Sustainable Living – Enviro Updates

SuzanneJune 17, 2025June 18, 2025Sustainable Livingfire resilience, goats

Why more than 1,000 goats are working for Santa Rosa this fire season

Madison Smalstig, PRESS DEMOCRAT

The Santa Rosa Fire Department has brought in some unusual help this summer: more than 1,000 goats — and possibly some sheep.

The animals, hired through two contractors, began work June 8 and are expected to munch through about 130 acres of dry grass and weeds across eight city sites. The contractors — Goats R Us of Orinda and CAPRA Environmental Services of Roseville — will manage the herds as they move through the properties.

The “grazing team” will target areas that typically meet city fire maintenance standards but are difficult to clear using equipment because of rocky terrain or steep slopes.

In Upper Brush Creek Park, for example, city crews would normally cut a 30-foot fuel break around the perimeter but leave the hilly interior untouched, Santa Rosa Division Chief Fire Marshal Paul Lowenthal said.

SuzanneJune 15, 2025June 18, 2025Sustainable Livingfire danger, fire resistant, house hardening, vegetation management

Op-Ed: Banning plants near homes could aggravate fire risk

Max Moritz and Luca Carmignani, LOS ANGELES TIMES

One of the most striking patterns in the aftermath of many urban fires is how much unburned green vegetation remains amid the wreckage of burned neighborhoods.

In some cases, a row of shrubs may be all that separates a surviving house from one that burned just a few feet away.

As scientists who study how vegetation ignites and burns, we aren’t surprised by these images: We recognize that well-maintained plants and trees can help protect homes from windblown embers and slow the spread of fire in some cases. So we are concerned about new wildfire protection regulations being developed by California that would prohibit almost all plants and other combustible material within 5 feet of homes, an area known as “Zone 0.”

Wildfire safety guidelines have long encouraged homeowners to avoid having flammable materials next to their homes. But the state’s plan for an “ember-resistant zone,” being expedited under an executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom, goes further by also prohibiting grass, shrubs and many trees in that area.

SuzanneSeptember 23, 2024October 4, 2024Sustainable LivingCalifornia, Exxon, microplastics, plastic pollution, plastic waste, recycling

California sues ExxonMobil and says it lied about plastics recycling

Janie Har, APNEWS

California sued ExxonMobil Monday, alleging the oil giant deceived the public for half a century by promising that the plastics it produced would be recycled.

Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said that less than 5% of plastic is recycled into another plastic product in the U.S. even though the items are labeled as “recyclable.” As a result, landfills and oceans are filled with plastic waste, creating a global pollution crisis, while consumers diligently place plastic water bottles and other containers into recycling bins, the lawsuit alleges.

“‘Buy as much as you want, no problem, it’ll be recycled,’ they say. Lies, and they aim to make us feel less guilty about our waste if we recycle it,” said Bonta, a Democrat, at a virtual news conference, where he was joined by representatives of environmental groups that filed a separate but similar lawsuit Monday, also in San Francisco County Superior Court.

“The end goal is to drive people to buy, buy, buy and to drive ExxonMobil’s profits up, up, up,” he said.

ExxonMobil, one of the world’s largest producers of plastics, blamed California for its flawed recycling system.

SuzanneSeptember 22, 2024September 23, 2024Sustainable Living, Water, Wildlifeplastic bag ban, plastic pollution, plastic waste, plastics

California governor signs law banning all plastic shopping bags at grocery stores

APNEWS

“Paper or plastic” will no longer be a choice at grocery store checkout lines in California under a new law signed Sunday by Gov. Gavin Newsom that bans all plastic shopping bags.

California had already banned thin plastic shopping bags at supermarkets and other stores, but shoppers could purchase bags made with a thicker plastic that purportedly made them reusable and recyclable.

The new measure, approved by state legislators last month, bans all plastic shopping bags starting in 2026. Consumers who don’t bring their own bags will now simply be asked if they want a paper bag.

