BEC in the News

North Valley Energy Watch and Butte Environmental Council will be hosting three Community Resource Fairs in Nord, Durham and Orland.

These fun events for everyone in the community will give you access to tons of resources and information. Get help finding a job, reduce your energy bill, and meet local non-profits who offer programs for youth and families in your neighborhood.

Goldstein reached out to the general public at Chico events such as Thursday Night Market; the homeowner workshops co-sponsored by North Valley Energy Watch and the Butte Environmental Council, nonprofits that put together tool-and-testing kits available through the Chico library; and meetings with business leaders.

Molly Marcussen, a recent graduate of Chico State, began her CivicSpark fellowship this week, transitioning into City Hall as Goldstein transitions out. The two met in one of Marcussen’s classes last fall—Community Service Practice in Geography, taught by Sustainability Task Force chair Mark Stemen—but otherwise have not worked together.

“Vampire energy drain,” as it’s often called, costs U.S. households about $19 billion annually, according to a study by the Natural Resources Defense Council that analyzed the utility meters of 70,000 Northern California homes.

Becky Holden, education outreach coordinator for Butte Environmental Council, said not only does the local population continue to grow, but technology has advanced to the point where it’s common for one person to own many devices, like a tablet, laptop, cellphone, iPod and GPS device. “All the outlets are full,” she said.

It’s worth noting the city has approved the main components of the waste hauling agreement, but has not finalized the details. There will likely be more tweaks made before the October date. The agreement returns to the City Council on July 5.

“A lot of people aren’t quite sure what can be recycled,” Holden said. When in doubt, some people tend to just throw things out, or throw too much into the recycling bin.

maximizing use of recycling bins, using donation stations and learning to compost can help costs drop “enormously,” especially for people using the largest bin size.

The city has scheduled home energy-efficiency workshops in three neighborhoods composed predominantly of older houses: Barber, Chapman and the Avenues. Speakers from the Butte Environmental Council and North Valley Energy Watch will describe quick retrofits, upgrade options and rebate programs. The workshops will take place on successive Wednesday evenings starting May 31 (see “Power to the people,” Greenways, page 16). You can’t beat the price: free. Organizers hope to boost attendance by serving ice cream—also free—and handing out prizes.

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.

In partnership with the Butte Environmental Council and North Valley Energy Watch, Goldstein and Brendan Vieg of the city’s Planning Services Department have arranged three neighborhood home energy efficiency workshops.

There’s no charge—in fact, organizers are giving things away: ice cream, LED light bulbs, ChicoBags, Klean Kanteens and prizes.

The idea is to introduce residents, particularly those in older houses, to the spectrum of low-cost, cost-saving options available.

It turns out Withuhn was right to question the removal. Erik Gustafson, manager of the Chico’s Public Works Department, said city staff had been inundated with calls from concerned citizens after the two trees were cut, and confirmed no permit had been issued. City staff visited Enloe Medical Center the next morning—May 3—to deliver a cease and desist order to prevent further removals.

Butte Environmental Council’s Endangered Species Faire has celebrated efforts to protect the environment for decades. The free gathering gives children and adults information and hands-on learning experiences that stress efforts to protect the earth and its creatures. This year’s event will take place at the picnic area at One Mile Recreation Area from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday.

The city of Chico Parks Division is hosting an orientation meeting March 30 for people who are interested in becoming parks volunteers.The meeting will be 6:30-8:30 p.m. in the City Council Chambers, 421 Main St.

Frequently the Parks Division volunteers team up with what Romain calls “partner organizations” that have special interests in the city’s open spaces. Among them are Friends of Bidwell Park, Friends of Comanche Creek Greenway, Chico Velo-Trailworks, Stream Team, California Native Plant Society and Butte Environmental Council. “Our partnerships with these groups and our volunteers work together for the greater good, making our park and greenways more enjoyable for people,” said Romain.

Natalie Carter, executive director of the Butte Environmental Council, also sees benefit from deliberation. Noting that the BRCP’s 50-year term exceeds the general plans of both Butte County and Chico, she says, “it’s smart to be cautious about these kinds of things—thoughtful and evaluative.”

On the BRCP overall, Carter said, “the concept and the core of it is a really strong thing, and wonderful. It’s a remarkable effort that should be appreciated by our community.”

As part of the process, the utility has pledged to plant 64 new trees along the Midway roadway itself. These mostly native species of plants will build and enhance the Midway’s distinctive tree canopy, according to PG&E public affairs manager Joe Wilson.

The utility consulted with the county, the resource district and the Butte Environmental Council on its Midway plan.

The annual event is hosted by the Butte Environmental Council as a way to share information about the environment and promote the protection of endangered species.

