The Sacramento Bee
March 7, 2015
In Folsom, plans for more urban sprawl threaten our region’s natural habitats, even in the face of drought and climate change concerns.
Read more here.
Category Archives: News
600,000 Baby Salmon Head to the Pacific, With a Little Help
National Geographic
February 24, 2015
“The California drought, the state’s worst on record, has taken a terrible toll on those already-diminished winter Chinook salmon runs.
It’s not just that there isn’t enough water; there’s not enough cold water, especially after competing interests such as urban areas and big agriculture—each equipped with more political muscle than wild salmon advocates have—take their share. In 2014, the percentage of baby salmon that survived to head downstream was the worst that fishery officials had ever seen. In a normal year, about 25 percent of the eggs produce baby salmon healthy enough to migrate downstream; last year, with only 5 percent surviving their infancy in the unusually warm water, nearly the whole winter run was wiped out.
That’s why hatchery workers tripled the fish in the truck-lift this month.”
Read more here.
Ordinance Seeks To Allow Residents To Sell Produce Grown In Their Gardens
CBS Sacramento
February 12, 2015
“Community gardens have been around for years, but this proposed city ordinance would allow gardeners to set up shop here or right in front of their homes to sell what they grow.
‘I do this to raise good clean food and I’m trying to make a living out of it,’ said Paul Trudeau, who grows food.”
Read more here.
Sac County seeks to control Hwy 16 despite rural opposition
The Sacramento Bee
January 14, 2015
“County officials say they need to change the mostly two-lane highway from Watt Avenue to Grant Line Road into an urban roadway that can accommodate as many as 30,000 new homes in the next 30 years.”
Read more here.
General Plan Update
Sacramento 2035 General Plan Update
On January 15, the Planning and Design Commission will conduct a public hearing to receive and consider public testimony on the proposed Sacramento 2035 General Plan and to forward a recommendation to the Sacramento City Council on adoption of the Plan and associated Final MEIR.
The public is invited to attend the public hearing:
Time, Date, Location:
January 15, 2015 beginning at 5:30 PM
New City Hall
915 I Street, 1st Floor Council Chamber
Sacramento, California
Cordova Hills Development Project
Primary concern
Ron Alvarado looks over a portion of his Cordova Hills property. (Photo by Randy Pench, Sacramento Bee, 2012.)
This project is classic leapfrog sprawl development with no adjacent development, and lies outside of the recently adopted Sacramento region Metropolitan Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy (MTP/SCS). The enticement of the major regional amenity of a private university gave the Sacramento County Board of supervisors cover to approve the destruction of some of the finest remaining vernal pools in the Sacramento Valley. However, there is currently no university interested in the site, and there is general consensus that finding such a university is unlikely at best. The Environmental Impact Report only analyzed the “project as proposed” which included the university, ignoring significant additional impacts associated with the “no university” scenario and the mitigations to address them.
On March 1, 2013, ECOS and the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit challenging Sacramento County’s approving the Cordova Hills project. You can help support our effort by donating to ECOS’s legal fund (see sidebar).
In May 2014, ClimatePlan covered Cordova Hills in their review of statewide implementation of Sustainable Communities Strategies.
