Tag Archives: Habitat Preservation
South Sac Habitat Conservation Plan – Final Comments from ECOS
What is the South Sac Habitat Conservation Plan?
Comments from ECOS
September 5, 2017
Attention: Rich Radmacher, Senior Planner
Sacramento County Planning Department
827 7th Street, Sacramento, CA 95814
Delivered via email to: radmacherr[at]saccounty[dot]net
These comments on the public draft of the South Sacramento Habitat Conservation Plan are presented on behalf of the Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS), Habitat 2020, the Sierra Club, the Institute for Ecological Health, and Save Our Sandhill Cranes.
Issues addressed by these comments include:
- long-term sustainability of vernal pool resources in our region
- agricultural-residential development
- effects of pesticide use on agricultural preserve lands
- effects of artifical lighting on species covered by the plan, as well as the insect prey of those species
- effects of rodenticides on various species
- better monitoring of how species are doing
- avoidance and minimization measures
- available inventory (in acres) remaining for each cover type/habitat type in the Plan Area
- the regular review of relevant new scientific studies and reports for applicability in Preserve management
Animals of special concern include:
- various local species of raptors (birds of prey) including the Burrowing Owl, the White Tailed Kite and the Swainson’s Hawk
- the American Badger
- the Loggerhead Shrike (a “songbird with a raptor’s habits”)
- the Greater Sandhill Crane (which has one of the longest fossil histories of any bird still in existence)
- the Tricolored Blackbird
- the Western Red Bat
Read Our Comments
Click here to read the full comment letter.
Corresponding Addendum to our letter:
More Resources
Click here to learn more about the South Sacramento Habitat Conservation Plan
Kammerer Road-Highway 99 Sphere Of Influence Amendment DREIR
On September 11, 2017, ECOS submitted our comments on the Draft Recirculated Environmental Impact Report (DREIR) for the Proposed Kammerer/Highway 99 Sphere Of Influence Amendment (SOIA) Application for the City of Elk Grove.
Click here or on the image above to read the comment letter.
Summary
We appreciate the added attention to detail offered in the recirculated draft EIR, but rather than alleviate our concerns expressed in our original letter, the DREIR only further confirms those concerns. ECOS remains strongly opposed to the proposed Kammerer-99 Elk Grove SOI expansion and stands by our initial observation summarizing the project: Elk Grove’s anticipated growth can be accommodated within the existing City limits, and we find no justification for expansion beyond the Sacramento County Urban Services Boundary (USB) established in 1993 to be the ultimate growth boundary within the County. The proposal is inconsistent with the Sacramento Area Council of Governments’ (SACOG) Metropolitan Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy (MTP/SCS) for meeting State mandated greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions, Federal mandates for Air Quality Attainment under the State Improvement Plan (SIP), as well as myriad regional goals for social equity, public health and natural resource conservation. There is an extreme lack of certainty that municipal water can be provided to this area without severe regional impacts, and the impacts to invaluable agricultural and biological resources by the proposal are potentially impossible to mitigate. The RDEIR confirms significant and unavoidable impacts in all these above-mentioned areas, with the exception of less than significant biological impact after mitigation which is a finding we disagree with. The question is, what justification is there for these impacts? We, again, find that there is not, and we strongly recommend that LAFCo decline the proposed Kammerer/99 SOIA.
Film Program Announced for the Wild + Scenic Film Fest in Sac!
Wild and Scenic Film Festival Sacramento 2017 – Films
Thursday, September 28th, 2017. Doors Open at 6:00 pm, Films run from 6:30 pm-9:30 pm
24th Street Theater at the Sierra 2 Community Center (2791 24th St, Sacramento, CA 95818)
Check out these amazing films you can see and be inspired by at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival On Tour in Sacramento 2017 – click here for the full film program!
Sprawl monitor: Sacramento’s leading environmental protection nonprofit sees growing interest in demanding smarter growth
By Scott Thomas Anderson
July 13, 2017
Sacramento News and Review
ECOS prepping ballot initiative against suburban sprawl
South Placer County beware: An environmental organization is on a mission to educate people about the impacts of wide-scale suburban sprawl. And it’s getting big turnouts.
On June 28, the Environmental Council of Sacramento held a town hall-style meeting about potential ballot initiatives aimed at slowing the tide of business parks and subdivisions spilling across the valley.
For critics of sprawl, the issue has become especially pronounced in cities like Folsom, which is currently allowing 11,000 new homes to be built across 3,600 acres of open space. Across the border in Placer County, expanding tract home developments are overtaking oak woodlands and merging the cities of Roseville, Rocklin and Lincoln. ECOS representatives charged that Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova, north Natomas and unincorporated Sacramento County territories are also guilty of approving “egregious” levels of sprawl.
According to the Seto Lab at Yale University, suburban sprawl erodes California’s productive farmlands and delicate habitats, accelerates unnecessary energy demands and harms “high-value ecosystems.”
ECOS has noted that the trend is contributing to a large automobile dependency around the region, along with related air quality issues. According to its research, the region has zoning for nearly 120,000 new single family homes already approved, with another 50,000 single family homes being planned for “remote areas.”
ECOS’ June 28 workshop was held at Mogavero Architects on K Street. “The turnout was great,” said ECOS Director of Operations Alexandra Reagan. “It was standing room only.”
Reagan is planning similar workshops in the future, though she said the next major step would be identifying which municipality should be the subject of a sprawl-controlling ballot initiative from her group. Once that’s determined, she thinks her organization will have a lot of help. “When we asked everyone there who would be willing to work on a campaign, 95 percent of them raised [their] hands.”
Amador County says Sacramento growth plans will turn Jackson Highway into a parking lot
By Tony Bizjak
July 7, 2017
The Sacramento Bee
Sacramento County has asked Caltrans to give it control of 8 miles of the two-lane road so the county can turn it into an urban arterial street that would function as the spine for up to 30,000 new homes in the coming decades, allowing the metropolitan area to march east as far as Grant Line Road.
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The Jackson corridor is one of several large undeveloped areas of east county slated for growth, along with projects underway to the south near Elk Grove and to the north in Rancho Cordova and Folsom, along the Grant Line Road corridor.
Several of the Jackson Highway development teams are conducting environmental reviews of their project proposals now, one of the last steps before they will receive county approvals to build.
