BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The Palos Colorados project would convert over 200 acres of open hillsides, streams, and ponds into 123 luxury homes and an 18-hole golf course.1 The project is to be built on 560 acres bounded by St. Mary's Road on the east and Moraga Road on the west. All traffic to and from the development would flow through a single intersection onto Moraga Rd. near Campolindo High School, adding an estimated 2000 more car trips to the traffic congestion on Moraga Road every day.2

The project would cut over 150 large trees,3 and would build housing on the last open space corridor connecting the 800-acre Lafayette Reservoir to Las Trampas Regional Wilderness. Wildlife depends on this corridor to access the Reservoir. It would fill in stream, wetland, and pond habitat which currently supports federally listed, threatened California red-legged frogs, and would destroy potential habitat for the Alameda whipsnake.4

But without approval from the state and federal agencies, this project cannot proceed. These agencies' power, and the public's, to influence such projects is significant. For example, their recent review of Orinda's controversial Gateway residential/golf course proposal has led that developer to propose total elimination of the golf course, despite the fact that Orinda and the developer had already signed a development agreement approving it.

Some specific problems with this project proposal:

WETLANDS, RUNOFF, AND WATER QUALITY

• The proposed project would harm wetlands, ponds and streams. At least 2.8 acres of wetlands will be directly destroyed, and another 4 acres will have their watersheds substantially developed.
• The applicant has not shown with any substantive or detailed analysis how pesticides and fertilizers will be prevented from harming water quality and wildlife.
• The application claims that storm water and golf course runoff will be treated and kept within current volumes, but has not provided a detailed analysis showing how.

GRADING AND GEOTECHNICAL ISSUES

• The site has many landslides. The proposed project is not appropriate for such a geotechnically unstable area, as slide stabilization requires excessive grading, and may cause hydrological and public safety impacts that are difficult to predict and mitigate.

WILDLIFE IMPACTS

• In the words of the Army Corps of Engineers, the project would "effectively eliminate the wildlife corridor connection" between Lafayette Reservoir and Las Trampas Regional Wilderness.
• The project will significantly reduce the habitat value of the site's three large ponds by surrounding them with houses, roads and golf areas, without providing adequate buffers or connections to adjacent open space.
• The proposed project would destroy habitat for an important breeding population of threatened California red-legged frogs. The mitigation measures proposed for impacts to these frogs are unproven and experimental.
• The developer's surveys for the threatened Alameda whipsnake are ten years old, were not done according to current standard protocols, and should be redone.
• The grasslands to be developed currently function as valuable raptor and songbird foraging habitat. 

GENERAL

• The project's benefits do not outweigh its harms. The site's wildlife value, open space, and water quality function are a greater public benefit to the community than another golf course and luxury home development, which would exacerbate traffic, and harm our air and water quality.

Sources:

1. Section 404(B)(I) Alternatives Analysis--Palos Colorados Residential and Golf Course Development Project, Nov. 26, 2002, p. 29, states that 216 acres will be graded .

2. Traffic estimate is from the Addendum to the Environmental Impact Report, Dec. 2001, p. 4-91.

3. Ibid p. 4-57

4. The application states that the project will permanently impact "6.05 acres of wetland/pond habitat and approximately 129 acres of associated upland habitat" for the red-legged frog (Section 404 Mitigation Monitoring Plan, Executive Summary p. x), and eliminate 104.8 acres of scrub and foraging/movement habitat for the Alameda whipsnake (Biological Assessment, Table B, p. 37).