Protective vegetation unprotected
b'August 13, 2021 \\u2014 With fire season and drought well underway, PG&E is hard at work on the 1800 miles of enhanced vegetation management it plans to finish by the end of the year. The company is responding to wildfire threat by limbing and cutting down trees and any other vegetation its arborists deem present a possible danger to its infrastructure.\\nCathy Monroe of Redwood Valley is a long-time member of the California Native Plant Society and an original member of the Mendocino County Climate Action Advisory Committee. She\\u2019s also a fire survivor who understands the need to take preventive measures. Electricity, she acknowledges, is key to getting away from fossil fuels. This week, Monroe and Eileen Mitro, a fellow member of the CNPS and co-founder of Climate Action Mendocino, looked out over an area near the intersection of Road A and Highway 20 in Redwood Valley, which was cleared in May.\\nSome willow remained along a small seasonal tributary to the Russian River, but now, with the heat and the drought and the absence of shade, that willow is dying. With it, protection from sediment and the force of heavy rain also disappears. In June, PG&E spokeswoman Deanna Contreras said that \\u201cA substantial amount of vegetation was left near the waterways to help protect water resources in the area,\\u201d and that \\u201cthe protection measures we applied precluded the need for a water quality permit.\\u201d\\nMitro and Monroe worry about erosion damage from upcoming winter floods and the loss of the carbon-sequestering blue oaks that once provided habitat and held the slopes together.'