What are the cumulative impacts of these projects combined with one another, combined with past projects, combined with present ones, and combined with future ones?

The answer to these questions is the essence of a cumulative impact analysis, but it does not appear anywhere.

CEQA

The THP fails to satisfy the minimal standards of the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the Forest Practices Act (FPA).

Alternative Uses
The consideration of alternative uses is inadequate under CEQA. The consideration of alternatives must consider feasible, less damaging alternatives.

The plan does not adequately consider the alternative of the property remaining a residential recreational property without commercial activities which is less damaging than the proposed THP. This alternative is feasible under the more restrictive Wildwood CC&Rs.

Cumulative Impacts
Cumulative effects are defined as incremental or minor (less than significant) effects that become significant when combined with similar incremental effects from other past, present, and future activities, both on and off-site. The CEQA Guidelines set forth the minimum elements necessary for an adequate analysis of cumulative impacts: (1) a list of past, present, and probable future projects producing related or cumulative impacts, including, if necessary, those projects outside the control of the agency; (2) a “summary of the expected environmental effects to be produced by those projects....,” and (3) a “reasonable analysis of the cumulative impacts of the relevant projects.” (Guidelines, § 15130, subds. (b)(2), (3).) In short, the essence of a cumulative impacts analysis is a list of projects, a discussion of their effects, and a reasonable analysis of their cumulative impacts.

The THP falls well short of these minimal requirements.

First, they fail to adequately identify and describe other related projects in the region and on site that may combine with one another to cumulatively affect the environment.

Second, they fail to identify any of the potential cumulative effects from any of those projects.

And, third, they fail to analyze the potential cumulative effects of all of these projects in combination.

“To be most successful, we should analyze the issues simultaneously from the top down and bottom up by linking the land use activity to potential offsite impacts, and also by linking identified offsite impacts to potential land use activities and ocean conditions. The land use and terrestrial conditions include the traditional issues and linkages: logging, grazing, agriculture, urbanization, dams, and so forth, with their associated effects.”

CDF is quite aware that vineyard development and logging activities will continue in the Annapolis region and the Gualala River Watershed for the foreseeable future. Yet, there is no attempt whatsoever to forecast the potential cumulative effects of such development or to analyze how those effects may combine with the present project to affect the environment.
There has not been any thresholds of significance established for this project.
Facts and analysis have not been identified that support the conclusion that the cumulative impact of past, present and future logging, vineyard conversions and commercial use of dirt roads on the Gualala River Watershed is less than significant.
The analysis of impacts is fundamentally flawed because it does not focus on the scale of the entire Gualala watershed, or even adequately address existing impacts in the Buckeye Creek Watershed Management Unit itself.

I would encourage the California Department of Forestry (CDF) to reconsidered this permit, and instead call for a full Environmental Impact Statement under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Court interpretations of CEQA have defined CEQA's statutory provisions. For example, a cumulative impact discussion may be found inadequate if it does not include the elements listed in CEQA Guidelines Section 15130 (Cumulative Impacts); specifically, either a list of closely related past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future projects, or a summary of projections contained in an adopted planning document which is designed to evaluate regional or area-wide conditions. This section further requires that the analysis include a discussion of projects under review by the lead agency and projects under review by other relevant public agencies, using reasonable efforts to discover, disclose, and discuss other related projects. This analysis has not been adequately provided.

The requirement for a cumulative impact analysis must be interpreted so as to afford the fullest possible protection of the environment.

In Environmental Protection Information Center, Inc. v. Johnson (1985) 170 Cal. App. 3d 604, the court of appeal concluded that CDF was not permitted to conclude that cumulative impacts are addressed by maximizing mitigation measures for the project at hand.

The consideration of cumulative impacts violates CEQA. It is now well accepted by the regulatory and scientific communities that CDF has failed to evaluate cumulative impacts on a THP by THP basis, leading to well-documented environmental harm. This is the conclusion not only of CDFs own task force, but of every independent scientific and agency evaluation of CDFs THP program.

