Berkeley's Tree Problem

Faithful blog readers will know about UC-Berkeley's tree problem in People's Park. Tree cutting and other activities related to constructing student housing on that site is stalled due to litigation. Maybe the legislature will act since it is pressing for more students to be admitted - or maybe not.

Meanwhile, another tree problem has developed, but this time Berkeley seems to have had more luck with its litigation. From Berkeleyside:

Two years before in 2019, the university began an environmental impact review on another tree-cutting measure to remove conifers and eucalyptus across 121 acres in order to “reduce highly flammable invasive plant species and promote the growth of fire-resistant native plant species to reduce wildfire risks,” according to court records. That work would also be funded by CalFire.

When the Board of Regents finalized the review, the Hills Conservation Network and the Claremont Canyon Conservancy both filed court papers challenging the review’s adequacy. But while the two nonprofits were united in strategy, they remained, as ever, opposed in their reasoning. “Notably, Hills contended the projects went too far, and Claremont thought they didn’t go far enough,” according to the appeals court decision.

The groups questioned various aspects of the review, including wind modeling, levels of vegetation removal and other items they saw as overly ambiguous or insufficient. The appeals court ultimately decided that the environmental impact review at issue had, in fact, been adequate for the project to proceed, and ordered the trial court to enter a new judgment, denying the nonprofit groups’ petitions and determining that the Board of “Regents are entitled to costs on appeal.” ...

Full story at https://www.berkeleyside.org/2023/06/14/uc-berkeley-wildfire-safety-tree-removal.

Well, there's trees, and then there's trees:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NMt2B9kCWA.