LosGatosObserver.com

Environment Fri, November 20, 2009

• Santa Cruz Gets First Green Church

  Nov 09, 2009, by Staff Environment

  The United Methodist Church of Santa Cruz broke ground on a new church with a new vision this Saturday in Live Oak. The planned 20,000-square-foot building will be the first “green” church in the county.

• Supes Back Arana Gulch Path

  Nov 04, 2009, by Staff Environment

  Cyclists and environmentalists have been at loggerheads over a proposed new bike path through Arana Gulch. While environmentalists warn that a new path would cause irreparable damage to the threatened Santa Cruz Sunflower (tarplant), cyclists argue that a trail through the site would help them avoid congested streets along the city’s greenbelt.

• Too Much Junk

  Oct 28, 2009, by Traci Hukill Environment

  LAST Saturday, on 350 Day, the International Day of Climate Action, which forward-thinking people everywhere celebrated with carbon-neutral acts of faith in a sunshine-powered future, I was awash in a sea of smelly detritus from the past, flailing around in musty tides of old shoes, T-shirts, plastic Christmas decorations, screws, Tupperware, plastic soap caddies, collectible figurines.

• Car Put on Trial to Mark International Climate Action Day

  Oct 26, 2009, by Staff Environment

  Automobiles may be a convenient way of getting around, but they are one of the greatest sources of greenhouses gas emissions in the world today. That’s why a group of local climate activists decided to put the car—represented by a beat-up old Honda—on trial for all the problems it has caused.

• Breakdown: Carbon Sequestration

  Oct 23, 2009, by Jessica Lussenhop Environment

  As we careen toward a swampy future without ice caps or polar bears, some scientists have put their stake in carbon sequestration—essentially storing atmospheric carbon someplace where it cannot contribute to the greenhouse gas effect or to climate change.

• Interview with Climatologist Dr. Stephen Schneider

  Oct 21, 2009, by Jessica Lussenhop Environment
  

  DR. STEPHEN SCHNEIDER is a climatologist, a senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University and a 1992 MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” recipient. Writer Jessica Lussenhop caught up with him to discuss the 350 concept—which refers to reducing our current carbon dioxide load to the sustainable figure of 350 parts per million—and more.

• Bill McKibben Kicks Off First Annual 350 Day

  Oct 20, 2009, by Gretchen Giles Environment
  

  Some 600 people, many with gray ponytails, fill the auditorium at the Sonoma Country Day School. Their earnest metal water bottles clank as they settle into their seats. A short film plays, featuring ugly potato puppets portraying John and Yoko in bed. Instead of protesting the Vietnam War, the two are protesting climate change.

• Transition Santa Cruz Hosts Reskilling Expo

  Oct 13, 2009, by Rula al-Nasrawi Environment
  

  Coined four years ago at the onset of Britain’s Transition movement, the term “reskilling” refers to learning long-forgotten basic sustainability skills to help reduce energy use and preserve our natural resources. In the words of Michael Levy of Transition Santa Cruz—which, like the British movement, endeavors to prepare for a post-oil economy—“It’s based on the idea that we have lost a lot of our basic skills. All of these skills will be relevant with energy becoming scarcer and more expensive.”

• Elkhorn Slough The Problem Child of Monterey Bay

  Oct 12, 2009, by Curtis Cartier Environment
  

  As the midmorning sun burns off the hazy remnants of fog over Elkhorn Slough, the estuary comes to life in the same way it has for thousands of years. Herons glide low over the top of the chilly water, otters scoop up clams from the floor and each step along the reed-edged hiking path sends an unseen critter scuttling loudly into the brush. A visitor might find it hard to believe that, according to a recent report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this is the most damaged ecosystem in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

• New Bridge to Benefit Steelhead Trout

  Oct 09, 2009, by Staff Environment

  Development has not been kind to the steelhead trout. Once estimated to number more than 25,000 adults, there are now only about 500 who survive the swim from the Pacific Ocean to spawn deep in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

• The Monarch Returns To Santa Cruz

  Oct 07, 2009, by Staff Environment
  

  The skies above Santa Cruz will soon be speckled in orange and black as the monarch butterfly begins migrating southward and westward for the winter.

• Santa Cruz Takes LEED Further

  Oct 02, 2009, by Austin Sardella EnvironmentBusiness
  

  The LEED certification system (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is expanding from single buildings to neighborhoods, and Santa Cruz is in the vanguard. Twenty acres on the western end of Delaware Avenue, dubbed the Delaware Addition, have met approval to become a LEED Neighborhood Development-one of the first 25 in the nation.

