Please save our local parks from being destroyed for money.

  • by: Bev Jo
  • recipient: All citizens and elected officials who have influence or live in the East Bay area.

PLEASE SAVE OUR EAST BAY PARKS

Please save hundreds of thousands of healthy, tall, mature, beautiful trees before they are destroyed without most residents even knowing what is being planned, and with no way to vote. Protect our local environment and all the wild animals who also will die if this plan based on greed is allowed to happen.

To find out the actual facts from the deliberate misinformation, please see these websites:

http://milliontrees.me/fire-the-cover-story/

www.eastbaypesticidealert.org/wildfire.html

http://hillsconservationnetwork.org/HillsConservation3/Blog/Blog.html

http://hillsconservationnetwork.org/HillsConservation3/About_us.html

http://hillsconservationnetwork.org/HillsConservation3/Blog/Entries/2013/5/25

_Our_tax_dollars_at_work.html

Please see what people said at the last meeting with FEMA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT4Zczx_bik Please sign this petition

http://signon.org/sign/stop-the-deforestation-3?source=s.fwd&r_by=2464736 and write to FEMA at: EBH-EIS-FEMA-RIX@fema.dhs.gov.

1. This FEMA project will cause MORE fires, not less. Fires typically begin in grasslands, which is where the 1991 firestorm started. This project will greatly increase non-native, highly flammable grasslands and non-native poison hemlock, thistles, broom, etc. in the East Bay hills, instead of beautiful trees. Entire sections of our parks will become dry, barren wastelands. And the planned "control burns" will pollute the air with smoke, as well as risk more fire and make the herbicides airborne.

2. After the trees are gone, the erosion and resulting landslides will be catastrophic. It is shameful to use desperately needed tax money for a project which is not needed and will result in ecological disaster. At that point, FEMA money really WILL be needed.

3. Re-planting is NOT part of the project. 4. Many native trees are extremely flammable, but eucalyptus are NOT a particular fire hazard, and have been demonstrated to help forests prevent and contain fires. Eucalyptus were seen to actually stop the spread of fire to houses, creating windbreaks during the 1991 firestorm, while redwoods burned. (Of course when a fire is hot enough, everything burns, but the answer to that is clearly not to kill all the trees.) Eucalyptus and our other tall non-natives precipitate inches of water from the fog each year, moistening the earth, filling creeks and adding water to reservoirs, supporting green and fire resistant shrubs.

5. Sudden Oak Death is killing our native trees. Most are infected. We should be grateful for having our fire-resistant, disease-resistant, healthy, beautiful, exotic trees who are well-adapted to our semi-arid climate -- especially with climate changing and impending drought -- and treasure them instead of killing them. We have no idea how quickly and extensively our native trees will die. We may end up with only non-native forest, so we need more tree diversity, not less. Many of our best parks have almost all non-native trees (which most people don't realize.) What reasonable person would prefer dry, empty, barren grasslands with no shade or wildlife diversity?

6. Why would anyone kill hundreds of thousands of huge trees, some over a hundred years old, when we desperately need them for cleaner air and to prevent climate change? Those supporting this ill-planned project make no mention of the harm done to the environment from eliminating so many oxygen-producing trees. The killed trees chipped on site will add to air pollution as well as greatly increase fire risk. Significant amounts of sequestered C02 will be released, adding not only to global warming, but also to local climate changes: more wind, more dry air, less fog, more air pollution. Big trees are needed to store carbon. No other type of vegetation stores as much carbon as tall hardwood trees. Ongoing carbon sequestration capabilities will be reduced from what they are now, and will never recover.

7. This project is actually about greed and getting 7 million dollars from FEMA for Monsanto, UC, local cities, and EBRP -- money that is desperately needed elsewhere. There has been no significant fire in the East Bay since 1991. There is now better prevention and quicker response time (the main fire cause is arson or carelessness.) Nothing is needed to be done to make the hills safer, but this project WOULD greatly increase fire risk.

8. WHY is something that will affect the quality of life in our East Bay cities forever not being put to a vote, and is being snuck in with almost no one knowing about it? Most of the people affected have no idea they will be losing their beloved parks. The propaganda campaign of myths and half-truths does not lead to trust. Some of who are participating in promoting this destructive plan while spreading misinformation will likely be benefiting.

