COMMENTS OVERWHELMINGLY FAVOR PRESERVING THE FOREST

UCSF has compiled and published the public comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR).  Though the comments are meant to address the DEIR, many commenters treated it as a referendum and showed their support for preserving Sutro Forest as it is.

UCSF received 189 comments; 164 opposed the plan, and only 20 supported it. Another 5 were ambivalent or supported part of the plan and opposed other aspects of it. That’s a ratio of 8:1 in favor of preserving Sutro Forest.

They’re available as a PDF here: MtSutroDEIRCommentLetters

The next step will be for UCSF to respond to the comments and publish the final EIR; after that, the University of California’s Board of Regents will need to certify that the EIR is complete, and then they can approve the project.

CLICK HERE FOR SUTRO FOREST VIDEO

Tree-felling in the Demonstration Areas could begin by mid-August after the bird nesting season. Ron Proctor made an 8-minute video about  Sutro Forest, showing the Demonstration Area plans. Please do take a look, and share it with others who may be interested.

APRIL 21 MEETING

The April 21st meeting drew around 30 energized supporters, who are taking the initiative to spread the word. We had presentations on Sutro Forest, Mount Davidson (where 1600 trees are to be felled), and the San Francisco Forest Alliance’s mission to preserve public parks for the public. We hope to make these presentations available online soon.

PESTICIDES AND CANCER

At the meeting, Dr Morley Singer talked about a new article in the (peer-reviewed, highly-respected) journal of the American Cancer Society, reporting a link between cancer and pesticides.

SFForest.net reported on that in an article called Pesticides and Cancer, Glyphosate and Gut Bugs. It pointed out that one of the pesticides specifically mentioned was glyphosate (Aquamaster/ Roundup), and also discussed an article that showed glyphosate could adversely affect the friendly bacteria in human intestines, causing health issues.

Glyphosate is one of the pesticides that UCSF could potentially use in Sutro Forest.

COST ESTIMATES

We obtained some Sutro Forest cost information from UCSF. The meetings held in 2009 and 2010 and all the outreach cost around $52 thousand. Preparing the EIR is budgeted at $275 thousand, all of it to outside consultants or contractors. (They don’t appear to keep track of the time spent by their own employees, though it’s clearly substantial.) Most of this amount came from the Campus Planning budget, but $65 thousand came from the Chancellor’s Fund.

We are still trying to get estimates of the cost of implementing the Management Plan.

The Sutro Stewards are a volunteer group that works primarily on Mount Sutro. Craig Dawson is the Executive Director. The group originated under the umbrella of Nature in the City, an organization promoting native species of plants and insects in San Francisco. Currently, it’s a partner of The Parks Alliance.

It’s a group we wish very much we could support… but we don’t. This is why.

THE GOOD

First, credit where credit is due.

• The Sutro Stewards have, since 2005, kept the trails clear. Sutro Forest is a temperate cloud forest, or fog forest; it captures most of its summer moisture from the fog. In common with cloud forests everywhere, its understory grows dense. Without maintenance, the trails get overgrown.
• They built the “Historic” Trail on the upper part of the mountain with the loss, according to Craig Dawson, of only one tree.
• They also maintain the native garden at the summit. Contrary to the popular belief that native gardens need no work because they’re perfectly adapted to the place, it actually takes many labor-hours of maintenance. It also requires persistence. They have been trying to restore one small section of meadow as a section for Native pollinators for over two years now; it still has more orange flags than flowers.
• Especially laudable: They do so without using any pesticides.
• The Sutro Stewards regularly organize two or more volunteer days every month with (UCSF-provided) pizza and (donated) beer on offer. The SF Urban Riders (bicycle-riders who ride the trails) often provide much of the physical labor – which other forest-visitors may not know.

THE BAD

But here’s where we part company. Their vision for the forest is — not a forest. It’s an “Open Space” with native species of shrubs and grasses and plants, and a few oaks and redwoods. It’s trees spaced even further apart than the 30-60 feet provided in the UCSF Plan.

In our opinion, this forest is a unique treasure for San Francisco — a de facto cloud forest at near sea level, made possible because it lies within the fog belt. Destroying this ecosystem would be a tragedy.

Copyright Paul Hudson

Much of the work the Sutro Stewards do destroys habitat and has a negative impact on the forest’s ecosystem. Separately from keeping the trails open, the Sutro Stewards also remove or mow down large sections of the understory, even when it is not directly on the trail.

Executive Director Craig Dawson has made a public comment on UCSF’s Draft Environmental Impact Report on Mount Sutro Forest. UCSF has published the compilation of the comments (189 of them, opposing the plan by a ratio of 8:1), and it’s available here: MtSutroDEIRCommentLetters

Mr Dawson’s comment is on page 327 of the document. It’s quite detailed. We’ll try to summarize his points here (and readers are welcome to read the document for themselves). In brief: He considers the forest a danger, and unhealthy. He supports the UCSF Plan, though with some exceptions:

• He believes even more trees should be felled. The tree-spacing (at 30-60 feet) is too close. He also wants all eucalyptus along the creek to be removed. If this were implemented, our tree removal estimates would be conservative.
• Pesticides should be used on a wider range of plants than those specified in the plan. Presumably, this would mean more pesticide use than the already huge amounts described in the Plan.
• Demonstration Area #3 (where eucalyptus shading the reed grass is to be removed) should not be done. The reed grass needs the moisture the trees provide. (We actually agree with this. The Pacific reed grass is a forest species, and often associated with eucalyptus. There’s a similar issue on Mount Davidson, where the Natural Areas Program asks for tree-felling to benefit reed grass  – but will probably kill it.)
• He wants more native vegetation to be grown on Mount Sutro. (We actually do not have a problem with native plants, only with the destruction of the ecosystem and habitat that already exists there.)

Of course, we disagree completely with his characterization of the forest (which we consider healthy, based on the assessment of two certified arborists and an ecologist) and safe (based on the assessment of CalFire). We also completely disagree with his recommendations.

His support for tree-felling comes as no surprise, (though we were startled that he asks for even more than the Plan says).  At every meeting we attended, the Stewards and their allies supported this plan.  Peter Brastow of  Nature In the City, originally the parent organization of Sutro Stewards, referred to eucalyptus as a “weed” during one of UCSF’s meetings. And in the process of opening the new trail that connects Stanyan with Medical Center Way, a lot of trees were felled  in the City-owned portion of the forest — as noted on this website earlier.

Neither does the support for pesticide use surprise us.  Speaking at the UCSF scoping meetings, the Sutro Stewards also supported that. At present, UCSF uses no pesticides at all on its portion of the forest.  The Plan potentially permits the use of pesticides such as glyphosate (Aquamaster or Roundup) and Garlon. We strongly oppose this  — particularly since the forest is on high ground above residential neighborhoods and the Bay.

We believe the Sutro Stewards play an important role in UCSF’s potential actions. Executive Director Dawson has been a member of UCSF’s Community Advisory Group (CAG) for decades, and also of the Parnassus Community Advisory Team (PCAT). In his comment, he mentions being “directly involved since 1997.” In our opinion, he and his allies have been an important factor in developing this Plan. We surmise that UCSF would be unlikely to proceed without the backing of the Sutro Stewards, who currently do most of the work on Mount Sutro.

HUH WHAT?

As this website indicates, we’re in favor of debate and discussion on these issues. We get the impression that the Sutro Stewards and some of their supporters prefer to block dissent. Some examples:

• The Legal Letter: Readers of this website may recall the strongly-worded legal letter in behalf of Sutro Stewards from a prominent law firm, saying we were defaming the Sutro Stewards by alleging they were felling trees and applying herbicides. Of course they weren’t – they were supporting tree-felling and pesticide use rather than performing them. (We weren’t allowed to publish the letter, but we have related its contents in our response. ) This letter also stopped us from using certain maps illustrating the UCSF plan for discussion and criticism. They were taken from a UCSF publication outlining the plan. The publication contained no indication that the maps were copyright to anyone beside UCSF, and indeed, it resembled a map that UCSF had earlier published under its own copyright. Even though we disagree on forest-related issues, UCSF so far has never objected to the use of their illustrations for the purpose of discussion on this website. (Yes, UCSF does know about this website.)

• A Facebook Freeze: Even before that, when we posted a comment responding to something they wrote on the Sutro Stewards Facebook group, our response was promptly deleted. That Facebook presence is managed by the Sutro Stewards Executive Director, Craig Dawson, and several associates.  More recently, similar responses have been reported by others, including someone who wrote to us.

WE DISAGREE WITH THE SUTRO STEWARDS

We believe debate and discussion are important. We’ve hosted opposing views on this site, and made every attempt to respond to them. (With some exceptions:  our comment policy is HERE).  We sympathize with the saying (misattributed to Voltaire according to Wikiquotes, it was actually Evelyn Beatrice Hall, writing under the pseudonym of Stephen G Tallentyre): I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

But we do disapprove. We completely disagree with felling of thousands of trees, use of pesticides in one of the few wild areas that have been free of them for years, and the mowing down of most of the understory habitat. We are saddened that the group has stewardship of a forest whose very components they despise as non-native and invasive: eucalyptus, blackberry, acacia, ivy. It’s a forest in the hands of its enemies.

In brief: It’s not damp, but it is green. The trails are all dry now – and the understory is still green and lush where it’s been allowed to thrive.

The forest is beautiful right now. Even the small plants and grasses by the trail edge aren’t dying or stressed by drought.

This fine Sunday afternoon, we encountered a few other people – maybe a dozen hikers, two with dogs and one with a baby; two joggers, one with music; and a bicycle rider.

There’s been quite a lot of understory removal in various areas; while this destroys habitat, it does make the birds easier to spot. (We’re unsure this is an improvement from the bird’s point of view.) There were wrens darting around under the blackberry bushes, juncos flying around the forest, bushtits busily foraging…

CREATING A FLAMMABLE FOREST

There are a few dry areas. The grass  in the Native Garden is beginning to yellow.

But the worst spots are areas where the understory has been removed and left covered in sticks and bark.

As a result of talking up of the fire hazard – irresponsibly, in our opinion – people have become concerned. Here’s reader Thom Taylor’s comment on our previous post: ‘…you keep mentioning that Sutro is a “cloud forest”, but with the record heat we’ve experienced over the past week and a half we haven’t seen a drop of moisture in the Bay Area. I was hiking Sutro yesterday and it is incredibly dry up there right now. Are you arguing that even during these spurts when we experience extremely warm temperatures that a dry forest like Sutro would pose no fire danger?’

As these photographs show, the fire danger is not from the forest where it’s lush and dense. The plants there remain green year round – even through dry spells like this one – so they contain and retain moisture. They slow evaporation by trapping moisture, protecting it from sun and wind. Moisture content is an extremely important factor in reducing fire risk.

But this forest, that usually has a very low fire risk, can be made more flammable. When the understory is mowed down or ripped out, and instead there’s  flammable sticks and bark. Or when it’s opened enough that the small plants and grasses actually do dry out – like in the Native Garden.

There’s been no rain for over 2 weeks. But the forest still hasn’t dried out, unlike the Native Garden grasses. The trails are dry, but the plants are not.

We’ve had no rain these past two weeks, but we have had a little fog some nights – and that’s been enough to keep the forest green. The trees harvest the moisture, and the layers of vegetation conserve it by retarding evaporation. This is the mechanism that the Plan will destroy.

With 90% of the trees and understory gone, the moisture will quickly evaporate. The increased wind will worsen the effect. The driest parts of the forest right now are where the Sutro Stewards have denuded the trails of their understory.

If UCSF was actually concerned about fire hazard, here’s what they would do:

1)  Discourage the Sutro Stewards from removing this dense green understory.  Blackberry and ivy don’t burn readily. Cape Ivy is particularly fire-resistant because of its high moisture content.

2)  Check to ensure that the Native Garden’s existing irrigation system remains functional, even if the plants are not irrigated once they are established. The Native Garden has fine fuels in the form of dry grass, and is probably the most flammable area of the forest.

3) Encourage forest neighbors to check for fuel build-up on their roofs, especially in winter when they may be using their fireplaces. This could be done by simply sending round flyers once or twice each season.

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LESSONS FROM THE OAKLAND HILLS FIRE OF 1991

I do not live in San Francisco, but I have occasionally enjoyed hiking the trails of Sutro Forest.  Last time I was there I encountered a professional photographer who was taking photos for a magazine in New Zealand.  She told me that she had not expected to see such a unique forest in the middle of a city. She said she would value the photos she had taken of Sutro Forest more than any photos she had taken of S.F. City streets and the Bay, including the view from Marin Headlands.   She described the experience of being in Sutro Forest as”spiritual” and inspirational, a “rare find,” not at all what she had expected to see in San Francisco.

As a representative of Hills Conservation Network (HCN), I want to primarily address the issue of fire hazard.

All of the members of HCN’s board of directors live in the North Hills of Oakland, within the area that was almost completely burned in the Oakland-Berkeley fire of 1991. My house, built in 1939, is in a strip of about 15 houses on Alvarado Road that did not burn, although all of the houses and vegetation (plants and trees, native and nonnative) above and below that strip, as well as everything across the street burned to the ground.

My family was fortunate. We do not know why these 15 houses and a few others here and there in the hills were spared. But we do know that the fire stopped just as it reached three towering eucalyptus trees that stand at the edge of Garber Park, a 13-acre city of Oakland park that also did not burn in the fire (even though it was and still is filled with largely unmaintained trees and understory). The flames of the fire did not touch those three eucalyptus trees which had stood there for more than 100 years, even though at that time, there was plenty of bark litter on the ground under them.

After the fire, as you can imagine, fire survivors cast a great deal of blame on various public agencies, including first responders such as the Oakland Fire Department (OFD), for its lack of training in fighting wildfire. (In fact, an Oakland fire fighter had restarted the fire on Sunday morning when he walked, stamping his boots, over the cinders and ash left from a small fire that had seemed to have been extinguished the previous day. As he walked, sparks and embers lying under the cinders flew up; the hot wind carried those sparks into dry grass and brush, and then into pines–that is how the Sunday fire started and soon spread out of control as the flames ignited wooden roofs and houses close by.)

I won’t list all of the issues that led to the rapid and tragic spread of the 1991 fire. The important ones were that:

• After the first 20 minutes, there was no power to pump the water uphill–so there was no water in the hydrants;
• There was a total lack of radio communication between the OFD and fire districts from neighboring towns that had tried to come to Oakland’s aid;
• The streets in the hills were narrow and winding;
• Cars had been allowed to park on both sides of the street, so fire trucks could not get up to the fire, and residents could not get out – some of them died trapped in their cars.

I will not deny that trees of all species, native and non-native, did help to spread the fire. But some eucs and other tall trees with hardwood trunks were still standing–with their leaves intact–in various places where everything else burned. After the first half hour of the fire, the flames were leaping from house to house, not from trees to houses, although the trees close to and leaning over houses burned, especially where dead leaves had fallen into gutters, and the house was unlucky enough to have wooden shingles.  Even though it was a hot day, the trees did not “explode.” The popping and banging sounds came from cars exploding as gas tanks ignited.

Yet within two years after the fire, the eucalyptus trees were being blamed for the fire–and to prevent another terrible fire, the advice was to remove all of the eucalyptus in UC owned forests, in East Bay Regional Parks, and in Oakland’s public parks that had not even been involved in the fire–and were several miles from any structure.  It was certainly easy and safe to scapegoat the eucalyptus trees since they could not defend themselves and native plant advocates in this area had been trying to get them removed for years, a campaign that is still going on. We trust that UCSF will be able to see through the fog of this propaganda campaign against nonnative vegetation, and make a decision that will be best for both fire safety and Sutro Forest.

Our organization, Hills Conservation Network, came together because a group of fire-area residents realized that it was important for fire safety to research and publicize the real reasons why the 1991 fire spread out of control so quickly. The majority of those on our board of directors lost their houses in the fire. So, we did not start our organization because we are “tree-huggers.” We are committed to learning as much as we can about preventing wildfire and educating our neighbors about the importance of big hardwood trees (such as eucalyptus) in providing not only carbon storage that cuts the greenhouse emissions warming our planet, but also in mitigating fire risk.

