Major Die Off of Trees in East Bay Increases Fire Risk

This is a great article from the Oakland Firesafe Council. Orinda has been trying to get EBMUD to remove the dead pine trees at the San Pablo Reservoir. A whole team of representatives from EBMUD came to present to Orinda's Supplemental Sales Tax Oversight Commission on April 14th, including the General Manager Clifford Chan, and our representative Marguerite Young. EBMUD's Scott Hall's slide deck gave some background and history about their land stewardship. According to him, they have been keeping up with the dead pine tree problem until last year when the die-off accelerated exponentially. Normally, they take down about 250 trees annually and that seems to keep things in balance. Right now, they estimate there are 1,500 dead pine trees and they have removed over 229.

They will not and cannot take down any more dead trees until the fall because bird nesting season goes until then. In particular, bald eagles are nesting in pine trees. In addition, they are applying in partnership with MOFD for a $5 million grant to remove the trees and, if successful, those funds will not be released until the fall. If they do not get the grant, it looks like they will not ramp up the number of trees they remove, keeping to their pace of 250 trees/year.
Here are two thoughts:
-- The tree die off will not end this year and may continue at this accelerated pace
-- How on earth can they remove 1500 trees between October and February?

SO there you have it. We are at a dead end until October or so. The only bright spot in the scenario is that EBMUD showed a map of a network of fire roads that they will clear to be dirt roads and these will act as a fire break.