Point Reyes Light - December 9, 1999
Future of Bolinas eucalyptus not clearcut
With a crowd of townspeople clearly divided, directors of Bolinas Public Utility District last Wednesday put off voting on whether to allow several stands of giant eucalyptus to be cleared from district property.
Roughly one hundred residents heard a proposal by Bolinas restoration professional Russ Riviere to cut trees mainly on the eastern half of a 90-acre parcel along Mesa Road that holds the town's sewage ponds.
BPUD directors instructed Riviere to present a more specific plan at their next board meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 15.
Proponents of removing the trees claim that the non-native trees are crowding out native plant and tree species, limiting the prospects for certain species of birds, and present a fire-hazard with the enormous amount of debris that eucalyptus produce. Residents who oppose the cutting said the trees serve as a valuable windbreak, provide habitat for migrating Monarch butterflies, and - to most eyes - are pretty to look at.
Riviere explained that he got the idea of cutting the trees after taking part in a removal and restoration project in the Central Valley. In the course of that project, he came into contact with a Sacramento company, California Wood Fiber Corporation, which removes such trees free, Riviere said. In exchange, the company debarks and chips the logs, which are then sold and shipped to Japan to make high-quality paper.
Riviere said that after seeing California Wood Fiber's work, he decided to propose that several Bolinas property owners, including BPUD, take advantage of the company's services. "I thought it was time to take a whack at it in my own home," he told The Light. "The biggest part of any restoration is removal. These trees keep marching up and down the hillsides, and it's simply a matter of taking control."
But opponents of the clearcutting claim that the proposal has made it to this point without much public input.
"Those trees are more native than I am," said Dale Polissar, a musician who has lived in Bolinas for 26 years. "I can't understand that they want to take out a whole forest that isn't doing any harm to anybody. And I really object to the speed of the whole process."
Sandra Della Valle, a gardener who has lived in Bolinas for 28 years, said she believes the matter should be the subject of an environmental impact report and a town-wide advisory poll. She believes that the removal of the old-growth trees will have wide-scale impacts on the local environment, from erosion on the sloping district property above downtown to the sedimentation of already shrinking Bolinas Lagoon.
"I personally love those trees and have gotten years of pleasure from being around them," Della Valle said. "I could support grooming them some, but I'm very opposed to having a clearcut pushed through so fast."
Many opponents also feel that once the cutting has been completed, BPUD won't be able to spend the effort to keep the trees from re-establishing themselves. The hardiness of eucalyptus is well-documented, and under the proposal California Wood Fiber will have no obligation to restore the property once it has been cleared.
"What if they decide to use poison to kill the stumps?" Della Valle said. "It could kill off a lot of the wildlife in the lagoon."
Photographer Ilka Hartmann, who also opposes the cutting, passed out a letter at the special meeting written by former BPUD director Peter Warshall. In the letter, Warshall stated that "cut and run" harvesting is obsolete, and that the eucalyptus not only serve as windbreaks and an important migratory habitat for Monarch butterflies, but also aid in creating more capacity in the sewage ponds, as the trees suck up water for the ponds and get rid of it through transpiration. "On a hot day, 100 large trees may return 10,000 gallons or more to the atmosphere," Warshall wrote.
At least six Bolinas property owners have signed on with California Wood Fiber to have their own trees removed later this month and more are expressing interest every day, Riviere said. With or without the BPUD trees, that cutting will go forward, he added.
He said on Wednesday that state Fish and Game has approved a California Wood Fiber proposal to remove a stand of trees near Pine Gulch Creek (near the Bolinas-Stinson School), and that other cutting was being scheduled for two acres of parkland at the end of Mesa Road, as well as several private properties on Horseshoe Hill Road.
As for the BPUD land, Riviere said he's revising his proposal to include a one-acre test cut on a flat portion of the property for later this month, with the larger-scale cutting to occur next summer.
His new proposal also calls for volunteer groups, such as the Lion's Club, to adopt sections of the cleared land to keep them from sprouting new eucalyptus, a vigil that could last five years.
BPUD general manager Phil Buchanan said that because of the complexity of the issue, directors at the Dec. 15 meeting will be reminded of another option: forming an advisory committee to look into the intricacies of the project.
Buchanan said that he believes that there won't be any clearcutting in the near future, but that some of the eucalyptus will inevitably come down. "I'm not getting the feeling that there will be any opposition to us drawing the line of where there can be no eucalyptus trees," Buchanan said. "I think the board could favor a project that preserves the old, big trees and controls the spread and thins out some of the smaller trees."