Based on our experience of the 1991 Oakland-Berkeley fire, and on our research,  we of the Hills Conservation Network believe that Mt. Sutro forest should be preserved. Even more than the trees in Garber Park, that, I repeat, did not burn, even though they were close to the fire, the tall trees of Mt. Sutro are draped in cooling mist for most of the year. The understory at Mt. Sutro is moist, providing an almost fire-proof ecology.  If this understory is removed, and the trees are removed, what you will have left are weeds, growing profusely in the sun once the shade canopy of trees is no longer there.

Board member
Hills Conservation Network

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ABOUT HILLS CONSERVATION NETWORK

Based in San Francisco’s East Bay, the Hills Conservation Network (HCN) is committed to fire mitigation in the hills without deforestation.  The HCN website is HERE, and their blog is HERE.

They issue quarterly newsletters following fire hazard reduction and tree-protection issues. Their Autumn 2012 newsletter (PDF) featuring the Oakland Fire Department’s response to some of the issues in the 1991 fires is HERE .

They are currently battling a plan to cut down hundreds of thousands of trees in the East Bay, and are in the process of raising funds for a potential legal defense. That information is HERE.

“Due to the high winds earlier this week we have been notified of a downed tree in the Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve.  The tree pictured below has fallen across one of the unnamed trails (between the Historic and South Ridge Trails) impeding passing.  The location of the tree is denoted by the “X” on the map included below and we are hoping to have Bartlett’s Tree Experts onsite this week to remove the fallen tree from this location.  If you happen to be visiting the area please be aware of this hazard and feel free to contact me with any questions.”

In fact, they had Bartlett there within three days. That’s when we received a message from a someone who had been in the forest and saw at least four trees that had been taken down that had been standing the previous week. “I thought UCSF wasn’t starting this till August,” they asked, “Was I wrong?“

We wondered, too, and went into the forest for a look. The downed tree had been sectioned so the trail was passable, but a number of other trees had been cut down too.

Among them was the “Please don’t cut me down” tree we’d seen on a recent walk. It lay beside the trail, no longer a snag but a log.

We sent an email to UCSF about the trees, and Barbara Bagot-Lopez responded that she’d check with Facilities Management. Later she wrote, “I confirmed that UCSF has not cut down any trees. I believe they have removed the tree that fell and was blocking the trail.”

Not quite, we explained when we wrote back.  “They cut through the fallen tree to open up the trail, which is good. (They’re not actually *removing* the trees.) But they also did cut down some other trees around the fallen tree, so perhaps the information they gave you is not 100% accurate. (See the photographs attached – it wasn’t just the fallen tree.)” And we attached a few photographs, including the one above.

We honestly didn’t expect to hear anything more. But yesterday, we – and everyone on the UCSF listserv – got this message:

“This is a follow-up to the communication below notifying the listserv of an emergency tree removal in the UCSF Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve.   On April 10th, Bartlett Tree Experts (Bartlett) was onsite to remove a downed tree that had fallen over on a trail during the April 8th windstorm.  While on the site, a Bartlett employee noticed additional trees in the immediate area that were marked with orange paint.  The marked trees are part of a separate, ongoing maintenance project to identify dead and hazardous trees for possible future action.

“Bartlett independently chose to remove 12 trees, upon determining that their condition could lead to possible failure and pose a safety hazard to trail users. The removal of the additional trees was not authorized by UCSF.  Bartlett subsequently informed UCSF that the 12 trees were all dead, each smaller than 12” in diameter, and several had sustained additional damage by the original fallen tree. 

“Any tree removal performed within the Reserve requires prior written authorization from UCSF Facilities Services, which this did not have.   Bartlett has accepted full responsibility for the unauthorized removal.  UCSF has suspended any further contracts with Bartlett for a period of 90 days, which includes tree-pruning work along Nike Road, for which another contractor is being sought.

 ”We will continue to notify the Sutro listserv of future routine maintenance actions taking place within the Reserve.”

So we appreciate that they made the effort to get to the bottom of it.

But wait – was the Nike Rd work supposed to have finished by now? Here’s what they wrote the listserv about that:

I’m writing to inform you that Bartlett’s Tree Experts will be pruning several trees along Nike Road this week beginning on Tuesday, April 16th.   Approximately 14 trees will be pruned along Nike Road (see attached map) as they have branches that are bowing out above Nike Road.  These branches pose a potential safety hazard to those using the road.    The work will be performed from April 16-18 with no noisy work before 9:00 am and after 5:00 pm.   Nike Road will be closed to public access during this time.

And we have to say – we’re a little troubled about the errant tree-felling. It reminded us of another mistake,  one that killed a bee-tree in Glen Canyon Park.  There seems to be an implementation problem in our parks and forests.

So when one of our readers told us about this SF Bay Guardian article, we went looking online. No luck. We went right out for a paper copy. All the news-boxes were empty, but we found a few copies at a favorite cafe.

Here’s a photograph of the article, in two pieces. Clicking on them will make them large enough to read.

San Francisco has a lot of eucalyptus trees, mainly in its parks. According to a 2007 USDA report on San Francisco’s urban forest, this species accounts for over 16% of the the total of 669,000 trees in the city. This more than any other kind of tree. It’s a sturdy, fast-growing, graceful tree that grows where others will not – in areas of high wind.

(Monterey pine and Monterey Cypress are next, together accounting for about 12%. But unlike the eucalyptus trees, which are healthy and long-lived, many of these trees are nearing the end of their lives and have infections of bark beetles and pitch pine canker.)

CARBON STORAGE

As we enter a world of increasing climate change, we’re starting to understand the value of carbon storage. Trees capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and store it in their wood, roots and leaves – and in the soil beneath them. The actual amount stored is proportional to the dry weight of the wood and organic matter. Eucalyptus is particularly good at sequestering carbon.

• Its wood is very dense, which means it holds more carbon for each cubic inch of wood;
• It grows fast, which means it take up carbon quickly;
• It grows large, which again means it stores more,  in the trunk and branches and its root system.
• It lives a long time, around 400-500 years in the kind of wet conditions we have in San Francisco, which means it will not be giving back the carbon any time soon.

According to the Report, “Of all the species sampled, blue gum eucalyptus stores
and sequesters the most carbon (approximately 24.4% of the total carbon stored and
16.3% of all sequestered carbon).”

In places like Sutro Forest, where it grows in association with acacia trees – a nitrogen-fixing species – it’s even better at storing carbon. The carbon gets stored in the trees and the soil.  Sutro Forest is an excellent carbon sink.

HABITAT FOR WILDLIFE

Eucalyptus is also excellent as wildlife habitat, despite contrary claims.

• 

  Summer Tanager eating bee, San Francisco. Copyright Mark Rauzon

  Eucalyptus has nectar-rich winter-blooming flowers. It’s the largest flowering plant in the world. In the Bay Area, it flowers when few other trees or plants are in bloom, and its flowers are rich in nectar. It provides a food source to insects and the birds that feed on them, as well as directly to nectar-feeding birds.

(And if you’ve heard the urban legend about eucalyptus resin killing birds – it’s not true.)

• Eucalyptus trees provide nest sites for a whole variety of birds. As the trees mature, cavities form or are excavated by woodpeckers. These form nest sites not just for woodpeckers, but Western Bluebirds and other cavity-nesters. The crooks of the branches provide nesting spaces for Great Horned Owls and for Red-tailed Hawks.

• Where ivy or other vines are allowed to grow on eucalyptus trunks, they provide additional nest sites – as well as excellent cover for little birds, bats, and small animals to hide from predators like hawks.

In areas like parks – or Sutro Forest – where the leaf litter is allowed to accumulate under the trees, it provides an excellent habitat for small reptiles like salamanders. The damp environment is good for animals like banana slugs, which have been seen in the forest.

POLLUTION AND SOUND CONTROL

Like all trees and bushes, eucalyptus helps control pollution, especially particulate pollution. The particles are trapped on the leaves, and washed to the ground when it rains – thus staying out of our lungs. Barriers of trees and dense vegetation also help absorb the sounds of urban life.

The Report calculates an “Importance Value” based on the percentage of trees plus the percentage leaf area. For eucalyptus, that is calculated at around 27%. (Monterey Pine is higher, at 31%, but as we said – there are issues with the health of that species.)

SLOWING WATER RUNOFF

San Francisco is working hard to slow water run-off, to keep rain water out of our sewer system and let it soak into the ground. They’re encouraging people to use build sidewalk gardens and use permeable paving so water can get through to the ground rather than run off.

Eucalyptus is excellent at slowing water. It moves a lot of water, sucking it in through the roots, and transpiring it through its leaves.   The leaf litter and plants that grow below it also help in trapping wand slowing water. In San Francisco, they help enormously in slowing run-off; you can see the obvious difference after a rain-storm between the water running off Twin Peaks Boulevard in a river, and the relatively small amounts running off Mount Sutro.

NATIVISTS DESPISE EUCALYPTUS

As we’ve been reaching out to let people know about the threat to Sutro Forest, we’ve been encountering some people who despise eucalyptus. We’re not talking of developers, who don’t actually hate trees, only obstacles of whatever species or nature. We mean people who identify as environmentalists – as we do, too. But they have focused on Native Plants, and fail to recognize the importance of eucalyptus in our environment.

We urge UCSF, the Sutro Stewards, and SFRPD to recognize the urban environment we live in, and the unique value of eucalyptus in our city. No other tree is as useful from an environmental standpoint. It’s time to stop attacking these trees and to start recognizing how much they’re doing for us.

San Francisco had, in 2007, only 12% canopy cover – less than almost every city in the report except Jersey City, NJ. Our city cannot spare its majestic and valuable eucalyptus trees.

Please come if you can!

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The San Francisco Forest Alliance and Save Sutro Forest are holding a meeting on 21 April 2013 to talk about the planned felling of trees on Mount Sutro — and on Mount Davidson. These actions would gut two important urban forests near our neighborhood and irretrievably alter the landscape.

Do you want to know:

• How many thousand trees do they plan to cut down on Mount Sutro? On Mount Davidson?
• Who’s “They”?
• What about Pesticide use?
• When will this happen?

For answers to these questions and more…
Come to the San Francisco Forest Alliance meeting.

WHERE: Miraloma Park Clubhouse, 350 O’Shaughnessy Blvd,  San Francisco, CA 94127

WHEN: April 21st, 2013 (Sunday) – 4.30 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.

Mount Davidson – also at risk

The bottom line: Unless the project is delayed or cancelled, tree-felling could start in mid-August 2013. The time to work on saving this forest is NOW.

These are the next steps for UCSF before it can start cutting:

1. Respond to Comments. UCSF needs to respond to all the comments people have sent in. We asked how long this would take. UCSF’s Barbara Bagot-Lopez says they estimate it will take about 2 months. That brings us to around the middle or end of May, 2013.

2. Certify the EIR. After they respond to the comments, the University of California Board of Regents has to certify the final Environmental Impact Report (EIR). Usually, that’s just a compilation of the DEIR, plus the comments, plus UCSF’s response to the comments. What certifying the EIR means is that the UC Regents accept that the document properly sets out the environmental impacts resulting from the project, and that the objections and comments have been answered. Then UCSF would prepare and file a Notice of Determination with the State Clearinghouse. We don’t know when this would take place, but since the Regents can delegate their authority to anyone they choose, it could happen immediately after the final EIR. They wouldn’t have to wait for a meeting of the Board.

3. Approve the Project. Once the EIR has been certified, the Regents would decide whether to approve the project. (They could also approve the No-project alternative, or the Reduced Project alternative. We wrote about those HERE.) We have heard – we don’t know how accurate this is – that the Regents generally support whatever decision the UCSF Chancellor makes. If so, it would depend on what Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellman wants to do.

THE LOGISTICS OF LOGGING

Once the approval is in place, work on the first stage of the project – the Demonstration areas – can start. However, UCSF has said it will avoid working during the bird nesting season (approximately Feb 15-Aug 15).  So we presume the tree-felling can start any time after Aug 15th, and finish by mid- or end-September.

Coming soon to Sutro Forest?

1.  The Demonstration Projects may take about a month.  The DEIR says that one “Brontosaurus” machine will be used at a time, and that it should take 2-10 days to finish work on a “Demonstration” area. We expect that work on Demonstration areas #1, #2, and #3 (totaling 5.5 acres) will be done in about 30-45 days, finishing by end-September 2013.  This will involve cutting down about 3,000 trees (our estimate), mowing down 90% of the understory, and cutting off vines to 10 feet above the ground.

2.  UCSF will ask for feedback from the public on the “demonstration” plots. We expect they will have a period of around 30-45 days for this feedback. (We’ll update this if we get more information.) This will take it into November, when the rains usually start; and we think the next stage will only take place the following year.

If, however, they do decide to work later in the year, they will call in a butterfly expert (possibly Liam O’Brien, who has consulted for SF Recreation and Parks Department on butterfly issues) to inspect the trees in December or January to avoid cutting down a tree where Monarch Butterflies are currently wintering.

MORE TREE-FELLING

Year Two (2014). In year two, probably in the late August/ September 2014 window between birds’ nesting and rainy weather, they will complete the Demonstration projects by felling nearly all the trees on Demonstration Area #4, and planting native plants – what the DEIR calls “conversion planting.” (They are spacing the trees in Area #4 about 60 feet apart, which would leave some 20-30 trees on the site instead of around 1500 now.)

In the same year, they may start work on the second stage. That would be where they extend the same management plan – 30-foot spacing, mowing down the understory, cutting the vines – to a total of 38.5 more acres. Since the DEIR says that no more than 15 acres will be done at any given time, they will probably do about 10-13 acres.

This is also the year when they decide on pesticide use. In Year 1, only one acre will be sprayed with pesticides (Aquamaster, i.e. Glyphosate; and Garlon 4 Ultra, i.e. Triclopyr). They will  compare this for effectiveness and expense with two other acres, where they’ll prevent  regrowth by tarping, or by manual removal (or maybe goats). We have heard that the Sutro Stewards’ Executive Director Craig Dawson thinks pesticides will be necessary. So we think it is probable that pesticides will be used more widely in the forest in the second year to get rid of “non-native species” – which includes most of the forest.

Though the DEIR says that no more than 15 acres will be worked on at “any given time” (and not “in any given year”) the section on herbicide use suggests that they expect to stagger the project over 4 years, doing a quarter each year. So we expect that the project would be completed by end-2016. After that, pesticide use would continue for another 6 years.  Pesticides would also be used for maintenance along the trails and in all the Native Gardens (of which there will be several).

This is a little ironic, since the SF RPD’s Native Areas Program has agreed not to use pesticides for 15 feet on either side of trails to reduce  risk to people and pets. UCSF would be going from the safest wildland in the city in terms of chemical use, to the worst.

WHAT COULD IMPACT THIS TIMELINE

This timeline is an estimate we’ve made from the information in the DEIR. A number of factors could delay it, or compress the times.

1. The whole project could be delayed by a year if UCSF needs more time to respond to comments, and does not certify the final EIR before the tree-felling window in the Fall.

It could also be delayed – or even cancelled – if the UC Regents (or the UCSF Chancellor) decide to wait on this certification , or on the approval of the project.

2. It could also be delayed by any funding constraints.

3.  The project time-line could be compressed if the winter is dry and there is time – and funds – to start the second stage of the project immediately after the public comment period on the Demonstration Projects closes. This could bring the project forward by a year, so all the tree-felling is done by 2015 instead of 2016. Any other dry years where two sections of work could be done in the same year would also have this effect. In 2013, SF RPD were felling trees in Glen Canyon Park through January; under similar conditions, UCSF may decide to do the same.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Here’s what you can do to help save this magnificent forest:

If you have not written to the UCSF Chancellor, Susan Desmond-Hellman, or to the Board of Regents, this is a good time to do so. Also, if you have not signed the petition, please do so HERE!

1. Write to the Board of Regents of the University of California, and ask why a premier medical institution is engaging in a controversial, expensive, and environmentally destructive project.

They can be contacted at their website HERE. Their address is:

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY AND CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE REGENTS
1111 Franklin St., 12th floor
Oakland, CA 94607
fax: (510) 987-9224

Their email address is: regentsoffice@ucop.edu

2. Write to Susan Desmond-Hellman, Chancellor of the University of California San Francisco, asking her the same thing. Here’s her address:

University of California, San Francisco
513 Parnassus Avenue, S-126
San Francisco, CA 94143-0402
Phone: 415/476-1000
Fax: 415/476-9634
Email: Chancellor@ucsf.edu

3. Subscribe to this site to keep updated. (see the box on the top right)

4. “Like” our Facebook page Send us your contact (email) stating your support, your particular issues with what is going on, and if you would like to help by being part of our “critical mass” of supporters.

