Urgent Action Needed!Option 3 Rewrite
No Longer Protects Forests
March 7, 2005
Among recent issues before the public and environmental community in Sonoma County, few have raised more concern and universal response than the threat to forests and natural lands by vineyard conversions in the forested
Northern County. Central to that response has been a two year effort to update the County’s General Plan to prevent loss of the 194,000 acres of forests in the Resource and Rural Development (RRD) land use category.
County staff has drafted language for an ordinance and General Plan amendment that are far different from the Option 3 that the public overwhelmigly demanded. The language drafted by County staff includes the misleadingly named concept of "No Net Loss". This provision allows for approval of a use permit by the County of a forestland conversion if it can be shown that the project would result in "No Net Loss" of forestland.
Option 3 was supposed to have provided environmental protection, but something has gone badly wrong. Copies of the draft ordinance have not been officially released to the public but environmentalists who have seen it say that this proposal would put the forests and wildlands needing protection at even more risk than they in now. Rather than preventing large-scale conversions of forest to vineyards, the proposed "No Net Loss" amendment may actually facilitate forest destruction.
Expect new information to become available in the next few weeks as this issue develops.
In the meantime, please contact your Supervisor to let him or her know that this "No Net Loss" proposal is unacceptable. It is especially important to contact Supervisor Mike Reilly because his district encompasses most of Sonoma County's forests.
Board of Supervisors:
PHONE (707)-565-2241
FAX (707)-565-3778
First District Supervisor:
Valerie Brown vbrown@sonoma-county.org
Second District Supervisor:
Mike Kerns mkerns@sonoma-county.org
Third District Supervisor:
Tim Smith tsmith@sonoma-county.org
Fourth District Supervisor:
Paul L. Kelley pkelley@sonoma-county.org
Fifth District Supervisor:
Mike Reilly mreilly@sonoma-county.org
The General Plan amendment must be thoroughly revised and its adoption taken off the 'fast track'. Substituting a "No Net Loss" forest conversion policy for a policy that actually protects forests is a step backwards. We are fortunate to live in a county with a good balance of city, agriculture, and forest; we need to protect that diversity. We don't want the whole county to be paved or plowed, and we need to protect Sonoma's remaining forestland.
