What Went Wrong at Cotoni Coast Dairies?
The job ain’t finished until the paperwork is done!
Cartoon compliments of DeCinzo, Caption by Grey Hayes
Cartoon compliments of DeCinzo, Caption by Grey Hayes
Grey Hayes
3/27/23
https://greyhayes.net/2023/03/27/what-went-wrong-at-cotoni-coast-dairies/
Someone new on the scene recently asked me to explain the history of what went wrong at Cotoni Coast Dairies. After many, many years, the property still isn’t being managed for wildlife or public safety, and it still isn’t open to the public. As a prelude to this, I urge readers to read my essay on how the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) came to manage the property in the first place…a curious story, indeed. This essay compliments that prior essay with more details, especially since BLM took over managing the property. Soon, I’ll be writing the third in this series with suggestions about what is needed to improve this unfortunate situation.
Years of On the Ground Nothing, or Worse
Since its purchase for conservation, Cotoni Coast Dairies has a history of very little stewardship and management. Trust for Public Land purchased the property in 1998 and held it until 2014. During that time, managers working for the Trust for Public Land did almost nothing to maintain the property. Occasionally, someone would show up to clear some anticipated future trail. For instance, TPL contractors extensively cleared riparian vegetation along Liddell Creek, chainsawing decades-old willow trees that shaded endangered fish habitat and provided cover for the endangered California red-legged frog. They argued that the clearance was along an ‘existing road,’ and they started putting this trail on early maps as a favored future public access point. (The trail later appeared on BLM’s maps, but federal wildlife protection agency personnel demanded otherwise, so the trail disappeared from plans.) Otherwise, TPL let fences, gates, and culverts rust away, roads and trails erode, weeds spread, and fuels build up creating hazardous conditions for future wildfires.
Eight years ago, BLM took over management of Cotoni Coast Dairies, and those same patterns largely continued. Early on, BLM staff constructed a new trail, carving through nests of state-listed sensitive wildlife without required State consultation. Like TPL, BLM staff have either overlooked erosion issues along roads or graded long abandoned ‘existing roads’ (aka ‘future trails’) with uncannily similar detrimental impacts to rare fish and amphibians. Meanwhile, terrible weeds and immense wildfire risks continued to spread across the property. The reason BLM staff have given for such poor stewardship: ‘we don’t have an approved plan.’ That changed, but management hasn’t…except for one new stretch of cattle fence and subset of future trails being created mainly by volunteers. The trails and fence came before any work on invasive species or wildfire mitigation, so we sadly sense BLM staff priorities have been directed away from conservation towards recreational access.
Decades of Funky Planning and Community Engagement
Staff from both TPL and BLM have sporadically spent a bit of time working on poor planning processes or participating in largely perfunctory public meetings about property management at Cotoni Coast Dairies. In the year 2000, TPL convened and facilitated a Community Advisory Group (CAG) to advise on guidelines meant to be used by future managers. A few of us on the CAG were asked to provide feedback about the biological portion of those guidelines, but we were unable to improve the largely cursory and incomplete biological assessments used to guide future property management. It is unclear if those guidelines have ever been used by BLM, or if TPL even cares.
BLM has done little to inventory the property, so it has very poor information with which to plan its management. Like TPL, BLM staff have shunned offers to improve biological survey data and so, as with the TPL plans, BLM’s plans have overlooked species and ecosystems that are easily identified and/or previously catalogued by reputable sources. This alienates the conservation community including the wealth of well-trained scientists that this region enjoys.
Instead of the long series of TPL’s CAG meetings, BLM staff showed up for a single community-engagement-style meeting convened and facilitated by the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County. That meeting surprisingly and very oddly focused on weighing pros and cons of parking lot locations, but it was never clear why public input was sought or what became of it afterwards. In the midst of this, an outside funder parachuted in hundreds of thousands of dollars so that several local organizations could mount a seemingly ‘grassroots’ Monument Campaign.
Monument Ahoy
In 2015, The Sempervirens Fund led the “Monument Campaign,” a fast-paced, highly scripted, well-funded effort to organize rallies and letter writing to show public support for National Monument designation of Cotoni Coast Dairies. In what is increasingly common “fake news,” the bulk of the Monument Campaign messaging was about opening the property for public use, while in fact Monument designation is more about improving conservation of the property…which would typically increase limitations on public access. This nonsense was compounded by campaign organizers’ refusal to address how designation would increase deed restriction protections already in place from TPL. Furthermore, organizers dismissed concerns about managing the anticipated influx of visitors drawn to something called a National Monument. How important the Monument Campaign was in Obama’s designation is unclear, but the divisions in the community were deep and lasting. Organizers were successful in coalescing well-meaning but very poorly informed people whose nonsensical byline was “Monument designation means my family will be able to visit!” On the other hand, there was a surprisingly politically diverse coalition equipped with well-informed questions and concerns that were never addressed. After that local experience, it is difficult for me to believe that any political faction is immune from using scripted ‘truthiness,’ hype, or even lies when they feel those tools necessary in attracting popular support for secret agendas. Unsurprisingly, leaders of the ephemeral Monument Campaign movement have since disappeared from involvement, leaving the aftermath for the real, long-term grassroots organizations to deal with, and we have yet to experience any conservation benefit of Monument designation.
Pop Up Trail Plans, Abandoned
As the Monument Campaign launched in 2015, BLM issued a proposal for the property’s first public access trail, aka the “Laguna Trail,” in an expedited environmental review process that showed our community how poorly equipped BLM staff were to adequately plan for the property. BLM staff relied on old, insufficient biological inventories for their analysis, failed to survey for endangered species, and did not include any analysis of how the trail would address social equity concerns in providing for visitor use. BLM staff did not respond to the many concerns raised by the public but instead completed their pro-forma circulation and approval of planning documents and rapidly deployed machinery and workers to clear the trail. Trail construction proceeded without conforming to even the nominal environmental guidelines outlined in BLM’s planning documents. The hastily constructed trail cut through state-protected wildlife habitat, degraded historical artifacts, and came very close to a native village site which BLM failed to plan for protecting. In addition, if the project had proceeded, BLM would have opened a trail beginning at Laguna Creek Road and Highway 1 without any new parking, litter, or bathroom facilities, without sufficient staffing for enforcement or interpretation, and without a recreational plan for the property as a whole to analyze how to best protect wildlife while providing public access. This pop up trail was BLM’s way of introducing themselves to the land and to our community.
Introductions to BLM Planning Procedures
As the first federal land manager in the County, it was BLM staff who introduced our community to the federal government’s environmental planning process. This introduction was surprising in many ways. We had been accustomed to public lands managers paying careful attention to protecting “environmentally sensitive habitat areas” (ESHA) according to Coastal Commission rules. Not so with this property – BLM staff didn’t even provide the public maps of those regulated habitat areas in any of their planning documents! With the promise of National Monument protections, we were hopeful that BLM staff would follow the required and highly regimented process outlined in BLM’s policy “Manual 6220,” which provides staff with guidelines on how to manage national monuments. Again, not so! In fact, BLM staff have not used the 6220 manual and have neglected any public acknowledgement of the manual, as if they do not intend to use it, at all. Moreover, BLM staff have never specifically acknowledged the many species and ecosystems protected through the monument designation process. Monument management protocol seems irrelevant to BLM staff, who are apparently bent on expediting the public access so vocally anticipated by the Monument Campaign (coincidence?).
