BILL NUMBER: AB 2575 AMENDED
BILL TEXT
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY APRIL 27, 2010
INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Chesbro
FEBRUARY 19, 2010
An act to add Article 5.5 (commencing with Section 4564) to
Chapter 8 of Part 2 of Division 4 of the Public Resources Code,
relating to resources.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AB 2575, as amended, Chesbro. Resources: watersheds.
The Z'berg-Nejedly Forest Practice Act of 1973, among other
things, prohibits a person from conducting timber operations unless a
timber harvesting plan prepared by a registered professional
forester has been submitted to the Department of Forestry and Fire
Protection, and unless the plan has been approved. Existing law
requires the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection to adopt certain
forest practice rules and regulations to minimize the effects of
erosion on water resources and lakes.
This bill would require the department and the board
when implementing a pilot project to protect and repair
restore the riparian zone in watersheds with
listed anadromous salmonids to, among other things, ensure that the
industry, agencies, and the public have balanced
involvement in the pilot projects equal opportunity to
participate in the development of the pilot project in a transparent
manner and that the pilot project have certain goals.
The bill would require the department, by July 1, 2011, to place
all existing electronically available
logging timber harvesting plan
information on a planning watershed basis in
its possession on January 1, 2011, on the department's
its Internet Web site in an organized and
easily accessible manner.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes.
State-mandated local program: no.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. The Legislature finds and declares all of the
following:
(a) There are crucial problems within the watersheds of California
that have resulted, to a large extent, in the listing of fish and
other wildlife species under the California Endangered Species Act or
federal Endangered Species Act.
(b) There are numerous water bodies in California that have been
declared by the California Environmental Protection Agency
and the State Water Resources Control Board to be impaired
due to excessive sedimentation, high water temperatures, and
pollutants.
(c) California timberlands have been significantly depleted of
their timberland value, and economic stresses have devalued the
existing timber resources and created an extreme "boom and bust"
cycle for the industry and its workers, as well as drastic
liquidation of much essential infrastructure.
(d) The overstocked young growth of much of California's
timberlands has led to greatly increased risk of catastrophic
wildfire over large areas and in proximity to and surrounding many
places inhabited by human communities.
(e)
(c) Sequestration of carbon in forest lands is a vital
component in slowing climate change, and adequate understanding and
actions to respond to this need have not been determined nor
implemented.
(f) These problems have not only significantly and adversely
impacted the natural resources and watersheds of California, but have
similarly impacted the lives, health, safety, private property, and
general welfare of Californians.
(g)
(d) The regions of California that have state or
federal listed anadromous salmonid species are often predominately
forest lands that are subject to the Z'berg-Nejedly Forest Practice
Act of 1973, pursuant to Chapter 8 (commencing with Section 4511) of
Part 3 of Division 4 of the Public Resources Code, for purposes of
review and approval of logging plans. These plans include, but are
not limited to, timber harvest plans (THPs), nonindustrial timber
management plans (NTMPs), Sustained Yield Plans (SYPs), and Program
Timberland Environmental Impact Reports (PTEIR).
(h) There has been, and continues to be, a separation and
(e) There have been, and continue to
be, concerns about the impacts of forest management on the health of
watersheds and the species that depend on them. Forest practice rules
addressing the potential impacts to anadromous salmonids, for
example, have only recently been adopted in a comprehensive fashion
despite over a decade of litigation and deliberation by the state. In
the meantime, most native salmon and steelhead species are listed as
threatened or endangered and, as of 2006, there are 410 rivers or
streams on the north coast of the state that are listed as
sediment-impaired under the federal Clean Water Act (33 U.S.C. Sec.
1251 et seq.). Moreover, it has been well documented that the
existing rules addressing cumulative effects analyses are woefully
inadequate and appear to exist in isolation of the processes of
extraction of forest land resources from the processes of
forest management, watershed restoration ,
and other recovery needs. Logging plans are approved
and carried out in a system that is disconnected from efforts of the
public and the state to restore and enhance fisheries' habitat, as
well as cope with the other problems described above. This causes
inefficient allocations of funding, material, and personnel with no
comprehensive approach to the recognition and correction of problems
which, in turn, leads to the continued deterioration of habitat,
watershed and forest health, timber quality, and fire safety.
activities.
