Environmentalists Fight Spread of Vineyards to California Coastal Forests

[Sequoia]

ANNAPOLIS, Calif. — In the fog-shrouded forests of California's remote North Coast, winemakers believe they've found the perfect terrain to grow the notoriously fickle pinot noir grape prized by connoisseurs.

Vineyard developers are snapping up thousands of acres of redwoods and firs in Sonoma County, with plans to clear the trees and plant the once-obscure varietal made famous by the wine-fueled road trip film "Sideways."

Environmentalists and residents in Annapolis, a tiny town about 140 miles north of San Francisco, are trying to rein in the pinot lovers. They're fighting the conversion of timberlands into vineyards, which they say destroys wildlife habitat, erodes the soil, contaminates the water with pesticides and opens the door to development.

"If you've seen the movie, you've seen the glassy-eyed stare they have when they talk about their plans to produce pinot noir up here," said resident Chris Poehlmann, who opposes vineyard conversions. "We feel it's much more important for future generations to have forests on these hills than wine grapes."

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http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=9718

It's a battle I can tell you! The water table can not support all these vineyards from those greedy developers.

[Peace Patriot]

1. People suffer from the illusion that Calif has strong environmental laws.

Take it from an expert: it's not true on the matter of forestry. In the last 30 years, 80% of the timber volume in Calif's corporate owned redwood forests has been logged--logging that is way, way beyond any conceivable definition of "sustainability." Most of the coastal timber lands are so logged out, the mills are all closing, permanently, and the land has little financial worth except for housing development or vineyards--and maybe some pulp or chip production. The trees--which once grew to 20 FEET in diameter of the finest wood on earth (extremely fine-grained, disease and fire resistant redwood, beautiful like silk)--now average 12-16 INCHES diameter, of pulpy, fast-growing, crap wood, not even good for fence posts (builders call it "yellow redwood"). These ancient forests COULD be restored--but the Calif Dept of Forestry and other agencies, which should have STOPPED all logging in these forests long ago--if our laws about endangered species, water quality, and sustainability were being obeyed--are instead permitting giant corporations to log off the very last vestiges of ancient trees, and to manage these forests as plantations, for low quality wood, until they've bought off enough of our politicians and judges to convert the lands to other purposes. And it looks like this latter condition is progressing nicely from the corporate point of view (i.e., the proposed Annapolis conversion).

The destruction of Calif's redwood forests has proceeded under both Dem and Repub administrations. The destruction of this resource--and the imminent extinction of the coho salmon, the marbled murrelet and other redwood forest species--has been a bipartisan effort. It is one of the saddest tales of government and political failure that I know of--possibly trumped by the scandal of rightwing Bushites getting control of our election system with "trade secret," proprietary programming code, and virtually no audit/recount controls, because this latter development makes change impossible, and guarantees fascist, corporate governments from now on.

Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

And, after we do that, then we need to commit this country finding alternatives to wood, because if we don't, and if we don't lead a worldwide effort to stop forest destruction, we can kiss this planet goodbye.

[Massacure]

2. Boston is on the wrong side of the continent.

How about San Francisco Bay instead?

[Sequoia]

3. Politicians like Pombo for one.

Have you noticed enviornmentalist seem to be on the "local terrorists" watch list these days?

Check this out:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-banker8jan08,0,1764103.story?coll=la-home-headlines&track=morenews

[kineneb]

4. plenty of vineyards already in CA

They are still putting in more, here in Lake Co. I think there will be a glut of grapes soon and the incentive to put in more vineyards will be gone. But don't let them put any more in non-ag regions. Lake Co. used to be a wine region before Prohibition, so planting here is not as damaging. The soil in the coastal hills is quite fragile and prone to erosion. The area should be left alone.

[Kolesar]

5. Lake County, Ohio is better than anywhere in California's wine country

The soil is better and the August and September temperatures are perfect for producing the correct sugar levels. Great wine is produced in these former corn fields.

[Oerdin]

6. Shows what you know about wine.

Which is next to nothing. Soils which are great for wine tend to be highly volcanic and not that good for other types of agriculture. Supposedly it is best for the grapes to grow on hillsides with moderate soils so the vines struggle a bit. If there is to much water or to much organic matter then the vines either produce large quantities of low quality grapes or they grow faster but produce fewer grapes.

It is reasons like this that Californian wines are world reknowned while Ohio's few wines are nothing more then market midgets.

[Kolesar]

7. Well, that was indelicate

so you are a nuclear engineer and a vintner at the same time?

California wines are known because they are bigger and they are subsidized by the US government.