5. Help us get the word out! Distribute this two-page flyer by email, or by printing it out and handing it to people, or putting it up in public places that permit it – for instances, shop windows. Here’s the latest flyer: Mount Sutro Forest Flyer April 2013

6. Let us know if you would like to help in other ways, such as contacting supervisors and other government officials, giving talks, or give us your own ideas for helping out.

Email us at fk94131 at yahoo.com

It’s a wonderful time in the forest. The trails are damp but firm, with very few puddles. The understory seems to be growing back – we hope the Sutro Stewards are leaving it alone through the nesting season – and we heard birds throughout the forest. Not as many or as loud as there used to be even three years ago, but still enough to claim the forest.

The understory was dotted with flowers: Society Garlic, elderberry, the occasional dandelion, lupine, and blackberry. Others we couldn’t name, though maybe someone will. The pink-flowering currant still drips its delicate flowers, but it’s nearing the end of its season. And the forget-me-nots are back along the paths – and especially at the top of Nike Rd, where they’d been mulched away two years ago.

Even the Native Garden’s looking nice. The rain has greened out the meadow sections, which are generally scraggly and dry nine months of the year. Though the pink-flowering currant is past its prime, some lupine is in bloom.

The replanted section is still growing bright orange plastic flags, but a few flowers have emerged among them. We’ll see if they attract native pollinators as intended. The plastic fencing around it is mostly gone, and it looks like they knocked the sign sideways in the process of removing it.

ORANGE BLOBS AND TREE LETTERS

We encountered one of the tree-letters we’d reported earlier. This said the same thing: “Please don’t cut me down. I might be “dead” but I am beautiful to look at and can be a home to birds and other living things. Forests need dead trees.“

Beneath the note, someone had scrawled, “I am a fire hazard.”

But it’s not. As long as the forest is left alone, a functional cloud forest, it does not get dry enough to ignite. Besides – we don’t think the Management Plan to cut down the trees, chip them, and leave them where they fall is likely to help.

In the picture below, they haven’t (as far as we know) cut down any trees. But they have ripped out the understory, and mulched the ground with branches and bark.

That’s the look that the Management Plan seems to be going for, except that this picture still has too many trees. All but one or two trees in this picture would be chopped down, chopped up, and left on the ground.  It would not be less flammable or safer than what’s there now.

Someone made an orange blob into a smiley

Already, there are a lot of orange blobs. It seems that every trailside tree that isn’t perfect, anything that’s quirky or leaning or odd or dying, has been blobbed. But the note-writer, whoever it is, is right. Dead and dying trees are important as habitat. Insects find them easier to get to, and then birds like woodpeckers hunt the insects. Cavities develop and birds nest in them. And the quirky trees – they’re part of the forest’s character. No one wants a forest that’s full of trees like lamp posts.

.

The Sutro Steward’s Nursery still isn’t blending in with the forest as UCSF promised neighbors; it’s looking more like a worksite.

WHAT’S THE BLUE TARP?

We saw this blue tarp up a few days ago, and wondered why it’s there. Has the hill-side become unstable? [Edited to Add: We asked UCSF. They said, "The purpose of the blue tarp is that there were some issues with minor rock sliding on that particular spot.  The tarp was laid down to limit water intrusion until a more permanent solution could be found."]

This is quite close to Demonstration Area #4, where most of the trees will be removed. (They’re going for a 60-foot spacing.)

The picture below shows what it looks like at present. And if it reminds you of photographs of rain-forests and cloud forests – it does us, as well. The “Demonstration Projects seem to have targeted some of the most beautiful and untamed parts of the forest. We hope we can stop this destructive Plan.

On the other hand, we have been following SF Recreation and Parks Department’s Natural Areas Program (NAP) with dismay. Its pesticide use has been growing. As of end-2012, it had its highest usage yet. (The graph shows pesticide usage based on Active Ingredient, one of four measures used in calculating pesticide use.)

That’s all about to change for the worse. Much worse.

Though UCSF says it plans to be very careful in its usage of pesticide, our expectation that this project would require gallons of pesticides is reflected in the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR). That’s provided information we could analyze against NAP data.

SUTRO FOREST: NAP x 5 (OR 15!)

It’s quite appalling. On the 48 acres it may treat with Aquamaster (glyphosate, the same active ingredient as Roundup) and Garlon 4 Ultra (triclopyr), it’s contemplating levels of use between 5 and 15 times what NAP uses in an entire year in all its 1100 acres of parks. The graph below compares the DEIR projection to NAP’s 2012 levels (the yellow band).

• In Year 1, the year of the Demonstration Projects, they would use pesticide only on one acre, one-third of Area #1. That’s an experiment, and according to the DEIR, it could use on that one acre about one-third of what NAP used in 2012  in all its parks. That would be the first phase of the project.
• In Year 2, if pesticide proves the best way of stopping regrowth, they would extend this use to DemonstrationArea #4, which is to be lagged one year. Either that year, or the one following, as they carry on to Phase 2, they  would extend it to another 15 acres; and then another 15 the following year, and so on. The DEIR anticipates using pesticide on 80% of the Reserve (UCSF’s nomenclature for its part of the Sutro Forest), or 48 acres.
• For each area, they’d use the most pesticide for the first two years, then halve it for the next two years, then halve it again and keep it at that level.
• Since the implementation of the Plan would be staggered (no more than 15 acres annually), the use of pesticides would rise sharply in the first 4-5 years as more acreage was felled and treated. Then it would slowly decline, to plateau at levels roughly 5 times what NAP used in 2012 in all its parks combined.

This was going to be a way to make the forest healthier and safer?

Have the Sutro Stewards seen these projections? Just the Demonstration Projects would use as much pesticide as all the Natural Areas put together. The Stewards and their volunteers are the ones who will actually be working these areas.

Click on the picture to go to the ABC7 video

We think it’s great coverage, and ABC7 is doing the community a service by getting this issue out there.

But we’re concerned about how two interviewees focused on fire hazard,  which has been exaggerated.

Right now, the forest, which lies squarely in the Fog Belt, is a Cloud Forest – meaning it’s wet year around. It captures 30-40% of its moisture from the fog, and traps it in its dense understory. Save Sutro kept a “Fog Log” in the dry year of 2009, and found the longest dry spell was – 7 days.  (A dry spell was defined as an unbroken string of days when the forest got moisture from neither rain nor fog.) In UCSF’s own 2001 report, it mentions “up to ten days in the autumn.” At a public hearing to open the Stanyan Trail, we heard from Ray Moritz, UCSF’s hired arborist, speaking as a fire ecologist. He said the fire hazard was low. The greatest danger, he suggested was when people did not clear debris from the roof area around fireplace chimneys.

Ms Noyola, who was interviewed together with Dr Morley Singer, and Ms Barbara Bagot Lopez (of UCSF’s Community Relations), lives beside the Interior Greenbelt, the city-owned part of the forest. (She also spoke at UCSF’s Feb 25th public hearing.)

We’re not sure if she recognizes that UCSF’s Plan will actually raise the fire hazard.

CREATING A FIRE HAZARD

“Thinning” the forest will make it drier and windier, thus increasing the fire hazard. Consider the statement of Dr Mascaro, who is a professional ecologist: “By thinning the forest and removing most of the understory vegetation, the management activity will open the canopy of the forest resulting in drier and hotter duff on the forest floor and a greater risk of fire.”

In fact, we think it will be even worse. Removing thousands of trees and tearing gaps in the canopy will reduce the amount of moisture captured in the first place. Then, with no shaded understory (since more sunlight is reaching the forest floor and 90% of the understory removed), there’s nothing to retard evaporation.

The picture below (from the Interior Greenbelt part of the forest) is an example of what might be expected.

The DEIR says it’s the South-facing slopes that are warmer and drier, but in fact it’s the open areas on the east side that are dry now – while the trails up the South side are quite damp. You can see evidence of this drying on the new trail from Stanyan, where 50 trees were cut along the trail, thus opening huge gaps in the canopy. A lot of understory was also removed. The forest is visibly drier there than in the more enclosed parts. A walk along the Historic Trail illustrates this as well – the path can change from dry dust to damp earth within a few inches, depending on the state of the forest. If the whole forest is made as dry and dusty as these areas, by removing thousands of trees and nearly all the understory, the hazard could increase.

In addition, the Plan calls for cutting vines to 10 feet above the ground. This is going to leave the few remaining trees festooned with dead vines which are supposed to dry up and blow away, but actually dry up and remain for years. We wrote about that back when the Community meetings were in progress, here: Creating a Fire Ladder?

WATER AND ROADS IN THIS FOREST

In any case, there are other options. Water lines run to the summit of the mountain, and there’s a water tank within a few yards of it. Water is supplied to the Aldea campus, and to the office buildings along Medical Center Way. Fire trucks can access most of the forest either from paved roads surround it, or from the paved Nike Road to the summit of the mountain. The blue lines on the map below indicate paved roads. The yellow dot is the water tank close to the summit (which has water pipes and has even been irrigated). The orange spots are office buildings, which would have a water supply.

Even though the forest gives a feeling of seclusion and entering another world – it’s actually quite accessible. If there’s a dry spell, it would be cheaper and less destructive to bring in a tanker to just spray the forest once or even twice.

The least accessible portion – the western slopes overlooking the Inner Sunset – is in fact the 15 acre part that won’t be thinned under the UCSF Plan.

THE “FIRE HAZARD” STORY

It’s not fair, though, to blame those who do fear fire. UCSF has been talking up the fire hazard at least since 2009, when it applied for a grant from FEMA to reduce fire hazard by cutting down most of the trees on 14 acres of the forest: 8 acres on the South Ridge (around Demonstration Area #1) and 6 acres behind Edgewood (around Demonstration Area #2). FEMA came back with a lot of questions that UCSF couldn’t answer. Instead, UCSF withdrew its application.

FEMA noted that UCSF “inaccurately interprets a map”, “provides inadequate details regarding the history of wildfires in Sutro Forest, and provides a simplistic and ineffective comparison of the wildfire hazard in the Sutro Forest to the hazard in other areas that have burned in the San Francisco Bay area.”

It notes that the CALFIRE map is the relevant one, and that shows the forest to be a “moderate” fire hazard – the lowest rating of the three that CALFIRE assigns.

Now, quite surprisingly, the DEIR still uses the same maps that FEMA found it “inaccurately interprets” – and it still inaccurately interprets them in the same way. (The whole “map” story, for anyone who wants that level of detail, is HERE.)

The DEIR also suggests that the CALFIRE map is “a draft” and could change, though it was prepared in 2007 and a note on its website affirmed, in November 2008, that our city and county had no areas of Very High Fire Hazard areas: “Update, 11/2008: CAL FIRE has determined that this county has no Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones in LRA [Local Responsibility Area]. ”  That covers Mount Sutro Forest. Clearly, in CALFIRE’s assessment, there is no Very High Fire Hazard. (Meanwhile, the maps that UCSF “inaccurately interprets” were prepared in 2004 and 2005.)

CAL FIRE map shows Mt Sutro Forest has the lowest level of fire hazard (gray color indicates areas not rated – mainly built areas)

ERRONEOUS COMPARISONS

It also continues to make the same simplistic comparisons to fires elsewhere: the fires in Oakland and on Angel Island.

In fact, both Angel Island and the Oakland fire are counter-examples. Angel Island was covered with eucalyptus trees for decades. During that time, the only reference we could find to fire was a fire in a building. Since the trees were removed, there have been a number of fires, culminating in the huge October 2008 fire.  It burned the grass and shrubs over half the island, and stopped at the tree-line.

The Oakland fire also started with shrubs and grasses. It spread to trees and buildings, but the trees were victims of the fire, not the cause of it. The main fire spread from house to house. A report on that fire, from David Maloney who was on the investigative task force, is HERE. It also clarifies that eucalyptus is not particularly flammable.

The weather conditions in Oakland and on Angel Island are also have drier and more extreme weather than San Francisco’s Fog Belt. Besides, Sutro Forest’s uniquely wet micro-climate is not comparable – though ironically, once the forest has been thinned and dried out, the comparisons might be closer. Nevertheless, San Francisco’s climate remains much less extreme than either place – cooler (and wetter, with the fog) in summer; and warmer in winter.

To everyone who is concerned about the fire hazard: Ask UCSF and the Sutro Stewards (the volunteers who actually manage the forest) to maintain it as a functional cloud forest.

• Stop tearing out understory unless its actually to maintain trails.
• Avoid cutting down trees unless they are actually hazardous, not just because they are in poor condition.
• Build the trails to channel water across them to the downslope side, and maintain the dense vegetation on either side. That way, the areas that aren’t actually trail will remain damp, and the vegetation will help remove moisture from the trail.
• Ask UCSF to put in place a sensible emergency plan for any situations where the forest – very rarely – does get dry.

Today, hiker Gina Hall posted pictures on Facebook of notes she found on these trees all over the forest: “Please don’t cut me down...” They suggested writing to UCSF Campus Planning, Box 0286 SF, California 94143-0286 – Attention Diane Wong. Before March 19th, 2013.

“There are not many pine trees in these woods,” said this note. “Please leave me standing for some different than usual kind of beauty here.“

In the picture below, it says, “I am part of a collection of plum trees that bloom every year & provide a beautiful space in these woods. I am not dead.”

[Edited to Add: Another note on a tree, below. It says, "I might be dead but I am beautiful to look at and am a home to birds and other living things. Forests need dead trees."]

“I didn’t write these notes,” Gina Hall wrote,  “but I did read them all over the forest today…”

We’d also like to note that though public comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Report are due on March 19th, that is not the day tree-felling will start. We understand that will wait for the bird nesting season (which runs approximately February through August) to end. So please do write into UCSF – even if it’s after March 19. You could also address your notes to Ms Lori Yamauchi, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Campus Planning, at info@planning.ucsf.edu or the same address as given above.

[Edited to Add the following section.]

WHAT CRITERIA FOR BLOBBING?

We don’t know what criteria were used for selecting trees for the orange paint blobs, or who decided. Hort Science, which did the original 1995 study of the forest has a specific assessment system for hazardous trees.

The method Hort uses for rating trees is this. It considers three factors:

•     Failure potential (How likely is it that the tree would fall or drop a limb);
•     Size of the part that would fail (the size of the tree or the branch);
•     Value of the target area (if it fell, what would it damage?).

Each is scored on a scale of 1-4, and the scores are added together. This gives a tree a rating of 3 (least problematic) to 12 (most problematic). Only a small young tree far from any road or building or playground would be a 3. The City’s action threshold is 9, and most trees with a 9 or higher rating would be removed. This methodology is strongly biased against large trees in busy areas. For instance, a big tree near a roadway would get a score of 4 for size, and 4 for “value of target.” This means it is an automatic 9, because the score for “failure potential” cannot be less than 1. But conversely, it does not remove trees merely for being old or spindly or even dead.

Unfortunately, this is not usually the criterion used in San Francisco’s Natural Areas – or, presumably, Sutro Forest. There, they just eyeball the trees, and mark for removal any that are in poor condition or are leaning. We suspect the approach used here was just that – remove trees that are dead or dying or leaning.

This is a poor approach for a naturalized forest. It’s destructive of a forest’s ecology; dead and dying trees are important to a forest, and ones that lean add interest to the landscape.

(We have a query in to UCSF, and if they respond, we’ll post it here.)

Here is the PDF of the DEIR: Mount_Sutro_EIR_1-16-13_with_Appendices

MISLEADING PICTURES

The DEIR avoids showing mock-ups of what the forest might look like after its Plan is implemented. Instead, it shows two sets of Before and After pictures eucalyptus trees elsewhere, provided by hired urban forester, Ray Moritz. (Page 4.1-15 and 4.1-16 of the DEIR, included here for purposes of discussion and criticism.)

The pictures show a forest with understory removed, but the trees are clearly not spaced 30 (or 60) feet apart. They appear to be spaced 8-10 feet apart,  similar to the average spacing in Mount Sutro Forest now. (Given 740 trees per acre, it’s 8-9 feet apart.) Both “after” pictures include thin trees of the kind that would be eradicated under the Plan. So what the pictures actually represent is how the forest might look without its understory, vines, or epiphytes – but without any tree-felling.

