BEC in the News

Engangered Species Fair runs 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the group picnic area at One-Mile Recreation Area in lower Bidwell Park. The 37th annual event is put on by the Butte Environmental Council and is free.

The theme is “Back from the Brink” which celebrates the removal of three species from the endangered species list, including the gray wolf, bald eagle and maguire daisy. Highlights include an eco-scavenger hunt, free vegetable starts, a raffle and a puppet parade featuring papier mache puppets made by local elementary students.

37th annual Endangered species Faire, Chico: 11 a.m.-4 p.m. at Group Picnic Area, One-Mile Recreation Area, Lower Bidwell Park. Learn about environmental issues and enjoy live music and food; 30 environmental booths. Hands-on experiences/activities; eco-scavenger hunt, vegetable starts, raffle, puppet parade featuring paper mache puppets made by elementary students. Free bike valet by Chico Velo; hydration station by Klean Kanteen. Hosted by Butte Environmental Council. www.becnet.org/endangered-species-faire.

The students will get a chance to parade their puppets during the Procession of the Species at this year’s fair on May 7, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. at One-Mile Recreation Area.

Environmental groups get together to gain support for local efforts following sustainability conference

“It’s not just what we need to do, but ‘this is what we’ve done,’” Stemen said. “The amount of activity that’s happening around these types of issues—sustainability, environmental justice, basic peace with the planet—is really vibrant in this community so having a night like this allows people to find out what’s going on and be re-energized. When you’re just one group, sometimes it’s a little lonely, then you realize, ‘No, I’m just one of many.’”

Butte Environmental Council has been awarded a $58,000 Energy Upgrade California grant to foster clean energy efficiency throughout the county this year.

Last week, the Concerned Citizens of Glenn County and a number of other individuals, largely from the Hamilton City area, made known their opposition to the Glenn County Solid Waste Conversion Facility project, overseen by KVB Inc. and at a proposed site along Stony Creek.

Becky Holden and Lindsey Wood, both employees of the Butte Environmental Council and Glenn County residents, both expressed their displeasure with the project in its proposed location and cited the Stony Creek waterway and the groundwater table as reasons for concern. "We're following this issue," Holden, a resident of Ord Bend, said. "We believe this project has submitted an inadequate EIR, and I realize that is still being worked on. The KVB project is the wrong project for Glenn County, and it is especially at the wrong site."

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.

CHICO, Calif. -

The Butte Environmental Council is giving away a couple small items to help easily tweak water conservation inside your home.First, they are offering a shower hourglass timer that you can suction cup to the side of your bathroom wall.

This times your shower to five minutes. The council said by shaving just four minutes off your shower, you save more than 3,500 gallons of water per year.They are also giving out a sink aerator. This reduces the flow of water, reducing the number of gallons per minute.

I can not believe that the Butte County Department of Development Services has the audacity to come up with a plan to reduce the agricultural buffer in Butte County, and it is not just along the greenline. The proposed ordinance will allow developers to be able to ask for a reduction to the proposed agricultural setback from farming operations to as little as 25 feet.The long standing 300-foot buffer is there for a reason. It is the minimum setback that hopefully will protect the public’s health and well-being. This proposed ordinance is so outrageous that it prohibits and exempts the homeowners affected from even being able to sue for damages if they are harmed. Where are the Butte County department heads of Public Health and Services that are paid to protect and serve the health and well-being of the citizens of Butte County? They must speak out to protect the people of Butte County for generations to come.This proposed ordinance goes before the Butte County Planning Commission at 9 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 22.This proposed ordinance is a violation of the ‘public trust doctrine’.— John Scott, Butte Valley

Oroville >> The Butte County Planning Commission has delayed making a recommendation on altering how a 300-foot agricultural buffer applies in residential areas.

The county’s current rules call for the agricultural buffer to apply next to properties with agricultural use, which may include properties zoned as residential. The proposal would limit this buffer to development next to agriculturally zoned properties, although an amendment would allow people to use their residential, commercial and industrial properties an acre or larger for farming and grazing.

John Scott said the proposal was a violation of the public’s trust as eliminating the buffer could expose residents to sprayed pesticides that drift onto their properties. He said the Development Services Department was working to bring in money from development at the risk of others. “Inappropriate development should not drive this ordinance,” Scott said.

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.

The city will subcontract the restoration work to a local riparian restoration firm, and engage the California Native Plant Society for its expertise and volunteer labor. The Butte Environmental Council will coordinate community outreach and education, and Chico’s Stream Team will provide citizen water quality monitoring.