NAIL Forum
NAIL Status Update
We want to let NAIL members and residents know that just as we sought to stop the NTMP during the first submittal, NAIL will continue efforts to stop the NTMP during this second submittal round when it does occur. The NAIL Steering Committee has been meeting regularly and continuing our planning process.
We have a number of partners in our efforts, including the Sierra Club and the thousands of people from valley communities who have signed our petitions. We have also received offers of public support from a number of respected and well known individuals prepared to speak on NAIL's behalf if the NTMP is submitted.
Please re-commit yourself to stopping this ecologically devastating plan and to supporting the retention of un-logged and responsibly managed forest land acreage here in our mountains. For further information and announcement of NAIL activities and meetings please continue to visit this site.
Thank you.
NAIL Steering Committee
Destructive Forest Bill Passed
http://www.sierraclub.org/pressroom/releases/pr2006-05-17b.asp For Immediate Release: May 17, 2006 Contact: Annie Strickler, (415) 977-5619
House Passes Destructive Salvage Logging Bill Based on Controversial Science
Bill Would Increase Future Fire Risk
Washington, D.C. --- Ignoring concerns about increased fire risk and more taxpayer-subsidized commercial logging, the House today passed, by a 243 to 182 vote, a far-reaching Salvage Logging bill. The ill-named Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act, a bill which disregards important protections for clean drinking water and wildlife, promotes subsidized logging road construction in wild roadless forests and eliminates meaningful environmental analysis and public involvement required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). "As the fire season gets underway, it is shameful that Congress is once again diverting critical funds from real fire protection measures in order to fast track more destructive logging," said Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director. "This bill has nothing to do with forest recovery or research, and everything to do with logging and subsidizing the timber industry." The bill creates more perverse incentives for harmful logging, and diverts funding from fire suppression, preparedness, hazardous fuels reduction and community fire planning. It is also likely that more funds will even be diverted from needed replanting and restoration work to pay for salvage logging. "This bill in effect says that compromising citizen and firefighter safety in order to cut down more trees is a fair trade," said Pope. Salvage logging after fires or other disturbances can increase the severity of future fires because of the increase in fuel loads from logging slash and the alteration of the character and condition of other vegetation. In recent weeks the group Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology (FUSEE) -- a non-profit organization of current, former, and retired wildland firefighters to promote firefighter and community safety -- came out in opposition to the bill. They know that this bill would make forests more flammable and increase the safety risks for wildland firefighters. The bill is also opposed by taxpayers advocates because of the great increase in waste, fraud and abuse associated with the federal timber program. The bill has been at the heart of a scandal over efforts to censor the science showing that post-fire logging can increase fire risk and hamper the ability of forests to recover from natural disturbances. A handful of faculty at Oregon State University sought to derail publication of a contradictory ground breaking scientific report by some of their colleagues. The study, based on two years of on-the-ground research from the aftermath of logging in the Biscuit fire area in Southwest Oregon, appeared in Science magazine in January and was critical of post-fire logging due to increased fire risk and the destruction of young trees growing back on their own. An inquiry by the Oregon state legislature revealed that some of the same OSU faculty and staff that had been involved in the censorship efforts also collaborated closely with Republican congressional staff and timber industry lobby groups to do 'damage control' so that the Science article would not derail the progress of the Walden bill. "Congress didn’t just ignore the implications for wildlife and forest health when passing this salvage logging bill," said Pope. "They also shoved aside legitimate concerns about firefighter and community safety while making room for politicized science."
How Forests Can Be Protected
Sempervirens to sell Malosky Forest
Fire Risk Reduction
NAIL Steering Committee member Rick Parfitt wrote the attached article about mountain fire safety and what realistic steps home owners can take to help reduce the risk that
their home will burn down in a wild fire. NAIL strongly encourages mountain residents to seriously consider the value of a fire-safe plan for your home, land and neighborhood.
Reprints of this article are provided as courtesy of Mountain
Network
News: http://www.mnn.net
Watershed Protection & Logging Status/Important Meeting
A
Seminar On Watershed Protection
Date: Saturday, March
25
Time: 7:00-9:00
PM
Place:
Topics: Status of Logging
Proposal, Water Quality and Watershed Protection, Protecting Communities From
Fire.
Refreshments will be
provided.
