NPS’ Draft EIS GGNRA Dog Management Plan – A Punitive Sham of a Plan
The National Park Service has been at work for TEN YEARS (thanks, taxpayers) coming up with plans to manage the scourge of offleash dogs at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area which is a collection of federally owned cast-off public spaces in the Bay Area. The dog management plans have been fueled by hysterical lies from groups like Audubon (we are members, and dismayed by their actions on this) and are about to come to a head as public comment on the NPS' 1000+ page draft Environmental Impact Statement is going to be closed on April 15, 2011.
Here is a situation where a large public constituency is enjoying the purported benefit (recreation) of Federal cast-off spaces with almost no budgetary requirement (the subject space has zero traditional recreational amenities or services). The NPS plan would take away this recreational use and proposes to "restore" these spaces to native/diverse habitats. The government has no credible budget projection to accomplish such an objective. And even if they did, it will take decades and the size of the public served when it is all done will be miniscule compared to the current user population. This plan is a shameful sham.
I have sent comments to the NPS and have written all my elected representatives. I recommend you be on the lookout for other wasteful and unfair government initiatives and be as active as you can in addressing them.
The content of the comments follows in case you live in the Bay Area and like to walk your dog offleash:
Dear Representative,
My wife and I have been residents of the City of San Francisco since January 2010. We own one dog and have consistently visited Fort Funston three times a week throughout. We are members of the National Audubon Society and have read their position and comment on the GGNRA Dog Plan and strongly disagree with them.
Our comment is focused on and rejects the preferred alternative proposed for Fort Funston.
Issue
The letter R in GGNRA stands for Recreation. Currently, Fort Funston is an extremely popular destination for dog owners, and judging by the fullness of the parking lots, maximizes benefit to the public. We have personally contacted and spoken with at least one hundred dog owners and the implementation of the preferred alternative will drive most of them away permanently.
The preferred alternative purports to restore Fort Funston to a natural wild state. Even if this is possible, it will take many years. And even if it happens, how many people will be served in a Recreational manner by the Preferred Alternative? What surveys and data has the Park Service relied on in estimating this number of people? This data must be made publicly available for review.
We strongly contend that the preferred alternative will result in dramatically reduced public use and enjoyment in a recreational capacity of Fort Funston. It the number of people served is reduced, how can the Preferred Alternative serve the public interest? Why would fewer visitors be preferred to more?
If the Preferred Alternative cannot clearly and scientifically be demonstrated to result in serving a greater number of people, it should be replaced entirely. The status quo should be the Preferred Alternative.
Issue
The Golden Gate Audubon Society claims in their argument for the Preferred Alternative “Too often, we have seen dog-related recreation push out other park users and result in significant harm to the local environment.”
Speaking specifically to the Fort Funston area, the Audubon position is completely without merit:
· Fort Funston was significantly altered by the US Government long before any dogs and their owners came to visit. The area has not hosted an indigenous flora nor fauna for many decades.
· Audubon claims about “thousands” of affected species are untrue to the point of being laughable at Fort Funston. Where is the inventory and/or surveys substantiating the impacted species and what reasonable standards were employed to ensure that these surveys were performed by objective parties in an objective manner? This information needs to be made available for public review and comment.
· Other park users have never been pushed out by dogs and dog owners at Fort Funston. There are no recreational facilities there suitable for use by families, children, organized groups or the disabled. And Fort Funston’s historic lack of native flora and fauna have made it unappealing long before dogs for purposes of birdwatching. The few thriving bird species at Fort Funston can be easily found in most back yards, are not uniquely native to California and are not endangered.
· Getting rid of dogs will not restore a natural environment at Fort Funston. What dollar and human resources are committed without possibility of revocation to the massive restoration project implied by the size and scope of the Preferred Alternative. If you do not have the resources to accomplish the objective in a reasonable timeframe, the Preferred Alternative is only punitive to dogs and their owners while providing no real benefit to anyone else.
· If the Preferred Alternative is adopted, it is certain that it will push the current Fort Funston users out to other impacted parks and resources in San Francisco that already serve families, children, groups and the disabled with functional recreational facilities. In short the preferred alternative eliminates a non-existent conflict and creates a real one.
The Preferred Alternative at Fort Funston is deeply flawed, solves no real problems and is very likely to foster new real conflicts and problems.
Issue
Where there are not vibrant, positive uses of public space, negative uses encroach. On the few occasions where we visited Fort Funstion near to closing time, we have observed suspicious activity in the Batteries that a reasonable person would conclude involve drug sales and use.
The nearby Ocean Beach area has a very large homeless population that would find a vacated Fort Funston to be a very attractive, undisturbed camp site. As a former Park Ranger, I can tell you as I’m sure you already know, that long-term homeless visitors to public property definitely foul and degrade the environment, cutting trees for fires, leaving trash and human waste everywhere and scaring away innocent visitors. Dog owners by and large clean up any waste they are responsible for. Replacing dogs with homeless will degrade the environment.
The Preferred Alternative is an open invitiation to criminals and homeless persons to come use Fort Funston without being disturbed.
The Preferred Alternative does not address the encroachment of bad uses of Fort Funstion that will occur as a result of moving the dogs and their owners out. The Preferred Alternative is deeply flawed and should be rejected in favor of the Status Quo.
Issue
The GGNRA Preferred Alternative at Fort Funston contemplates a massive project to restore the site to a native natural state. Nowhere have we seen credible budgetary figures outlining how much this undertaking will cost nor how long it is expected to take. Especially in this climate of weak economy and declining government budgets we need to see proof that the objected purported by the Preferred Alternative is fiscally feasible.
Conversely, the status quo at Fort Funston requires minimal expenditure. Where will the increased budget come from and what assurance is there that It will be sustained long enough to accomplish the objective?
Without such proof and assurance, the Preferred Alternative is only punishing a public contingent that is well-served by the Status Quo and replacing it with a much smaller served public. This is not fair, is not a good deal nor good business. The Preferred Alternative is deeply flawed and should be rejected in favor of the Status Quo.
We respectfully ask that you support us in rejecting the NPS' Preferred Alternative dog management plan for Fort Funston, in favor of the status quo.
Thank you and best regards,
Bob Kimball
SHORT FORM
Please join the many dog owners in San Francisco in opposing the NPS' GGNRA preferred alternative dog management plan for Fort Funston which largely destroys their recreational use of that GGNRA space while creating no offsetting benefit for anyone. The summary of reasons-
* Fort Funston has not been in a natural state for decades thanks to use by the US Army- it does not need restoring because of dogs. Restoring it will take decades and the NPS not demonstrated credible resource projections.
* There is little in the way of native/diverse flora and fauna at Fort Funston - again, a legacy of its use as a gun emplacement and ammo storage facility. We are members of Audubon and are dismayed that they are presenting Fort Funston as a place of many native species. We are birdwatchers. We visit 3x a week and that is bunk.
* Pushing dogs out of Fort Funston will stress other San Francisco recreational facilities that already serve families, children, groups and the disabled. Funston has NO recreational facilities; there are no conflicts between dogs and human uses. Pushing the dogs out of Funston will solve a non-existent problem and replace it with a real one that will be borne by San Francisco.
* When good uses of public space are eliminated, bad uses encroach. an active people+dog community keeps criminals and homeless out of Fort Funston. The NPS EIS does not address what will happen as bad uses replace good.
Kicking dogs and dog owners out of Fort Funstion without a credible plan and budget to acheive objectives serving equal or larger public recreational uses is just punitive, unfair and basically a sham.