Australian eucalyptus forest. Photo credit: Tim Chen, 123RF Stock Photo

This is a normal eucalyptus canopy but UCSF calls it sparse. Source: UCSF

The DEIR also includes pictures of the canopy which it characterizes as sparse and unhealthy. This reflects a misunderstanding of the forest and the species; it is actually the natural canopy of a eucalyptus forest, which is airy and not very dense, thus allowing for a subcanopy of smaller trees (acacia, plum in Sutro Forest), and a lush understory. [Edited to Add pictures. For comparison, we show a stock photo of an Australian eucalyptus forest as well as the "sparse tree canopies" from the DEIR. (Page 4.7-4 of the DEIR, included here for purposes of discussion and criticism.)]

EXAGGERATED FIRE HAZARD – AND HIGH-RISK “SOLUTION”

The DEIR exaggerates the fire hazard – and its Plan will actually increase the risk by making the forest much drier and windier. (There’s a statement from a professional forest ecologist HERE.)

The arguments in the DEIR repeat those in the FEMA application: Eucalyptus is uniquely flammable owing to shed bark and oils within the leaves; dense forests are more flammable than open ones; that fires in the forest in 1899 and 1934 indicate its vulnerability; that the fires on Angel Island and Oakland are examples of fires that could occur in Mount Sutro Forest; that hot dry northeast winds in autumn cause a period of vulnerability for “several weeks.”  We thought we had already answered those arguments in this post: UCSF, Sutro Stewards, and the Fund-Raising Fire Hazard, and in this earlier post, Mt Sutro: The Fire Hazard That Wasn’t.

Sutro Forest is a de-facto Cloud Forest. It gets 30-40% more moisture than surrounding areas by catching moisture from the fog, which it then holds in its duff and understory. (We have an illustration of the process HERE.) This may be the wettest part of the city that isn’t actually under water.

According to CALFIRE, the hazard rating for Mount Sutro Forest is “moderate” – its lowest risk rating. The DEIR seeks to dismiss this by saying the map is a draft and could change. However, CALFIRE also noted: “Update, 11/2008: CAL FIRE has determined that this county has no Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones in LRA [Local Responsibility Area]. ” That covers Mount Sutro Forest. Clearly, in CALFIRE’s assessment, there is no Very High Fire Hazard.

San Francisco city does not get hot dry northeasterly winds (commonly called ‘Diablo’ winds); even when the East Bay has these conditions, the city remains cooler. According to the 2001 Plan, the vulnerability is for “up to ten days in the autumn.” In 2009, we maintained a daily FogLog during this so-called ‘period of vulnerability’ and recorded only 7 dry days – i.e. days when neither fog nor rain provided the forest with moisture. It will not dry out in 7-10 days in its natural state.

The fire hazard can be raised, however, by “thinning” the forest. This will dry out the “thinned” areas, and increase wind-speeds, thus increasing the likelihood that fires will spread if they start. So far, there have been – we are told – 3 small fires, the last in 1999. It was extinguished in 20 minutes. Had the forest had been drier and windier, and had it been a fire of grass and shrubs, it could have spread rapidly as the Angel Island fire did.

In fact, both Angel Island and the Oakland fire are counter-examples. Angel Island was covered with eucalyptus trees for decades. During that time, the only reference we could find to fire was a fire in a building. Since the trees were removed, there have been a number of fires, culminating in the October 2008 fire – which burned the grass and shrubs and stopped at the tree-line.

The Oakland fire also started with shrubs and grasses. It spread to trees and buildings, but the trees were victims of the fire, not the cause of it. The main fire spread from house to house. A report on that fire, from David Maloney who was on the investigative task force, is HERE. It also clarifies that eucalyptus is not particularly flammable.

The weather conditions in Oakland and on Angel Island are also completely different from Mount Sutro’s. Both those places have more extreme and drier weather.  Sutro Forest’s uniquely wet micro-climate is not comparable – though once the forest has been thinned and dried out, the comparisons might be closer.

You can already see evidence of this drying on the new trail from Stanyan, where 50 trees were cut along the trail, thus opening huge gaps in the canopy. A lot of understory was also removed. The forest is visibly drier there than in the more enclosed parts. Even the DEIR says it’s the South-facing slopes that are warmer and drier, in fact it’s the open areas on the east side that are dry now. A walk along the Historic Trail illustrates this as well – the path can change from dry dust to damp earth within a few inches, depending on the state of the forest.  If the whole forest is made as dry and dusty as these areas, by removing thousands of trees and nearly all the understory, the hazard could increase.

Incidentally, during the public meeting prior to that trail being built, Ray Moritz, who is UCSF’s hired arborist, also made a presentation as a fire ecologist and declared the fire hazard to be low.

CARBON SEQUESTRATION

With global warming, carbon storage is becoming an increasingly important issue. In fact, California has a specific law about it: AB32. UCSF also has a policy to reduce greenhouse gases.

Eucalyptus trees are excellent carbon sinks: They grow large and fast, the wood is dense, and they’re long-lived in wet conditions like Mount Sutro (around 400-500 years). The acacia understory makes the forest even better at sequestering carbon; acacia is a nitrogen-fixing tree, so both the eucalyptus and the acacia grow better together. They also store more carbon in the soil. Obviously, felling these trees will be a double whammy. They won’t be pulling more carbon out of the air. Instead, they’ll be chipped and mulched and decaying – and thus releasing carbon.

The DEIR makes several mistakes as it attempts to wiggle its way out of this dilemma: chopping down thousands of trees and leaving them to decay, vs the negative carbon impact. Here’s what it does:

First, it underestimates the carbon stored in the forest, and continued sequestration, in six ways:

• It uses calculations based on six tiny cherry-picked plots (one-tenth of an acre each) that had fewer and smaller trees (averaging 175 trees per acre instead of 740 trees per acre for the whole forest!);
• It calculates the tree-loss per acre based on the 175 trees/ acre and estimates 62 trees per acre will be left standing – so only 113 trees per acre are felled instead of 678
• It excludes all trees under 5 inches in diameter;
• It excludes understory vegetation because it’s only 5% of the total carbon storage;
• It ignores soil storage (about 50% of a forest’s carbon storage) because it’s stable, even though the kind of activities planned for the Reserve would undoubtedly cause soil disturbance and release carbon; and
• It uses a calculation based on 40% of the wood from felled trees being used for timber (like for furniture) – which of course means the carbon is stored for a much longer time than if the tree is in woodchips decaying on the ground. It reaches a conclusion that the short-term reduction in carbon storage would be 29% of the forest’s total storage – 11,286 tons (or 10,239 metric tons) of carbon dioxide.
• It argues that mature trees have stopped sequestering carbon, while young trees would absorb carbon at higher rates. This is only true if trees stop growing; but there’s no evidence that these trees have. They are young for eucalyptus trees, which can live 400-500 years. In fact, since trees absorb carbon in proportion to the wood they add, the larger trees may be absorbing carbon at a lower rate than small trees, but actually taking in a larger amount.

We estimate their numbers are between 1/3 and 1/4 of the realistic amounts. The storage numbers are understated, and the removal numbers even more understated.

Second, it looks at a 30-year scenario (the projected life of the Plan), and divides the carbon storage loss by 30. We are not sure where the 30-year project life comes from.

Third, it argues that over 30 years, the carbon storage capacity will recover. The trees will be thinned the trees that remain will be healthier and grow larger, (despite the risk of wind throw killing remaining trees, and destruction be herbicides through the intergrafted root system).  Because the understory will be destroyed, they say, new trees will be able to grow (despite the thick layer of eucalyptus chip mulch and the plan to poison them or yank them to prevent them from growing.) It also claims reduction in tree mortality because there’ll be fewer pest infestations (which don’t actually exist now, but are speculated about).

HEALTH OF THE FOREST

The DEIR claims the forest is unhealthy, with overcrowding, dying trees, and an infestation of various insects including of snout beetles in some areas.

• We wonder if UCSF had an entomologist look at the beetles, because snout beetles have mainly been seen in Southern California. In any case, they are readily controlled through release of a parasitic wasp. (This UC Davis publication has details.)
• Except for major infestations, it’s normal for a forest to have insects – they’re part of the ecosystem, in fact, the foundation of it.
• The DEIR states that the forest is crowded because eucalyptus is well-adapted to the site, it’s very prolific, and re-sprouts vigorously. This does not sound exactly like ill-health.
• Some trees – especially the thin saplings that have not reached the canopy – are dead or dying. This is a natural process of self-thinning. It is better than the artificial thinning proposed in the Plan, because the forest varies greatly in terms of topography, wind, temperatures, and other growing conditions. The trees that flourish are best adapted for that particular space.
• The DEIR mentions that new trees are not growing into the canopy. We cannot see why this is an issue, since the tree density is considered more than adequate already. We cannot see why felling 90%  of the trees per acre will improve the health of the forest.
• The last detailed assessment of the forest was made in 1999, by Hort Science. Though the DEIR claims that two arborists hired subsequently reported a deterioration in conditions, they haven’t actually documented anything. Now, 13 years later, the DEIR still uses Hort’s estimate of tree density and tree numbers: 740 trees per acre, and 45,000 trees in total. This suggests that the deterioration is insignificant.
• It also “spun” Hort’s report as follows: “the general condition of the Reserve’s trees is only fair to good, but the prevalent small trees throughout the forest are generally in worse condition than the large trees that dominate the forest canopy.” Here’s what Hort actually wrote: “In general, the trees that make up the canopy were in good condition. Trees in the understory had generally poor health.” Hort’s report sounds like a forest in the process of self-thinning. The trees that win the race for light flourish; the others survive or die depending on their specific circumstances.

If the forest is considered as a naturalized forest, it will be seen as healthy and self-regulating; it’s a population of trees in various conditions. Only if it’s considered a plantation – or still worse, an invasive species – does it make sense to intervene aggressively.

AIR QUALITY

Trees and bushes fight pollution, especially small particulate matter that is bad for human lungs. They trap these particles on their leaves until they are rained down, thus removing them from the air, and absorb noxious gases. The DEIR does not address or quantify the loss of pollution control – which is likely to run to thousands of pounds of contaminants.

WILDLIFE

The assessment of wildlife is based on two (presumably daytime) site visits by the consultants, and guesswork based on the habitat conditions. There was no camera trapping, extended observation, or year-round observation to allow for seasonal changes.

• Insects. The DEIR only speculates, and it’s wrong. “Native insect within the Reserve is expected to be low because of the dominance of non-native eucalyptus.” The insect fauna of the shady understory of the eucalyptus forest would include moths, flies, and beetles. (We have also observed butterflies.) Further, it’s not true that native insects use only native plants; many species adapt to non-native plants quite readily. It adds “two species of eucalyptus borer may occur… heavy infestation of these species may kill eucalyptus trees.” We are not clear why this section was even included, since it contains no actual information as to what species of insects actually occur (not “may” occur) in the forest.
• Amphibians and reptiles. They didn’t see any on their two site visits. They’re guessing at what might live there, based on the habitat.
• Birds. This section is the most descriptive, and they actually observed some birds, and actually recognizes its value to birds, both resident and migratory. It fails to describe the impact of removing 90% of the trees and understory on birdlife. The olive-sided flycatcher is a species of special concern that may nest in the forest. It’s a forest species, and was heard in the East Bowl, the area of Demonstration Project #4 – which, spaced at 12-15 trees per acre, will no longer be forest once the Plan is implemented. It also needs snags – dead trees – which will be the first to go when the thinning starts.
• Mammals. They only saw a squirrel, but think the forest could house oppossum, deer mice, raccoons, skunks – and black-tailed deer. No, we have no deer. They also guess at what bats might use the forest.

On page 4.3-20, it claims the forest is not a wildlife corridor because it’s surrounded by urban development. In fact, if viewed from an animal’s viewpoint, it is part of a system that connects to a broader area -  Glen Canyon, Twin Peaks, Laguna Honda Reservoir, and Golden Gate Park. It says “the relatively limited amount of vegetation removal… would not interfere…” We’re not sure it defines the loss of 90% of the understory (which is what matters most to non-flying critters) as “relatively limited.”

The mitigation for birds nesting is also interesting – they’re going to try to work outside the nesting season, and retain a few snags for woodpeckers. If they’re working between Dec 15 and August 15, they’ll call in a biologist to do a nest survey and cordon off nests. But the DEIR ignores the effect of the reduced habitat for birds the following season, which certainly is not “less than significant.”

TIME TO SEND IN PUBLIC COMMENTS

We think there are other flaws and lacunae in the DEIR, but we are now closing in on the public comments deadline: 19 March 2013. Please take a few minutes to send in your comments!

• Submit a written public comment by 5 PM, March 19, 2013 to UCSF Environmental Coordinator Diane Wong at EIR@planning.ucsf.edu
• Or, by mail to UCSF Campus Planning, Box 0286, San Francisco, CA 94143-0286.
• Include your full name and address.

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My name is Dr. Joseph Mascaro, I am a forest ecologist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, California.  Although I cannot be present at the meeting today due to prior travel arrangements, I asked Keith McAllister to read this statement on my behalf.  I wish to deliver my expert opinion as an ecologist, but please note that my views regarding Mt. Sutro are not endorsed by, or affiliated with, the Carnegie Institution for Science.

I have worked in forest ecosystems throughout the United States, as well as tropical forests in Central and South America, Oceana and Australia, where I worked in forests dominated by eucalyptus and acacia species.  Having experienced conditions in eucalyptus forests in their native habitat, I believe the management objectives of the draft environmental impact report by the University of California, San Francisco will have three significant and unnecessary negative impacts on the environment, and in light of these negative impacts, I strenuously object to the proposed management activity.

First, the management activity will increase—not decrease—the risk of fire.  The present microclimate of the Sutro forest is cool and moist, with predominately healthy trees.  The forest promotes fog drip, and blocks wind.  By thinning the forest and removing most of the understory vegetation, the management activity will open the canopy of the forest resulting in drier and hotter duff on the forest floor and a greater risk of fire.

Second, the management activity will increase carbon emissions to the atmosphere.  In the report, UCSF justifies these carbon emissions on the grounds that, after the cutting, more eucalyptus trees will grow to accumulate any lost carbon.  UCSF is disingenuous on its views regarding eucalyptus: they first suggest that it is bad because it increases fire risk, and then suggest it is good because it grows quickly.

Third, the management activity will damage the biological diversity and character of Mt. Sutro.  The forest on Mt. Sutro is, indeed, a novel ecosystem with many introduced species.  Yet it is a diverse, functioning ecosystem providing many services, the most interesting of which is that it provides a small piece of wild nature in the heart of our city.  The forest is old, but it may not yet be mature.  There is no forest perfectly analogous to what exists on Mt. Sutro – a cosmopolitan mix of species, much like San Francisco.  The fact that the forest is strange to us is not a sufficient  justification for destroying it.

I urge UCSF to withdraw their management proposal.

Here is the PDF of the DEIR. Mount_Sutro_EIR_1-16-13_with_Appendices

You can submit a written public comment by 5 PM, March 19, 2013 to UCSF Environmental Coordinator Diane Wong at EIR@planning.ucsf.edu or by mail to UCSF Campus Planning, Box 0286, San Francisco, CA 94143-0286. Include your full name and address.

Perhaps one tree would remain of these; the other trees and greenery would be gone.

THE MANAGEMENT PLAN

UCSF proposes a two-stage Plan. In the first stage, it would:

• Cut down around 3,000 trees on four “Demonstration Projects” totaling 7.5 acres;
• Build three new trails, including one through a narrow ribbon of trees separating the Forest Knolls neighborhood from UCSF Student Housing;
• Remove 90% of the understory habitat in 7 acres of the Demonstration Projects.
• Amputate tree-climbing vines on the remaining trees (around 10% of the current total on this acreage).

In the second stage, it would extend the same Plan to the remainder of the Open Space Reserve, except for 15 acres considered too steep that would be left untouched. This would effectively remove 90% of the trees on 3/4 of the Reserve – a total of around 27,000-30,000 trees.

The DEIR considers two alternatives. The “No Project Alternative” is a requirement – what would happen if UCSF did not go ahead with this Plan. They also have a Reduced Project Alternative.

NO PROJECT ALTERNATIVE  (No trees removed)

This alternative would continue existing management:  maintaining trails, removing only hazardous trees, and pruning trees and bushes. (It claims “herbicide use would continue in a limited manner”, which we don’t understand given UCSF’s claim that no herbicides have been used in the forest since 2008.)

