1 PEATDUSTER - Sierra Club · 2015-06-13 · 4 Explore, enjoy and protect the planet. Volume 46 Number 1 P-4 Printed on Recycled Electrons March, April & May 2015 MEETINGS and EVENTS

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PEATDUSTER Volume 46 Number 1 P-1 Printed on Recycled Electrons March, April & May 2015

Explore, enjoy and protect the planet.

Newsletter for the Delta-Sierra Group, Mother Lode Chapter

Visit us at www.motherlode.sierraclub.org/deltasierra

Photo by Paul Plathe

Our Delta-Sierra Club member, Paul Plathe, has expanded his outings way beyond California and the United States. He recently visited the temple Ta Prohm built in the 12th and 13 centuries. UNESCO inscribed Ta Prohm on the World Heritage List in 1992 and today, it is one of the most visited complexes in Cambodia’s Angkor region.

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Explore, enjoy and protect the planet. Explore, enjoy and protect the planet. Explore, enjoy and protect the planet. Explore, enjoy and protect the planet. Explore, enjoy and protect the planet. Explore, enjoy and protect the planet.

Volume 46 Number 1P-2 Printed on Recycled Electrons March, April & May 2015

Environmental Holiday Gathering 2014 by Margo Praus

Mom's Chili Boys created a really festive atmosphere at our Environmental Holiday Gathering. Their fun music brightened the room. And what a wonderful effort for the various San Joaquin County environmental groups to collaborate with each other while celebrating the holidays! Lots of information was presented and shared by these organizations.

(Continue Holiday Gathering on Page 3)

Photo by Margo Praus

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Volume 46 Number 1 P-3 Printed on Recycled Electrons March, April & May 2015

(Holiday Gathering Continued from Page 2) Nan Ballot discussed the roll of Delta Sierra Group and Paul Plathe included information about Gorge Scrambling. He also had an exciting video that was showing in the background as the speakers finished. Alan England presented current San Joaquin Audubon projects and encouraged people to feel free to join them by coming out and participating in bird counts. No experience is necessary! And the birds do count! (Also) Stacy Sherman represented Friends of the Lower Calaveras River and discussed the efforts they are making and successes they are having in renewing the river that flows right through Stockton. She encouraged members to sign up to receive the emails that are sent out and to come to some of the monthly walks. Gale Stocking discussed the newly formed Citizen's Climate Lobby--a group that has the single focus of energizing citizens to encourage their legislators to pass a Carbon Fee with Dividend. Climate Change can no longer be denied except by the uninformed naysayers. For our own survival, we humans must find a way to decrease the amount of carbon foot prints we are creating. After the presenters, what a treat to have more of the lively music from Mom's Chili Boys while members visited and bought Sierra Club calendars and cards. We ended the evening with a short video clip from the Yosemite Notes about "Frazil Ice". Many people had never heard of this unique event in nature when ice when Iccrystals in open, turbulent, super cooled water from a slushy ice. Many thanks to all who came and participated. We had some new people in the audience and some potential future program presenters! Join us in 2015 when the Environmental Holiday Gathering will be held again in December.

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MEETINGS and EVENTS All General Meetings are open to everyone whether you are a Sierra Club member or not. Meetings are held at the Central United Methodist Church, 3700 Pacific Avenue, Stockton, in the Fireside Room and across from the UOP Tower. General Meeting, Monday, March 23, 7:00 pm - Carnivorous Plants

Come hear about these unusual plants found in nature. Barry Rice will speak about the nature of carnivorous plants, as we currently understand them. He will also be reminding us of the wonderful species that we have here in California. And his website gives us a view on his spectacular photography of these unique plants http://www.sarracenia.com

Barry Rice's interest in carnivorous plant horticulture started with a single Venus flytrap, just before graduate school, and transformed into a life-long career obsession.

Today, he spends his academic semesters as an astrobiology professor at Sierra College, and the summers as a photographer and botanist, with a research appointment at the University of California Davis Center for Plant Diversity.

(Continue Meetings on Page 5)

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(Meetings Continued from Page 4)

General Meeting Monday, April 27, 2015 7:00 pm - Plastic Paradise, The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Every single piece of plastic that has ever been created since the 19th century is still somewhere on our planet. So, if it never goes away, where does it go?

Thousands of miles away from civilization, Midway Atoll is in one of the most remote places on earth. And yet it's become ground zero for The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the area where plastics from three distant continents gather. Filmmaker Angela Sun, traveled to Midway Atoll to uncover this mysterious phenomenon and she learned that the problem is more insidious than we could ever have imagined.

Our local Sierra Club is presenting this film at our Monday evening meeting in April and hope to have a discussion about actions we can all take to reduce this mindless misuse of plastics in our society.

Pictured below is the sole survivor of a crew of seven Chinese fishermen whose ship capsized during a violent storm. According to the article where this picture was taken, Wáng Bohai managed to stay alive for over three years, but his mental and physical health were severely affected. He used trash from the garbage patch to collect rainwater and net fish to survive.

