Public Comment

As residents of the East Bay Hills, we received a letter about a very disturbing plan to remove 400,000 trees for fire protection. I am a filmmaker working on a new environmental documentary called Dirt Rich. Knowing what I know now, I cannot tell you how horrible this plan is. After having followed renowned experts around in the making of this film, I have learned in detail about how dire the need to sequester carbon is to prevent runaway global warming, and how dependent we are on trees and plant ecosystems to do this for us through photosynthesis which feeds the soil that is home to the carbon. This plan is hugely irresponsible on so many levels.  

When trees are removed soil is exposed to sun and it becomes dirt, which is dead soil. When the soil is exposed the carbon it housed off gasses and is released into the atmosphere which is what is causing global warming. Photosynthesis is the best and only real way to process man made carbon emissions and natural emissions from decaying biomass. Soil needs the protection that diverse plant and animal species provide. Trees are key to life in forests as they provide habitat and services to insect and animal species that work together to create living soil. When we remove any part of that ecosystem we kill the microbes and fungi that keep the soil alive and carbon rich.  

Insects work and aerate the soil ground while providing food for microbes through their excrement and decay. Animals also provide these services through their digging, excrement, etc. Combined insects, animals and plants keep the soil rich which slows rain water down by allowing it to filter into our aquifers stressed by drought and also preventing erosion. Trees also make oxygen. Two mature trees make enough to provide one family of four enough oxygen for one year. When trees are removed it kills the plants and insects that lived in their shade doing their symbiotic work in the soil. And when Monsanto chemicals are added to the destruction of cutting down trees, the deadly poisons get into our our watersheds affecting the lives of fish (that we eat,) destroy the very valuable insect life that works our soils and inevitably threatens human health.  

Anyone who supports this plan does not have a clear understanding of its impact. We should be discussing far better ways to prevent fire.  

Please do not support such an ill conceived plan and please consider consulting with people who truly understand the value of what you aim to remove.