Ecotopia

Our guest on this edition was Laura Gladson. She’s a PhD Candidate with Department of Environmental Medicine, New York University Grossman School of Medicine,  and a Research Scholar, Marron Institute of Urban Management at NYU. Laura is also a Chico resident, whom we met via Zoom a few weeks ago at the get together of the Environmental Council of Butte County at the This Way to Sustainability Conference. Her research interests include air quality; health effects of air pollution; policy-driven research; translational research; and environmental justice. In this program she gave us a brief course in Pollution 101, described the methods used to measure air pollution, and discussed the impacts on the population, with particular emphasis on Environmental Justice. For additional information, check out healthoftheair.org.

Our guests on this program were Marc Maddox and Katie Simmons. Marc is Paradise’s Public Works Director and Town Engineer, and Katie Simmons is the town’s Disaster Recovery Director. They spoke with us about the town’s Long Term Community Recovery Plan (schematic above) after the 2018 Camp Fire, including road repair and regeneration and plans to put utilities underground.  Of particular interest was their explanation of the proposed sewer project, which would send Paradise sewage to the Chico plant via a pipeline. They discussed other options under consideration and explained why the Chico route may be the only possible one.  They also explored funding options for this massive project.

We recently read some essays about the environment printed in the Chico Enterprise Record. These were written on topic of water conservation by 5th graders at Parkview Elementary School. We were very impressed by the writing and the students' insights.  Their major concern was lawns, and they have lots of ideas on how we can eliminate grass and replace it with native plants, mulch, and compost. We spoke with Brayden Peacock,Kaitlyn Wassinger, Audrey Vu, Sean Kelley and their teacher Tammy Janos.

Chico Attorney Richard Harriman spoke candidly about the Chico affordable housing crisis and need need for affordable infill rather than suburban developments for the affluent. He lamented the lack of community input for the revision of the Chico general plan housing element and argued that the community wants more diversity and more affordable housing while developers, who have a loud voice, ignore community needs and cater to the wealthy who are fleeing the big cities and seeking more affordable McMansions.  If Chico keeps going this way, he warned, "It's going to look just like Stockton."

KZFR programmer and polymath Gayle Kimball, author of over twenty books, spoke with us about her newest book, Climate Girls Changing Our World. She  interviewed 54 young women in seven continents and found a vigorous,  inspired, inspiring and dedicated climate activists. We asked her about  how climate change issues vary in such areas as Africa, Asia, Europe,  and North America and how these young people are acting on them.  She  also shared her view of what these climate activists have in common,  including family birth order, motivation, commitment, and career  ambitions

This program focused on the Sierra Nevada snowpack, which supplies about one-third of California’s water and serves as a vast winter reservoir. We spoke with Sean de Gusman of the Department of Water Resources. He is chief of DWR’s Snow Supply and Water Forecasting Section and is responsible for measuring the Sierra snowpack and figuring out how much water it contains. We asked him how he measures the snowpack. He told us about the extraordinarily complex process that involves physical, on-the-scene measurements at Phillips Station in the Sierra, 120 electronic sensing sites, airplane and satellite determinations, and more. At the close of the program, we read excerpts from a Wikipedia article on the great flood of 1862, when above average snowpack coupled with spring rains turned the Sacramento valley into a vast lake. Read the press release that sparked this interview: https://water.ca.gov/News/News-Releases/2020/Dec-20/December-2020-Snow-Survey    See the actual data at cdec.water.ca.gov.

Often on this podcast we bring you some discouraging words about the environment, though generally with some concrete solutions.  Although 2020 was a pretty terrible year on many fronts, there was, in  fact, some positive news on the environmental front and in this program,  we offered good news from around the world. We don’t want to minimize the crisis. According to the World Wildlife  Foundation, “Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and  reptiles since 1970, leading the world’s foremost experts to warn that  the annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens  civilization.” While  that statistic is chilling and heartbreaking, there are some good news  stories, and we provided some from here in the US, from Canada, from  around the world on topics ranging from preserving Marmots and Tasmanian  Devils to solar cars and how reading labels can save the earth.

Our guest on this program was Melina Watts, who has written a fascinating novel called Tree, a piece of magical fiction written from the perspective of a Live Oak!  We  read the book and loved it, finding it engaging from both a spiritual  and ecological perspective. She read several passages for us and helped  us understand not only her purpose in writing the book, but the  complexities of maintaining its point-of-view, from acorn to full grown  oak. Along with telling us the oak's story, Melina includes fascinating  ecological details about the flora, fauna, and hardships of the Topanga  valley.  It is available from Amazon. 

We interviewed Anna Moore and Lise Smith, members of the Bidwell Parks and Recreation Commission in Chico. Our interview was sparked by an excellent letter they wrote to the  Chico Enterprise Record, regarding homeless camping in Bidwell Park. Unlike many, they do not call for the homeless to be rousted; instead they urge the city to create a campground where the homeless can safely live. The City thus far has dodged the issue, and Chico's newly installed conservative City Council is looking toward enforcement and issuing misdemeanor citations rather than helping the homeless. In addition to exploring this issue, Lise and Anna also filled us in on other issues facing the commission, from access to fire danger to funding.

We spoke with Ron Stork, Senior Policy Advisor, Friends of the River in Sacramento. He joined Friends of the River as Associate Conservation Director in 1987 and became the Senior Policy Advocate in 1995 as a national expert in flood management, federal water resources development, hydropower reform, and Wild & Scenic Rivers. A couple of years ago we spoke with him about raising of Shasta Dam, being foisted on California by the federal government and opposed by both environmental groups and the Winnimem Wintu native Americans. He gave us his thoughts on recent Trump administration efforts to push ahead with that project. We also asked him about something closer to home: a recently-released self-study of the state of the Oroville Dam issued by the Department of Water Resources.  The dam came within a whisker of breaking in high flows in 2017 and resulted in the evacuation of 280,000 people and billions of dollars in rebuilding expenses. The report claimed the dam is in good shape, but that "acceptable" weaknesses persist, to be addressed if "cost effective."Butte County Supervisor declared this report to be "The fox guarding the hen house.