Photo: Wetland area of Quartz Hill Project; by David Ledger
SEA recently led a small field trip of nine people on 110 acres of land that the City of Redding is developing in part with funding help from the Department of Housing and Development. This property sits just west of the River Ridge Subdivision and west of Quartz Hill Road. The City of Redding will put in a developed subdivision and then sell the land to K-2 Development to build homes as the market allows. We have received so many phone calls and emails from residents concerned about the project that we decided it was time to explore the area which is quite popular as a hiking area for the neighborhood.
This area was a blue oak woodland but was severely burned by the Carr Fire and is now closer to a grassland and if not developed would eventually revert to chaparral and then back to an oak woodland as the trees re-grow. The area has two seasonal streams through it and riparian vegetation along the streams including buttonwillow, arroyo willow, black willow, cattails, and white leaf alder as well as many rushes, sedges, and grasses.
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) survey that was done for the property states there are no seasonal wetlands or milkweeds on the property. Yet on our walk, we found not only standing water in the seasonal stream but all the plants listed above, which are associated with wetlands. Monarch butterflies are protected under federal law and indirectly, their habitat, especially milkweed which is essential food for their larvae. Despite the consultant stating that in the NEPA report after a thorough search of the area, no milkweed plants were found, just on our short field trip we found several hundred milkweed.
Unable to get the requested information on the project from the Planning Department, SEA has had to send in a Public Records Request.