Board of Supervisors objects to BLM plan that would cause Water Shortages, leave Oak Woodlands unprotected, and creates conflicting Parcel Designations. BLM controls about 24,000 acres of land in the County, but new Plan would cover hundreds of thousands more!
December
5,2006
Mr.
William S. Haigh,
RE:
Sierra Draft Resources Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement Dated
August 2006
Mr.
Haigh:
The
following are the comments of the County of El Dorado on the draft document. We
believe there are some incongruities as between our County General Plan and your
draft document. We believe such incongruities exist between all four
alternatives; not just the preferred alternative D.
Since
you probably do not have time to review our County General Plan in its entirety,
attached is the Introduction section of that plan. The introduction section sets
forth certain philosophies that are important to the creation and function of
our General Plan.
Our
plan was adopted in July 2004, has been adjudicated by the California third
District Court of Appeals and has been ratified by our voters.
While
not specifically set forth in code, Federal law encourages plans such as you are
engendering, to reflect the planning efforts of local governments. Such an
effort to create congruent plans can best be accomplished in a collaborative
effort which could avoid conflicts between our plan and yours. A similar effort
is now under way as regards the Pine Hill Plant Preserve working group in our
efforts to create the missing Memorandum of Understanding.
BLM
manages approximately 2% of the land within our County, that being about 23,834
acres owned by the people of the United States of America. However, the Draft
Plan includes policies which affect a much larger portion of our county and may
have dire affects on our ability to plan
for our future.
-
The conflict between future water availability and storage and your evaluation of the American and Cosumnes Rivers as 'Wild and Scenic". This is a violation of our plan assumption 5 D.
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While we are requiring all new development to protect Oak Woodlands through our General Plan requirements, we find no mention of such protection in your draft plan.
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Pursuant to our General Plan there is a recognized need to have a frontage road on the North side of Highway 50 in the Cameron Park area. This frontage road would be between Ponderosa Road and Cameron Park Drive; it would specifically be from the West end of Wild Chaparral Drive to the East end of palmer Drive through a parcel that is adjacent to the freeway that was purchased as part of the plant preserve.
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To comply with our plant preserve requirements there is an additional 900 acres adjacent to the existing preserve that should be qualified and added to the preserve.
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BLM has numerous parcels spread throughout our county. Some of these parcels are available for purchase or exchange. Unfortunately all of your parcels are designated as open space or public facilities. We should work together to be certain that your parcels are appropriately designated on our General Plan to afford them the most protection from encroachment. Further, we need parcels to be sold or exchanged have General Plan designations that will not cause confusion in the future.
We
apologize for not having previously reviewed your draft plan and are aware that
our comments are due by December 13,2006. However, we believe that it is
important for staff from each of our entities to get together and, where
possible, rectify as many differences as Possible before your plan is adopted.
We look forward to a continuing beneficial relationship between our
organizations.
Respectfully,
James
R. "Jack" Sweeney, Chairman
El
Dorado County Board of Supervisors
County of
El Dorado
BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
RUSTY
DUPRAY. ................................................. DISTRICT
I
HELEN
K. BAUMANN ......................................... DISTRICT
II
JAMES
R. SWEENEY ............................................
DISTRICT Ill
VACANT
..............................................................
DISTRICT IV
NORMA
SANTIAGO .........................................
DISTRICT V
Cindy
Keck ...................................
CLERK OF THE BOARD
330 FAIR LANE PLACERVILLE, CA 95667
TELEPHONE
(530) 621-5390
FAX
NO. (530) 295-2552
FAX
NO. (530) 622-3645
