To request an application or find out more about the Angeles Chapter Conservation Grants Program, please contact Johanna at 213-387-4287x204 or Johanna.Zetterberg@sierraclub.org

NOTE: Rachel will be on vacation during the application time so all requests must come to me! If you would like Johanna to review a draft of your application before you submit it, please give it to me 1-2 weeks ahead of time. Johanna Zetterberg, Conservation Program Coordinator, 213-387-4287x204, http://www.angeles.sierraclub.org/ 3435 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 320, Los Angeles CA 90010-1904

Help Protect Wild Forests – Keep the Roadless Rule!

Just as the Bush Administration would have you believe that more clearcuts equals “healthy forests” they now want us to believe that more taxpayer-subsidized logging roads will help protect our rare wild roadless forests. On July 12 the most popular conservation policy in American history was dealt a crippling blow with the Bush Administration’s decision to re-write the landmark Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The Bush Administration has proposed a convoluted process that will leave America’s last wild forests open to destructive commercial logging and road building. This controversial decision forces Governors to petition the Department of Agriculture to protect their wild, roadless National Forests.

Already, 440,000 miles of roads are carved into America's National Forests. The wildly popular Roadless Rule helped protect our remaining wild forests and the clean water, wildlife habitat and outstanding backcountry recreation opportunities from more taxpayer-subsidized commercial logging. The Roadless Rule was developed over three years of public hearings and scientific analysis. To date more than 2 million Americans have commented on the original rule, with 95 percent supporting the strongest wild forests protections. This policy change is the Bush Administration’s latest effort to reduce or eliminate decades of National Forest protection and increase spending to benefit timber companies.

The official comment period ends on September 14 and the US Forest Service insists that all comments arrive in their office by that day. Please take two small actions that will help send the Bush Administration a message:

Our National Forests should be protected for Americans, not logged for the benefits of timber company executives.

Mail written comments to:

Content Analysis Team, ATTN: Roadless State Petitions. USDA Forest Service
PO Box 221090, Salt Lake City UT 84122
Fax to: 801-517-1014, email to: statepetitionroadless@fs.fed.us

Comments also may be submitted from: http://www.regulations.gov. Below is a sample comment and talking points:

Date

To Chief Dale Bosworth:

I am writing regarding the proposed changes to the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. [Docket Number: 04-16191] I believe all of America’s National Forests should be protected from commercial logging, road construction and other damaging activities. I would like complete protection for all roadless areas in all National Forests. This includes protection from road building, including temporary roads, all logging, mining and oil and gas development.

These wild forests should be protected in order to provide clean water, back country recreation, fish and wildlife habitat, and other important values. I urge you to abandon this misguided proposal and keep the Roadless Area Conservation Rule intact in the Lower 48 states and Alaska's Chugach National Forest and reinstate the rule in the Tongass National Forest. The Forest Service and the Bush Administration should do all they can to protect our last remaining roadless areas.

Name
Address
Phone

Chapter Conservation Priorities Revisited

The next Chapter Conservation Committee will begin a process that will focus the Chapter’s work for the period ahead. We hope that you will attend. In 1999, the Chapter leadership held a series of meetings, large and small, that determined the priorities that we have focused on for the last five years.

It is time to review what we have done and find out what has worked, what hasn’t worked and where we should go in the future. We will start by reports from our three priority campaigns, Orange County Open Space, the San Gabriel River and the Santa Clara River Campaigns. We will also have reports from the important, but non-priority campaigns that are being lead by the Sierra Club. From there, we will discuss our strengths and our weaknesses and start a strategic planning process that will bring all our resources to be used in the most effective way that we can.

What are our resources? We have hundreds of volunteer activists. They lead outings, they walk election precincts, they hold meetings and they testify at public meetings. These volunteers are our core resource. We also have a small budget to support these volunteers and we have a small staff that can concentrate on areas that our leadership decides. We have Chapter publications that reach all 57,000 members. Most importantly, we have a reputation that has been built up since the days of our founder, John Muir.

Please attend the September Conservation Committee meeting and give us a report of the work that your Sierra Club entity is doing. I promise you that we will put everything on the table. All the old priorities may go, or, perhaps, we will strengthen them and continue. It is up to us. Our Chapter Executive Committee will make the final decision and they will be involved in the whole process.

