They gathered at two locations, Hooker Oak Park and the Annie K. Bidwell Parlor. From there they were sent to creeks throughout the city and picked up the trash they saw.
The public event will be 9 a.m. Saturday in lower Bidwell Park. Volunteers from Chico State, Butte Environmental Council and PG&E will be planting 60 valley oaks and red buds. Meet at Sycamore Street and Woodland Avenue.
Gustafson said the city has committed to providing certain resources to make it work. That includes identifying the locations to plant the acorns and providing the signage or cages that will protect them. The idea is to find spots where the future trees will flourish naturally, he said. The other key to the project is having a stable of volunteers affiliated with CTA and BEC (the latter organization has a similar, ongoing program to replenish the oak stock in Upper Park) to provide the manpower to plant the acorns.
In preparation, the city is starting to remove existing debris, including many of the fallen trees that dot the landscape. At last count, between 40 and 50 large trees have come down in Lower and Middle Park in the last year or so, Gustafson said. Crews will begin along South Park Drive and Petersen Memorial Way and then will head toward Woodland and Vallombrosa avenues.
From an acorn-planting program to a new fee, urban forest manager Richie Bamlet is moving forward with ideas on how to help Chico’s urban forest, which has suffered because of its age and lack of replacement trees, not to mention the city’s budget issues.
For several years, the Butte Environmental Council has been conducting a oak regeneration program in upper Bidwell Park, he noted.
The Chico Green New Deal was release: to make sure the city of Chico's grid is 100% clean, electricity-run by 2030 and to be climate neutral by the year 2045, with the intentions of reaching both of those goals earlier…actions will be taken to achieve these efforts by the end of 2026.
While the New Deal doesn't do everything that Brown wants it to do for tenants specifically, a listening session making the connection between housing and climate change on Wednesday at the Butte County Oak center hosted by the Butte Environmental Council.