Page 4 - Sonoma County Gazette August 2019

Thank you Barbara St. Louis
for your letter: Fire Safety Tree
Removal by PGE.
PGE is removing thousands of trees throughout numerous states and heavily throughout California. Numerous environmental groups
are working tirelessly to try and put a stop to this insanity. While PGE’s shareholders and CEO’s are making billions of dollars the electrical wiring system remains antiquated. They need to insulate their wires
and have computerized shut off systems, “fault interrupters”, in place or put everything underground.
But they choose to cut down tens
of thousands of trees instead, destroying habitat and further warming the planet. 370,000 more trees are slated for removal.
4 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 8/19
listed as a separate “parcel”.
LETTERS cont’d from page 3
Topsoils and Fire
If you were a land owner in Roman times and allowed your topsoil to erode you would be going to a Roman jail, but in today’s economics short- term profit over the environment is now the norm.
Some serious logging is about to take place in Cazadero. PGE has marked for removal every Fir tree within 200 feet on BOTH sides of their junk wires. Along the Creek, on the county roads, but also
along private roads and on private properties. They are by Code only legally entitled to cut branches in
a 4 foot radius from around their wires and NOT remove entire trees. Yet they have in past years removed most of the branches from our trees as well as from all the Redwoods and Fir along the road. A number of my Fir trees have died due to this severe cutting. Last year they cut down our oldest most beautiful Fir by mistake!!! Far up from the wires. Then left all the logs and limbs lying across the top of our hill in a precarious manner. All throughout the region trees were removed and left lying on the ground.
They have no legal right to do this. Code 95 allows for a 4 foot radius from around the wires of limbs only. The 10 foot or more radius is their recommendation but has no legal standing. These are YOUR trees. Threaten litigation. If you have the money FIGHT THEM! Some people are getting compensation for their losses.
Protection
Ranching associations keep telling us they are taking wonderful care
of this nation’s topsoil, but are they really?
Good Luck. It is a huge battle. Judith Heinemann, Cazadero
Use Google Earth and zoom in
on most any cattle ranch; those lines you see are soil compaction, lines made from cattle turning rich topsoil into concrete consistency during the summer and accelerating erosion of topsoil into our streams in the winter time.
Dear Vesta,
Forest Unlimited has been trying
You may be asking yourself “So what, I like my milk, why should we care?”
Dead and dying trees and dry underbrush should be removed. Clearing a defensible space is wise. But removing entire species?
to cope with dozens of inquiries from as far away as the Sierra about PG&E’s attempted removal of trees to “protect” their electric power lines. They are doing more that trimming. In some cases they want to remove large trees, including fire resistant redwoods. Some of these have been in resident’s front yards!
Let me use the words of The National Science and Technology Council, Dec. 2016.
Meanwhile two or three PG&E contract crews have been at work on Ft Ross Road butchering the trees. Anyone who knows Ft Ross Road knows that this is a fool’s errand. To make matters worse, some of these crews have been smoking among the dry grasses!
“Under natural conditions, one inch of topsoil can take 500 years or more to form. Soil is essential to human life. Not only is it vital for providing most of the world’s food, it plays a critical role in ensuring water quality and availability; supports a vast array of non-food products and benefits, including mitigation of climate change; and affects biodiversity important for ecological resilience.
This year they are telling property owners that if they do not permit them to remove all their marked Firs that they, the property owner, will be held liable for any damages from a falling limb or tree, including any fire started in this manner. This is NOT TRUE! They are lying to and bullying people. Property owners are starting to sign contracts to remove hundreds of Fir! If you have already signed the contract you
In many cases PG&E is violating the terms of their easements, cutting without permission or cutting beyond limits set in the easements.
These roles make soil essential to modern life. Thus, it is imperative that everyone—city dwellers, farmers and ranchers, land owners and rural citizens alike—take responsibility for caring for and investing in our soils.” ~ James Brian MacDonald
can still rescind it. Some properties have 30 or more healthy, large Firs with the dreaded yellow X’s. I stand to lose every tree on my land but
Their contract crews are often misinformed about their legal rights and have actively tried to scare homeowners into signing away their rights.
a small handful of redwoods and numerous small bay trees because we live between two roads and two sets of wires. Lake and Watercourse Protection, (Fish and Wildlife), has hung ribbons near trees that are
We recommend that
homeowners check their
deeds for the parcel
descriptions. Easements are
Furthermore, many are complaining about “precautionary” shut offs of their power during
hot windy periods. It is not just
an annoyance due to the absence
of lights and refrigeration. This disables medical devices as well. The elderly may need air conditioning.
too close to streams to cut down. But there is no EPA involvement,
no oversight from the PUC ( Public Utilities Commission). No permit from CDF as I understand. The PUC is writing up some new rules for the future but it will come too late for West County.
The obvious answer is to underground the power lines out
of harms way. PG&E has inflated
the costs to make it look infeasible but research has shown that the real costs is much less. They have also diverted money earmarked for under grounding to other purposes.
Cutting down entire species of trees is not the answer. Poisoning the native plant life is not the answer. PGE has deferred maintenance of their systems for decades and the horrifying wildfires were mostly started due to this neglect. So if
they come to your land wanting
to remove your trees say NO as Barbara recommends! Put signs out so that your trees are not stripped
of all their limbs or chopped in half.
And of course, PG&E’s calculations do not include the cost to the community in lives, lost homes, lost property tax revenue, lost carbon
LETTERS cont’d on page 5