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rdifalco

Chico News & Review - Cinderella and other holiday goodness - The GreenHouse - Green - ... - 0 views

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BEC trees chico

shared by rdifalco on 20 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Along the thank-you lines, Butte Environmental Council board chairman Mark Stemen offers these words, in reference to BEC’s recently dropping its appeal to save the historic valley oak tree and other trees at the corner of West Eighth and Salem streets. The trees are slated for removal to make way for the building of Salvation Army transitional housing (as covered in this column and in a recent CN&R Downstroke news brief). “I want to thank the folks at the Salvation Army and the Blitz Build program at the university. They have worked with us at BEC, and they are fully committed to doing the right thing,” Stemen wrote in a recent email to me. “They have agreed to plant three times the number of trees they are required to plant by code.
  • “The tree species will be of the valley oak mixed-riparian vegetation type, as identified in the [city of Chico’s draft of the] Urban Forest Management Plan, and they have agreed to put the fallen trees to a use that is ‘as beneficial to the City and planet as possible,’ also called for in the Urban Forest Plan.” Thanks, Mark!
rdifalco

Chico News & Review - Constant cleanup - Feature Story - Local Stories - April 17, 2014 - 0 views

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BEC chico cleanup water parks creeks

shared by rdifalco on 17 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • The byproducts of homeless encampments—mattresses, tents, sleeping bags, food packaging, empty bottles, clothing and human waste—are increasingly common along Chico’s creeks, and the mess is more than unsightly. Many items at these makeshift homes have the potential to pollute the local waterways and habitats downstream.
  • Members of volunteer cleanup crews, park officials and environmental advocates agree that the problem is worse than ever. They also acknowledge that, in light of the city’s ongoing financial difficulties, the ability to clean up the camps in a timely manner has diminished significantly.
  • Robyn DiFalco, executive director of the Butte Environmental Council, said that in the months leading up to the Bidwell Park and Chico Creeks Cleanup last September, there was a dramatic increase in homeless encampments throughout Chico, and despite a lower than expected volunteer turnout, the cleanup removed about twice as much trash from the creeks as the year before.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • “Things reached a level that no one could remember,” she said. “It was worse than it had ever been. We saw so many more mattresses, so many more tires, so many of those big, bulky items.”
  • Since last fall’s cleanup, DiFalco said, she has been encouraged by ongoing discussions between city and county organizations about how to stay on top of the issue. Some locals, including a group of neighbors along Lindo Channel, have organized cleanup efforts of their own, while student volunteers from Chico State and Butte College have also proved helpful.
  • Volunteers also described certain areas with such high concentrations of fecal matter and urine that “they required a hazmat cleanup,” DiFalco said. “When humans use our waterways as a bathroom, it has an impact on water quality; it has an effect on aquatic wildlife as well as terrestrial and amphibian wildlife.”
  • Mark Gailey, a Chicoan who has volunteered for BEC’s cleanup efforts for nearly 25 years, said in an email that the amount of trash in Chico’s waterways “has seemed to grow exponentially—especially in the last few years. The vast majority of this trash … appears to be from abandoned homeless and transient encampments.”
  • “You’re never going to solve it, but you do need to keep responding to it so it doesn’t get out of control,” she said. “The city shouldn’t be expected to do it on their own, nor should volunteers or nonprofits.”
  • rdifalco on 17 Apr 14
     
    The community's efforts to keep waterways unpolluted is more important than ever
rdifalco

Chico News & Review - An ill-conceived legacy project - Guest Comment - Opinions - July... - 0 views

