Environmentalists sue to protect world’s oldest known oak tree
Edvard Petterson
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (CN) — A group of environmental advocacy organizations filed a lawsuit Friday hoping to protect a more than 13,000-year-old oak tree from nearby industrial development.
Led by the Center for Biological Diversity, the advocacy groups say in a lawsuit brought in Riverside County Superior Court that the City of Jurupa Valley violated the California Environmental Quality Act by approving the project based on an inadequate environmental impact report.
“It’s outrageous that city officials OK’d grading and blasting to make way for industrial buildings so dangerously close to Earth’s oldest living oak,” said Meredith Stevenson, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The city didn’t factor in all the ways this development could permanently harm the Jurupa Oak and other sensitive species nearby. I hope it’s not too late to rectify this grave mistake.”
Representatives of Jurupa Valley didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
Known as the Jurupa Oak as well as the Hurunga Oak, the sprawling shrub reaches nearly 80 feet in length and is is the oldest known living plant in California and the third-oldest known living plant on earth, according to center.
A coalition of Tribal, environmental justice and environmental groups have been calling on Jurupa Valley to create a 100-acre preserve to act as a buffer for the ancient tree while still allowing most of the proposed development to go forward.
The Jurupa is a member of the Palmer’s oak species, which were once much more widespread. But as habitats have warmed, its range has been restricted to cooler, higher elevations. The tree in Jurupa Valley is the only known occurrence of Palmer’s oak remaining in the entire 1,700-square-mile Santa Ana River watershed, according to the center.
The project, the Rio Vista Specific Plan, would include residential, commercial and light industrial development on about 917 acres of mostly undeveloped land in the so-called Inland Empire east of Los Angeles.
The site contains hundreds of acres of coastal sage scrub, grassland, and chaparral habitat that supports numerous special-status wildlife species, such as the Delhi Sands flower-loving fly, Crotch’s bumblebee, coastal California gnatcatcher, Northern harrier, Costa’s hummingbird and Bell’s sage sparrow, according to the environmentalists in the lawsuit.
"Critically, just 150 feet from Parcels 12, 13, and 15, slated for more than one million square feet of intense industrial warehousing and an 82-acre business park, remains the enduring Jurupa Oak," the organizations said. "Not only will these nearby industrial uses impair the watershed on which the Jurupa Oak relies, but development will increase ambient temperatures, heighten wildfire risks, and allow heavy machinery vibration nearby, threatening the Jurupa Oak’s survival."
"Nonetheless, the city failed to even publicly disclose biological assessments on impacts to the Jurupa Oak, adequately evaluate these environmental impacts in the EIR, or identify effective mitigation measures, rendering the EIR inadequate under the California Environmental Quality Act," they argue.
The plaintiffs claim various violations of California Environmental Quality Act as well as violation of the state's planning and zone law. The groups, which include the California Native Plant Society, Endangered Habitats League and Friends of Riverside’s Hills, seek a court order vacating the city's certification of the environmental impact report and an injunction to stop the project from going forward.
The plaintiffs are represented by the Law Office of Abigail Smith in San Diego and by John Rose and Meredith Stevenson of the Center for Biological Diversity in Oakland, California.