November 7, 2011

Pescadero Municipal Advisory Council Members:

The Coastal Alliance for Species Enhancement (“CASE”) would like to take this opportunity to both learn more about the Pescadero Municipal Advisory Council’s (“PMAC”) objectives with respect to the Pescadero Marsh ecosystem (“Marsh”) as well as educate PMAC about the Marsh’s history since the early 1990s. CASE encourages and supports all scientifically viable efforts to halt the ecological Armageddon presently occurring within the Marsh. This approach necessarily requires that any efforts result in actual, on-the-ground projects in a very timely manner. To be blunt, the Marsh presently is being “studied” to death — literally.
In light of the history that has occurred in the Marsh since 1993, CASE is extremely concerned that PMAC is being used by at least some employees of the California Department of Parks and Recreation (“Parks”) as cover to continue the bureaucratic paralysis that has been used to forestall actual projects that would stop the Marsh’s demise and begin to restore the ecosystem for nearly two decades. CASE does not want PMAC members or the citizens of Pescadero to be used in such a fashion. Concurrently, CASE does not believe the Marsh can withstand any great delays in the implementation of ecosystem restoration projects. This concern stems, in very large part, from the past pattern and practices utilized by Parks.
One of CASE’s first actions was to initiate Public Records Act requests on numerous state and local agencies. CASE knew that in order to effectively help restore the Marsh, our members had to first have a solid understanding of the events that led to the present ecological crisis. CASE members have been involved in the more than 14 year struggle with Parks to get some action done. As a result of that active involvement, CASE members knew that Parks and other agencies had been having “back room” conversations to which the public was not privy. Thus, at great time and expense to the newly formed non-profit, CASE requested full and complete copies of all documents, records and communications pertaining to restoration, enhancement and/or maintenance projects completed and/or considered on Butano and Pescadero Creeks and Pescadero Marsh Natural Preserve from January 1989 through February 2010. After much delay, thousands of pages of documents were received, and CASE, through its attorney, has reviewed every page. CASE’s concern that PMAC is about to be used to ensure no actual activity is undertaken in the Marsh in the near future is a direct result of the evidence uncovered by the documents CASE received.
As early as 1997, Parks knew something had gone wrong with its “restoration” projects that were carried out in 1993 and 1995. In fact, Parks hired Dr. Jerry Smith, associate professor at San Jose State University’s Department of Biological Sciences, to evaluate the effects of Parks’ “restoration” activities. This study reviewed surveys and samples collected from 1994 through 1996, and was finalized and made available to Parks in early 1997. The study documented the destruction of crucial habitats within the North Marsh complex and demonstrated that sandbar formation was now being delayed by several months resulting in destruction and death of a whole variety of species including fish, frogs, and snakes. This study concluded that the North and Middle Butano marshes were no longer providing habitat for San Francisco Garter Snakes and California Red-Legged Frogs, both of which are species protected under state and/or federal endangered species laws. The study contained ten management recommendations for Parks to implement that would fix the problems identified in the Marsh and help Parks achieve its 1993 goal of restoring the Marsh to a more “natural” environment. To date, this study has been ignored, and Parks has refused to act in accordance with the recommendations put forth by its own scientist, Dr. Smith.
On or about April 25, 2006, staff with the California Resources Agency met at the California State Coastal Conservancy office to discuss the Marsh due, in part, to increased pressure resulting from the bad publicity generated by hundred of dead fish occurring in the Marsh with the nearly yearly breaching of the sandbar. This meeting resulted in the creation of the Pescadero Lagoon Working Group (“Group”). The Group consists of representatives of Parks, California Department of Fish and Game (“DFG”), National Marine Fisheries Services, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The group also included, on a less consistent basis, Tim Frahm and our local Resource Conservation District. This group was designed to operate in much the same way that PMAC envisions now operating based on the recent e-mail exchanges. In fact, it appears that PMAC will simply be duplicating the Group. For example, the Group was to be consensus-based and one of its stated goals, revealed in a May 5, 2006 memo is to develop an adaptive management program to remediate fish kills and snake habitat as well as establish a framework for long-term monitoring and maintenance activities.
As early as July 2006, a mere three months after the Group’s creation, DFG drafted a white paper that contained four recommendations to begin correcting the environmental degradation occurring within the Marsh. This white paper was approved by DFG senior fisheries biologist supervisor for the area and forwarded to DFG regional management. Parks states, in this document, that it does not want to take the lead on interim projects no does it want to implement them. To date, Parks has gotten its way and nothing has been done to improve the Marsh, but species continue to die on a yearly basis.
What approach does PMAC have that will convince Parks to change its position with respect to this single issue when DFG, its own sister agency with legal authority to require action, has not been able to make Parks participate in a consensus-based process in a good-faith manner?
