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WAM
Friends of Muir Woods Park and Watershed Alliance of Marin Sue Marin County
For Immediate Release
Friends of Muir Woods Park and Watershed Alliance of Marin Sue Marin County to protect rare wildlife and headwater creeks.
Conservation groups have filed a lawsuit against Marin County for its failure to require an Environmental Impact Report on the Dipsea Ranch Subdivision an 8.29-acre project that proposes up to 12 homes. The conservation group’s petition alleges that there has been insufficient environmental review of impacts to Muir Woods, water quality in Redwood Creek and endangered species such as Northern Spotted Owl and Coho Salmon. The Groups also contend that the County intentionally ignored the Marin County’s 2007 Countywide Plan in approving the subdivision. The petition alleges evidence also showed that the Project is inconsistent with local plans and policies and will adversely affect ecosystems in Mount Tamalpais State Park and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area open space lands.
Located next to Mt. Tam State Park and above Muir Woods National Monument, this petition alleges development threatens bucolic vistas, protected wildlife, and the experiences of hikers, runners, and naturalists. The investment of hundreds of millions of dollars has been spent downstream protecting the endangered Coho salmon that spawn in Muir Woods National Monument and Mt. Tam State Park. The petition alleges that Steelhead, bats, and Northern Spotted Owls, listed as endangered, will be threatened by the Project. Additionally, the Project is in the highest fire danger zone rating and the current review insufficiently addresses this and other hazards such as the impact of additional traffic and the safety of ingress and egress of the proposed development onto Panoramic Hwy.
On appeal of the initial approval, the petition alleges the Board of Supervisors ignored the science and pleas of the Sierra Club Marin Group, Watershed Alliance of Marin and 150 Friends of Muir Woods Park petitioners to conduct a proper review. The California Environmental Quality Act allows citizens the right to sue to challenge government agencies that do not comply with its environmental and public transparency provisions. This is exactly why the conservation groups filed the lawsuit.
The petition alleges that Marin County, has an obligation to fulfill its duty to oversee and ascertain the facts about the Project’s environmental impacts and the County may not abdicate its role as regulatory and permitting authority and rely solely on consultant assessments conducted on behalf of the applicant. From its inception, the Project generated enormous public and expert opposition as a result of the numerous errors, omissions, and lack of quantification of impacts and unscientific claims in the hydrological, geological, and biological assessments of the Project.
The petition alleges that despite the evidence of potential significant impacts, the County has improperly chosen to only prepare an Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration (“MND”) for the Project instead of a more comprehensive Environmental Impact Report (“EIR”), thereby leaving the County and the public without the scientific data and analysis necessary for a project with such impacts.
The petition alleges that the state public trust agency, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (“CDFW”), other expert scientists and even the County’s own consultants criticized the reports’ remarkable assertions that, despite the Project affecting a Federal jurisdictional wetland and depositing sediment in a tributary of Redwood Creek that no impacts would be made to water quality, wetlands or to protected and endangered species. (Petition, 11/4/20 WAM et al v. Marin County)
Please support the protection of the Dipsea Ranch property in Marin County open space and regulate inappropriate development.
Sign our petition at Change.org/savemuirwoodscoho
Support Watermarin.org
Media Contact: Laura Chariton, Watershed Alliance of Marin 501c3, watermarin@comcast.net