Rare Clover overlooked
One-of-a-kind plant community in grave danger
by Vince Cheap and Debbie Bulger
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Graniterock has applied to the county for a permit to
dump mining spoils on a biological hotspot.
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Tucked away in the very southeastern corner of Santa Cruz County,
just north of Highway 129 near where it crosses the Pajaro River
is a rare alkali plant community known as Soda Lake. According to
local plant expert, Randy Morgan, this site "is one of the
biological treasures of Santa Cruz County with an ecological value
out of proportion to its small size. It is the only alkaline ecosystem
in this county, in fact the only such in the entire Santa Cruz Mountains
bioregion."
Morgan continues, "In more than 30 years of field work, I
have neither found nor heard of any location where more than a few
of the specialized plant species present at Soda Lake co-occur;
six of those species are rare enough that I have encountered them
nowhere else."
Graniterock has applied to the county for a permit to dump mining
spoils on this biological hotspot. Incredibly, the Draft EIR fails
to document the presence of two rare plants, the saline clover (Trifolium
depauperatum var. hydrophilum) and Congdon's tarplant (Centromadia
parryi ssp. congdonii). In addition to these rare plants, the dumping
would wipe out 11 other plants from the county. The saline clover
was previously presumed extinct.
This spring a botanist conducting special-status plant surveys
for the Soda Lake mining expansion project discovered over five
acres of the saline clover at Soda Lake. This discovery brings into
question the adequacy of the DEIR and the proposed mitigations.
If the County Planning Commission were to approve Graniterock's
application to dump mine waste, they would ignore both the County
General Plan and the Sensitive Habitat Ordinance which protect these
species. It would be tragic to lose such a biological treasure.
The California Native Plant Society, Santa Cruz Chapter is requesting
revision and recirculation of the DEIR. In addition they are asking
residents to contact their County Supervisor and the Santa Cruz
County Planning Commission regarding this issue. For more information
visit www.cruzcnps.org.
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