Helping Our Peninsula's Environment

State of Our Monterey Peninsula's Environment 2014

By David Dilworth, Executive Director

• We have seriously endangered some 82 local animal species plus 19 trees and plants who have lived here for millenia before we arrived,
• There is something seriously wrong with the magnificent dark green cloak that protects and beautifies our Peninsula, warms us in the winter and cools us in the summer - our Monterey Pine Forest,   
• Our Carmel River and its biggest animals are dying; and you and I are enduring an official water supply emergency, 
• Our Peninsula is infested with Gridlocked Highways, 

Yet most of our elected officials keep approving more water guzzling golf courses, more habitat destroying subdivisions, roads and mansions as though nothing is wrong!

As recently as the early 1970s Monterey Peninsula residents enjoyed a quiet, gentle life -- when we could drink clear tap water without thinking about it, walk safely across any street, walk in untouched forests, and watch a sunset turn into a constellation - all in solitude.

We must now brave daily gridlock and road rage, the screaming noise of constant construction machines and chainsaws destroying trees, rationing of repugnant water, endure smoke and flames from burning Fort Ord and perpetually increasing loss of our beautiful Monterey pine, Cypress and oak forests and other wild habitat and views  - all lost to greed for more subdivisions, mansions and golf courses.

Monterey Pine Forest - Down and Threatened
Most of our beautiful Monterey pine forest has been destroyed by bulldozing, paving and building of Pacific Grove, Monterey and Carmel and the development of golf courses and houses in Pebble Beach. Yet it has absolutely zero legal protection inland of Highway One and very little within the Coastal Zone. 

Pebble Beach Company led by Peter Ueberroth, Arnold Palmer and Clint Eastwood are determined to destroy the best of what's left of our priceless native forest for yet another golf course and a few hundred mansions. 

We have caused the imperilment of some 82 local animal species plus 19 trees and plants. Our "authorities" regularly kill beautiful Mountain Lions. An incompetent Dept. of Fish & Game officer killed a gentle Black Bear who wandered into Carmel. (For reference - no Californian has ever been killed by a Black Bear!) 

Long-Term Water Supply Emergency 
Since our 1977 drought and building Moratorium, the developer-controlled Water Board has approved some 8,000 new water connections (this is not a mis-print) several of which are new golf courses. This has greatly helped cause the imperilment of the West Coast Steelhead and the Carmel Valley Red-Necked Frog (just kidding - its the California red-legged frog). 

Dangerous Chemicals in our Water
Pebble Beach, and the cities of Pacific Grove and Monterey regularly let raw sewage run into our bays - harming Sea Otters and a huge spectrum of other wildlife. Every year the some 20+ local Golf Courses use thousands of pounds of pesticides and tons of fertilizers - much of which run off into the Carmel River, Carmel Bay and our Marine Sanctuary. 

Gridlock 
The highways from the Carmel River all the way to Pacific Grove (Highways One and 68) are officially in gridlock (Level of Service "F"); so is Highway 68 all the way from Salinas. Mornings, even the freeway past Fort Ord between Seaside and Marina is in gridlock. 

Insanity 
Our elected officials have the right, the authority and the duty to refuse and deny more development and subdivisions -- but they keep right on approving them as though absolutely nothing is wrong; as though we have unlimited water and traffic capacity; as though the public wants imperiled species and habitats destroyed. 

Insanity has been described as "Doing the same thing over and expecting a different result." 

We all know are all headed off the waterfall, yet greedy developers are still shouting and demanding for the politicians to keep paddling downstream. And they do. Fasten your seat belts - we're going over the falls. 

What are your thoughts on this?

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This Page Last Updated Jan 5, 2014

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