When Linda Wallace, a manager for a telecommunications company, goes home at night she doesn't look forward to poring over the fine print of a complicated legislative bill. But that's just what she and a group of her neighbors in the Summit Road/Highway 17 area have been doing for the past month.
AB 904 (Chesbro), a timber bill being considered by the state legislature, is of great concern to these mountain residents. They fear that if AB 904 becomes state law, it will clear the way for a contentious logging plan -- which CalFire rejected in 2007 -- to go forward again.
Santa Clara, San Mateo and Santa Cruz Counties' redwood forests, known as the Southern Subdistrict, are highly valued for their timber, wildlife habitat and carbon sequestration -- but also as places for people to live and enjoy the outdoors. Many mountain communities and the entire county of Santa Cruz also depend upon forested watersheds for their drinking water. But a bill in the California Legislature would remove critical protections that counties in this region have relied on for decades.
With water conservation becoming a hot topic in this dry year, local residents are flocking to free "laundry-to-landscape" workshops to learn how they can harness their washing machines to water their gardens.
We seem to be deluged with news lately about the dwindling water supply here in Santa Cruz County. Most has centered on ways to address the problem, especially the controversial proposed desalination plant vs. the need for more conservation. What's not at issue is that increasing water shortages are due to increased demand, longer dry spells, and the need to leave more water in the streams for native fish, especially endangered coho salmon.
What often seems left out of the conversation is just how precious our existing water supply is.
When the San Lorenzo Valley Water District initiated its watershed education grant program in 2003, it was not without controversy. Was it appropriate for a public agency to use public funds for watershed education?
San Lorenzo Valley Water District is preparing to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars from its redwood forested watershed lands -- without cutting a single tree.
By conducting a rigorous inventory of the vast amounts of carbon stored in its forests, the district can qualify to sell carbon credits through the California Cap and Trade Program, a key piece of the state's Global Warming Solutions Act, also known as AB32.
"As the nation develops greater awareness of fracking technology, we have growing concerns about what's pumped into the ground, how it impacts water supplies, and how it undercuts our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," said county Supervisor John Leopold. "Add secrecy to the mix, and we have a real need for reasonable and effective regulation."
Ecologist Kerry Kriger -- founder and director of the nonprofit Save the Frogs! -- is leading an international campaign to reverse the unprecedented and worldwide decline of frogs and other amphibians including toads, newts and salamanders.
"Frogs and other amphibians are the most threatened group of animals on the planet," said Kriger, who believes the trend can be reversed if people get involved and take action.
I returned last weekend from a memorable three-week tour of Peru, including a visit to Machu Picchu. With nearly 1 million visitors a year, Machu Picchu, an ancient Incan city nestled high in the cliffs of the Peruvian Andes, is one of the most acclaimed archeological sites in the world. Its sophisticated stone masonry and agriculture terraces are truly a sight to behold ... so much so that Machu Picchu is now listed by the World Monuments Fund as one of the world's 100 most endangered sites. Will all these visitors love Machu Picchu to death?
A recent study by Stanford researchers concluded that organic food is probably no more nutritious than conventional food. This claim generated a nationwide controversy, with many saying the study missed the point.
"The whole point of organic food is that it's more environmentally sustainable," said Michael Pollan, the influential author and organic food advocate. "The reason organic is important has a lot more to do with how the soil is managed and the exposure to pesticides, not just in the eater's diet, but to the farmworker."
Not driving solo to work ... we've all heard about it, and maybe considered it, but increasing numbers of folks are actually doing it.
For a few devotees like Detlef Adam, Bike-to-Work Day is every day. For nine years, Adam, an electrician with the San Lorenzo Valley Water District, has commuted on his bicycle from his home in Santa Cruz to his job in Boulder Creek.
The only way to get to Dan and Pat Miller’s house in Aptos is to walk across a 3-ft wide wooden bridge spanning the steep canyon above Mangels Creek. As I cross the bridge, I feel like I’m walking back in time into a fairy tale. The Millers’ house, built in 1931, is dwarfed by the five giant old redwood trees that encircle it.
What recreational activities would you like to see at the 335-acre Loch Lomond Recreation Area in the Santa Cruz Mountains? The City of Santa Cruz Water Department, which manages the area, is seeking public input at a Community Meeting on May 30. “We are seeking different viewpoints about recreation use at Loch Lomond from the whole community,” said Lydia Tolles, a water department management analyst.
It’s not all gloom and doom for the Pacific Coast salmon, whose plight has become a crisis. More than 650 scientists, students, land managers and policymakers attended the 30th annual Salmonid Restoration Conference in Davis April 4 -7 to share their work and ideas about restoring watersheds to bring back the salmon (www.calsalmon.org).
“People are amazed when they find out how much rainwater they can capture from their roof tops,” said Landscape Architect Bobby Markowitz at a March 15 presentation at the Museum of Art and History in Santa Cruz. A house with a 2,000 square-foot roof can capture 29,900 gallons of water during an average rain year (24 inches). That’s more than a third of the annual water consumed by a typical household (average 226 gallons per day), according to the City of Santa Cruz Water Department website.
It’s hard to imagine that the iconic coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) could be vulnerable to extinction. After all, redwoods have demonstrated legendary resilience to some fairly severe onslaughts. Even after massive clear-cutting, redwood forests have rebounded--as they have over the past century in the Santa Cruz Mountains--with a force reminiscent of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Redwoods are also renowned for their resistance to both fire and disease.
Did you know that the world’s forests, including California’s coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) are helping in a big way to combat climate change? As forests grow, they pull vast amounts of carbon out of the air and store it within their enormous biomass. Forests cover about 30 percent of the earth’s surface, so climate change scientists are looking at the forests with renewed interest to help solve the world’s carbon problem.
On Dec. 16, Peninsula Open Space Trust [POST] and Sempervirens Fund became the official owners of the 8,532-acre property known as Cemex Redwoods, the largest expanse of unprotected redwood forest in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The $30 million purchase from Cemex, the largest producer of cement in North America, was jointly announced Dec. 8 by the five conservation groups partnering in the deal [POST, Sempervirens Fund, the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County, LTSCC, Save the Redwoods League and the Nature Conservancy].
Two Sundays ago, I set out for the 10th annual Green Festival at the San Francisco Concourse Exhibition Center. Billed as “the nation’s premier sustainability event,” the Green Festival is an extravaganza of organic food, green building, urban farming, solar energy, green jobs, electric cars, and sustainable clothing.