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BEC water peripheral canal Twin Tunnels BDCP

shared by rdifalco on 14 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • The northern Sacramento Valley faces a serious threat. Gov. Jerry Brown continues to push his twin tunnels project, under the guise of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. The plan proposes a pair of massive tunnels with design capacity sufficient to drain the Sacramento River in a dry year.
  • As Butte Environmental Council’s (BEC) water policy analyst representing North State communities, I reviewed and analyzed more than 40,000 pages of the plan’s description and environmental review documents. An increased, uncompromised water supply for south of Delta interests is the desire. Big Ag and Big Oil will get more water, you get the bill.
  • Proponents failed to disclose the true source of water (the Sacramento Valley), but water transfers are written all over this plan. In fact, 34 separate documents reference water transfers. Proponents failed to acknowledge the potential for environmental and social impacts to the areas of origin, but removing up to 1 million acre-feet of water surely would have significant impacts. And, proponents failed to disclose the amount of groundwater that will increase water flow through the tunnels.
rdifalco

City of Chico, Butte Environmental Council to partner on weed eradication grant - 1 views

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BEC chico city council arundo Little Chico Creek watershed

shared by rdifalco on 22 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Butte Environmental Council representative Mark Stemen shows areas of invasive Arundo donax growth along Little Chico Creek near Humboldt Park in October. Stemen, along with other citizens and city officials, are championing a plan for removal because of major fire danger risk and environmental damage.
  • Chico >> The city of Chico is rallying with Butte Environmental Council to eradicate an invasive weed clogging Little Chico Creek.On Tuesday, the Chico City Council will be asked to approve a joint application for a $1 million Urban Streams Restoration grant to eradicate arundo donax in the creek.
  • “We believe that when the city has to take a step back, the community can take a step forward,” said Mark Stemen of Butte Environmental Council, which will help spearhead the eradication effort. “We pointed out the problem. We also wanted to be part of the solution.”A class of his students at Chico State University mapped Little Chico Creek last fall, noting every location of arundo, invasive species and habitat that will need to be preserved.
rdifalco

'Block party' cleanup of Little Chico Creek set for Saturday morning - 0 views

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BEC chico water cleanup creek

shared by rdifalco on 06 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • A clean-up of Little Chico Creek from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday is being touted as a “block party with a purpose.”After gathering near the windchime sculpture at the park on Humboldt Avenue near Willow Street, volunteers and community members will remove garbage from the creek and park, according to an event flier. Invasive weeds will also be cleared.Volunteers are asked to wear closed-toe shoes, long pants and long-sleeve shirts and to bring gloves and a reusable water bottle, if available. Organizers will provide tools, waste bins and water. They will also provide lunch and lemonade to volunteers. The event is sponsored by the city of Chico, Butte Environmental Council, Waste Management and the Mount Lassen Chapter of the California Native Plant Society.
becnews

Chico News & Review - Creekside crackdown - News - Local Stories - September 10, 2015 - 0 views

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BEC Chico Butte County Community Chico Creeks Cleanup

shared by becnews on 29 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • 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.)
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • This year is shaping up about the same, based on accounts of volunteers who have worked in the waterways ahead of the cleanup, which is taking place on Saturday (Sept. 19), said BEC Executive Director Robyn DiFalco. “We’re hearing the conditions are really similar to last year,” she said. “We’re expecting to collect just as much material so long as the same number of volunteers come out again.” The volunteers pick up plenty of “typical everyday litter,” DiFalco said, but the vast majority of trash, by both weight and volume, comes from homeless encampments. However, she doesn’t want people blaming homeless people alone for the waste in the waterways. “This is all part of the bigger situation in our community and society,” she said. “Our role at BEC is to facilitate the community having a positive impact and getting out there for the cleanup.”
dnbaxter

Bottles, Syringes, and Mattresses Found During Annual Creek Cleanup - 0 views

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BEC Chico Butte County Community Creek Clean-up Volunteers Environmentalism

shared by dnbaxter on 30 Sep 19 - No Cached
  • dnbaxter on 30 Sep 19
     
    The 32nd annual Bidwell Park and Chico Creek cleanup attracted close to 500 volunteers with tons of trash, literally, removed from Bidwell Park and local creeks, according to BEC.
ndcarter

Chico News & Review - From tiny acorns - News - Local Stories - May 25, 2017 - 0 views

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shared by ndcarter on 25 May 17 - No Cached
  • 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.
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