To: Sonoma County Board of Supervisors
Department or Agency Name(s): County Administrator’s Office
Staff Name and Phone Number: Christel Querijero 565-7071, Yvonne Shu, 565-1739
Vote Requirement: Majority
Supervisorial District(s): All
Title:
Title
PG&E Settlement Funds Vegetation Management Allocation Update and Initial Recommendations
End
Recommended Action:
Recommended action
Receive update on vegetation management and initial recommendations for allocation
end
Executive Summary:
The Board of Supervisors allocated $25 million from the PG&E settlement toward vegetation management on October 6, 2020. With more than half of the county area (514,000 acres) occupied by private and public forest and woodlands, more frequent drought years, and a longer fire season, identifying how to prioritize this limited one-time funding for a never-ending need like vegetation management will require consideration of near-term implementation projects versus a measured approach to future projects. This item provides an update on vegetation management generally and a brief summary of the meetings held over the past six weeks with community and County department/agency stakeholders. Finally, a proposed approach for allocating these funds is discussed.
Discussion:
Background
Settlement Agreement
Litigation by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors against Pacific Gas & Electric to recover damages related to the 2017 Sonoma Complex Fires (2017 Fires) resulted in an allocation of $149.3 million. On August 11, 2020, your Board received background information on the fiscal impact and damages that the Sonoma County entities incurred from the 2017 Fires. As part of this discussion, your Board directed staff to accept input from the community and to return to the Board with that feedback for consideration of the allocation of the settlement funds into general expenditure categories. On October 6, 2020, staff presented a summary of the community feedback for the Board’s consideration. At the October 6th meeting, your Board allocated $25 million from the settlement for vegetation management efforts. Since that time, staff have met with a wide range of stakeholders, from non-governmental organizations (NGO’s), community groups, and County departments/agencies to understand current vegetation management work and to elicit priorities.
Overview - Vegetation Management
Sonoma County and its population continue to face wildfire risk, stemming from, for example, homes built without fire-resistant construction materials and practices, insufficient defensible space, residential land use in wildland areas, and excessive vegetative fuels within and near residential areas and on roadsides. CAL FIRE designates three types of Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) classes, which are defined by certain conditions where homes are built, with the following estimated distribution in Sonoma County (Attachment 1):
|
WUI Class |
Incorporated / City Population |
Unincorporated Sonoma County |
|
Wildland Urban Interface: dense housing adjacent to vegetation that can burn in a wildfire |
22,111 |
9,577 |
|
Wildland Urban Intermix: housing development interspersed in an area dominated by wildland vegetation subject to wildfire |
8,130 |
19,329 |
|
Wildfire Influence Zone: wildfire-susceptible vegetation up to 1.5 miles from Wildland Urban Interface or Wildland Urban Intermix |
25,683 |
73,436 |
Private and public forest and woodlands occupy more than half of the county area, or 514,000 acres, with 87% of that land held in small private or NGO parcels, and the remaining 13% held by public owners (EB Alive report, Attachment 2). Patterns of land use and development facilitated by land use regulation and policy have placed extensive residential infrastructure into places that recent fires have placed at severe risk, with this risk expected to continue and increase in the future. Further, climate change is expected to shift fire frequency and extent, due to more frequent drought years and lengthened fire seasons.
Vegetation management is the intentional alteration of vegetation for the purposes of reducing fire risk and for facilitating the ability to control a fire from spreading from one area to another. Vegetation management also occurs for safety and firefighting purposes, such as maintaining safe routes for evacuations and access for emergency vehicles. Finally, vegetation management can occur for non-fire related reasons, such as ecological restoration, timber management, and agriculture and horticulture. It is a key component of reducing fire risk but works in conjunction with other measures, such as home hardening.
More specifically, fuels management is conducted to slow the intensity and spread of fires, in a few primary ways:
• “Near home fuels management” within 100 feet of homes (defensible space), is done to reduce the likelihood that burning trees, brush, and other combustible items do not spread fire from surrounding areas to the home.