Southern California is in trouble. It is up to us to lead the way.

Gordon LaBedz, Conservation Chair
GLaBedzMD@aol.com

It's hard to find anything President Bush wants to help business get its hands on more than oil,
but trees seem to be running a close second lately.
--From a Nashville Tennessean editorial entitled "No to Roads, Save Forests," July 24, 2004.

California Performance Review - Status
by Bill Allayaud

This is a summary of where we are at with the California Performance Review (CPR). Activists are wanting to know what they can do and how the Sierra Club is responding. As such, I prepared this memo.

The CPR report was prepared with hardly any input from the environmental community. The Sierra Club was asked to give input on a one-time basis in a 2-hour session last April. We made some specific suggestions about the organization of CalEPA. A few other environmental groups were represented and also made suggestions about CalEPA and Resources Agency issues. We were not consulted after that and were certainly never asked about how we would feel about eliminating State boards and commissions we rely upon, such as the Regional Water Quality Control Board, the Air Resources Board, and the State Lands Commission. We know that one of our recommendations (about pesticides) made it into the report. Past that, nothing we suggested jumps out.

The press has reported that industry/business had access to this process the last few months and therefore their side is disproportionally represented in the report. The process was secretive in that those working on it had to sign confidentiality agreements. Were industry guys getting to talk to the report preparers on the side without anyone knowing? We don't know. However, simply looking at the sources cited in the report and the recommendations themselves, one might conclude that industry had an advantage in providing input. See for example, the forestry recommendations where Dave Bischel of the industry's California Forestry Association is cited several times; you don't see any Sierra Club (or other enviro sources) citations. And, it turns out we are not happy with the thrust of the forestry recommendations.

The largest red flag in the report is the elimination of so many boards and commissions. This is of concern because this means the public process becomes much more difficult or possibly even nonexistent. While some boards are stacked with solely gubernatorial appointments, they still must meet in public, make their decisions in public, and allow public testimony. If decisions on important pollution control permits are made by staff in an office in Sacramento, industry may have the upper hand because of their ability to pay for professional representatives who follow the issue closely, are familiar with the staff, and are available to go to the agency.

There may be parts of this report we embrace. Efficiency or saving money (either taxpayer or the permittee's) is not inherently bad. In fact, it can mean a more efficient process for protecting or restoring the environment. We should have an open mind about the recommendations and praise suggestions that benefit the things we care about

The Santa Clara River Tour

The Sierra Club and SCOPE will sponsor an educational air-conditioned bus tour of the Santa Clara River, the last major wild river in Southern California. The $8 fee provides for the bus rental and a brown bag lunch.

SAVE THE DATE: Saturday, September 25, 12:30 to about 4 pm

RSVP by September 18 to: 661-255-6899

We will start loading buses at 12:15 from the City of Santa Clarita's annual river celebration festival, the River Rally, which is from 8 am to 12 pm. For more information on the River Rally, go to http://www.santa-clarita.com/cityhall/cmo/press/release.asp?ID=327.

Background: The Santa Clara River is home to endangered species, provides drinking water for residents of the Santa Clarita Valley, and is part of only 5% of California's remaining wetlands. It is also a beautiful river that is a treasured part of California's natural heritage. The Santa Clara River is currently threatened by precedent-setting "dumb growth" development projects, mining projects, perchlorate pollution, and overpumping of groundwater supplies. Come sit on an air conditioned bus and see firsthand the biological value and beauty of this incredible resource while learning more from the community activists who are working to protect the river for all of California.

Topics to be covered include:

• why do Southern California rivers look dry for most of the year?
• what is a watershed and why is this river worth saving?
• what and where are the endangered species that aren't being protected?
• what does mining do to the river, and how are mining companies using NAFTA to justify their activities?
• how, where and by what is the river polluted?
• how does reclaimed water feed the watershed system?
• what does sprawl look like and what makes it sprawl?
• what do better housing developments look like and what makes them different from sprawl?
• how does illegal off road vehicle use impact the watershed?
  

