At the Ulistac Natural Area (UNA), the Community Habitat Restoration Project (CHRP) is responsible for the planting and maintenance of 500 native shrubs in a bird & butterfly garden and 200 oaks and other trees spread throughout five woodlands and an oak savannah. The proposed plan to relocate the new wetlands at UNA will impact at least three of these woodlands, as well as most of the savannah. At least 80 tree sites could be lost, possibly as many as 120. Even if the oak trees are not dug up, they will not grow immediately next to a wetland. The woodlands and savannah have been marked on the attached map.

The trees that may be relocated or lost represent about 400 person-hours of work, the work of hundreds of people over three years. Right now students at Wilcox High School are studying the oaks. That work will be disrupted. The large, exotic trees that will be cut down are not meant to be cut down for decades. Bringing them down now will denude the park and disrupt the restoration plan.

The wetlands report does not present any alternatives to the one proposed plan. It offers no alternatives. There are alternative locations available, and the people responsible for the wetlands should offer the city these alternatives. If the central portion of the park next to the street could be used (as marked on the map), no archaelogical sites would be affected, only a few mature trees would have to come down, and only a handful of restoration planting sites would be dislocated. Also, the eastern portion of the original wetland site (along the river) is not affected by the toxic waste. At that location no restoration work would be affected and no mature trees would be cut down.

The report is incomplete. It does not say what will happen to the toxic waste site. It does not say what will happen to the areas that have been cleared for use as wetlands. It does not say whether the Dept. of Fish and Game has approved a multi-part wetlands. It does not say where or why fill dirt is needed inside UNA.

Even though I have spent more time working at UNA than anyone else, and was working out there as recently as last Saturday, the item in the city council agenda was the first time that I found out what is being proposed. If the wetlands plan cannot be modified to reduce the damage it will do to our restoration work, I and many others will ask the city council to direct staff to make modifications to their plans.