• “Landscape scale fuels management” occurs in forests, shrublands, or other larger areas, where the a primary purpose is to reduce fuels in order to reduce intensity, limit the spread potential of wildfires, and increase the possibility that firefighters can put a fire out if it starts. Another purpose for this type of management is to improve forest health, habitat and “natural values” (e.g., water quality and retention) that wildland landscapes provide. Large-scale projects usually use a suite of treatment methods.
• Roadside fuels management maintains visibility and roadway safety. Trees are removed either because they pose a risk of falling into the roadway or because they are impacting the road surface in some way. Roadside fuels management is especially important to reduce the risk of roadside ignitions and to provide access to public safety in the event of an evacuation.
Vegetation Management is generally accomplished with one or more of the following methods:
1. Mechanical Alteration. Cutting, digging, mowing, clearing using hand tools or mechanized equipment to physically remove vegetation from an area, e.g., mowing grasslands to remove fine fuels, mechanically removing shrubs and trees from the sub-canopy ("ladder" fuels), etc. This includes shaded fuel breaks, which are strips of forestland that have had their understory and canopy treated extensively to remove all but the minimum amount of vegetation to retain shade. Shaded fuel breaks can slow the path of wildfire considerably and protect homes or entire communities. This method is frequently used for defensible space management, within 100 feet of homes.
2. Timber Management Practices. A subset of mechanical alteration but includes various timber management practices, such as selective cutting, tree release, and different forestry approaches and techniques of stand management for particular forest types or forest species. Sustainable forest management, which balances environmental, wildlife, and community needs, includes timber management.
3. Prescribed Fire. Introducing or reintroducing prescribed (intentional and managed) fire into a particular plant community to reduce fuel loads, maintain a beneficial community type, e.g., an open woodland versus dense overstocked forest, etc. This method is generally more cost effective when done on a larger scale.
4. Prescribed Grazing. Introducing or reintroducing prescribed (intentional and managed) grazing, usually by non-native species like cattle, sheep or goats, into a particular plant community, usually to reduce or manage fine fuels.
5. Permanent Type Conversion. Another subset of mechanical alteration, but the purpose is to replace one vegetation type with another, e.g., converting natural grassland to a less flammable agricultural use like irrigated pasture or vineyard; creating and maintaining bare soil fuel breaks, etc.
Funding Models
Vegetation management requires ongoing investment, as vegetation will grow back regardless of funding constraints. Different approaches to a sustainable funding model are discussed in brief below.
Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority. The residents of Marin County passed a parcel tax in March 2020 to fund a new joint powers authority (JPA), the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority (MWPA). The special parcel tax, which required a two-thirds vote, will provide about $20 million annually to the organization, comprised of 17 agencies and formed to support the development and implementation of a comprehensive wildfire prevention and emergency preparedness initiative. Specifically, the proceeds are designated as follows:
• 60%: vegetation management, wildfire detection, evacuation plans and alerts, grants, and public education;
• 20%: defensible space and fire-resistant structure evaluations, mitigation of fire threats thereof
• 20% local-specific wildfire prevention efforts
• 10%: administrative costs
The FY 2020-21 parcel tax rate is $0.10 per building square foot for most building types, $75.00 per unit for multifamily residential buildings of three or more units, and $25.00, $100.00 or $150.00 for unimproved parcel rates, depending on parcel size. The maximum tax per year for each property type will be adjusted to reflect any increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) beyond the first fiscal year. The increase will be the lesser of three percent of CPI, as calculated from February of the immediately preceding year to February of the current year.
