Opponents of the $750,000-plus Haul Road removal project at Ten Mile plan to appeal the 3-2 vote this week by the Board of Supervisors, which gave a conditional green light to the project.
State Parks” dune restoration project involves removing asphalt and gravel base in three segments of the former Georgia Pacific Haul Road, totaling 2.7 miles, stream channel restoration and removing European beachgrass in MacKerricher State Park, north of Ward Avenue to Ten Mile River, according to the county staff report.
Fort Bragg resident Stan Anderson said he and other private citizens will be involved in an appeal to the California Coastal Commission. The Westport Municipal Advisory Council had appealed the granting of the permit to State Parks by the county”s coastal zone administrator to the Board of Supervisors.
“The reason for having private citizens, instead of the [WMAC] appeal this time, is to remove any question of standing,” said Anderson.
Anderson is a longtime parks supporter, as chairman of the Mendocino Area Parks Association (MAPA) and being a key member of the local marine mammal rescue group.
Unlike most of the vocal opponents, he does not live between Fort Bragg and Westport.
“I voted for Proposition 84. I don”t think the intent was to rob people access by State Parks to coastal access,” Anderson said.
Gjerde proposal
Two votes happened at Monday”s special meeting, which was held in Ukiah because the supervisors ran out of time after more than four hours of listening to the public in Fort Bragg on Aug. 13. Most speakers in Fort Bragg opposed the project.
On Monday, the first thing that happened was 4th District Supervisor Dan Gjerde proposed conditions to remove two short portions of the haul road but keep intact the 2.5-mile inland road remnant closest to Ten Mile Bridge.
The two short portions of the road have little or no practical use by walkers and are about to be devoured by the ocean. Also, State Parks would have to build elaborate bridges and destroy much native and non-native habitat to reach the remote pieces with big trucks and heavy equipment.
The 2.5-mile portion is not threatened by the ocean (for now) and does provide some benefit to walkers. On the other side, State Parks says this portion of the road is the one most harmful to the snowy plover.
Gjerde also suggested an easement be dedicated to public access, should a way be found to provide public access in the future.
First District Supervisor Carre Brown seconded the motion for the Gjerde plan, noting she wanted to support coast residents in their desire to see a continuous trail from Ten Mile to Fort Bragg, Gjerde said after the meeting.
The motion failed, with supervisors John McCowen, Dan Hamburg and John Pinches dissenting.
Those same three supervisors then voted 3-2 to issue State Parks the permit, with minor modifications.
“I believed the permit was diminishing coastal access and therefore inconsistent with the Coastal Act and the Mendocino County Local Coastal Program,” Gjerde said, explaining his no vote.
Split vote
Unlike three meetings about the project in Fort Bragg, which all were dominated by locals opposed to the project, there was a mixture of supporters and opponents at Monday”s meeting. Former 4th District supervisor Kendall Smith attended and encouraged a “yes” vote.
“As agreed upon by the supervisors in their final vote, removal of over two miles of haul road along with removal of European beach grass will begin recovery of the natural dune processes that include more gently sloped foredunes, and help restore rare native plants, thereby creating more than 200 additional acres of snowy plover habitat in the preserve,” said project supporter Linda Perkins of Albion. “Taking out the road”s culverts at Fen and Inglenook creeks is a necessary and significant start toward the restoration of those two watersheds.”
Perkins said there is also an actual benefit to access by removing the old road, which is mostly covered by sand now.
“Importantly, a gradually sloping beach will also give visitors a safer way to retreat from unexpectedly high waves, and keeping intact the piece of road that runs roughly east/west along the Ten Mile River will preserve a vertical access trail to the ocean,” Perkins said.
Pinches” support of the grant was surprising to many, who had guessed he would vote the other way. Anderson said Pinches argued that it would be a shame to lose the money destined to come into the local economy.
“The fallacy in that is that these contracts regularly go to people outside the county. It would remain to be seen just how much money would really come into the area,” said Anderson.
Portions of the road at Ward Avenue and under the Ten Mile Bridge are not part of this project, which plans to remove isolated and remote pieces.
State Parks proposes to dig up and truck away 2.7 miles of three remnant road pieces, totaling 25,000 cubic yards of asphalt, gravel and road bed. That would total about 2,500 dump truck loads (or about 675 million pounds) being carried across the sensitive habitat, under the bridge and out on a road east of the highway. Thousands of tons of sand will have to be removed from the existing road first, to allow access by heavy equipment.
Where the roadway ends, a ramp made of natural rock material would be trucked in to move tractors and dump trucks across wet sand on the beach below in order to reach stranded remnants of the old haul road at the southern end of the preserve.
Materials removed will be recycled or reused, if possible. The remainder may be hauled to the old quarry site on State Parks” Big River property to be used for future park projects, or to a second disposal site on private property within the Ten Mile watershed.
Parks” consultant
State Parks brought in two of their top consulting experts to help persuade supervisors of the sound science behind the project.
“The removal of the hazardous and nuisance-causing remnants of the derelict and long-unserviceable haul road alignment is the simplest possible restoration project, and should be considered no more than routine maintenance of the ecological preserve at Tenmile Dunes as the beach and dunes migrate inevitably landward,” wrote Peter Baye, a botanist and coastal ecologist.
“The local opponents of the haul road remnant removal project are mired in regressive and outdated, infeasible coastal planning assumptions,” Baye wrote, pointing out that all areas are planning for sea level rise, which he said will drown any plans to replace the road with another hard surface.”
Baye criticized locals for a misinformation campaign. He said people were claiming that the road could still be used. Actually locals have not argued that the current road is a functional trail, as Baye claims. Some have argued that removing the road is foolish and wasteful of public money. Many others have argued that a new road, such as a beach boardwalk, should be put in.
Gjerde has expressed hopes that new technology and science in the future would allow access in ways not currently imagined. Baye was adamant that a new road won”t work.
“In the absence of European beachgrass, any road landward of the beach within the dune system would be precluded by the natural mobility of the dunes. Dune mobility makes any road surface landward of the beach utterly infeasible. … There have been no roads proposed in publicly-owned dunes, and only one road proposed across privately-owned active, mobile dunes in California in the last 20 years at Lawson”s Landing, Dillon Beach, Marin County. The landowners there wisely withdrew that road proposal during the EIR [environmental impact report] review because of the severe impacts caused by dune stabilization needed for the road,” Baye wrote.
