New Voices for the Environment: ECOS Board Meeting, July 27

Tuesday July 27, 2021 @ 6:00 pm – 7:45 pm

Please join us for an ECOS Board meeting featuring presentations by three new voices for the environment:

Caring for our Watersheds in California competition winner Rory Pilling on the intersection of environmental and social justice: protection of waterways and the proposed “Right to Rest Act” for homeless to reside in the city.

CA state legislative intern Quincy Stivers on her new CEQA Handbook, written for ECOS: what is CEQA, how environmental documents are organized, how to review these documents, and how you can get involved.

Architect May Lin Chang AIA LEED AP on building standards to meet the challenge of climate change: how carbon can be reduced in building materials and operations; and standards that should be implemented now.

About the ECOS Board of Directors Meetings

Free and open to the public! Join ECOS on our mission to achieve regional and community sustainability and a healthy environment for existing and future residents. Come to one of our ECOS Board of Directors meetings! These meetings are a great place to network with fellow environmentalists and to keep up with the latest local environmental successes and challenges. Mark your calendar: ECOS Board of Directors meets on the fourth Tuesday of every other month (odd-numbered months). You do not need to be a member of ECOS to attend. Come see what we have been up to!

Held Virtually

Below is the information for participating in the meeting.

Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 818 6537 7865
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Featured photo by Belle Co from Pexels

ECOS Board Member Rory Pilling Wins Watershed Contest!

What can you do to improve your watershed?

Safety For People Means Safety For The Environment

Rory Pilling and Rae Jacobson are proud to place first in the 2021 Caring for Our Watersheds contest for their proposal to raise awareness about the social and environmental issues surrounding homelessness. Specifically, the group will advocate for the passing of the Right To Rest Act to ensure that homeless people can live in the main parts of Sacramento- allowing access to sanitation and trash disposal, as well as proximity to transport and job opportunities. Their hope is that the Right to Rest Act will protect homeless individuals, but also alleviate some of the waste and environmental impact from homeless encampments along Sacramento waterways.
For first place in the contest, Rory and Rae won $1,000 for themselves and $1,000 for their school, George Washington Carver School of Arts and Sciences. In total, students compete for over $6,000 cash rewards and participating schools are eligible for over $11,000 cash rewards. Nutrien also provides $10,000 in funding to help implement students’ ideas.
Check out the top finalists here.
View photos of the event on Facebook here.
Caring for Our Watersheds California, 2021

Where is Your Watershed?

Do you have your facts straight about your local watershed? The Sacramento River Watershed is a beautiful place to work, live, and play. Learn more about our watershed and how you can help protect it here.

Resources for People Experiencing Homelessness

February 11, 2021

As we know, many people are suffering unsheltered this winter in Sacramento. The Environmental Council of Sacramento wants to share these resources with anyone in need. Please repost these vital resources and help reduce homelessness this winter. These locations also take volunteers and monetary donations.

Donations needed
https://saintjohnsprogram.givingfuel.com/food-for-neighbors

Authorization warming centers for those experiencing homelessness
https://engagesac.org/blog-civic-engagement/2021/1/27/city-council-declares-extreme-weather-emergency-authorizes-warming-centers

Assistance for hotel vouchers in Sacramento County
https://www.211ca.org/search?taxonomyCode=BH-1800.8500-300

Photo by Seven 7 from Pexels

No More Broken Promises

By Bill Motmans and Tamika L’Ecluse
June 10, 2020
Sacramento News and Review

“…city leaders have proposed federal stimulus funds for economic development projects, including UC Davis’s Aggie Square (a major real estate development aimed at attracting biotech companies), and bolstering the local tourism industry. Neither of these proposed investments will address the immediate and enormous suffering of families, the elderly and children living in neighborhoods such as Fruitridge, Del Paso, North Sacramento, Oak Park and Meadowview. Quite the opposite, investment in Aggie Square commercial projects without a community benefits agreement that includes a large prior investment in new affordable housing and existing neighborhood businesses, will, over time, increase demand for existing housing and commercial space and further destabilize and displace residents and small businesses.
A new coalition of several organizations working in vulnerable neighborhoods, called Sacramento Investment Without Displacement, was created to ensure that public financial investment builds up Sacramento neighborhoods, rather than destabilize them. Our coalition calls on local elected officials to fulfill their commitments to voters. No more broken promises. Now more than ever, with COVID-19 disproportionately hurting communities of color and disadvantaged neighborhoods, public investment must directly and immediately provide relief to our city’s most vulnerable residents.”

Click here to read the article in full.

Click here to learn more about the work being done by Sacramento Investment Without Displacement, of which ECOS is a part.

Photo by Retha Ferguson from Pexels

Sacramento Needs Public Bathrooms

Need to go to the bathroom in Sacramento? Good luck! Unless you are close to home or happen to be somewhere where you have just been a customer (but what if you didn’t “have to go” then?) your chances of finding a toilet are slim. Even our parks are lacking. According to the Sacramento Bee, “…the city operates 205 parks, but most either have no bathrooms or have facilities with limited hours. In the central city…only 5 of 22 parks have restroom facilities.” Many times, park bathrooms are locked up without warning or notice of when they may reopen.

Many of the river access points closest to downtown Sacramento completely lack any bathrooms for beach-goers, such as Sutter’s Landing. Imagine taking your family to have a nice day at the beach, only to find that your kids or your aunt have no where to relieve themselves! That’s what Sacramento is like, and it’s time to change that.

Why? Diseases, for one thing! Now the river is full of bacterias that can make people really sick, like E. Coli.

The link to this SacBee article, published September 12, 2019, has been changed or removed and is no longer available.

Sacramento will continue to struggle with sanitation and risk of disease so long as the city refuses to provide an adequate number of public restrooms, on and off the river, for both people who are experiencing homelessness and those who are not.

Alexandra Reagan

Director of Operations, ECOS

Wildfires, climate change making it harder to breathe in Sacramento, report says

By Mila Jasper
April 24, 2019
The Sacramento Bee

The air is terrible in Sacramento, and climate change is baking the problem in, according to a report released Wednesday by the American Lung Association.
For the second year in a row, Sacramento was named fifth in a list of worst major U.S. cities for ozone pollution in the Lung Association’s annual State of the Air report. Sacramento also moved up from 19th to 15th in the nation for particle pollution days, scoring an F for both categories.

Click here to read the full article.