Conservation News March 2025

Hawes Ranch Decision

At the February 25, 2025, Shasta County Board of Supervisors marathon meeting, the Hawes Ranch zoning change from Agriculture to Commercial Recreation was approved, in concept.

The Supervisors voted 5 to 0 to send the proposal back to the Planning Department to remove the parcels in the floodplain (~20 acres) from the Commercial Recreational zone and leave it with its current Agriculture zoning. Other changes were that noise levels from the amusement park were restricted to 55 decibels at the property line, restrictions on lighting were imposed, and no overnight camping of any type would be allowed .

Map of Hawes Ranch from the revised Initial Study. — Page 104 of the Revised Initial Study for the proposed rezoning of Hawes Ranch. The southern-most pink and purple sections will not be rezoned to Commercial Recreational.

Shasta Environmental Alliance, Shasta Chapter CNPS, Sierra Club, and Battle Creek Alliance had submitted a joint letter opposing any development in the riparian areas. Shasta Birding Society also submitted comments opposing the same issues, and also addressed the effects of noise on protected bird species.

Although the applicant’s biological study found monarch butterflies (a sensitive species that will soon be listed as Threatened or Endangered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service) on the property, the Supervisors did not require any mitigation or protection for the butterfly. The monarch butterfly population collapsed to an estimated 20,000 individuals over-wintering during winter of 2020-2021. In the winter of 2022-2023, the over-wintering population increased to 300,000, but far below the 1980’s populations of 1 to 4 million per year. When I visited a monarch butterfly preserve in Pismo Beach this winter, the populations were way down from the 1980s. Back then, butterflies covered some of the trees down to eye level. This year, you had to use binoculars to see a few in the upper reaches of tall eucalyptus trees.

The decision by the supervisors regarding the zoning change has to go back to the Planning Commission for approval and then return to the supervisors for a final vote. The supervisors had been overwhelmed by emails and phone calls on the subject and are unlikely to make any changes to their provisional decision.

Remarkably, this session of the Supervisors meeting had little of the rancor of previous meetings. It was quite civil despite sharp disagreements from commenters on the project.

Trump Administration Threatens our Environment

Removal of charging stations at government buildings

The Trump Administration is reversing many of the Biden Administration initiatives to combat climate change. Recently, the Government Services Administration (GSA) has not only been cancelling programs for new electric vehicle (EV) charging stations at government buildings, they have also ordered those buildings to shut off EV chargers that are currently operating. Eventually, they are likely to be removed.

Orders under the Biden Administration for the GSA to purchase 58,000 EVs and install 25,000 charging stations are being cancelled by Trump. All current EVs will be sold or put into storage, according to reports. This latest move to rescind pro-EV initiatives in President Donald Trump’s first 40 days in office bodes poorly for the future. Read more on The Verge.

Arbor Day tree planting grant cancelled

The US Forest Service has cancelled a $75 million grant to the Arbor Day Foundation to plant shade trees in neighborhoods affected by fire, hurricanes, or neglect, presumably because there had been an emphasis on funds going to disadvantaged communities (in other words, it supported DEI). Apparently, poor neighborhoods will have to plant trees with their own money like the billionaires on Trump’s cabinet do. Some 105 grants that had been awarded to various communities and organizations that would benefit all citizens are now cancelled. Read more in The Oregonian.

Executive order to increase logging on public lands

The Trump Administration has issued orders to the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce to streamline regulations in order to increase logging on our national forests, Bureau of Land Management lands, national monuments, and possibly even increase salvage logging in national parks. If necessary, they will use the “God Squad” (a committee of seven members, including the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, that can exempt federal agencies from the Endangered Species Act) to disregard endangered species protections. This is a serious threat to our public lands and threatened species. Although trading the wealth of our forests in terms of recreation, carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat, wilderness areas, and future uses for the immediate profits of logging companies will take over six months to start, a lot of damage could be done before Trump’s term runs out.

Deforestation. Photo by Stockcake. — Photo credit: Stockcake.

Trump and his advisors are using the burning of homes in the Los Angeles fires as an excuse even though none of the fires were in forested areas. Almost all were in chaparral, which is dominated by shrubs, and a few near Altadena had mixed-hardwood woodlands nearby. None were in areas of conifer forests. Unfortunately, Governor Gavin Newsom is jumping on the bandwagon and following Trump’s lead, making proposals to weaken California’s landmark California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). While the Board of Forestry generally ignores CEQA’s greenhouse gas accountability in approving Timber Harvest Plans, this will take away protections for plants and animals, all in the name of “healthy forests,” “forest resiliency,” “thinning forests,” or whatever euphemism is used for logging, regardless of how far these logging operations may be from towns or communities that need protection.