Raszka Shelley From: Gallagher Chuck Sent: Friday, March 27, 2015 9:50 AM To: Raszka Shelley Subject: FW: testimony on HB 2183 Attachments: Cal-IPCNews_Winter2015.pdf From: Jason Giessow [ mailto:[email protected] ] Sent: Friday, March 27, 2015 9:49 AM To: Gallagher Chuck Subject: testimony on HB 2183 Hi Chuck- I was the primary author on this Impact Assessment for CA. It is posted at this web site: http://www.cal-ipc.org/ip/research/arundo/index.php Basically- no one should be growing Arundo, it is destroying riverine systems in CA and Texas. There are entire conferences about how to control Arundo and tamarisk (the Deadly Duo). In the report is a CBA for coastal watersheds in CA and estimates $380 million dollars in damage . It destroys habitat- but also severely impacts flooding, fire, and water (the impact report has a chapter on each). That is why folks from both sides of the isle work on eradicating this plant. Planting it for commercial use is exceedingly dangerous, should be banned, or bonded at very high levels. CA has spent about $100 million dollars dealing with Arundo and its impacts (mostly state bond funds dealing with water: conservation, conveyance, and improvement). New state funding (Proposition 1) for water conservation and river conveyance will likely increase state funding for Arundo control to over $200 million dollars. Don’t let Oregon follow this trajectory. This recent article (attached- page 10) on the Salinas River Arundo program is one example of the impacts caused by Arundo, the complicated regulatory approval required to work on the issue, the high cost of the program, and most important- the farmers and landowners who pay the price for the impacts caused by Arundo (flooding, less water, fire, etc….). Don’t let commercial interests saddle other landowners and the public with the consequences of introducing Arundo to your river systems. Jason Giessow ____________________________ Jason Giessow, Principal Ecologist Dendra INC. DENDRA Inc. [email protected] Office/cell phone: (760) 207-9066 1 Vol. 23, No. 1 Winter 2015 Cal-IPC News Protecting California’s Natural Areas from Wildland Weeds Newsletter of the California Invasive Plant Council Two rare species: Myrtle silverspot butterfly on INSIDE a coyote mint plant adjacent to an area where European beachgrass was removed. Photo by European beachgrass removal at Point Reyes p. 4 Point Reyes National Seashore. Cross-border collaboration in the State of Jefferson p. 6 Delta collaboration p. 7 Report from Tamarisk Beetle Workshop p. 9 Arundo on the Salinas River p.10 EDRR reports from around the state p.12 From the Director’s Desk Intrinsic or Instrumental? By Doug Johnson Cal-IPC 1442-A Walnut Street, #462 Berkeley, CA 94709 ph (510) 843-3902 fax (510) 217-3500 he modern conservation movement is rooted in an ethical belief that the intrinsic www.cal-ipc.org [email protected] Tvalue of wildlife and wild places—those “area[s] where the earth and its commu- A California 501(c)3 nonprofit organization nity of life are untrammeled by man” as the National Park Service’s Organic Act puts Protecting California’s lands and waters from ecologically-damaging invasive plants it—make them worth protecting. through science, education, and policy. And during the last century, philanthropic foundations funded environmental organizations to do just that: protect wildlife and wild places. But in recent years, it has STAFF become clear that traditional conservation, important as it is, only gets us so far. The Doug Johnson, Executive Director Elizabeth Brusati, Senior Scientist problems are so large, from climate change to population growth, that conservation Agustín Luna, Director of Finance & Administration efforts need to be orders of magnitude stronger to be successful. At the same time, our Bertha McKinley, Program Assistant cultural relationship with wild places is evolving, and not necessarily in a way that sup- Dana Morawitz, Program Manager for GIS and Regional Conservation ports traditional conservation. We need to engage today’s and tomorrow’s Californians in the work that needs to be done. But how? DIRECTORS A recent report (“Conservation Horizons”, www.calandtrusts.org) examines Jason Casanova, President Council for Watershed Health everything from how Millenials differ from previous generations to trends in pollina- Jennifer Funk, Vice-President tion. A key finding: “Conservation may be best positioned to receive funding when it Chapman University helps solve other public priorities and problems—urban parks, improved health, food Steve Schoenig, Treasurer California Department of Fish and Wildlife security, climate adaptation.” These are the issues people care about. Jutta Burger, Secretary These issues represent our collective self-interest in a healthy