Here is an email I received recently from a local creek steward. It highlights the good work our community is doing to clean up our creeks as well as all of the work that still lies ahead  to return the water and habitat in the Santa Rosa creek system to health and vitality.

Hello Creek Stewards,

 With nearly 2 3/4 inches of rain in the last several days our creeks have started flowing again.  Not many leaves have fallen yet so the storm didn’t cause as much street flooding as a storm later in the fall might have.  I spent a little time on Santa Rosa Creek near Pierson Street this morning and didn’t see as much trash littering the shoreline or hanging in bushes as I expected.  I think that the work of the Youth Ecology Corps on creeks this summer and the 10 volunteer creek clean ups we’ve had this fall made a big difference.

 Six groups on Colgan, Spring, Matanzas and Spirit Creeks counted the trash they collected on tally cards and the results were turned in as part of the 3 week period of recording data for the California Coastal Commission.  Coastwalk led the Sonoma County effort and reports the following numbers from Sonoma County, with numbers from Santa Rosa in the second column:

No. of volunteers:              1,218                  182

Pounds of trash:               10, 564                 634

Pounds recyclables:           8,390                  236

Distance cleaned:             104.85 miles       3.5 miles

Quantified trash in the Santa Rosa area included:

211 plastic bags

28 balloons

59 pieces of clothing

45 toys

83 straws and stirrers

232 cups

884 food wrappers

125 plastic bottles

136 glass bottles

116 beverage cans

26 plastic six-pack holders

52 pieces of building material

3 tires

What can we make of these results?  Unfortunately, there is a lot of trash out there such as balloons, food wrappers, and plastic bags that can be mistaken as food by birds, fish, terrestrial, and marine animals.  The relatively low number of 26 plastic six pack holders might indicate that these are becoming less used as packaging to the relief of ducks, fish and other animals that can become entangled by them.  Food and beverage packaging is the most common form of trash.  There are 74 more tires somewhere in our creeks.  (This is calculated by having found 3 tires in 3.5 miles of creek and extrapolating that to 77 tires in the 90 miles of creeks within the City of Santa Rosa.  A similar calculation would estimate that 1,111 toys and 2,050 straws remain in our creeks.  Actually, I think these numbers would be high as the clean ups concentrated on creek areas with the most trash.)  Certainly, we can conclude that the volunteers made a difference. 

If you can, please join us for another volunteer creek clean up on Saturday October 24 on Steele Creek by Biella School.  Details are below.  And we’re certainly ready to support students, clubs, or businesses with a creek clean up as a community service project.  Sonoma Country Day School and Waldorf Summerfield School will keep the ball rolling with creek clean ups scheduled for later this month. 

A couple of animal sightings: I was surprised to hear from several people of a coyote wandering in Santa Rosa Creek not too far downstream from Stony Point Road.  I’ve heard of coyotes on the outskirts of town but not of them using the more urban stream corridors.  Sharp-eyed Mary Tressler spotted a river otter in Santa Rosa Creek by Gateway Park (the mosaic fish statue).  A Water Agency maintenance worker in the creek out by Willowside Road was startled when an inquisitive otter suddenly emerged between his hip boots.  A gaze of eight raccoons (time for the Funk and Wagnalls) raised havoc in garages as they used the storm drain pipes to move around a NE Santa Rosa neighborhood.  What have you seen?  It’s always fun to learn from the many eyes, ears, and voices on our creeks. 

Hands Across the County & Make a Difference Day

Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009,

9:00 a.m. to noon

Steele Creek clean up at Biella School – 2140 Jennings Avenue, Santa Rosa (west of Marlow Road)

Hands Across the County, a county-wide volunteer work day underwritten by Friedman's Home Improvement, mobilizes volunteer groups and individuals to make the community a cleaner, safer, brighter place while making friends and having fun too!  This will be the first time we’ve done a community creek clean up on Steele Creek.  Many parents and students will be working on the buildings and grounds.  This is a chance to clean up the neighborhood creek that drains the land as far away as Cleveland Avenue and enters Piner Creek a couple of blocks downstream of the school.  Tools and refreshments provided.  Rubber boots could come in handy. 

Insecta-palooza – explore the fantastic world of insects

Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009,

9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Darwin Hall, Sonoma State University

What’s the difference between a bug and an insect?  Do scorpions really glow in the dark?  Find out about the diversity of insects, spiders and other arthropods that live in our gardens, fields and forests.  Entomologists of all ages can explore the fascinating world of insects in a day long series of interactive displays, presentations and lectures and a chance to use the University’s top-notch microscopes.  Sounds like they will cover everything you didn’t know and didn’t want to know about insects.  The flyer for this event is available at

http://www.sonoma.edu/pubs/insectapalooza/images/insectapalooza.png

and details are online at:

http://www.sonoma.edu/pubs/insectapalooza.html

I'm so excited about this! We are getting a wine barrel to collect rain water.  There is a gutter that leaks water onto the path to our kitchen door, so were going to fix that by collecting the water instead.

