May Community Meeting Bear Smart Three Rivers Update

Bear Smart Three Rivers Update Provided at May Community Meeting

On May 20th, our Community Services District hosted a community meeting at St. Anthony’s. During the meeting, Laile Di Silvestro of the Bear Smart Three Rivers team provided an update on the progress the team has made to-date.

Key Take Aways

Report sightings of bears, distributed trash, and other incidents to bears@3rtogether.org. Tell us where, when, and what. Photos are welcome!
Due to recent changes in Mid Valley policies, the trash situation is expected to get worse.
Since its resurrection, the Bear Smart Three Rivers team has made considerable progress in developing and implementing an action plan to solve the problem effectively and affordably. See details and links to the action plan and other documents in the long version below.
The entire community is encouraged to participate! Please contact bears@3rtogether.org if you want to join the team.

The Long Version

The Challenge

Three Rivers has a trash problem, and our resident bears obviously know an opportunity when they see it. Over the last several weeks, community members have been sharing photos of our bears, as well as photos of damaged property, damaged trash carts and bins, and trash strewn on our streets, ditches, and yards.

We are formally tracking all reports of bear sightings and incidents in Three Rivers. So far, we have had 35 reports. Of those, 11 were bear sightings, 22 were trash incidents, one entailed property damage, and one involved the toppling of a grill, table, and chairs.

There are some hot spots with 43% of the reports from Sierra Drive, 26% from the Cherokee Oaks neighborhood, and 20% from Lower Mineral King. According to the reported sightings, the Lower Mineral King neighborhood has one very large, dark-colored destructive bear nicknamed Bernie. The Totem/Gateway area has one female bear and two cubs. The area near the River View has a good-sized cinnamon bear. Cherokee Oaks has one female bear and two large cubs. Lower South Fork has two brown-colored yearlings. Sightings of the lower Sierra Drive, Dinely, and North Fork bears have not been reported to the team yet.

Obviously, the reports reflect just a fraction of the actual number of sightings and incidents this year. To construct a more accurate picture of the situation in Three Rivers, we are requesting everyone to send in information. This will help us develop and implement a concrete action plan to solve the problem effectively and affordably. Email bears@3rtogether.org. Tell us what you saw, where it happened, and when. Photos are welcome!

Why Now?

Of course, this isn’t the first year we have had bears in Three Rivers. So why are we taking action now?

Incidents are on the rise again. This is due to multiple factors. There has been a decrease in bear habitat due to the devastating fires. At the same time, there has been an increase in human-derived food sources. The evidence suggests that the increase in the number of short-term rentals (STRs) has played a role. Out of an estimated 1302 housing units, we have an estimated 597 short term rentals. The evidence suggests that most of the STR owners do not live in Three Rivers, and the data we have collected so far this year indicate a correlation between trash incidents and STRs.

This isn’t just a Three Rivers problem. California Fish and Wildlife has been reporting a significant increase in reports of quantifiable property damage, nuisance damage (like trash distribution), and aggression towards humans. These problems are especially pronounced in areas that have seen devastating fire, an increase in STRs, and failure to take sufficient action to keep human food sources away from bears. In 2023, a bear killed a northern California woman who had been feeding him along with some feral cats. The data are clear. Bears who become habituated to human-derived food sources become more aggressive and destructive.

Our community has tried to solve the problem, of course. For about two decades, community members have tried to work with the county and the waste haulers to get bear-resistant trash containers. We formed committees. We researched solutions and sent them to the county. We talked with the waste haulers. We tried to get a concrete plan incorporated into the Three Rivers Community Plan. The volunteer Bear Brigade formed with the goal of getting locks on every single trash cart. People who can afford it have invested thousands of dollars in bear-resistant enclosures. Many people who live here keep their trash inside until garbage day and try to protect it until the truck arrives.

For the last few years, we have been awaiting the negotiation of a new contract between the county and Mid Valley in anticipation of collaborating with them to solve the problem. Unfortunately, the county negotiated a new exclusive franchise agreement without involving the community in the negotiation process. This contract went into effect on January 1st this year, and it will not terminate until June 30th, 2039. There is no mention of bear-resistant containers in the new contract.

The new rate schedule does include line items for what the county erroneously calls “bear proof cans,” which cost an additional $12 per month plus a 10% surcharge. With the rate increase just approved by the Board of Supervisors, that would entail an additional minimum of $43.64 per month in perpetuity for customers with one each of the green, blue, and brown carts. That is more than double our current rate and more than other communities are paying for their bear-resistant carts.

That’s not how Mid Valley interpreted the rate schedule, however. Per a recent memo, “bear proof can” means any cart that a customer has modified with locks, chains, or straps in an effort to keep the bears out. Mid Valley plans to charge $12 per cart per month until the modifications are removed, even if the carts are unlocked when Mid Valley dumps their contents. Furthermore, the drivers are purportedly being instructed not to pick up overturned carts and strewn trash.

So, our trash problem is going to get worse.

