With 31,000 trees being scheduled for clear cutting in Napa alone, locals ask when does the insanity and greed stop?
http://www.bohemian.com/northbay/letters-to-the-editor-june-14-2016/Content?oid=2966561
Soured on Grapes
Great article (“Of Water and Wine,” June 15). Thank you for writing it and for publishing it in the Bohemian. I live on a hillside in the Napa Valley about a mile from the proposed Calistoga Hills Resort. A neighbor of mine cleared many acres of beautiful hillside forest and planted vineyard in its place. The chainsaws, tractors and excavators were operating at all hours and days of the week on and off over several years. The county and the state have no issue with clear-cuts like this, and I don’t think he is done yet, as there are still some trees left on his property. I wonder how many more “conversions” will be taking place on the hills of this county, since there is no agency that restrains greedy owners from cutting all the trees on a property.
—Don Scott
Calistoga
Though there are problems in Napa, they seem far ahead of Sonoma County in reining in the overgrowth of the wine industry, and thus preserving food farming and rural diversity. That’s why Napa vintners such as Paul Hobbs and Joe Wagner are moving some of their operations out of Napa and into Sonoma County and beyond.
—Shepherd Bliss
Sebastopol
Angwin, Howell Mountain and Napa County are under massive logging/deforestation proposals. Conversion to vineyards is the No. 1 threat to the environment. Ground-water depletion, climate change, habit loss, wildlife migration corridors blocked, streams destroyed.
—Save Rural Angwin
Via Bohemian.com
Water and Tar
Thanks so much for your incisive coverage of these two huge challenges to our environment (“Crude Awakening,” June 8, and “Of Water and Wine”). We need the rigorous investigative journalism you are publishing. So needed, so appreciated.
—Kathleen Needels