(i)
(f) Significant, but often at
times limited, gains have been made in forest land resource
protection and conservation since the Z'berg-Nejedly Forest Practice
Act of 1973, including the application of the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and various state and federal water
quality and fish and game statutes and regulations. These statutes
and regulations have led to some improvements, including, among other
things, the fact that logs are no longer yarded down streambeds,
landings are not placed in streams, riparian buffers have evolved,
certain large trees along watercourses are retained, and
lower impact road building techniques are required.
(j) Improvements are still to be made, however, and the weakest
aspect of California's forest practices is the failure to manage a
process that will adequately evaluate and respond to cumulative
effects. It is this process that can actually address the issues
raised in these legislative findings.
(g) There are still opportunities for
improvement by the development of a comprehensive cumulative effects
review process that is conducted in cooperation with landowners and
other stakeholders. A good cumulative effects process can
provide the information necessary to restore and recover fish and
wildlife populations, to improve the quality and quantity of timber,
to take actions to reduce fire hazards, to sequester carbon, to
produce energy, and to create jobs in taking on these
vitally important tasks .
SEC. 2. Article 5.5 (commencing with Section 4564) is added to
Chapter 8 of Part 2 of Division 4 of the Public Resources Code, to
read:
Article 5.5. Comprehensive Forest Land Recovery and
Restoration Act
4564. The department shall, when When
implementing a pilot project pursuant to a regulation adopted
in accordance with subdivision (f) of Section 4562.7
Section 4551.5 or 4562.7 , to protect and
repair restore the riparian zone in
watersheds with listed anadromous salmonids, the department and
board shall comply with all of the following:
(a) The department shall provide Provide
the industry, agencies, and public with balanced
equity and involvement in the pilot project, which shall be
represented by appropriately qualified representatives respected by
all parties. the public with equal opportunity to
participate in the development of a pilot project in a
transparent manner.
(b) The A pilot project shall result
in the adoption of guidelines for conducting a cumulative effects
evaluation and response on a planning watershed
scale, supported by the industry, agencies, and public,
and shall address the cumulative and planning
watershed impacts, including project-specific issues or site-specific
issues, or both. potential project-specific planning
watershed cumulative effects of timber harvesting
activities. In particular, the guidelines shall require the
following:
(1) The spatial scale of the cumulative effects analysis to be
consistent with the resources of concern, including watersheds and
soil productivity, and with the physical processes, including
erosion, that influence those resources.
(2) The use of reproducible, quantitative methods of evaluation as
the primary means of determining baseline physical, chemical, or
biological parameters, in estimating cumulative impacts, and in
monitoring implementation of mitigation measures.
(3) Sufficient documentation that supports the conclusions and
recommendations of an evaluation.
(4) The evaluator to have relevant training and experience.
(c) The department shall consult with credible
Consult with and seek comment from appropriate
scientific experts in order to achieve a sound process
that is develop evaluation guidelines that are
feasible, enforceable, and of a standard that is
protective of the public trust. Topics included in the
findings of the pilot project shall include qualitative and
quantitative methods, repeatability, documentation, expertise, scale,
and adequacy of analysis. The department and the
board may draw from information in the State of Washington's
Watershed Analysis Manual or the Methods Manual developed by the
State of California's North Coast Watershed Assessment
Program when developing guidelines.
(d) The A pilot project shall have
one or more of the following goals:
(1) Restore fisheries and wildlife habitat.
(2) Reduce the risk of wildfire.
(3) Recover forest characteristics which will produce high-quality
timber.
(4) Reduce sedimentation and soil loss.
(5) Achieve optimum long-term carbon
sequestration.
(6) Restore and recover unique attributes of a given planning
watershed.
(e) The A pilot project shall
address specific requirements of be
consistent with state and federal mandates ,
including, but not limited to, governing coho
recovery and restoring restoration of
impaired water bodies.
(f) Funding and personnel for the development and
implementation of pilot projects shall be utilized from
existing department and responsible agencies' budgets and personnel.
Additional funding shall be sought from private and public sources,
statewide and nationally, with an emphasis on receiving support from
educational institutions.
4565. On or before July 1, 2011, the department shall place
all existing electronically available
logging timber harvesting plan
information on a planning watershed basis on the department'
s in its possession on January 1, 2011, on its
Internet Web site in a manner that is organized by a
particular planning watershed and easily accessible to the
public.