Mid Valley evidently owns 250 brown trash carts that it claims are bear resistant; however, the information provided indicates that they do not meet our requirements. Two Mid Valley representatives have stated that the company plans to continue encouraging individual households to use one-yard curbside bins. There are some serious problems with this approach:

The approach leaves our recycling especially vulnerable to bears and, with the requirement that we put our food waste in the green carts, our food waste would also be especially vulnerable. We need bear-resistant green and blue containers, as well as bear-resistant brown containers.
At a minimum of $131.20 per month, the bins will be too expensive for many members of our community.
Most residential customers don’t fill a 96-gallon cart each week. A one-yard bin is a tad excessive, unless a viable bin-sharing solution is developed.
Curbside bins are a safety hazard and are therefore illegal on public road right-of-ways. We have already had one reported automobile collision with a curbside bin on a public right-of-way.
And, most importantly, even when locked, Mid Valley’s curbside bins are not bear resistant. In fact, they are our primary source of litter right now.

Solving the Problem Effectively and Affordably

Thanks to the existence of our local representative government, our Community Services District (CSD), we have the ability to solve this problem ourselves. Accordingly, we resurrected the committee that, in 2021, was working on a plan. Our mission is to develop and implement a community action plan to solve the problem effectively and affordably by adopting the best practices implemented by other communities. Most of these communities are in the Bear Smart network. The Bear Smart Community Program started in Canada in 2004 and then expanded to the U.S. and Europe. Each jurisdiction implements it slightly differently, but after over a decade of fine tuning, the Bear Smart Communities across the U.S. and Canada offer some excellent best practices for us to draw from, including ordinances and a wealth of “Be Bear Smart” education and outreach materials.

It is easier complete a mission if we divide it into distinct objectives with clear steps. We are taking that approach to complete a concrete and achievable action plan. We plan to implement that plan through the CSD.

Here are our objectives:

Reduce garbage-based food sources through the mandated use of affordable bear-resistant containers or enclosures that have been proven effective.
Educate residents, property owners, businesses, and visitors about bear behavior, bear safety measures, and the steps we all must take to minimize human-bear conflicts.
Establish a robust neighborhood-based monitoring system to alert residents of the presence of bears so that action can be taken to secure food and attractants and haze the bears if necessary.
Implement ordinances and enforcement mechanisms that support bear smart practices.
Work with Fish and Wildlife and other government organizations to establish a response system for bear-related incidents.
Develop a detailed budget and secure immediate and long-term funding sources.

We have already made some great progress in meeting these objectives!

Solid Waste Management:

We have finalized a feature requirements document for bear-resistant rollaway carts.
We have identified the four vendors with products that meet all or most of our requirements. These requirements include certified bear resistance, automatic latching, and automatic unlatching when the cart is tipped into the truck, as well as a tight seal to keep in the odors that attract bears.
We have come up with a working estimate of the number required, and we are canvassing the neighborhoods one by one to assess needs and refine the count.
Two members of the team have begun contacting the vendors to get estimates for bulk purchases and delivery charges.
We have started going through the existing contract to determine what sections may need to be modified in an addendum.

Education and Outreach:

We have an outline of a communications plan and have a person with expertise on the team who will help the team put the plan together.

Monitoring Network:

We set up a reporting system and have started collecting reports.
We established a scheme for categorizing incidents.
We developed a pilot interactive map that indicates the locations and details of each sighting and incident.

Ordinances:

We completed the first draft of an ordinance based on the Bear Smart Community Program best practices.
We completed the first review of the draft ordinance.

Incident Response:

We have facilitated contact with Caltrans and Tulare County Public Works to get immediate assistance in trash-related incidents.
We have compiled guidelines for the community so that all community members can alert the authorities when there is trash-related incident. Watch for them in your inbox soon!

Finance:

We have conducted a preliminary search for grants and low-interest loans and found a few that appear both available and applicable. With grants, low interest loans, and donations, it is likely that any service charges will be less than the minimum $12 per cart Mid Valley plans to charge and that any service charges will cease as soon as the loan is paid off.

The Role of the CSD and the Community

Both the CSD and the community are critically important to the implementation and the success of the plan. The CSD must have the legal authority and financial means to effectively implement the plan with the support of the Bear Smart Three Rivers committee. And, the community must overwhelmingly support the plan.

A CSD is a local representative government organization that provides public services and facilities not provided (or adequately provided) by the parent government (the county, in this case). A CSD often serves as an alternative to the incorporation of a new city. It is funded by taxes (a $40 annual parcel fee in our case) and fees for services provided. It is very common for CSDs to enact and enforce ordinances. Our CSD was established in October 1973 with five active powers. Most pertain to water and septic systems, but one pertains to trash. Although trash pick up was still considered an active power in 2011, we have found no record that it was ever exercised. Regardless, we will need to go through a formal process of reactivating it. To exercise any latent powers not exercised prior to 2006, the CSD must seek approval from the Tulare County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) in accordance with code Section 56824.10. This costs at least $500 per latent power plus any actual costs in excess as determined by the county’s hourly rate for planning services.

Approval from LAFCO would entail making sure that the service provided via the latent power will be adequately funded, that the service provided will be at least as good as the service provided by the county, and that there is community support. No district vote is needed if there is no significant protest from the community. A petition is a great way of demonstrating to the LAFCO that there is strong community support.

We will encounter challenges along the way, of course, as that is the nature of any project. One of those challenges is the boundaries of the CSD. When created, the CSD constituted all of what was considered Three Rivers. Three Rivers has grown since then, and significant portions of the community are now outside of the CSD. Aimie Kane, a LAFCO analyst, spoke to the attendees of the community meeting about the process involved in annexing the portions of Three Rivers.

A Final Thought

Hundreds of other communities have succeeded. We can too.