It claims that this would mean the forest would “continue to decline in health.” This presupposes that its health is indeed declining, which we dispute on the assessment of two Certified Arborists, who consider it healthy.

This is the option that we believe is ecologically positive, responsive to the public, and financially responsible. We would also expect UCSF to maintain its current No-Herbicide policy in the forest.

REDUCED PROJECT ALTERNATIVE (22,000 trees)

The DEIR claims this is the Environmentally Superior Alternative, since the noise impacts on Edgewood would not exist.It would do the following:

• Space the trees to 15 feet instead of 30 feet. This would give around 200 trees per acre (instead of 50 that would result from a 30-foot spacing).
• No Management Activities adjacent to Edgewood Avenue. Though the DEIR doesn’t specify the acreage, we assume this would be an area of around 6 acres that were included in the original application to FEMA.
• Reduce understory removal to 45% instead of 90%. Instead of mowing down all the understory habitat, they would take out about half of it.
• Everything else would be the same – tree cutting for views, trails, herbicide use. And, we presume, the exclusion of the 15 acres above Inner Sunset.

The DEIR claims this is the Environmentally Superior Alternative, since the noise impacts on Edgewood would not exist. This Reduced Project alternative would cut down 22,000 trees – about 75% of the trees on 65% of the forest.

According to the DEIR, “The Reduced Project Alternative would partially meet the project objectives, but not at the scope and scale that UCSF desires.”

In view of what the DEIR actually states as UCSF’s desires, we wonder why they object to our statements that they plan to fell 30,000 trees.

NEIGHBORHOOD IMPACTS

The differential impact on the three neighborhoods adjacent to the Reserve is curious, though we presume coincidental.

• The proposed Management Plan spares any direct impact on the Inner Sunset neighborhood, which lies below the steep Western slopes that are excluded from tree-felling or understory removal. (This is the home neighborhood of Craig Dawson, Executive Director of the Sutro Stewards, and member of the Parnassus Community Action Team.)
• The Reduced Project Alternative would remove the direct impact on Edgewood, which stands to lose its windbreak and sound barrier under the proposed Plan.
• Under either scenario, the third neighborhood adjoining the forest – Forest Knolls – is still directly impacted. The 3-acre Demonstration Project #1 lies directly above it, and that is the only area where pesticides will be used in the project’s first stage. (This is the home neighborhood of SaveSutro’s webmaster.)

But – as we’re sure both UCSF and the Sutro Stewards, (who would be responsible for at least the continued maintenance if not for actually implementing this plan) understand – the appeal of this forest is not limited to direct neighbors. Its beauty, its unique ecology, and the ecosystem benefits that it provides are important to everyone in the city – and to visitors from other cities and other countries.

A FOREST PEOPLE LOVE

We’ll end with a few comments from supporters who signed the petition:

“Mt Sutro is a beautiful green space within a busy residential area of a major city. It is a jewel with its greenery and walking/biking trail. Finding it while visiting San Francisco has been a real high point of my trip. To think someone or group wants to tear it down to ‘improve it’ is horrible. It is wonderful as it is.”

“I visited San Francisco briefly last year and went straight to Mt Sutro. A friend from Australia is visiting soon and I’ve convinced him to do the same. Mt Sutro is a major tourist draw for nature lovers because it is so unique, and because there are such beautiful photos of it coming out on social media. Please don’t contaminate the jewel in your crown!”

“This forest I’ve loved since I was a kid. Please help save this Treasure within the city.”

“Don’t destroy something so beautiful and rare as a forest inside a metropolitan city!”

“This is such a unique site and one so ecologically important. Please don’t destroy this!”

“Spare the trees! Spare the Air! Spare our FUTURE!”

The article below was first published in a shortened version in the San Francisco Chronicle, and then at full length in the Bay Times. We have reprinted it below from the Bay Times version (with added subheads and pictures).

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Tree Wars by Joel P. Engardio
Published: March 7, 2013

In San Francisco, there seems to be a correlation between well-intended bans, unintended consequences and jokes on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show (we banned toys in Happy Meals, but kids are still getting fat).

Now there are plans to cut down large numbers of trees and replace them with native plants because ancient San Francisco was naturally treeless. Can we agree that attempting to turn back the botanical clock is a nerve-racking feat in a city that’s still trying to get the buses to run on time?

The issue is ripe for parody because the call for tree destruction is coming from environmental activists who favor native plants. Meanwhile, many longtime residents and retired homeowners concerned with loss of windbreak and property value play the role of unlikely tree-huggers.

The resulting Tree Wars are being fought on Mt. Davidson and Mt. Sutro, where Adolph Sutro planted a dense forest of Australian eucalyptus trees in the 1880s when San Francisco was mostly sand dunes. Today, Sutro is both cursed and praised for his choice of tree.

Some view the Westside peaks as lush and gorgeous “cloud forests” where fog gathers and hangs in the eucalyptus. Others see ugly and invasive “trees-as-weeds” that choke the land of natural life. When an arborist declares the forest is dying, another comes forward to say it will thrive for decades. When people claim that eucalyptus trees can’t support wildlife, photographers post pictures of baby owls nesting. And on it goes.

NOT MANY TREES IN SAN FRANCISCO

What’s missing in the eucalyptus debate is the fact that there aren’t many trees of any kind in San Francisco. Our overall tree canopy is just 12 percent, compared to 36 percent in Atlanta and 29 percent in Boston. New York’s concrete jungle has double the trees we have. Even the parking lot known as Los Angeles beats us in tree cover (18 percent).

How can San Francisco — a self-proclaimed “green” city – have so few trees? Why aren’t we planting more trees that can clean the air, absorb traffic noise and help prevent landslides? We have environmentalists who say returning to native grass is better because that’s what was here before humans came and messed up San Francisco’s unique ecosystem. But what about all the non-native houses, office buildings, roads and people that make up the nation’s 14th largest city – not to mention the iconic cross and giant TV tower that sit on top of Mt. Davidson and Mt. Sutro, where the native plant movement is most focused?

While I think trees are good and we need more of them, I have yet to hug one. If there’s a eucalyptus (or any tree) in danger of burning or falling, cut it down. If a tree stands in the way of a needed development, cut it down. Common sense says life and property come before trees.

But I question if we should spend scarce tax dollars to replace healthy trees with native plants when the city had to borrow $200 million last year to fix dilapidated playgrounds. Parks in a crowded city should put the recreation needs of people and pets first. That’s why native plant programs – which restrict access for the sake of the plants – seem better suited for places like Yosemite over urban areas.

The city’s Natural Areas Program oversees the reintroduction of native plants and it isn’t cheap. Much has already been spent on trying to create fields of native grass. Some failed after multiple plantings and others sacrificed tall trees for what’s been described as “scraggly scrub brush.”

Beauty is subjective, but how can the city justify funding native plant programs when it says it can’t afford to maintain street trees?

Homeowners resent that they’re now required to pay for pruning city trees in front of their property. Rather than fall into the money pit of native plant programs, the city should put resources into planting and maintaining more trees along streets and in parks.

CREATING A SENSE OF FEAR AROUND EUCALYPTUS

For me, the most compelling argument I’ve heard against the eucalyptus is the claim they are more flammable than other trees — how the oil in the wood can flare under intense heat. It’s scary to read about firestorms in hot, dry climates (like the devastating 1991 Oakland Hills fire).

But didn’t grass, wooden structures and trees of all types fuel that fire in addition to eucalyptus? And how often is it hot and dry on Mt. Davidson and Mt. Sutro, where there is a perpetual wet fog? A eucalyptus in the Australian outback is not a eucalyptus in San Francisco.

I have to wonder if creating a sense of fear around the eucalyptus helps some environmentalists justify cutting down lots of trees to make way for the native grass fields they prefer.

Consider what’s happening at UCSF, which wants to reduce eucalyptus trees on the 60 acres of forest it controls on Mt. Sutro. Replacing trees with native grass is expensive, so UCSF applied for a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant to help pay for it. The “emergency” in the UCSF application was the eucalyptus fire hazard. But FEMA responded by saying “UCSF inaccurately interprets a [wildfire hazard] map, provides inadequate details regarding the history of wildfires in the Sutro Forest, and provides a simplistic and ineffective comparison of the wildfire hazard in the Sutro Forest to the hazard in other areas that have burned in the San Francisco Bay Area.”

FEMA was also curious if replacing dense trees with open fields of grass might change wind patterns and create more danger by drying out the area. FEMA asked UCSF to “provide a citable and logical defense regarding how the proposed projects…would not result in an increase in the wildfire hazard in the Sutro Forest.”

UCSF withdrew its application and announced it would do the tree removal without a FEMA grant. California taxpayers will pay the bill, which means that every UCSF student facing a tuition increase and scientist looking for research funding has a stake in San Francisco’s tree wars.

NO PLANS TO EXPAND INTO THE FOREST…

UCSF says it has no plans to expand into the forest, which the UC Board of Regents designated as permanent open space in 1976. UCSF also says it won’t replace every tree with native grass. But the blogs still question the push for native plants. While UCSF would face many obstacles to develop the land, getting rid of the trees eliminates one big hurdle: It’s much easier to build on grass. Now is a good time to get informed. Public comment on the UCSF plan ends March 19 and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will consider non-native tree removal on city-owned land later this year.

When the Daily Show spoofs our tree wars, it’s hard to say which side will get the most laughs. Both sides have extremists to skewer.

Hopefully there’s a middle majority who believes that more trees of all varieties are good for San Francisco – a majority who’s tired of our city giving Jon Stewart easy material.

It’s populated with “eucalyptus, an unusually hyperactive tree” that’s “causing havoc on a forested San Francisco hillside…” And if that didn’t give you a mental image of manic Ents running around screaming, it did us.

The article, headlined “Mount Sutro’s Eucalyptus Forest -Trash or Treasure?” in the paper edition, is titled “UCSF, neighbors tangle over eucalyptus” in the online SFGate article, which rather oddly appears under the “Science” category. The article goes on to describe this unpleasant place…

It has a “dense tangle of trees, poison oak, and English ivy…” and it’s “unhealthy and infested with beetles…”

“A steady rain of falling limbs is dangerous to neighbors and their property…”

And “oily litter and underbrush” that would endanger them even more if it “ever caught fire.”

THE REALITY OF SUTRO FOREST…

The article attributes much of this description to unnamed “UCSF officials” – unless they meant Barbara Bagot-Lopez, who is quoted as wanting to “keep the forest beautiful, accessible to the community, healthy as a forest, and safe for our community and for our neighbors’ homes.” Actually, if she had been talking of Sutro Forest, UCSF should be proud that they have already achieved all those conditions, without spending the millions of dollars the Management Plan would require.

• Its beauty is evident, and noted worldwide. One tourist who signed the petition (which at this time has 2225 signatures) wrote this: “I visited San Francisco briefly last year and went straight to Mt Sutro. A friend from Australia is visiting soon and I’ve convinced him to do the same. Mt Sutro is a major tourist draw for nature lovers because it is so unique, and because there are such beautiful photos of it coming out on social media. Please don’t contaminate the jewel in your crown!”
• The forest is already accessible to the community, which has been walking there for over thirty years. Newly-built trails, signage, the availability of trail maps – and, dare we say, the Hiking Information on this website – have increased accessibility.
• Two Certified Arborists have assessed it as healthy (as did a professional forest ecologist whose statement was read out at the Feb 25th meeting).
• As a functional cloud forest, and perhaps the wettest place in San Francisco outside the bay, it has little risk of a fire. In any case, felling thousands of trees and tearing out 90% of the understory would raise the fire hazard, not reduce it – especially if native plants, which are notoriously flammable, were introduced in the understory instead of the blackberry and ivy that don’t easily ignite.
• As for the dangers posed by hazardous trees, UCSF has been dealing with those promptly. Unlike the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department, which cites budget constraints and has over 400 open items in terms of calls for tree remediation, UCSF has been responsive to neighbors who have complained about dangerous trees. We have observed this in Forest Knolls, a neighborhood that abuts the forest, on at least two occasions, most recently in the episode of the poisoned trees.

…ISN’T TRUE OF FIMRITE’S FOREST

But it’s obviously not true of Fimrite’s Forest, which is ugly, inaccessible, unhealthy, and unsafe.

There, the only way to save the forest is to destroy it. Here’s the solution he describes from UCSF: “The plan is to significantly thin out the dense tangle of trees, poison oak and English ivy … to reintroduce native plants and shrubs around the select eucalyptus trees that would remain.”

The article then goes on to describe the historical background, and the details of the plan. The opposition to it, (which Fimrite describes as “public hysteria”) is apparently “fueled by claims that the University intends to clear-cut 30,000 trees.” He reports the 27,000 trees that result from UCSF’s simplified calculation, and UCSF’s Bagot-Lopez as saying “the actual number will probably be much lower than that.”

He doesn’t, however, say how many thousands of these hyperactive trees would actually be felled. Neither, presumably, does Bagot-Lopez, though we suppose since only “select eucalyptus trees” will remain, it can’t be very far from that number.

So – a warning to our readers: Please avoid Fimrite’s Forest. It occupies the same space as the mysteriously beautiful Sutro Forest that neighbors, hikers, and other forest visitors love, but it’s visible only to a jaundiced eye. If Fimrite’s Forest is what you see on Mount Sutro, here’s a friendly warning: Do not enter.

Public domain picture (Source: Wikimedia)

Regular readers of this website know that we’ve been following the Natural Areas Programs attempts to reintroduce the Mission Blue Butterfly to Twin Peaks. We’ve just obtained the latest report from San Francisco Recreation and Parks Dept (SFRPD). It’s very mixed.

(The whole report is here as a PDF. Mission Blue Butterfly response- ProgressReportNov2012)

THE STORY SO FAR

San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department (SFRPD)  through its Natural Areas Program (NAP) is trying to reintroduce the Mission Blue Butterfly to Twin Peaks by transplanting them from San Bruno Mountain, where a natural population still flies. After planting Twin Peaks with the nursery plant, lupine, in 2008, they began moving butterflies in 2009.

We have a more detailed account and analysis HERE, but here it is in brief:

In 2009, they moved 22 female butterflies to Twin Peaks and caged them over lupine plants until they laid their eggs. They hoped the butterflies would go forth and multiply.  Only a small number made it. In 2010, NAP observers counted 14 larvae, and 17 adult butterflies.  This was not a self-sustaining population. In 2011, they spotted only 3 larvae and  7 adults, of which two were females.

So they got US Fish and Wildlife Service permits to take more butterflies from San Bruno Mountain – 40 females and 20 males – which they released in May 2011.

WHAT HAPPENED IN 2012

Unfortunately, the larger release didn’t really seem to pay off. The survey in the first few months of 2012 showed only 6 larvae and 7 adults (of which one was female). This may have been because 2012 was a bad Mission Blue year all round. So bad, in fact, that they could not get 60 new butterflies from San Bruno Mountain to release, (though they had a US Fish and Wildlife Service permit to move 40 females and 20 males). They only moved 16 butterflies, of which 11 were females.

Nevertheless, the butterflies do seem to have laid a decent number of eggs. Observers counted 273 of them.  That’s nearly as many as the 295 they found after the big 60-butterfly move in 2011. So there’s hope yet.

HOW MUCH HOPE?

How much hope, we don’t know. How many of the 273 eggs will complete the maturation to butterflies? Probably no more than 10-15%. In addition to normal predation, conditions on Twin Peaks may not be optimal.

• Mission Blue caterpillars are guarded by ants, which are attracted to them by honeydew, a sweet excretion. They reduce predation on the caterpillars by other insects. But we don’t know if Twin Peaks has the right ant populations or not.
• In an attempt to encourage native plants in general and lupine in particular, NAP regularly sprays Twin Peaks with pesticides (17 times in 2012, according to pesticide records we obtained under the Sunshine Act). This could have an adverse effect on the caterpillars. A study on metalmark butterflies showed three pesticides gave a 24-36% reduction in the number of caterpillars making it to the pupa stage. We don’t know if it would be the same for Mission Blues. (Chris Geiger of SF’s Department of the Environment told us that the study, conducted under laboratory conditions, was not necessarily field-applicable.) But SFRPD is using two of the tested pesticides – Garlon and Imazapyr – on Twin Peaks. Is it worth it? We don’t know, but we can’t help wondering if Bermuda buttercups might be better for the butterflies than Garlon. (The study on metalmark butterflies and herbicides is here: Stark_2012 metalmark research)

WILL MORE BUTTERFLIES BE MOVED?