It rained for the entire four hours the group was setting up their booths, but once 11 a.m. rolled around, the skies were mostly clear, BEC executive director Natalie Carter said.

In spots around Butte County, particularly in south Chico and south Oroville, ecological hazards threaten health and safety. Some residents know; some don’t. Polluters tend not to advertise when they’re breaking the law, and residual toxins from decades past represent some of the biggest risks.

According to Robyn DiFalco, executive director of the Butte Environmental Council, “a clean and healthy environment versus dirty, unhealthy, polluted environments really have a lot connected with geography.” Wealthy neighborhoods don’t have to deal with these problems because residents there tend to “squawk very loud if dirty industrial sites were in their backyard—and they would prevent them from going in, and choose not to live near those sites.” Lower-income individuals don’t always “have those opportunities to speak out and prevent those sites from going in,” she continued, and neighborhoods with less expensive housing often are located “near these sites that are visually less attractive and have these health problems that their families may be affected by. “So, to be able to see a geographic dispersion of contamination sites, environmental and public health issues, is very telling,” DiFalco continued. “That’s why it’s so important to give visibility to that—that’s why it’s so important to have the EJSCREEN tool and the one that California does … otherwise, a lot of these communities are out of sight, out of mind.”

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.)

About 500 volunteers—a record number—helped pull trash out of waterways during Butte Environmental Council's annual Bidwell Park & Chico Creeks Cleanup on Saturday (Sept. 19). The volunteers collected an estimated 21,547 pounds of trash and recycling, said BEC Executive Director Robyn DiFalco. That figure is down from last year's record total of about 30 tons of material, but DiFalco said that's likely because “the community has been chipping away at this leading up to the big event” with smaller cleanups. “We also didn't get everything that's out there,” she added. “We never do.” BEC's cleanup also kicked off six weeks of smaller, neighborhood-based stewardship events called Block Parties With a Purpose. Go to becnet.org/events for updates.

It takes more than a good fence to make a good neighbor. That was the sentiment expressed by many who attended a meeting held by Chico Scrap Metal at the Eagles Hall on Friday (Sept. 25). The meeting ostensibly was a pitch for aesthetic improvements proposed by the recycling yard as part of the owners’ latest attempts to stay at the 20th street property it has occupied since 1983. Zoning changes to the area in 2004 prompted a 2006 order from the Chico City Council that the scrap yard move by 2011, and a series of extensions expired at the end of 2014.

A group of opponents to Chico Scrap Metal’s continued presence in south Chico, collectively known as Move the Junkyard, met Tuesday morning at Butte Environmental Council’s headquarters to try to make sense of Friday’s meeting and plan strategies moving forward. Several in attendance expressed ongoing concerns about pollution and questioned whether the city can legally overturn zoning laws and the past council’s amortization order. The group thinks there’s only one reasonable outcome, which was best voiced by Chico resident and Democratic National Committee member Bob Mulholland.

Chico >> Butte Environmental Council will kick off its three-part Citizen Science Series Saturday with an On-Water Citizen Science Adventure. The council’s Watershed Program is partnering with the Forebay Aquatic Center and Outdoor Education for All to give a tour of the fall-run Chinook salmon in the Lower Feather River Watershed.

Last spring the Citizen Science Series highlighted the Big Chico Creek from the confluence of the Sacramento River to the forested spring headwaters. This fall series will feature other watersheds of Butte County, including an upcoming tour of Butte Creek Canyon.

The council’s Watershed Program seeks to protect and enhance the ecological integrity of watersheds throughout Butte County. The council is working on projects in the Big Chico Creek, Little Chico Creek, Butte Creek and Feather River Watersheds to foster watershed education, restore habitat, and advocate for responsible water management.

At the end of 2009, after a long-fought battle with concerned citizens and a divided Chico City Council, Walmart’s plans to expand its Forest Avenue store were denied. The ultimate decision, reached by a liberal-majority council, was that the environmental impacts outweighed any potential benefits of the project. The company was told it must wait at least a year before bringing the idea back to the city. Now, six years later, the plan to expand Chico’s Walmart is back on the table. It appears it’s not the only one, either. Plans for a new 197,000-square-foot Supercenter in Oroville that were first submitted in 2006 are finally making headway. That project could break ground by the end of 2015. And there are rumblings of progress on plans for building a Walmart in Paradise—those also had their beginnings in the middle of the 2000s.

“As an organization, we feel there are many aspects of a super Walmart that conflict with the goals of protecting the environment and supporting local economies, overall, in a broad sense,” said Robyn DiFalco, executive director of local eco-advocacy group Butte Environmental Council, adding that the group had not yet taken a position on the expansion.