An enormous truck stop called the “San Benito Ag Center” has been proposed on a site that would jeopardize a crucial wildlife corridor and damage the sacred tribal landscape of the Amah Mutsun. Green Foothills is requesting that San Benito County thoroughly analyze the potential cultural and environmental impacts of this project.

San Benito Ag Center Could Harm Wildlife and Indigenous Cultural Resources

San Benito County is a relatively new area of focus for Green Foothills that is a natural outgrowth of our work to protect wildlife corridors and stop sprawl in southern Santa Clara County. As land for development in Santa Clara County becomes scarce, developers are turning their attention to lands further south, in many cases putting local nature and wildlife in jeopardy.

The proposed truck stop project is located in San Benito County’s Chittenden Pass area, between the southern Santa Cruz Mountains and the Gabilan Range. Numerous conservation assessments have identified this region as a conservation priority, since it is a choke point for wildlife traveling between the two ranges. Endangered species such as the American badger rely on this corridor. Part of the property is a wetland, with a creek that feeds into the Pajaro River. The fragile ecosystem provides habitat for the endangered California tiger salamander, and may also host other sensitive species. Pollution from the truck stop project could contaminate the wetlands and the creek, so impacts to species that rely on riparian habitat could spread down the Pajaro River, a river that was once deemed the most endangered in the country and that has only recently begun to recover due to massive cleanup efforts.

In addition, the project lies within the tribal cultural landscape of Juristac, which is the most sacred site of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band. Although the biggest threat to Juristac remains the Sargent Ranch Quarry in Santa Clara County, the portion of Juristac within San Benito County is also under threat from this project and other proposed developments.

San Benito Ag Center Is Just One of Multiple Development Threats

Although this project is called an “Ag Center,” it is mainly a glorified truck stop. It would cover 15 acres of habitat with a convenience store, a truck service station, and a cold storage facility, plus parking for nearly 200 vehicles, and would operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The location near the intersection of highways 129 and 101 means that animals like bobcats, coyotes, and badgers attempting to cross these highways would be even more at risk of being hit and killed.

This project’s impacts would be severe enough on their own, but there are several other development projects, including quarries, more truck stops, and the huge industrial complex of Strada Verde, proposed in the immediate vicinity. This dramatic increase in development of the area would result in intensely fractured wildlife corridors, put strain on an already depleted aquifer, and result in increased traffic, air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. These projects are all also within the cultural tribal landscape of the Amah Mutsun.

Green Foothills Is Watching
Green Foothills submitted a letter to San Benito County demanding that all of these issues be analyzed in the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) that must be produced before the county can consider granting permits for the project. We will await the draft EIR, and will do all that we can to ensure that this land is protected.

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