Expediting Public Access
BLM staff have chosen expediency over thoroughness in each of their property planning exercises. For their most recent property-wide plan, instead of data-based predictions of visitor use, BLM staff chose a largely arbitrary low-ball figure of 250,000 anticipated visitors/year for the property. Instead of the logical in-depth alternatives analysis of a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), BLM staff have chosen expedited Environmental Analysis (EA) processes, complete with incredible conclusions of ‘Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI),’ despite significant contrary expert testimony that has gone unaddressed and unacknowledged. As we learned for the first time about its ‘federal consistency process,’ the Coastal Commission recently mandated that BLM use a phased approach to opening the property to public use. The Coastal Commission required that only if/when the BLM proved it could adequately manage public use could it open the full range of parking lots and trails; that proof requires monitoring and such monitoring would normally require a baseline inventory of sensitive natural resources, but we have yet to see that happen…we don’t even know the language to which the BLM and the Coastal Commission have agreed.
Nipping at the Community
My personal interactions with BLM staff have historically been less than pleasant, perhaps because those staff members are unused to much public engagement. My experience of poor interactions with BLM staff isn’t isolated. Someone suggested that this might be partly because those staff feel ‘rocked back on their heels’ because of criticism of their work, which is odd because our comments have been professional, polite, and part of what BLM should expect as public lands planning processes. A BLM staffer told me long ago that their colleagues were in for a surprise as they encountered the very actively involved communities of Santa Cruz County’s North Coast. Previously, most BLM staff working at Cotoni Coast Dairies had worked very much out of the public eye, in remote parts of California with little/no public oversight.
While we can’t ascertain why BLM staff have avoided offers for assistance, their subterfuge is as enlightening as it has been damaging. My compassion about staff feeling rocked back on their heels is limited because BLM staff have sought to discredit my work and harm my reputation, even approaching employers with false information to negatively affect my job while also giving ultimatums to conservation networks to preclude my participation. During one encounter at a public meeting, a BLM staff person told me that they would never collaborate with me or the groups with whom I worked because I was “against any public access at Cotoni Coast Dairies.” That was an incorrect statement about my position that I had likewise been hearing from a particularly activist, radical group of mountain bikers. As this BLM staff person echoed that quote, it was possible to better understand communication channels and allegiances.
My earliest interactions with BLM staff at Cotoni Coast Dairies were when I proposed assistance for biological monitoring. I and a few other biologists offered BLM free assistance with biological surveys to improve their understanding of the property. After that proposal, over a very long time, a BLM staff person strung us along through an incorrect informal process without ever encouraging us or acknowledging the potential value of such work. There was a chain of calls and emails that each ended with something like ‘well, maybe….’ By the time we subsequently discovered the correct application process and applied in that way, leadership had changed and the application was then officially refused.
Cumulative Impacts: Traffic, Trauma, Toilets and Trash (the 4 T’s)
It is important to view BLM’s problems in the context of issues related to visitor access on conservation lands throughout Santa Cruz County. As with all of the other public lands managers, BLM has been planning for visitor use and conservation in a vacuum, as if the surrounding lands don’t exist: this is a deeply flawed perspective. Much of the land from Santa Cruz City to the County line is heavily used by recreational visitors. Most weekends, parking lots overflow with cars and parked cars dangerously line the highway. There are too few trash cans and toilets to serve those visitors. Police and emergency responders are stretched to respond to the many accidents such visitation is bound to create.
County Parks, State Parks, the City of Santa Cruz, the Rail Trail, and BLM each have their own properties to manage and the same 4 T’s issues to address, but they aren’t doing it collaboratively. It is clear that none of those agencies has the resources to address those issues and so those issues are borne by our community. Visitors have come to expect trashy beaches. Emergency responders have come to expect exhaustion and insufficient support. Visitors with elderly family members or small children are avoiding parks due to dangerous or disgusting conditions. As each agency plans in isolation to provide for the maximum number of visitors, parks managers are dooming wildlife and visitor experience – the carrying capacity for the entire North Coast will be surpassed. It is no wonder that our community does not trust BLM to be able to manage their land and the visitors that they plan on attracting. BLM entered an arena of mistrust and fueled the fire with their own mistakes.
Who is Responsible?
Those of you who know me well know I don’t like the passive tense: I like clearly stating the subjects of verbs…who (specifically) is responsible for doing what (specifically). And yet, agencies like BLM are opaque…staff even refuse to specify who is specifically responsible for anything you might witness happening. But, placing the entire blame of the tragedy of Cotoni Coast Dairies on current BLM staff is unfair. Local, state and federal elected officials also bear some responsibility; good intel is that some of them have even winked behind closed doors in Washington DC, saying that local concerns needn’t be addressed. But again, placing a large amount of blame on elected officials also doesn’t seem fair: after all, they should be swayed by popular opinion (or at least election).
We saw how enough funding swayed popular opinion with the Monument Campaign, right? Apparently, no funders have been inspired to sway popular opinion in favor of wildlife protection on conservation lands in this particularly biodiverse region. Even if they did, there is a dearth of organizations who would lead that campaign. And so, in regard to the tragedies unfolding at Cotoni Coast Dairies and across Santa Cruz County’s North Coast, we must bear the brunt of blame within our community, which has long lacked leadership, energy, and focus on environmental conservation. For more on that, read my essay “Democracy and the Environment.” And, stay tuned for the third in this series of essays where I will outline steps forward out of this unfortunate predicament.
-this article adapted and updated from what appeared in late March at Bruce Bratton’s blog BrattonOnline.com
3/27/23
https://greyhayes.net/2023/03/27/what-went-wrong-at-cotoni-coast-dairies/
Someone new on the scene recently asked me to explain the history of what went wrong at Cotoni Coast Dairies. After many, many years, the property still isn’t being managed for wildlife or public safety, and it still isn’t open to the public. As a prelude to this, I urge readers to read my essay on how the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) came to manage the property in the first place…a curious story, indeed. This essay compliments that prior essay with more details, especially since BLM took over managing the property. Soon, I’ll be writing the third in this series with suggestions about what is needed to improve this unfortunate situation.
Years of On the Ground Nothing, or Worse
Since its purchase for conservation, Cotoni Coast Dairies has a history of very little stewardship and management. Trust for Public Land purchased the property in 1998 and held it until 2014. During that time, managers working for the Trust for Public Land did almost nothing to maintain the property. Occasionally, someone would show up to clear some anticipated future trail. For instance, TPL contractors extensively cleared riparian vegetation along Liddell Creek, chainsawing decades-old willow trees that shaded endangered fish habitat and provided cover for the endangered California red-legged frog. They argued that the clearance was along an ‘existing road,’ and they started putting this trail on early maps as a favored future public access point. (The trail later appeared on BLM’s maps, but federal wildlife protection agency personnel demanded otherwise, so the trail disappeared from plans.) Otherwise, TPL let fences, gates, and culverts rust away, roads and trails erode, weeds spread, and fuels build up creating hazardous conditions for future wildfires.
