Dracula Meets the General Plan

Just as the Frankenstein monster has no soul, Dracula survives by draining the life blood of the living. This is an apt metaphor for the Summary of Environmental Impacts and Mitigation Measures at the end of part 2 – Executive Summary of the DEIR for the General Plan. In my last posting, I discussed the environmental tragedy of some additional traveler conveniences along the Hwy 88 scenic corridor. Other impacts from that section will now be examined.

While nobody wants the vibrate night sky obliterated by artificial lighting, the plan (2-8) describes everyday occurrences as if they were criminal offenses. Several reasonable suggestions for mitigation measures are described, but they all would make having a business or owning a home more complex and costly. But while the plan decries nighttime lights, it proposes stores along a sidewalk for the Pine Grove town center with parking behind the businesses. This effectively doubles the amount of artificial lighting. It seems that ideological concerns for the European style town centers make their sometimes valid, if overstated, environmental goals moot.

Another significant environmental impact is the conversion of 307 acres of farmland (2-9, 10) to other uses including mining and public facilities. Certainly welfare offices take up less land than productive facilities that employ people. The hoped for normal growth of the economy now has too significant an impact and is advised to be mitigated with costly measures that help preclude it from happening. One of these is conservation easements. This takes more land away from private decision making and, over time, diminishes opportunity for those who come after us. If you add up all these easements and other similar land control schemes nationwide and place them upon a map, it looks like the aristocratic land tenure system of the Middle Ages, not the modern democracy we still think we live in.

The draft General Plan allows some conversion of forest land to other uses (2-11). Not surprisingly this is considered another significant environmental impact that should be met with mitigation measures such as berms, fencing, landscaping and building orientation. So if you want to live in the forest, you have to somehow live apart from it. This recalls the abstraction I noted in my prior installment, the direct opposite of our inherent participation in the natural world. The freedom that dies here is not considered, by their way of thinking, a significant impact.

The document continues with the significant impacts of construction-related emissions (2-12, 13) including everyday dust. They propose 15 mitigation measures such as suspending work when the wind exceeds 20 mph, a posted telephone number for dust complaints and the use of electric rather than fossil fuel equipment. Of course, there is no cost benefit analysis for these sometimes extreme measures. But the document writers are fulfilling the law and providing the cost benefit decision makers, generally the County Board of Supervisors, a laundry list of options. Herein lies the true danger of this document. Almost every one of the proposed or suggested mitigation measures is the basis for a lawsuit. The case is clear: It was recommended to you, and you didn’t require it.

Air pollution, defined as particulate matter, reactive organic gases and mono-nitrogen oxides, is also a significant impact if anything changes (2-14, 15). Ten mitigation measures are proposed under the title of “Implement Reduction Measures for Discretionary Projects”. It seems that your future place of employment or your child’s future home are discretionary in their point of view. Some of these measures are beyond the scope of what the County does. While there already is a thriving solar installation business in Amador County and the County has set a good example with the new county building, a new county only solar program is beyond County resources. The document suggests new solar over “unused… ground space” which at least at this point in the document amazingly has no environmental impact. Another measure is having businesses implement telecommuting and flexible work hours, both of which are beyond the purview of what the County does and probably beyond what the county should do as they clearly interfere with one’s prerogative to run their business or agency efficiently. This idea ignores the fact that most local enterprise is service-oriented, and that we do not have huge traffic jams with hundreds of idling vehicles. These concepts appear to be an outside cookie cutter consultant approach and little else.

Some of their measures are simply over the top in terms of cost benefit, with a significant downside of hassle and hostility such as: “Enforce and follow limits idling time for commercial vehicles, including delivery and construction vehicles.” Are we to have a sheriff’s deputy stand there with a timer? Are they to arrive at the enforcement location by bicycle to prevent further potential pollution?

Other mitigation measures include bike lanes on our roads and “Promote ‘least polluting’ ways to connect people and goods to their destinations.” While that statement may sound innocuous they are asking us to change our entire way of life, something I consider a very significant impact. If this Count Dracula document were to be literally implemented, our new lifestyle would be zombie-like.