Lake County Community Risk Reduction Authority. The Lake County Community Risk Reduction Authority, another JPA, was created under the California Government Code in 2018 and amended in 2019 to “enhance home and property protection for Lake County residents and to support the continued development of local resiliency through improved resources, tools and information to assist public and private entities.” Its participating agencies include multiple fire protection districts and a watershed protection district. Unlike Marin County, however, the Lake County Community Risk Reduction Authority seeks to support its goals through grant funding, donations, and potential alliances with organizations such as the California Earthquake Authority, the Blue Ribbon Commission, and local tribes. The Lake County Community Risk Reduction Authority’s functions include:
• Development of low or no-cost resources to reduce the risks of fire from hazardous vegetation, earthquakes and environmental causes;
• Development of community infrastructure improvements;
• Development of property inspection programs and scoring and assessment tools to prioritize the level of individual and community risk;
• Development and management of funding sources necessary to the Authority’s risk reduction programs;
• Development of educational and training tools to assist Authority members, the public, and non-member governmental agencies in discovering, assessing and reduction the risks associated with fire and other disasters, and mitigating the potential impacts.
Sonoma County Wildfire Prevention, Emergency Alert and Response Transactions and Use Tax Ordinance. Your Board supported a fire sales tax measure (Measure G) which was placed on the March 2020 ballot, which would have established a half percent sales tax to provide funding for disaster and fire services and upgrades in Sonoma County. Unfortunately the measure lost by 1.83%. The County measure had identified 3.74% of the proceeds specifically for vegetation management, equivalent to $1.5 million annually. During budget hearings this year, your Board allocated $500,000 to explore for Sonoma County the feasibility of a fire sales tax measure for the fall 2021 ballot, which would include some funding for vegetation management.
Legislative Advocacy and Grants. Another funding approach for vegetation management is seeking grants or lobbying legislators, both of which require staff to pursue consistently. While Sonoma County has been successful in obtaining Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the lifecycle of a grant is resource intensive and requires thoughtful consideration of staffing capacity before pursuit of outside funding.
In the commissioned report, “Guidance for Recovery and Resiliency Planning in Sonoma County Forest Ecosystems” (Attachment 2), EB Alive cites several organizing options, including special districts and creation of a forest health district. A non-enterprise special district is funded mainly through property taxes and assessments, while an enterprise special district is primarily funded through fees for service. Whether statutory authority exists to authorize formation of a forest health district would need to be clarified.
An endowment fund for vegetation management, while attractive in concept as a perpetual funding source, is hampered by California law that restricts County investment options that yield generally low rates of return. For example, at a 1% interest rate, the maximum withdrawal on a $20 million investment would be $140,000 per year.
Vegetation Management in the Community
Over the past six weeks, staff have held 31 discrete meetings, which have included approximately 120 stakeholders representing over 35 entities (Attachment 3). Many of these meetings were listening sessions to understand the types of vegetation management activities and needs that exist in the community. Broadly speaking, these community groups and organizations represent neighborhood and local councils, vocational/work crew development and conservation/research organizations. Numerous organizations in the community are engaged in vegetation management activities and represent an opportunity to build capacity to address vegetation management in the county.
Community
Often in collaboration with Fire Safe Sonoma, community-based fire safe councils (e.g., Occidental, Grove Street, Upper Mark West) and municipal advisory councils (e.g., Coast MAC, Springs MAC), organize and engage their respective communities to become knowledgeable about and to prepare for wildfire. Fire Safe Sonoma, in its capacity as an information and education resource on fire prevention and safety, serves as an organizing umbrella for many of these groups. Through primarily grant funding, these groups pursue initiatives that have a direct link to their neighborhoods, such as developing hyper-local community wildlife protection plans or outreach programs.
While many residents are taking proactive measures to reduce vegetation hazards on their properties, others are not, and this lack of action impacts a neighborhood’s overall safety. More enforcement of properties that present hazardous conditions is needed, according to these neighborhood groups, as well as knowing whom to call if there are issues.
A contributing factor may be lack of awareness of the existing rules; clear, consistent guidance on vegetation management and effective communication of the guidance are cited as a need at the local, community level. Additional outreach and education are needed to help both the compliance stragglers and those who don’t know where to start with vegetation management.
Some community groups have volunteer crews that tackle vegetation management projects regularly, but they state that they could benefit from general vegetation management guidance. They also see availability of chipping service as critical to their efforts to reduce vegetation hazards. Additional priorities for these local groups is maintaining ingress/egress routes, and the thoughtful establishment and maintenance of shaded fuel breaks. With mostly volunteer staff, these groups often have the human resources to apply for grant funding but not the financial resources for required grant matches. Some groups also stated their interest in purchasing equipment that could help to eliminate woody biomass (i.e., limbs, needles, leaves and smaller woody parts of trees.)
