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According to page 5 of Exhibit A of San Mateo County’s Director of Public Works “Executive Summary, Vegetation Management Plan,” there are “only a handful of people” asking for San Mateo County to begin a Mow Only Program with only very minimal use of herbicides to manage unincorporated San Mateo County roadsides.
“Recommendation #24 Hire facilitator to work with staff and citizens to improve communication - low prioritization ‐ Cost: $25.000 ‐ $30,000 – This could be considered in the future. However, we believe several other communication enhancements are an appropriate first step, especially in light of the fact that there are no more than a handful of residents who have expressed concern in this area.”
This Tuesday, March 13, at 9:00 a.m., the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, will vote Yes or No on the following statement found on the last page of San Mateo County’s Director of Public Works, “Executive Summary, Vegetation Management Plan,” which is posted on the internet at: To view the Executive Summary, click on:
http://sanmateo.siretechnologies.com/sirepub/mtgviewer.aspx?meetid=76&doctype=AGENDA
then click on REGULAR AGENDA #12:
PUBLIC WORKS 12. Resolution authorizing the Director of Public Works to supplement current vegetation management practices through the implementation of a program enhancement plan.
then click on the PDF link in the right-side window.
“NOW THEREFORE, IT IS HEREBY DETERMINED AND ORDERED that the San Mateo County Department of Public Works continue to manage roadside vegetation through a combination of mowing and spraying, but supplement its practices with the enhancements identified in the Department’s program enhancement plan.”
This statement does not establish Just Say Mow (with minimal use of herbicide spray), as more than a handful of residents have requested. Over 600 unincorporated county residents have asked the county to cease and desist the use of spraying herbicides within the La Honda ~ San Gregorio Creek Watershed. For about ten years, Pescadero Creek Watershed roads have functioned just fine with a mow only program and without the county spraying any of its roads.
The county sprays herbicides along the roadsides of county-managed roads as found on the map posted as page 16 on the above-referenced Executive Summary.
CalTrans District 4 uses broadcast herbicide spray along Highway 84, but not along Highway 1 due to the population of human residents and the agricultural uses of fields that border the highway. CalTrans does not use broadcast herbicide spray along Highway 92 due to the amount of human activity/traffic impeding a safe time when to spray.
The statement to be voted upon above, asks that DPW be allowed to continue to use herbicide spray. This will then allow CalTrans to continue its use of herbicide spray along Highway 84.
The supplemental practices, the enhancements to the mow/spray program, are detailed on pages 1 – 8 of Exhibit A of the above-referenced Executive Summary.
Of the 34 Enhancements and Recommendations, all but one Recommendation support the continued use of Herbicide Spray for roadside vegetation management. Only Recommendation #11 received a Pro/Con Comment of “No downsides.”
“Recommendation #11: Continue to investigate on an on‐going basis, alternative herbicide products, including organic and natural products – high prioritzation ‐ discussed but not specifically presented among the Baefsky report recommendations. TBD. Work towards achieving greater efficiencies, cost savings and greater program effectiveness. Comment: No downsides.”
All the other 33 Recommendations are Pro-Spray, and, even if a Recommendation is proposed as No spray – Pro Mowing, the Recommendation is negated in the Pro/Con Comment, such as:
“Recommendation #27 Upgrade and Replace Old Mowers: one every two years - medium prioritization ‐ Cost: $100,000 annually – We will create long term mower replacement plans. However, a new mower is approximately $135,000 and we do not believe the program could absorb such costs every one to two years.”
Why would a new $135K mower need to be replaced every one or two years?
You can read all the 34 Recommendations on pages 7 – 14 within the above-referenced Executive Summary.