State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, one of the bill’s supporters, said people were not reusing or recycling any plastic bags. She pointed to a state study that found that the amount of plastic shopping bags trashed per person grew from 8 pounds (3.6 kilograms) per year in 2004 to 11 pounds (5 kilograms) per year in 2021.

Blakespear, a Democrat from Encinitas, said the previous bag ban passed a decade ago didn’t reduce the overall use of plastic.

“We are literally choking our planet with plastic waste,” she said in February.

A look at the $10B climate bond (Prop. 4) California voters will decide on in November

Manola Secaira, CAPRADIO

In November, California voters will decide whether to approve of a bond that would fund state climate initiatives.

Proposition 4 on Ballotpedia

Legislators announced the $10 billion bond will appear on the November ballot as Proposition 4 earlier this month. Dozens of environmental groups advocated for it, especially in light of state budget cuts made earlier in the year that impacted climate programs.
Fred Greaves for CalMatters
Big cuts, no new taxes: Gov. Newsom’s plan to fix California’s budget deficit

Many advocates are optimistic voters will approve of the bond, citing a PPIC survey published earlier this month that found 59% of California voters would likely vote “yes.”

Assembly member Lori Wilson was one of the legislators who introduced the measure. Before it came together, she said she’d been working to introduce a bond measure that would focus on agriculture. But she and other legislators eventually decided they’d see a better chance of success if they pooled their bond proposals.

“Once we started to see the cost of inflation, just the impact that the voters were feeling, we knew there really wasn’t an appetite for multiple bonds on the ballot and there would have to be consolidation,” Wilson said.

The bond would be paid off by California’s general fund, which is supported, for the most part, by tax revenue. The state’s legislative analyst’s office says the estimated cost to repay the bond would be $400 million a year over the course of 40 years.

Supporters say the bond would provide much-needed funds to accomplish California’s ambitious environmental goals, like its commitment to conserving 6 million acres of land by 2030.

SuzanneMay 30, 2024June 2, 2024Local Organizations, Sonoma Coast, Sustainable Livingcoast conservation, development, Russian River

Marty Griffin dies at 103, leaving legacy of land conservation, environmental leadership

Mary Callahan, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Marty Griffin was among a generation of pioneering conservationists who fought off development pressure and paved the way for protection of large swaths of the Marin-Sonoma Coast.

He didn’t do it alone. But the vast, open landscape of rolling hills and coastal waterways that draws nature lovers to the Marin-Sonoma coast might have looked a whole lot different had Marty Griffin not been around.

Imagine a freeway, whole communities, housing for tens of thousands, a mall, coastal villas, even a nuclear plant on the huge swath of coastline now dominated by nature preserves, public parks and agriculture.

Griffin and other early conservationists mobilized during the 1960s and ‘70s―as intense development pressures threatened to alter the North Bay landscape profoundly―and fought to thwart that outcome, shifting the region’s culture in ways that are evident in the lands now protected.

Since his death at home in Belvedere on May 22 at the impressive age of 103, Griffin has been remembered not just for his commitment to the cause but for his passion and leadership, the “clever,” “wily” manner in which he approached each challenge and his refusal to back down.

SuzanneMay 13, 2024May 14, 2024Agriculture/Food System, Sustainable LivingCAFO, cows, dairies, factory farming, humane animal treatment, poultry, water quality

Number of Sonoma County farms affected by proposed ‘factory farming’ ordinance is in dispute

Phil Barber, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Sometime this year, an initiative aiming to curtail factory farming will appear on local ballots. Its authors frame it as a ban on cruel and unsanitary industrial farms. The local agricultural industry calls it a backdoor attack on the consumption of meat.

The ballot measure, which would be the first of its kind in any American county, raises huge questions relating to financial cost, regulation and Sonoma County’s appetite for animal flesh. The Board of Supervisors will listen to presentations from department heads on the potential economic fallout Tuesday.

For now, the two sides are at odds over a seemingly simple question: How many Sonoma County farms would be directly affected if the measure passes?

Six months ago, Sonoma County Farm Bureau Executive Director Dayna Ghirardelli said on KRSH Radio’s “From Farm to Table” show that it would affect “most of our local dairy and poultry operations.”

