by Cate Moore on February 28, 2017
Our ongoing quest to delist the coho salmon south of San Francisco has one a round in the California Supreme Court. CCFA have been arguing for years that coho are NOT native south of San Francisco and that our streams cannot successfully support a coho population without continuous human intervention. Ten years ago, we hit a roadblock when the Appellate Court ruled that delisting petitions were not an appropriate mechanism for introducing new scientific evidence, without providing another mechanism for introducing said evidence.
The California Supreme Court has just ruled that a delisting petition is an appropriate means for introducing new scientific evidence to adjust the listing parameters of a species listed on the California Endangered Species List. The Court has remanded the petition back to the Court of Appeal to settle other unresolved portions of the case, including.
- does the term “native species” in the definition of “endangered species” (§ 2062) mean “native to the area” in which the species is listed, as plaintiffs assert, or “indigenous to California,” as the Commission claims;
- does the term “range” in that definition (ibid.) mean “historic,” “native,” and “natural range,” as plaintiffs argue, or “present range,” as the Commission contends; and
- when a species is listed as endangered — here, “Coho salmon . . . south of Punta Gorda (Humboldt County)” (Regs., § 670.5, subd. (a)(2)(N)) — under what circumstances, if any, does CESA permit the Commission to delist only a portion of the listed species — here, coho south of San Francisco — i.e., to carve out a population included in the listed species and remove it from CESA‟s protections?
Nor did the Court of Appeal address the parties’ disagreement over whether plaintiffs’ evidence substantiates their claim that coho are not native to the streams south of San Francisco and cannot survive in those streams without hatchery support.
The full text of the judgement can be found here:
S208181.
by Cate Moore on August 23, 2016
The legislative session has passed the final date to amend the bills, August 15, and is now rushing to complete passage of what remains on the books.
The latest amendments on a number of bills raised some doubts on our part.
AB-197 was significantly rewritten on August 19. It now has much more social engineering worked into the language with a great deal of emphasis on supposedly helping “disadvantaged communities”. The true effect of the bill is likely to be even more job losses in these economically impacted areas as the regulatory burden on businesses becomes even heavier.
SB-1383 still has not dealt exempted the smoke from prescribed fires from its “anthropogenic black carbon” reduction goal. Otherwise, the bill is now focusing on methane from land fills.
AB-2651 is becoming more dangerous to private landowners as the state’s love affair with conservation easements for open space preservation and wildlife corridors continues.
Ditto for AB-2444, although there are also opportunities for private landowners with a higher tolerance for governmental involvement.
AB-1958 changed some of the criteria for reducing conifers from oak woodlands, some of which make no sense at all economically or biologically. The bill now prohibits commercial use of any tree over 24″ at stump height felled for the project, including using the wood for on site fences and similar uses. It also still has restriction on removing large conifers, ignoring the fact that these are the succession drivers that generate the most seeds.
AB-2087 just changed conservation planning into a Pay to Play scheme, requiring anyone who wants to participate to pay fees to the Department of Fish and Wildlife for the “privilege”.
Check the bills out in detail on our handy legislative table: The first column provides a link into the text of the bill and its latest status.
Legislation_status_22_aug_2016
by Cate Moore on July 11, 2016
The EPA WOTUS Rule is still hung up in the Sixth Circuit, but even if the Court ultimately rules against the EPA, they won’t give up seeking to put themselves in the middle of anything you do on your land.
How are we to defend ourselves?
We have just created a toolkit of legal cases to reference if you run into problems with the EPA over your land. Check it out.