9. Where is the concern for the millions of native animals who will be killed, including some who are endangered? Once the trees are destroyed, the already-burdened wildlife will die from hunger and loss of habitat. Others will be directly killed by the devastating bulldozing, chainsawing and poisoning. Without predators like raptors, rodents and other small animals will over-populate. Learn from our native animals which trees they prefer. Bay Nature magazine online has a beautiful photo of the Bald Eagles nesting in a eucalyptus at Lake Chabot -- that tree, like much of the parkland overlooking Lake Chabot will be killed. Our native raptors -- eagles, hawks, owls, etc. -- PREFER eucalyptus for nesting because they are the tallest trees and have an open canopy, which is good for spotting predators and for the largest birds to be able to safely fly in and out of. (A young Peregrine Falcon died recently because he landed badly when learning to fly.) The largest raptors ignore oaks, bays, etc., because the forest is too dense to safely fly in. Hummingbirds rely on eucalyptus flower nectar. Monarch butterflies prefer eucalyptus to rest in in the millions during migration.

The brilliant website Death of a Million Trees says that a survey of 173 ornithologists reported that 47% of birds eat from non-native plants Eucalyptus are now an essential part of our eco-system, as are the beautiful Monterey pines, Monterey cypress, acacias, etc. The Monterey pine forests have far more bird diversity than native forest. Yet every pine is slated for killing. WHY? Yet another myth is that they have short life spans. They live up to 120 years, and every part of their life cycle nurtures our wildlife and plants. Raptors, woodpeckers, and other birds use the dead trees for their survival to hunt from or to store acorns. Insectivorous birds prey on small animals on the trunks. Many animals live on the nutritious pine nuts and those animals feed many native predators. The young pines grow up from the base of their dead mothers, keeping the hills green with new trees, completing the cycle. These trees need no thinning, pruning, cutting. Monterey pine also greatly enriches the soil, creating thick humus helping our native clay earth nurture oak, bay, etc. seedlings, as well as wildflowers, mushrooms, etc. MONTERY PINES ARE AN NOW ESSENTIAL PART OF OUR HEALTHY FOREST/PARKS ECOSYSTEM.

10. The effects of a planned decade or more of highly toxic herbicide spraying is also being ignored. (Monsanto, DOW, etc. must be thrilled at this project.) How many cases of birth defects, cancer, neurological, auto-immune and other illnesses will result from the use of these poisons?

Most people living in the East Bay would object to the plan to continuously apply herbicide to the stumps of the butchered trees for TEN years, if they knew the details. Appling herbicides across the hills will result in incalculable deaths of native animals, including endangered species, as well as the toxic sediments ending up in our creeks, reservoirs, lakes, and bay. When the winds come, which will increase because the tree windbreaks will be gone, the dust full of herbicide will be windborne, damaging the health of everyone in the East Bay. Some of the poison will evaporate into the air, adding to our air pollution problem.

No herbicide or the other petrochemicals added to it is safe. Every banned pesticide was once declared safe from studies funded by the pesticide industry and which the FDA approved. The experts who once assured us that DDT, Dieldrin, Chlordane, etc. were safe are saying newer poisons are safe. But the cancer rate continues to rise, as do birth defects, neuological illness, and auto-immune illness, etc. all associated with herbicide use. Meanwhile, how many animals are dying? We've seen California Newts dying horrible deaths after crawling through roadside areas sprayed with “safe” herbicides. Knowing how toxic chemicals work, we also can't believe that the herbicides will not make the poisoned plants more flammable. We also believe this plan simply won’t work, knowing the amazing regenerative capabilities of these magnificent trees. So the use of poison will be far more continuous than planned. Eucalyptus will take thousands of gallons to stop its attempts to stay alive and resprout. And what about the acacias? You cut one down, and dozens sprout along the ground, yards away from the original tree. They continue to try to live years after their mother tree was killed. (These are not realities that should frighten people, but be reassuring that if our native forests die, we will still have magnificent parks full of beautiful shade trees with all the native animals we love.)

11. Every part of this plan makes no environmental sense. Honeybees are dying, so we need our native bee populations more than ever, but the planned 24 inches of chipped mulch will prevent native bees from reaching the soil where they nest.

12. Again, people who live in the East Bay have not been given the opportunity to vote on even the short-term aspects of the project and will be subjected, against our wills, to years of constant noise from chainsaws, bulldozing, woodchipping, road closures, and the ugliness and heartache of seeing favorite parks left treeless, with poisoned stumps. (There are a few places where this travesty was done several years ago which are still ugly wastelands.)