Below is a list of reports I know you are already familiar with. Many of the documents are attached.

I reserve the right to incorporate these by reference into the administrative file at a later date, if necessary. I think all parties would agree that duplicating them now and placing them into the administrative file at. this juncture is unnecessary and wasteful.

In considering the proposed THP I ask you to consider the listed documents, not so much as criticism of CDF, but as evidence that cumulative impacts were not properly considered in the present case, and are likely to occur.

1.) Little Hoover Commission, Timber Harvest Plan: A Flawed Effort to Balance Economic and Environmental Needs (Attached Exhibit 1)

2.) The University of California Committee on Cumulative Watershed Effects (June 2001): A Scientific Basis for the Prediction of Cumulative Watershed Effects (Attached Exhibit 2)

3.) Scientific Review Panel (June 1999): Report of the Scientific Review Panel on California Forest Practice Rules and Salmonid Habitat (Attached Exhibit 3)

4.) Final Report on Sediment Impairment and Effects on Beneficial Uses of the Elk River and Stitz, Bear, Jordan and Freshwater Creeks - Prepared August 12, 2003by Humboldt Watershed Independent Scientific Review Panel (Attached Exhibit 4)

5.) August 21, 1997, Memorandum from Division of Mines and Geology to CDF re Bear Creek Drainage
(Attached Exhibit 9)

6.) 1997 letter from Alexis Strauss, acting director of the Water Division of the United States Environmental Protection Agency to the California Board of Forestry (Attached Exhibit 10)

7.) October 17, 1997, letter from National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to CDF (Attached Exhibit 11)

8.) October 14, 1997, Memorandum from Department of Fish and Game to CDF re fish habitat conditions in Bear Creek (Attached Exhibit 12)

9.) January 22, 1998, letter from NMFS to the Regional Water Quality Control Board (Attached Exhibit 13)

10.) November 20, 1998, Water Quality Control Board, Executive Officer Summary Report: Cumulative Watershed Effects Assessment on North Coast Timberlands (Attached Exhibit 14)

11.) May 24, 1999, letter from Dr. Leslie Reid to Assemblyman Fred Keeley; Dr. Leslie Reid: Forest Practice Rules and cumulative watershed impacts in California
(Attached Exhibit 15)

12.) Fed.Reg. 56138: Endangered and Threatened Species: Threatened Status for Central California Coast Coho Salmon (Attached Exhibit 16)

13.) Cumulative Impacts Analysis: A Report of CDF Director THP Task Force (July 1999) (Attached Exhibit 17)

14.) LSA Associates, Final Report: Conclusions and Recommendations for Strengthening the Review and Evaluation of Timber Harvest Plans (Attached Exhibit 18)

15.) August 2, 2001, Water Quality Control Board, Executive Officer Summary Report: Timber Harvest Division Regulatory Coordination (Attached Exhibit 19)

16.) September 11, 1997, article appearing in the Humboldt Beacon: CDF Says                                     Logging Has Adverse Effect (Attached Exhibit 20)

17.) July 28, 1997, Memorandum from Division of Mines and Geology to CDF re THP 1-97-232HUM (Attached Exhibit 21)

18.) November 25, 1997, article appearing in the San Jose Mercury News, Critics scorch forestry agency (Attached Exhibit 22)

19.) February 11, 1998, letter from CDF to Pacific Lumber Co.
(Attached Exhibit 23)

20.) April 7, 1998, letter from NMFS to CDF (Attached Exhibit 24)

21.) January 21, 1999, letter from CDF to Pacific lumber Co.
(Attached Exhibit 25)

22.) May 26, 1999, article appearing in the San Diego Union-Tribune: Logging regulation should be tightened, scientist says (Attached Exhibit 26)

23.) December 2, 1999, letter from NMFS to CDF (Attached Exhibit 27)

24.) 65 Fed.Reg. 36074: Endangered And Threatened Species: Threatened Status for One Steelhead Evolutionarily Significant Unit in California
(Attached Exhibit 28)

25. EPA, California Nonpoint Source Program Findings And
Conditions (June 1998) (Attached Exhibit 29)

26. The California Senate Office of Research, Timber harvesting and Water Quality (December 2002) (Attached Exhibit 30)

These documents are remarkable for their common agreement that CDFs program fails to effectively measure cumulative impacts.