Eight years ago, BLM took over management of Cotoni Coast Dairies, and those same patterns largely continued. Early on, BLM staff constructed a new trail, carving through nests of state-listed sensitive wildlife without required State consultation. Like TPL, BLM staff have either overlooked erosion issues along roads or graded long abandoned ‘existing roads’ (aka ‘future trails’) with uncannily similar detrimental impacts to rare fish and amphibians. Meanwhile, terrible weeds and immense wildfire risks continued to spread across the property. The reason BLM staff have given for such poor stewardship: ‘we don’t have an approved plan.’ That changed, but management hasn’t…except for one new stretch of cattle fence and subset of future trails being created mainly by volunteers. The trails and fence came before any work on invasive species or wildfire mitigation, so we sadly sense BLM staff priorities have been directed away from conservation towards recreational access.
Decades of Funky Planning and Community Engagement
Staff from both TPL and BLM have sporadically spent a bit of time working on poor planning processes or participating in largely perfunctory public meetings about property management at Cotoni Coast Dairies. In the year 2000, TPL convened and facilitated a Community Advisory Group (CAG) to advise on guidelines meant to be used by future managers. A few of us on the CAG were asked to provide feedback about the biological portion of those guidelines, but we were unable to improve the largely cursory and incomplete biological assessments used to guide future property management. It is unclear if those guidelines have ever been used by BLM, or if TPL even cares.
BLM has done little to inventory the property, so it has very poor information with which to plan its management. Like TPL, BLM staff have shunned offers to improve biological survey data and so, as with the TPL plans, BLM’s plans have overlooked species and ecosystems that are easily identified and/or previously catalogued by reputable sources. This alienates the conservation community including the wealth of well-trained scientists that this region enjoys.
Instead of the long series of TPL’s CAG meetings, BLM staff showed up for a single community-engagement-style meeting convened and facilitated by the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County. That meeting surprisingly and very oddly focused on weighing pros and cons of parking lot locations, but it was never clear why public input was sought or what became of it afterwards. In the midst of this, an outside funder parachuted in hundreds of thousands of dollars so that several local organizations could mount a seemingly ‘grassroots’ Monument Campaign.
Monument Ahoy
In 2015, The Sempervirens Fund led the “Monument Campaign,” a fast-paced, highly scripted, well-funded effort to organize rallies and letter writing to show public support for National Monument designation of Cotoni Coast Dairies. In what is increasingly common “fake news,” the bulk of the Monument Campaign messaging was about opening the property for public use, while in fact Monument designation is more about improving conservation of the property…which would typically increase limitations on public access. This nonsense was compounded by campaign organizers’ refusal to address how designation would increase deed restriction protections already in place from TPL. Furthermore, organizers dismissed concerns about managing the anticipated influx of visitors drawn to something called a National Monument. How important the Monument Campaign was in Obama’s designation is unclear, but the divisions in the community were deep and lasting. Organizers were successful in coalescing well-meaning but very poorly informed people whose nonsensical byline was “Monument designation means my family will be able to visit!” On the other hand, there was a surprisingly politically diverse coalition equipped with well-informed questions and concerns that were never addressed. After that local experience, it is difficult for me to believe that any political faction is immune from using scripted ‘truthiness,’ hype, or even lies when they feel those tools necessary in attracting popular support for secret agendas. Unsurprisingly, leaders of the ephemeral Monument Campaign movement have since disappeared from involvement, leaving the aftermath for the real, long-term grassroots organizations to deal with, and we have yet to experience any conservation benefit of Monument designation.
Pop Up Trail Plans, Abandoned
As the Monument Campaign launched in 2015, BLM issued a proposal for the property’s first public access trail, aka the “Laguna Trail,” in an expedited environmental review process that showed our community how poorly equipped BLM staff were to adequately plan for the property. BLM staff relied on old, insufficient biological inventories for their analysis, failed to survey for endangered species, and did not include any analysis of how the trail would address social equity concerns in providing for visitor use. BLM staff did not respond to the many concerns raised by the public but instead completed their pro-forma circulation and approval of planning documents and rapidly deployed machinery and workers to clear the trail. Trail construction proceeded without conforming to even the nominal environmental guidelines outlined in BLM’s planning documents. The hastily constructed trail cut through state-protected wildlife habitat, degraded historical artifacts, and came very close to a native village site which BLM failed to plan for protecting. In addition, if the project had proceeded, BLM would have opened a trail beginning at Laguna Creek Road and Highway 1 without any new parking, litter, or bathroom facilities, without sufficient staffing for enforcement or interpretation, and without a recreational plan for the property as a whole to analyze how to best protect wildlife while providing public access. This pop up trail was BLM’s way of introducing themselves to the land and to our community.
Introductions to BLM Planning Procedures
As the first federal land manager in the County, it was BLM staff who introduced our community to the federal government’s environmental planning process. This introduction was surprising in many ways. We had been accustomed to public lands managers paying careful attention to protecting “environmentally sensitive habitat areas” (ESHA) according to Coastal Commission rules. Not so with this property – BLM staff didn’t even provide the public maps of those regulated habitat areas in any of their planning documents! With the promise of National Monument protections, we were hopeful that BLM staff would follow the required and highly regimented process outlined in BLM’s policy “Manual 6220,” which provides staff with guidelines on how to manage national monuments. Again, not so! In fact, BLM staff have not used the 6220 manual and have neglected any public acknowledgement of the manual, as if they do not intend to use it, at all. Moreover, BLM staff have never specifically acknowledged the many species and ecosystems protected through the monument designation process. Monument management protocol seems irrelevant to BLM staff, who are apparently bent on expediting the public access so vocally anticipated by the Monument Campaign (coincidence?).
Expediting Public Access
BLM staff have chosen expediency over thoroughness in each of their property planning exercises. For their most recent property-wide plan, instead of data-based predictions of visitor use, BLM staff chose a largely arbitrary low-ball figure of 250,000 anticipated visitors/year for the property. Instead of the logical in-depth alternatives analysis of a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), BLM staff have chosen expedited Environmental Analysis (EA) processes, complete with incredible conclusions of ‘Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI),’ despite significant contrary expert testimony that has gone unaddressed and unacknowledged. As we learned for the first time about its ‘federal consistency process,’ the Coastal Commission recently mandated that BLM use a phased approach to opening the property to public use. The Coastal Commission required that only if/when the BLM proved it could adequately manage public use could it open the full range of parking lots and trails; that proof requires monitoring and such monitoring would normally require a baseline inventory of sensitive natural resources, but we have yet to see that happen…we don’t even know the language to which the BLM and the Coastal Commission have agreed.
Nipping at the Community
My personal interactions with BLM staff have historically been less than pleasant, perhaps because those staff members are unused to much public engagement. My experience of poor interactions with BLM staff isn’t isolated. Someone suggested that this might be partly because those staff feel ‘rocked back on their heels’ because of criticism of their work, which is odd because our comments have been professional, polite, and part of what BLM should expect as public lands planning processes. A BLM staffer told me long ago that their colleagues were in for a surprise as they encountered the very actively involved communities of Santa Cruz County’s North Coast. Previously, most BLM staff working at Cotoni Coast Dairies had worked very much out of the public eye, in remote parts of California with little/no public oversight.