We’re not sure what happens next. It probably depends on whether the city or USFWS are willing to fund ongoing relocations of butterflies. It’s costly and labor-intensive.  They need to avoid taking too many butterflies from any one place on any one day (which implies repeated visits), they need to transport them carefully and keep them under observation as they release them.

The Mission Blue Butterfly population on Twin Peaks is unlikely to be self-sustaining at present, though as the report points out, it has been proved that the butterfly can complete its life-cycle these. But that’s the barest standard of success. It’s barely hanging on. Can it thrive?

Click on the picture for KTVU’s video report on Sutro Forest

They were also present for part of  UCSF’s public hearing this evening.

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Around 250 people came to the meeting, and 47 55 people actually spoke. Speakers were limited to 2 minutes each, but even so, the hearing ran from 7 p.m. to 9.15 p.m. Sentiment ran more than 2:1 against UCSF’s tree-felling plan.  The crowd clapped and cheered in support of the points the speakers made. Though UCSF held this public hearing as a legality, it clearly became a platform for people to express their opinions about the actual project. [Updated to correct number of people speaking. Over 70% favored preserving the forest.]

Lori Yamauchi was the Hearing Officer, and she needed to take comments about the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR), but could not respond. (They would be addressed later, in writing.) Written comments have the same weight as oral ones, and if you would like to comment on the DEIR, please write before March 19th. (Details on how you can help are HERE.)

UCSF did take the opportunity to distribute flyers asserting that they had no plans to cut down 30,000 trees – essentially the same material we addressed in our last post, HERE.  We did the same, distributing our flyers to everyone in the room.

THEMES AND CONCERNS

Some of the themes addressed (we may update or expand this section later):

• The appeal of Sutro Forest as an untamed forest. People love the forest, and the unexpected wildness in the heart of the city. These were comments that spoke to the sense of wonder and magic, even a sense of emotional and spiritual connection. They recalled childhood games in the forest, decades ago. Some spoke of the wildlife in the forest habitat. They were all dismayed at the thought that thousands of trees would be felled.

• How many trees? Some commenters were concerned about the extent of the planned tree-cutting, though they wouldn’t have objected to removing a few selected trees as part of a management plan. UCSF’s statement about not having a plan to cut down 30,000 trees didn’t convince them because that’s what the DEIR implied. One person suggested that UCSF needed to supply its own number if it did not agree with this estimate. There were also concerns about the Demonstration Projects (which we estimate will cost 3,000 trees) and whether they were demonstrations at all or actual implementation.

• Herbicides. People objected to UCSF changing its no-pesticides policy on Mount Sutro. They were unconvinced by the DEIR’s promise to use herbicides in small quantities; once it started, usage might expand. Some strongly preferred the zero-pesticide solution. One person mentioned the sense of threat to his young children and his pregnant wife.

• Fire Hazard. There were mixed views on the reality of the fire hazard. Some felt that it was overstated, and that the Plan would actually raise the risk by drying the forest – which is currently damp year-round – and encouraging the growth of flammable fuels like grasses and shrubs. A statement from a professional ecologist who is familiar with the forest declared this to be true. [ETA: Read his whole statement HERE.] Others felt that there was indeed a fire hazard, though no one addressed the issue of how the Plan would reduce such a hazard.

• Adverse effects. Some speakers addressed potential adverse effects of the planned felling, including the likelihood of rockslides as the root systems died, (as has happened at the Presidio) and the increased wind on all sides of the mountain. An additional concern was that the wind would not just be unpleasant for people, but would also cause “windthrow” and destroy even more trees.

• Environmental impacts. Some speakers noted the effect of cutting down thousands of trees on carbon sequestration, especially in the context of global warming; and on pollution control. “Every tree counts,” said several speakers. [Updated.]

• Does the Forest need management at all? Opinion was strongly divided on whether management is needed, and if so, how much. Some consider the forest self-regulating, and wanted it left alone. Others believe it needs aggressive management, and they support UCSF’s plan. A few thought it needed some management, but that the current plan was too drastic.

• “Native” Plants. Many speakers noted that it’s not right to dismiss eucalyptus trees for being non-native; we are all non-native, as are the buildings. Some pointed out that Native Plant restorations don’t make successful gardens; most native plants die after they’re planted. Glen Canyon and the Presidio were noted as unfortunate examples. [Update]

• Historical context? One speaker pointed out that Sutro Forest was a historic forest with landmark designation, and this would imply restoration – replanting the forest with the same species of tree as the ones removed. Another speaker said that it had been logged or thinned at various times, and this would be a similar activity.

• Cumulative impacts. The DEIR doesn’t consider the cumulative actions of cutting down thousands of trees, when SF Recreation and Parks Dept is also felling thousands of trees, both as part of the Native Areas Program and tree-removal for other reasons, as is the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. This will result in very significant impacts that are not considered. [Update]

• Genesis of the Plan and UCSF’s reasons.  Some speakers wanted to know who in UCSF initiated the plan and was driving it. Craig Dawson, Executive Director of the Sutro Stewards, held up a copy of the 2001 Plan, and said the whole DEIR grew out of that plan. He also noted the Stewards built trails in the forest. (Others said there always had been trails that they used well before the Stewards got involved; but it is true that the Stewards have improved many of the trails, and maintain all of them.) A couple of speakers questioned why UCSF was involved in this exercise at all, and implied there were financial incentives or real-estate possibilities.

In their own words: “Before a management plan is designed for the entire Reserve, four demonstration projects totaling less than 7.5 acres were chosen–with substantial community involvement–to evaluate different land management techniques, such as appropriate tree spacing, undergrowth removal, and native plant restoration.” And from the FAQ that accompanied the memo: “While a large percentage of underbrush, including blackberry, ivy and poison oak, will be removed in the demonstration areas, the removal of trees, especially those larger than saplings, will be far more limited and selective, based primarily on their health, potential for long-term survival, and if they pose any falling or other hazard.”

[That FAQ is available here: UCSF Sutro FAQ 2013 0220]

So why aren’t we reassured?

1) WE DON’T KNOW WHY THEY WANT TO DO IT

UCSF claims the forest is unhealthy and a fire hazard. Neither claim is accurate, and they must be aware of challenges to that assessment. (We posted about that HERE.) But if they really do believe – however unrealistically – that there is such a hazard, and that felling trees will mitigate it, why is it reasonable for them to stop at the Demonstration Areas?

Unless we know why UCSF is so committed to this lengthy, expensive, and controversial process, the only parameter we can work with is what’s set down in the DEIR. And that comes out to over 30,000 trees.

2) THE DEMONSTRATION AREAS ARE NOT EXPERIMENTS

The description of the demonstration projects makes it sound as though they are experiments to “evaluate different land management techniques, such as appropriate tree spacing, undergrowth removal, and native plant restoration.” This is not true.

The “appropriate tree-spacing” has already been determined, as has the end-point. The DEIR does not say “limited and selective.” It says: “Removal of dead and unhealthy trees; Tree thinning of remaining trees to average spacing of about 30 feet between trunks.” (In Area #4, it’s 60 feet between trunks.)

3) EVEN THE DEMONSTRATION PROJECTS WILL FELL 3,000+ TREES

We estimate that the 7.5 acres of “Demonstration Areas” have around 3600 trees. The demonstration project will retain perhaps 170 of them, given the spacing described. They will be removing over 3,500 trees just for the Demonstration Projects.

If what’s left doesn’t sound like a forest, it’s not meant to. In earlier meetings, it was described as a “park-like setting.” Later, they changed the terminology to “Forest with open understory” – but they didn’t change the actual actions, which included the 30-foot spacing and the removal of understory habitat and vines. At the agenda-planning meeting in July 2010, the objectives for these areas was laid out. This is from our contemporaneous notes and our post made the same night:

“UCSF added new information about expected outcomes of the projects. For South Ridge and Edgewood (Projects #1 and #2), they seek a park-like setting, with an open understorey, and trees spaced, like street trees, an average of 30 feet apart. After the demonstration, they will seek community input, and then extend the same spacing to 40 acres of forest. This would imply that 47.5 acres of the 61 acres would be thinned, leaving very little forest as such.

“Project #3 (the small area near the summit) would be a grassy area with a view of the city. Afterward, more view corridors would be considered in other areas.

“Project #4 (the “redwood bowl”) would have trees spaced 60 feet apart, and a sunny meadow (or presumably, a foggy one).”

The only evaluative portion would be regarding pesticide use to prevent regrowth. In area #1, three methods will be used: Tarping of stumps; poisoning with pesticide; and manual removal. They expect to demonstrate that pesticides will be needed. Preventing regrowth is already accepted as an end-point.

We would also point out that “native plant restoration” has nothing to do with either safety or forest health – and also that the Demonstration Projects are not designed to show either increased forest health, or reduced fire hazard, the key project justifications.

4)  COMMUNITY INPUT: LISTENING VS ACCEPTING

UCSF has been excellent at listening to community input; they have been very selective in accepting it.  We have been active participants in meetings documented here from 2009 onward; some of us have been active since the year 2000. UCSF has held a large number of meetings, and we attended and reported on most of them:  (19 Oct 2009), (Feb 2010), (May 2010), (26 May 2010), (8 June 2010), (June 2010), (13 July 2010), (July 2010), (Nov 2010),  and EIR Scoping meeting Jan 2011.)

The only inputs that have actually been accepted have a strong bias to proponents of the plan – those who supported the “parklike environment” with native plants. UCSF essentially ignored opponents who want a dense forest with a lush understory and habitat, and a continuation of UCSF’s no-pesticide policy. We called it “The Opposites Game”; click HERE to see why.

The only “concession” UCSF made to those who want to conserve the Sutro Forest as a dense, lush, functional cloud forest was to add a “hands-off area” (#5) parallel to Demonstration Project #1. This is meaningless for several reasons:

• The whole forest – except for the four Demonstration Areas – is theoretically a “hands off” area during that time, according to UCSF’s own statements;
• It’s only for one year;
• Between the time the area was identified and the DEIR was published, a new trail had been driven through the “hands off” area.

5) CEQA HAS ITS REASONS

Here’s what UCSF says:  “Contrary to rumors being circulated, there is no plan to cut down 30,000 trees in the Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve, and it is unfortunate that this misinformation continues to spread.” In the FAQ, they explain: “So where did the number 30,000 come from? The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires UCSF to examine what the maximum impact of the most aggressive management practice contemplated would be in its Environmental Impact Report (EIR) of the Reserve, so someone may be confusing the report with a final forest management plan. Once the demonstration projects have been implemented and evaluated, a final forest management plan will be developed based on the effectiveness of the practices in the demonstration areas.“

However, in all the meetings, UCSF stated that the objective of the Plan is to extend the 30-foot spacing to the entire reserve, except for the areas too steep to access with machinery. Why does CEQA require an evaluation of the “worst-case” scenario? Perhaps because too often, the so-called worst case represents what will really be implemented.

In this case, the 30-foot spacing on 3/4ths of the reserve (which would require removing about 90% of the trees in that area) represents a maximum, the ceiling. UCSF has suggested that the actual plan may well be different, depending on “community input” – with the implication that the actual number would be much smaller.

The question is, why? If UCSF actually believes – however improbably – that the forest is an unhealthy fire-hazard and that felling trees to achieve a 30-foot spacing would remedy this problem, then we can assume they would indeed extend it to all the accessible areas of the forest. Would they look at the denuded “Demonstration Projects” and realize that 30 feet was too much? Or would they decide to go for a 60-foot spacing, as they are planning for one of the Demonstration Areas? Could UCSF change its mind?

It’s happened before.

• At the time the Open Space Reserve was created, UCSF also instituted a “space ceiling” that determined restricted the built space in the Parnassus campus to 3.55 million square feet. But UCSF exceeded the space ceiling years ago, and there’s no prospect of return.
• In January 2000, UCSF committed that it would demolish two old dormitories in the Aldea campus, and replant the pad to blend in with the forest. But when one dorm was demolished, it wasn’t planted to blend in. Instead, it was enclosed with a chain-link fence and the Sutro Stewards installed a Native Plant Nursery there. That story is HERE.
• In February 2010, when UCSF withdrew its funding applications to FEMA, here’s how it described the next steps: In keeping with the 2001 Plan, UCSF will work closely with neighbors to plan, implement, and evaluate a small (approximately 2 acres) demonstration area that would embrace best practices to ensure public safety (through fire mitigation) and improve the health of the forest while maintaining scenic quality.  But the “small” demonstration area has more than tripled in size, to 4 areas totaling 7.5 acres.

For these reasons, we are concerned when UCSF says that it’s only felling trees (over 3,000 of them) on 7.5 acres, and it doesn’t really plan to extend it to 30,000 trees no matter what the DEIR says. Once the EIR is certified, and the project itself approved, what would stop UCSF from proceeding to the remaining area? If it’s “community input” – we would expect they could get whatever input they want.

6) MISINFORMATION

Though UCSF suggests that opponents of the plan are spreading misinformation, we’d like to point out two items of misinformation in their  FAQ.

• It’s referred to as “an aging eucalyptus forest.”  This is often used to justify tree-felling. Here’s an example of a news item in the Chronicle about Sutro Forest. But it’s a myth. Eucalyptus in the tropical and arid areas of Northern Australia tend to get killed by termites and fire before they’re 200 years old. In temperate, rainy Southern Australia they live 400-500 years. San Francisco’s Sutro Forest is much closer to Southern Australia in climate, since it lacks wildfires and cyclones and receives rain as well as summer fog drip. [Reference: “Eucalypt ecology” by Jann Elizabeth Williams, John Woinarski (Cambridge University Press, 1997)]

• The forest is referred to as “comparatively dry” owing to eucalyptus draining the moisture. As anyone who has visited the forest regularly will know, it’s only “comparatively dry” if you compare it to the Bay. The only time the forest could dry out is in the Fall – and even then, rain and fog keep it damp.

However, in areas where the canopy has been opened up and the understory removed – the very conditions that the Plan seeks to create – the forest can indeed become dry. It’s not because of the eucalyptus, which create wet conditions by harvesting moisture from the clouds and fog. It’s because the duff, the understory, the subcanopy, and the canopy all help to prevent evaporation. This is one reason why the plan will raise the fire hazard, not reduce it.

[Click HERE to read how this forest functions as a Cloud Forest - and why opening it up decreases the moisture levels.]

We recognize this forest as unique, and a particularly San Francisco treasure. It’s a novel ecology, yet naturalized. In the heart of a world-class city, it’s a functional temperate cloud forest, only a thousand feet above sea level. We call on those who have stewardship of it to protect it, not destroy it.

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Why Does UCSF Want to Destroy Sutro Forest?

The short answer to that question is “I don’t know.” However, since many of the over 1,200 1600 signers of the petition to University of California San Francisco (UCSF) to save the forest have asked this question, it seems that they deserve some answer. So, in this post, we will tell you the reasons that UCSF has given for its plans to destroy the forest.

UCSF makes two erroneous claims about the Sutro forest which it uses to justify its destruction. They claim that the forest is unhealthy and that destroying most of the forest will benefit the few trees that remain. They also claim that the forest is very flammable and that destroying most of the forest will make it less flammable. This is our response to these claims.

THE SUTRO FOREST IS NOT UNHEALTHY

Mount Sutro Forest

The Save Sutro website recently posted the professional opinion of two arborists who evaluated the Sutro forest and pronounced it healthy. We recommend that article as a starting point for anyone who wishes to be reassured on this important point.

The Draft Environmental Impact Report for UCSF’s planned project claims that the forest is old and dying. If we don’t beat it to the punch and kill it first, it will soon die without our help. An analogy comes to mind: “We had to destroy the village to save it,” which was the explanation given for the destruction of a village during the Vietnam War. It didn’t make sense then and it doesn’t make sense now.

The fact is, the Sutro forest is young and in the prime of its life. Eighty-two percent of the forest is blue gum eucalyptus. Blue gums live in Australia from 200 to 500 years. (1) They live toward the longer end of that range in milder climates such as the San Francisco Bay Area. The blue gum eucalypts were planted on Mount Sutro in the 1880s. It is still a young forest.