13. How will this devastation actually be done and who will commit it? Those of us who have seen "maintenance" in the parks result in destruction of rare wildflowers on one of the few special little trails in the EBRP know the impact just one individual untrained individual can have. (He weed-wacked everything in sight and now we have to travel two counties away to see some of those flowers.) Endangered Clapper Rail habitat was destroyed at Pt. Reyes in an effort to help the rails. Audubon basically destroyed the Burrowing Owl habitat at Cesar Chavez park in Berkeley. (The last two had "experts" advising.) 14. We ask, why the selective logging? Those few people who demand that the park trees be killed are wanting tax-payer FEMA money after they chose to buy houses near the very trees they now want dead. And they want to eliminate the rest of the East Bay residents from access to those beautiful trees that we support with our taxes. We suggest they trade houses and they live instead in the tree-denuded wasteland that is much of the East Bay urban area.

For those who want our parks and UC Berkeley lands clear-cut, we suggest they start with the multi-million dollar ornamental non-natives that are the majority trees at the UC Botanical Gardens and campus, the landscaping of businesses and federal, state, county, and city buildings, people’s private gardens and yards – which, like the hills, would leave almost no vegetation since most of the green we see are from non-natives. (Hypocrite UC even has a book about their many exotic trees on campus.) Why the inconsistency – why are the non native plants in the cities being spared while the wild animals' homes and food will be destroyed? At the East Bay Regional Park headquarters in the hills where the meeting with FEMA was held,, and where tree-killing is planned, there were many non-native ornamentals. Those Olive trees, Liquidamber, Arbutus Unedo, etc, aren’t going to be eliminated, so why destroy the trees on trails that many of us know personally and love? We ask every human who is against the beautiful exotic trees, what do you have in your own garden? If you don't want to be a hypocrite, first cut down your olives, roses, magnolias, wisteria, jasmine, apples, peaches, plums, etc. before you deprive wild animals of their homes and food.

Most people don't even know which trees are native and which are not. But 99% of the plants in people's yards and gardens are not native. Actually, there is a reason that the vast majority of city plantings are done with non-natives. They contribute variety and beauty, and fthey feed and house an incredible diversity of birds, butterflies, etc. (The only truly problematical invasive is Hedera Canariensis, which completely covers trees and kills them. It can be seem from Highway 13 in Oakland and in many other public places, where it has been growing for decades and can be seen completely covering redwoods. We have called those responsible for decades and have been told that they don't see it or don't have the time. That is another reason why it makes no sense to kill healthy trees, while letting healthy natives be killed by ivy.)

Of course we are not actually suggesting that people kill their non-native plant or cut down street trees and other landscaping, but we object to the double standard of where the wild animals are to be deprived of their homes and food while humans keep their non-native plants. Why should only the native animals suffer? No non-native human should be giving a death sentence to the native animals who will die as a result of this planned environmental devastation. There will be many persuasive arguments for committing this irreparable environmental devastation, but please don’t believe them. We’ve seen terrible harm already done in the name of environmentalism in the Bay Area. A few hours of well-intentioned work can result in permanent ecological damage. For those who insist on eliminating non-natives, we suggest we start with the humans, and then the introduced non-native animals who kill millions of native animals each year. And why not kill all the honeybees as well since they’re from Europe? The animals, as well as the trees, are not just “things” in humans’ territory. They are planning the killing of living, feeling beings. When people are often depressed from the dark and rain in winter, the gorgeous acacias bloom brilliant golden for two months. The broom with their yellow, exquisitely fragrant blossoms bloom for months during winter and spring.

Please learn who this project will actually benefit. Find out the details before it’s too late. Please know that if this “project” begins, it will be far more destructive than they have told anyone. Expect the worst. Once our beautiful forests are gone, we will be left with bare, ugly hillsides with poisoned stumps, impending erosion and landslides, [olluted waterways, the wildlife left homeless, with many animals dead, many native plants also destroyed, the topsoil ruined, and the beauty gone forever. Few urban areas have such amazing wilderness. What a tragedy to mindlessly destroy it. We should all be grateful for what we have here. No non-native human should disparage non-native plants. The FEMA money is desperately needed elsewhere. Please do not waste this money by making a few people rich at the expense of the people, animals, environment, beauty of our parks. Please don’t create a new environmental disaster under the guise of preventing one.