environment, what is Irvine Ranch Conservancy termed “instrumental” value as opposed to the intrinsic value of traditional conserva- Morgan Ball Wildlands Conservation Science tion. Speaking in terms that tap into our self-interest does help people understand how Tim Buonaccorsi conservation impacts their life. And putting conservation into economic terms can RECON Environmental, Inc. help politicians decide to do the right thing. But does that backfire when it comes to Gina Darin California Department of Water Resources protecting wildlife or a wild place where there are no clear practical benefits? Jason Giessow The debate has consumed plenty of energy over the years. In a recent opinion piece Dendra, Inc. in the journal Nature (Nov. 5, 2014), 240 signatories proposed that we stop arguing Elise Gornish UC Davis, Dept. of Plant Sciences the relative merits of these approaches: “We propose a unified and diverse conservation Shawn Kelly ethic; one that recognizes and accepts all values of nature, from intrinsic to instrumen- Southern California Wetlands Recovery Project tal, and welcomes all philosophies justifying nature protection and restoration, from Drew Kerr Invasive Spartina Project ethical to economic, and from aesthetic to utilitarian.” Cal-IPC agrees—all arguments Annabelle Kleist are valid, and we need them all—and this will be an evolving part of our messaging in Capitol Impact Dan Knapp the future. Los Angeles Conservation Corps John Knapp The Nature Conservancy CNPS Turns Fifty! Virginia Matzek Santa Clara University Congratulations to the California Native David McNeill Plant Society for 50 strong years of conserva- Baldwin Hills Conservancy tion. Their recent Conservation Conference STUDENT LIAISONS in San Jose drew close to 1,000 attendees and Marina LaForgia UC Davis featured a range of exciting talks. We look Justin Valliere forward to decades of continued collabora- UC Riverside Affiliations for identification purposes only. tion on behalf of California’s wildlands! Cal-IPC News Winter 2015 - Vol. 23, No. 1 Editors: Doug Johnson & Elizabeth Brusati CNPS celebrated its 50th anniversary during Published by the California Invasive Plant Council. Articles may be reprinted with permission. Previous issues are the conference in San Jose, featuring stimulating archived at www.cal-ipc.org. Mention of commercial products does not imply endorsement by Cal-IPC. speakers, field trips, and a banquet with delicious Submissions are welcome. We reserve the right to edit desserts. Photo by Dana Morawitz content. 2 Cal-IPC News Winter 2015 Cal-IPC Updates currents. The Governor’s proposed budget would increase funding for hyacinth Symposium 2015 set. Mark your WildlandWildland control by $3 million. Contra Costa Times, calendars for Oct. 28-31 at the San Diego Jan. 26. Convention Center! We’ll have a special Weed News concurrent track on Habitat Conservation Weed News Smartphone training works. Citizen Planning. Call for abstracts in April, scientists trained using smartphones are registration open in June. as effective at invasive plant recognition “Bioinvasions in a Changing World.” as those trained in person, according to Northwest submits eradication pro- Cal-IPC served on the team of authors a recent study. Smartphone training also posal. Working with Cal-IPC, partners publishing this new report for the has a broader reach and is less expensive. in Humboldt and Del Norte counties National Invasive Species Council. The Public Library of Science (PLOSOne), completed an application for funding to report describes linkages between invasive Nov. 2014. the state’s Wildlife Conservation Board. species and climate change, with implica- The project eradicates knotweeds and Guidance for early detection. A new tions for natural resource management. other incipient weeds from the region. report from the National Park Service www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/docs/toolkit/ and US Geological Survey guides natural National standard for weed lists. At the bioinvasions_in_a_changing_world.pdf resource managers in detecting new inva- April meeting of ASTM International, PlayCleanGo. Cal-IPC joined the sive plant populations through an active, Cal-IPC will lead PlayCleanGo campaign to make hikers directed monitoring program. Decision a team from the and other recreationists aware of prevent- trees and flow charts help determine National Association ing the movement of invasive species. which methods to choose and when to of Invasive Plant www.playcleango.org use them. USGS Scientific Investigations Councils in presenting Report 2012-5162. a draft standard for CalWeedTalk. Post job announcements, assessing environmen- weed alerts, or questions to our revived tal impacts of invasive email discussion list. Sign up at www. plants.