• National Parks in Climate Trouble

  Oct 01, 2009, by Rula al-Nasrawi Environment
  

  Picture a world where the Everglades are completely flooded and the Rockies are surrounded by a barren wasteland. All of the glaciers are gone and the grizzly bear is as distant a memory as the stegosaurus. Climate change could make this world a reality, and the nation’s parks could suffer some of the harshest consequences. 

• Environmental Study Completed for Highway 1 Expansion

  Oct 01, 2009, by Staff Environment

  With widening between the Fishhook and Morrissey complete, planners set their sights on the Morrissey-Soquel segment of Highway 1.

• Water Restrictions Having an Impact

  Sep 29, 2009, by Staff Environment

  Santa Cruz water restrictions should be lifted by late October, but that is no assurance that the city will be back to how things once were.

• Unincorporated Communities to Be Held to Environmental Laws

  Sep 29, 2009, by Staff Environment

  As of January 4, the environmental building laws will be extended to all new construction in the county’s unincorporated communities.

• Keeping The Santa Cruz Rail Trail On Track

  Sep 25, 2009, by Rula al-Nasrawi Environment

  People Power gives the Rail Trail some love this Sunday with a cleanup effort.

• USDA Declares County A Drought Disaster Area

  Sep 23, 2009, by Staff Environment

  The U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared Santa Cruz County, as well as 49 other counties, drought disaster areas. As such, local farmers are now eligible for loans to account for weather-inflicted losses.

• Freshwater Wetland Protected from Development

  Sep 22, 2009, by Staff Environment

  Watsonville wetlands come under the protective jurisdiction of the Land Trust of Santa Cruz

• Santa Cruz Volunteers Collect Record Amounts of Trash

  Sep 21, 2009, by Staff Environment

  All around the world, volunteers gathered to clean up beaches and waterways during International Coastal Cleanup Day on Saturday. In Santa Cruz, 3,800 volunteers spread out among 50 sites across the county to pick up the garbage left by others.

• Coastal Cleanup Swims Upstream

  Sep 17, 2009, by Jessica Lussenhop Environment
  

  As Coastal Cleanup Day gears up for its 25th anniversary of beachcombing for cigarette butts and bottles, Save Our Shores marine debris program coordinator Emily Glanville says there’s good news and there’s bad news. “Our beaches are looking pretty good these days,” she says. “We’re seeing less trash being left on the beach. Our data from the summer of 2008 showed quite a bit more.”

• Santa Cruz Cuts Its Carbon Footprint by One-Quarter

  Sep 14, 2009, by Staff Environment

  Santa Cruz’s climate change coordinator Ross Clark announced that the city has succeeded in reducing its carbon footprint by 25 percent since 1996. Emissions are now lower than they were before the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989. Clark attributes the success to an effective recycling program and the introduction of more energy-efficient appliances. The only failing was in transportation, where emissions have actually increased by 13 percent since 1996.

• Coastal Cities Move Cautiously on Bag Ban

  Sep 06, 2009, by Traci Hukill Environment
  

  It’s hard to believe that Rwanda, a nation nearly destroyed by civil war 15 years ago, has it over Santa Cruz in the eco-conscious department, but there it is: it and 18 other developing nations have banned plastic bags. We haven’t.

• Drugs a Fire Hazard in Pogonip

  Sep 04, 2009, by Staff Environment
  

  Pogonip may be popular with people out for a brisk stroll, but anyone who veers off the most popular trails could run into a heroin or coke deal. Chief Ranger John Wallace says that the number of drug deals taking place there is so enormous that people are making their way down to “Heroin Hill” from Silicon Valley. Over 100 drug-related arrests have been made in the area since this past May.

• Santa Cruz Continues to Push Water Conservation

  Aug 26, 2009, by Staff Environment

  With predictions of a wet El Niño winter in the air, Santa Cruz residents are hopeful that the state’s three-year drought may finally be coming to an end.

• Lockheed’s Legacy Worries Santa Cruz Winemakers

  Aug 26, 2009, by Stett Holbrook Environment
  

  For Santa Cruz Mountain winegrowers, the Lockheed fire that burned 7,800 acres of wild lands above Bonny Doon recently came at exactly the wrong time. Of course there’s never a good time for a wildfire, but the grapes in local vineyards are starting to ripen, a developmental stage called veraison, and they’re particularly vulnerable to “smoke taint.”

• Rare Plants Expected to Thrive After Fire

  Aug 20, 2009, by Staff Environment
  

  The California Native Plant Society lists two species of manzanita plants as endangered, but that may soon change, thanks to the Lockheed Fire. The rare “Chalks” and ohloneana manzanitas, whose range is limited to the hills above Davenport, need a fire to pass over them before their seeds can begin to sprout, but the last major fire in the area took place in 1948. Now biologists are expecting dormant seed banks to flourish over the next few weeks.

