Millions of dollars allocated to Elfin Forest habitat preservation  4/22/09

Some of your board members attended a meeting on 4/22/09 with US Fish and Wildlife and Department of Fish and Game to discuss comments to the MSCP North and were greeted by the excellent news that $6 million has been approved by the Wildlife Conservation Board for funding habitat conservation primarily in the Elfin Forest area.  This is really wonderful news and sets us well on our way, along with the recent Sage Hills acquisition off Elfin Forest Road and other current acquisition efforts by TECC, to assemble the largest swath of conserved open space West of 1-15 South of Pendleton.  Kudos go to EHC, the Endangered Habitat Conservancy, for having done the work to secure this very large block of funding for our area.

This grant was the result of a multi-year effort led by the Town Council Board, specifically Jacqueline Arsivaud-Benjamin and Eric Anderson from the Bridges Committee, to first derail the application of the Bridges to encroach into Elfin Forest with sewer, and then to support an acquisition effort.  Geoff Smith and the board of TECC were also involved in those efforts. The organization most responsible for our success was the Los Angeles-based Endangered Habitats League (www.ehleague.org), who brought in the Conservation Biology Institute, the Nature Conservancy, and other heavyweights to get the Bridges to withdraw the application they had been working on for seven years at this point.  Friends of The Creek, a non profit organization started in early 2008 by Eric and Jacqueline, then led the effort to first initiate a lawsuit against the Bridges to demonstrate our community's seriousness and commitment to keeping sewer out of our borders, and then brought in the Endangered Habitat Conservancy to  help negotiate an acquisition of this property.  We expect this grant will be the catalyst to many other acquisition efforts around our community - for details don't miss the article on the Town Council's conservation strategy in your upcoming issue of the Chaparral.

Any questions please contact j.arsivaud@gmail.com