Editorial: Land grab along river needs a plan
Chico Enterprise Record- 4/21/02

Local folks who were worried about the amount of land being purchased along the Sacramento River for habitat and other conservation purposes were cheered a few months back when Congress told the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to stop it.

Locals were concerned about loss of tax revenue, effects on the economy from farmland taken out of production, and impacts on neighbors from land allowed to revert to wilderness.

They were also upset that Fish and Wildlife bars the public from the land it buys until it develops a plan for the property, which can take years. By the time Congress acted, Fish and Wildlife had snared 12,000 acres along the river and hadn't even started to draft a plan.

Well, Fish and Wildlife stopped buying land and started drawing a plan for what it had already bought. But the purchases didn't stop. Instead the funding was shifted to the Nature Conservancy or one of the other public and private agencies pursuing their own purchasing initiatives along the river.

And now, it's really too late to try to stop the conservation land buys along the river. The deed is done. Downstream from Highway 32, there are just a few gaps in the swath of such properties that's a mile wide and 25 miles long.

And that's not all. Most of the huge old Llano Seco Ranch east of the river, south of Ord Ferry Road, is locked up in preserves and easements. A couple of miles southeast of that are the thousands of acres of the state Fish and Game Department's Butte Basin and Dry Creek preserves. And just beyond that is Gray Lodge.

West of the river is the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge south of Willows, and the Delevan National Wildlife Refuge a bit southeast of those. Conservation easements are spreading east from those toward the river.

Like it or not, much of Butte and Glenn counties has become a massive, interconnected wildlife refuge, a huge lab for experiments in habitat restoration and allowing the river to meander.

There actually could be some value in that. The Nature Conservancy, for instance, is working on ways of moving flood waters in the lands west of Chico from private land onto the habitat land. If what they're trying works, farmers and residents in the area might see less unwanted water on their land - a good thing.

A band of wild along the river probably would be beneficial for anglers, hunters and tourists. If camping and hiking could be allowed for along the stretch, it would be an attraction without parallel.

But the problem is, there is currently no way for local residents to have any influence on seeing that any of those things happens. Each of the dozens of private and public agencies working along the river has its own agenda, and none of them are eagerly seeking the input of those of us who'll have to live with their handiwork.

And even if they were, it would be practically impossible to participate, as there is no single plan. Fish and Wildlife is drafting one plan. Fish and Game has another. State Parks has its own idea. The Corps of Engineers is heading a different way. Add in the Nature Conservancy and other private groups, and the interdisciplinary efforts like the Central Valley Habitat Joint Venture, and just staying on top of all that's going on would be a full-time job.

In addition, there's no guarantee that all the separate initiatives will mesh.

While we're not big fans of creating new bureaucracies, that's what we need right now. There needs to be a single institution with authority over all these projects - state, federal and private - that would be accessible and answerable to the citizenry. It should be charged with seeing that all those plans work together, or preferably, that there's just one plan.

It should also be charged with seeing that the needs and wishes of the local community are addressed, although no one has seemed to care up to now.

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