SuzanneMay 3, 2024May 8, 2024Habitats, Sustainable Livingecosystems, fire resilience, native plant gardening, native plants, pollinators

Fulton nursery a go-to spot for native plants

Jeff Cox, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Cal-Flora Nursery in Fulton
California Native Plant Society – Milo Baker Chapter

The showy lady’s slipper (Cypripedium reginae) that grows east of the Rockies is a large wild orchid that reaches up to 30 inches tall, with 3- to 4-inch-long, slipperlike flowers of rose pink. They don’t grow around here. But their distant cousins do, and they look very different.

Our Sonoma County summer fog calls forth these plants where the redwoods grow tall and human activity is at a minimum. In these conditions, the forest floor may be sprinkled with them. The jewel-like pink fairy slippers (Calypso bulbosa) grow only 2 to 4 inches tall and produce 1- to 2-inch “slippers” that only fairy feet could fit.

Why such a difference among woodland orchids? You might think that our mild climate and rich woodland soils would yield orchids even larger than those back east where winter locks up the soil in ice for nearly half the year.

The answer is our summer drought, where it rarely rains from June to October. Plants native to our Mediterranean climate, as it’s called, have evolved to deal with the dry season. Some, like the California fuchsia (Zauschneria californica) have amped up drought tolerance to astonishing levels, blooming furiously in late summer despite not having a drink for months. Some simply shut down their green, vegetative parts and turn dry and brown, sending their roots to sleep until rain returns, or overwinter as seeds fallen to the ground.

SuzanneJanuary 28, 2024January 30, 2024Agriculture/Food System, Sustainable Livingcompost, composting facilities, food waste, methane, yard waste

Sonoma County may have a new commercial composting site at the county airport

Mary Callahan, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

About 100,000 tons of green waste have been hauled out of county since Sonoma County’s last centralized compost facility closed in 2015.

A yearslong search for a new site to process much of Sonoma County’s yard and food waste may finally be over, potentially ending the need to haul almost 100,000 tons of organic materials to neighboring counties for composting each year.

Officials are now exploring the possibility of using a small piece of county-owned land in Windsor adjacent to the Sonoma County-Charles M. Schulz Airport to collect and compost green bin materials and commercial food waste to produce organic soil amendments in high demand by the local agricultural community.

The roughly 15-acre site at 5200 Slusser Rd. is part of a one-time county landfill decommissioned in 1971 and covered over with 9 feet of compacted soil.

Though its conversion to a commercial composting facility is still years off, an initial feasibility study of the site determined in 2022 there were no disqualifying physical or environmental hurdles.

If successful, selection of the site would put an end to a string of bad luck that has plagued local officials and their partners in providing a destination for organic waste just as an aggressive push is underway to keep as much as possible out of landfills, where they contribute to planet-warming greenhouse gases.

SuzanneOctober 12, 2023November 6, 2023Climate Change & Energy, Sustainable Livingcarbon sequestration, heat islands, urban trees

Petaluma gets $1 million to plant more trees

Jennifer Sahwney, PETLUMA ARGUS-COURIER

The city of Petaluma announced it has received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service to expand its tree canopy over the next three years.

The plan is to plant about 2,550 trees, said Wendy Jacobs of ReLeaf Petaluma, a local nonprofit that will undertake much of the day-to-day project management.

The tree-planting initiative is part of the Petaluma Canopy Project, a collaborative partnership between the city and local nonprofits including ReLeaf Petaluma, Daily Acts, Rebuilding Together Petaluma, Point Blue Conservation and Cool Petaluma.

The project will “plant trees around parks, schools, residential areas, and our riverbank, with the aim of restoring native species,” according to a news release.

Part of the strategy is to prioritize areas where the city’s low-income residents live and gather, “which typically have fewer trees than other parts of the city,” the release said.

More trees support the city’s climate goals, reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and decrease noise, water and air pollution. The shade they provide also lowers ambient temperatures, the release said.

Environmental Center of Sonoma County

Category: Sustainable Living