The California Chaparral Institute Wins One!

Received this by email last night:

February 25, 2010 Preliminary Court Ruling favors fire safety and nature over county's poorly planned vegetation clearance project County broke law when it skipped environmental review of plan SAN DIEGO, Calif. - The Superior Court issued a preliminary ruling today in favor of the California Chaparral Institute indicating that the County of San Diego violated state law by exempting its backcountry vegetation clearance projects from public and environmental review. "This is a victory for both citizens and nature," said Richard Halsey, director of the Institute. "The best way to protect lives, property, and natural resources from wildfire is through proper community design and sensible vegetation management directly around homes, not striping habitat in the backcountry. This ruling will give citizens the opportunity to participate in developing a rational approach to fire risk reduction. It's time we stop wasting millions of dollars of tax-payer money on projects that actually increase the threat of fire to people." The preliminary ruling can be found at the link below: ruling