• Coho, Steelhead Stocks Survive Fire

  Aug 17, 2009, by Staff Environment

  When wildfires strike, people tend to think about the mammals and birds that are threatened.

• Disabled, Elderly Support Arana Gulch Master Plan

  Aug 12, 2009, by Staff Environment

  Representatives of the elderly and disabled communities threw their support behind the Arana Gulch Master Plan, which will allow them access to the 68-acre park.

• Santa Cruz Beaches Closed after Shark Attacks Porpoise

  Aug 12, 2009, by Staff Environment

  Seacliff and New Brighton state beaches were closed yesterday after beachgoers reported seeing a shark eating a porpoise off of Seacliff Beach

• ‘Roadless Rule’ Revived

  Aug 06, 2009, by Traci Hukill Environment
  

  Ding dong! The witch is dead! Environmentalists are whistling a happy tune after yesterday’s federal appeals court decision to reinstate Clinton-era protections of 58 million acres of national wilderness that were repealed during the Bush administration.

• Solar Energy Program Hits a Snag

  Aug 06, 2009, by Staff Environment

  Though Cash for Clunkers may be zooming along, local initiatives to promote green energy alternatives are hitting a standstill because of cost.

• Great Pacific Garbage Patch Target of Researchers

  Aug 04, 2009, by Staff Environment

  Scientists are setting sail for garbage island.

• Santa Cruz Abuzz with Bees

  Aug 03, 2009, by Staff Environment
  

  Researchers have identified as many as 80 native species of bees in Santa Cruz as part of a University of California study of the state’s bee population. There are approximately 4,000 native bee species in the United States, with 1,600—well over a third—in California alone. The study investigated bee species prevalent in seven urban areas statewide, with the focus in Santa Cruz on the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum and the Soquel garden of Kimberly Carter Gamble.

• Californians’ Eco-Zeal on The Wane

  Jul 29, 2009, by Kat Lynch Environment
  

  As the economy dips, so does support among Californians for policies that curb global warming, according to the most recent Public Policy Institute of California survey. While a majority still believe it’s important to reduce greenhouse gases, the survey, Californians and the Environment, indicates that support for AB 32—the 2006 law that requires emissions be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020—has declined seven points since last year. 

• Skimboarders Blamed for Environmental Damage at Corcoran Lagoon

  Jul 17, 2009, by Staff Environment

  Wildlife has been dying at the Corcoran Lagoon, along the Santa Cruz County coastline. According to neighbors, the culprits are skimboarders, who dig trenches from the lagoon to the ocean so that they can ride the waves as the waters rush out of the lagoon.

• Public Opposes Monterey Desalination Plant

  Jul 15, 2009, by Staff Environment

  Monterey City Council was packed yesterday with almost 100 people, most of them opposed to a proposed desalination plant in Moss Landing. Apart from concerns over the $300 million price tag for the facility, opponents cited environmental concerns and a general misgivings about Cal Am as the reasons for their resistance to the project. “Corporations should not be profiting from water,” said Peggy Olsen, a Monterey resident.

• Santa Cruz Cracking Down on Excessive Water Use

  Jul 15, 2009, by Staff Environment
  

  With the city of Santa Cruz preparing to tap into its Loch Lomond reservoir because of a severe water shortage, the “water police” have begun to crack down on people using too much water and violating local restrictions.

• Critics Take Aim at New Strawberry Pesticide

  Jul 14, 2009, by Kat Lynch Environment
  

  If Gov. Schwarzenegger caves to political pressure, a new pesticide called methyl iodide could replace methyl bromide as the primary pest-fighter used by strawberry farmers. This might come as some relief to environmentalists who’ve been pushing the phaseout of the ozone-depleting methyl bromide. But there’s a catch: its would-be replacement is a highly volatile carcinogen, or cancer-causing agent.

• Santa Cruz Farmers Oppose Blanket Restrictions

  Jul 14, 2009, by Staff Environment
  

  There are many ways to protect crops, besides industrial pesticides. According to Ken Kimes, owner of Santa Cruz County’s New Native Farms and a board member of the Community Alliance With Family Farmers, the people who are setting the rules have a lot to learn about that. “They’re used to working inside the factory walls,” he says. “If they’re not prepared for the farm landscape, it can come as quite a shock to them.”

• Vanity Plate Victim of Bad Economy

  Jul 07, 2009, by Staff report Environment
  

  Bay Area nature groups planned on launching a new vanity plate that could raise as much as $1 million a year to support nature preserves. Then the economy tanked.

