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Community Corner

Bring On The Goats

Acalanes Ridge residents will get some four-legged help in dealing with fire danger from this year's rainy weather.

City officials are calling in the goats to help residents living adjacent to the Acalanes Ridge Open Space who have voiced their concern about the potential fire danger in the hills next to them.

The lack of grazing cattle at the Acalanes Ridge site and the large amount of rain this year has created a high volume of potentially combustible dry grass as the temperatures rise with the advent of summer.

Community members have expressed their uneasiness to Walnut Creek City Manager Ken Nordhoff. One of the neighbors, Frank McCormick, contacted Nordhoff multiple times through email.

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On May 24, McCormick wrote, “From our point of view, the decision you face is simple.  If you return the cows immediately, we can all hope and pray the cows reduce the grass level fast enough that a serious fire does not occur this summer.  However, if you do not return the cows, the fire danger will continually increase all summer, the anxiety level of Summit Ridge residents will do likewise, and we will continue to express our concerns.”

On June 17, Nordhoff sent out an email to members of the community, stating the city is planning to include the issue on the agenda for the July 11 Parks Recreation and Open Space Commission meeting.

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Cows are no longer grazing at the Acalanes Open Space because commissioners voted in October 2009 to eliminate cattle grazing at the Sugarloaf and Acalanes Open Spaces after the city's lease expired in October 2010.

According to the minutes from the Oct. 5 meeting, Public Services Manager Dan Cather mentioned there was an increase in calls involving threats from the grazing cattle as people used the open spaces.

In 2008 the Open Space Vision Task Force completed a report that identified cattle gazing as the most prevalent issue that was brought up by individuals in public workshops and surveys. Many individuals asked for the removal of the cattle and the report stated there were problems with the “impacts of cattle grazing on trails, natural resources and visitor safety.”

To address the issue city officials will use Goats from the grazing company Goats R Us.

Open Space Supervising Ranger Nancy Dawson Dollard commented about the process through email.

“This is of course a local company and one that (the) East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) has used for many years,” said Dollard. “Staff spoke to land managers from the EBRPD to get their assessment of the work of Goats R Us and it was (overwhelmingly) positive.”

Dollard also added the goats will only be used at the Acalanes Ridge Open Space, at the moment, and they hope to have the goats at the site by the middle of this week.

The Contra Costa Fire District has specific standards in regulating the threat of fire in grassy areas. One of the “minimum weed abatement standards” requires that “30-foot fuel breaks shall be provided around all structures; combustible storage, trees, shrubs, brush, along ridgelines, fence lines, ditches and along the side of, but not in creeks.”

The standards also explain that “Fuelbreaks and crossbreaks are a continuous strip of disced or dozed ground following as closely as possible to the property line, and along one side of all fencelines, ditches, and on top of all ridgelines.”

Nordhoff said the city has kept up with the 30-foot requirement for many years. However, to address the current growth of grasses at the Acalanes Ridge Open Space, Nordhoff said the city will push the fuel breaks to 40 feet around the neighbors’ properties on public lands.

“We have talked to the neighbors in the (Acalanes) Ridge area about the issue of fire risk which is a both a private lands and a public lands responsibility,” said Nordhoff. “It is a responsibility for the property owners to make sure they have done what they can do on their properties to mitigate those risks, as it is the responsibility of the public agencies to the same on public lands.”

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