Southern California Edison (SCE) did unauthorized work in Mission Canyon back in 2019. Its work damaged the creek, trees, plants, and wildlife habitat on Tunnel Trail, and it’s important for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) to require SCE to do habitat restoration — the company should mitigate the damage it’s done.
However, current plans for this restoration would involve closing Tunnel Trail for six months or more. My dog and I are among the many thousands of hikers, runners, and riders who love and appreciate Tunnel Trail. For many of us it is what makes Santa Barbara such a wonderful place, and its closure would be a significant loss.
SCE should repair the damage it’s done, but surely it have the resources to do this work in a way that doesn’t close Tunnel Trail for such an extended period of time. It may be more expensive, and the repair may take longer, but we shouldn’t have to pay for their malfeasance; SCE should!
The fact that SCE caused so much destruction to the trail is unconscionable. But our leaders should ensure that we, as a community, do not suffer a second injury by a long-term closure of Tunnel Trail to fix a problem that SCE created.
If you would like more information about the SCE project, you can go to https://wildlife.ca.gov/Notices/CEQA/mission-canyon-stream-restoration-project-draftmnd. And, if you’d like to submit a comment to CDFW, the email address is AskR5@wildlife.ca.gov. The subject line should say “Mission Creek Project MND Comments”, and the deadline for comments ends March 21.