The Newspaper of the San Francisco Bay Chapter
November - December 2007
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Keeping CalPERS honest about its investment policy
Sonoma County project is not environmentally responsible
The California Public Employees' Retirement System claims to make socially and environmentally responsible investments. CalPERS is one of the largest institutional investors in the world, and such a policy could make a difference. But is this policy being implemented?
The so-called "Preservation" Ranch project, funded by CalPERS, is to permanently destroy almost 1,700 acres of Sonoma County forest by converting it to vineyards. The widespread conversion of forests to vineyards is one of the major land-use problems in Sonoma County. It leads to serious irreversible impacts of habitat fragmentation, biodiversity loss, and water diversion and impairment. Preservation Ranch is a large example of what has become a trend.
CalPERS' review process for the funding of such projects is badly flawed. Such environmentally harmful projects get funding approval long before any real environmental review is done. The Environmental Impact Report for Preservation Ranch, for instance, has not yet been presented for public review, although funding for these and other vineyard investments by CalPERS began five years ago.
CalPERS has told the Sierra Club that Premier Pacific Vineyards (the project proponents) "has represented to us that it will adhere to all the regulatory and environmental requirements as they undertake the entitlement process for this project." While the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) does indeed provide that the environmental impacts of a project must be identified, analyzed, and mitigated, the CEQA process starts long after a project has been funded. When so much investment has occurred for so long before significant environmental review, it is very difficult for the plan to be substantially changed. Unless CalPERS requires a serious environmental assessment before funding such projects, it is in effect funding the entitlement-seeking process itself and at the same time betting upon its results. CalPERS should weigh environmental concerns in its initial analysis of investments.
CalPERS has also adopted policy statements on controlling greenhouse-gas emissions. The Sacramento Bee reports that Preservation Ranch claims, "The entire [Preservation Ranch] property is expected to become `carbon neutral' after 15 years, meaning the carbon dioxide absorbed by the renewed forest will exceed the carbon lost to vineyard development." This claim hides the much larger carbon loss in the first 15 years. In contrast, California's target is "to reduce greenhouse gases by 15% below 2005 levels by 2020." Preserving the existing forest acreage is the way to do that. CalPERS should be investing in forest carbon-sequestration efforts rather than deforestation.
WhatYouCanDo
Write to the CalPERS Board of Administration at:
Sierra Club
P.O. Box 466
Santa Rosa, CA 95402.
We will deliver your message to CalPERS. Urge CalPERS to withdraw its financial support from the environmentally destructive Preservation Ranch project and to make environmental review an early and fundamental part of its process for project selection.
For more information, see www.redwood.sierraclub.org/sonoma/Forest.html and see the Sierra Club's video "Worse Than a Clearcut" at YouTube.
© 2007 San Francisco Sierra Club Yodeler