While we can’t ascertain why BLM staff have avoided offers for assistance, their subterfuge is as enlightening as it has been damaging. My compassion about staff feeling rocked back on their heels is limited because BLM staff have sought to discredit my work and harm my reputation, even approaching employers with false information to negatively affect my job while also giving ultimatums to conservation networks to preclude my participation. During one encounter at a public meeting, a BLM staff person told me that they would never collaborate with me or the groups with whom I worked because I was “against any public access at Cotoni Coast Dairies.” That was an incorrect statement about my position that I had likewise been hearing from a particularly activist, radical group of mountain bikers. As this BLM staff person echoed that quote, it was possible to better understand communication channels and allegiances.
My earliest interactions with BLM staff at Cotoni Coast Dairies were when I proposed assistance for biological monitoring. I and a few other biologists offered BLM free assistance with biological surveys to improve their understanding of the property. After that proposal, over a very long time, a BLM staff person strung us along through an incorrect informal process without ever encouraging us or acknowledging the potential value of such work. There was a chain of calls and emails that each ended with something like ‘well, maybe….’ By the time we subsequently discovered the correct application process and applied in that way, leadership had changed and the application was then officially refused.
Cumulative Impacts: Traffic, Trauma, Toilets and Trash (the 4 T’s)
It is important to view BLM’s problems in the context of issues related to visitor access on conservation lands throughout Santa Cruz County. As with all of the other public lands managers, BLM has been planning for visitor use and conservation in a vacuum, as if the surrounding lands don’t exist: this is a deeply flawed perspective. Much of the land from Santa Cruz City to the County line is heavily used by recreational visitors. Most weekends, parking lots overflow with cars and parked cars dangerously line the highway. There are too few trash cans and toilets to serve those visitors. Police and emergency responders are stretched to respond to the many accidents such visitation is bound to create.
County Parks, State Parks, the City of Santa Cruz, the Rail Trail, and BLM each have their own properties to manage and the same 4 T’s issues to address, but they aren’t doing it collaboratively. It is clear that none of those agencies has the resources to address those issues and so those issues are borne by our community. Visitors have come to expect trashy beaches. Emergency responders have come to expect exhaustion and insufficient support. Visitors with elderly family members or small children are avoiding parks due to dangerous or disgusting conditions. As each agency plans in isolation to provide for the maximum number of visitors, parks managers are dooming wildlife and visitor experience – the carrying capacity for the entire North Coast will be surpassed. It is no wonder that our community does not trust BLM to be able to manage their land and the visitors that they plan on attracting. BLM entered an arena of mistrust and fueled the fire with their own mistakes.
Who is Responsible?
Those of you who know me well know I don’t like the passive tense: I like clearly stating the subjects of verbs…who (specifically) is responsible for doing what (specifically). And yet, agencies like BLM are opaque…staff even refuse to specify who is specifically responsible for anything you might witness happening. But, placing the entire blame of the tragedy of Cotoni Coast Dairies on current BLM staff is unfair. Local, state and federal elected officials also bear some responsibility; good intel is that some of them have even winked behind closed doors in Washington DC, saying that local concerns needn’t be addressed. But again, placing a large amount of blame on elected officials also doesn’t seem fair: after all, they should be swayed by popular opinion (or at least election).
We saw how enough funding swayed popular opinion with the Monument Campaign, right? Apparently, no funders have been inspired to sway popular opinion in favor of wildlife protection on conservation lands in this particularly biodiverse region. Even if they did, there is a dearth of organizations who would lead that campaign. And so, in regard to the tragedies unfolding at Cotoni Coast Dairies and across Santa Cruz County’s North Coast, we must bear the brunt of blame within our community, which has long lacked leadership, energy, and focus on environmental conservation. For more on that, read my essay “Democracy and the Environment.” And, stay tuned for the third in this series of essays where I will outline steps forward out of this unfortunate predicament.
-this article adapted and updated from what appeared in late March at Bruce Bratton’s blog BrattonOnline.com
Comments on Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument
What Others Are Saying about Designating Coast Dairies National Monument
Here’s a letter that former county supervisor and long-time environmental champion Gary Patton wrote to Pres. Obama. We need more letters, and soon!
Dear President Obama, I know you have received a lot of information urging you to declare a National Monument on the Santa Cruz County North Coast. I was the elected County Supervisor who represented that area for twenty years, from 1975 to 1995, and I urge that you NOT declare a National Monument there. Locals (including me) have worked very hard to provide lots of protection for the natural environment of the North Coast, and those permanent protections are absolutely in place already. We don’t need a designation to PROTECT the area. It is already protected, and the designation is largely intended to stimulate more tourism, which business interests think would be a good idea, but which would actually degrade not only the environment, but even public safety on Highway One, already pretty much at its limit during high traffic season. I know that Anna Eshoo, and Barbara Boxer, both of whom I served with when they were County Supervisors, and whom I greatly respect, are asking for the North Coast designation. My advice is “Not Needed,” and probably counterproductive.
Thanks for thinking about this observation. There has been quite a slick public relations campaign in favor of a designation, but the results would not be better environmental protection, which is what is being claimed. As I say, permanent, legally-binding protections are already in place.
Very best wishes, Gary Patton
A comment from Lud & Barbara McCrary
On our way south from Swanton to Scotts Valley last Saturday, Davenport was so crowded with cars, motorcycles and people trying to cross Hwy. 1 that it was frightening. Imagine what a National Monument designation will bring in the way of increased traffic to the small town of Davenport, with its limited parking space, one fire and rescue facility, and no garbage or sanitation facilities. Those in favor of a National Monument designation are giving no consideration to the impact on local residents. They aren’t the ones who will have to deal with this increased impact on their town, homes, and neighborhoods. We residents of the area feel no one else is giving any consideration for our feelings and our lives. We strenuously object to the plan to make Coast Dairies a National Monument. Instead, lease the land for grazing and agriculture to bring in money for the maintenance of the land.
—Lud & Barbara McCrary
A letter from David Rubin
Dear North Coast neighbors and others interested in the future of Coast Dairies Lands,
At Representative Eshoo’s meeting about Coast Dairies Lands (CDL) on Monday, I delivered the Friends of the North Coast petition that opposes development of a National Monument until an adequate environmental review is completed. I wasn’t permitted to speak about the petition at the community meeting, so I’m sending you my comments now.
I spent almost 40 years working at the US Geological Survey (an agency in Department of Interior) before retiring as Senior Scientist in 2013. Much of my job there was devoted to working on environmental problems caused by inadequate environmental review prior to taking action. Here are two examples:
The point of these examples is that good science can prevent expensive land-use mistakes. Representative Eshoo compared planning the National Monument to planning a house: make plans before beginning development. I agree completely with this approach, but I disagree where the project begins. I believe that development would begin irrevocably if CDL were declared a National Monument. Before designating this status, we should complete a careful environmental review of the impact of parking, trails, and recreation on wildlife, fish, and habitat. Without such review in advance, declaring these lands as a National Monument may cause more damage than benefit.
