Press Release: Local Coastal Plan Comments submitted by Conservation Action

(Actual Full Text Comment Letter Here: SCCA Comments_LCP_9.30.2015 )

10/8/2015, Santa Rosa, CA- In a September 30 comment letter to the Sonoma County Planning Department, Sonoma County’s largest environmental organization, Sonoma County Conservation Action (SCCA), expressed concerns regarding Sonoma County Permit and Resource Management Department’s Draft Update for the Sonoma County Local Coastal Plan (LCP). This letter prompted a public comment.

Rather than further enhancing the protection of Sonoma County’s fragile but extraordinarily beautiful and biological rich coastal zone, the draft update would in its present form allow for development that flies in the face of past successful initiatives in Sonoma County to protect the Sonoma coast.

“We’re working to avoid the Napafication of the Coast,” said Dennis Rosatti, Executive Director of Conservation Action. “We’ve got something special in Sonoma County and must work hard to protect our public investment in protected coastal lands, and look out for the existing small businesses that thrive off the coastal experience. The Sonoma Coast is too important for us to risk it being overrun with wineries and event centers.”

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Are you familiar with the Trans-Pacific Partnership? It’s a trade agreement between multiple countries that seeks to lower trade barriers and protect the interests of multinational corporations, often at the expense of consumers, the environment, and local workers. If that’s not enough to give you pause, new negotiations are well underway, and the United States is involved. Furthermore, the industries behind the agreement are looking to fast track the process, which would effectively cut Congress out of the equation by not allowing them the ability to amend the treaty or get approval from their constituents.

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