Environmental Committee

Winter 2007

Latest Environmental Committee Brochure:  NonPoint Source Pollution

Filled with information, with an eye-catching design, our long-planned NonPoint Source Pollution brochure is now a reality, thanks to our very talented Environmental Committee member, Tai Stills, who designed and led the production of this new brochure!  The SLV Water District provided funding for the production and first 5,000 copies through their Education Grant Program, for which we are very grateful!  Copies have been mailed to local businesses and made available through businesses, churches and libraries.  We are seeking funding for additional copies so they can be mailed to each resident in the SLV!  Call for more copies (338-1728).

Click here for a .pdf version



Green Solutions Workshop Set for February 9, 2008

Save Saturday, February 9, 2-4 pm for the second annual Green Solutions Workshop! You will have the opportunity to hear expert advice on preventing polluted runoff and household contamination from your pets and livestock, your cars and septics, and how to be clean and sanitary by making your own cleaners or making wise choices in purchasing home and garden care products. Green Solutions eco-alchemist, Stephanie Sakasai, will present her class in producing personal and household care products (and much more); Tai Stills will present ideas for alternatives to toxic products for home and garden (samples available!); representatives from Ecology Action will bring real world solutions to pet and livestock waste and dealing with your vehicles. You’ll have real solutions to real problems for every day non-toxic living — to assure your family and environment a healthy future. (Site to be announced; probably Felton Community Hall or Highlands Park Senior Center.)

Dates for Roadside
Clean-up Set!
By Alexis Krostue

Another year is approaching, and it’s time to put the following dates on your calendar for 2008… February 3, May 4, August 3, and November 2.  On those Sunday mornings, you are invited to participate in the VWC’s quarterly Roadside Clean-up!  There are two areas we focus on, two one-mile sections of Hwy 9 (through Ben Lomond and Felton), and a section of Big Basin Way outside of Boulder Creek.

To help with the Big Basin section, contact Joan Barton at 338-0721.  To help with Highway 9, contact Alexis Krostue at 212-2706. It’s fun and rewarding – you can really make a difference!

Photo: River & Road Clean-up ‘champs,’ smiling after a hard day’s work, include Dad, George Marro, SLVMS Teacher Matt O’Brien, 6th graders Matthew Marro and Celia Hare, and Dad Joe Hare. Keep helping the River; join the quarterly “Roadside Clean-ups!”

Field Trip to Recycling Center For Preschool Environment Class
Plans Being Made for Field Trips in 2008

The final meeting of the Preschool Introduction to the Environment Class (sponsored and funded by the VWC’s Environmental Committee) took place Monday, November 19, at the Ben Lomond Transfer Station, where the children and their parents took a tour of the busy recycling center. The tour included a look at the large storage bins, piles of scrap metal and batteries, giant cages of aluminum and plastic, and the chance to first see a forklift in action, and then to sit in the forklift and have a photo taken. Adults were given the brochure on NonPoint Source Pollution to take home, and were praised for their awareness of issues that pertain so directly to the long-term health of our planet, their children’s home.

The series of classes were the inspiration of Boulder Creek resident, Dusty Gipson (Environmental  Committee member and mother of two daughters). They took place monthly at the Boulder Creek Recreation Hall and were a big hit with the children and their parents. Each month, starting in February, children were introduced to an environmental concept and made a fun craft illustrating the idea. They learned about California native plants (and planted some in big pots, decorating the Rec Hall play yard), pollution (made an egg carton bus), alternative energy (made pinwheels), wildlife and habitat (made bird nests) and much more. Parents loved the class and raved about it on the BC Family Network. “Dusty did a brilliant job of making important issues comprehensible to young minds and the children had a lot of fun,” according to Environmental Committee Chair, Nancy Macy.

Next year Dusty plans to take the group on a series of local fieldtrips to experience environmental issues up close and personal.  A water treatment plant is among the list of places being visited.  For information about the free class, contact Dusty at 818-5703.

Environmental Notes. . .

ASB Close-the-Loop, a new program at SLVHS, will be distributing recycled binder paper (30% Post-Consumer-Waste) to ten participating classrooms. The program's goals are to reduce the waste of paper in student uses, and increase the use of recycled paper as well as the practice of reuse of materials such as binders.

