Environmentalists, researchers promise to play watchdog over
handful of key housing projects
A regional response to the threat of natural habitat loss from
unbridled development drew its first breath this week when members
of a broad swath of environmental groups and researchers gathered
in Gilroy to discuss a united front against what many in the
meeting view as major threats to wildlife habitat, waterways and
human health in southern Santa Clara and San Benito counties.
Environmentalists, researchers promise to play watchdog over handful of key housing projects
A regional response to the threat of natural habitat loss from unbridled development drew its first breath this week when members of a broad swath of environmental groups and researchers gathered in Gilroy to discuss a united front against what many in the meeting view as major threats to wildlife habitat, waterways and human health in southern Santa Clara and San Benito counties.
Organized by the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society’s Environmental Action Committee, Wednesday’s meeting brought together members of the local branch of the Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy, People for Land and Nature, and the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI), a scientific monitoring organization which is just beginning to conduct research based on collecting deep historical evidence of “pre-modification” tributaries stretching from Calera Creek in Milpitas down to Fisher and Coyote creeks in Morgan Hill.
Chuck Striplen with SFEI also represented the Amah-Mutsun Tribal Council, as the research will include ancient tribal records of stream flows and other historical data. Striplen estimated that SFEI will complete research on the upper Pajaro River watershed in the next six months, and the rest of the unincorporated area of the South Valley within about 18 months.
Historical research is important because many recent restoration efforts return waterways to what they looked like in relatively recent times. The new data will enable agencies to “see” what the watershed looked like hundreds of years ago.
The one thing all the participants agreed upon in what was effectively a consensus-building effort, is that southern Santa Clara and northern San Benito counties are a critical habitat area that must be watched closely.
“This is where the action is,” said Nancy Teater, representing the Audubon Society.
The recent killing of a young male mountain lion in a residential neighborhood of Gilroy stands as a stark reminder that as we encroach further into wildlife habitat, encounters with the big cats will only grow more frequent.
“We need a buffer between the wildlife and the cities,” said Robert Shields, a local teacher and wildlife expert. “With the most recent cat killing, it could have taken a child.”
But buffer zones are only one part of the equation. Members of the consortium have assembled a list of projects or areas that they will be watching closely:
· The 11,100 new homes developers want to build near Hollister (Del Webb Senior Community [4,300 houses] and DMB’s El Rancho San Benito [6,800 houses] that borders the flood plane of the Pajaro River, which was recently named “The most endangered river” by the environmental group American Rivers).
· Santana Ranch, 1,100 houses east of Hollister
· Sargent Ranch, a massive, yet unspecified number of new houses along the southern border of Santa Clara County south of Gilroy.
· San Juan Oaks, additional houses on hills bordering San Juan Valley.
· And John Fry’s “illegal” golf course in Morgan Hill.
Another area the consortium is watching closely is the Bolsa de San Felipe, commonly called “Soap Lake” just off Hwy.152 east of Gilroy and north of Hollister. The Audubon Society has designated the basin as an “Important Bird Area.”
Moreover, the area acts as an enormous watershed collection area, and if ever channeled would result in more flooding along the Pajaro River in Watsonville. The watershed for the Pajaro begins as far north as Morgan Hill and includes many tributaries in the South Valley, including Uvas and Llagas creeks. In November the Army Corp of Engineers is expected to make a recommendation for flood control along the river, a move that could affect the future of the river for years to come.
In San Benito County alone, two proposed development projects totaling roughly 11,000 new homes are being sought within the Pajaro River watershed. That much new concrete and asphalt will, at the least, dramatically increase the runoff into the Pajaro.
“They talk a good story about protecting the floodplain, but the whole development is on a floodplain,” said Lois Robin, a member of the Pájaro River Watershed Committee, in an earlier interview with The Pinnacle. “In general, we are opposed to building on the floodplain.”
Working with the local Sierra Club and the Pajaro River Watershed Committee, American Rivers wants to persuade the Corps to use more natural flood controls and to consider the health of the entire watershed in their recommendations.
Members of the consortium will be chronicling important habitats and conducting bird censuses – such as the burrowing owl – to present the data to policy makers when or if these projects ever come before planning commissions, county supervisors or city councils. The consortium will be pushing to ensure developers are held responsible for fully mitigating, or offsetting, any loss to habitat by their projects.
Burrowing owls are listed as a “specie of concern” whose numbers have shrunk as their habitat has been lost to make way for houses. The tiny owls tend to create colonies in abandoned ground squirrel holes, and when those holes are paved over, as in the case of Morgan Hill when it built its industrial park, the habitat is lost.
Of course the project that has truly drawn the ire of consortium members is Coyote Valley, which will soon release its environmental impact study, which outlines any potential hazards to the environment and what developers plan to do to protect, or mitigate, the damaging elements. Planned for north of Morgan Hill, the project would create a city the size of Milpitas in the Coyote Creek watershed.
Coyote Valley is billed as a “smart” growth community, to which a number of consortium members scoffed. They find it disingenuous to label plunking down 20,000 homes in prime farmland miles from San Jose’s core as “smart,” and promise to dissect the environmental study line by line, paragraph by paragraph.
In the meantime, consortium members, either collectively or individually, will be found with binoculars and notepads, chronicling every move developers make. To borrow a phrase from a recent Hollywood movie, “The Hills Have Eyes.”