Another indication that the forest is young is that the individual trees are small by blue gum standards. The study plots used by the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) to calculate how much carbon is stored in the trees found that 77% of the trunks of the trees are 5 inches in diameter at breast height or less (if the study plots are representative of the entire forest, which is questionable). It also says that this species of eucalyptus grows very fast and that its trunk is 9 inches in diameter after only three years of growth. In other words, the DEIR claims that the trees are old and no longer growing, yet it says that most of the trees are very small and it intends to destroy the small trees, not the big ones. This is just one of many contradictions that we find in the DEIR.

THERE IS LITTLE RISK OF WILDFIRE IN THE SUTRO FOREST

One of the most powerful rhetorical tools used by native plant advocates to justify the destruction of our urban forest and motivate the public to pay for these expensive projects is the fear of fire. UCSF uses this strategy as well. Frankly, we doubt that UCSF believes it themselves because they applied for a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant to pay for this project in 2008. FEMA informed UCSF that there is little risk of wildfire on Mount Sutro. UCSF withdrew its grant application rather than answer FEMA’s questions.

FEMA asked UCSF to supply scientific evidence that the project would reduce fire risk despite the fact that the project would reduce fog condensation from the tall trees which moistens the forest floor, making ignition unlikely. FEMA also asked for scientific evidence that a wind driven wildfire would not be more likely after the destruction of the wind break provided by the forest. UCSF chose to withdraw its grant application, presumably because they could not answer those questions.

In 2010, UCSF applied for another fire hazard mitigation grant from the California Fire Safe Council. The Council has funded 150 such grants in California, but they denied UCSF’s application. That suggests that the California Fire Safe Council shares FEMA’s opinion.

You might ask, where is UCSF getting the money to pay for this project? We don’t know, but we consider that a legitimate and important question given that UCSF is a publicly funded enterprise.

UCSF may not be able to answer FEMA’s questions, but we can, using specific scientific studies. In 1987, 20,000 hectares burned in a wildfire in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. The effects of that fire on the forest were studied by Weatherspoon and Skinner of the USDA Forest Service. They reported the results of their study in Forest Science. (2) They found the least amount of fire damage in those sections of the forest that had not been thinned or clear-cut. In other words, the more trees there were, the less damage was done by the fire. They explained that finding:

“The occurrence of lower Fire Damage Classes in uncut stands [of trees] probably is attributable largely to the absence of activity fuels [e.g., grasses] and to the relatively closed canopy, which reduces insolation [exposure to the sun], wind movement near the surface, and associated drying of fuels. Conversely, opening the stand by partial cutting adds fuels and creates a microclimate conducive to increased fire intensities.”

In other words the denser the forest,

• The less wind on the forest floor, thereby slowing the spread of fire
• The more shade on the forest floor.
  • The less flammable vegetation on the forest floor
  • The more moist the forest floor

All of these factors combine to reduce fire hazard in dense forest. Likewise, in a study of fire behavior in eucalyptus forest in Australia, based on a series of experimental controlled burns, wind speed and fire spread were significantly reduced on the forest floor.(3) Thinning the forest will not reduce fire hazard. In fact, it will increase fire hazard.

Jon E. Keeley of the USGS is a world-renowned expert on the fire ecology of California. We have read his recently published book (Fire in Mediterranean Ecosystems: Ecology, Evolution and Management, Cambridge University Press, 2011) and many of his articles. Anyone with a sincere interest in wildfire hazards in California would be wise to read these publications. Reference to Keeley’s work is conspicuously absent from the Draft EIR.

Keeley’s most recently published study of specific wildfires in the Wildland-Urban-Interface (WUI) of California is most relevant to consideration of wildfire hazard in the Sutro Reserve. (4) The authors studied the property damage resulting from specific wildfires in California “…and identified the main contributors to property loss.” Keeley and his colleagues found that steep slopes in canyons that create wind corridors were the best predictors of fire damage and that grassy fuels were more likely to spread the fire than woody fuels. Applying these observations to Mount Sutro, its topography is the biggest factor in the potential for wildfire and substituting the forest with grassland and scrub will result in more dangerous fuel loads.

Scripps Ranch fire, San Diego, 2003. All the homes burned, but the eucalypts that surrounded them did not catch fire.

UCSF and native plant advocates make allegations about the flammability of eucalypts by misrepresenting actual wildfires in the Bay Area. These allegations are addressed elsewhere on Million Trees, which we invite you to visit if you have more questions:

• “FIRE!! The Cover Story”
• “More Fire Factors: Fire Ladders and Embers”
• “Trees Withstand the Firestorm”
• “Fire on Angel Island 2008”

ALL PAIN NO GAIN

So, if the forest is healthy and destroying it does not reduce fire hazards, how can UCSF justify all the damage this project will do to the environment:

• Releasing thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that are stored in the trees and significantly reducing the ability of the forest to sequester carbon in the future, thereby contributing to climate change.
• Increasing air pollution by reducing the ability of the forest to absorb air pollutants.
• Using pesticides to destroy the vegetation in the understory and preventing the trees that are destroyed from resprouting.
• Destroying the food and cover of the birds and animals that live in the forest.
• Eliminating the noise and wind barrier that protects UCSF’s neighbors
• Increasing the risk of wildfire by eliminating the windbreak, reducing the moisture in the forest, and littering the forest with the dead logs and wood chips of the trees that are destroyed.

We can’t imagine why UCSF wants to destroy its forest. We understand why native plant advocates support this project because they are making the same demands all over the Bay Area. They want land managers to destroy non-native trees because they believe that destroying them will result in the return of native plants. The UCSF project makes no commitment to plant native plants after the forest is destroyed, with the exception of a few small areas and then only if “money is available.” Native plants will not magically emerge from the wood-chip tomb on the forest floor. Is it possible that UCSF shares the fantasy of native plant advocates that this destructive project will result in a landscape of grassland and chaparral which is the native landscape on Mount Sutro? Surely a scientific institution of such distinction knows better. Or it should.

Here are the things you can do to help us save this beautiful forest:

• Sign the petition to save the forest. Available here.
• Attend and speak at a UCSF hearing about the project: Monday, February 25, 2013, 7 pm, Millberry Union Conference Center, 500 Parnassus Ave, Golden Gate Room
• Submit a written public comment by 5 PM, March 19, 2013 to UCSF Environmental Coordinator Diane Wong at EIR@planning.ucsf.edu or mail to UCSF Campus Planning, Box 0286, San Francisco, CA 94143-0286. Include your full name and address.
• Write to the Board of Regents to ask why a public medical institution is engaging in such a controversial, expensive, and environmentally destructive act. Address: Office of the Secretary and Chief of Staff to the Regents,
1111 Franklin St., 12^th Floor, Oakland, CA 94607
 Fax: (510) 987-9224
• Subscribe to the website SaveSutro.com for ongoing information and analysis.

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(1) Eucalypt ecology: Individuals to ecosystems, by Jann Elizabeth Williams, John Woinarski ,Cambridge University Press, 1997

(2) Weatherspoon, C.P. and Skinner, C.N., “An Assessment of Factors Associated with Damage to Tree Crowns from the 1987 Wildfires in Northern California,” Forest Science, Vol. 41, No 3, pages 430-453

(3) Gould, J.S., et. al., Project Vesta: Fire in Dry Eucalyptus Forests, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and Department of Environment and Conservation, Western Australia, November 2007

(4) Alexandra Syphard, Jon E. Keeley, et. al., “Housing Arrangement and Location Determine the Likelihood of Housing Loss Due to Wildfire.” PLOS ONE, March 18, 2012

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UCSF has sent an email to its neighbors about its plans for the Sutro forest in which they say, “Contrary to rumors being circulated, there is no plan to cut down 30,000 trees in the Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve, and it is unfortunate that this misinformation continues to spread.”

Our response is, Do the math!!

The Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) claims that the thinned forest will have 62 trees per acre. (DEIR Appendix F) The DEIR arrives at this figure by assuming that each tree will occupy a circle with a radius of 15’. In fact, it is not possible to pack circles into another geometric space, whether it is a bigger circle, a rectangle or a square without wasting space. Therefore, this calculation arrives at a bogus answer which is larger than is physically possible.
We have calculated the number of trees remaining in the thinned forest based on the number of squares in an acre that are 30’ X 30’. Such calculations of tree density are found in books regarding arboriculture, which corroborates that we are using a standard calculation used by the timber industry and the DEIR is not. (1)

If UCSF wishes to reduce the number of trees that will be removed by the proposed plan, it can do so by reducing the spacing between the trees or the number of acres to be “thinned.” All other numbers used to arrive at an estimated number of tree removals are straight-forward mathematical calculations based on the information provided by UCSF.

UCSF would be wise to read the DEIR for its project, which says, “Under full-implementation or worst-case implementation of management activities under the proposed project, approximately 60% of all existing trees, including large and small trees, could be removed.” UCSF reports that there are 45,000 trees in the Mount Sutro Reserve presently. Sixty-percent of 45,000 is 27,000 trees. We think UCSF’s estimate of tree removals is just a few thousand trees less than what is actually planned. What are we quibbling about?

Once again, we invite UCSF to revise its proposed project to reduce the number of trees that will be removed.

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(1) Ecology and Silviculture of Eucalypt Forests, R.G. Florence, CSIRO, Australia

Though the last rain was a few days ago, the trails were uniformly damp; the understory and canopy prevent it from drying out. This gives a good footing, without either dust or slush, so it’s great for hiking or jogging. It’s a winter pattern – in summer, the trails will be damp or muddy where there’s tree cover and understory, and dry where the Cloud Forest has been opened up.

It was a bittersweet afternoon in the forest. There’s already been a lot of understory removal here and there. Most of the forest is no longer as lush as it was when we first started this record. If you’d never been there before, it was still amazingly lovely. But we’ve seen it denser and lusher, and we knew the plans were to remove 90% of the trees on 3/4 of this forest. We looked at the “Demonstration Areas” where the felling is to start.

All along all the trails, snags – standing dead trees – were marked with orange blobs of paint, as were some trees that were leaning. We presume these trees will be gone soon. None of them looked hazardous and snags are good for birds, but removing them isn’t as bad as taking out live trees.

The Native Garden bloomed with a forest of orange flags where they’re replanting a meadow again. But flowers are also blooming – pink-flowering currant, forget-me-nots, an occasional oxalis or dandelion.

The grass in the Native Garden is green, and it’s probably at its best right now.

Elsewhere in the forest, plum trees are covered in little white blossoms.

Down along the North Ridge trail is where the forest is relatively dense still, and it’s beautiful.

“THINNING” THE FOREST

We saw more people in the forest today than we ever have before – maybe two dozen hikers and joggers, three dogs, and only three bike-riders. One group was clearly exploring the forest; we asked if they knew about plans to fell 30,000 trees.

“But we met someone who was giving a tour,” said one, “And he said it was just rumors. What they’re going to do is just some thinning.”

Well, yes, true. If removing 90% of the trees and 90% of the understory on the affected acreage (3/4 of the forest) counts as thinning. We referred them to the actual UCSF Draft Environmental Impact Review, so they could get the facts from the official source.

[Here is the PDF of the DEIR: Mount_Sutro_EIR_1-16-13_with_Appendices ]

They knew about that, and about this website, and SFForest.Net, the website of the San Francisco Forest Alliance.  Now its for them – and for all our readers – to decide for  where they stand on this.

If you would like to help the effort to save the forest, there’s a list of what you can do HERE. And please sign the petition (if you have already signed, there’s no need to sign again).

Meanwhile, it’s a wonderful time to visit the forest. The Sutro Stewards may stop removing understory now since the birds are beginning to nest, and it should start to rebound.  If the project goes through, the tree-felling on the “Demonstration Areas” could start as early as Fall of 2013.  The next few months may be the time to make your memories of the forest.

SAN FRANCISCO’S FORESTS by Alma Hecht

Recently, UCSF published its Draft Environmental Impact Report on its plan for the Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve – an area of 61 acres covered by a dense eucalyptus forest over a century old. Ostensibly to improve the health of the forest, UCSF plans to remove 90% of the trees on three-quarters of the forest. Meanwhile, Ruth Gravanis published an article in the Miraloma newsletter that claimed a similar eucalyptus forest on Mount Davidson was headed for “self-destruction.” [We note that Ruth Gravanis, who is on the Environment Commission and a passionate supporter of the SF RPD's Natural Areas Program, is not an arborist.]

I am a Certified Arborist and in 2010 with Certified Arborist Jocelyn Cohen evaluated Mount Sutro Forest. We saw a thriving forest. Here are some excerpts from our notes:
•    Trees were well rooted along hillsides and flat areas.
•    Visual evidence of a naturalized forest is obvious in trees’ calibers that offer insight into age and health. Tree girths range from wide in oldest trees to narrow where the trees are younger, more closely spaced and/or receiving less sunlight.
•     Poor management of the trees as evidenced by hanging branches and fallen/cut limb piles. Some lower branches were pruned; many cuts were improper leaving stubs or flush cuts into the parent stem.
•    Snags (i.e. standing dead trees) were left in place—perhaps by happenstance — providing habitat for wildlife.
•    Swaths of acacias establishing in areas of recent woodland removal for path expansions or other purposes.
•    When thick carpet of forest duff pushed aside, the soil is very moist to several inches down. Yet, in places where paths have been expanded, the ecotope is becoming drier and dustier.
•    Thriving mosses and lichens on rocks and tree-trunks.
•    Epiphytes colonized in branch crotches.
•    In many areas, climbing vines have been cut, generally at five-ten feet, left dry and dangling from branches in thick nets.”

We also noted that it had the characteristics of a fog or cloud forest. Again, from our notes: “As is typical in [such] forests, trees are crowded. Branching is high. Understory is deep. Leaves drip.  Some trees are mature and mighty with crowns beyond view. Others are rangy, young and low enough to meet eye-levels. ‘In forest stands or in other mixed plantings, all trees do not grow at the same rate. Over time certain individuals dominate over others.’ (Reference – Arboriculture: Integrated Management of Trees Shrubs and Vines, Richard Harris, Greg Steinke, James Clark and Nelda Matheny, Prentice Hall 2003.)”

As would be expected in a cloud forest, we saw it was drying out where it had been opened up: “In some areas with indiscriminate thinning and removal of trees, the ground is dry (compared with wet conditions through most of the forest and even on the same trail). Those areas also seem to have higher wind velocities. Dry conditions are particularly noticeable at the Rotary Meadow where an existing clearing was replanted into a landscape of native plants.  Significant differences in moisture conditions are visible.”

The forest appeared healthy, and we saw signs of regeneration in forest trees including eucalyptus. UCSFhas suggested that the forest is dying and infested with beetles. Since it’s a living eco-system, a normal amount of insect life can be expected. But there’s no evidence of a unhealthy levels of infestation, or of a moribund woodland. In particular, the eucalyptus snout beetle, mentioned as a threat to the forest, is not known to be present in San Francisco, being more a pest of Southern California eucalypts. And even there, it’s been well-contained with the introduction of a parasitic wasp.

We are also familiar with the forest on Mount Davidson, which has similar conditions. We think the different opinions stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of tree forms in natural,or naturalized, forests. Here criteria for gardens or timber plantations where the objective is to optimize individual trees for aesthetics or lumber is inapplicable. In either of these naturalized forests the trees comprise a whole entity, wherein some trees might flourish, others might die, but are essential to the living whole.

“Unhealthy” Sutro Forest? No, Muir Woods

Trees in a forest – especially a dense cloud forest – tend to grow high and fast to reach the canopy, and do little branching until they get into the light. This results in trees that  appear spindly and tufted, but in fact are healthy and well adapted to the place in which they are growing. A wet environment like Mount Sutro Cloud Forestor Mount Davidson) can sustain a very high density of trees and vegetation.

In any case, natural forests -and naturalized forests, like these- will “self-thin” – the trees that are unable to get enough nutrients or light will eventually die.  When this happens, it is the weakest trees that eliminate themselves, and the strongest trees that remain. This results in a forest that is best adapted to the conditions in which it grows. Artificial tree removals for arbitrary spacing destroys the forest’s adaptive mechanism. Removing existing trees in these forests will not improve the forest’shealth. In fact it will send the forest into decline destroying a healthy environmental treasure.

I’m a solitary hiker who loves San Francisco’s beautiful parks and am concerned about all the overdone enthusiasm lately for baring our forests so that there will be mostly native plants, as in the drastic deforestation of hundreds to thousands of healthy mature trees.

