FORUM: FIRE RISK REDUCTION AND TREE REMOVAL PLANS FOR THE EAST BAY HILLS’ PUBLIC LANDS
Dan Grassetti, Hills Conservation Network
Peter Gray Scott, Hills Conservation Network
The University of California, East Bay Regional Park District, and the City of Oakland want to remove more than 80,000 trees in the East Bay Hills. These public-sector entities also plan to deploy a 10-year program of herbicides. This attempt to reduce fire risk is to be funded by $5.9 million from FEMA. Come to a discussion of different visions for our hills. Ask questions and contribute your voice in advance of FEMA’s June 17 deadline for public comment.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 2013, 7:30 PM
Berkeley Hillside Club
2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley, California
50274
For those of you who missed it, a video of this forum is not posted on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3_WdR7OGb4
(Yes, it’s on a Tea Party channel – My linking to it in no way implies endorsement of anything else posted there)
Please note that this forum is organized by the Hills Conservation Network (http://hillsconservationnetwork.org/), a group of hills residents, and one of several groups opposing this project. Another couple of groups to check out for more details about what’s happening in the East Bay Hills are:
http://milliontrees.me/
http://eastbaypesticidealert.org/
Comments to FEMA are due by Monday, June 17, 2013, and can be submitted in one of the following ways:
Via the project website, where you can read the Draft Environmental Impact Statement in its entirety: http://ebheis.cdmims.com
By email: EBH-EIS-FEMA-RIX@fema.dhs.gov
By mail: P.O. Box 72379, Oakland, CA 94612-8579
By fax: 510-627-7147
These projects are part of an already ongoing program that has been destroying trees and devastating ecosystems in the East Bay Hills for years. Even without the FEMA grant, UC Berkeley, the East Bay Regional Park District, and the City of Oakland are determined to move forward with these plans.
At the last FEMA hearing several activists pledged to take direct action to stop this program (you can hear that day’s public comment on this video taken by someone in attendance: http://youtube.com/watch?v=iWXLFVtqKv8). Such action is long overdue, and I hope that comrades of Occupy Oakland will come out to help us defend East Bay forests from poisoning and clear cutting.