Get the free public access map and updates on San Benito County and the Diablo Range!
Our San Benito County free public access map is almost ready; we’ll send it to you as soon as it is available.
Diablo Watch Issue 77: Expanding Our Work to All 12 Counties across the Diablo Range
What if we told you another 20,000 acres of the Diablo Range could be protected in the next 18 months?
We’re expanding the scope of our work; our advocacy will now cover the whole Diablo Range.
The Diablo Range covers 3.5 million acres, is 200 miles long, and is a wildlife refuge for many rare species of wildlife and plants.
It is next door to millions of people, but most people know nothing about it.
Measure Q
In fall 2022, Save Mount Diablo supported conservation partners farther south in the Diablo Range than we ever have before.
We supported the “Let Voters Decide” Yes on Q Campaign in San Benito County, which lies just south of Santa Clara County.
The people who live in this area are concerned about increased traffic, sprawling development, expanding landfills, and increased threats to open space and agriculture.
Like several ballot measures that Save Mount Diablo has authored and fought to get adopted, Measure Q would have put decisions about how San Benito County develops into the hands of its residents.
Spearheaded by the Protect San Benito grassroots group, Measure Q would have required a vote to rezone agricultural, rural, or range land to high intensity uses like housing.
It would also have required a vote of county residents to develop new towns and planned communities that the county General Plan currently allows.
It would have removed over a dozen development “nodes” around the county from the General Plan and required a vote to restore them; it would put a potential expansion of a landfill to a vote of county residents.
In short, Measure Q would have increased protection of open space, limited development outside of current city boundaries, and let voters decide how they want their area to change.
Why is Save Mount Diablo interested in a place so far away from Mount Diablo?
As we’ve explained in Bay Nature magazine and on the Diablo Range section of our website, we can only truly protect Mount Diablo if we ensure it’s connected with the rest of the Diablo Range.
And to make sure the expansive open spaces and many rare species of wildlife can use the Diablo Range as their home habitat, as well as a climate and migration corridor, the Diablo Range ecosystem needs to remain intact.
Almost all of San Benito County is covered by the Diablo Range, so if the Diablo Range is a priority for protection, San Benito County is a priority.
Other factors make San Benito a very special place to do conservation work. In terms of land area, San Benito County is almost as big as both Contra Costa and Alameda counties combined.
But whereas almost 3 million people live in Contra Costa and Alameda counties, San Benito County has a population of only 68,000! That’s just under the population of the City of Walnut Creek.
So when it comes to good land use policy, the votes of a relatively small number of people can affect a huge, outsized amount of land. That means our advocacy can be multiplied to increase protection over a big part of the Diablo Range!
We are thankful to Protect San Benito for all their good work and are proud to support them, San Benito County residents, and the “Let Voters Decide” Campaign.
Measure Q did not pass in 2022, but a new initiative has qualified for the November 2024 ballot in San Benito County.
