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Residents asked the city to remove 25 sycamores of different varieties, but considered a nuisance and safety hazard.

Commissioner Mark Herrera asked the commission to use this situation as a stand to call for an urban forester to be hired by the city. His motion called for no further discussion of tree-related items until an urban forester was on staff. It has been over a year since the city had an urban forester.

While Herrera's motion failed, it prompted the Park Commission's discussion about how important the urban forester is to the city, tree-related permits and what's happening to Chico's urban forest. To punctuate his stance, Herrera left the council chambers at that point. Before leaving, he apologized to the applying residents for delaying their matter, but stressed the urban forest's significance to the community.

CHICO >> For Lynsey and Jimmie Pratt, getting married in the Humboldt Community Garden was almost like getting married in their back yard. The garden is where they spend a lot of their time, share tasks they love and hang out with friends. When they thought about the perfect place to dive into the next stage of their lives, the garden made perfect sense. A community garden is a shared piece of land, where each person gets a small plot. In this case, the garden is run by the Butte Environmental Council. Gardeners pay a small fee to cover the water bill.

As far as the couple knows, they are the second to get hitched at the Humboldt Community Garden. The other couple had a very private affair.

It towers to the treetops, collapsing onto itself to create grassy caves. Dense and aggressive, it chokes out vegetation and clogs the waterways. Arundo donax has plagued parts of Chico for years but its established concentration in Little Chico Creek has reached a crisis point, critics say. Now, the city is partnering with the state Department of Water Resources and the geography department at Chico State University to do something about it, although tackling the invasive weed to the point of eradication will take years.

The reasoning for its eradication is both environmental and also because of its immense fire danger. Walking through a stretch of Little Chico Creek this week, Chico State professor Mark Stemen ducked under the thick canopy and used caution as he walked on slick carpets of the snapped-off reed.

He noted where homeless people have made sleeping spaces under Arundo canopies. Fire pits stand out charred and black in the middle of the caves.

CHICO >> Four liquid amber trees removed from the parking lot of the Rite-Aid on Mangrove Avenue must be replaced with new trees, and shouldn't have been removed without an approved replanting program, a city official said Tuesday

After some discussion about what trees were in the public right of way and private property, the city said the city's trees could not be and were not removed, but those on private property were.

Mark Stemen, a board member with the Butte Environmental Council, was happy to hear trees would be replanted but said they cannot make up for the established trees that were lost. "Once again this is the trouble you get when you don't have the urban forester position filled," he said. "Four individuals were massacred because of short staffing ... It's not just cops, cops, cops. We have holes in our city staff around the issue of the environment."

CHICO — Frustrated by the city's lack of action to pull the Sustainability Task Force together, members plan to set a meeting of their own. It's been nearly nine months since the Sustainability Committee was disbanded by the City Council, and even though new members were selected Sept. 4, they still wait to be seated and have their first meeting. The delay is largely because the city has not yet identified staff to attend the meeting, after the assigned person was among positions eliminated in recent layoffs. Meanwhile, the Climate Action Plan's 2020 deadline looms closer and several new task force members are impatient to start their work.

Mark Stemen, one of seven citizens assigned to the task force, said Friday that he plans to call a meeting himself, hopefully next week. "Other people get mad, we get moving," he said. "We're tired of this. We are going to meet and the city can catch up with us." The meeting's focus will be to elect a chairperson, assign someone to take minutes, review the task laid out by the City Council and outline what needs to be done, Stemen said. "Hopefully by then, the city will be embarrassed enough they will find someone to come take notes for us," he said.

One of the first items will be a public hearing for an appeal of the Bidwell Park and Playground's decision to approve the removal and replanting of 25 trees on Mission Ranch Boulevard and Holly Avenue. Butte Environmental Council is appealing the permit approval, which stemmed from a request by the Mission Santa Fe Community of Homeowners and its 47 encompassing households.

Butte Environmental Council is appealing on the basis that the project has undergone "inadequate environmental review because the cumulative effects on the urban forest have not been discussed."

CHICO >> Twenty-five trees are scheduled for removal, after the Chico City Council upheld a decision by the Bidwell Park & Playground Commission on Tuesday. Councilors voted 5-2 with Tami Ritter and Scott Gruendl dissenting to uphold the granting of a permit to remove 25 Yarwood sycamore trees and replace them with varieties that are better suited for the area. The Butte Environmental Council had appealed the permit approval, which stemmed from a request by the Mission Santa Fe Community of Homeowners and its 47 encompassing households.

Butte Environmental Council appealed on the basis that the project has undergone "inadequate environmental review because the cumulative effects on the urban forest have not been discussed." "If we compartmentalize tree discussions without first addressing overall impacts we are doing the community and the urban forest a disservice," Commissioner Mark Herrera told the council Tuesday.