The Clean Water Act Should Protect All Waters

The Bush Administration has said that it will no longer enforce the Clean Water Act to protect many small streams, wetlands and other waters. This doesn't make sense. All waters should be covered by the Clean Water Act. The job of the EPA should be to protect America's waters from pollution. not to abandon a significant portion of the nation's waters. The EPA's rulemaking process ignores the fact that small streams, vernal pools, prairie potholes and supposedly isolated wetlands flow into our groundwater, rivers and lakes. The EPA's rulemaking process also threatens the Clean Water Act's goals of restoring and protecting America's waterways.


Wildlife Agencies Weaken ESA in Favor of Pesticide Companies

The Bush Administration weakened the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by removing the required approval of pesticide use by wildlife agencies. The possible detrimental effect of the pesticides on species protected by the ESA will no longer have to be considered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) when approving pesticides. Before this change, the EPA had to consult with the Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of Commerce's National Marine Fisheries Service when licensing a pesticide. In reality, this process had not been properly implemented for the past decade. The EPA and the Department of Agriculture said in a statement released on July 29, 2004 that the change would make the protection of endangered and threatened species more efficient, and would also head off future lawsuits by organizations dissatisfied with the review process. Suits launched by organizations such as Natural Resources Defense Council and Washington Toxics Coalition on the EPA's failure to execute proper pesticide review processes helped prompt the regulation change by the federal government.

Katie Regan, American Lands Alliance

Wildlife Conservation Board Votes for Hearst Plan

On Thursday, August 12, the California Wildlife Conservation Board (WCB) voted 3-0 to give Hearst Corporation and their partners California Rangeland Trust (CRT) and American Lands Conservancy (ALC) $34 million from California taxpayers for a conservation easement and a thin ribbon of pedestrian highway access across the famed Hearst Ranch in San Simeon. Combined with $23 million in taxpayer money approved last month by CalTrans, Hearst has now raised over one-half of the $95 million they seek from the public as part of a plan to develop a resort and housing on Hearst Ranch.

The funds have been allocated over the objection of nearly every environmental organization in California – Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Defenders of Wildlife, Surfrider Foundation, Audubon Society, CoastWalk and many others. For the WCB hearing, the concerns of environmental organizations were joined by a dozen state legislators as well as the California Coastal Commission and the State Legislative Analyst. The Commission and the State Legislative Analyst have both issued reports highly critical of the so-called “conservation deal,” which has been shown to be an enormous expenditure of taxpayer money for uncertain enforceable environmental protections and severely restricted public access.

In the end, Hearst hopes to acquire nearly $100 million in public cash and tax benefits and at the same time win permission to construct a resort in San Simeon Cove and 27 mansions of any size, as well as 15 houses for employees.

To accomplish their goal would be a spectacular victory for Hearst, whose development efforts at San Simeon have been stymied for decades. What makes this plan different is not the environmental benefits, which are unclear, but the aggressive support of the American Lands Conservancy (ALC), a land trust negotiator and facilitator organization based in San Francisco. ALC is responsible for negotiating the very weak and ambiguous terms of the “conservation easement” which is to be enforced by the California Rangeland Trust (CRT), not the state of California, despite the enormous investment of public funds in the transaction. The best thing that can be said of the deal is that in exchange for all the cash and building Hearst proposes to grant a conservation/agricultural easement and public access to the 18 miles of coastline it owns. The downside of the deal is that before the involvement of ALC, the Coastal Commission had required that Hearst provide these amenities for free, as part of any proposed development plan for Hearst Ranch.

The most immediate problem with the deal is that neither the management plan nor the public access plan exists. Instead, Hearst wants the money and the tax credits now and says they’ll provide the consideration later. The entire deal is rife with secrecy. Neither the biological inventory, nor the management plan nor even the monitoring data will be available to the public if the deal is approved as proposed. Thus in the future neither the public nor the State shall have physical access to the 80,000 acres on the east side of the ranch, nor will future generations even know what it is that was supposedly saved or if the protection process is a success or failure.

Needless to say, other ranchers located east of coastal highway #1 in San Simeon, who already enjoy mountain access, are applauding the efforts of Hearst to permanently extinguish public roads and trails and prohibit all future public access to the mountain.