Workforce Development
Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC) currently offers four workforce development programs (fire abatement and prevention, natural resources, animal science, landscape design/landscape construction and maintenance) focused on mitigating wildfires and protecting homes through vegetation management and fire resilient landscaping. The programs address the various strategies for wildfire mitigation through vegetation management: fire resilient landscaping and creating defensible space; livestock grazing; arboriculture; ladder fuel reduction; watershed hydrology; improving soil and plant health; preparing for prescribed burns; invasive species eradication; and ecological restoration. With additional funding, SRJC could ramp up their workforce programs to train 300 students over the next three years, leveraging their partnerships with organizations serving disadvantaged residents of Sonoma County to recruit new students into the program. SRJC has also initiated conversations with the Sonoma County Probation Camp about future partnerships on vegetation management training.
Sonoma County Probation, whose supervised adult crews (SAC) have provided vegetation management for Transportation and Public Works, Regional Parks, Sonoma County Water Agency, Town of Windsor, City of Santa Rosa, and CalTrans, is in the exploratory phase of integrating vocational training and workforce development into SAC or their probation camps.
Organizations such as Conservation Corps North Bay, Circuit Rider (also known as the Center for Social and Environmental Stewardship), and the Sonoma County Youth Ecology Corps, partner with land management agencies, such as Sonoma Water and Regional Parks, to provide paid work experience to young adults through vegetation management and environmental work. Projects include the creation of defensible space and shaded fuel breaks, cutting seasonal grasses, invasive species removal, fire abatement, and flood mitigation and stream restoration activities, among many others. These organizations provide valuable job training, supportive services, work-readiness skills and potential career pathways to local youth, including at-risk youth. Additionally, they are helping to develop a future workforce who can meet the growing demand for vegetation management services in the county. With consistent workforce development contracts, these organizations would be able to provide more training and experience to those who could most benefit from these opportunities.
Conservation/Research
Resource Conservation Districts (RCDs) provide assistance with land-based conservation needs. Locally, the Gold Ridge and Sonoma RCDs provide forestry technical assistance, development of forest management plans, and education on forest management. Without a forest management plan, landowners generally do not qualify for cost share funding from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and CAL FIRE. The forest management plan is written by a registered, professional forester, and currently Gold Ridge and Sonoma RCDs share a forester.
Most recently, the Rebuild North Bay Foundation has partnered with five resource conservation districts in Sonoma, Mendocino, Lake and Napa counties to develop and implement a regional landowner incentives program, the North Bay Forest Improvement Program (NBFIP). Its intent is to help small, non-industrial forest landowners with less than 500 acres to conduct fuels treatments and forest restoration projects on their properties. As a new initiative that is expected to grow to meet local demand, NBFIP could extend its incentives to more landowners with more funding. The program is expected to start in January 2021 and run for three years.
Pepperwood Preserve is a science-based partner to many conservation and land management organizations in the county and beyond. Pepperwood manages a 3,200-acre biological preserve, which is home to more than 900 species of plants and wildlife. Using data gathered on the preserve, they are able to track and collect data on forests and climate, for example. University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) and Sonoma Water are currently partnering with Pepperwood Preserve on expanding the pilot of the fuels data mapper to the entire county.
Vegetation Management Activities led by the County
Multiple County departments and agencies work on different aspects of vegetation management:
• Permit Sonoma: chipping near homes and roadways; inspections and abatement of non-compliant properties; coordinate fuels management projects with community members; education and outreach
• Transportation and Public Works: roadside vegetation management
• Ag + Open Space District, Regional Parks, Sonoma Water: fuels management and ecosystem service improvement projects in and near wildlands and watersheds; outreach and education
• UCCE: grazing program, fuels mapper decision support tool, outreach and education
In 2020, the County updated the County fire ordinance to enhance the Vegetation Management Program with incentives, inspection and abatement protocols, and appropriate funding. Additionally, the County continued to nurture community awareness and understanding of our fire-adapted landscape and the value of becoming a resilient fire-adapted community using results of post-fire monitoring and research. Key actions in 2020 include:
• Augmenting the annual Inspection and abatement of Hazardous Vegetation and Combustible Material program by updating the hazardous fuels ordinance. The Chapter 13A update was adopted on June 9, 2020.
