in vegetation management efforts in Dimond Canyon Park” does not inspire confidence when they killed 40 large, healthy Redwoods for no rational reason. (I was told the trees’ crime was being from Crescent City, whatever that means.) Oakland is so barren and treeless, yet this group was allowed to do this? And they also advocate a massive amount of pesticide spraying in their nativist fanaticism, contaminating the land and creek to the bay. Why haven’t they been stopped? Promoting them and other nativist groups while completely ignoring the people and organizations who have been working to protect our parks shows disturbing bias. (Members of some of those nativist “steward” groups have advocated that the OVM plan match the proposal in the FEMA EIS, which the city was already sued over, and lost, by the Hills Conservation Network.)
So why not name and recommend people and groups who have been working for years to protect our parks — like Save the East Bay Hills (who submitted extensive comments that don’t seem to have been mentioned in the revised draft) and East Bay Pesticide Alert (who provided toxicology and alternatives to city officials and involved agencies back in January 2005). Our Coalition to Defend East Bay Forests included members injured and disabled by pesticide poisoning, and some have attended all the meetings of the last 2-1/2 years for this plan and consistently opposed the use of pesticide).
So why not name and recommend the people and groups who have been working for years to protect our parks — like Save the East Bay Hills (who submitted extensive comments that don’t seem to have been mentioned in the revised draft), our Coalition to Defend East Bay Forests (members include people injured and disabled by pesticide poisoning, and some have attended all the meetings of the last 2-1/2 years for this plan and consistently opposed the use of pesticides), East Bay Pesticide Alert (who provided toxicology and alternatives to city officials and involved agencies back in January 2005).
You could have balanced your extensive citations of Cal-IPC with alternative perspectives, such as by David Theodoropoulos, who debunked ‘Invasion Biology’ as a pseudo-science, but which Cal-IPC’s entire existence is based on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1i3RP7eDFc
And instead of citing Cal-IPC’s “Weed Workers’ Handbook,” where are the alternatives to pesticides used by Tao Orion, a longtime worker in the field of “restoration,” which Cal-IPC pushes along with pesticide use. And where is there mention of Dave Maloney, retired Oakland firefighter, former Chief of Fire Prevention at the U.S. Army Base in Oakland, and member of the Oakland-Berkeley Mayor’s Firestorm Task Force, who wrote “The Next Major Fire in the East Bay Hills”? https://milliontrees.me/2016/03/25/the-next-major-fire-in-the-east-bay-hills/
Another serious environmental worry listed in your plan is the acknowledgement that the machinery you’re planning to use can cause fires and poison the parks: “Service and fuel heavy equipment only in areas that will not allow grease, oil, fuel, or other hazardous materials to pass into streams or retained vegetation; Remove from the site and properly dispose of all refuse, litter, trash, and non-vegetative debris resulting from vegetation treatment operations; Ensure that hazardous materials spill kits are available on all heavy equipment.” How about not risking any of this?
This is personal to me because your plan would destroy most of what makes these parks special. In a small section of Joaquin Miller park, Monterey Pines enrich the otherwise clay soil and so there is an amazing variety of mushrooms. The Bay Area Mycological Society has events to show the over 40 species in a 20 minute stroll. It’s an excellent way to learn species without having to drive hours to other counties. This is the same area that a local conservation biology group teaches people how to find and see two native scorpion species with UV lights. Who even knew Oakland had these interesting little animals? But it won’t take much to destroy this habitat. Just kill the pines and open the forest to wind and increasingly deadly sun, followed by fire.
Your plan also ignores that the various Oak species are ill and dying. Bay trees might be next. Redwoods are suffering because of lack of rain and adequate fog drip and they need every bit of tree companionship they can get in order to survive. The June issue of National Geographic (“Talking Trees” by Daisy Chung and Ryan Williams, p. 26), describes how tree species help each other survive. I’ve wondered if the Oaks with Sudden Oak Death who are predicted to be dead in a few decades could be helped to heal in this way. But the trees need to be as close as possible for the mycorrozial fungi to connect and help them. The plan to isolate and separate trees is not how they naturally grow, and instead weakens them, as well as drying out and heating the earth. Redwoods who need to conserve as much moisture as possible especially suffer.
Wouldn’t it make sense to diversify our forests so we aren’t without trees as disease spreads and heat increases? We have several species, native and not, perfectly suited to this changing environment. Native Douglas Fir live for hundreds of years and are incredibly disease and pest resistant, and do well in both hot and cold environments. The Grey Pine/Pinus Sabiniana who are east of Oakland could also be planted here. But we already have extremely drought tolerant and disease resistant Acacia species (including the gorgeous Acacia delbata) and several Eucalyptus species. (In terms of fire risk, I could demonstrate trying to set fire to Euc leaves or bark here to show you how difficult that is). When older, Eucalyptus trunks are like steel, and they are perfect windbreaks. (Many people don’t know that they were planted specifically as windbreaks on properties out in the open, and not just for lumber.)
Why not commit to not killing another tree and actually talking with us about how to truly prevent fires while enriching our parks, instead of continuing on this destructive path?
You describe in detail about working around some of the more vulnerable animals species, including relocating them, but you should know that that is likely to kill them. Animals have a complex relationship with the trees and other plants and animals and the territories they have fought to win. (Again, mistakes inevitably happen. I tried working with Audubon to save the Burrowing Owls in Berkeley, only to see that those in charge knew nothing about the birds and so inadvertently destroyed their habitat, driving the owls away. They apologized, but continued doing more damage.)
Your plan refers to leaving trunks of killed trees to prevent hillsides collapsing but that is another disaster in the making. The trees hold hillsides up, as do the beautiful, evocative, but hated broom. As people lose their homes to landslides, being told the cause was fire prevention will be small comfort. Go along Skyline and in Montclair to see houses and hillsides coming down after Eucalyptus and other trees have been killed. (Also, so many trees have been killed in the Oakland hills that much of the privacy people moved there for is disappearing.)
We need every tree we can get as our climate continues to heat. The difference in how it feels on a very hot day to be on an Oakland street versus under the trees in our parks is dramatic and tens of degrees difference.
Most parts of the US want more trees, but the Bay Area seems set on cutting them down. We can easily see the results in every cut areas, where the highly flammable grasses and thistles and poison hemlock spread. (Those plants will not successfully grow in shade.) And once the targeted trees are killed or “thinned” or “limbed,” there is no returning them to a natural, healthy state. They also make an ugly sterile-looking unnatural “park.” It’s a terrible plan.
I vote for the option of “No Project.” That is the safest plan in preventing fire and protecting our parks and animals. Please, OVM, take the lead in being on the right side of history, inspiring other cities, and making Oakland safer and more beautiful, but not more vulnerable to fire.
Bev Von Dohre
Slakewings@aol.com
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