Environmentalists’ Holiday Party Dec. 2nd

Join the Sierra Club Sacramento Group, the Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS) and the Green Democrats of Sacramento for the Environmentalists’ Holiday Party, a long-standing annual holiday tradition.

This is a great chance to catch up with friends and meet new people interested in protecting and celebrating our natural world. There will be a silent auction with art, wine and other items available. Please RSVP on our facebook page, here.

WHEN/WHERE

Saturday, December 2 from 6 – 8:30 pm at the Shepard Garden and Arts Center, 3330 McKinley Blvd (entrance & parking on Park Way, between 33rd and 35th Streets).

FOOD

We will be providing a couple of pasta dishes along with green salad and garlic bread.

Please bring one of the following, based on your last name:

A-L Please bring your favorite side or main dish.

M-Z please bring your favorite hors d’ouvre or dessert.

Vegan dishes welcome!! Beverages will be provided, though if you have a favorite you’d like to share please bring it too! We will be having a silent auction – be prepared to pick up some great art work, Sierra Club logowear and other items for holiday gifts!

COST

A suggested minimum donation of $10 to help us cover facility costs and entertainment is much appreciated.

PRESENTATIONS

Protect Bears Ears – Sarah Friedman with the Sierra Club will present on the current threats to the Bears Ears National Monument. Bears Ears is the most recently-protected National Monument in the United States, and a beautiful and culturally significant place. To learn more about Bears Ears and the urgent need to protect it, please visit www.bearsearscoalition.org.

Pass a clean DREAM Act – Julio Molina is a Spoken Word Poet and a DREAMer – a young migrant who has never lived outside of the U.S. as an adult. Molina is advocating for a clean Dream Act. The “clean DREAM Act” is the name coined for legislation providing a pathway to U.S. citizenship for DREAMers like Molina. Read more about the clean Dream Act here: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/saving-america-starts-with-daca-pass-a-clean-dream_us_5a161973e4b068a3ca6df636.

ENTERTAINMENT

We will enjoy live music by Jenn Rogar, a local favorite and returning artist to our event!

See you all on Saturday, Dec. 2nd!

Help Us Defeat Plans to Widen US-50!

Do You Want More Traffic, Noise, and Pollution in Your Neighborhood?

Local Sacramento residents are taking action on a serious threat to our neighborhoods – CalTrans intends to WIDEN Sacramento’s US-50 through Downtown Sacramento from I-5 to Watt Boulevard. We must act now! Our quality of life and our climate are at stake.

WHY NOT WIDEN THE HIGHWAY?
As concerned citizens, we want Sacramento to be a Green City and a Livable City.
Widening highways makes us just another dirty city because it:
1. Increases noise and air pollution (including greenhouse gases)
2. Induces demand (encourages people to drive more who wouldn’t otherwise). Expanding our freeways won’t decrease congestion.
3. Other local needs should take financial priority.

WHAT ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING?
Bigger freeways and more cars increase our emissions, making it impossible to do our part to halt global warming. Fact: we cannot meet our regional goals for GHG reductions unless we develop real alternatives to driving.

ISN’T THIS A CARPOOL LANE?
CalTrans is disingenuously calling this project “green” under the guise of a carpool lane. Carpool lanes have been shown to not significantly increase the number of people who carpool or the throughput of people. We support turning an existing lane into a carpool lane, or even turning this proposed lane into a transit only lane.

WE’RE CHALLENGING CALTRANS
With this lawsuit we are demanding that CalTrans acknowledge and compensate for the increase in greenhouse gas emissions and traffic impacts that will result from more cars and more car trips on a wider freeway. We want to stop these projects in our area and have the money spent on transportation that keeps our streets livable and unclogged, gives us transit that gets us where we need to go, and helps reverse climate change.

WE NEED MONEY TO WIN
We must raise $11,000 to take this stand to cover our legal fees. You can take the stand with us by contributing online on our “gofundme” page, or by donating to ECOS directly via our website (www.ecosacramento.net) by clicking the donate button. (Just be sure to mark your donation for “Highway 50 litigation” – donations are tax deductible.)

WITH YOUR HELP – WE CAN WIN!

Click here to read more about the project on the Caltrans website.

Click here to read our July 2017 press release.

Click here to read the article published by the Sacramento Bee about this lawsuit.

ECOS comments on the Folsom General Plan NOP

Click here to read the full letter.

Jonathan K. London at ECOS Board Meeting – highlights

Professor Jonathan K. London of the Center for Regional Change at UC Davis spoke to ECOS at our September 18th Board Meeting about their work on Environmental Justice. The Center for Regional Change has grown into a well-known policy-oriented research organization that aims to create linkages between the university and the region of which it is a part.