• Extending the annual chipper program from 6 months to 11 months per year.
• Updating educational and notification materials through partners Sonoma Ecology Center and Fire Safe Sonoma for 2020 inspection season.
• In March 2020, the County received Phase 1 (planning phase) of a $6.8 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) for a Wildfire Adapted Home Hardening and Defensible Space program. Under the grant program, defensible space inspections will occur in designated areas of the county, selected for the grant based on population density, proximity to high/very high fire severity zones, areas that hadn’t recently burned (due to the defensible space component) and vetted by local fire chiefs. Later, these homeowners can later receive financial assistance to make needed improvements through the grant program by contracting with a licensed contractor identified in phase 1. (Two of the selected areas have subsequently burned since the award of the grant, and Permit Sonoma is currently working with CalOES to determine how to provide grant benefits to communities that have lost a significant number of homes.) The defensible space implementation is estimated to include 550 parcels at an average cost share maximum per parcel of $3,750, for a total cost of $2,062,500. Cost share incentives will be offered on a “first come, first serve basis, with a maximum amount to be awarded per geographical area to provide a fair distribution of funding to those whose properties are the last to be inspected.”
• Permit Sonoma submitted a full application to FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant program in December 2020, following acceptance of their Notice of Intent to apply in November. Under the application, the County is applying for the maximum amount of $50 million (requiring a 25% local grant match, or $12.5 million) to build on the work of the previously described HMGP grant. The goal of the BRIC grant is to apply a variety of risk reduction strategies to one to three large project areas, where housing stock vulnerability to fire is exacerbated by abutting wildland areas. The reduction strategies will utilize both "house out" strategies, such as public education, defensible space / structural hardening assessment and incentives, and "wildland in" strategies, which will use a variety of fuels management techniques to moderate fire behavior near homes. Each project will be a demonstration of how to apply and maintain a systemic approach to risk reduction, deploying strategies at the scale of thousands or tens of thousands of acres. This multi-variate, landscape approach will help move residents towards generational change in how homes and wildlands adapt to future wildfire. Pre-award selection notice is anticipated in June 2021. The Board should consider setting aside an additional $12.5 million of the PG&E Settlement funds in order to meet the local grant match, should the County be awarded the grant.
Finally, the County is considering scientific data about the condition, fire vulnerability, and relative impacts of the 2017 fires on natural and working lands during updates to land use policies, plans, and regulations.
• The County’s Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) is being updated with FEMA HMGP funding and will become part of the County General Plan Safety Element. The CWPP Update will provide increased data about fuels and mitigation strategies for wildland areas. More information about the CWPP is included below.
• UCCE, in partnership with Sonoma Water and Pepperwood Preserve, is developing a Wildfire Fuel Mapper that evaluates landscape elements that affect fire behavior and determine fire hazard on individual land parcels of two acres of more. A pilot of the project will be launched in the Lake Sonoma area as soon as January 2021, and the countywide extension of the data is expected to be complete in April 2021. This tool will help homeowners understand which mitigation techniques will best address the vegetation on their property.
• The Board has allocated funding to Permit Sonoma to support the development and implementation of large-scale fuels reduction projects, including support of the environmental compliance components. Because of the complexity of implementing large‐parcel fuels treatment projects, especially regarding permitting and environmental review, it is imperative that projects are of high value for both community resiliency and restoration of native habitat. When fuel modeling data is sufficiently available, Permit Sonoma Fire Prevention will begin project selection and work with partners, such as Resource Conservation Districts, CAL FIRE, and other partners to begin planning for large-scale projects.
