Ring Net Removal a Mistake

Regarding the ring nets installed in the canyons above Montecito in response to the disastrous mudslide of January 9, 2018:

As the executive director of an environmental organization in Santa Barbara, I joined the board of The Project for Resilient Communities (TPRC) to watch the proceedings from an environmental point of view. The ring nets were installed as a response to a major disaster, and to stop a future one. Expert biologists were hired to ensure the wildlife could get under and around the nets. The TPRC raised millions to ensure science, geology and environment were in place.

“They didn’t work” is an idiotic phrase when there are photos and video documentation of a net in San Ysidro Canyon filled with the remnants of a debris flow in January — this year. For those who have forgotten the floods of January 2023, a look at this New York Times article may refresh the memory:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/17/us/montecito-mudslide-2018-california-storms.html

The failure of the county to ensure the maintenance of these nets is foolhardy. We on the Santa Barbara South Coast have not experienced the El Niño to come, the floods to come, the forest fires to come, the future to come. Climate change is happening, and we are seeing, as the old song says, “…the mountains crumbling to the sea.”

Good environmental work is to ensure our day-to-day activities are not harming the environment, and our work is to improve those processes the best we can. Disasters that kill people are another thing entirely. That the county didn’t pick up where a group of dedicated people raised millions to protect the community from future climate change disasters is unbelievable.