The Carrizo Plain Conservancy announces that it has donated a 42-acre parcel of private land with a quarter mile of shoreline on Soda Lake to the United States of America for inclusion in the Carrizo Plain National Monument. While Interior Department officials in Washington, D.C., consider shrinking or doing away with national monuments in California, the citizens of California and the Central Coast continue to support the Carrizo Plain National Monument with their pocketbooks and volunteer efforts.
The recent addition was purchased in 2015 entirely with private funds donated by many citizens and a grant from the Oakland-based California Wildlife Foundation. The property had been the victim of illegal dumping over the years and so it was cleaned up with removal of more than 11 tons of trash, also paid for with private donations.
The Carrizo Plain Conservancy has also offered to donate 13 additional parcels of land within current monument boundaries to the United States. These properties were recently purchased, again entirely with private funds.
We hope that these actions will convince officials in Washington of the desire of our citizens to keep the Carrizo Plain as it is today.
Neil Havlik
Carrizo Plain Conservancy president
San Luis Obispo
This article appears in Aug 10-20, 2017.
Private donations are the way to go! The federal government doing a land grab is not. Putting others land of limits to productive use is not good. The Carrissa area is best left to those who could best use it….NOT to urban dwellers who think they should have a say on rural folks land rights, so they can have a viewshed out their car window at others expense.
I think it would be best if Washington acted earlier and kept things as it was before all the socialist and big government worshipers moved to the central coast and brought their big city mentalities with them!