At the meeting on Monday, Representative Farr implied that monument status would prevent oil drilling and other destructive development on these lands. In the case of CDL, however, monument status is not needed, because deed restrictions on the property already limit activities to open space, recreation and agriculture, regardless of what status the lands have. Moreover, according to the California Coastal Commission document Th15d, when the Trust for Public Lands transferred CDL to BLM, TPL retained “all mineral rights of every kind and character in, on and under the entire property, whether those minerals are known to exist now or are discovered in the future.” “This includes without limitation, all minerals, oil, gas, petroleum and other hydrocarbon substances and rights thereto, geothermal steam and all products derived from any of the foregoing.” Stated simply, the Coast Dairies Lands already have an extremely high level of protection, particularly with regard to mineral rights, because the mineral rights are owned by Trust for Public Lands.
Many of us aren’t opposed to establishing a national monument in the future, but we are opposed to committing to this path before completing an adequate science-based environmental review.
Interesting Ideas: Some thoughtful suggestions from Santa Cruzan in a letter to our elected representatives:
After several conversations, meetings, and on-line research, I have reached the conclusion that National Monument status for the Coast Dairies property, as traditionally implemented, is inappropriate and premature at this time. The land, the wildlife, the nearby natural and man-made resources, the archeological treasures, the highways, other infrastructure, the resources available to local agencies, and the neighboring communities are not prepared at this time to support the influx of potential visitors envisioned by the supporters of this proposal. I do not in any way doubt the good intentions and integrity of those supporters who are actively involved in preserving and protecting our precious and truly threatened natural environment. But we need a serious re-think regarding Monument status. With that said, here are my suggestions:
Thank you taking my concerns seriously. I want to thank many local experts for making it so painfully clear that the bio-diversity of the North Coast is greater than other region in the contiguous 48 states. After witnessing the wholesale destruction of Southern California for 60 years, I am absolutely unwilling to stand by and watch that kind of devastation happen here.
Sincerely,
John Pusey
“There has been a highly orchestrated effort by Sempervirens (Chair Fred Keeley and XDIR Reed Holderman) to convert Coast Dairies from a regular BLM land-holding into a National Monument. As the latter it will draw many more visitors and likely adversely affect wildlife and habitat (and use a lot more of our scarce surface and groundwater resources for visitors drinking it and using it in restrooms). As you likely know, I fought hard, and largely successfully, to get many protections on the Coast Dairies land, including a Coastal Development Permit. Neither Susan, nor I, favor conversion to a National Monument. No significant additional protection will result and as a practical matter the land will be degraded more by adding an estimated 250,000 to 400,000 visitors per year. There is a developing groundswell of opposition from Davenport and Bonny Doon.”—Jonathan and Susan Wittwer (Jonathan Wittwer is a prominent land use attorney in Santa Cruz County and is the founder of SOAL, Save Our Agricultural Lands.)
“Should the former Coast Dairies property be designated as a National Monument? The Coast Dairies property is about 5,800 acres in extent, and is located on the Santa Cruz County North Coast. It is already in public ownership, under the stewardship of the Bureau of Land Management. BLM also has responsibility for a large part of the former Fort Ord, and Fort Ord, of course, has already been declared to be a National Monument. National Monument status is not conferred by popular vote. The President gets to say what lands should become National Monuments. You can read the Presidential Proclamation that conferred National Monument status on Fort Ord by visiting kusp.org/landuse. Not everyone is enthusiastic about designating the Santa Cruz County North Coast as a National Monument. No money comes with the designation. Just lots of visitors! 400,000 annual visitors is a figure being suggested as a realistic estimate. Where do they park? How do they get there, and would such a designation actually turn land already protected into what amounts to a nationally advertised resort destination? Will Davenport turn into a hotel/resort gateway? Could the natural resource values of the North Coast actually be compromised, not protected, by the Monument designation.These are all worthy questions. Robust public discussion and participation is advised!”— Gary Patton, for 20 years the Santa Cruz County Supervisor for the Third District—from his blog The Land Use Report, March 19, 2015
“This will probably be a huge boon to the town of Davenport. Since we have no economic base up here [Bonny Doon], it will be an impact without compensation in our community. We will immediately need about 8 people to step up to the plate and become volunteer firefighters. I don’t think that many people exist in our community currently that could meet the physical and time demands. And there is no money in the plans that I have seen to pay for more emergency response. We already have trouble getting our roads fixed and ditches and vegetation cleared. I’m just not sure how the money brought into the county would ever trickle into our area. I’m asking for some equitable hashing out of the financial impact. It is great to have people enjoying the area, but it needs to have a sound plan to accompany the public use.”--Susan Mason, Bonny Doon Fire Team Captain
“Bay Area conservation groups say they want to raise the land’s profile, which was preserved in 1998 when environmentalists purchased the six-mile stretch of property with $40 million from the Trust for Public Land. But let’s be clear. Raising the profile really means figuring out how to get the cash to manage the property, and this is clearly what this effort is all about. The Bureau of Land Management, which now controls the inland portion of the land, simply doesn’t have the money to manage it. We support the idea of actually granting the public access to protected spaces rather than just acquiring land and locking the gates, as can be the case with public land acquisition — but doing so to the extent this monument proposal would do comes with significant challenges. The concerns from property neighbors in Davenport and Bonny Doon about traffic and strains on local public safety resources are legitimate and will need addressing. Picture the drive up Highway 1 to Davenport, especially when you’re stuck behind a slow-moving RV whose driver seems oblivious to the dozens of cars stacked up behind him. Now picture thousands more people on the road. Where exactly will people access the land? Where will they park? Where will that visitor center go? What other facilities would be needed and built? No one is offering exact estimates on visitors, but Fort Ord in Monterey County, a recently designated national monument, saw 400,000 people last year. We also have to ask: This is a grand piece of property, but what exactly qualifies it as a national monument? It’s an expansive stretch of undeveloped coast in a part of the world where that is getting more and more rare, but the property also surrounds a polluted old cement plant. The monument, meanwhile, would have redwoods in the name, but the majority of the land has none. Big Basin Redwoods State Park to the north, The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park to the south and Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park to the east could each arguably claim more impressive stands. Backers of the local project know the drill, and are saying and doing all the right things — they’ll engage the public, seek community buy-in and address concerns. We hope they do that. The proposal could transform the county’s North Coast. It could speed transformation of the cement plant. It could be an economic boost to the entire region. But first myriad issues need to be addressed.”—Santa Cruz Sentinel Editorial, Feb. 21, 2015
“We have no budget in our 2015-2016 fiscal year for a North Coast deputy. We’re concerned about the beaches and Davenport. We’re going to need more funding. We’ll have to have a full-time North Coast deputy when the national monument opens.”--Santa Cruz County Sheriff Jim Hart, at a Davenport/North Coast Association meeting in Swanton March 18, 2015
Letter to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors—”I am a professor of Dramatic Literature, currently teaching a course on Greek Tragedy to future engineers and real estate moguls at UCSC. As an authority on tragedy, I would like to deliver a professional opinion regarding the Santa Cruz Redwoods National Monument campaign. Yesterday’s lecture was on the Hippolytus by Euripides, a play that is built on the proposition that humans are, by nature, rapacious creatures; innately and universally driven by desire – the desire for more, better, and bigger – and that that desire, in combination with short-sighted thinking, can and will eventually lead to tragic consequences. (Think environmental destruction.)
