PG&E Land Transfers Final Mitigated Negative Declaration
Section 2-XIII Public Services
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SETTING

Fire Protection

Fire protection services at the project site and in the project site vicinity are provided by a variety of agencies that include:

• California Department of Forestry, 37966 Highway 299E, Burney;
  
  
• Shasta County Volunteer Fire Department, Station 13, Soldier Mountain Volunteer Fire Company, Burney;
  
  
• U.S. Forest Service, Modoc National Forest, Alturas; and
  
  
• Burney Fire Protection District.

All agencies provide mutual aid and several of the agencies are interlinked organizationally. Staff is increased during the fire season.

Law Enforcement

The Shasta County Sheriff’s Department provides police protection services to the nearby McArthur, Fall River Mills and Burney Falls communities. The Burney Enforcement Division is located at 20509 Shasta Street, Burney. Services include patrol, investigations, animal control, abandoned vehicles, property and evidence control, crime prevention, a variety of permits, Community Oriented Policing, a Reserve Deputy program and a Citizen Volunteer Patrol.

The California Highway Patrol (CHP) patrols California’s state highways in the vicinity of the project site. The CHP has an outpost office in Burney Falls, staffed by seven officers.

California State Park Rangers patrol the 6,000- acre Ahjumawi Lava Springs State Park. Four rangers are on duty for the summer months and three for the rest of the year, from 8:00 a.m. to midnight. Two rangers live on the park grounds.

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

Shasta County encompasses 26 school districts which includes, 22 elementary school districts, two high school districts and two unified school districts, and serves an estimated 29,820 students in kindergarten through the 12th grades. Shasta County’s 86 public schools include 47 elementary schools, eight middle schools, nine high schools, seven continuation schools, three alternatives schools, two special education schools, eight community day schools, and 1 juvenile court school. Over the next 10 years, the number of school-age children in public schools will decrease, beginning in the 2002-2003 school year. By the 2009-2010 school year, the number of students in Shasta County’s public schools will decline to 27,280 students.

Students residing in the McArthur and Fall River Mills communities attend schools in the Fall River Joint Unified School District. The District’s schools and approximate student enrollments are listed below.

Parks and Recreation

Northeastern Shasta County encompasses or is near several large state and national parks. In addition, public agencies also own land in the area that is used for recreational purposes. Rivers and lakes are abundant, and located throughout northeastern Shasta County. Parks and recreational areas near the project sites include:

PUBLIC SERVICES IMPACT DISCUSSIONS

a-1)   The proposed project would result in a gain in public and non-profit

holdings in park and agricultural lands (see discussion for Parks, below). However this gain represents a small percentage of public lands in the vicinity. This area is served by several existing fire protection agencies that are supported by interlinking mutual aid agreements from federal, state and local fire protection agencies. The proposed project encompasses existing lands already served by these agencies. The proposed project would therefore not result in a need for new or expanded governmental facilities that could have a substantially adverse impact on the environment.

a-2)   The proposed project could result in a minimal need for additional

police protection services. However, a portion of the land is only accessible by boat. Another portion will be restored as a wetland. In addition, these lands are already largely open to the public. Several police protection agencies are located in the vicinity of the proposed land swaps, including park rangers that live on the Ahjumawi Lava Springs State Park. While there is some potential that some small incremental increase in law enforcement staff persons may be required to monitor the newly divested lands, the project would not, in the foreseeable future, require the construction of a new or expanded governmental facility that could have a substantially adverse impact on the environment.

a-3)   The proposed project would result in incremental increases to existing

parklands in a rural area of Shasta County with very low density. The proposed project would therefore not, by itself, result in additional students in the vicinity, either by attracting new persons to the area or by causing the deterioration of existing school facilities. The project would therefore not result in a need to construct new public schools, or expand existing public schools.

a-4)   The proposed project would result in a transfer of lands to the

California State Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR). The 182-acre Burney Falls transfer would be managed as part of the McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park, and recreational use of the lands would be permitted, as is currently permitted by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E). The 4-acre Bowman Ditch transfer will be managed as part of the Ahjumawi State Park. In exchange for the two exchanges, DPR would transfer a 544-acre portion of Ahjumawi State Park to PG&E, resulting in a net loss of 540 acres of the existing 6,000-acre park, and reducing park acreage by approximately 9 percent. PG&E would then donate the 544-acre property to CWA. In addition, PG&E proposes to transfer the 7,400-acre McArthur Swamp property and the 5.5-acre Glenburn Dredge site to the California Waterfowl Association (CWA).

As a result of the transfers, PG&E will reduce its ownership of agricultural and recreational lands, although, for the foreseeable future, public and private usage of the divested lands will remain the same.

Park lands in the area total over 4 million acres. The lands PG&E will hold represent 0.01 percent of park lands in the vicinity. This loss of parkland would not require the construction of any additional governmental park facility or the expansion of any governmental park facility that could result in a substantially adverse impact on the environment.

REFERENCES

California Department of Finance, Projected California Graded Public K-12

School Enrollment by County by School Year, http://www.dof.ca.gov/HTML/DEMOGRAP/K12g.htm, accessed March 21, 2001.

California State Highway Patrol, http://www.chp.ca.gov/html/offices.html,

accessed March 22, 2001.

California State Parks, Ahjumawi Lava Springs, http://parks.ca.gov/, accessed

March 22, 2001.

Educational Data Partnership, Ed-Data: Fiscal, Demographic and Performance Data on California’s K-12 Schools, http://www.ed-data.k12.ca.us/

welcome.htm, accessed March 22, 2001.

Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, Burney Enforcement, http://www.sheriff.co.

shasta.ca.us/burney.htm, accessed March 22, 2001.

U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Lassen National Forest,

http://www.r5.fs.fed.us/lassen/, accessed March 22, 2001.

U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Modoc National Forest,

http://www.r5.fs.fed.us/modoc/, accessed March 22, 2001.

U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Shasta-Trinity National Forest,

http://www.r5.fs.fed.us/shastatrinity/, accessed March 22, 2001.

Urlie, Andrew, Park Ranger, Ahjumawi Lava Springs State Park, personal

communication, March 22, 2001.