7/16/03 The county/s Oak Tree Protection and Regeneration Program 77 designed to protect live, valley and blue oaks on private property 77 was adopted earlier this year but the controversy it engendered hasn/t died.

The Coalition for Labor, Agriculture and Business (COLAB), the Cattlemen/s Association of Santa Barbara County and the Center for Environmental Equality have filed a lawsuit protesting the contentious oak tree ordinance, which allows certain numbers of trees to be removed by property owners but requires permits to cut down more.

A compromise between environmentalists and agriculturists, it was endorsed by the county/s Agricultural Advisory Committee and approved by a 4-1 vote April 15. Joe Centeno of Santa Maria was the only supervisor opposed.

The suing parties claim that the environmental report for the program is inadequate and in violation of the California Environmental Quality Act, which Andy Caldwell, executive director of COLAB, says is supposed to protect agriculture.

"The bottom line is that the EIR studied the impacts of farmers on oak trees 77 but it didn/t study the impact of protecting oak trees on farmers," Caldwell said. "Ag is just as protected by CEQA as the red-legged frog."

The county has six months to respond to the suit, which was filed June 12, according to County Counsel Alan Seltzer.

"We believe that the county operated properly and didn/t violate CEQA," Seltzer said. "We think there is an extensive EIR. It talks about the various programs and the impacts on ag and resources."

"(Caldwell) is converting a policy disagreement with board/s program into a legal argument. The law respects the policy discretion of the board," Seltzer said.

Caldwell certainly disagrees with the oak tree policy. He argues that the program threatens the viability of agriculture by treating agricultural land like open space.

"If they want to preserve ecosystems or habitat, then they should rezone those lands … as open space. It/s not fair to the farmers and the ranchers who bought this land for ag use," he said.

"One of our major concerns was that this oak tree measure is only the first of many that are coming down the pipe," Caldwell said. He cited the rural resource protection program and grading ordinance guidelines currently underway in the planning department as an example.

That program will be designed "to provide protection for riparian corridors, wetlands, sensitive species/ habitat and archeological resources in balance with policies to assure and encourage agriculture and allow for agricultural expansion and intensification," said Peggy Burbank, county planner managing the project. It is expected to come before the board in summer of 2004, she said.

Staff writer Erin Carlyle can be reached by e-mail at ecarlyle@pulitzer.net