Opinion ID: 2575737
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Partial coverage/paramount state concern

Text: Plaintiffs argue that even if the state has not fully occupied the field of timber operations regulation, it has a paramount interest in determining the location of such operations. They point to the FPA's requirements that the Board adopt rules and regulations governing the conduct of timber operations (§ 4551.5), that any person seeking to conduct timber operations submit and have approved a timber harvesting plan (§ 4581), and that such plans contain a description of the land on which the work is proposed to be done (§ 4582, subd. (c)). They point also to the Board's enactment of several rules that restrict the harvesting activities that may be conducted in particular types of terrain. We disagree with plaintiffs that either the Legislature's having directed the Board to adopt rules governing the conduct of timber operations or the Board's having adopted such rules, impliedly displaces (any more than it expressly does so) traditional local authority to zone permissible (non-TPZ) locations for timber operations. Surely, [l]ogging, even when conducted according to state regulations, may have some impacts properly addressed by the [local] zoning authority. That the state has sought to reduce and control these same occurrences through general regulation does not preempt local zoning control, any more than the state and federal regulation of industrial air pollution would preclude a local zoning authority from relying on air pollution as a reason for excluding industrial plants from residential districts. ( Big Creek v. San Mateo, supra, 31 Cal.App.4th at p. 427, 37 Cal.Rptr.2d 159.) The Attorney General reached a similar conclusion over 30 years ago, when addressing analogous circumstances. (See County Zoning Ordinances, 52 Ops.Cal. Atty.Gen. 138 (1969).) Asked whether a Marin County zoning ordinance purporting to bar commercial logging, mining, quarrying, and drilling, together with all associated uses, activities and structures, in certain areas of the county ( id. at p. 139) was preempted by general state laws (including forestry laws) governing the zoned activities, the Attorney General concluded it was not. It is true, the Attorney General reasoned, that California has numerous laws regulating each of the activities prohibited by the proposed ordinance. However, these laws do nothing to preclude an otherwise valid zoning ordinance which prohibits extraction of the resource in question. ( Id. at pp. 139-140.) Specifically with respect to the field of commercial logging ( County Zoning Ordinances, supra, 52 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen. at p. 140), the Attorney General in evaluating Marin County's ordinance stated: The Forest Practice Act [then §§ 4521-4618], together with the forest practice rules ... comprehensively regulate forest practices [so as to] occupy the entire field [of forest practices] and local ordinances with respect to such general practices, are invalid due to such preemption.... In our opinion, however, this pre-empted area is not so broad as to invalidate a zoning ordinance which prohibits logging where such prohibition is otherwise reasonable. ( Ibid. ) For similar reasons we conclude that today's general forestry statutes and regulations fall short of indicat[ing] clearly that a paramount state concern will not tolerate further or additional local action ( People ex rel. Deukmejian v. County of Mendocino, supra, 36 Cal.3d at p. 485, 204 Cal.Rptr. 897, 683 P.2d 1150) respecting the location of timber operations.