Environment

Group Sues San Diego County Over Fire Protection Project

By Ed Joyce / Reporter

Published July 8, 2009 at 11:47 AM PDT

This story was published more than 14 years ago.

Environmental groups are supporting a lawsuit by the Chaparral Institute that challenges part of San Diego County's fire protection plan.

The California Chaparral Institute is suing the county over a vegetation management project.

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The California Native Plant Society and the San Diego Sierra Club are backing the legal challenge.

Richard Halsey is the Director of the Chaparral Institute.

He says the county is required to include public meetings and provide scientific oversight before starting a project to remove trees and shrubs in natural areas.

But Halsey says the county is not working in a collaborative way with fire agencies, conservation organizations, private land owners and other groups.

"So we've asked repeatedly in various venues to try to help them work with all of us," Halsey says. "But that just hasn't worked. So this lawsuit from my perspective is really a failure to communicate on both sides."

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Halsey says San Diego County spends less on fire protection than any other county in Southern California.

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Ed Joyce was the environment reporter and afternoon news anchor for KPBS-FM. Before joining KPBS, he worked as an editor/columnist with Copley News Service in San Diego. Ed has an extensive background in newspaper, radio, web and TV journalism. After graduating with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington in Seattle, Ed began a career in broadcast journalism. His work has included stints in public broadcasting, commercial broadcasting and education -- working as an affiliate professor of communication and reporter at the University of Idaho and Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. During the past 20 years he has worked in radio, TV and print as a news reporter, anchor, writer, editor and producer. Along the way he has won numerous awards for general news reporting, newswriting, feature and issue reporting and breaking news reporting from The Associated Press, The Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Press Club and other organizations. During the mid-1990s, while working for Oregon Public Broadcasting, he was a frequent contributor to National Public Radio, including a feature report on the memorial service for 14 U.S. Forest Service "hotshots" who died fighting a wildfire in Colorado (the crew was based in a central Oregon town). He’s also filed reports with Marketplace, KQED’s California Report and Climate Watch and with national and regional networks throughout the United States. At KPBS, Ed continues his contributions to National Public Radio and other national and regional news organizations. He has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and San Diego Press Club for his environmental reporting at KPBS-FM-TV and for producing and anchoring radio newscasts. In 2007 he was selected a National Press Foundation fellow for Understanding Violent Weather II program. The seminars were held at the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla. In 2008 he spoke at a UC San Diego conference on U.S. National Security as part of the school’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Ed led a discussion with the 18 foreign government officials and academics about the political debate over climate change. In 2010, Ed was elected to a three-year term on the board of the San Diego Press Club.

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