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EARTH DAY

San Joaquin County Earth Day Festival will be held again in Victory Park this year on Sunday, April 26, 2015. Come visit our table. We have information to share and it's great to reach out to the community. For more information email

Margo Praus at: [email protected]

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It’s a new year and change is in the air. Why not start off this year by exploring what clean, green solar energy could look like for your home with the Sierra Club and Sungevity? Every four minutes, one more American family makes the switch to solar - and with just one click you too can begin to power your life with sunshine.

With flexible financing through different Sungevity Energy Plans, you can get an efficient solar system without emptying your pockets. Plus you’ll lock in your electricity rate for the next 20 years! Join more than 1,100 Sierra Club supporters in making the switch to clean energy. Go solar today and you can feel confident about going solar with a company that has partnered with the Sierra Club, reduce your carbon footprint - equivalent to not driving your car for 20 years and help Sungevity support your local Sierra Club chapter to protect local wildlife and wild lands, keep our air and water clean, and move us toward a clean-energy future. Just follow this link and explore: http://content.sierraclub.org/solar/sungevity

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From the Editor: 2015 is turning out to be an interesting year with just the weather alone. While we suffer from drought, the Eastern United States if bombarded with fierce rain and snow. Although it perhaps isn’t as exciting, I need to bring you up to date with some of the activities of Delta-Sierra Group.

Interaction With Our Community At our last Executive Committee meeting Connie Bock (also a former member of the Executive Committee) discussed a San Joaquin County Office of Education Foundation program through which teachers can request funding for field trips to either Oak Grove or Lodi Nature Area. This program is in honor of Steve Stocking.

Dale Sanders (Dr. Dirt) discussed the Kohl School project where children are studying the Calaveras River by carefully plotting the area and documenting what they find through journaling and photographing.

Nan Ballot adds that the current survey is all land based, plants and animals (mostly inverts) found within their transect. Future plans include taking water samples for water quality testing and organism sampling using nets. She says the students are enthusiastic as are the volunteers.

There was a unanimous vote by the committee to be involved in these projects.

Plastic Paradise Margo Praus purchased the DVD Plastic Paradise. Dale Stocking and I borrowed it and we agree with Margo that it needs to be shown at one of our meetings and hopefully in many other places in San Joaquin County. We are showing it this April. If you read the description on page 5, you may agree that this 2014 film will never have an expiration date! (Continue From the Editor on Page 9)

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(From the Editor Continued from Page 8)

The Executive Committee shrinks! We are in dire need of help! This is not a new issue, but this time we mean it. Just to carry on routine business previously required a quorum of 5 of the 9 Executive Committee members established through the Bylaws. We now have only 5 or 6 voting members who can show up for a meeting. So we are changing the size of the Executive Committee from 9 members to 6 members.

With this change, we must have 4 of 6 members present. Part of the logic behind the number 4 is the Bylaws will also be changed so that every two years 2 new members would be elected for a two-year term. The goal is to prevent 3 persons from dominating the committee with their personal agendas. This matter is now pending with the Motherlode Chapter.

Drupal What’s this? I’m still asking that and I am the one that should know! Sierra Club National made some changes concerning hosting web sites. We were given a choice of hosting our site ourselves or accepting a “migration” to Drupal. I for one do not want Delta-Sierra Group to pay monthly hosting fees or the annual cost to maintain our domain name. We all voted to go with Drupal.

Drupal is a free, open source software that can be used by individuals or groups of users -- even those lacking technical skills -- to easily create and manage many types of web sites. The application includes a content management platform and a development framework.

Dale and I have accepted the challenge required by this change. In a few months our web site will look a little different, but it still will be the best place to keep track of our events and activities. Paul Plathe just might join us too.

Wild and Scenic Film Festival at University of Pacific Delta-Sierra Group will partner with UOP and show films from the Wild and Scenic Film Festivals 2014 and 2015. It is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, April 8. However, at this time we urge you to check our website for better information.

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Photo by Knute Momberg

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SOME GREAT ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS By Zachary K. Johnson, Record Staff Writer

The San Joaquin Regional Transit District is set to receive enough federal money to allow the bus agency to more than triple its fleet of electric buses.

The $4.7 million was part of $55 million in competitive grants that the U.S. Department of Transportation announced it would be awarding to 10 low- or no-emission projects.

The grants, “will help put a new generation of advanced, non-polluting transit buses on the road in communities nationwide,” according to an announcement from the federal agency.

San Joaquin RTD’s money would pay to buy five new electric buses and build a new charging center at the Downtown Transit Center to keep them moving.

The district has two electric buses and one charging station. When the Proterra buses were put into service in 2013, Stockton was the only place in Northern California and the fourth in the country to have fully-electric buses, according to the district. Those buses were paid for through a $2.6 million grant from the California Energy Commission.

The electric buses are an example of how the transit district leverages new technology to save costs and protect the environment, RTD General Manager and CEO Donna DeMartino said in a statement.