The Hoover Commission Report from 1994 summarizes CDF's omissions quite clearly.
“Despite the hoops that timber operators must jump through and the barriers erected by the planning process, the environment is not being effectively protected because of the flawed concept that the Timber Harvest Plan process is based on -- namely that ecology can be addressed on a parcel-by-parcel basis. In addition, the State's focus is almost entirely on procedural steps rather than on the eventual outcome. As a result, what occurs in the real world may have very little relationship to what is prescribed in a harvest plan, and there is no mechanism for linking demonstrated effectiveness of mitigation measures to future policy directives.”

The proposed negative declaration and THP continue that well documented trend. It fails to adequately identify and describe other related projects in the region and on site that may combine with one another to cumulatively affect the environment. It fails to identify any of the potential cumulative effects from any of those projects. And it fails to analyze the potential cumulative effects of all of these projects in combination. The enclosed documents contain numerous criticisms of the THP process and catalogue its inadequacies in identifying, analyzing, and mitigating cumulative effects. The present THP is worse than the many that were studied and found wanting in the attached reports and documents. It does not include methodology for identifying and evaluating cumulative impacts, baseline data for measuring them, and adequate description of the current resource conditions.

 It assumes cumulative impacts will be eliminated by best management practices, a conclusion that has been forcefully refuted by any number of the enclosed studies.

“A strong influence in denying the potential for CWEs in individual harvest plans seems to be that an applicant is allowed to state, usually without any burden of quantitative proof, that a deleterious effect of a proposed operation can be “mitigated ”(and thus defined not to have an off-site, cumulative effect)if some Best Management Practice (BMP)is prescribed. Apart from the fact that the execution of the BMP is almost never checked in California forestlands, it is the collective judgment of this committee that BMPs do NOT remove off-site impacts. They may reduce them, when the BMPs function well, but they do not remove them, especially when they are tested by severe storms. It is the collective failure of BMPs to mitigate off-site impacts that results in residual, significant cumulative effects.”
(A Scientific Basis for the Prediction of Cumulative Watershed Effects (Attached Exhibit 2))

The Gualala River watershed has been heavily logged in recent years. Yet, there is no attempt whatsoever to forecast the potential cumulative effects of such past development or to analyze how those effects may combine with the present project to affect the environment. This deficiency is particularly true with regards to lack of a detailed cumulative impact study of effects due to sedimentation.

CDF and RPF Fischer seem to be claiming that the effects of multiple disturbances on suspended loads in the Gualala River watershed are not approximately additive.

CDF and RPF Fischer seem to be claiming that the effects of multiple disturbances on storm discharge peaks and volumes in the Gualala River watershed are not approximately additive.

Evidence is to the contrary - Please refer to Impacts of Logging on Storm Peak Flows, Flow Volumes and Suspended Sediment Loads in Caspar Creek, California by Jack Lewis, Sylvia R. Mori, Elizabeth T. Keppeler, Robert R. Ziemer (Attached Exhibit 6))

“The current guidance in the FPRs (Technical Rule Addendum No. 2) does not lead to cumulative effects assessments in THPs that provide useful information on how to alter watershed activities that may be impeding or preventing the recovery of salmonid populations. (Scientific Review Panel (June 1999): Report of the Scientific Review Panel on California Forest Practice Rules and Salmonid Habitat (Attached Exhibit 3))

Because the Hansen/Whistler THP fails to adequately consider cumulative impacts, it cannot be approved under the California Environmental Quality Act.
 

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