Activities, resources & educational materials focus on ways to invest in our planet

Source:  City of La Mesa

March 29, 2022 (La Mesa) - The City of La Mesa, in partnership with the La Mesa Park & Recreation Foundation and other sponsors, is ramping up efforts for the annual celebration of Earth Day at MacArthur Park on Saturday, April 9 from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. The event will showcase fun, educational, and sustainable activities, products and services.

Hundreds of trees await picking during prime season to avoid waste

By Monte Turner, Senior Gleaners board member

Photo:  cc via Bing

March 26, 2022 (San Diego) - A group of seniors picking surplus fruit throughout the county needs help immediately to prevent fruit on hundreds of trees from going to waste.

By Kevork Kurdoghlian, California Urban Forests Council

March 11, 2022 (San Diego’s East County) – AMPlifying the Urban Forest is coming to El Cajon and Santee on Saturday, March 12 to empower El Cajon, Santee and 26 municipal agencies and other organizations throughout California to plant nearly 2,000 trees with the help of volunteers. The program is developed and presented by the groundbreaking partnership between the California Urban Forests Council (CaUFC), West Coast Arborists (WCA), Taylor Guitars, Western Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture (WCISA) and the Britton Fund.

Tree planting in El Cajon starts at 8 a.m. at Wells Park located at 1153 E Madison Ave, El Cajon, CA 92021.

In Santee, volunteers will start planting trees at 10 a.m. at Woodglen Vista Park located at 10250 Woodglen Vista Dr. Santee, Ca 92071.

By Rachel Becker, CalMatters

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters

Photo:  Lake Mendocino in Northern California in late October. Courtesy Department of Natural Resources

February 20, 2022 (San Diego) - The first two months of 2022 are shaping up to be the driest January and February in California history, prompting state officials to warn of dire water conditions ahead. 

By Suzanne Potter, California News Service

“Now we have 5G rolling out in massive quantities, without due diligence to determine are these sources of radiation safe not only for humans but for wildlife. And the answer is, no, they are not." --Dr. Albert Manville, adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist and co-author of the study

February 11, 2022 (Sacramento) -- A growing body of scientific studies showed electromagnetic fields from the extremely low frequencies common to power lines and radio-frequency radiation, the kind from cell towers and mobile devices, may be harmful to wildlife as well as humans.

Source:  EarthTalk

Photo:  Eating more salad and less or no animal products is one of the most impactful ways you can help fight climate change and help the planet. Credit: Roman Odintsov, Pexels

January 28, 2022 (San Diego) - "Dear EarthTalk: I’ve recently been really into salads and have been wondering does my consumption of more salads and less meat help fight climate change? --Penelope Marie, via e-mail

By Miriam Raftery

Photo: rooftop solar, CC via Bing

January 21, 2022 (San Diego) – The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) unveiled a proposal on December 13 that would take away most financial incentives for homeowners or businesses to install solar power.  But after backlash from outraged consumers and elected officials, the CPUC has postponed action.

By Miriam Raftery

Photo: Collier Park, City of La Mesa

January 11, 2022 (La Mesa) – The City of La Mesa plans to remove 21 Eucalyptus trees this week at Collier Park, the city’s oldest park, located at Palm and Pasadena. 

By Miriam Raftery

Images via Stop Cottonwood Sand Mine

Update January 9: Due to a COVID surge the January 12 meeting has been cancelled. The virtual meeting on January 19 at 7 p.m. can be accessed at this link  https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/pds/ceqa/MUP-18-023.html or this link: https://bit/ly/CottonwoodSandMine or you can call (619) 343-2539 and provide conference ID number 972 237 701#.

December 28, 2021 (San Diego) – A Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) is now available on the controversial proposed Cottonwood Sand Mining project along the Sweetwater River on the Cottonwood Golf Club site. There are several opportunities for the public to weigh in, including an in-person meeting January 12 at Hillsdale Middle School in Rancho San Diego and an online/phone teleconference January 19. You can also submit comments via mail or email, which must be received by February 14 at 4 p.m.