Sign the Just Say Mow Petition at:
Directly write your San Mateo County BOS asking them to please not vote Yes to this statement on Tuesday, and instead to require the SMC Department of Public Works to open itself up to the possibility of an Herbicide-Free Coastal Zone:
SMC Board of Supervisors to contact :
President Adrienne Tissier <atissier at co.sanmateo.ca.us>; phone: 650-363-4572
Vice Pres. Don Horsley <Dhorsley at co.sanmateo.ca.us>; phone: 363-4569
Supervisor Dave Pine <Dpine at co.sanmateo.ca.us>; phone: 363-4571
Supervisor Carole Groom <cgroom at co.sanmateo.ca.us>; phone: 363-4568
Supervisor Rose Jacobs Gibson <RoseJG at co.sanmateo.ca.us>; phone: 363-4570
The Baefsky Report on San Mateo County’s Roadside Vegetation Management can be found on page 7 at:
http://www.co.sanmateo.ca.us/Attachments/bos/pdfs/Environmental%20Quality/2012/EQAgenda_20120117.pdf
Matthew walked bow-legged with quick, northbound jerky strides up the hill above Pescadero State Beach. His blue nose female kept up alongside, but her grey head hung lowered, shoulders hustling, tongue panting. Matthew’s back, young and strong, held his yellow backpack upright. It’s top peeked high above Matthew’s head. It’s bottom strapped snug around Matthew’s hips. The dog’s leash dragged on the ground, handless.
“I saw that guy south of Davenport on my way to Santa Cruz on Thursday!” said the passenger in the car driving southbound on the coast road. ”On the way back home, he had reached Swanton.”
The driver regarded Matthew as the car sped past. The speedometer needle poked 60. Only a couple state beaches and a eucalyptus grove altered the contours of the coast hills. “If we see him on the return trip, we’ll pick him up.”
After dinner and drinks at Duarte’s the two hopped back in the car and headed north. On the hill north of Pomponio creek, Matthew and the dog climbed. No arm outstretched with a thumb up asking for a ride. Matthew didn’t turn to even look at the oncoming car.
The car slowed over to the shoulder ahead of Matthew and his tired dog.
The passenger looked surprised at the driver, “I can’t believe you’re actually doing this! Maybe this guy won’t even want a ride?”
“Doubt it,” replied the driver, looking in the rear view mirror. ”He’s running towards us.”
“You’re going to let the dog in here too?” asked the passenger.
“I let our dogs in here. And one of ours is a Pit. Why not?”
Slightly winded, Matthew reached the car by traversing the drainage gully along the road’s edge. The passenger stepped out of the car, onto the paved shoulder, opened the back seat door and introduced himself to Matthew. The driver waited behind the wheel, brake applied, engine running. Matthew unclipped the waist strap and slung off his backpack, tossing it to the side of the backseat. The dog jumped in, tail a little tucked, sniffing the carpet of the car.
Through his bushy black beard and his white evenly-spaced teeth, Matthew broadly smiled and said, “Thank you so much for stopping!”
A friend lent me his copy of A Separate Place, with text by Charles Jones and black-and-white photographs by Susan Friedman. Printed in 1974 by the Sierra Club with no reprints, A Separate Place describes California’s coastal corridor of San Gregorio to Pescadero and its inland nooks of La Honda and Loma Mar.
This is coastal southern San Mateo County, also known as, The South Coast.
Wallace Stegner writes the blurb on the back of the dust jacket, “A Separate Place is a book that will speak most eloquently to those who know La Honda and the redwood pockets on the Pacific side of the Santa Cruz Mountains. But it will speak to almost anyone who remembers real places and who resents the plastic nowheres we too often make them into. Everyone should know a piece of earth as Mr. Jones knows his – historically, scenically, meteorologically, humanly. Everybody should love one place as much as he loves his.”
Not often one sees a horseman riding on Highway 1.
Not often, as in, Never.
Almost 100 years ago, J. Smeaton Chase, an Englishman who lived out the second half of his life in California, started from San Gabriel Valley, then rode south to San Diego, to then ride north to Mendocino.
Published in 1913, Chase’s California Coastal Trails
gives the modern reader a view into California’s sparsely populated coastal past.
But now we have Matthew and Hampton, our current equivalent of Chase and Chino (later, Anton, when he traded a tired Chino in Jolon). Matthew and Hampton are traveling the California Coast Trail, aka State Route 1, but their mission is not a horseback tour to see the sights. Matthew and Hampton are riding the coast to raise awareness for the Akha people in northern Thailand who are being displaced by Thailand’s Queen and mistreated by the police. Matthew first learned about the Akha in the early 90s when traveling Thailand. He was disgusted by the treatment of the Akha by their fellow countrymen, the policemen, who take ownership of Akha lands in the name of the Queen of Thailand.
Please pull-over and sightsee.