Outside my professional life, I have a hobby, and that hobby is Coast Dairies. I have hiked on the Coast Dairies property regularly for forty-two years, and gotten to know the eastern half of that property intimately (perhaps more so than any one on the monument campaign). In the process, I also got to know Fred Pfyffer, a graduate of the University of Fribourg in agronomy, who came to this country from Lugano, Switzerland, in 1920, at the age of nineteen, to manage the land at the behest of its Swiss owners, and subsequently became the president of the Coast Dairies and Land Company. Sixty years after his arrival in Santa Cruz, Fred would regale me with tales of raising cattle in the dwindling company of elk on the coastal prairies, and of driving the cattle down Mission Street, then a dusty dirt road, all the way to King City. Parts of that history had to do with degradation of the environment. He saw Liddell Creek silt in subsequent to the development of the limestone quarry, thus depriving the anadromous fish population that have dwindled and almost disappeared (the Coho Salmon and Steelhead Trout) of suitable spawning habitat, and the approach of invasive brush (thistle, Scotch broom, poison oak and coyote brush) that was then in the slow process of engulfing the coastal bench lands as small-scale open grazing became less profitable and less popular along the coast.
I was an enthusiastic supporter of the acquisition of the Coast Dairies property as public land in the late1990s. I campaigned on behalf of the purchase, wrote letters to Governor Deukmajian encouraging the state’s fiscal support of the purchase, and donated money to the effort. I subsequently conferred on occasions with the Trust for Public Land regarding the management of the land during the interim period between the purchase of the land its transfer to the Bureau of Land Management. I also have to admit to opening up a trail on the property connecting the interior oak forests to the coastal terraces. In addition, I have been in regular contact with Rick Cooper, the Field Manager at the Hollister Field Office of the BLM and have shown him around the land.
What came out of the 1998 Coast Dairies purchase and the property’s subsequent transfer to the BLM last year was the best result we could have possibly hoped for. Contractual deed restrictions were attached to the Coast Dairies land that would assure the preservation of the habitat indefinitely (no extraction of mineral resources, no logging, no fires, no visitor motor vehicle use, no hunting and fishing, no overnight camping, etc.). Furthermore, those agreements are guaranteed in perpetuity.
In effect, we have assured the preservation of the habitat indefinitely as best we can. Now we are rushing headlong into a situation that will likely throw all those gains away. With all of its political shrewdness, the Sempervirens Fund, has launched its campaign to convert the Coast Dairies property into a national monument. The wildfire reception this campaign has enjoyed in the Santa Cruz area and the formation of a growing coalition of civic organizations indicate that this is clearly a (bad) idea whose time has come. I am hoping that we can slow this movement enough to think it through with greater rationality. Most of the objections to the conversion coming out of the Rural Bonny Doon Association, the Davenport/North Coast Association, the Friends of the North Coast, and other concerned citizens have to do with promoting and mitigating the human recreational use of the property. Their concerns with garbage collection, parking, fire prevention, Westside Santa Cruz traffic, access, etc. are not baseless, and merit serious consideration. There was, for example, a major forest fire on the Coast Dairies land less than six years ago that burned 7,817 acres.
It should be apparent to you that my major concerns are not with the recreational use of the Coast Dairies land. I enjoy hiking there, and I can easily see that others would also. My concern is one of scale. Becoming a national monument is tantamount to issuing an open invitation to hundreds of millions of visitors. To quote the Santa Cruz Redwoods National Monument brochure, “With national monument designation comes added protection, attention and national recognition that a place is particularly special.” As I have stated, the protection is already in place: That leaves the attention and recognition. Since national monuments are included in federal national parks information and publicity, families from Newark, New Jersey to Santiago, Chile will know of the Santa Cruz Redwoods National Monument and may choose to include a visit in their plans for a California vacation. Why not? It’s astonishingly beautiful.
Furthermore, as the Monument brochure states, it will also “generate considerable economic benefits for the community.” But, at what price? We all know that Fort Ord’s visitors population increased tenfold to 400,000 per year in the three years since it became a national monument, and Fort Ord will, upon completion, have two and a half times the landmass that Coast Dairies has as well as more access points and miles of trail. Even the Wilder Ranch State Park receives 483,000 visitors annually. But, let’s suppose that Coast Dairies only attracts 100,000 visitors annually, as the Santa Cruz Land Trust Deputy Director Stephen Slade estimates, that’s still close to 300 visitors a day, and we know that there will be a far greater concentration on holiday weekends.”
So, simply put, here’s my question. “Is issuing an invitation to the Coast Dairies property that will draw several hundred thousand visitors a year consistent with Santa Cruz Redwoods National Monument campaign’s stated goal of habitat preservation? It’s a rhetorical question: Obviously not.--James Bierman, Professor of Theater Art, UCSC
Dear President Obama, I know you have received a lot of information urging you to declare a National Monument on the Santa Cruz County North Coast. I was the elected County Supervisor who represented that area for twenty years, from 1975 to 1995, and I urge that you NOT declare a National Monument there. Locals (including me) have worked very hard to provide lots of protection for the natural environment of the North Coast, and those permanent protections are absolutely in place already. We don’t need a designation to PROTECT the area. It is already protected, and the designation is largely intended to stimulate more tourism, which business interests think would be a good idea, but which would actually degrade not only the environment, but even public safety on Highway One, already pretty much at its limit during high traffic season. I know that Anna Eshoo, and Barbara Boxer, both of whom I served with when they were County Supervisors, and whom I greatly respect, are asking for the North Coast designation. My advice is “Not Needed,” and probably counterproductive.
Thanks for thinking about this observation. There has been quite a slick public relations campaign in favor of a designation, but the results would not be better environmental protection, which is what is being claimed. As I say, permanent, legally-binding protections are already in place.
Very best wishes, Gary Patton
A comment from Lud & Barbara McCrary
On our way south from Swanton to Scotts Valley last Saturday, Davenport was so crowded with cars, motorcycles and people trying to cross Hwy. 1 that it was frightening. Imagine what a National Monument designation will bring in the way of increased traffic to the small town of Davenport, with its limited parking space, one fire and rescue facility, and no garbage or sanitation facilities. Those in favor of a National Monument designation are giving no consideration to the impact on local residents. They aren’t the ones who will have to deal with this increased impact on their town, homes, and neighborhoods. We residents of the area feel no one else is giving any consideration for our feelings and our lives. We strenuously object to the plan to make Coast Dairies a National Monument. Instead, lease the land for grazing and agriculture to bring in money for the maintenance of the land.
—Lud & Barbara McCrary
A letter from David Rubin
Dear North Coast neighbors and others interested in the future of Coast Dairies Lands,
At Representative Eshoo’s meeting about Coast Dairies Lands (CDL) on Monday, I delivered the Friends of the North Coast petition that opposes development of a National Monument until an adequate environmental review is completed. I wasn’t permitted to speak about the petition at the community meeting, so I’m sending you my comments now.
