Peter Van Zant
The environmental groups — once vilified by the now-diminished CABPRO and far-right political and land-use extremists going back to the days of NH 2020 — are proving to be heightened community leaders, generating attention throughout Northern California.
SYRCL celebrates its 30th anniversary next year. Sierra Watch continues to be one of the County’s most well- funded nonprofits.
After longstanding negotiations, first reported here, a deal was announced on Monday to “Save Donner Summit.”
“Sierra Watch is delighted to join the Northern Sierra Partnership in announcing the best of all possible outcomes for Donner Summit: it’s saved!,” the Nevada City-based nonprofit said. “As you can see in the release, the Trust for Public Land and the Truckee Donner Land Trust have entered into an agreement to purchase – and permanently protect – the entire 3,000-acre Royal Gorge property on Donner Summit.”
Former County Supervisor Peter Van Zant is the field director of SierraWatch. The group’s board members include Bill Newsom, trust administrator for the Getty Family Trust and former associate justice of the California Court of Appeals.
SYRCL’s Caleb Dardick
The deal to “Save Donner Summit” comes after Sierra Watch and SYRCL helped score other big conservation wins this year:
•Bear River Dam. The South Sutter Water District voted to stop pursuing a new dam on the Bear River, effectively ending a statewide struggle between Sierra conservationists and Southern California water providers.
The controversy centered on the Garden Bar region of the Bear River. Distant water interests saw a potential location to impound water for delivery hundreds of miles south. But conservationists effectively stood up for the area’s prized cultural and biological values.
•Save Yuba River State Park. The South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL) was instrumental in keeping the South Yuba River and Malakoff Diggins State Parks open, collaborating with other community groups.
“This past February, the Nevada County Board of Supervisors, with support from the South Yuba River Citizens League and others, gave unanimous support to a State Parks’ Revenue Generation Parking Plan to help remove the park from the statewide closure list.
The actions signal continued political transition in our County to “purple” politics — a mix of liberals and conservatives — in many instances working together.
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The people are starting to wake up.
The people have been awake for a long time fyi. They just haven’t had any power.
Wow, some good news for a change. Sorely needed. Great job.
Outstanding effort! It took a lot of work by many and a number of years but the headwaters of the S. Fork of the Yuba River can now be protected for all.
Congratulations to those people whose will and hard work made made this collaborative effort come to fruition. The first week-end after I moved here, while staying with friends on Spring St., we walked down to the Foundry where I believe SYRCL was staging a silient auction, a band and other activities. It was my first real venture into the local culture, buying at the silent auction a photograph of Bob Dylan, Ginsberg, McClure, Ferhlinghetti. There were many photos, but I can’t read the signature, but maybe one of you are the artiste. BTW, out of hospital for now, but will be headed East to Boston and their collection of specialists I now need.
Ed,
The photographer is probably Dale Smith. Julie Baker had a show of his photos a few years ago.
Here’s his site:
http://dale-smith.com/
Courage and best wishes to you for whatever health issues you are facing.
Ed, wishing all the best to you.
Thanks, Judith and Annie for your good wishes. My experience has been sheer, determined perseverence–akin to that ole ant and rubber tree plant of Sinatra/Hodges reknown–arise and develop naturally, creating psychological antibodies to detoxify the plethora of ills, infecting and polluting the glory of a sunrise, regardless of one’s tier, row and seat on Arena Earth; for each vantage point is a glinting facet of our ultimate jewel. How content I am to stand on the shores of Scotland, inhaling the salty sea flavored mist with a bit of brogue biting at my ear. That view will always ‘Trump’ ploughing the sandhills and reeds into neat, kidney pie sand traps, surrounding emerald greens, with pennants snapping briskly, echoing the clippotty-clop of Redcoat Calvary scampering south and away, from Robert the Brus and the environmentalist Banshees of Banockburn.
And Judith, you are spot on, I checked the site and my photograph is the first in the Dylan & Friends series–now I’m embarassed by what I paid. It has a place of honor, next to a photograph I took of the intricate carvings, of Ganessh and other deities, in pink stone above the keystone of a secondary temple in the magnificent Angkor Wat, Cambodia complex; originally Hindu, then taken over by Buddhists. My sister, first a model for Polaroid, became head of their art collection, traveling to major museums around the world giving talks on “The Collection,” and is married to a professional photographer from Denmark, though they live near Lexington and Concord, MA. As the nature of my recent and latest health issues are potentially quite serious–the onset of pneumonia on top of my leukemia & constant cluster headaches, with the concomittant pain and other meds I take daily–was the state in which my sister (older), to her horror and dismay, found me when she Skyped last week and found me home and not admitted to a Sutter hospital like I was supposed to be, and unable to complete a simple sentence. I’d been up most of the night in much pain–and I HAVE pain killers–so, from Bedford, MA, she took charge. I fell asleep, but a girl that helps me in a.m. arrived as my sister called back, 911 was called again and ole Barbie–still beautiful and over 66, started calling every doctor in my book. Then one jerk in E.R. started talking about putting me in a nursing home, which caused my gal to leave and call my sister, who again called S.N. demanding I be admitted, which finally I was. By then, most of right lung had been engulfed by the spreading pneumonia. It was finally admitted I was critically ill and on the cusp, so to speak. Now, I still have to have a biopsy of a spot in the right lung performed, but even my PCP from Sutter says to go back to Boston, I’m just too complicated a case for these parts. And I’ve seen U.C. Davis Oncologists at the Mather VA Hospital. Even driven to VASF, but can’t do that anymore.
So we progressives are the fortunate ones: I’m sitting here looking out over my Zen garden, red roses, Quon Yin and little Jizu sitting atop an ivy smothered stump, with the tip of a pagoda cast in the afternoons Yin and Yang of a descending sun.
There will be many more days; hell, it was on about 9/27/71, as I stood mesmerized my thousands of headlights speeding south on the New England Thruway several stories below, when the surgeon swung in to my dark, plain, VA room to give me the post op skinny. Always taught to be polite, I acted interested as he bored me with the details and odds of survival of stages I to III of Hodgkins Disease, knowing I had stage IV, in my spine, hip and femur. What a let down. The doc just said, “I’m sorry,” spun around and got the hell out of Dodge. Well, a few days later, a crisp start to Oct.. I lied to them all, said I had a ride to N.Y.; the doc pulled the tubes out of my nose, stitches were removed from the fat and long scar from which my spleen was removed, I packed my bag, headed down to the daytime Thruway, and all 115 lbs of a once solid 155lb Marine Corp Physical Fitness Champ stuck out my thumb, soon to be picked up by a Black dude who shared his pint of whiskey with me. Life was good that day.
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