Bidwell Ranch Protected!

The No Way San Jose campaign, Butte Environmental Council, Stop Bidwell Ranch, and the Chico community prevailed on May 17, 2005 with the City Council voting 4-3 to rezone the 750 acre Bidwell Ranch property to open space. After more than two decades trying to protect the sensitive vernal pool savanna adjacent to Bidwell Park, the Council majority opted to rezone it and rejected last minute offers from developers. The City plans to seek proposals later in 2005 to guide management of the valuable wetland and grassland ecosystem. While there is a small element in the area that believes that any publicly held land must be treated as a park with unlimited public access, cooler heads realize that this is folly and is not even allowed in parks.

The land is not a controlled urban park (e.g. 20th Street park) or a wild park such as Bidwell Park that both have a City department and a recreation district to try to manage them. Both entities certainly control access to and enforce limitations in parks! Bidwell Park is a handful to manage with a City department and recreation district and has required community cleanups, initiated and still coordinated by BEC, to remove the thousands of pounds of trash that the public litters every year. Overuse of certain areas has also degraded some valuable habitat, requiring restricted access. A lack of awareness for the powers of nature have led to deaths in the creek traversing Bidwell Park, which also requires greater enforcement and restrictions.

Bidwell Ranch will need cattle to graze it and fire treatment to keep the grasslands healthy, leaving room for the native plants. These management needs are not compatible with unlimited public access. Certain types of interaction are very appropriate when timed, monitored, and financially supported by the community. The demand to open all land to human activity is based on a philosophy that places humans above all else, yet neglects the insight that recognizes the potential and actual destructive nature of homo sapiens. Trespassing by off-road vehicles that prefer no bounds have already damaged parts of the property and has necessitated aggressive enforcement. While individuals would never allow unlimited public access to or think of polluting, littering, or spinning brodies in their own backyard, there is a temptation to permit it elsewhere and have it subsidized by the public.

Bidwell Ranch is a remnant of a valuable native ecosystem that has been devastated in California from urban expansion and agriculture (95% of California’s natural wetlands have been destroyed). It is now owned by a public entity because of its values, so just as a parent must nurture and protect the precious family jewels, the next generation, so must we protect our treasured lands for ourselves and future generations.

This article originally appeared in Summer/Fall 2005 Environmental News.