In these days of confirmed climate change and global warming, I continue to read that more and more experts on the subject are advising that use of pesticides should be reduced and more trees should be planted — instead of doing the exact opposite and destroying hundreds or thousands of perfectly healthy trees, and making this mountaintop practically bald (like nearby Twin Peaks and Tank Hill) — as appears to be the case with the advocates of this destruction.

Sutro Forest just FITS so perfectly; it is a totally unique midcity treasure and people have become used to having it here over many years.

The native plant advocates can plant their natives all over the place without destroying so much of the forest. They can extend trails, trim the ivy, do trailwork, etc. without cutting down all those trees. Why is there such a trend these days to overdo things instead of trying harder to protect our precious, dwindling open spaces.

I’d like to also mention the Presidio Trust as regards its management. When the Trust has projects planned, they TELL people in detail about what is planned, send out explanatory e-letters, answer people’s email inquiries, and even take people on walks to show them what is planned for the particular area, i.e., El Polin Spring before the wood boardwalk was built. The Trust makes an effort to include neighbors and park-goers in discussions instead of seemingly trying to thwart any opposition, or in my case being blocked on Sutro Stewards’ Facebook site for merely asking about their plans.

I merely expressed concern and asked the Stewards at their Facebook site what was going on with all this. I wanted to hear what people in the group had to say. I got an answer after several posts saying only that I was mistaken and not to believe everything I read. So naturally I wanted to ask them to explain their “side” of this, but then found myself to be blocked from further comments. This, to me, is like a parent saying to a kid, “Because I SAY so” and not allowing any further discussion at all to try to shut them up. With me, it has the opposite effect.

I made an attempt to email Craig Dawson [Executive Director of Sutro Stewards] separately but my rebuttal went into “Other” and will likely be ignored. This is no way to get people to think favorably toward a company or group. Instead it tends to make me feel that they do indeed want to block the public from disagreeing or even commenting.

Tree-felling in Glen Canyon, San Francisco

I had the same off-putting experience when I was concerned about the Glen Canyon deforestation recently. I sent an email to a guy hoping he would print it in his blog and that people could comment on it. Instead, he did not print it and just told me I was wrong, again without any further explanation on his part. What IS this — some sort of conspiracy to shut the common folk up if they express disagreement on something?

So how can I help but think, from these recent examples from native-plant enthusiasts, that something fishy is going on here, and that they would prefer not to hear from the “little guys” out there, the people who live in the area and/or who love and use these parks.

Is it because they also have plans to develop the area and don’t want the public to find out until it is too late to stop it? I am thinking about two past instances of neighbors working to get the city to buy open spaces to be used as parks, i.e., Mount Davidson’s summit area and Bernal Heights Park, so that greedy developers couldn’t snap them up to build a bunch of “little boxes” on them. This was successful; hopefully if Mount Sutro is indeed in danger of development, this can be nipped in the bud too.

Off-limits coastal scrubland above Laguna Honda Reservoir

I am NOT opposed to common-sense trail maintenance/extensions and taking down trees or other plants that are ailing or dead. In fact, one of the things I’d most like to see and would enthusiastically support would be to open up the no-trespassing-signed areas around here to hikers that are now owned by various city agencies, like the water dept. For instance, the area on the other side of Laguna Honda reservoir where hikers are not supposed to go. That is, GREENING the city more in the process — allowing more trails while still keeping as many of the gorgeous old trees as possible — NOT doing the exact opposite! Natives are fine, but let’s not get so carried away and destroy all those healthy trees in your enthusiasm. Again, more common sense is needed in these days of concern for global warming and the environment. I am especially concerned about the rampant use of pesticides. LESS poisons, not more!

In summary, I am an ordinary animal/nature-lover, treehugger, and hiker who has enjoyed hiking Mount Sutro for many years, back before all the trailwork was begun, who wants to see protection for the area from development, destruction of animal habitats, use of poisons to kill the plants, and the massive, shocking deforestation causing multiple bare spots atop the mountain — thus causing lots of environmental problems as well. I want to see common sense prevail, and that neighbors and concerned citizens might have just as much a say in this very serious matter as the owners of the land, the overly enthusiastic native plant advocates, and Rec & Park have. I think we deserve this. We live here too.

Let our beloved forest live on and stop this unbelievably nasty trend of excessive tree removal from this and all San Francisco’s parks for no good reason. Let ordinary people speak up and force the rich landowners and some seemingly misguided native-plant people out there to let the public know what they are up to, and prevent destruction of our plants and animals in the name of “progress” or whatever they choose to call this horror nowadays.

Tony Holiday
San Francisco

website: http://galomorro.weebly.com

[Webmaster: Thank you for the letter, Tony, and for supporting this beautiful forest. In fairness, while UCSF   have not been as responsive to our concerns as we had hoped, they have held a number of hearings in 2009 and 2010 - you will find reports on this website.]

Meanwhile, here’s a selection of comments, picked up more or less randomly:

#151:  “The Mount Sutro Forest is a healthy, functioning ecosystem. The University of California, with all its talk of underfunding, would be foolish to spend money to destroy it. The forest is one of the great joys of the surrounding neighborhoods.”

#167: “I lived in Cole Valley for 19 years and loved the Sutro Forest. It was a main feature of living there: visually it softened the landscape; it was a wonderful place to walk and relieve the stress of urban life. Please leave it as it is- a touch of wildness in the midst of concrete.”

A forest in the clouds

#175: “I see no reason to alter this natural treasure. I’ve been to the rain forests of Costa Rica. These trees look very similar. No problems to fix here.”

#179: “These forests help keep the CITY in balance with nature, and add elements of beauty that no building or man made structure can approach. Once they are destroyed for nefarious and incomprehensible reasons (could it be “development and dollars” at work??? in the guise of safety???) the change will have effects we can not foresee and diminish the CITY greatly.  Stop the KILL.”

#186: “Why should a medical establishment need to cause such destruction? This habitat is valuable.”

#204: “Between what the University if California is proposing to do, and what the Natural Areas Progran that SF Parks and Rec is doing, we will become a city of cement, and smog, devoid of birds and animal life. What clown is in charge of this circus?”

#229: “The pollution of the air across our earth is well known to scientists. Trees clean the air. SF in particular needs every single tree remaining, and more trees planted. This eco boutique thinking ( native plants ) is fairy tale thinking, dogma thinking, to forget about the huge population SF has now, compared to the 1850′s when the plants here were “natives” is to forget about and deny the disaster of air pollution in our reality unraveling and poisoning everything. Trees clean air; big established old growth trees are the most effective.”

#251: “Do not be blinded by the idea that “native” must be restored to San Francisco open spaces. Destroying what is already working is not planning for the future. When you return the entire site of Golden Gate Park to its original form – sand dunes – then I would support your misguided plan to destroy the forest.”

#276: “This is one of the most beautiful places in San Francisco. There are few left.”

#286: “I gave birth at UCSF and the view out the window was of this beautiful forest. It should not be destroyed!”

#288: “All the trees are gone from my area because of hospital expansion (view also). I now have seasonal breathing problems”

#294: “I grew up with Mt. Sutro forest being basically like an extension to my backyard. I loved playing in the woods on weekends, finding the cave believed to be Ishi’s last “wild” home with my mom, and spending hours just enjoying the quiet, densely wooded solitude. The forest on Mt. Sutro is a San Francisco gem, please don’t destroy it by getting rid of so many trees.”

#306: “I am an alumna of the UC system and find it extremely disturbing that such a wonderful institution would launch an all out attack of few precious havens in the City. 30,000 trees!!!! This is just very misguided and short sighted. Please reconsider this terrible plan.”

#307: “What are you thinking? Or, are you thinking at all? Why destroy some of what few, precious trees there are in the city?”

#313: “What possible benefit would come from the destruction of 90% of the trees in Sutro Forest that would outweigh the harm to an important bird habitat and one of the treasures of the city of San Francisco for the refuge it provides from urban life? Please reconsider. Don’t do it.”

#340: “Please do not cut down the trees in Mount Sutro Forest. They are a haven and habitat for animals and birds. They remove tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. These trees are a precious resource in the city where we have few wild spaces. Save the trees!”

#360: “Aside from the environmental devastation and horrible waste of money, it is frightening that this idea would even travel as far as it has in a city that has helped set the standard in environmental policy. This city needs more healthy trees, not less. Stop this nonsense before it’s too late!”

#364: “Not smart: trees = air cleaning. The dead chipped trees will release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Trees also reduce air pollution by TRAPPING particulate matter on their leaves. The project will be extremely costly, and require the use of pesticides like Roundup and Garlon. Roundup is a systemic pesticide and is being banned in Europe due to its ties with pollinator deaths! I.e bees and butterflies, responsible for all fruit and vegetable growth in yr farmlands outside the city… TOTALLY estupido, I think”

#376: “As a San Francisco resident, I have grown sick and tired of seeing organizations attempt to destroy the urban forests that make our city so beautiful and unique. Let Mother Nature work unmolested.”

We leave you with one that spoke to us particularly, the more so since we both care passionately about the forest, and respect UCSF as a premier medical institution for research, teaching, and for its patients.

#398: “I worked as a reforester and sylviculturist for a significant number of years. The process of thinning a forest never removes 90% of the trees. A maturing forest that has not been tampered with by humans will typically sort out overcrowding issues. If you look at the old-growth forests that still exist in the hills hugging the California coast, you can witness how a forest that sustains itself primarily from fog and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere evolves over time. While Mount Sutro Forest differs in composition from Redwood forests, it is following a similar path. Leave it be, and allow it to mature naturally. UCSF should focus on what it does best: be a center for higher learning, and it should let Mount Sutro Forest do what it does best: be a forest.“

Dusk, mist, Great Horned Owl

We started a petition to oppose this felling on February 4th, 2013. By midnight of Feb 6th, there were already 540 signatures, and the number continues to grow. But people weren’t just signing – many of them left comments that showed just how much they cared about this forest.

We had intended to showcase all the comments here, but there are so many that we can’t.  Here is a  fairly random selection (with typos corrected and emphasis added) from the first 100 signers.  If you still haven’t signed the petition, or just want to read the comments, the button below will take you to the petition.

#3:  “This is our midcity treasure. How could you even think of such an atrocity? What’s going on that you need to cut down healthy trees like this? Can’t you spend your money on REAL issues and leave the trees in our parks and dwindling open spaces alone? First Glen Canyon, then Mount Sutro. I would never vote for a person who condones something like this.”

#7:  “How can the State of California justify spending millions to cut down a healthy forests that store tons of carbon and absorbs air pollutants, particularly when State University’s budgets have been slashed?”

#8:  “The destruction of over 30,000 trees on Mount Sutro Forest – in the center of San Francisco – is the ecological equivalent of ethnic cleansing. It is wrong and must be stopped! Shame on UCSF to even propose this insane plan in the first place. We need trees in the city; they provide a needed resource for converting carbon dioxide to oxygen, trees clean the air and provide habitat for the many animal and bird species living on the mountain. Every mature, healthy tree must be preserved. It is clear that their plan is a cynical and manipulative ploy for environmental destruction that is consistent with what San Francisco’s Rec and Park’s Natural Areas Program is trying to do in city parks. Save the Mount Sutro cloud forest ecosystem!”

#13: “Save our San Francisco trees. Enough with this tree genocide. For a city that values beauty I do not understand our compulsion to fell so many trees.”

#22: “This historic cultural landscape should be protected for so many reasons, but especially now as the temperature of the planet continues to rise and these trees absorb much more CO2 than the shrubs they plan to replace them with. How can the university continue to increase tuition to spend the money on this!”

#26: “Mt Sutro Forest is an important urban forest to many of us who live in the area West of Twin Peaks (I am a resident of Miraloma Park) and to many other visitors from inside and outside of SF. We appreciate it as a forest: the trails, the birds and other wildlife, the density of the trees and undergrowth are what make a unique and treasured place to hike and hang out in the midst of a busy city environment. The views alone de-stress and I’ve had some magical experiences with all my senses there. As city-dwellers, we need a place like this. It is safe enough and it is unique enough to merit protection. UCSF has a responsibility to our community not to groom and ruin this environment that is an environmental plus just as it is. Please do not manicure and limit the wildness. We don’t need another typical park space here. And so many beautiful birds, animals, and plants would be lost by the proposed actions. Thanks for listening.”

#42: “I understand the desire to create and protect natural landscapes, but not at the expense of what we have. Pesticides, chopping down healthy trees, and reducing carbon sequestration are an inexcusable way to achieve this goal.”

#43:  “The forest is a haven for animals and people who need a rest from the city. It is healthy and thriving. Please leave it alone.”

#47: “In this day, how can even one person *consider* the thought of this immoral destruction? We are digging our own graves in a hurry if we continue in this manner. Save the trees. Surely the Board of Regents has a collective soul? Trees give us life. Let us return the favor.”

#50: “This plan reflects bad forestry practices; an unwise expenditure of scarce UC dollars and an apparent lack of awareness of basic climate change dynamics.”

#53:  “My family does not want you to tear down any portion of this forest that we use often and love dearly!!“

#57:  “As a resident living just below Mount Sutro, I ask that you please not diminish this neighborhood treasure. it is a lovely place to enjoy peace and quiet in the heart of the city.”

#60: “Keep our cloud forest. I use it.”

#67: “I used to live on Parnassus Heights; on Mt. Sutro itself…Save it Now or Regret it Forever!!“

#75: “I walk in this beautiful forest all the time and would hate to see the big beautiful trees and the habitat they create harmed.”

#86: “I used to live on Crestmont Dr., on the forest’s west side. It is my firm belief that all San Franciscans benefit from a healthy, vibrant, unmolested green core visible throughout most of the city. This core serves to remind us of who we are at the most fundamental level- not creatures of managed artifice but rather descendants of tree-dwellers. Destroying a resource like the Sutro Preserve is always lamentable, but it is especially sad in this case as much of the impetus for this move comes from groups and individuals who believe that they are able to improve upon nature by “restoring native plants” (the trees proposed for planting in Native Plant Areas never grew on Mt Sutro). Nature is already adapting to the introduction of non-native species! Anyone who walks in the Mt Sutro Preserve quickly recognizes that it is a very vibrant forest. Leave it alone. Show that humans can work with nature. Erosion, defoliation, and desertification are never good policies.”

#88: “This city is getting downright stupid. I expect tree-o-cide to happen elsewhere but not here!!”

#90: “Why is there this attack in the city on beautiful mature trees? It is beautiful as it is, and not costing a ton of money, and not being an accessory to putting poisons in the earth. Evidently we need more tree huggers. Trees are not the enemy. And if you want to get rid of non-natives, why not start with the non-native humans here! Now of course, that is ridiculous as well.”

#96: “How can UCSF, which is in need of funding, spend money uselessly on getting rid of healthy trees when most urban places are planting trees to sequester carbon? It is a total non sequitur!”

More tomorrow!

1)   Write to Governor Jerry Brown. He is ex-officio a Regent of the UC Board of Regents.

Governor Jerry Brown
c/o State Capitol, Suite 1173
Sacramento, CA 95814

Phone: (916) 445-2841
Fax: (916) 558-3160

“Due to limited resources, responses to inquiries via mail may take up to 90 days. If you would like a more timely
response, please use the email form ….” HERE.

2) Write to the Board of Regents to ask why a public medical institution is engaging in such a controversial, expensive, and environmentally destructive act.

Address: Office of the Secretary and
Chief of Staff to the Regents,
 1111 Franklin St., 12th Floor, Oakland, CA 94607

Fax: (510) 987-9224.

Their email address is: regentsoffice@ucop.edu

3)  Sign the petition to save the forest. Available HERE.

4)  Subscribe to this website, www. SaveSutro.com for ongoing information and analysis. (You can subscribe by going to the top right corner of any page of the website, and entering your email address.)

5) Spread the word! Tell people about this website and the petition. You can download a double-sided flyer here: Mount Sutro Forest Flyer April 2013

4)  Attend and speak at a UCSF hearing about the project: Monday,
February 25, 2013, 7 pm, Millberry Union Conference Center, 500
Parnassus Ave, Golden Gate Room [The meeting is over; the report is HERE.]

2)  Submit a written public comment by 5 PM, March 19, 2013 to UCSF
Environmental Coordinator Diane Wong at EIR@planning.ucsf.edu or mail
to UCSF Campus Planning, Box 0286, San Francisco, CA 94143-0286.
Include your full name and address. [The comment period is over; UCSF estimates they will respond to them in a couple of months.]

Thanks for the support!