War on Rural America
I
spoke to a friend of mine the other day, a longtime resident, who is having a
serious problem with a neighbor. The history of problems with neighbors is a
long and varied one and so, too, is this story, but the importance of it is
that this is a burgeoning issue that has its roots in some very fundamental
differences in beliefs and experiences. This situation is increasing in
frequency as people seek refuge in rural areas to get away from the often
dangerous living conditions they find in our nation’s largest cities.
It
seems that this new neighbor has appointed himself the activist for clean air
in the Santa Ynez Valley and has determined that agricultural burning is not to
be allowed anywhere because it might be harmful to him. Granted, I have not
spoken directly to this individual, so I do not know specifically what his
objections might be, but let me direct a few bits of information out there
which perhaps might help him understand the importance of agricultural burning.
First,
one needs to know the cycle that is repeated each and every year. Each year,
trees die, limbs fall, limbs are pruned to prevent entanglement with power
lines or such. These are just a few examples of what one would normally find in
a burn pile, although this list certainly does not include everything. You
might ask why it was necessary to burn these items?
One of the most relevant reasons would be to remove these obstacles so as to
prevent people and livestock from being harmed by the presence of large objects
in the field. Another is, in the case of burning noxious weeds such as puncture
vine, which takes its common name from the seedpods that can actually puncture
your car tire, they must be hand cultivated, gathered and burned to try to
eradicate them.
Leaving
all of this debris behind creates an impenetrable mess in pastures that
eventually makes the land unusable by anything other than rodents, snakes,
birds and bugs. I am not saying that those species aren’t important, but there
are other species equally important to mankind, such as those things that
provide food, fiber and medicine. Additionally, one cannot properly care for
livestock if one cannot access them easily. Furthermore, as these items dry,
they create an enormous fire hazard that endangers all life, including most plants.
So
how does one go about getting rid of this material? The most realistic way of
dealing with this yearly problem is to create small piles of whatever there is,
and you should know that there are very specific rules about what may go into a
burn pile. When I was growing up here in the Valley, everyone burned all of
their trash in an incinerator outside their back door. That has not been
allowed for a long time, although we would not have
the trash crisis we face today if that practice were still available on a
limited basis.
One
must have applied for a burn permit in order to burn piles of debris, and one
must first determine if it is a legal “burn day,” report to the local fire
station that a pile or piles will be burned that day, and follow all of the
rules. So this is a fairly complex process to follow and everyone takes it very
seriously.
So,
for a recent transplant to decide that burning in the valley is something he
has decided to eradicate, I would suggest that his energies are either based on
not understanding the reasons for it, or he simply misses the point. The air in
the valley used to be crystal clear except when the fog rolled in. We had no
smog, no hazy days and no air pollution. None of these things occurred until
our traffic situation significantly increased, which it did for several
reasons. Those reasons include a lack of planning on the County’s part; making
jobs in South County for North County dwellers and requiring them to commute on
a daily basis; commuters not willing to take the coastal route because they
believe it would save them time to cut through the valley; and the increased
volume of traffic at all times of the day and night, seven days a week, to the
casino. If you want to cut back on air pollution, I would recommend you try to
deal with the vehicular traffic that this valley must endure,
traffic that impacts all of us residents in a negative way. Until that is
accomplished there will be no improvement in air quality. Most assuredly,
further burdening our farmers and ranchers and even ranchette
owners by prohibiting them to rid themselves of yearly debris is not going to
make you breath any easier.
I
titled this part “war on rural America” because I wanted to emphasize the
increasing problem rural America is having with urban transplants who, while
being mostly great neighbors, usually are not cognizant of the huge differences
between urban and rural life, other than the obvious ones, which is why they
want to move here in the first place. There are many things that are part of
rural life that may not be immediately obvious to those not raised in such an
environment, such as animals making noises as soon as the sun comes up, tractor
and equipment noises starting up early in the morning and sometimes continuing
late into the night, and wildlife that comes to your door wondering what you
are doing in the midst of their feeding ground.
I
am sure that most of these issues become fairly obvious early on in the
transition, but there are many that appear over time, depending on the season
and the location. Many activities that are normal to urban living are an oddity
at best to rural people, such as 24-hour stores, streetlights and billboards
advertising everything under the sun. As a rural person who has lived in urban
areas, I recognize the convenience of 24-hour establishments and restaurants
that serve meals, any meal, 24 hours a day, is certainly a terrific thing; but
somehow it is just not desirable in a rural area, as it promotes traffic 24
hours and lights 24 hours a day. This is extremely disruptive to quiet nights
for sleeping, traffic patterns for wildlife, which is why you see all the
carcasses on the morning commute to work, and is generally a counterpoint to
the rural lifestyle. Most rurally raised people feel that the peace and quiet
are good trade-offs for the foregone convenience items. I hope that a better
understanding of rural life by our newcomers will help bridge the gap between
us so that we may truly become friendly neighbors.
Very Unhappy Canyon
A
very troubled scenario has been playing out for the last several months between
a property owner in Happy Canyon and the rest of the neighborhood. The conflict
has intensified primarily due to some substantial misstatement of the facts by
County staff. The application being considered is to build a
multi-thousand-square-feet wine processing facility with the ability to have
eight functions of up to 150 people (who is going to count?) a year. The grapes
from the site, which have already been planted (was there a permit granted for
this?), and grapes from other places are proposed to be processed here in the ranchette and residential neighborhood.
Although
one of the primary routes to the project location is on Armour
Ranch Road and one half of the entire length of the road fronts my Armour Hill parcel, I was not notified until a neighbor
called and asked me if I would sign a petition against the project. If not for that individual, I would not have
known anything about this proposed project until it was built. In fact, that
very same person had a winery facility approved next door with absolutely no
notification. What is going on here?
Having
attended the Zoning Administrators hearing this week, I was really appalled by
the applicant’s assertions of the many sacrifices they have made to accommodate
the neighbors, emphasizing repeatedly the “private” nature of the proposed
business, which is a vague term at best. Staff still continued to represent the
inaccurate and severely biased figures on which they based their positive recommendations.
I asked whether the statement that the critical habitat designation deemed to
be insignificant for this project would also be insignificant should I want to
build a 16,000 square foot house, the size of the processing and storage
facility. No one responded, which told me that I was correct in assuming a
negative answer!
Coupled
with the fact that the roads to the project are unarguably inadequate to work
safely for this proposed project and the surrounding neighborhood as well, one
really must ask: is this really the kind of planning we want here in the
valley? Do we really want to mix essentially industrial uses in the midst of ranchette neighborhoods? I pointed out that it would be
similar to my asking for permission to put a meat packing plant on my ranch,
since I would be processing the product I am producing.
Even
though I have far superior access to state highways, I really don’t think that
is something appropriate for a rural neighborhood. At the same time, I
appreciate the applicant’s wish to process the grapes on-site, with some others
added, but other wineries have been accommodating and have put their more
public persona in local towns, not in someone’s backyard. Stay tuned, a
decision has been postponed. What do you think?
A Question
I
was reading the Board of Supervisors agenda the other day and noticed something
I didn’t understand. Can you tell me why the County of Santa Barbara is funding
weed eradication for Santa Cruz Island, which is part of the Channel Islands
National Park — a federal property?
I
thought the county was having financial problems, which is why there are so
many budget cuts being proposed. So, how can they afford to pony-up for
something that should be paid for by the National Park Service?
I
would really appreciate an answer to that.