Meeting to Comment on UCSC's Timber Harvest Plan

Public Urged to Attend Meeting to Comment on UCSC's Timber Harvest Plan

The California Dept. of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire) should holdoff on approving the University of California-Santa Cruz's logging any trees related to its Long Range Development Plan until the legality of the plan's Environmental Impact Report is established in court, says Don Stevens, co-founder of CLUE, the Coalition for Limiting University Expansion.

The validity of the LRDP EIR is the subject of several court suits brought by the City and County of Santa Cruz, CLUE and other community groups. The first court hearing on the suits was scheduled to be heard in Santa Cruz Superior Court on June 11, but has been postponed until at least mid-July.

UCSC has submitted a Timber Harvest Plan to CDF to clear land for the first projects under the LRDP, a huge Biomedical building and a tower to provide building cooling. UCSC has claimed it has no obligation to provide an EIR for the projects, as required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), asserting they are covered by the LRDP EIR. CLUE's position is that no work should be done on any of the projects under the LRDP until the legality of the EIR is established in court. "Once they are cut down, these trees can't be replaced," says CLUE's Don Stevens. "If the EIR is decertified there is no legal basis for the timber harvest."

UCSC eventually plans to log about 150 acres of trees for its expansion projects.

CalFire will hold a public meeting on the UCSC Timber Harvest Plan at 6:30 p.m.on Wed., June 13, 2007 in the Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors chambers. People concerned about the issue should attend.