Professor London presented several tactics for how an organization such as the ECOS coalition can do more to help improve social equity in the Sacramento region. London directed us to get to know the Center for Regional Change’s report called “Capitalizing Environmental Justice in the Sacramento Region.” The report assesses the dire conditions of environmental injustice confronting low-income communities and communities of color in California’s Capital Region. However, local residents and regional leaders have begun to develop a cohesive framework for action to improve conditions in their communities, and to contribute to the region’s burgeoning Environmental Justice movement.

London reminded us of the plethora of information offered by CalEnviroScreen, including some analyses done by the Center for Regional Change on mapping pollution levels and drinking water contamination in the Sacramento region.

London also highlighted a tool called “IVAN” (Identifying Violations Affecting Neighborhoods). IVAN is an Environmental Monitoring System that connects the community with real people that can help solve local environmental problems.

The presentation emphasized the importance of environmental injustices to people living in rural areas and engaging them in environmental advocacy work. Connecting with neighborhoods, working to help bolster affordable housing options and joining food justice efforts are all also effective.

ECOS members in attendance were appreciative of the presentation, its cutting-edge research and the new tools for advocacy with which we left. Thank you to Jonathan K. London!

You can suggest future speakers to present to ECOS by emailing our office at office[at]ecosacramento[dot]net.

South Sac Habitat Conservation Plan – Final Comments from ECOS

What is the South Sac Habitat Conservation Plan?

Comments from ECOS

September 5, 2017

Attention: Rich Radmacher, Senior Planner
Sacramento County Planning Department
827 7th Street, Sacramento, CA 95814

Delivered via email to: radmacherr[at]saccounty[dot]net

These comments on the public draft of the South Sacramento Habitat Conservation Plan are presented on behalf of the Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS), Habitat 2020, the Sierra Club, the Institute for Ecological Health, and Save Our Sandhill Cranes.

Issues addressed by these comments include:

long-term sustainability of vernal pool resources in our region
agricultural-residential development
effects of pesticide use on agricultural preserve lands
effects of artifical lighting on species covered by the plan, as well as the insect prey of those species
effects of rodenticides on various species
better monitoring of how species are doing
avoidance and minimization measures
available inventory (in acres) remaining for each cover type/habitat type in the Plan Area
the regular review of relevant new scientific studies and reports for applicability in Preserve management

Animals of special concern include:

various local species of raptors (birds of prey) including the Burrowing Owl, the White Tailed Kite and the Swainson’s Hawk
the American Badger
the Loggerhead Shrike (a “songbird with a raptor’s habits”)
the Greater Sandhill Crane (which has one of the longest fossil histories of any bird still in existence)
the Tricolored Blackbird
the Western Red Bat

Read Our Comments

Click here to read the full comment letter.

Corresponding Addendum to our letter:

More Resources

Click here to learn more about the South Sacramento Habitat Conservation Plan

Click here for a glossary of terms used in and in relation to the South Sacramento Habitat Conservation Plan

Click here to learn more about the Sandhill Crane

Kammerer Road-Highway 99 Sphere Of Influence Amendment DREIR

On September 11, 2017, ECOS submitted our comments on the Draft Recirculated Environmental Impact Report (DREIR) for the Proposed Kammerer/Highway 99 Sphere Of Influence Amendment (SOIA) Application for the City of Elk Grove.

Click here or on the image above to read the comment letter.

Summary

We appreciate the added attention to detail offered in the recirculated draft EIR, but rather than alleviate our concerns expressed in our original letter, the DREIR only further confirms those concerns. ECOS remains strongly opposed to the proposed Kammerer-99 Elk Grove SOI expansion and stands by our initial observation summarizing the project: Elk Grove’s anticipated growth can be accommodated within the existing City limits, and we find no justification for expansion beyond the Sacramento County Urban Services Boundary (USB) established in 1993 to be the ultimate growth boundary within the County. The proposal is inconsistent with the Sacramento Area Council of Governments’ (SACOG) Metropolitan Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy (MTP/SCS) for meeting State mandated greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions, Federal mandates for Air Quality Attainment under the State Improvement Plan (SIP), as well as myriad regional goals for social equity, public health and natural resource conservation. There is an extreme lack of certainty that municipal water can be provided to this area without severe regional impacts, and the impacts to invaluable agricultural and biological resources by the proposal are potentially impossible to mitigate. The RDEIR confirms significant and unavoidable impacts in all these above-mentioned areas, with the exception of less than significant biological impact after mitigation which is a finding we disagree with. The question is, what justification is there for these impacts? We, again, find that there is not, and we strongly recommend that LAFCo decline the proposed Kammerer/99 SOIA.

Click here to read our comment letter to the Draft Environmental Impact Report, submitted March 31, 2017, which is referenced in our letter.

Click here for the Friends of Swainson’s Hawk’s comment letter on the Draft Recirculated Environmental Impact Report, submitted September 11, 2017, which is also referenced in our letter.