In 2008, after more than two years of bi-monthly “official” meetings and numerous side-bar conversations between meeting participants, Parks still refused to undertake any restorative actions to repair the environmental damage caused by its restoration activities. This refusal remained in spite of at least three different studies and agency white papers identifying options for actions. In fact, DFG summarized the results of the Group’s progress, or lack thereof, in an internal e-mail. According to the e-mail, DFG staff approached this Group with the assumption that politically no one could argue with goals such as support Snake recovery by increasing the number of adults utilizing the Marsh, and further assumed the Group would not object to stating the law and acknowledging it is DFG’s, as well as other Resources agencies’ legal mandate to ensure the recovery of these species. The e-mail then states, “I was incorrect in believing that the group could agree on this basic concept.”
What approach does PMAC have that will ensure its process can result in all participants, including Parks, agreeing to simply restate and then follow the laws with respect to the Marsh and the protected species that live therein when DFG, the agency charged with enforcing these very laws, cannot even get its sister agency to agree after more than two years worth of meetings?
By October of 2008, after DFG officially informed the Group, “there currently exists ‘take’ of ESA-listed species. For each year there is inaction, there is additional take,” the Group still refused to take action and even refused to accept as one of its objectives a statement that it would follow the laws applicable to the protected species being taken illegally within the marsh. DFG’s internal e-mails characterize the Group as “very contentious.” DFG also believed “Parks had ignored past recommendations by consultants and was unwilling to test out the recommended adaptive management measures to improve the inability of the Marsh to form a timelier sandbar.”
What plan does PMAC have to deal with Parks complete denial of the actual problems in the Marsh and unwillingness to allow anyone to undertake restorative actions in a timely manner? What safeguards, if any, will PMAC put in place to ensure a single person or agency cannot hold PMAC’s process hostage by refusing to acknowledge scientific facts and follow and implement the advice of scientists and agencies with lead jurisdiction regarding restoration projects? DFG, Parks’ own sister agency under the Resources Agency, is of the belief that Parks is actively ignoring viable recommendations to improve the Marsh. What, if anything, does PMAC believe it can do to get Parks to act when DFG could not even achieve such a result after years of effort and meetings?
By 2009 — three years after the creation of the Group– DFG was so frustrated with Parks’ absolute refusal to follow any recommendations and implement any projects to improve the Marsh, it created a new “white paper” aimed at “securing a commitment to restoration.” This paper states, in part, “DFG is the Trustee Agency of Fish and Wildlife Resources for the State of California. DFG is mandated to protect/recover the population of fish and wildlife resources. We (collectively, i.e., the Group) are not making progress on the recovery of species at Pescadero.” The paper then once again implored the Group to begin taking steps that would create timely, demonstrable results for listed species within the Marsh. Sadly, for both the species within the Marsh and the citizens of Pescadero, nothing in the Marsh has changed. The ecological destruction is still occurring, and we are currently all watching the time-bomb about to go off once again when the sandbar is breached this year and the species are needlessly killed.
How is PMAC’s suggested approach different from the three plus years worth of meetings that the State put together to solve the Marsh’s problems? What is PMAC going to do if Parks simply refuses to participate in the process in good-faith? In short, given this history, what assurances do the citizens of Pescadero have that PMAC’s efforts will not be an exercise in futility that results in years of delay?
The documents CASE has obtained demonstrate that all of the agencies, excluding Parks, have reached consensus. Dr. Smith’s 1997 recommendations have not changed with respect to both the cause of the problems within the Marsh and the corrective actions that can be taken to protect the snake, frog and goby. DFG’s recommendations have not changed substantively since first presented to Parks with respect to both the cause of the problems within the Marsh and the corrective actions that can be taken to protect the fish populations. CASE supports all of these approaches. Unfortunately, the landowner — Parks — refuses to allow anyone the necessary agreements to implement any of these proposed projects in a timely manner and the species and Marsh ecosystem are quickly approaching a tipping point. Most recently, the Solar Bee project was killed as was the proposal to leave the sandbar open this winter to avoid another fish kill. CASE supported both of these projects. Also, despite knowing the Butano channel is completely obliterated thereby prohibiting fish passage for the past three years, absolutely nothing has been done to address this problem. Why? What is PMAC proposing that has not already been tried with respect to process? What is PMAC going to do to ensure its proposed process is not hijacked and used to ensure nothing is every accomplished within the Marsh?
The current situation within the Marsh is scientifically indefensible, ecologically unacceptable and illegal. The current situation has been allowed to remain this way for nearly two decades, despite years of study and meetings. Everyone involved, with the exception of Parks officials, have reached the same conclusions and the restoration proposals have not changed substantially in over a decade. Sadly, they also have not been implemented in a timely manner due to Parks refusal and stonewalling. PMAC, if it has any hopes of being successful, must first identify, with specificity, a strategy for handling Parks given this past history. Until that feat is accomplished, CASE, unfortunately, does not believe the PMAC process will achieve any greater success than all of the other meetings, forums, studies and processes have achieved on this issue. In spite of this concern, CASE stands ready and willing to support any scientifically viable restoration project that will be implemented in a timely fashion and hopes to continue working with everyone who is willing to actually achieve demonstrable, on-the-ground, progress within the Marsh.