The WCB is an agency within the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG), and is comprised of persons accountable not to the taxpayers, but only to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. You can see for yourself at http://www.wcb.ca.gov/. In fact, in making its decision the WCB ignored the opinion of the Legislative Analyst, the California Coastal Commission, and the State Legislature’s leading environmentalists, including Senator Byron Sher, arguably the most experienced member of the legislature regarding land transactions.

The week before the WCB vote, over two dozen environmentalists met with Governor Schwarzenegger. Led by Sierra Club California Director Bill Allayaud, the environmentalists pleaded with Governor Schwarzenegger to intervene in the Hearst deal in order to protect taxpayers and the environment. The Governor failed to even comment. Contrary to Governor Schwarzenegger’s promise to limit the corrosive impacts of special interests on state government, the Hearst deal demonstrates the stranglehold of special interests on taxpayers’ money is as strong as ever. The Governor alone has the authority to compel the agencies and the Hearst Corporation to negotiate a better deal. Unfortunately, to date the Governor is missing in action. The Hearst Corporation faces one more crucial test in an upcoming hearing before the California Coastal Conservancy Board on September 15, 2004. If the Conservancy doesn’t require that the deal be dramatically improved, then California taxpayers will pay Hearst nearly $100 million for future protections and access that are unspecified and unlikely to be adequate or satisfactory, while granting Hearst the promise of future development likely to enrich the corporation far in excess of any project that could have been approved as lawfully consistent with the California Coastal Act.

There is still time to influence this deal. Contact your legislators and ask them to demand that the state do better in negotiation final terms with the Hearst Corporation. Contact the members of the Coastal Conservancy and their executive director, Sam Schuchat. Tell them the public needs genuine access to all Hearst beaches and at least regulated trail access to the east side of the property. Tell them that the state needs to have a role in enforcement and monitoring and that the public should have a role in management planning and approvals. Hearst should also be compelled to extinguish their development rights at the time any funds change hands.

Conservancy members are: Paul Morabito, Chairman, Public Member/ Jeremy Hallisey, Public Member/ Donna Arduin, Director, Department of Finance/ Gary Hernandez, Public Member/ Douglas Bosco, Public Member/ Mike Chrisman, Secretary for Resources/ Mike Reilly, Chair, California Coastal Commission. Alternates include: Susan Hansch, California Coastal Commission/ Fred Klass, Department of Finance/ Mike Spear, California Resources Agency.

Six members of the Legislature, three from each house, provide legislative oversight and participate in Conservancy activities. These members are: The Honorable Wesley Chesbro, Senate/ The Honorable Betty Karnette, Senate/ The Honorable Bruce McPherson, Senate/ The Honorable Hannah-Beth Jackson, Assembly/ The Honorable Fran Pavley, Assembly/ The Honorable John Laird, Assembly.

Sam Schuchat is executive officer and Neal Fishman and Steve Horn are the deputy executive officers of the Coastal Conservancy.

For more information on how to contact Conservancy members and what to say, go to http://www.coastalconservancy.ca.gov/ or http://www.santalucia.sierraclub.org/hearst/hearst.html

To write to Governor Schwarzenegger, go to http://www.sierraclub.org/ca/coasts/hotbox/hearst.asp

Mark Massara, Coastwatcher August 2004

Dana Point Findings Cause Schism Between Commission Members and Staff

Commission Deputy Director Chuck Damm addressed the Commission Wednesday August 11 and defended coastal staff’s efforts to prepare legal findings for the Commission’s regrettable decision to approve a resort hotel on environmentally sensitive habitat (ESHA) at Dana Point Headland in Orange County. The Commission decision also allows 75 luxury homes to be built in a landslide area that will require over 2 million yards of grading and one of the largest new seawalls ever built in California.

The Commission approved the project at its January, 2004 meeting. Staff and coastal activists had advised the Commission to deny the project because of obvious inconsistencies with the Coastal Act. Following intense lobbying by the developer, the Commission members embraced the project. (Note: “The project” is technically an amendment to the Dana Point Local Coastal Plan, and the City is technically the applicant. The entire LCP amendment, however, is comprised of this single project. Therefore, in this analysis “City” and “developer” are used interchangeably and the LCP amendment is called “project-driven”.) Following the January vote, the City and the developer met with coastal staff on several occasions in an aggressive attempt to interfere with the preparation of findings that were overly friendly to the project.

