UC Merced - VernalPools.Org

UC Merced
a consensus planning success story?
Carol W. Witham, VernalPools.Org
www.vernalpools.org
History of the 10th UC campus
and how it ended up in Merced
9 1988 UC Regents initiated planning for a new campus
9 Focused on the San Joaquin Valley
9 85 initial sites
9 20 candidate sites
9 8 preferred sites
9 3 finalist sites
9 No one has been able to reproduce the site selection process
9 1995 UC Regents selected the Lake Yosemite site in
Merced County as their preferred location
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Why the Lake Yosemite site?
and why no one complained at the time
9 Two trusts were willing to donate 2000 acres
9 Partnering with the trusts provided a unique opportunity to
help fund scholarships to the underserved students of the
San Joaquin Valley
9 The trusts were going to profit from building a whole new
town around the campus
9 Early documents suggested the town would be the size of
Berkeley
9 In 1995, California was broke and no one envisioned
a new campus was going to happen
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Project put on fastfast-track in 2000
and serious environmental concerns were raised
9 UC officials initially claim the campus a done deal
9 Governor Gray Davis allocates $30 million for conservation
easements to serve as mitigation
9 Conservation
C
ti organizations
i ti
andd many UC faculty
f lt are enragedd
by the environmental consequences of the campus
9 Regulators warn that the proposed location could not be
permitted
9 The campus and community are moved a bit south
9 Packard Foundation puts up $11 million to buy the land
from the trusts and purchase an adjacent parcel
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VernalPools.Org
originated in 2000 to fight UC Merced
•
While CNPS played a large and important role
in the movement to “move” UC Merced, their
focus is on plants… and it was the presence of
endangered fairy shrimp that was going to
make a difference.
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Piecemealed EIR in 20012001-2002
campus, community and parkway
9 Three separate environmental review documents
9 Sneaky release just before Christmas 2001 with a minimum
comment period
9 Planned
Pl
d tto open th
the first
fi t phase
h
off the
th campus on a former
f
golf course to avoid doing NEPA
9 Hundreds of pages of comment letters from dozens of
conservation organizations
9 CEQA lawsuit against the UC failed in both the trial
and appellate courts
9 Who would rule against something the governor wanted?
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UC Merced opens in 2005
with a golden bobcat as its mascot
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Talks also began in 2005
between UCM and conservation NGOs
9 1st meeting arranged by US Fish & Wildlife Service
9 The first year and a half of meetings were fruitless
9 June 2006 the US Army Corps of Engineers released
and then retracted a draft EIS
9 Corps staff publicly stated that the campus could not be
permitted as proposed
9 UCM began to take the environmental community more
seriously
9 We began working together on a Conservation Strategy for
the entire eastern Merced County region
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2007 brings another draft EIS
but this one was never released
9 UC Merced officials decide that it is time cut a deal
with the regulators and the environmental community
9 UCM, NGOs and the regulatory agencies reached a consensus
on a reduced
d d ffootprint
t i t that
th t also
l shifted
hift d th
the campus ffurther
th
south
9 UCM and NGOs also reached an agreement about how we
would work together to achieve certain specific conservation
goals on and around the new campus
9 November 2008 a new draft EIS/EIR was released for
a 60 day public comment period
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New footprint conservation benefits
for species and habitat
9 721 acres of pristine vernal pool grasslands avoided
and protected in perpetuity
9 120 wetted acres of vernal pools, swales and clay
playas
9 2 breeding pools for California Tiger Salamander
9 8 pools supporting Midvalley Fairy Shrimp
9 104 pools supporting Vernal Pool Fairy Shrimp
9 70 pools supporting Succulent Owl’s Clover
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Other benefits
resulting directly or indirectly
9 32,000 acres of vernal pool grasslands have been placed
under conservation easement in Merced County
9 Eastern Merced County has a strong conservation
strategy that can be used to guide future projects
9 UCM and NGOs continue to work together
9 UCM has set a new standard for clarity and readability
of their environmental documents
9 Other large projects are contacting the environmental
community early in their projects
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The burning question
in all of our minds is…
Did we do
d the
th right
i ht thi
thing??
www.vernalpools.org
VernalPools.Org
dedicated to saving California’s vernal pool landscapes
For additional information, contact:
Carol W. Witham
VernalPools.Org
[email protected]
www.vernalpools.org