w a t c h
D I A B L O Save Mount Diablo
Protecting the Mountain Since 1971
Fall 2003 No 36
The “Eye of Diablo”
Intelligent Tinkering
and the Standard Diablo Tower
East County Habitat Plan Comes Together
Each year Save Mount Diablo holds its July Board Meeting somewhere in the State Park. This year’s location was at Diablo’s peak, on the upper deck of the Summit Building, underneath the beacon. It’s the site of one of the most extraordinary views in the world.
Bay Area newspapers feature articles every day about endangered species. It seems overblown, but there are good reasons for the coverage. California is isolated by high mountains and desert, and its range of topography and climate have resulted in unusual localized habitats in which a tremendous diversity of species has evolved— the Mt. Diablo manzanita, globe lily and Diablo sunflower all live within a ten by fifteen mile area, for example. Meanwhile, human impacts have accelerated with intense population pressures since the 1849 Gold Rush.
One announcement made at the meeting was that ChevronTexaco had agreed to again sponsor SMD’s Moonlight on the Mountain anniversary event as well as the enclosed Autumn on Diablo hike schedule. SMD and Chevron began working together in 1997 when their communication tower on North Peak came up for renewal; instead the company removed the tower in December 1998 and restored the site. By chance, Cris Benton, a U.C. Berkeley professor was on the summit practicing an unusual hobby, aerial photography with a camera suspended from a kite.
Three years ago the most comprehensive accounting of rare species in the U.S. was published, Precious Heritage: the Status of Biodiversity in the United States. What it showed was dramatic. California is in the top five hot spots for numbers of rare species (Hawaii is #1), the Bay Area has the biggest concentration in California, and eastern Contra Costa is one of SMD holds a Board Meeting on the mountain each year, this July at the Summit the most important places in the Museum. Crowned by the “Eye of Diablo” relocated from the old SD tower, the Bay Area for threatened species.
He was drawn to the peak’s view, the building and its beapeak has a mythic view and supports a wide range of rare species, some found con, which is lit just once a nowhere else. Photo by Cris Benton - Kite Aerial Photography. So what? Why are rare species year on December 7th to comimportant; extinction has been memorate Pearl Harbor Day. What very few know is that the beagoing on for millions of years? According to an American Museum con is called the “Eye of Diablo.” It predates the Summit buildof Natural History survey of 400 scientists, a majority believe the ing’s construction by more than a decade and crowned the world is in the midst of the fastest mass extinction in the planet’s “Standard Diablo” tower erected in 1928 by Standard Oil Company 4.5 billion-year of California…now history, largely known as from human causChevronTexaco. es. Previous mass (see next page) extinctions took In the early 20th hundreds of thoucentury, gasoline sands or millions of years; this one is taking hundreds of years. was a new product. Oil had been used as a lubricant and for kerosene and was just beginning to compete with coal as fuel. They rated loss of biodiversity as more serious than depletion of the Though oil use would bring its own challenges, it also helped limit ozone layer, global warming or pollution. Seventy percent believe wood cutting. Petroleum companies promoted uses that would crethat during the next 30 years as many as one-fifth of all species will ate demand for their product, including the automobile and tourist become extinct and a third of the respondents, that half the species
Thanks to Governor Davis and our legislators: Diablo to receive $3.4 million
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