Community Wildfire Protection Plan
The Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) is defined by the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003, with the intention of enhancing collaboration between stakeholders from federal, state and local agencies and community groups as they search for solutions to Wildland/Urban Interface (WUI) wildfire issues. There are three requirements for a CWPP: 1) that it is collaboratively developed with input from agencies and community members; 2) that it identifies and prioritizes treatment areas, mitigation strategies and treatments; and 3) that it recommends measures to reduce the ignitability of structures.
The 2016 CWPP is the latest, Board-approved version today; however, the County received an HMGP grant to update the CWPP, and Permit Sonoma expects the update to be completed in spring 2021. The 2016 CWPP is available at <https://www.firesafesonoma.org/wp-content/uploads/cwpp-final.pdf> and a one-page overview of the CWPP is included as Attachment 4.
The CWPP contains a hazard reduction priority list that is intended to be part of a ranking system to assess risk reduction projects for the wildland urban interface (WUI). The priorities from the CWPP are as follows and are not listed in rank order:
• Projects that help Wildland-Urban Interface residents reduce fire fuels in the defensible space zone of homes, and along important egress and access routes.
• Projects that help residents reduce structural ignitability.
• Projects that serve to educate residents about fire, fire risks, vegetation management, ecosystem and forest health, structural vulnerability, and how to most efficiently reduce risks.
• Projects that increase community safety through planning.
• Strategic fuel breaks that can help firefighters stop the advance of wildfires, thus protecting homes, communities and natural resources. In addition to reducing wildfire threats, fuel breaks should also serve to improve ecosystem health.
• Projects that help highly motivated and organized community groups achieve their fire safety goals.
• Projects that consider demographic trends of residents such as age, language and disabilities.
• Projects that allow large land holding managers and nearby residents to achieve mutually acceptable strategies for fuels management.
• Projects that improve conditions and health in a variety of fire-prone ecosystems, especially in areas impacted by tree diseases, pathogens or insects, or in areas where native species are at risk because of changing conditions.
• Projects that address fire-prone invasive plant species including but not limited to gorse, broom, and eucalyptus.
• Projects that make use of woody biomass and other emerging technologies.
• Projects that support and aid fire agencies in achieving their missions.
Even though these priorities were developed prior to the series of wildfires that have devastated the county since 2017, they are still relevant today. The updated CWPP is expected to contain similar priorities and will provide increased data about fuels and mitigation strategies for wildland areas.
A CWPP ranking tool (see example, Attachment 4), developed for the 2016 CWPP, is a way to provide consistent evaluation standards to near-community or wildland-scale projects through a points-based system and based on the priorities. This tool includes questions organized by fire history, fuels reduction efforts, and unique local criteria. By using the existing tool as the basis, updated ranking tools for both near-community and landscape-scale projects can be created. The ranking tool is also used when local communities, typically through fire safe councils, write their own CWPP’s (e.g., Mill Creek, Upper Mark West, Grove Street, Fort Ross, Fitch Mountain) and would like their projects to be annexed and listed as part of the County’s CWPP.
County Discussion
County departments and agencies met several times to discuss the Board’s allocation of $25 million for vegetation management. Sonoma Water, Permit Sonoma, General Services, Emergency Management, County Counsel, Regional Parks, Transportation and Public Works, Ag + Open Space District, and UC Cooperative Extension were all part of the discussion and will collectively be referred to as the “working group” for the purposes of this summary.
