Summary of Del Puerto Canyon Reservoir Final Environmental Impact Report, Part III

If you've been with me through Parts I and II of this series, where we talked about the arguments against damming and flooding Del Puerto Canyon and then looked at a long list of sensitive species that may be displaced by the project, you may have a few questions.

You may be thinking, with thousands of acres of habitat available in the Coast Ranges, why would the loss of a mere thousand acres matter?  Isn't there plenty of available habitat left for wildlife?  What is the point of this, anyway?

Progress is progress, you say, water is life, agriculture feeds the Valley (and many, many far-flung regions beyond), so what is the loss of a thousand or so acres of habitat in the grand scheme of things?

Yet this has been the story over and over and over again in California, for the last 200 years: the relentless march of "progress," taking all we can possibly take with little regard for the destruction left behind.  Habitat fragmentation has plagued every corner of the state.  The irreparable damage has been done, resulting in the eternal loss of habitats and the species they support.  

So much of California's wild habitats have been destroyed, degraded and fragmented beyond recognition.  Areas of intact habitat, and corridors linking them, are critical to the continued success of California's remaining wildlife.  The attitude that "there is always more space for the animals to move into" is dangerous, and that idea is, ultimately, false.  There will not always be more habitat, just like there will not always be more water.  This means that we must think very carefully and critically before breaking up even more habitat with future development.  Precious little intact habitat remains as it is.

Wildlife corridors are critical pieces of land used by terrestrial animals to link suitable breeding habitats, through which genes are able to flow, thus preventing populations from becoming isolated by habitat fragmentation.  

The environmental impact report has this to say about Del Puerto Canyon and the proposed dam site as a wildlife corridor: 

"The area surrounding and within the study area provides opportunity for local movement and landscape scale connectivity for a wide variety of species including invertebrates, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and small and medium mammals... A variety of landscape features and habitats in the region provide structure and function that facilitate the movement of a wide variety of species, including drainages, canyons, riparian and stream corridors, wetlands, gentle terrain, grasslands, scrublands, woodlands, and agriculture areas. The areas to the west of I-5 contain relatively low levels of human development and high levels of habitat connectedness and open space. These conditions provide live-in habitat and home ranges for a number of species and also provide relatively high-quality value and function for local wildlife movement and habitat connectivity in the region. Live-in habitat is important for connectivity, especially for species that have low mobility and have small home ranges (e.g., low mobility invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles) as they depend on the gradual movements through multiple generations dispersing small distances to disperse to new areas and connect to larger metapopulations (i.e., spatially separated local populations across a larger region) to exchange genetic material. Several areas identified as important connectivity habitat and as wildlife corridors exist within and adjacent to the study area."   (EIR p. 159)

And so, settlers move in; progress happens; they take a little, because there is so much more left "untouched."  And the cycle repeats, and repeats, and repeats.  Each time, the amount of land leftover looks like enough, but is it really untouched anymore?  Not at all.  

 Think of it this way:  

Say the dam is built, and the canyon is flooded.  A few nesting sites are lost for the kites and shrikes and Grasshopper Sparrows; a few hundred acres of foraging habitat for blackbirds is gone; a couple of badger dens and owl burrows are destroyed.  Yellow-legged frog populations can no longer expand into the creek, and kit foxes can no longer travel freely through the area.  A breeding pair of Golden Eagles are displaced by the construction and a migratory pair of Swainson's Hawks returns to find their breeding territory underwater.  

That might not seem like much.

But where is that water going?  Is the water in the new reservoir going to irrigate new acreage of crops?

Is the water in the new reservoir fueling the destruction of land that was formerly unirrigated rangeland, a rich and complex grassland ecosystem that supported even more populations of these declining species of wildlife?

Undoubtedly it will, as orchards and vineyards are planted in places where they have no business being!  Now, the dam project is causing even more habitat loss, as grasslands are plowed under.  

Now we face the loss of even more populations of Burrowing Owls and badgers, even less foraging space for Tricolored Blackbirds and Golden Eagles, fewer nesting sites for kites and shrikes and Grasshopper Sparrows.  

And fewer and fewer; less and less; more and more loss.  

The negative effects of the project are exponential.

At some point, enough will have to be enough.

If you missed them, follow these links to read Part I and Part II.