Staff’s findings are online at www.coastal.ca.gov/lb/W4a-8-2004.pdf

Most of the argument in front of the Commission involved the hotel on top of an ESHA and the new seawall/housing aspects of the project. The developer demanded that the findings be altered to reflect a more rosy view of the project’s adverse environmental impacts rather than an even-handed review of the project’s impacts and the Commission’s reasoning behind approving it despite the significant adverse environmental impacts.

In June 2004 the Commission members embraced the developer again and demanded that staff rewrite the findings to accommodate, in every instance, the developer’s view of how the project might best withstand the inevitable judicial review that will ultimately be needed in order to protect Dana Point Headland and Strands Beach from the environmental ravages that the project proposes.

On Wednesday August 11 Coastal staff and the Commission attempted once again to satisfy the City and the developer. Staff continued to try to base the findings on the Commission’s actual January hearing, as they are legally required to do.

The City and the developer, on the other hand, drafted their own findings and demanded the Commission adopt their “fantasy findings,” which were drawn from thin air and not based upon the January Commission hearing.

In particular, the carefully edited City findings proposed to delete all words showing that the natural bluff above Strands Beach was and is in fact a natural landform. The thinking of the developer appears to be that if the bluffs are officially determined to be alien, or “unnatural” then the grading, the new houses and the seawall might be legal.

The City also proposed to delete all references to the ESHA on the Dana Point Headland in the areas of the planned resort, and delete any reference for the need of “leftover” ESHA to have any long-term viability whatsoever. The City also took issue with staff’s proposed suggested condition number 64.

Condition 64, regarding the seawall, angered the City. The City argues that a seawall is needed to protect “existing structures” (there aren’t any) and that a seawall is needed in order to protect “offshore” coastal resources (apparently continuing to make a discredited argument that offshore rocks might be damaged by beach sand unless a seawall is immediately constructed). The City also tried to delete the Commission’s routine analysis regarding the established adverse impacts of seawalls to healthy sandy beaches. The City also sought to delete and rewrite important aspects of the public access plan for the project.

The City delivered their proposed findings to the Commission the day before the hearing.

Commission Legal Counsel Ralph Faust defended coastal staff and strongly advised the Commission to be very careful about embracing the work of the City. Informing the Commission that litigation is likely, and that adverse interests exist between environmental groups, the City, the developer and the Commission, Faust told the Commission, “For the ‘fox in the henhouse’ reason, it makes no sense at all to adopt the City’s findings. The City has presented no basis for the changes it has proposed. … I urge the Commission not to adopt the proposed findings submitted by the City.” Then the City and the developer attempted to salvage their credibility. First they said that they could live with all 199 suggested modifications, but that the narrative findings were not acceptable. Sanford Edward, the developer, said that it was unreasonable for Commission to include any discussion regarding the legality of the proposed seawall. Sanford said that the Commission found, on a 9-3 vote, that the seawall is not going to be new construction but just a simple ‘repair and maintenance’ project. Edward contended that it was wrong to include in the findings 10-pages of analysis showing that the seawall is new construction and inconsistent with the Coastal Act because that would undermine his project when it gets before a judge.

“We’re simply trying to strengthen the findings in the event there is a legal challenge,” Edward said. “There are weaknesses in the findings as staff has proposed them and we would welcome the opportunity to have the Commission make findings that are defensible in court.” Chad Nelson of Surfrider Foundation then spoke about the four separate staff reports related to the project, and criticized the Commission for constantly bending to the various demands of the developer.

After allowing the City and the developer to go on for a half-hour without incident, Chairman Mike Reilly promptly interrupted Nelson and advised him to address only the findings. Nelson then said in September and December 2003, and then again in January and June 2004, it had been clearly and repeatedly determined that the bluffs that would be ruined by the project were unequivocally ‘natural.’ Also clear, Nelson said, was that the seawall was new construction. “All the same,” Nelson told the Commission, “the bluff is no longer natural and the new seawall is now merely a repair job.” The process illustrates the political nature of your deliberations,” Nelson declared.

“Let us hope the legal process has more respect for protecting coastal resources than this Commission has,” Nelson concluded.

