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Our Watershed Program will be offering Water Conservation Workshops throughout the Spring, starting with our Rainwater Catchment Workshop on
Join us on Sunday, March 30 to raise funds for our new Oak Way Community Garden. Help us get this universally-accessible Community Garden outfitted so that we can begin offering the plots to our community in April 2014!
Coming Soon: all the details about the 2014 Endangered Species Faire
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The Butte Environmental Council (BEC) is a non-profit environmental organization based in Chico, California. Our mission is to preserve and conserve the Earth’s natural resources, with particular attention to environmental issues in Northern California. BEC was formed in 1975 and throughout its 37 years, BEC has had a significant voice in shaping the environment and policies of Butte County and beyond.
BEC in the News
Highlights and Sticky Notes:Also Tuesday, the City Council will hold a public hearing on the Draft Housing Element Update and consider authorization to submit it to the state for review and comment. The housing element is one of seven required elements in a general plan, and must be updated every five to eight years.
The element has six basic components: a housing needs assessment, a site inventory, a constraints analysis, housing programs, quantified objectives and public participation. The proposed actions are designed to meet various housing needs, including affordability for low-income residents, production of affordable housing for all income groups, and improvement and investment in existing residential neighborhoods.Also Tuesday, the council will consider a resolution approving a one-year license to the Butte Environmental Council to operate a temporary community garden at West Eighth Avenue and Highway 32. The vacant, one-acre city-owned site is eventually planned for development as a fire station, but an interim use of a garden with no permanent structures would not interfere with that plan, according to city staff.All costs associated with the garden will be sustained by the Butte Environmental Council. The lease would be eligible for renewal.Tags: chico, gardenby: rdifalco
Highlights and Sticky Notes:North State water supplies under pressure as drought parches CaliforniaThis article was published on 02.13.14.A thousand feet beneath the city of Chico, in the pitch-black waters of the Tuscan Aquifer, time has proceeded for ages without sound or sunlight, mostly unaffected by the world above. But in recent years, an increasing tug of upward force has been moving the Tuscan Aquifer’s water toward the surface of the Earth—drawn, ultimately, by the thirst of fruit trees and vegetable fields hundreds of miles away.However, the government has bypassed this potentially costly step by edging through a legal loophole, according to critics.“They’re calling it a one-year water transfer, instead of a long-term project, and that allows them to skip the CEQA guidelines,” explained Robyn DiFalco, executive director of the Butte Environmental Council. “Now, we’re seeing multiple one-year transfers, year after year, without environmental review.”
Brobeck at AquAlliance confirms the same—that the federal and state applicants are skirting environmental laws and essentially stealing Northern California’s water.
“They just keep delaying the environmental review, which allows them to operate on a year-by-year basis,” Brobeck said.Tags: BEC, water, drought, BDCP, transfers, groundwaterby: rdifalco
Comments:
- Chico is—at heart—a bicycle town, despite the glut of cars clogging local roadways. Many families made up of bicycle enthusiasts use their cars minimally; other bike-loving families (including CN&R Associate Editor Christine LaPado-Breglia’s) get away with no car ownership whatsoever. And so it’s not surprising that members of Chico’s subculture of bicycle lovers get together regularly to celebrate the love of bikes. - Justina Johnson
Tags: BEC, Butte County, Magic, Pedal, Productions, Chico, Bicycle, Music, Festival, Valentine's, Dayby: Justina Johnson
BEC News Interests
Highlights and Sticky Notes:Critics of the $25 billion water tunnel project proposed in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta have complained there isn’t enough time to review the 34,000 pages that describe the project. Now they have an additional 60 days to do so.On Friday, the California Natural Resources Agency announced that the public comment period for the Bay Delta Conservation Plan will be extended 60 days to June 13. Agency Secretary John Laird said the move is consistent with “our continued effort of transparency.”The project, supported by Gov. Jerry Brown, aims to build two giant tunnels to divert a portion of Sacramento River flows out of the Delta and directly to existing state and federal water export pumps near Tracy.Tags: no_tagby: rdifalco
Highlights and Sticky Notes:Taxpayer money was used to purchase public land, and now that land is closed to the public. If that sounds familiar to people in this area, it should. It happens far too often.
Back in August 2000, we wrote an editorial headlined "Public money should ensure access for all." It talked about the purchase of the private Simmons Ranch for $3.7 million using a variety of public and private funds — mostly public — including state park bond money.
The 2,724-acre property along Big Chico Creek, just upstream of Bidwell Park, is a glorious place. It's like stepping back in time. The only structure on the property is an old ranch home.
The former owners of the Simmons Ranch wanted it to stay untouched by time, and sold it with that understanding.
The property was handed over to the Chico State University Research Foundation, which promised to form an advisory board of university and community members and create a management plan for the property.Now the Chico State Research Foundation has closed access. School field trips and docent-led hikes have been canceled. The excuse for cutting access is an accident last fall. Birdwatchers were posing on the deck of the old house for a photo when the deck collapsed, injuring several people.Tags: land, wildlife, chicoby: rdifalco
Highlights and Sticky Notes:Dan Logue and John Garamendi both have ideas on water, each of which merit consideration. But we're not sure they should be on the same stage.Garamendi wants to face off with the Bay Delta Conservation Plan with a far ranging and comprehensive set of points. Good. We need a serious challenge to the BDCP.
Logue's idea, it seems, is to keep it simple and cut to the chase mainly just on the issue of creating additional water storage. Good. It might be the only way something gets done in the foreseeable future.
The range that Garamendi takes is commendable. And somewhere along the line, ideally, our state would hash out such a comprehensive plan that benefits Northern California as much as Southern California.Garamendi subheads his proposal six ways — conservation, recycling, storage, fixing the Delta, science-driven process and protection of water rights. Each one of those issues is made up of a bunch of issues ... when could you expect Californians to agree on so much?
What Garamendi is doing needs to be done. It's the right tack in a battle of rhetoric.But it might be Logue's approach that has a chance of being accomplished sometime soon. He provided a guest commentary in Saturday's edition meant to rally grassroots support, asking voters to contact their legislators in support of his Assembly Bill 1445.AB 1445 would place a $5.8 billion statewide water bond before voters. Of that, $4.8 billion goes to increase ground and surface water storage, including Sites Reservoir near Maxwell. He's talking about a total of 3.1 million acre-feet of water. Another $1 billion would go to water quality measures.
That's about it, except for shoring up some guarantee of origin water rights. The thing with Logue's plan? If it gets through the Legislature, it then has to get through the ballot box. That's going to be the hard part.Tags: water, california, delta, Sites Resevoirby: rdifalco
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