After last summer’s historic wildfires devastated Big Basin Redwoods State Park, environmental groups and parks advocates feared they would be busy fundraising for years to rebuild and reopen California’s oldest state park.
But on Friday, in another unexpected windfall from the state’s massive revenue surplus, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s revised May budget promised to pick up the entire tab.
The budget plan for the upcoming year includes $186 million in wildfire recovery to help reopen the beloved Santa Cruz Mountains park, where ancient redwoods date back 2,000 years and tower 300 feet tall.
“It’s extraordinary,” said Sam Hodder, president of Save the Redwoods League, in San Francisco. “It’s going to kick start the rebuilding process. It absolutely will accelerate the momentum.”
The development comes after a Bay Area News Group story last month reported on the slow pace of the park’s wildfire cleanup and rebuilding plan.
Overall, 97% of the 18,000-acre park burned in the CZU Lightning Complex Fire on Aug. 19. The park, first set aside in 1902, draws 1 million visitors a year, but has been closed since the fire.
The blaze began with a series of lightning strikes in remote forests near the San Mateo-Santa Cruz county line.
Nearly all of the big redwoods are expected to survive, and although many of the trees’ trunks are blackened, they already are re-sprouting green branches.
But the fire destroyed Big Basin’s historic 1930s-era visitor center, its headquarters, park amphitheater, museum and store. It also destroyed more than 100 buildings, including 20 ranger homes, along with 225 campsites, 35 tent cabins, 6 wooden vehicle bridges, 46 pedestrian bridges, 51 culverts, the park’s electrical system, water pipes and hundreds of signs, fences, wooden stairs and other park features.
State parks officials have cut down some trees, nearly all Douglas firs, that became hazards after the blaze. They have replaced culverts and are clearing dirt roads and trails. But many of the burned buildings remain. And although a small part of the park, near the ocean at Rancho del Oso will reopen on Saturdays and Sundays starting Memorial Day weekend, state parks officials have not yet begun the planning process to rebuild the iconic park, which has led to some parks advocates and environmental groups to worry the effort could languish.
On Friday, many of those leaders said they were encouraged by the large commitment of money in the budget, buoyed by the state’s record $75 billion surplus this year.
“I’m really pleased. It’s necessary for the rebuilding,” said state Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz. “It provides enough money to do what needs to be done in the short term. I’m going to be monitoring this closely to make sure they have enough.”
Newsom’s revised budget now goes to the Legislature for final approval, which is widely expected, given that his fellow Democrats hold large majorities.
Specifically, Friday’s budget provides $217 million for for fire restoration projects in the 115,000 acres burned across 23 California state parks by multiple fires last year. Other parks with fire damage include Henry Coe State Park in Morgan Hill, Butano and Henry Cowell Redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and Armstrong Redwoods in Sonoma County. The budget estimates that $103 million of that will be reimbursed through federal disaster funds, and the state will cover the rest through its general fund.
The money will be used for planning, removal of burned debris and “rebuilding the parks,” the budget says.
State Parks Director Armando Quintero said the damage estimate is likely to change as more work is done in Big Basin. But progress is being made, he said.
“We’ve already started to do a tremendous amount of work removing hazard trees and making the park safe,” Quintero said.
Newsom’s budget also provides $165 million for long-stalled maintenance projects at state parks across California, including repairing Pigeon Point Lighthouse on the San Mateo Coast, along with $125 million to expand urban parks.
“It heralds a new level of investment in parks we haven’t seen in a long time,” said Sara Barth, executive director of the Sempervirens Fund, a Los Altos group that buys redwood lands in the Santa Cruz Mountains to expand the state park system. “I’m ecstatic and incredibly heartened.”
