County Parks to 'Thin' Cypress Forest at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve

At a community field meeting Saturday at the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve in Moss Beach, officials with the San Mateo County Parks Department explained their plans for vegetation management involving two projects occurring over a 5-year period, one of which could potentially take down dozens of trees in the Cypress forest.

The purpose of the meeting was to inform the community about each of the project's goals and timeline, walk both sites in the field, and receive public input at the conceptual stage. 

The first project entails habitat enhancement of San Vicente Creek within the Marine Reserve property to remove exotic invasive plants and replant native vegetation.

The second project is management of the Cypress forest at the Marine Reserve bluff to improve public safety and improve forest health of which San Mateo County Parks "has a fast track plan to cut down hundreds of trees at the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. They're only giving the public seven days to comment," wrote a spokesperson on the Marine Reserve's community page on Facebook.

County planners say the trees are a "public safety concern" and are worried about "trees falling on people." The Cypress forest management plan is an effort to reduce that liability and keep the public safe, according to county park officials.

However it was suggested during the community field meeting that warning signage about the trees and the fragile eroding bluff might be an alternative solution to cutting down the trees, according to the Marine Reserve Facebook post.

Still, the County tagged all the trees but haven't identified the specific trees they plan to remove so it's unclear to exactly how many trees they plan to remove.

An effort to put the project on hold and ask the County Park Department officials to clearly mark each specific tree they plan to remove is underway, headed up by Moss Beach resident Aimee Luthringer, a representative of AREA29, a citizens advocacy group that works to protect the watershed that flows into the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve which is part of a State Water Quality Protection Area know as Critical Coastal Area 29. 

In a letter with the subject line "County to 'thin' forest at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve," Luthringer writes to concerned parties: 

"San Mateo County Parks Department plans to remove hundreds of trees from the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve ... without adequate public notice and a reasonable opportunity for public input. ... The County is not abiding by their own ordinance which requires that a posted notice be attached to every tree proposed for removal. Removing a large number of trees will complete the destruction of the area's charm, which the County started by replacing the quaint footpath with a wide road. ... A five year phased chainsaw massacre will happen if we don't speak now. ... Please help insure the County does what's best for the trees, plants and wildlife that make their home in the reserve."

She recommends in the letter emailing the Board of Supervisors, County Park Department officials, the Parks Commission, and the Planning Commission and leaving public comment on this issue with San Mateo County Parks Department here.