The county has lost ground on another restoration project in the San Geronimo Valley over an alleged violation of the California Environmental Quality Act.
The Marin Audubon Society, the Marin Conservation League and the California Native Plant Society sued the Marin County Parks and Open Space District last August, alleging they violated the law by failing to conduct an independent environmental evaluation of the development of a social trail, the Hunt Camp Trail, in the Gary Giacomini Preserve.
As the result of their recent settlement agreement, the district does not have to complete an environmental analysis of the trail project, but will discontinue its work on the trail. It will also refrain from any new designations in the Giacomini Preserve for at least the next two years and pay $17,000 to the plaintiffs to cover their attorney fees.
The county had hoped to restore, realign and formally designate the majority of the 1.23-mile-long trail, which has been used informally for the past 60 years, for bicyclists and hikers alike. The narrow and rocky trail extends from the San Geronimo Valley Ridge to the valley floor, running from Hunt Camp Fire Road downhill to Juniper Drive. After work on the trail began last summer, the district managed to open the upper wing of the trail to the public before the lawsuit stopped further efforts.
That upper section will remain open to hikers and is newly open to mountain bikers. According to Max Korten, the parks and open space district director, it has been realigned and improved so that it is safer and less prone to drainage problems and erosion.
No work will be done on the lower-elevation section of the trail, a separate wing that runs between East Sylvestris and Juniper Drives. There the county had hoped to improve creek crossings by building a pair of 20-foot bridges as well as stop sediment from entering the creek by installing rock in seven other areas.
The settlement also stalls plans to create a new 2,100-foot-long connector trail from the lower portion of the Hunt Camp Trail to the Manzanita Fire Road.
Under the agreement, the district has to wait two years before re-considering improvements to the trail, at which time it must also “consider new proposals for the Upper Camp Trail or any proposed alterations to that trail, including but not limited to any proposals to remove its designation.”
Tom Boss, a Forest Knolls resident and the off-road and events coordinator for the Marin County Bicycle Coalition, which championed the project from the beginning, said, “We are just happy to see that a good portion of the project is completed.” He added that the he had received positive feedback from locals about the improvements to the upper section.
Barbara Salzman, president of the Marin Audubon Society, said the lawsuit was in part prompted by concern over introducing bicycles.
“But we were also worried about what [the district] was doing on the trail, and how the new use—like big crowds of people—was going to affect the habitat.” She added, “We now have the opportunity to let everyone cool off for a little while, and see where we are.”
The Hunt Camp Trail project is one of many the public identified as a priority under the Road and Trail Management Plan, which the district kicked off in 2014 across six different regions in Marin.
Rather than tackling separate environmental impact reviews for each trail project, the district instead relied upon a programmatic environmental impact report for the entire trail management plan, which it completed in 2014. For individual projects like the Hunt Camp Trail, it filed consistency assessments.
In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that the programmatic E.I.R. “does not analyze the potentially significant impacts to Northern Spotted Owls from additional or greater intensity use by mountain bikers, dog walkers (both on and off-leash), joggers and hikers resulting from legalizing and encouraging the use of previously unauthorized trails.”
The conservation organizations pointed to the fact that most of the Hunt Camp Trail lies within a county-recognized “legacy zone,” containing unique biological diversity, including habitat for the northern spotted owl. Their lawsuit highlighted the effects of mountain bikers in particular.
“In order to avoid rocks, roots, and pedestrians, cyclists riding rapidly down the narrow trail will unavoidably swerve into the margins of the trail and intrude upon the narrow linear zone at the edge of the trail where many special status plants are found,” the suit states.
It lists at least nine rare and sensitive plant species along the trail’s edge, and at least one owl nesting site.
The recent settlement is not the first concession that Marin Audubon gained from the district this year over the road and trail management program.
As a result of a settlement agreement reached in January from a lawsuit filed last fall, the Open Space District this spring launched a five-year pilot program that involves seasonal nighttime closures at 10 different road and trail locations to benefit sensitive wildlife, such as northern spotted owls.
The county also agreed to install passive infrared technology and bluetooth data retrieval to study visitation trends at the 10 spots, which include locations in the Gary Giacomini, Camino Alto, Baltimore Canyon, Blithedale, White Hill and Cascade Canyon Open Space Preserves.
Part of January’s agreement was to include a 30-day comment period following consistency assessments and before it issues a CEQA notice of determination for any trail project.
The most recent settlement also stipulates that the county meet with the plaintiffs at least once to discuss any future proposed changes to the lower portions of the Hunt Camp Trail before publicly announcing any proposal.
“We are learning from our challenges that we need to do a better job of being transparent and seeking public input early on, to resolve issues before they get to the point of litigation,” Mr. Korten said. Still, he added, the last several years have been an exciting time, mostly thanks to Measure A funding.
“We finally have the means to take on real challenges: deferred maintenance, climate change, sea-level rise.”