These are a few highlights. More to come…

Copyright 2014, Mark L. Bennett

“Papa’s got a brand new bag”

This commentary isn’t about James Brown, the godfather of soul, but about having to pay for bags at grocery stores after the first of the year. When someone leaves the supermarket with a plastic bag that bag often contains four or five other plastic bags with produce, etc. Apparently those ‘inner’ bags somehow don’t count in this environmental equation. What can explain this leave of common sense? One can certainly conjecture politically progressive brownie points as an objective. Referring back to the pop culture word usage of James Brown: What bag are you really into?

In addition to the obvious nonsensical nature of this new law for those sincerely concerned about plastic bag pollution, it will cost consumers more money. And coincidentally, or not so coincidentally, this new expense is regressive, like so many environmental regulations, and unequally punishes those least able to pay. I remember when everyone carried their own cloth bags to the store having spent my early childhood in an inner city neighborhood about 60+ years ago. We were not affluent enough to give out free bags.

Given the depression, the war and some personal tragedies, my grandmother didn’t smile a lot. But one day she was beaming when I walked into her kitchen. She was washing out, to save, a plastic bag that some produce had came in. “Look what they gave me at the market for free!” she exclaimed in amazement at the prosperity we had achieved.

We have now lost that prosperity, and use other idioms to express what we are afraid to say.

Copyright 2014, Mark L. Bennett

Frankenstein Meets the General Plan

After printing out (one sided) the Draft EIR for the General Plan, I had a stack almost six inches tall on my desk. Others refer to this as “The 2,000 Pages”. All this is in addition to the General Plan itself, and to the Housing Element of the General Plan, which also must go through a separate EIR process. My first question should appear obvious: Is this expense of money and human effort justified?  Historically, the EIR processes followed the General Plan/Zoning process, so it got tacked on as a separate undertaking given the governmental bureaucratic point of view. But both the modern planning and conservation movements started about a hundred years ago in response to industrialization and rapid urbanization. Aren’t both the General Plan and the EIR about essentially the same thing: preventing mistakes? Do we really need two or more studies for the same end?

Ironically, this document - a program EIR - exists to “Allow reduction in paperwork” (1-2) and “Avoid duplicative reconsideration of basic considerations” (1-2).  To accomplish this end, the document, despite being called “general”, is very specific. As an example, any development along the Hwy 88 Scenic Corridor would have significant environmental impacts (2-7). So a restaurant, general store, service station or a motel at the entrance to hiking trails would threaten the Sierra scenery. Most people would find that these establishments enhance their enjoyment of the Sierra because of their convenience. An earlier study done before the environmentalists prevented the Ironwood skiing area from reopening found that tourists don’t like Hwy 88 because it lacks these conveniences. Unlike the ordinary people enjoying the Sierra, but like the Frankenstein monster, this plan has no human soul. The environment is an abstraction where in all human activity is a threat. But humans have been shaping the environment and acting in symbiosis with it for probably a million years. Their detached attitude gives me chills. This is why Alternative Three-Restricted Growth is the Environmentally Preferred Alternative (2-5, 6).

However, all this specificity and the EIR for a General Plan process do intend to make future development less controversial since they are conceptually pre-approved (1-2).  Ideally, this should inhibit the relatively pandemic litigation now plaguing our small county. But the document states: “…unless new information arises that changes the impact analysis” (1-3), “later documents need only focus on new impacts that have not been considered before” (1-4) and “agencies may utilize this…” in “…approval of subsequent implementation activities” including such unsympathetic bodies as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the California Department of Conservation (1-5, 6). The document also states: “…commentators should also focus on the document’s sufficiency in analyzing possible environmental impacts” (1-10). So anyone of the well funded environmental elite should have no problem suing and adding unnecessarily to our county’s expenses and growing anti-business reputation.

