Coastsiders question county tree removal plan

Only about 20 people turned out Saturday for the San Mateo County Parks Departments meeting called to discuss its vegetation management plans at the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. Then the emails started coming in.

County Parks Director Marlene Finley says she has received many more emails expressing concern since that meeting. Thats in large part due to a letter sent out a day after the meeting by Moss Beach resident Aimee Luthringer, co-founder of AREA29, an advocacy group named for the water quality protection area that includes portions of the Coastside. The group keeps an eye on the health of the watershed, says co-founder Sabrina Brennan, and San Vicente Creek outfalls at the marine reserve.

Removing a large number of trees will complete the destruction of the areas charm, which the county started by replacing the quaint footpath with a wide road, according to an excerpt from the letter that makes reference to the Dardanelle Trail project. The letter goes on to warn readers that a chainsaw massacre will occur if they dont speak up.

The letter includes links to several county representatives email addresses, and those links enable readers to send a prewritten email. That email asks the county to delay the project until the natural resources manager position is filled, to extend the public comment period and clearly mark each tree that would be removed. Finley has received about 30 such emails since the letter was sent out.

Brennan says AREA29 wrote the letter because of a lack of clarity from the county on how many trees would be removed and how.

What the county said they were proposing to do was bring in heavy equipment and a contractor and rip out huge areas, (and) we dont support that kind of removal, Brennan said. We think it needs to be done carefully.

Such heavy equipment was used in the construction of the Dardanelle Trail, causing some residents to grow wary of the project and its impact on the sensitive environment.

Finley, who was not the parks director when the Dardanelle Trail construction was completed, said she heard such feedback at Saturdays meeting and welcomed the insight. She said the county is focusing on the Monterey cypress trees, which account for all but 31 of the groves 1,068 trees. An assessment of the trees revealed that 134 are dead, and a handful more are considered alive but beyond trimming. While she could not say exactly how many trees will be removed, Finley said most of the dead trees will be removed, as well as the eight or so live trees that are beyond trimming.

Its twofold: enhancing public safety and improving forest health by allowing more light into the forest, Finley said. The trees are really dense in there. Thats why we have the number of dead trees; they cant get any light.

Finley added that the measure was recommended as part of the reserves master plan, approved by the county Board of Supervisors in 2004.

Link:
Coastsiders question county tree removal plan