Marco Gonzalez of the Coast Law Group, who represents Surfrider Foundation, then addressed the Commission. “With these findings I started off angry and ended up embarrassed,” Gonzalez said. “You’ve proven that if your project is big enough, if you lobby enough and you wine and dine the Commission enough that the Coastal Act means nothing. “ Mike Lewis of Surfrider Foundation’s San Clemente Chapter told the Commission that it had created a “rat’s nest” that would take Surfrider, Sierra Club and others much time and effort to unravel.

Several speakers then took specific aim at Commission member Toni Iseman, who is also a City Councilperson in Laguna Beach.

Iseman led the charge in supporting the developer and the project. Her pro-development positions have angered Orange County environmentalists, who had originally urged Senate leader John Burton to appoint Iseman to the Commission based upon her past support for coastal protection.

Chairman Reilly then stated that in his opinion that the findings proposed by staff accurately reflected the Commission’s decision-making process. Reilly said that the findings, once approved by the Commission, would be returned to the City. If the City does not agree, they can decline to approve them and then the project is deemed denied. “We have no way of knowing if the City will concur with the Commission.”

Commissioner William Burke said that he had no time to review the City’s proposed findings given their late submission. Commissioner Iseman then defended the developer, saying that “balance and fairness” requires that if the Commission staff can’t get findings out earlier then the Commission should expect late submittals from developers. “The clock works both ways,” Iseman said in picking on staff for the developer. Staff then revealed that the findings of coastal staff have been publicly available for months.

Commissioners Burke and Reilly then voted to approve the findings, while Commissioner Iseman voted against the findings because they were not sufficiently permissive for the developer. The findings of coastal staff were approved 2-1. The various lawsuits, if any, will be filed with the next two months.

Mark Massara, California Coastwatcher 2004

Oh Beautiful for Spacious (and Polluted) Skies

Ahhh, summer! The season when millions of Americans cast off the shackles of city life and head out to the great outdoors. A time when we yearn for places where the life is sweet, the air is clean, and the views are majestic. A time when we pack up our tents, put on our hiking boots, and enjoy the unpolluted, pristine beauty of America's national parks.

Think again. Americans visiting national parks this summer are in for a big surprise—many of our national parks suffer from some of the dirtiest air in the nation, rivaling (and sometimes exceeding) the air quality in America's dirtiest cities, such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington DC.

According to a recent report released by the National Parks Conservation Association: The five parks in America with the worst air pollution arethe Great Smokey Mountains National Park in TN and NC; Mammoth Cave National Park in KY; Shenandoah National Park in VA; Acadia National Park in ME; and Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park in CA. Sequoia-Kings Canyon—the nation's second oldest national park—suffered 370 unhealthy air days between 1999 and 2003.

In April, when the Bush Administration released the list of cities and counties that were in compliance with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencies ozone standards, it included eight national parks: Great Smokey Mountains, Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Acadia, Shenandoah, Rocky Mountain, and Joshua Tree National Parks, as well as the Cape Cod National Seashore. All of these parks exceed the EPA's ozone standards that were created to protect human health ("Air Pollution Veils US National Parks," ENS, 06/28/04).

Where is this pollution coming from? From power plants, industrial facilities and automobiles located outside of park boundaries. And when we say "outside of the park boundaries," we are talking about facilities located as far as hundreds of miles away.

What can be done? The parks have no control over the pollution affecting them. Only state and national actions can hopefully reduce the air pollution endangering our parks. In 1977, Congress added several provisions to the Clean Air Act in order to keep the "clean air" in national parks from deteriorating. These provisions mandated action that would prevent "any future, and the remedying of any existing, impairment of visibility" in 156 national parks, wilderness areas and national wildlife refuges. How successful has this been? Not very—according to the EPA's own data, from 1993 to 2002, 18 out of the 28 national parks that monitor for smog experienced an increase in ozone levels.

The Bush Administration, reformulating a Clinton era rule that was challenged by industry in court, released a plan to deal with air pollution in national parks. Thanks to the Bush Administration, the industrial sources whose pollution affects the air quality of national parks would not have to install modern pollution controls until 2018. In the meantime, air quality improvements would be "averaged" among national parks, through a "pollution trading" system.

