Tassajara Cr. Rd., San Luis Obispo, California
(from many years ago)
I am starting a new series, In Celebration of Oaks.
In the spring of 2016 near Paso Robles, California, it was discovered that hundreds of oaks had been removed from a property by the multinational The Wonderful Company and its subsidiary Justin Vineyards and Winery. An emergency county oak ordinance was put in place shortly after that and now a more permanent ordinance will be considered by the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors on April 11. Please ask your supervisor to support it and consider attending the Board meeting to support the ordinance. The main argument against it has to do with property rights. As a property owner, I respect that, and, in fact, I respect most ranchers and appreciate what they do. But there has to be something in place to prevent a huge corporation from denuding the oaks from our landscape. Both adjacent counties, Monterey and Santa Barbara, have an oak ordinance. The proposed ordinance should not hinder most ranch operations.
“The valley oak is the largest oak in California and possibly the largest species in North America. . . . Locally, valley oaks are found mostly in the northern and central portions of San Luis Obispo County. Growing on fertile bottomland soils, these oaks can reach great size, age, and beauty. . . . Early Spanish explorers called these majestic oaks robles, due to their similarity to the English oak (Q. robur). This name is also the origin of the town name Paso Robles. The fact that this species prefers rich, lowland, valley soils has made it the victim of extensive removal for agriculture over the last 150 years. Now only a few large, remnant individuals remain in agricultural areas that were once the home of vast valley oak stands."--Matt Ritter, Plants of San Luis Obispo, Their Lives and Their Stories, 2006
“Today, there are few valley oaks between five and 100 years old.”-- San Luis Obispo County Oak Woodland Management Plan – Autumn 2003
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