EPFW Picnic Recap

The Ebbetts Pass Forest Watch (EPFW) picnic was a success with a small but mighty group attending. The 2022 annual meeting and picnic was held Sunday June 26th at White Pines Lake, Lions Grove. This was our first opportunity to meet as a group in our post-Covid world. EPFW furnished the burgers, chips and drinks with everyone else bringing either a desert or salad. For most of us, our non-meat eaters, we barbecued “Beyond Burgers”, but had the real thing for those couple of meat eaters. We were told by the Beyond eaters, they couldn’t really tell the difference between the two.

Our President, Perry Metzger provided an update of the activities EPFW has been participating this year. In April we sponsored a booth at the Earth Day Festival in Angels Camp. We have also been commenting on SPI’s clear-cuts and Timber Harvest Plans (THP). The Grindstone THP proposed clear-cuts located in the vicinity of Cottage Springs along our Scene Highway 4 corridor which would degrade our mountain scenery. A more recent THP has been proposed by SPI south of Calaveras State Park along South Soap Creek where we believe SPI’s analysis of cumulative impacts on the environment are far from adequate. The good news is we have a lot of allies in our fight to protect our forests, and EPFW has a long and great reputation on forest issues throughout California.

Lastly, we were honored at our picnic by the attendance by Calaveras County’s newly elected Board of Supervisors member, Martin Huberty. Martin has shown real concern about the problems/issues of people like us who live in a forest community. We believe Martin will be a great asset and was very interested in learning more about the negative impacts of clearcutting on our forest community.