The working group identified three areas of potential tension that would require compromise when considering the $25 million for vegetation management:
• House out versus wildland in: “House out” focuses on the structure and its immediate defensible space (100 feet), while “wildland in” looks at vegetation management beyond the 100-foot perimeter to supplement and support the “house out” effort
• Implement now versus a longer term “planful” approach
• Spend now versus save for future
Additionally, the working group agreed to a set of working principles to follow as they discussed possible projects:
§ Use the 2016 CWPP priority list to guide decisions (acknowledging that an update is underway with new data)
§ Life and property as priority
- Near-term action on areas that have already burned, to take advantage of the vegetation management that has naturally occurred during the fires
- Utilize data for non-burned areas
§ Landscape-scale approach to protect the largest proportion of residential infrastructure
§ Address both private and public lands, including large parcels
§ Forest health
§ Education and outreach
§ Leverage grant funding
§ Leverage vegetation management work by all partners, e.g., fieldwork, training
Initial Recommendations
As previously described, there is an implicit tension between the need to make immediate progress on vegetation management actions versus a long-term, sustainable approach. There are timing considerations for projects that can demonstrate appreciable progress in advance of the 2021 fire season, and the need to take a long-term approach to vegetation management generally. The PG&E allocation is a significant amount of money that ideally should be leveraged to sustain long-term vegetation management, despite the many immediate needs to which it could be applied.
Staff initially recommends enlisting feedback from external leaders who can provide long-term policy guidance for vegetation management prior to making specific allocations from the $25 million, as well as proceeding with the outreach, support and expansion of the UCCE and Sonoma Water fuel mapper tool. Staff recommends that these two actions be funded through additional PG&E money, so that the full $25 million is available for consideration. More information on each is provided as follows:
Policy Planning Support ($70,000)
Staff recommends utilizing an outside resource to provide a blueprint for long-term consideration and application of the settlement funds, with an emphasis on identifying strategies to leverage this funding for many years. With your approval, Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) can convene two to three, small group discussions with financial, academic and public sector leaders, along with local stakeholders and experts, to identify a set of actions for long-term vegetation management funding, policy and actions. This process is expected to validate what staff have heard over the past six weeks and to present new constructs to frame the County’s vegetation management needs. The results of these discussions, anticipated to be delivered in March 2021, will complement the input received from the community and County departments/agencies and will provide a broader context in which to make allocation decisions.
Expansion of fuel mapper decision support tool to landscape scale and outreach/education for roll-out of parcel-scale tool countywide $1,600,000
Staff heard from community groups that they need more outreach and education for vegetation management. Many groups have volunteers who are ready to do the work but desire more guidance (“clear, friendly rules”) and training before proceeding. Individual landowners also want to do the right thing and prioritize their resources.
Understanding this need, UCCE and Sonoma Water led the development of a decision support tool (DST) to help identify where to apply limited resources to achieve the most benefit from vegetation management activities. The DST is intended to help landowners of parcels greater than two acres plan and implement fuels reduction at the parcel scale within the Lake Sonoma Watershed, the project’s pilot location. This tool will help analyze the vegetation on a given parcel, provide recommended mitigation actions, and connect the landowners with resources for next steps. UCCE partnered with the Pepperwood Preserve to expand the data to the entire county, but funding is needed to expand the outreach and technical assistance countywide.
Sonoma Water is proposing an expansion of the parcel-level tool to landscape scale vegetation management decision support, prioritizing locations for vegetation treatment actions and analyzing the future benefits of proposed treatment. This component will evaluate areas of high fire risk against built (e.g., roads, WUI density, water supply systems, telecommunications, etc.) and natural assets (e.g., streams, habitat, sensitive species). Input from stakeholders and community will be incorporated, with emphasis on local knowledge and data to develop prioritization criteria in the tool-building phase. This tool would complement and work in conjunction with the Sonoma County Community Wildfire Protection Plan, Local Hazard Mitigation Plan, and other local planning efforts.
Leading Ideas
The following items surfaced as frontrunners and will be part of the review of materials that are considered when CLEE convenes the focus groups.
Hire a CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) consultant to develop a county-wide program Environmental Impact Report (EIR) $1,500,000
Large-scale vegetation and/or forest management requires a comprehensive review of potential environmental impacts in a number of categories, including biological resources, cultural resources, greenhouse gas emissions and hydrology. A program EIR analyzes the potential impacts of a series of similar vegetation management activities or geographies such that subsequent environmental reviews can be streamlined or avoided. Because a program EIR can take substantial time to complete, it is important to begin this process as soon as feasible.