The seemingly benign goal of this entire effort “…is to accommodate population growth, housing and employment in an orderly manner” (2-1, 2).  But growth is never orderly. Look at history or into our own lives. We all have experienced periods of expansion (or defeat) followed by periods of consolidation. Orderly growth bears no relationship to reality; it is strictly an intellectual construct. Again, like the Frankenstein monster, or Agenda 21, it has no soul. The document also realizes the improbability of the plan with: “Specific economic, legal, social, technological, or other considerations, including provisions of employment opportunities for highly trained workers, make infeasible the mitigation measures or project alternatives identified in the Final EIR” (1-3). The EIR for our General Plan is not about guiding growth, but rather from preventing anything from happening. Since anything one would do has an impact, its best to do nothing. Our General Plan EIR is not a plan for development but rather a prescription for paralysis.

Note: The citations given are from the document. As I read through this monster, I will post my thoughts since it seems improbable that they can summarized into a few paragraphs.

Copyright 2014, Mark L. Bennett

Do Forest Service Assumptions Make Sense?

This summer’s fires were a grim reminder of the need to clean our forests. Also, the futile efforts of half dead trees to stay alive uses up an unnecessary amount of our water supply. As announced in the local media just recently, the Forest Service is burning dead trees at various locations. Ideally, this material should go to a biomass plant for energy production, wood pellets for export and other possible uses. But inhibiting this possibility the Forest Service makes two assumptions that I question.

First, they say that hauling this stuff out of our forests doesn’t pencil out. The material doesn’t contain enough value to support individuals or businesses to do this. Given the need for a decent wage, benefits, depreciation on chain saws, a truck, etc they are right. But they are assuming that this is a full cost business. I submit that it works as a marginal cost business. Most of the firewood for sale in our county is produced as a marginal cost business. Enterprise such as this occurs when someone is out of work, between situations in their life or just wants to pick up some extra money. While an individual may not do this for very long, there is always a supply of new people taking their place. A retired person buying and selling knick-knacks from their home could be an example. The jitneys of the post WW1 period, where people with cars picked up passengers just before the crowded street cars arrived, is a classic example. These still survive is some cities, and have been resurrected in the form of Uber and the other new technologies disrupting the overpriced taxis. They are very worthwhile for their participants. Someone I know of recently made over $500 on a weekend evening in San Francisco. Given this context, I think that hauling biomass from our forests would work economically.

The Forest Service also states that the other inhibitor of economically cleaning our forests is the remote locations of the about to be wastefully burned material. In some situations this is undoubtedly true. But in how many real locations is this true? Given the American can do spirit this is only a challenge, not a problem. What better satisfaction is there in knowing that you did something that someone else told you that you couldn’t do? How many rusty tractors did we haul out of dangerous ravines in 1942 to feed our steel mills when our nation was under attack? We won back then, but have we given up now? This spirit of resignation that grips us today is seemingly given official expression when the Forest Service says too remote. Maybe we would all be better off in damp Atlantic coastal cities all still drinking English Tea and reading amusing books about the fall of Rome?

I certainly believe that there are many sincere people in the Forest Service, but there also appears to be some that think that documenting the situation for bigger appropriations next year is more important than cleaning out our forests now.

Copyright 2014, Mark L. Bennett

Newman Ridge at Ione City Council

A few weeks ago the City of Ione held a public hearing, as the Board of Supervisors had, to re-certify the EIR for the Newman Ridge project. Sondra West-Moore came up from Southern California to lead the project opponents. In her now standard melodramatic fashion, she attacked the project with distortions, misrepresentations and phony figures.  This time, however, people with real life hands on experience discredited every one of her contentious claims and those of the few other objectors.

One of the speakers related the story of how he was contacted by a wide spread search for a world class deposit of andesite ideally located by a railroad, and became involved in an earlier quarry on the site. Another speaker spoke of long trains of rock having moved safely along the track (I would add that those criticizing the track condition are ignoring the required regulatory inspections before freight increases can occur, as well as Southern Pacific’s liability concerns). One proponent noted that the prior plant and the two proposed are behind the ridge line, exposing the false and subjective assertion of “visual pollution”.  It seems that those protesting mineral extraction and manufacturing must believe that goods magically appear in stores.