In addition, the Butte Environmental Council is asking for permission for an oak planting project in upper park. The four-year plan calls for the planting of oaks, the engagement of community and protection for previously planned oak trees. BEC has acquired the funding to make the project possible.

If you've driven by Oak Way Park this summer or last spring, it's hard to miss something new. Neatly divided plots of land have sprung to life at the corner of Nord and West Eighth Avenues. The land is the second community garden organized through the Butte Environmental Council, http://www.becnet.org Some of the growers are people who were on the waiting list for BEC's community garden on Humboldt Avenue. Now that things have sprung up, BEC will host a potluck party at Oak Way Park Tuesday night, 5-7 p.m.

"Our agreement with the city is that we can do the community garden on the property until it is needed for something else," explained Robyn DiFalco, BEC executive director.

BEC has also partnered with Independent Living Services of Northern California. The plan is to build raised beds that will be accessible by people who have mobility limitation.

There's a plan for water transfers could move up to 511,000 acre-feet of water each year for the next 10 years from the Sacramento Valley to the San Joaquin Valley and the Bay Area.

The Bureau of Reclamation received a very clear message Tuesday night that people in the Sacramento Valley don't like that.

More than 100 people attended Tuesday's meeting in Chico.

Best cleansing of the creeks BEC’s Big Chico Creek Cleanup The sheer amount of garbage pulled out of Chico’s waterways during the cleanup on Sept. 20 was mind-boggling (nearly 20 tons!), and we’re thankful an organization like the Butte Environmental Council was around to organize it. We’re also thankful that so many community members (nearly 450!) volunteered to help the cause. The effort has never been more important, because our creeks were more littered with trash than ever before. (This year’s haul almost doubled the previous record.) And trash littering the banks of our creeks is more than gross and unattractive; our refuse floats downstream, harming aquatic habitats in the Sacramento River and eventually the Pacific Ocean. So, cheers to BEC and the volunteers who diverted that stuff to the landfill. The community and its waterways are much better for it.

Cynthia Gailey identifies herself first and foremost as an environmentalist, and she’s fully aware that homeless encampments have contributed heavily to the trashing of Chico’s waterways. The degradation, she says, is appalling.

Still, it’s not as if the camps’ inhabitants have access to household comforts such as toilets, showers, laundry machines or garbage pick-up, Gailey says. As the coordinator for Safe Space, the seasonal, cold-weather homeless shelter hosted at rotating locations, she argues that the solution is providing unsheltered people with adequate facilities and services, not creating new laws that only “further criminalize homelessness.”

The environmental impacts are serious. Last year, Butte Environmental Council’s annual Bidwell Park & Chico Creeks Cleanup—which aims to remove litter from the waterways before rain washes it downstream—pulled an estimated 30 tons of garbage from the creeks. It was a record amount of trash, far surpassing the previous high of 23,000 pounds in 2002. (BEC has tracked the trash haul since 1987.)

Stating opposition to the project or the EIR’s adequacy were representatives of Butte Environmental Council, AltaCal Audubon Society and recognized environmental advocates such as Stemen and John Merz, the latter of whom suggested lower-income housing be brought into the mix. Many, such as Natalie Carter of BEC, encouraged the city to delay the project and require more studies on the project’s impact, including the protected species and property hydrology.

Bamlet said that the Butte Environmental Council has a grant that will let it plant roughly 100 trees this fall, so he’s waiting until those get in the ground before moving forward with the city’s batch.

With buckets, gloves and trash pickers in hand, hundreds of volunteers set out to accomplish one task on Saturday

Butte Environmental Council to hold the Chico Bike Music Festival on June 8

Other volunteer organizations like Friends of Comanche Creek, Friends of Bidwell Park, Chico Vello Trail Works, Butte Environmental Council, and other people who work with PALS will also be at the orientation to explain how people can get involved with their groups as well.

Butte County is working with other water leaders in the county toward the state-mandated Sustainable Groundwater Management planning effort, http://www.water.ca.gov/groundwater/sgm. This involves agencies that manage water creating plans that maintain water supply and water quality.

So far, several water agencies that provide surface water within the county have attended meetings, with a goal of identifying who will govern which areas of the groundwater basins. Mapping out jurisdictions needs to be finished by June of next year.

What will happen with private pumpers in Butte County is still up for discussion. At a recent GSA meeting, Carol Perkins from the Butte Environmental Council, told the Enterprise-Record that her groups hoped private pumpers would be given an active role.

Scott Grist, who manages the event, believes in sustainability and uses this event to bring awareness to conscious thinking about environmental needs. “We’re opening people up to the idea that we can use less fossil fuels and have a whole day live music festival powered by human effort,” Grist said. The event is ran by volunteers giving in various ways including audience members signing up and powering the sound and instruments by pedaling stationary bicycles.

The festival uses a mobile sound stage powered by bicycles connected to a generator. All performances are free. The idea is to promote sustainable transportation and less dependence on fossil fuels, while promoting talented local musicians.