In a nutshell, the Bush Administration's policies would allow many of America's oldest and dirtiest factories, including power plants, to continue polluting for the next 14 years—and almost nothing would be done to protect our nation's most treasured places. So when you are packing for you summer trip to one of America's national parks, don't forget to bring a gas-mask—you may need it.

Sierra Club RAW, July 26, 2004

Green Corridors to Save Our Wildlife

The Angeles Chapter will present a seminar on Green Corridors to save our Wildlife on Saturday, October 16, 2004 at the Friendship Auditorium in Griffith Park. Call 818-769-1521x2 to make a reservation and to learn the starting time. Web page http://www.gmrnet.com/ETSFSignup.html

A free lunch will be served to those who attend. The seminar is also sponsored by the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, the Humane Society of the US, the National Park Service, the San Francisco Zoo, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Cal Trans.

Useful Information

This Electronic Conservation Committee Newsletter is sent free, automatically, on email to all activists who hold any of the following positions in the Angeles Chapter or its entities: Executive Committee Member; Entity Chair or Conservation Chair, Political, and Newsletter Editor, Conservation Subcommittee or Task Force Chair. In addition, many activists throughout the Chapter and state receive it free by email, either by request or by position.  Distribution is approximately 350 by email, and 45 by postal hard copy. If you no longer hold the Club office with the automatic pull and wish to continue to receive it, email ivesico@earthlink.net. If we do not have your email address - please let us know. If you wish (and tell us), it will be tagged "private" and not printed or given out.
     The Newsletter (without upcoming resolutions) is available on the Chapter website at http://angeles.sierraclub.org/home.html

     Paper postal copy is available ($20/year payable Angeles Chapter, Sierra Club) for those who are technically challenged or simply don't want to be bothered. To receive The Newsletter by first class mail, send a donation of $20 to (almost) cover printing/mailing costs to Conservation Newsletter, 112 Harvard Ave PMB 297, Claremont CA 91711.

National's GoldBook provides information to chapters and groups on the differences between 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) funds; how to utilize and access charitable 501(c)(3) funds; how to get a project approved; fundraising plus much, much, more material on the Sierra Club. It is now available at the Clubhouse website. Go to  http://www.clubhouse.sierraclub.org/; follow the instructions for obtaining the password. The GoldBook can be found by clicking on A - Z List of Materials box, then on "G" under A-Z List of Documents, then on GoldBook, Educational Project Guidelines.

The California/Nevada Directory (RedBook) is now available online. It also includes the Handbook of Sierra Club California Bylaws and Standing Rules (GreenBook). Contact Lori Ives for the online address and password. Send your membership number, your position in the Club, and your reason for needing the information. The paper edition ($20) is available on special order. Contact Lori for information.

E-Mail Lists: There are four important discussion lists for Angeles environmental activists:
Angeles Chapter Cons Listserve mailto:<angeles-conservation@lists.sierraclub.org>and

Angeles-Alerts Listserve angeles-alerts@lists.sierraclub.org

California/Nevada Listserve calif-activists@lists.sierraclub.org (moderated list for announcements)

California/Nevada Listserve calif-activists-forum@lists.sierraclub.org (unmoderated discussion list)

Motions should be submitted in advance, together with objective background material and supporting and opposing arguments, both to the Committee Chair and Newsletter Editor, for distribution with the agenda. Other motions will be postponed for action at a later meeting unless the motion is submitted in writing and unless the Committee votes an exception to ordinary procedure. Motions needing further action by the Angeles Chapter ExComm or some higher level of the Sierra Club should start out: "The Angeles Chapter Conservation Committee recommends that the Sierra Club... To find out more about voting requirements and representatives, consult the Angeles Chapter website Conservation Committee

Angeles Chapter Conservation Committee

7:30 pm (sharp) Introductions/Approval of the Agenda/Conservation Staff Report/ appoint Marica Hanscom as Conservation               Management Committee member and secretary.

7:40       Strengths and Weaknesses of the San Gabriel River Campaign
8:00       Strengths and Weaknesses of the Orange County Campaign
8:20       Strengths and Weaknesses of the Santa Clara River Campaign
8:40       The remainder of the meeting will be reports from Regional Groups and Committees doing conservation campaigns
              in Los Angeles County.
Next meeting: October 20