Bev Jo
Slakewings@aol.com

PLEASE SAVE OUR EAST BAY PARKS 

Please save hundreds of thousands of healthy, tall, mature, beautiful trees before they are destroyed without most residents even knowing what is being planned, and with no way to vote. Protect our local environment and all the wild animals who also will die if this plan based on greed is allowed to happen. 

To find out the actual facts from the deliberate misinformation, please see these websites:

http://milliontrees.me/fire-the-cover-story/ 

www.eastbaypesticidealert.org/wildfire.html 

http://hillsconservationnetwork.org/HillsConservation3/Blog/Blog.html 

http://hillsconservationnetwork.org/HillsConservation3/About_us.html 

http://hillsconservationnetwork.org/HillsConservation3/Blog/Entries/2013/5/25

_Our_tax_dollars_at_work.html 

Please see what people said at the last meeting with FEMA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT4Zczx_bik Please sign this petition 

http://signon.org/sign/stop-the-deforestation-3?source=s.fwd&r_by=2464736 and write to FEMA at: EBH-EIS-FEMA-RIX@fema.dhs.gov.

1. This FEMA project will cause MORE fires, not less. Fires typically begin in grasslands, which is where the 1991 firestorm started. This project will greatly increase non-native, highly flammable grasslands and non-native poison hemlock, thistles, broom, etc. in the East Bay hills, instead of beautiful trees. Entire sections of our parks will become dry, barren wastelands. And the planned "control burns" will pollute the air with smoke, as well as risk more fire and make the herbicides airborne. 

2. After the trees are gone, the erosion and resulting landslides will be catastrophic. It is shameful to use desperately needed tax money for a project which is not needed and will result in ecological disaster. At that point, FEMA money really WILL be needed. 

3. Re-planting is NOT part of the project. 4. Many native trees are extremely flammable, but eucalyptus are NOT a particular fire hazard, and have been demonstrated to help forests prevent and contain fires. Eucalyptus were seen to actually stop the spread of fire to houses, creating windbreaks during the 1991 firestorm, while redwoods burned. (Of course when a fire is hot enough, everything burns, but the answer to that is clearly not to kill all the trees.) Eucalyptus and our other tall non-natives precipitate inches of water from the fog each year, moistening the earth, filling creeks and adding water to reservoirs, supporting green and fire resistant shrubs. 

5. Sudden Oak Death is killing our native trees. Most are infected. We should be grateful for having our fire-resistant, disease-resistant, healthy, beautiful, exotic trees who are well-adapted to our semi-arid climate -- especially with climate changing and impending drought -- and treasure them instead of killing them. We have no idea how quickly and extensively our native trees will die. We may end up with only non-native forest, so we need more tree diversity, not less. Many of our best parks have almost all non-native trees (which most people don't realize.) What reasonable person would prefer dry, empty, barren grasslands with no shade or wildlife diversity? 

6. Why would anyone kill hundreds of thousands of huge trees, some over a hundred years old, when we desperately need them for cleaner air and to prevent climate change? Those supporting this ill-planned project make no mention of the harm done to the environment from eliminating so many oxygen-producing trees. The killed trees chipped on site will add to air pollution as well as greatly increase fire risk. Significant amounts of sequestered C02 will be released, adding not only to global warming, but also to local climate changes: more wind, more dry air, less fog, more air pollution. Big trees are needed to store carbon. No other type of vegetation stores as much carbon as tall hardwood trees. Ongoing carbon sequestration capabilities will be reduced from what they are now, and will never recover. 

7. This project is actually about greed and getting 7 million dollars from FEMA for Monsanto, UC, local cities, and EBRP -- money that is desperately needed elsewhere. There has been no significant fire in the East Bay since 1991. There is now better prevention and quicker response time (the main fire cause is arson or carelessness.) Nothing is needed to be done to make the hills safer, but this project WOULD greatly increase fire risk. 

8. WHY is something that will affect the quality of life in our East Bay cities forever not being put to a vote, and is being snuck in with almost no one knowing about it? Most of the people affected have no idea they will be losing their beloved parks. The propaganda campaign of myths and half-truths does not lead to trust. Some of who are participating in promoting this destructive plan while spreading misinformation will likely be benefiting. 

