DesertBlog

Commission Firings Ominous for State Parks, but Effect on Sunrise Powerlink Unclear

Governor Schwarzenegger’s termination of State Parks Commissioners Bobby Shriver and Clint Eastwood serves as yet another example of this administration’s hostility to the California State Parks system. While the governor’s office denied it, most observers agree that his decision not to renew the commissioners’ terms served as payback for their leadership against a proposed toll road that would cut through San Onofre State Beach, a project Schwarzenegger supported. California State Parks Foundation president Elizabeth Goldstein told the L.A. Times, “We’re seeing the governor taking actions that undermine the California system. This is a park system that is under assault.”

Despite a thin veneer of greenness provided by its leadership on global climate change, this administration’s hostility to the preservation mission of the state park system is becoming more and more apparent. In addition to the recent decision, take these examples:

• A budget proposal that calls for the complete or partial closure of 48 state parks, including several cherished and highly visited sites

• The growing power of the Off-Highway Vehicle Division within State Parks, which threatens to allow a particularly destructive form of recreation to overwhelm the Parks Department’s traditional preservation mission (a trend demonstrated by the fact that no off-road vehicle parks were slated for closure in the governor’s proposed budget)

• The governor’s support of the Sunrise Powerlink, despite the fact that this proposed transmission line has been shown to increase, rather than reduce, greenhouse gas emissions

Schwarzenegger needs to name replacements for Shriver and Eastwood who will match their predecessors’ dedication to protecting state parks. Instead, what we’re likely to see are replacements who are far more friendly to the interests of industry and off-road vehicle groups, to road and utility infrastructure in parks, and to commercialization of parks to make them “pay their way.”

Regarding the Sunrise Powerlink, the loss of Shriver and Eastwood is certainly not good news for those of us fighting the proposed Sunrise Powerlink — another massive infrastructure project that would cross a state park — but the impact of the firings on Sunrise remains to be seen. Activists fighting the Powerlink had certainly looked to the State Parks Commission as an agency that could block the project by refusing to “dedesignate” wilderness within Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. But SDG&E’s recently proposed alternative route — one that would stay entirely within the company’s existing right of way through Anza-Borrego, avoiding state wilderness – would effectively remove the State Parks Commission from the playing field.

Citizen involvement is still the best way to stop the Sunrise Powerlink.  Find out what you can do on DPC’s Sunrise Powerlink page or on the San Diego Smart Energy Campaign website and action alerts.