I spent almost 40 years working at the US Geological Survey (an agency in Department of Interior) before retiring as Senior Scientist in 2013. Much of my job there was devoted to working on environmental problems caused by inadequate environmental review prior to taking action. Here are two examples:
- Construction of Glen Canyon Dam caused problems for endangered fish, archaeological sites, and human recreation on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park. I co-designed the restoration floods that have been implemented there to help restore habitat along the river (part of a restoration program that has cost almost 100 million dollars). The environmental problems could have been avoided or minimized if hydrologic and ecologic studies had been conducted before dam construction, so that the dam could have been built differently (for example, with capability to bypass sediment).
- In the late 1970s, a USGS colleague and I discovered an active offshore earthquake fault adjacent to the Humboldt Bay nuclear reactor. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission reviewed our fault map and permanently closed the reactor. An inexpensive geological survey should have been conducted before the plant location was approved. This would have avoided construction of an unusable nuclear power plant paid for by PGE customers.
The point of these examples is that good science can prevent expensive land-use mistakes. Representative Eshoo compared planning the National Monument to planning a house: make plans before beginning development. I agree completely with this approach, but I disagree where the project begins. I believe that development would begin irrevocably if CDL were declared a National Monument. Before designating this status, we should complete a careful environmental review of the impact of parking, trails, and recreation on wildlife, fish, and habitat. Without such review in advance, declaring these lands as a National Monument may cause more damage than benefit.
At the meeting on Monday, Representative Farr implied that monument status would prevent oil drilling and other destructive development on these lands. In the case of CDL, however, monument status is not needed, because deed restrictions on the property already limit activities to open space, recreation and agriculture, regardless of what status the lands have. Moreover, according to the California Coastal Commission document Th15d, when the Trust for Public Lands transferred CDL to BLM, TPL retained “all mineral rights of every kind and character in, on and under the entire property, whether those minerals are known to exist now or are discovered in the future.” “This includes without limitation, all minerals, oil, gas, petroleum and other hydrocarbon substances and rights thereto, geothermal steam and all products derived from any of the foregoing.” Stated simply, the Coast Dairies Lands already have an extremely high level of protection, particularly with regard to mineral rights, because the mineral rights are owned by Trust for Public Lands.
Many of us aren’t opposed to establishing a national monument in the future, but we are opposed to committing to this path before completing an adequate science-based environmental review.
Interesting Ideas: Some thoughtful suggestions from Santa Cruzan in a letter to our elected representatives:
After several conversations, meetings, and on-line research, I have reached the conclusion that National Monument status for the Coast Dairies property, as traditionally implemented, is inappropriate and premature at this time. The land, the wildlife, the nearby natural and man-made resources, the archeological treasures, the highways, other infrastructure, the resources available to local agencies, and the neighboring communities are not prepared at this time to support the influx of potential visitors envisioned by the supporters of this proposal. I do not in any way doubt the good intentions and integrity of those supporters who are actively involved in preserving and protecting our precious and truly threatened natural environment. But we need a serious re-think regarding Monument status. With that said, here are my suggestions:
- Create a new model for National Monuments that is not recreation focused, but re-creation and preservation focused.
- For the first several years, limit access to only those who are willing and able to contribute to the research, preservation, and education activities deemed appropriate for the site(s). They would work under the supervision of trained docents, researchers, or other qualified individuals working in close cooperation with the many organizations involved in this project. As the property is better researched and evaluated, and as financial support for mitigation, restoration and management are firmly established, access can be slowly increased.
- Insure that such opportunities as described above are available to any volunteer, regardless of physical ability or limitation.
- Provide shuttle service, possibly from the UC facilities in the Mission Extension area, or perhaps the UCSC campus. On-site parking should be absolutely minimal.
- No mountain bikes, off-road vehicles, or horse trails should be allowed. Overnight camping for multi-day research and restoration activities can be studied and, if feasible, implemented.
- On-going public awareness and education forums explaining this new model for public lands should be an essential feature of the plan.
Thank you taking my concerns seriously. I want to thank many local experts for making it so painfully clear that the bio-diversity of the North Coast is greater than other region in the contiguous 48 states. After witnessing the wholesale destruction of Southern California for 60 years, I am absolutely unwilling to stand by and watch that kind of devastation happen here.
Sincerely,
John Pusey
“There has been a highly orchestrated effort by Sempervirens (Chair Fred Keeley and XDIR Reed Holderman) to convert Coast Dairies from a regular BLM land-holding into a National Monument. As the latter it will draw many more visitors and likely adversely affect wildlife and habitat (and use a lot more of our scarce surface and groundwater resources for visitors drinking it and using it in restrooms). As you likely know, I fought hard, and largely successfully, to get many protections on the Coast Dairies land, including a Coastal Development Permit. Neither Susan, nor I, favor conversion to a National Monument. No significant additional protection will result and as a practical matter the land will be degraded more by adding an estimated 250,000 to 400,000 visitors per year. There is a developing groundswell of opposition from Davenport and Bonny Doon.”—Jonathan and Susan Wittwer (Jonathan Wittwer is a prominent land use attorney in Santa Cruz County and is the founder of SOAL, Save Our Agricultural Lands.)
