There is one silver lining, and key success, we take pride in achieving. At the last minute, Intersect Power agreed to apply to state and federal environmental agencies for "take permits" and provide compensatory land mitigation.
The County Planning Department had approved the Aramis project, and remarkably the national Sierra Club had endorsed the project, without insisting upon any compensatory land mitigation.
Aside from discounting the significant biological harm the project will inflict on numerous threatened species, the failure to require compensatory land mitigation would have set a terrible precedent for all future large development projects in rural East Alameda County.
But for the advocacy of so many people in the community and our filing of an appeal, as well as Friends of Livermore and Friends of Open Space and Vineyards submitting appeals, plus the hard work of wildlife biologist Karen Swain and other biologists at multiple public agencies, Intersect Power would never have made this concession.
We will, however, need to see how this plays out. Against the overwhelming weight of evidence, Intersect Power continues to argue that no sensitive species are present at the site.