By Maria Phillips
Dear Friends,
I'm attaching a pdf of the resolution the Supervisors voted on today. I've never been inspired to send you all one of these documents before, but this one is really a keeper. I won't try to tell you what it says except that it lists very clearly all the reasons why this project was not going to fly and couldn't be approved. And that's why we all need to keep it somewhere. I have printed it out on sort of distinctive paper so it will be hard to lose, and I'll keep the electronic file also. This will be an excellent place to start if the project ever rears its ugly head again--and I suspect it will.
So here's my report: The ceremony was blessedly short and sweet. Jane Dolan moved and Maureen Kirk seconded the motion to accept the resolution as written. All in favor say "aye"--and four of them did. All opposed? "Nay" intoned one of them....guess who? The answer is upside down on page 7. Hah! No, of course not. It was none other than Kim Yamaguchi.
And there you go. Once again, in less than 5 minutes we were out of there. I saw no one in the
audience from Baldwin or M&T--but then again, there may have been someone there.
Representing us appellants , Lila and Frank Prentice, Cathy Cottle, Roger Beadle, and a couple of others whose names I don't know. Of course, Roger Aylworth was there with his little notebook. So we'll read about our quiet moment of resolution tomorrow in the ER.
I shouldn't feel so elated, maybe, but I do! One thing I've learned in the past few years is to enjoy the good times fully while there is possibility for enjoyment. Another thing I've learned is that there are many good and generous people out there, people of good will who care a lot about the public good and who are willing to extend themselves to ensure it. You on this short email list are among those people--I can't believe how many of you sort of materialized, like an epiphany here and there, genies out of a bottle, and you lent so much energy! The last couple of you to get on board--you know who you are--where would we be today if we hadn't sort of stumbled upon you? I hate to think. And I think it took all we gave it to get to the anticlimactic moment today.
Today it was 4:1 instead of 3:2, though, so we're getting closer to sanity. I'd like to think that come the fall, we might pick up at least one other Supervisor who would ensure than in a project of this magnitude the vote would be unanimous.
Love to all, Maria
1 comment:
I agree that the Butte County Board of Supervisors, with the exception of Kim Yamaguchi, acted wisely in denying the M&T Chico Ranch Mine mining use permit and reclamation Plan and not certifying the final EIR. Unfortunately, some parts of the use permit resolution document should sound environmental alarms.
The resolution document clearly spells out why the mitigation measures discussed in the final EIR would not avoid or substantially lessen the proposed project’s impacts on air quality and traffic to a less than significant level. That includes exacerbation of already unacceptable operating conditions, during peak traffic hours, at the intersection of the Baldwin Plant driveway and Skyway; something about which even the Paradise ridge Supervisor should be concerned.
Realtor Yamaguchi seems to care more about facilitating development than worrying about the environmental effects of increased roadway use. Another case in point was his strong lobbying for the Forest Highway 171 Reconstruction Project.
That Upper Skyway Reconstruction Project would reconstruct and pave the 9.6-mile northern section of Skyway from Inskip to Humboldt Road in Butte Meadows. I can’t help but wonder if Yamaguchi has an interest in seeing property values skyrocket along the upper Skyway and in Butte Meadows, due to the increased ease of access from the Paradise ridge population center.
The primary purpose of that project is to allow for a more safe, rapid, and effective evacuation of residents from the upper Paradise ridge in case of fire or other natural disaster, yet no routes to anywhere but Butte Meadows were analyzed. Also, incredibly, no cumulative environmental effects were analyzed, in the Mitigated Negative Declaration for that Project, of the greatly increased ease of access to much of the rest of Lassen National Forest by the estimated 40,000 people living in Paradise, and the Upper Ridge!
There is also no mitigation proposed for the air quality impacts resulting from greatly increased access to Lassen National Forest, though deteriorating air quality is thought to be a significant contributing factor in the decline of several amphibian species there.
Another red flag in the M&T Mine use permit resolution document relates to the county General Plan update effort to identify and designate large blocks of wildlife habitat, mostly on the valley floor. On page 13, under Incompatible Use, discussing the proposed creation of wetland habitat, it states, “The Board of Supervisors finds that the project proposes the creation of wildlife habitat in an agricultural area, which the Board of Supervisors does not support and has previously found to be an incompatible use when it is in close proximity to agricultural uses.”
If no wildlife habitat may be created in primarily agricultural zones, how are any new large blocks of habitat to be dedicated to protecting special status species living in those areas?
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