“Should the former Coast Dairies property be designated as a National Monument? The Coast Dairies property is about 5,800 acres in extent, and is located on the Santa Cruz County North Coast. It is already in public ownership, under the stewardship of the Bureau of Land Management. BLM also has responsibility for a large part of the former Fort Ord, and Fort Ord, of course, has already been declared to be a National Monument. National Monument status is not conferred by popular vote. The President gets to say what lands should become National Monuments. You can read the Presidential Proclamation that conferred National Monument status on Fort Ord by visiting kusp.org/landuse. Not everyone is enthusiastic about designating the Santa Cruz County North Coast as a National Monument. No money comes with the designation. Just lots of visitors! 400,000 annual visitors is a figure being suggested as a realistic estimate. Where do they park? How do they get there, and would such a designation actually turn land already protected into what amounts to a nationally advertised resort destination? Will Davenport turn into a hotel/resort gateway? Could the natural resource values of the North Coast actually be compromised, not protected, by the Monument designation.These are all worthy questions. Robust public discussion and participation is advised!”— Gary Patton, for 20 years the Santa Cruz County Supervisor for the Third District—from his blog The Land Use Report, March 19, 2015
“This will probably be a huge boon to the town of Davenport. Since we have no economic base up here [Bonny Doon], it will be an impact without compensation in our community. We will immediately need about 8 people to step up to the plate and become volunteer firefighters. I don’t think that many people exist in our community currently that could meet the physical and time demands. And there is no money in the plans that I have seen to pay for more emergency response. We already have trouble getting our roads fixed and ditches and vegetation cleared. I’m just not sure how the money brought into the county would ever trickle into our area. I’m asking for some equitable hashing out of the financial impact. It is great to have people enjoying the area, but it needs to have a sound plan to accompany the public use.”--Susan Mason, Bonny Doon Fire Team Captain
“Bay Area conservation groups say they want to raise the land’s profile, which was preserved in 1998 when environmentalists purchased the six-mile stretch of property with $40 million from the Trust for Public Land. But let’s be clear. Raising the profile really means figuring out how to get the cash to manage the property, and this is clearly what this effort is all about. The Bureau of Land Management, which now controls the inland portion of the land, simply doesn’t have the money to manage it. We support the idea of actually granting the public access to protected spaces rather than just acquiring land and locking the gates, as can be the case with public land acquisition — but doing so to the extent this monument proposal would do comes with significant challenges. The concerns from property neighbors in Davenport and Bonny Doon about traffic and strains on local public safety resources are legitimate and will need addressing. Picture the drive up Highway 1 to Davenport, especially when you’re stuck behind a slow-moving RV whose driver seems oblivious to the dozens of cars stacked up behind him. Now picture thousands more people on the road. Where exactly will people access the land? Where will they park? Where will that visitor center go? What other facilities would be needed and built? No one is offering exact estimates on visitors, but Fort Ord in Monterey County, a recently designated national monument, saw 400,000 people last year. We also have to ask: This is a grand piece of property, but what exactly qualifies it as a national monument? It’s an expansive stretch of undeveloped coast in a part of the world where that is getting more and more rare, but the property also surrounds a polluted old cement plant. The monument, meanwhile, would have redwoods in the name, but the majority of the land has none. Big Basin Redwoods State Park to the north, The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park to the south and Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park to the east could each arguably claim more impressive stands. Backers of the local project know the drill, and are saying and doing all the right things — they’ll engage the public, seek community buy-in and address concerns. We hope they do that. The proposal could transform the county’s North Coast. It could speed transformation of the cement plant. It could be an economic boost to the entire region. But first myriad issues need to be addressed.”—Santa Cruz Sentinel Editorial, Feb. 21, 2015
“We have no budget in our 2015-2016 fiscal year for a North Coast deputy. We’re concerned about the beaches and Davenport. We’re going to need more funding. We’ll have to have a full-time North Coast deputy when the national monument opens.”--Santa Cruz County Sheriff Jim Hart, at a Davenport/North Coast Association meeting in Swanton March 18, 2015
Letter to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors—”I am a professor of Dramatic Literature, currently teaching a course on Greek Tragedy to future engineers and real estate moguls at UCSC. As an authority on tragedy, I would like to deliver a professional opinion regarding the Santa Cruz Redwoods National Monument campaign. Yesterday’s lecture was on the Hippolytus by Euripides, a play that is built on the proposition that humans are, by nature, rapacious creatures; innately and universally driven by desire – the desire for more, better, and bigger – and that that desire, in combination with short-sighted thinking, can and will eventually lead to tragic consequences. (Think environmental destruction.)
Outside my professional life, I have a hobby, and that hobby is Coast Dairies. I have hiked on the Coast Dairies property regularly for forty-two years, and gotten to know the eastern half of that property intimately (perhaps more so than any one on the monument campaign). In the process, I also got to know Fred Pfyffer, a graduate of the University of Fribourg in agronomy, who came to this country from Lugano, Switzerland, in 1920, at the age of nineteen, to manage the land at the behest of its Swiss owners, and subsequently became the president of the Coast Dairies and Land Company. Sixty years after his arrival in Santa Cruz, Fred would regale me with tales of raising cattle in the dwindling company of elk on the coastal prairies, and of driving the cattle down Mission Street, then a dusty dirt road, all the way to King City. Parts of that history had to do with degradation of the environment. He saw Liddell Creek silt in subsequent to the development of the limestone quarry, thus depriving the anadromous fish population that have dwindled and almost disappeared (the Coho Salmon and Steelhead Trout) of suitable spawning habitat, and the approach of invasive brush (thistle, Scotch broom, poison oak and coyote brush) that was then in the slow process of engulfing the coastal bench lands as small-scale open grazing became less profitable and less popular along the coast.
I was an enthusiastic supporter of the acquisition of the Coast Dairies property as public land in the late1990s. I campaigned on behalf of the purchase, wrote letters to Governor Deukmajian encouraging the state’s fiscal support of the purchase, and donated money to the effort. I subsequently conferred on occasions with the Trust for Public Land regarding the management of the land during the interim period between the purchase of the land its transfer to the Bureau of Land Management. I also have to admit to opening up a trail on the property connecting the interior oak forests to the coastal terraces. In addition, I have been in regular contact with Rick Cooper, the Field Manager at the Hollister Field Office of the BLM and have shown him around the land.
What came out of the 1998 Coast Dairies purchase and the property’s subsequent transfer to the BLM last year was the best result we could have possibly hoped for. Contractual deed restrictions were attached to the Coast Dairies land that would assure the preservation of the habitat indefinitely (no extraction of mineral resources, no logging, no fires, no visitor motor vehicle use, no hunting and fishing, no overnight camping, etc.). Furthermore, those agreements are guaranteed in perpetuity.
In effect, we have assured the preservation of the habitat indefinitely as best we can. Now we are rushing headlong into a situation that will likely throw all those gains away. With all of its political shrewdness, the Sempervirens Fund, has launched its campaign to convert the Coast Dairies property into a national monument. The wildfire reception this campaign has enjoyed in the Santa Cruz area and the formation of a growing coalition of civic organizations indicate that this is clearly a (bad) idea whose time has come. I am hoping that we can slow this movement enough to think it through with greater rationality. Most of the objections to the conversion coming out of the Rural Bonny Doon Association, the Davenport/North Coast Association, the Friends of the North Coast, and other concerned citizens have to do with promoting and mitigating the human recreational use of the property. Their concerns with garbage collection, parking, fire prevention, Westside Santa Cruz traffic, access, etc. are not baseless, and merit serious consideration. There was, for example, a major forest fire on the Coast Dairies land less than six years ago that burned 7,817 acres.
It should be apparent to you that my major concerns are not with the recreational use of the Coast Dairies land. I enjoy hiking there, and I can easily see that others would also. My concern is one of scale. Becoming a national monument is tantamount to issuing an open invitation to hundreds of millions of visitors. To quote the Santa Cruz Redwoods National Monument brochure, “With national monument designation comes added protection, attention and national recognition that a place is particularly special.” As I have stated, the protection is already in place: That leaves the attention and recognition. Since national monuments are included in federal national parks information and publicity, families from Newark, New Jersey to Santiago, Chile will know of the Santa Cruz Redwoods National Monument and may choose to include a visit in their plans for a California vacation. Why not? It’s astonishingly beautiful.
Furthermore, as the Monument brochure states, it will also “generate considerable economic benefits for the community.” But, at what price? We all know that Fort Ord’s visitors population increased tenfold to 400,000 per year in the three years since it became a national monument, and Fort Ord will, upon completion, have two and a half times the landmass that Coast Dairies has as well as more access points and miles of trail. Even the Wilder Ranch State Park receives 483,000 visitors annually. But, let’s suppose that Coast Dairies only attracts 100,000 visitors annually, as the Santa Cruz Land Trust Deputy Director Stephen Slade estimates, that’s still close to 300 visitors a day, and we know that there will be a far greater concentration on holiday weekends.”
So, simply put, here’s my question. “Is issuing an invitation to the Coast Dairies property that will draw several hundred thousand visitors a year consistent with Santa Cruz Redwoods National Monument campaign’s stated goal of habitat preservation? It’s a rhetorical question: Obviously not.--James Bierman, Professor of Theater Art, UCSC