Sacramento International Airport (SMF) proposes to cut 69 oak trees.
Action Alert on Airport Tree Removal: County Project
Planning Commission Hearing August 28 at 5:30 p.m., 700 H Street
Friends of the Swainson’s Hawk wants to ensure that you are aware that
the County of Sacramento intends to destroy 69 native oak trees, including 31
heritage oaks, and other trees, on the Yuki orchard property and the Airport
Operating Area on the west side of the airport.
Sacramento County Planning Commission 5:30 p.m. August 28
Sacramento County Board of Supervisors’ Chambers at 700 H Street
Please review the fact sheet below to understand the key environmental problems
of this project. The Draft EIR is also available: DEIR is on-line at http://www.dera.saccounty.net/05-0129%20Yuki/Index.htm.
Or call Antonia Barry at 874-7914, County Department of Environmental Review
and Assessment (DERA). The comment period ends August 28. Our legal counsel,
James P. Pachl, 916-446-3978, jpachl@sbcglobal.net, is preparing comments. Or
contact Kevin McRae, 442-8685 for more information.
Basic Facts About the Proposed Airport Tree Removal Project
• The Airport has determined that FAA requires it to remove “any and
all trees or other features that would be considered a wildlife attractant.”
FAA considers trees as roosting and nesting habitat for raptors and therefore
a hazardous wildlife attractant. In conjunction with its removal of the former
Yuki Pear Orchard, the Airport will also remove 69 native oaks, including 31
heritage oaks, and willows and cottonwoods (for which they will not mitigate)
both on the orchard property and inside the airport fence at that location.
It will mitigate as required by County policy for native oak and the mitigation
may occur at some unknown site at a future unknown time, accomplished through
payment of a fee rather than a replacement tree program on airport or other
county-owned property. This is not satisfactory.
• Since three Swainson’s Hawks have been found in dead or injured
condition on runways this year, Airport wants to avoid further SWH mortality
as well. The DEIR identifies nesting activity in this area as potentially harmful
to juvenile Swainson’s Hawks and the airport intends to both remove trees
and use chemical agents and mowing to remove foraging value from the former
pear orchard. The DEIR proposes mitigation for oak tree removal but not for
the actions to remove habitat value from the former orchard.
• ECOS, Sierra Club and Friends of the Swainson’s Hawk have tried
unsuccessfully to convince the airport staff that trees represent a very low,
if any, risk to airport operations since the real threat is flocks of ducks
and geese plentiful in the area in winter. Also what attracts raptors is the
airport inside-the-fence low grassland area and how it is managed, not the trees
on the periphery. Tree removal will simply reduce habitat values in the Swainson’s
Hawk zone while achieving little if any reduction in disruption to airport operations.
Swainson’s Hawks are being squeezed in North Natomas because of development,
and the airport is in the zone where the Natomas Basin HCP expects the Swainson’s
Hawk to survive in perpetuity. The assumption that if one keeps raptors from
being struck by removing their habitat, it benefits them, is not true. Habitat
reduction will reduce carrying capacity of the area and thus the population.
Starvation and lower nest productivity over will take a greater toll.
• The DEIR describes four alternatives. The environmentally superior alternative
(#2) would leave some oaks on the Yuki site, remove pear trees and trees in
the Airport Operations Area (AOA). It would remove trees closest to the runway
and retain trees further from the runway, in character with the surrounding
riparian area, but still removes 48 oak trees, including 23 heritage sized oaks.
It also includes reducing prey value through rodenticides and mowing.