Elizabeth Franck, the SLVHS Senior who started the Close-the-Loop project, hopes that students will use only the paper they need as opposed to using spiral notebooks where they would have left over and wasted paper. Through the Close-the-Loop program this waste can be avoided. There was be a booth at Back to School Night (Sep. 20) where those interested could donate a case of recycled paper for $53.90 or donate a ream for $5.39. One case provides 10 students with enough paper for a semester. One ream provides for one student. The VWC Environmental Committee has donated to the Program, and you are encouraged to support it as well. Donations can be mailed to the address listed below to support the program.
        ASB Close-the-Loop
        SLV High School
        7105 Highway 9
        Felton, CA 95018

Rainwater Harvesting
From Plants & Gardens by Robin Simmen

Homeowners can play a key role in conserving freshwater by harvesting rainwater for use in gardens and landscaping. In addition to reducing demand on our water supplies—especially important during drought and summer, when 40 percent of all water is used outdoors--rainwater harvestin prevents rain from becoming erosive or polluted runoff and puts it to use where it falls.

To read the full article and learn how to design a rainwater collection system, click here.

Global Warming Steps We Can Take
Along with pressuring Congress and California’s legislature to pass meaningful and effective legislation, there are many lists delineating actions an individual can take to have a positive effect on climate change and here is one of the best:
http://www.earthday.net/ClimateChangeSolutionsatHome.pdf

Chapparel and Fire
PHILIP W. RUNDEL, UCLA Professor of Biology, wrote a letter to the Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle Newspaper saying, “In regard to the recent southern California fires, chaparral - not forests - cover most of our landscape, and constitute 95 percent of what burned. . . . (and) fuel reduction cannot be about producing fireproof chaparral landscapes; that is impossible. We need to make better decisions about building in fire-prone areas. Local, state and federal governments must prioritize fire management dollars for the wildland/urban interface where people live, and not in remote areas where there is no threat to human life.

To use the recent chaparral fires as a justification for promoting logging in forests is disingenuous at best. Mr. Schiff's approach seems to be based on supporting the timber industry rather than on sound science, good land management practices, or community safety. Logging of large, older and fire-resistant trees increases fire danger rather than reducing it. Mr. Schiff's rhetoric detracts from the real problems, which are tied to local land planning and development patterns. We need to understand that wildfire is a natural and unpredictable feature of living in California, stop the blame game, and start to plan appropriately.”

Since a significant part of the San Lorenzo Valley is chaparral, this is important information to consider.


New Study Indicates that Preventing Pollution Better Than Cleaning It Up
A new study released by the National Academy of Sciences has concluded that it makes more sense to try to prevent pollution than to clean it up afterward. The study, which compared two of the world's biggest polluters, the U.S. and China, found that the economic costs of air pollution were high, resulting in premature death, decreased productivity and lower crop yields. Reducing emissions on the other hand can provide significant economic benefits, according to the study. (Need we say, “DUH!!”??)

New American Dream Organization Urges Commitment to Stop Using Bottled Water
Americans consumed more than 31 billion liters of bottled water in 2006 – nearly 28 gallons for every man, woman, and child. Manufacturing all those bottles required 900,000 tons of plastic and emitted as much greenhouse gas as 500,000 cars! Trucking a bottle of water 500 miles can double its climate impact – and most are shipped much, much farther. So, you are invited to:

1. Take the pledge to avoid bottled water for a month at http://c3.newdream.org. 

2. Find yourself a nontoxic, reusable water bottle and, if your local water quality requires it (most don't - in fact, up to 40% of bottled water is simply repackaged tap water), a water filter at http://www.newdream.org/consumer/water.php.

And, 3. Invite friends to join in the carbon-cutting. Use our tell-a-friend tool after you pledge, then get creative. You can also download promotional tools at here and email us with your creative idea for inspiring others (50 words or less please). Thanks for all you do to establish daily habits that cut carbon and thanks for showing the world that big changes start with small steps!

Books You’ll Enjoy on Old Growth Trees and Mountain Lions
By Sean Wharton

I recently had the pleasure of reading two books that I highly recommend. The Wild Trees by Richard Preston talks in great depth on the adventures of the men and women who recently investigated the canopy of giant redwoods in Northern California, and also the tall giant firs in southern Oregon. They have discovered the tallest existing trees found so far, and they also discovered the here-to-for little known world of the high canopy, a whole separate ecosphere with all kinds of unique life forms. It is a fascinating read.

The Beast in the Garden, by David Baron, looks at the mountain lion problems of the Boulder/Golden/Denver, Colorado area as they developed across time. An intrepid pair of local biologists logs all incidents of deer/cougar and tries to get the state's fish and game department to be more concerned about the ever increasing problem of cat/human inter-relationship. This is a "must read" for people with deer and/or mountain lion in their yard/neighborhood, which means everyone in the San Lorenzo Valley!

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