A speaker that had done his homework cited West-Moore’s phony traffic figures by showing how she derived them from adding up different parts of the EIR along with confusion from the temporary construction phase. Another spoke of the insult assumed by those claiming danger from trucks passing by the elementary school by stating: “Those children are the trucker drivers’ children and grandchildren.” Since sympathy was presumed to be gained by West-Moore’s having her 90+ year old father there, hobbling on his cane in full veterans regalia, one attendee remarked that his father is the same age, also a decorated WW2 veteran, and strongly supports the project. The attempted theatrics failed. But reality returned when one speaker stated that these are jobs for our children and grandchildren. This saves our community and keeps our families intact.

When my time at the podium came, I related my weeks reading the EIR and the adventure of following the project opponents’ worldwide propaganda campaign. They changed the Supervisors and Planning Commissioners with being in the pocket of exploitive interests in a bias press release that, after a few internet repostings, became transformed into a news article. The companion petition gathered signatures from counties that some many people would need an atlas to locate. I also noted that having hot mix close at hand would reduce costs for the county road department. Concluding with the statement that I came of age in the 1960’s and had long ago internalized an expression of that time: “Tell it like it is, baby; tell it like it is,” I said that I consider the project opponents to be the pro-poverty lobby.

I spoke with many of those attending, including a gold miner, who thanked me for my presentation. Almost all of those in attendance were in favor of the project, probably because most of those at the hearing worked during the day. As hard working as our supervisors are, and with as many evening meetings as they already have to attend, we would all still benefit from having an occasional evening hearing that would draw a different demographic.

Copyright 2014, Mark L. Bennett

Around and Around We Go With Roundabouts

Communities across America are being coerced into roundabouts with ensuing controversy. Amador County has been no exception. Fortunately we have defeated all of them except perhaps one in Plymouth. They are being pushed by the Federal Government, which of course controls the purse strings. Roundabouts take up a lot of land, can be confusing to motorists-especially those new to an area, are dangerous for trailer trucks and homogenize us to look like Europe. I can’t imagine riding a bicycle through a roundabout. While they may be safer for pedestrians in some instances as the proponents argue, they are appreciably less safe for pedestrians in other situations. And they have the fatal flaw of being complicated and expensive to expand unlike the relative ease of change with our current signalized intersections. When they exceed rated capacity at some future date they will have created another unnecessary crisis.

Ever though you have to stop sometimes, like at a stop sign, they generally do move traffic along without idling behind a traffic light. For this reason, they have been deemed the way to go. While this need is primarily based upon the total fraud of CO2 feared global warming, it’s all to the good to reduce unnecessary vehicle emissions. But what if roundabouts presumed advantage proved meaningless? What if this same reduction in emissions were achieved without the extravagant costs and inconveniences of roundabouts?

I have read repeatedly, and fully agree with, the prediction that the next advance in auto technology with be new batteries, probably lithium ion, that allow idling without internal combustion. Certainly the experience with hybrids has paved the way. The major new investments of Tesla and others in battery production should drive down the price. How soon will it be before all new vehicles, and perhaps even retrofitted late model vehicles, idle at traffic lights with their engines off? Will it be soon enough to make most roundabouts sheer folly?

Copyright 2014, Mark L. Bennett

Lynn Morgan says "Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too"

Lynn Morgan says Have Your Cake and Eat It Too

In my Lynn Morgan’s “Buckhorn Community Plan Effort and Her Ideological Beliefs” posted both on Facebook and on Amador Community News, I said that Lynn Morgan was a member of the Foothill Conservancy. Katherine Evatt, president of the Foothill Conservancy, replied on Facebook that Lynn Morgan was not a member. Since I have no reason to doubt Katherine Evatt, or my friend who was told by Lynn Morgan that she was a Foothill Conservancy member about two years, there is only one logical conclusion. Lynn Morgan dropped her membership in preparation to become an “unbiased” candidate and so called Upcounty advocate. But I doubt that her adherence to their beliefs has changed. This all smells duplicitous to me.

