Saratoga News
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Photograph by George Sakkestad
The area behind Donna Poppenhagen's backyard fence is along the proposed route for the De Anza Trail. The area was defoliated by PG&E with an herbicide. Now rabbits are invading Poppenhagen's yard.
Rabbits hop into back yards after PG&E sprays trail for vegetation
By Jason Sweeney
When a PG&E crew used an herbicide to defoliate the vegetation behind Donna Poppenhagen's back fence, rabbits began showing up in her yard. One unlucky rabbit drowned when it couldn't find its way out of her pool.
PG&E spokesman Jeff Smith said herbicide was used this year, unlike in previous years, because the PG&E-owned land has been identified as a potential habitat for the protected burrowing owl.
Poppenhagen's property borders a stretch of land where the city of Saratoga plans to construct a section of the De Anza Trail--a project fiercely opposed by many residents who live along the trail route. Any new activity along the proposed route tends to attract the attention of neighbors.
Poppenhagen said around this time of year the area behind her home is normally plowed with a tractor. This is the first time she knows of that an herbicide was used to defoliate the area. "A lot of blackberry bushes have been killed along the fence lines. The brambles have been defoliated where the bunnies live. They have been coming into yards and eating everything. We just wonder why it has been defoliated this year and not in the previous 40 years that I've lived here."
Rita Witmer, who lives on Frederisckburg Drive near the trail route, brought the issue up at the April 19 Saratoga City Council meeting. She asked the council why an herbicide had replaced the tractor that normally plows up the area every year. And she wanted to know if the herbicide was safe, especially since children walk the route to school every day and many people use the area for recreation.
Public Works Director John Cherbone said he did not know about the defoliation and that the city was not responsible for it.
"Usually twice a year in the spring they come and mow the weeds with a plow," Witmer said later. "We should be having wild flowers and tall grass, but now it's just like one big pile of dirt. It's just coincidental that they've changed how they do this."
Saratoga plans to construct a bicycle and pedestrian trail between Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road and Saratoga Avenue next to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks on land that is mostly within the PG&E right-of-way. A master plan for the 1.6-mile trail was unveiled last summer. Funding for the project, estimated at $1.8 million, is being provided by a donor and by a grant from the Valley Transit Authority. Both Cherbone and Smith said the defoliation in the area had nothing to do with the De Anza Trail.
Neighbors adjacent to the route have voiced strong opposition to the trail because of concerns about loss of privacy and a decline in property values.
Last September, the city council directed city staff to move forward to the next stage in the De Anza Trail project by conducting an environmental impact report. That report has yet to be completed.
Smith said a change was necessary in how the vegetation in the area in question was managed. "The whole general area there is considered a potential habitat for the burrowing owl. The best way to protect the burrowing owl is to not do vegetation management by trimming, but by using an herbicide. It's a lot safer for the owl."
Smith did not have an exact date for when the defoliation in the area occurred. "It was done at some point over the last few months. The herbicide used is safer than anything you can purchase at Home Depot.