Implement vegetation projects in recently burned areas
Taking advantage of terrain that has already been burned affords the opportunity to continue vegetation management of that particular area, including reducing the potential for a severe reburn and ensuring tree regeneration. Minimizing erosion and retaining enough forest structure for wildlife are additional concerns of recently burned areas, which have occurred across County Regional Parks and on Ag + Open Space lands.
Expand County chipping capacity
The County’s residential defensible space chipping service is driven by property owner requests for service; staff consistently heard from community stakeholders that they would like to see expanded chipper capacity, as the program is frequently oversubscribed. An additional truck, chipper and associated maintenance would help to expand the program. Additionally, Regional Parks needs a self-propelled tracked chipper to effectively handle tree debris from its parks.
Funding for youth crews
Sonoma Water, Regional Parks, Transportation & Public Works, and UC Cooperative Extension have hired youth crews to conduct vegetation management through organizations such as Youth Ecology Corps (administered through Human Services Department), Conservation Corps North Bay, and Circuit Rider (Center for Social and Environmental Stewardship). These programs provide paid work experience and a pathway to move into regular jobs at the County or at local companies.
Outreach and education
Clear, consistent guidance on vegetation management and effective communication of that guidance is cited as a need at the local, community level.
Vegetation management special needs assessment program
This new program would provide assistance to disabled and elderly property owners for compliance with defensible space requirements.
Purchase parcels for green breaks
This forward-looking initiative involves working with willing sellers to purchase parcels suitable for integration in multi-benefit green breaks, a largescale approach to fire mitigation. This is item # NR 2.2.8 in the Recovery and Resiliency Framework.
Community grants for vegetation management
Community organizations have provided a wide range of suggestions on how they could utilize funding for vegetation management related uses, including grant matching, enhancement of educational and vocational training programs, and capacity building (e.g., hiring another forester). This allocation could be specifically dedicated to community organizations.
Staffing
Finally, one of the working group’s leading recommendations is to establish a unit to serve as County vegetation management lead. A single point of coordination and resources was a common theme across the various listening sessions and meetings over the past six weeks. This lead would provide central coordination, outreach and education, and leadership of vegetation management initiatives across departments/agencies and in coordination with community partners, such as Sonoma RCD or Fire Safe Sonoma. This lead division would also be responsible for lobbying and legislative efforts for County vegetation management priorities and applying for related funding. Staffing resources and organizational structure will need to be considered when the Board considers the findings from the CLEE group discussions.
Next Steps
Staff will return in March 2021 with the results from the CLEE small group discussions for your Board’s consideration, as your Board determines how to prioritize the vegetation management allocation for the near-term and the future.
Prior Board Actions:
10/6/20 Community Feedback and Preliminary Allocation of PG&E Settlement Funds
8/11/20 PG&E Settlement Funds preliminary discussion
Fiscal Summary
|
Expenditures |
FY 20-21 Adopted |
FY 21-22 Projected |
FY 22-23 Projected |
|
Budgeted Expenses |
1,670,000 |
|
|
|
Additional Appropriation Requested |
|
|
|
|
Total Expenditures |
1,670,000 |
|
|
|
Funding Sources |
|
|
|
|
General Fund/WA GF |
|
|
|
|
State/Federal |
|
|
|
|
Fees/Other |
1,670,000 |
|
|
|
Use of Fund Balance |
|
|
|
|
Contingencies |
|
|
|
|
Total Sources |
1,670,000 |
|
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Narrative Explanation of Fiscal Impacts:
The County Administrator’s Office is requesting appropriations of $1,670,000 from the PG&E settlement allocation, with $70,000 for the policy planning support, $600,000 for outreach and education of the parcel-level fuel map decision support tool, and $1,000,000 for the expansion of the fuel map tool to the landscape scale.
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Narrative Explanation of Staffing Impacts (If Required):
Attachments:
1. Wildland Urban Interface map
2. EB Alive report
3. List of organizations spoken with in preparation for this item
4. CWPP overview
5. CWPP ranking tool example
6. Fuel Map Decision Support Tool summary
Related Items “On File” with the Clerk of the Board: