Stagecoach Vineyards (DEIR)
Background
Earth Defense for the Environment Now, EDEN, on December 31, 2007,
filed legal and expert comments on the Stagecoach Vineyard Project
due to a severely flawed, inaccurate and deficient Draft Environmental Impact
Report (DEIR). The Stagecoach project is located in the Rector
Reservoir municipal watershed. The owner of this project started
developing Stagecoach through the 1990's had converted 541 acres
of chaparral oak woodlands to vineyards.
These past Erosion Control Plans
(ECP) installations throughout the 1990's have been failing
miserably causing severe erosion into Rector Reservoir causing
detrimental water quality and harm to endangered species. Stagecoach uses
this false baseline (current failing ECP causing severe erosion) for the bases
of approving their current ECP application of 107 acres of vineyard,
stating that the new vineyards will decrease current erosion, however, this
claim thereby is creating a false baseline of decreased erosion.
Additionally, Stagecoach utterly fails to inform the public in the
DEIR that natural vegetation in this watershed of oak woodlands and
chaparral, has less erosion than a well maintained erosion control
plan. Again, Stagecoach's DEIR completely deprives the public
about what is really going on with their vineyard's ECP. Stagecoach's owner has
applied for an additional 107 acres of vineyard despite the fact that their
existing vineyards are not maintained and fail performance standards required by
their 1990's erosion control plans.
Stagecoach's experts claim they
will remove rock from the soil to plant the new vineyards and that no
increased erosion or runoff will occur. EDEN
disputes Stagecoach's modeling results of no increased erosion
or runoff factors due to wild assumptions by their geologist. EDEN
further states that Stagecoach's DEIR is highly flawed and is so
lacking in information for the public to have substantive comments that the
DEIR must be re-circulated.
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