9. Where is the concern for the millions of native animals who will be killed, including some who are endangered? Once the trees are destroyed, the already-burdened wildlife will die from hunger and loss of habitat. Others will be directly killed by the devastating bulldozing, chainsawing and poisoning. Without predators like raptors, rodents and other small animals will over-populate. Learn from our native animals which trees they prefer. Bay Nature magazine online has a beautiful photo of the Bald Eagles nesting in a eucalyptus at Lake Chabot -- that tree, like much of the parkland overlooking Lake Chabot will be killed. Our native raptors -- eagles, hawks, owls, etc. -- PREFER eucalyptus for nesting because they are the tallest trees and have an open canopy, which is good for spotting predators and for the largest birds to be able to safely fly in and out of. (A young Peregrine Falcon died recently because he landed badly when learning to fly.) The largest raptors ignore oaks, bays, etc., because the forest is too dense to safely fly in. Hummingbirds rely on eucalyptus flower nectar. Monarch butterflies prefer eucalyptus to rest in in the millions during migration. 

The brilliant website Death of a Million Trees says that a survey of 173 ornithologists reported that 47% of birds eat from non-native plants Eucalyptus are now an essential part of our eco-system, as are the beautiful Monterey pines, Monterey cypress, acacias, etc. The Monterey pine forests have far more bird diversity than native forest. Yet every pine is slated for killing. WHY? Yet another myth is that they have short life spans. They live up to 120 years, and every part of their life cycle nurtures our wildlife and plants. Raptors, woodpeckers, and other birds use the dead trees for their survival to hunt from or to store acorns. Insectivorous birds prey on small animals on the trunks. Many animals live on the nutritious pine nuts and those animals feed many native predators. The young pines grow up from the base of their dead mothers, keeping the hills green with new trees, completing the cycle. These trees need no thinning, pruning, cutting. Monterey pine also greatly enriches the soil, creating thick humus helping our native clay earth nurture oak, bay, etc. seedlings, as well as wildflowers, mushrooms, etc. MONTERY PINES ARE AN NOW ESSENTIAL PART OF OUR HEALTHY FOREST/PARKS ECOSYSTEM.

10. The effects of a planned decade or more of highly toxic herbicide spraying is also being ignored. (Monsanto, DOW, etc. must be thrilled at this project.) How many cases of birth defects, cancer, neurological, auto-immune and other illnesses will result from the use of these poisons? 

Most people living in the East Bay would object to the plan to continuously apply herbicide to the stumps of the butchered trees for TEN years, if they knew the details. Appling herbicides across the hills will result in incalculable deaths of native animals, including endangered species, as well as the toxic sediments ending up in our creeks, reservoirs, lakes, and bay. When the winds come, which will increase because the tree windbreaks will be gone, the dust full of herbicide will be windborne, damaging the health of everyone in the East Bay. Some of the poison will evaporate into the air, adding to our air pollution problem. 

No herbicide or the other petrochemicals added to it is safe. Every banned pesticide was once declared safe from studies funded by the pesticide industry and which the FDA approved. The experts who once assured us that DDT, Dieldrin, Chlordane, etc. were safe are saying newer poisons are safe. But the cancer rate continues to rise, as do birth defects, neuological illness, and auto-immune illness, etc. all associated with herbicide use. Meanwhile, how many animals are dying? We've seen California Newts dying horrible deaths after crawling through roadside areas sprayed with “safe” herbicides. Knowing how toxic chemicals work, we also can't believe that the herbicides will not make the poisoned plants more flammable. We also believe this plan simply won’t work, knowing the amazing regenerative capabilities of these magnificent trees. So the use of poison will be far more continuous than planned. Eucalyptus will take thousands of gallons to stop its attempts to stay alive and resprout. And what about the acacias? You cut one down, and dozens sprout along the ground, yards away from the original tree. They continue to try to live years after their mother tree was killed. (These are not realities that should frighten people, but be reassuring that if our native forests die, we will still have magnificent parks full of beautiful shade trees with all the native animals we love.) 

11. Every part of this plan makes no environmental sense. Honeybees are dying, so we need our native bee populations more than ever, but the planned 24 inches of chipped mulch will prevent native bees from reaching the soil where they nest. 

12. Again, people who live in the East Bay have not been given the opportunity to vote on even the short-term aspects of the project and will be subjected, against our wills, to years of constant noise from chainsaws, bulldozing, woodchipping, road closures, and the ugliness and heartache of seeing favorite parks left treeless, with poisoned stumps. (There are a few places where this travesty was done several years ago which are still ugly wastelands.) 