• Decision Postponed on Coastal Commission Rep

  Jul 02, 2009, by Staff report Environment
  

  Assembly Speaker Karen Bass has postponed her appointment decision for the Central Coast’s representative to the California Coastal Commission and asked for more nominations. Spokeswoman Shannon Murphy told the Santa Cruz Sentinel that although Bass is not unhappy with the current nominees, “the speaker’s been consumed with budget negotiations.” Bass’s office would not comment on why she had not renewed incumbent Dave Potter’s appointment.

• Big Creek Lumber Seeks Special Consideration in Salmon Rules

  Jun 19, 2009, by Alastair Bland Environment
  

  There was surely a time when the last thing an aspiring forester ever thought he or she would be concerned with was protecting fish. Now, it seems, tiptoeing around salmon and steelhead is as natural a part of life for loggers in northern California as poison oak, and the laws that guard the state’s threatened salmonids might be about to get tougher.

• Santa Cruz Group Gears Up for Life After Cheap Oil

  Jun 18, 2009, by Alastair Bland Environment
  

  In late May, a small grassroots organization called Transition Santa Cruz convened for an evening meeting at the police station on Center Street. The subject of the hour was how the community could bolster Santa Cruz’s public transportation system and steer residents away from sprawl and dependency on cars for every outing and errand. Led in part by Micah Posner, director of the cycling advocacy group People Power, the discussion quickly veered into a debate over whether or not high-density housing would facilitate a public rail system or do the opposite and lead to more cars on the streets.

• Mercury Found in Coastal Groundwater

  Jun 08, 2009, by Curtis Cartier Environment
  

  Scientists at UCSC have discovered high levels of an ultra-toxic form of mercury in the groundwater of two coastal sites in California. The groundwater flows, they say, show a previously unknown source for what have been mysteriously high levels of mercury recently found in marine environments and in seafood.

• Compostable Diaper Service Comes to Santa Cruz

  Jun 04, 2009, by Jessica Lussenhop Environment

  All parents know that their little bundles of joy deposit big bundles of . . . undesirable material in their adorable little pants multiple times a day. Santa Cruz parent Karen Nelsen and her friends knew that firsthand.

• Santa Cruz Ponders Alternative Energy Tax District

  Jun 01, 2009, by Curtis Cartier Environment
  

  Santa Cruz City Councilmember Mike Rotkin spent $63,000 to outfit his house with solar panels. Using the equity in his home and good credit, he easily qualified for a loan from Santa Cruz Community Credit Union and expects to have it paid off in seven years. Considering his savings in energy costs, Rotkin calls investing in solar energy “a no-brainer.” But not everyone has the kind of home equity and credit that qualified the politician and UCSC lecturer for a solar loan.

• E. coli Count Soars in Local Waterways

  May 27, 2009, by Alastair Bland Environment

  The results from the Coastal Watershed Council’s Snapshot Day are in, and it’s not a pretty picture.

• Zipping Through the Redwoods

  May 26, 2009, by Jessica Lussenhop Environment
  

  Falling out of a tree is not as easy as it sounds. Not if all that’s keeping you from a faceful of fiddleheads some 40 feet below is a thin cable. “This one is like the bunny slope,” our canopy tour guide, Steve Richards, assures us. “Enjoy the zip.” And then he tips off the edge of the wooden platform built treehouse-style around the trunk of a living redwood tree and whizzes across a 158-foot zipline, his shadow dancing along just behind him in the sunlit brush below.

• Poisons Found in Birds of Prey

  May 19, 2009, by Curtis Cartier Environment
  

  Walk in any direction in Santa Cruz and chances are you’ll come across a box of rat poison before long. The small, plastic cartons look like overgrown Roach Motels and are usually found near trashcans and alleyways, pressed flush against a wall. Inside are any of a number of toxic concoctions. The worst contain anti-coagulant chemicals that, once ingested by a rodent, cause internal bleeding and eventual death. What’s less known about these deadly rodenticides is that they are potentially lethal to other animals, especially birds of prey, for which rats and mice are a steady meal.

• Group Scrutinizes Santa Cruz Commuter Habits

  May 12, 2009, by Michelle Camerlingo Environment
  

  In the near future Santa Cruz city officials will start pedaling to work, downtown merchants will hop on the bus and busboys will carpool if the Campaign for Sensible Transportation has its way.

• Scientists Debate Strategy at Elkhorn

  May 04, 2009, by Alastair Bland Environment
  

  The wetland system of Elkhorn Slough has undergone dramatic change for decades, but now a group of local scientists and conservationists is revving up a restoration project aimed at reversing many of these alterations and letting one of California’s largest marshlands revert back to the ecosystem it once was. However, no one quite knows what Elkhorn Slough’s truly “natural” state ever really was, and activists are at odds over precisely what treatments the slough really needs, if any at all.