The East Bay Regional Park District is set to receive nearly $1.4 million in federal funding for wildfire mitigation and forest work, the park district recently announced.
This funding comes from bipartisan legislation signed by President Joe Biden in March.
U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Castro Valley) secured the funding, according to the park district.
“We thank Representative Swalwell for his support and leadership in prioritizing the region’s wildfire mitigation work,” said Park District General Manager Sabrina Landreth. “This funding will allow the Park District to continue its interagency collaborative work at the local, state, and federal level.”
The funding will be used to thin and remove vegetation, with a focus on dead and dying trees in areas of Anthony Chabot Regional Park in Alameda County. Park staff noticed significant tree ‘die-off’ in the area in the fall of 2020, and follow-up investigations found over 1,500 acres of dead and dying trees within regional parks.
The dead and dying trees are mostly eucalyptus, but also include bay and pine trees, according to the park district.
The new funding will supplement existing year-round wildfire prevention efforts in the area, which includes monitoring weather and fire danger, maintaining professionally trained on-call firefighters full-time, maintaining wildland firefighting equipment, and removing flammable vegetation — like dead and dying trees — to reduce wildfire risk.
The East Bay Regional Parks system has 73 parks, 55 miles of shoreline, and over 1,330 miles of trails. The system’s vegetation provides habitat for threatened plants and wildlife such as the pallid manzanita, monarch butterfly, and Alameda whipsnake.