This same on the fence post attitude continues in her recent website statements on water policy. Since this is a severe drought year full of the gray skies from forest fires her prior ambiguous positions and procedural machinations on the gravity supply line, UpCounty fire hydrants, wild and scenic and water issues, in genera,l have come to haunt her. So she has developed a “please everyone” position that perhaps raises more questions than it answers. She refuses to directly support wild and scenic, and didn’t say if she did in its prior form, but asserts that if it passes, existing water rights and/or amendments to the bill will give us enough water for future residents. But the deal includes surrendering rights beyond those agreements. What about water for a biomass plant, expanded gold mining and expanded agriculture? She has made some controversial statements about curtailing agriculture during drought years on Facebook. Are future residents to sit in their well-watered homes and collect welfare since no water for employment possibilities exists?

She proceeds with “More information” about wild and scenic that supports it without stating it directly. She states that wild and scenic will prevent “large, outside urban water agencies from building new dams on those 37 river miles.” Does she realize that this is one of the two best dam sites in California, and is rumored to have Jerry Brown’s support? That a Devil’s Nose Dam could be a cost effective solution that prevents building several other dams at less desirable locations as substitutes? Is the phrase “large, outside urban agencies” supposed to make us feel that we, the powerless are now protected by this designation? Isn’t the opposite true, given generous foundation funding for wild and scenic promotion, and the environmental lobby in the legislature? Why does water development have to mean what she implies? What about PG&E or the county(s)? A local project could be easily financed by tax exempt project revenue bonds in today’s market. It could even be owned by county residents, and pay everyone an annual check the same way Alaskan oil revenues do. While I am not proposing any of these ideas, I am saying that those decisions belong to future generations, and that it is selfish to straight jacket them from dealing with future circumstances of which we have no knowledge.

Lynn Morgan has chosen to ignore the fact that the State designation with the compromises she seems to endorse, can become with the stroke of the governor’s pen, the much more restrictive federal designation. So almost everything she has stated is meaningless at the very least, but mentioning that likelihood is beyond her campaign persona. She partly supports her case with the 5-0 vote in support by the Calaveras County Board of Supervisors. But that vote was for general support and not for SB119, and was engineered by Supervisor Chris Wright, former Foothill Conservancy president, in violation of their standard procedures. Since that vote, one supervisor has changed his mind and two supervisors lost their re-election bids. Certainly the vote next year will be different. While some Lynn Morgan supporters may not know this, she certainly does. This omission apparently meets her definition of transparency.

She continues with: “Wild and Scenic proponents include thousands of local residents and many local businesses as well as regional economic development organizations.” Who are these thousands of local residents? The petition numbers claimed by the Foothill Conservancy, but never seen, have been discredited several times. They are said to be cumulative over a decade therefore containing people who may have changed their minds and with possible serious double or more counting. Are these the thousands she is referring to? I really wonder who the tourist and regional economic development organizations she cites are. My suspension is that they are environmental organizations masquerading themselves under the guise of economics. A simple Internet search of Sierra Nevada + conservation shows so many of these groups that they seem to outnumber the trees, dead or alive. But a closer look reveals that they are often the same people financed by the same foundations. Could Lynn Morgan tell us who these groups really are?

She reminds us that dams could be built on other parts of the Mokelumne. If we were to build more dams, do we want three to five inefficient ones that also submerge more land or one efficient one on the best site?

Did she support wild & scenic before the current amendments? She seems to support it now with the possible amendments, but it’s all vague under “More Information”. But it seems apparent since she implies that it should have been accepted by decrying the Amador Water Agency’s participation in killing SB1199. While she bemoans what they spent on lobbyists, she ignores the vastly greater sums spent by environmental groups. Often these funds come from tax exempt “charitable” foundations and sometimes they are public tax money gained through the sue and settle scam. And totally forgotten are the millions lost to defend the Water Agency from environmental lawsuits. I am glad the water agency is doing its job and defending our water rights.

What she neglects to mention is that if wild and scenic doesn’t pass, nothing will change. FERC required discharges of impounded water to create a faux wild river will continue. If anyone proposed a new dam the environmental review and ensuing litigation will probably last longer than the lives of most people reading this.

As illustrated repeatedly above, does Lynn Morgan represent the straight forward leadership we want in Amador County?