The project at 2131 Willow Glen Road would extract around 6.4 million tons of sand over 10 years from 214.4 acres. The developer contends the sand is needed for construction and road building in our region, to avoid costly importing of sand.  

The project has drawn opposition from thousands of local residents concerned over harm to wildlife in the adjacent national wildlife preserve as well as impacts on residents including traffic, noise, and air quality.

"We will review the DEIR with diligence to see if any of the community concerns have been addressed," said StopCottonwoodSandMine.org Board Chair Elizabeth Urquhart. “Most importantly, although it's been a long wait since the project was proposed in 2018, the community needs to know it is now the right time to speak up and register concerns over the community impacts, despite this being the holiday season. We need our neighbors to understand we cannot sit still as we continue to voice our opposition. We ask residents to inform their friends and neighbors to sign up at our website. We need to all work together to inform the community and to ultimately stop this sand mine.” Their concerns are documented at  https://www.stopcottonwoodsandmine.com/

Below are details provided by the County’s Planning and Development Services Department on the DEIR and how you can make your voice heard. Be sure to reference the project name and number in your comments.

Story and photos by Karen Pearlman 

January 8, 2022 (Lake Morena) – For more than two years, Lake Morena Village area water users have been drinking bottled water because of formidable nitrate levels in the region’s wells, the main source of water for drinking in the rural San Diego county burg. 

In September 2019, the county issued a do-not-drink order for about 125 customers of the Lake Morena Views Mutual Water Company, one of the two main water suppliers in the area.  The state recently approved grant funds to eliminate the contamination, but the process moves slowly – meaning frustrated residents may be without potable tap water for another two to three years.

“I am wondering what the effects will be on all of us in time to come. How can it take over two years to fix the issue?” asks Claudia Millerbragg, a Lake Morena Village residents in rural Campo. She says shareholders are not given enough information, adding,  “Because we are in an underserved community no one really seems to care. Can you imagine this happening in La Jolla?"

Story and photos by Miriam Raftery

Photo: Terra-Gen’s planned Campo Wind turbines would be twice as tall as those shown at the existing Kumeyaay Wind site in Campo.

January 3, 2022 (San Diego’s East County) – Terra-Gen, the company slated to build a massive wind project on the Campo reservation, has been fined over a half million dollars following an investigation that accused the company of submitting “false or misleading information to the California System Operator (CAISO)” regarding the capabilities and output of a wind power facility owned by Terra-Gen’s subsidiary Cameron Ridge, LLC. 

By Gig Conaughton, County of San Diego Communications Office

Image credit:  Shutterstock 

December 23, 2021 (San Diego) - It’s the most — recyclable — time of the year!

By Miriam Raftery

December 9, 2021 (Ocotillo, Calif.) – All turbines at the Ocotillo Wind Energy Facility have been offline in a since September 20, when a massive wind turbine collapsed, as ECM reported. The California ISO’s Dec. 8  Curtailed and Non-Operational Generator report, the shutdown of more than three months is listed as “forced.”

By Julie Cart, CalMatters

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters

Photo:  snow geese fly over the Sacramento River National Wildlife Refuge complex in Willows on Oct. 6, 2021. Photo by Nina Riggio for CalMatters

December 4, 2021 (San Diego) - It says something about the complexity of California’s water crisis that there are so many actors in the state’s water wars, all clamoring for more. Nature, alone, is silent in this fight, relying on others to speak on behalf of the welfare of wildlife and waterways.

By Henri Migala

November 18, 2021 (Wikieup, Ariz.) -- Few, if any, narratives in America are older, or more repeated, than the story of Native peoples struggling to protect their lands, resources, lifeways and even their culture, from exploitation, abuse and destruction. That very story is yet again unfolding with the Hualapai Nation in northern Arizona, where people are in a struggle to protect their ancestral lands from lithium mining. It’s a struggle that pits the long-term energy interests and demands of the United States against the cultural values of the Hualapai people, the health of the land and its inhabitants, and has nothing less at stake than the very survival of the entire Hualapai nation.