CAG Meeting Materials

Community Advisory Group (CAG) Meeting
Providing a community perspective on the Plant Master Plan and serving as a conduit for public input for the residents and businesses in the Plant's eight-city service area.


Date: Tuesday, January 19
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Location: Roosevelt Community Center

Included in is background information to prepare for the 6:00 p.m., January 19, 2010, CAG meeting at the Roosevelt Community Center on environmental land uses. After hearing the feedback from the meeting last month, we wanted to provide you all with enough information to provide meaningful input on this complex subject matter.

The primary resources to read are the Opportunities and Constraints reports prepared by H.T. Harvey and Associates in January 2007. These reports can be downloaded at http://www.piersystem.com/go/doctype/1823/30070 (the top two reports listed). The files are rather large; so be patient with the download times. If you only have a small amount of time to prepare, please make sure to read the executive summary of both reports. They will provide you with a solid base of understanding of the environmental issues impacting Plant land use decisions.

There are a number of other resources worth delving into for detail on surrounding environmental land uses.

• Santa Clara Valley Habitat Plan (http://www.scv-habitatplan.org/www/default.aspx) The cities of Gilroy, Morgan Hill and San Jose, the County of Santa Clara, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority and the Santa Clara Valley Water District have initiated a collaborative process to prepare and implement a Habitat Conservation Plan/Natural Communities Conservation Plan (HCP/NCCP) for the Santa Clara Valley. These Local Partners, in association with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, California Department of Fish and Game, National Marine Fisheries Service, stakeholder groups and the general public will develop a long-range plan to protect and enhance ecological diversity and function within a large section of Santa Clara County, while allowing for currently planned development and growth. The Plan will provide a framework for the protection of natural resources while streamlining and improving the environmental permitting process for both private and public development including activities such as road, water, and other infrastructure construction and maintenance work. The plan will create a number of new habitat reserves that will be larger in scale and more ecologically valuable than the fragmented, piecemeal habitats currently yielded by mitigating projects on an individual basis. HIGHLIGHT FOR THE PLANT MP: Burrowing Owls

• Bayland Goals (http://www.sfei.org/sfbaygoals/) Teams of Bay Area environmental scientists have assessed the past and present conditions of the baylands ecosystem and recommended ways to improve its ecological health. HIGHLIGHT FOR THE PLANT MP: South Bay historical conditions, Coyote Creek and the Guadalupe River watershed

• Oakland Museum Maps (http://museumca.org/creeks/1400-OMLwrGuadalupe.html) This map illustrates the historic habitats of the baylands and upland habitat at the Plant lands and in the Guadalupe River watershed

• South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Website (http://www.southbayrestoration.org/) The South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project is the largest tidal wetland restoration project on the West Coast. When complete, the project will restore 15,100 acres of industrial salt ponds to a rich mosaic of tidal wetlands and other habitats. HIGHLIGHT FOR THE PLANT MP: The Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge (part of the restoration effort) shares the largest border with the Plant

• Wetlands Tracker (http://www.wetlandtracker.org/tracker/ba/map) See historic, current, and future habitats sites on or near Plant lands

• San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory – Coyote Creek Field Station (http://www.sfbbo.org/science/land_projects.php?proj=ccfs) Located within the Plant lands in the Coyote Creek riparian area

• Santa Clara Valley Water District Coyote Creek Watershed information (http://www.valleywater.org/Services/Coyote.aspx) Links to useful information and projects on Coyote Creek  

• Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District Bufferlands (http://www.srcsd.com/buffer-overview.php) Overview of the Sacramento Regional wastewater treatment plant bufferlands. The Sacramento treatment plant treats a similar volume of wastewater as the Plant and has nearly the same acreage of bufferlands.