Also, the logging plan
will be discussed at the regular March meeting of the Guadalupe Regional Group
of the Sierra Club on Thursday, March 23 at 7:30PM. The location is the
Community Room of the Saratoga Library on
For more information
check out the website at http://lomaprieta.sierraclub.org/ and
remember to visit NAIL's website at www.mountainresource.org
More on Watershed Land Stewardship Concerns
SJWC representative JohnTang submitted a rebuttal letter in the
2/15/06 issue of the Los Gatos Weekly in response to Aldercroft Heights
resident Mike Accorsi's expressed concerns about SJWC leaving multiple
grading mounds to erode into Los Gatos Creek. The mounds were piled
and left along a SJWC watershed road in Aldercroft Heights.
Tang states that SJWC feels they are good stewards of their
watershed lands. Information obtained by NAIL questions Mr. Tang's
statement.
The Aldercroft grading problem demonstrates a pattern of poor practices by the San
Jose Water Company. What Mr. Tang did not mention in his letter is that in November, the construction site alongside Los Gatos Creek
was inspected by the Santa Clara Valley Water District. At that time SJWC was
criticized for poor construction practices. The inspector's report noted that
there was no winterization plan in place. To quote from that inspection report.
"Having this large unprotected earthen bank without having a winterization plan
has the highest exposure for erosion."
Three months later, the
construction site remains a problem. Inspections were performed by the
NAIL's concern is that if SJWC cannot properly manage a simple
grading construction project on a roadway above a prime water source
without corrective action being requested, how can we expect they would be
good stewards during their proposed ongoing logging project that
involves helicopters flying over our community, huge trucks navigating
our roads, and alterations to the ecology and wildlife habitats in our
mountains?
Valley Water District Cites Reason for Safeguarding Watershed Lands
Important Court Decision Affects Logging and Waterways
The Tuesday, January 31 issue of the San Jose Mercury News contains an article that may impact the SJWC logging plan in the Santa Cruz mountains. The article is entitled:
WATER REGULATORS' POWERS AFFIRMED
The article states that the Calfiornia Supreme Court has just upheld the authority of state water regulators with regard to monitoring water quality in streams and rivers affected by timber companies engaged in logging.
The impact of this ruling is that logging companies may be required to demonstrate that erosion from their logging will not clog waterways with mud and other debris, a practice that can kill salmon and increase the risk of flooding downstream.
The safety and water quality of Los Gatos Creek, Lexington reservoir and the drinking water of the valley community served by these waterways and this important, forested watershed land is one of the four prime objections that NAIL has expressed in response to the SJWC logging permit application.
To read the article and learn more about the court decision, go to www.mercurynews.com
Watershed Land Stewardship Concerns
Mountain resident Mike Accorsi sent a letter to the Los Gatos Weekly, published in the January 25 issue. The letter addresses his concerns over huge piles of graded dirt left near Los Gatos Creek in the Aldercroft Heights area.
The dirt piles
were formed by contractors working for San Jose Water Company and sit on SJWC watershed land above and close to the creek. The piles have not been attended to for many weeks during this wet season. Residents feel concern regarding erosion from the dirt into the creek. In his editorial letter Accorsi references a complaint against SJWC that has now been made to the Public Utilities Commission in Sacramento.
L.G. Creek is a key water source flowing out of the mountains into Lexington Reservoir and serving the Santa Clara Valley. To read Mike's letter, click here (LGWT Letters page).
San Jose Metro Article 1/4/06 On Withdrawal of NTMP
Article by Vrinda Normand, Metro reporter:
Tree Reprieve
In a surprise twist, San Jose Water Company has withdrawn its plan to log 1,000 acres on the Los Gatos Creek watershed. The move comes after Metro's recent story on the logging plan ("Chopping Mad," MetroNews, Dec. 7) exposed potential risks the timber harvest could pose to fire safety, water quality and the lifestyle of over 4,000 people living near the logging zone. This is a huge victory for residents opposed to the proposal, who formed NAIL (Neighbors Against Irresponsible Logging) and then went on to put one in the coffin of the company's plan, at least for the time being. In the past four months, NAIL members have collected over 2,000 petition signatures, presented their concerns to county supervisors and held community meetings with hundreds attending. "The plan to harvest the watershed was deeply flawed and poorly executed from the very beginning," NAIL members wrote in their response to San Jose Water's press release. San Jose Water said it will resubmit the logging proposal in the spring of 2006 after it completes a fire protection study and provides further information to the California Department of Forestry. Jodi Frediani, the consultant hired by NAIL to analyze the 450-page document, said CDF should have never accepted it for filing in the first place. The state agency needed clarification on 100 items after the first review—evidence, Frediani believes, of the proposal's shortcomings. CDF official Leslie Markham told Metro it's not unusual to have so many questions about logging plans of this size. Meanwhile, NAIL is taking this opportunity to plug for an alternative, urging San Jose Water to seek a conservation easement on its property.
