The Mother Lode Land Trust is now hiring a full time director and a half time assistant to that director. According to their website the impetus for this is: “MLLT is posed to assume a total of eight additional conservation easements (8,000 acres) from the Stewardship Council as part of the PG&E bankruptcy settlement.” Whose land and, therefore, whose money does this really belong to? The stockholders? The bond holders? The ratepayers? The taxpayers? Isn’t this environmental theft of our private property rights a far greater scandal that the worst case scenario of the Human & Health Services Building vividly and biasedly portrayed by Eric Winslow in his latest editorial disguised as a Ledger Dispatch news article?
The land tenure system of the United States is increasingly regressing to the Middle Ages. The super rich are sheltering their wealth through a system of conservation easements, land banks, tax credits and carbon capture forests. These environmental aristocrats will increasingly determine our future. I can’t help but recall Bob Dylan’s song about the outlaw Pretty Boy Floyd: “…through this world I’ve rambled, I’ve seen lots of funny men, Some will rob you with a six-gun, And some with a fountain pen.”
Do we have the will to fight powerful outside forces with seemingly endless funds? Do we want to remain free in Amador County?
Copyright 2016, Mark L. Bennett
The land tenure system of the United States is increasingly regressing to the Middle Ages. The super rich are sheltering their wealth through a system of conservation easements, land banks, tax credits and carbon capture forests. These environmental aristocrats will increasingly determine our future. I can’t help but recall Bob Dylan’s song about the outlaw Pretty Boy Floyd: “…through this world I’ve rambled, I’ve seen lots of funny men, Some will rob you with a six-gun, And some with a fountain pen.”
Do we have the will to fight powerful outside forces with seemingly endless funds? Do we want to remain free in Amador County?
Copyright 2016, Mark L. Bennett
Here's how I responded to this on Facebook ...
ReplyDeleteMark, do you object to private landowners making agreements on how to dispose of their lands? That's what we're talking about here, in case you missed it.
The land is owned by PG&E. It is being transferred to various parties as a result of the company's bankruptcy and the settlement of that bankruptcy that followed. During the bankruptcy, PG&E owed money to creditors who, instead of insisting on getting their money, worked out a multiparty stipulated agreement. That agreement requires conservation easements or conservation covenants (for federal lands) be placed on the 144,000 thousand acres in question. All of the lands have been open to the public throughout PG&E's ownership, and they're by and large going to stay that way. They will be managed according to land management plans that in some cases include logging and a variety of other activities.
The Mother Lode Land Trust will be an easement holder for lands in the Mokelumne watershed. They will not own the land in fee. PG&E will retain title to some of the land in the Mokelumne watershed, CalFire gets some parcels near Tiger Creek as an addition to the Mt. Zion State Forest, and some of the land (along Cole Creek behind Bear River Res) is moving into U.S. Forest Service ownership. In other areas, land is being transferred to tribal groups and other qualified nonprofits or governmental agencies.
Full disclosure: I have been involved in this issue since the late 1990s and my husband is a member of the Stewardship Council board, representing the California Hydropower Reform Coalition. Other council members represent PG&E, CA Farm Bureau Federation, Association of California Water Agencies, CA Dept of Fish and Wildlife, California Forestry Association, California tribal interests, California Public Utility Commission, Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, State Water Quality Control Board, Rural County Representatives of California (Amador belongs), Trust for Public Land, U.S. Forest Service/ BLM, and the PUC Office of the Ratepayer Advocate. The board makes its decisions by consensus, not majority vote.
For more, see http://www.stewardshipcouncil.org/