POINT REYES LIGHT
The Pulitzer Prize Winning Weekly Newspaper
Micah Maidenberg
2007-02-13
While Park Service wetlands ecologist Lorraine Parsons dutifully explained all 5 alternatives for restoring wetlands on Rich Giacomini’s former ranch, it quickly be-came clear that Alternatives C and D were the only plans under serious consideration. Parsons made the presentation last Thurs-day night to an audience of some 80 area residents at the Red Barn meeting hall.
The two plans are more alike than different. The biggest difference between them is that Alternative C includes more public access infrastructure – like a trail that people with disabilities could use and a bridge over Lagunitas Creek – as well as language about future trails from Inverness Park to Point Reyes Station.
The Park Service purchased Rich Giacomini’s ranch in 2000 after decades of talks about the site with the powerful land-owning clan. The Giacomini’s “Reservation of Use” agreement with the Park expires in 2007, and Parsons said the heifers currently on the land would be removed by the spring, though she did not know an exact date. The project area is comprised of the 550-acre former ranch and Olema Marsh, a 63-acre site to the immediate south of Lagunitas creek.
The alternatives
In the 684-page Draft Environmental Impact Statement and Report about the project, just two words separate the titles for Alternative C and D. The latter features “extensive” restoration of the West pasture of the ranch, while the former proposes “full” restoration for both sides of the pas-ture. Alternative D has “limited” public access to the restored site; C’s access is deemed “moderate.”
Common denominators
Both C and D would achieve ecological restoration by removing the levees on either side of Lagunitas Creek, destroying access roads, dairy infrastructure and invasive plants within the pastures and excavating and revegetating portions of site. Both options include extending a spur trail on the Northeast Side and improving the trail on the southern perimeter of the site.
Alternative C
Alternative C is the agency’s preferred choice for the project. Under Alternative C, the Park would build a trail of decomposed granite along the southern perimeter of the ranch and connect Point Reyes Station to White House Pool Park via a bridge over Lagunitas Creek. The Park says it “would potentially” collaborate with the County of Marin to extend the Southern trail to Inverness Park at a future time. C also includes a trail originating from Mesa Road compliant with the Americans with Disability Act.
Alternative D
Alternative D would not include the ADA-compliant trail nor the bridge over Lagunitas Creek. There is no language about collaborating with the county about a future trail to Inverness in D either. The DEIR lists D as the environmentally preferred alternative.
Impact of handicapped access
Parsons, the wetlands ecologist, said the environmental impact of the ADA-trail would be minimal because the Park would build the trail along an existing path.
“You wouldn’t be taking out riparian habitat,” Parson explained. “The cost there is the potential for more traffic along Mesa Road and more noise because of people and cars.”
Southern trail impact
Parsons said the Southern perimeter trail’s environmental impact would also be minimal because, again, it builds on an existing path. But like the ADA-trail from Mesa Road, the Southern trail could in-crease traffic and cause parking problems. There would be more noise in the Levee Road area as well, Parsons explained.
Bridge over Lagunitas
The environmental impact of the bridge depends on whether the structure could prevent Lagunitas Creek from naturally meandering according to water flows. Par-sons said people have a tendency to force waterways to flow under the bridges they have built when the waterway starts to move. But Parson said the Park picked the particular spot – near the ranch’s old summer dam – for the bridge because it has maps from as far back as 1856 that show the creek as stable in that area.
Preferred vs. environmentally preferred
In these public processes, the Park Service usually picks the environmental preferred option. But in this case they favored the alternative that would grant people more access to the restored wetlands.
"We always do the environmentally preferred alternative – it's a requirement of the National Environmental Policy Act,” said Don Neubacher, superintendent of Point Reyes National Seashore. “So 90 percent of our projects that's the case – you just haven't noticed it in our big thick documents.”
Neubacher said that alternative C is “99 percent” of D in terms of it ecological restoration. Additional human access to the site makes C “not as pure,” he explained at the meeting.
Parsons said the staff’s decision to prefer C was “very tough” but made because of public access issues.
“We took into account that we were get-ting a lot of comments from people who really wanted more activities and the community more opportunity for public access,” Parsons said at the meeting. “And we thought C would provide that.”
Organizational consensus
Three local advocacy organizations that sent representatives to last week’s meeting appear to have reached a consensus about which plan best addresses the goals of the project. The Marin chapter of the Sierra Club, the Marin Bicycle Coalition and the Environmental Action Committee all came out in favor of Alternative D, but with the bridge built across Lagunitas Creek.
Noting that the options presented in the environmental impact statement are not “set in stone” the EAC’s new executive director Fred Smith said it was a “happy coincidence” that his group, the Sierra Club, the Bicycle Coalition and other groups arrived at the same position. Smith said EAC supports Alternative D because it represents the highest restoration potential for the wetlands.
“We also feel that with the addition of the bridge connecting the levee trails, you could create a low-impact, very usable local trail,” he said.
“The pluses outweighed the minuses in terms of making that connection,” Smith explained in an interview. “It does provide an alternative transportation route for locals who want to be able to walk or bike to and from work and not do it on the road-way where you have more and more cars speeding by.”
Access and restoration
The extent to which members of the public will be able to move through the restored wetlands via trails may prove the most contentious issue during the final weeks of the public comment period on the DEIR (all comments must be made by Valentine’s Day).
Point Reyes Station resident Hathaway Barry said restoration means humans should practice restraint by removing barriers to natural flows instead of adding points of access, like trails.
"Any additional public access we create will draw more people, more traffic and more congestion. If the primary purpose of this project is wetlands restoration - this is a model restoration and the whole nation is going to be watching it,” Barry said after the meeting was over. “It would be really great to do a fantastic job of it.”
Wetlands have the capacity to filter pollutants out of the water flowing into the Bay while improving habitat for wildlife and aquatic species. The San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board has designated Tomales Bay as impaired for a number of pollutants, and advocates see the project as a crucial part of improving the ecosystem, which is considered a hot-spot of biodiversity.
Development pressures in California have resulted in the loss of wetlands all along the coast, Parsons told the crowd at last week’s meeting. The Giacomini restoration would ultimately increase the amount of wetlands in Tomales Bay by 50 percent and account for a full 12 percent increase in coastal wetlands for the entire state.
Once the Park Service selects a final plan, restoration work could start as soon as August 2007.
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