13. How will this devastation actually be done and who will commit it? Those of us who have seen "maintenance" in the parks result in destruction of rare wildflowers on one of the few special little trails in the EBRP know the impact just one individual untrained individual can have. (He weed-wacked everything in sight and now we have to travel two counties away to see some of those flowers.) Endangered Clapper Rail habitat was destroyed at Pt. Reyes in an effort to help the rails. Audubon basically destroyed the Burrowing Owl habitat at Cesar Chavez park in Berkeley. (The last two had "experts" advising.) 14. We ask, why the selective logging? Those few people who demand that the park trees be killed are wanting tax-payer FEMA money after they chose to buy houses near the very trees they now want dead. And they want to eliminate the rest of the East Bay residents from access to those beautiful trees that we support with our taxes. We suggest they trade houses and they live instead in the tree-denuded wasteland that is much of the East Bay urban area.

For those who want our parks and UC Berkeley lands clear-cut, we suggest they start with the multi-million dollar ornamental non-natives that are the majority trees at the UC Botanical Gardens and campus, the landscaping of businesses and federal, state, county, and city buildings, people’s private gardens and yards – which, like the hills, would leave almost no vegetation since most of the green we see are from non-natives. (Hypocrite UC even has a book about their many exotic trees on campus.) Why the inconsistency – why are the non native plants in the cities being spared while the wild animals' homes and food will be destroyed? At the East Bay Regional Park headquarters in the hills where the meeting with FEMA was held,, and where tree-killing is planned, there were many non-native ornamentals. Those Olive trees, Liquidamber, Arbutus Unedo, etc, aren’t going to be eliminated, so why destroy the trees on trails that many of us know personally and love? We ask every human who is against the beautiful exotic trees, what do you have in your own garden? If you don't want to be a hypocrite, first cut down your olives, roses, magnolias, wisteria, jasmine, apples, peaches, plums, etc. before you deprive wild animals of their homes and food. 

Most people don't even know which trees are native and which are not. But 99% of the plants in people's yards and gardens are not native. Actually, there is a reason that the vast majority of city plantings are done with non-natives. They contribute variety and beauty, and fthey feed and house an incredible diversity of birds, butterflies, etc. (The only truly problematical invasive is Hedera Canariensis, which completely covers trees and kills them. It can be seem from Highway 13 in Oakland and in many other public places, where it has been growing for decades and can be seen completely covering redwoods. We have called those responsible for decades and have been told that they don't see it or don't have the time. That is another reason why it makes no sense to kill healthy trees, while letting healthy natives be killed by ivy.) 

Of course we are not actually suggesting that people kill their non-native plant or cut down street trees and other landscaping, but we object to the double standard of where the wild animals are to be deprived of their homes and food while humans keep their non-native plants. Why should only the native animals suffer? No non-native human should be giving a death sentence to the native animals who will die as a result of this planned environmental devastation. There will be many persuasive arguments for committing this irreparable environmental devastation, but please don’t believe them. We’ve seen terrible harm already done in the name of environmentalism in the Bay Area. A few hours of well-intentioned work can result in permanent ecological damage. For those who insist on eliminating non-natives, we suggest we start with the humans, and then the introduced non-native animals who kill millions of native animals each year. And why not kill all the honeybees as well since they’re from Europe? The animals, as well as the trees, are not just “things” in humans’ territory. They are planning the killing of living, feeling beings. When people are often depressed from the dark and rain in winter, the gorgeous acacias bloom brilliant golden for two months. The broom with their yellow, exquisitely fragrant blossoms bloom for months during winter and spring. 

Please learn who this project will actually benefit. Find out the details before it’s too late. Please know that if this “project” begins, it will be far more destructive than they have told anyone. Expect the worst. Once our beautiful forests are gone, we will be left with bare, ugly hillsides with poisoned stumps, impending erosion and landslides, [olluted waterways, the wildlife left homeless, with many animals dead, many native plants also destroyed, the topsoil ruined, and the beauty gone forever. Few urban areas have such amazing wilderness. What a tragedy to mindlessly destroy it. We should all be grateful for what we have here. No non-native human should disparage non-native plants. The FEMA money is desperately needed elsewhere. Please do not waste this money by making a few people rich at the expense of the people, animals, environment, beauty of our parks. Please don’t create a new environmental disaster under the guise of preventing one.

Bev Jo
Slakewings@aol.com

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