(Continue Some Great Environmental News on Page 12)

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(Some Great Environmental News Continued from Page 11)

The federal grant money will allow the purchase of five battery-powered buses. Each 40-foot-long bus produces no emissions when driving and is expected to save 520,000 gallons of diesel fuel over the life of each bus, according to RTD.

Other transit agencies were competing for a piece of this pool of federal grant money, and only about a quarter of the $200 million requested was granted. The grant program’s focus is to cut carbon and other pollutants through deploying U.S.-made buses, according to the announcement.

“The Obama Administration is committed to investing in 21st century transportation solutions like these zero emission buses,” U.S. Transporta-tion Secretary Anthony Foxx said in the announcement. “These innovative, energy-efficient buses will help increase efficiency, improve air quality and reduce our nation’s dependence on oil.”

RTD officials expect to receive the buses and install the charging station in the summer of 2016. Pictured is a photo of one of these buses now operating in another city.

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Sierra Club, New River Gorge, West Virginia. Graveyard Cleanup Service Trip early August 2014.

We cleaned up old abandoned graveyards on park property. Most only had several graves; the largest and still in use sported the Stars and Stripes and the Confederate flags.

The bridge across the new river canyon was built in the 1970's and is the largest single span steel bridge in the Western Hemisphere. It is a beauty!

We cleaned up the cemetery above the Gardner Place. They let us walk through their compound. I think there were 4 homes, but I could not tell exactly how many, because I did not want to stare lest they think I was some city slicker that I never had seen hill folk.

Oh what an adventure! Paul Plathe

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China Lake Petroglyphs By Charles Evans

Kathryn, Austin, and I returned after an amazing weekend visiting Little Petroglyph Canyon located on the China Lakes Naval Weapons Testing Station, near Ridgecrest. We had signed up for the tour back in August as the tour slots are very limited. There were only 17 people on our tour, including three guides.

We met at the Maturango Museum at 6 am and drove to the Station’s main gate to listen to a 30 minutes lecture from the base police while our papers and vehicles were checked. It took an hour to get to the canyon. Our 7 vehicles (the maximum allowed) traveled in a tight convoy with guides at front and rear.

The Navy is very particular about who they let on their facility. No non-US citizens, foreigners or aliens have access. We had to provide birth certificates or passports and photo Id's with other personal details weeks before the tour and again when we entered the base.

Our vehicle doors and hood had to be opened and subject to search. (Continue Petroglyphs on Page 16)

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(Petroglyphs Continued from Page 15) No photos, cell phones, GPS, or other electronic devices were permitted to be turned on, except in the canyon. Unfortunately, I could take no photos, but there was lots of weird, very large and small facilities located all over this one million acre site, including many bulb shaped structures on the desert floor and hilltops.

It is really too bad we could not take some pictures of the non-structured landscape as it was very beautiful.

We traveled 40 miles up through a rocky canyon to a plateau at about 5,000 feet. The last 5 miles was a good graded dirt road. There was the most prolific and an-cient Joshua tree forest where we observed beautiful wild horses that were white, grey and brown. These horses just stared at us as we passed and showed no fear of our presence.

The entire Coso Mountain range is covered with petroglyph; we could see them on the larger rocks as we ascended the mountain canyon road leading to the site. Little Petroglyph Canyon is considered the most prolific prehistoric glyph site in North America, dating from about 12,000 years to the last hundred. (Continue Petroglyphs on Page 17)

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(Petroglyphs Continued from Page 16)

Because it is not easily accessible and has been protected by the Navy since 1942, the site is in pristine condition. It is believed that there may be around 100,000 petroglyphs on the base alone, and as many as 15,000 in this one canyon.

The local natives consider the canyon a sacred site and still hold ceremonies in the canyon. Great care is taken to respect the canyon. Editor’s Note: Yep, a little nepotism here, but when the email with photos came across my desk, I just had to share it.

Photo by Knute Momberg

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Executive Committee with Email Addresses

Chair & Alternate Chapter Delegate: Dale Stocking [email protected]

Vice Chair & Membership Chair: Paul Plathe [email protected]

Secretary & Program Chair: Margo Praus [email protected]

Treasurer & Conservation Chair: Dale Stocking [email protected]

Assistant Treasurer: Mike Ballot [email protected]

Chapter Delegate & Genetic Engineering: Margo Praus [email protected]

Excom Member & Photography: Knute Momberg [email protected]

Excom Member: Nan Ballot [email protected]

Excom Member: Mari Praus [email protected]

Peatduster Editor, Web Designer & Complaints: Robert Evans [email protected]

Your name here! We need your help! You can see some persons are filling 4 spots! Contact any one of us to learn more.



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Explore, enjoy and protect the planet.

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Documents

1 PEATDUSTER - Sierra Club · 2015-06-13 · 4 Explore, enjoy and protect the planet. Volume 46 Number 1 P-4 Printed on Recycled Electrons March, April & May 2015 MEETINGS and EVENTS