Prodded by a decade of litigation, Marin County spent years negotiating safeguards to protect the fragile San Geronimo Valley watershed, a key habitat for coho salmon.
Last summer, county officials approved a plan intended to monitor homeowners whose construction projects might endanger fish and their habitat. They contracted with a 24-hour answering service to field anonymous complaints from citizens who might spot suspicious activity near creek beds. And they set aside money to keep inspectors on call seven days a week to investigate viable reports of rule breaking.
The answering service has been operating for five and a half months, but so far, it has received only one call, which did not result in a verifiable violation, according to a presentation to the Board of Supervisors last week by senior county planner Kristin Drumm. Meanwhile, it has received two written complaints that are under investigation, one related to activity at the former San Geronimo Valley golf course.
So far, the county has had to pay its five-person code enforcement staff 500 hours of wages for volunteering to be on call on nights, weekends and holidays should any calls come in. Ms. Drumm told the Light that the county paid roughly $8,000 to staff who volunteered. The county anticipates it will need to cover 1,000 hours of on-call wages during the first year of the program. Contracting the call center costs an additional $150 per month.
In addition to the hotline and inspectors, the county’s new safeguards for the San Geronimo Valley require a permit before clearing vegetation or paving land within a stream conservation area. The county agreed to provide free reviews of any projects contemplated by homeowners whose renovations might require such a permit. So far, not a single homeowner has submitted plans for review.
That comes as no surprise to Peggy Sheneman, a board member of San Geronimo Valley Stewards. Calling in county staff for advice about even a small project requires homeowners to go through a thicket of requirements that can be costly to implement, she said.
“If stream violations were such a terrible problem, why do we only have just two complaints?” Ms. Sheneman asked. “Why do we need a 24-seven hotline that costs 1,000 hours of employee on-call pay to answer a hotline that’s had two phone calls?”
The county agreed to the new rules as part of a settlement with the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network, which had been litigating watershed protection with the county for a decade. The resulting ordinance established a 100-foot buffer along Lagunitas Creek and its tributaries to protect riparian habitats within a streamside conservation area.