The Invisible Man meets the General Plan

Just like the Invisible Man could not be seen, we the people of Amador County are not seen or heard in the DEIR for the General Plan except as an intrusion.  While fulfilling the mandates of current law, the land use which determines our way of life, our prosperity, our freedom and our values is gone. Being seen or heard is mitigated away. We are secondary to an abstract concept of the natural world.

Page 2-22 & 23 contain such stringent requirements for maintaining and replacing oak woodlands one wonders how they ever grew on their own before human intervention. Seeming to come from science’s need to freeze the moment for observation, this contradictory static view of a dynamic system prevails. This premise dooms it to failure along with the more obvious affects on the quality of human life. Reality is now invisible.

The “waters of the United States” fill pages 2-23 &24 with that edict from the Environmental Protection Agency never approved by Congress. “The government overreach from this rule would extend beyond farms to affect businesses, homes, schools, churches-any place built on land where water runs through after a heavy rain,” said Jimmy Parnell, president of the Alabama Farmers Federation. The mitigation required by the United States Army Corps of Engineers is both complex and costly. It is so extensive that if one were to complete all the paperwork the eye strain alone may require an additional ophthalmologists’ exam afterward. So if you want to build a home or business that may get wet I suggest you become invisible.

Cultural Resources follow on pages 2-25 to 27. While no one wants to trash these resources, people have lived in Amador County for millenniums so almost anything could be considered a cultural resource. The map on page 12 of the Draft General Plan’s Conservation Element shows Cultural Resources Sensitivity to encompass about a third of the county if you exclude the forested high country. I wonder how much a no growth attitude affected the judgment calls made for this map and the related extensive state and federal laws. Their text cites historic buildings, structures, objects, landscapes or sites. If destroyed the cultural resources can be documented, but the documentation versus feasibility of preservation decision required could induce a frenzy for future litigants.  

The Mineral Resources zoning is documented on page 2-19. The DEIR says little except to cite state law. The proposed General Plan says, “Ensure extraction and processing of mineral resources and aggregate deposits may continue. Encourage extraction and processing of mineral and aggregate resources” (page E-29, Economic Development Element). The Mineral Resources Zone map of this same plan, page 15 of the Conservation Element, shows vast resources and clearly delineates the mother lode. Yet the Housing Element, already passed by the Board of Supervisors as a required separate item, shows home sites atop possible gold mines between Sutter Creek and Amador City on page 51. Our usually scrupulously detailed DEIR appears to neglected mineral resources when it fits into their designs to compact our population.

Part of the reason for this is the overriding fear of global warming caused by greenhouse gases. This absolute fraud, enshrined in state law, consumes pages 2-30 to 33.  Many of the migration measures only make sense, if at all, in large cities. Call it their expensive cookie cutter approach or something more deliberate, but the DEIR has us as invisible by exhibiting no appreciation for or respect of our rural way of life. Any masochist is free to read their list of restrictions. Rather than global warming I fear we have entered an intellectual ice age.

Copyright 2015, Mark L Bennett