As for planting, right now just flowers and hopfully anything that deers and other animals won't eat.  We have no grass on the property. So nice cause then we don't have to use the electric lawn mower which we are letting my parents borrow for now.

We have natural A/C - TREES!!!!!  When we were having that heat wave a few weeks ago it was 104 outside and a cool 84 inside.

There is also lots of windows so no need to turn any lights on during the day.

We don't have a garbage disposal. Well, unless you count the cat that lives outside.  I hope to compost, but have to figure out where and keep it animal safe.

We are on well water and have a septic system. The well water is yellow. We have a filter, but the water still tastes gross. I know it's not green, but we are buying water for now.  When we moved in the owners had the well inspected and it needs to be fixed/replaced.  So for now we are drinking bottled water to stay safe until it gets fixed.  With the septic system, we really have to watch what goes down the drain now.  I'm using organic soap for the dishes and clothes.

I'm so proud of myself. The other day when I went food shopping, I brought all 10 of my reusable bags and used them.  Now I just need to remember to bring them all again.

And since today is "Bike to work day" Dan road his bike to work today! Woo Hoo!!!  We also have some nice walking trails, so I don't have to drive somewhere to go walking.

Since this is public, if you want to know where we are now, please e-mail me. Thank you!

They’ve developed a washing machine that only needs 23 milliliters (a cup) of water per load—about 2 percent of the usual dose.

 Xeros

Sarah H. informed some of us GreenMommies that  this year's Coastal Clean Up day is September 20, 2008.

Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup is the world’s largest volunteer event of its kind. Last year, 378,000 volunteers from 76 countries and 45 states cleared six million pounds of trash from oceans and waterways and recorded every piece of trash collected.

I think she and her family are going to participate and hopefully other GreenMommies may be interested as well. If so you can sign up here and a local coordinator will contact you. 

 Thanks Sarah H. for bringing that to our attention.

About 6-8 months ago, I wrote a post about how I noticed some pretty tremendous water wasting happening ay the YMCA showers (where I shower every morning). Some women would turn on and leave showers to "heat up" that need no heating up, some women would shower in one and let their bathing suit "shower" under another head.....just stuff where I thought "I can't keep watching this happen and not do something about it". So I asked a woman (very nicely, I thought) if she would turn off the shower she was using for her bathing suit because we were in a drought and it was wasting water. She looked at me funny, then laughed and kept the 2 showers going. I thought sarcastically "that went well" and then thought "I really don't want to get into any more of a confrontation while naked with another naked woman in the community shower area".

So I wrote a letter to the Director of Operations at the Y and asked if they could post signs requesting that people conserve water. Within a few days, nice big lamenated signs were up in every  corner of the shower area. I was so impressed with the YMCA for taking my request and acting so quickly. As the months have gone by, the signs began to fall off the shower walls (or maybe the 2-shower-head-lady took them down one by one : ) Either way, I asked the Operations Director a few weeks ago if she could put up those signs again and she did one better...she ordered permanent acryllic signs for the shower areas and they are up today. They look great!!!

All of this is just to say that if you ever feel like you should speak up about something but think you won't be listened to or you may get laughed at, I am saying that ...well , you may get laughed at (lady in the shower) but you may also be surprised to find that (especially on a local level) people are very responsive in general to ideas and positive changes.

I get lazy though and see things that need changing and think about them and think about them and never end up saying something.

So here is my challenge to myself  for local things I have thought about for a long time that need changing and haven't acted on them but will now.  

#1 Ask Trader Joes to look at alternatives to their double bagging system. I know they say that they do it because the handles fall off but then they should purchase bags  with handles that don't fall off or bags with no handles (like they had in the "old" days...TJ's is so good about rewarding people who bring their own bags and reminding shoppers before they enter the store "Did you remember your bags?"....The double bagging system seems to me to be counter to their otherwise eco-minded, anti-bag-ness (is that a word?)

 #2 Ask Safeway to display their reusable bags that are for sale by the check out lanes (seems logical right?). The last  ten times I have been to Safeway, the reusable bag display has been hidden in obscure back corners of the store where people either won't see it at all or will see it AFTER they have realized they forgot their bags and so selected plastic/ paper.

#3 Ask the YMCA to start using something other than Styrofoam for their complmentary coffee they give out in the a.m. It's really nice they give out coffee (God bless them for that) but the Styrofoam has got to go. I will also ask them to make a little sign that requests that members please bring their own mug.

I will keep you updated on the feedback / changes if any, I find after sending these letters. 

 I was listening to NPR's radio show Marketplace last night and heard about a new book called, Bottlemania:  How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It.

 I dont think I would buy or read an entire book on this one issue but the interview with the author last night was interesting. 

Here are some excerpts from the interview: 

Is bottled water necessarily better for us?

Water is a really local and individual issue and in general, I will say that bottled water is no better or worse for you than tap water. Bottled water has basically the same level of contaminants -- things in it -- that tap water does and that the government allows to be in it. Bottled water is much less inspected than tap water, so that is one big difference.

Why then are people in this country and all over the world willing to pay so much on a relative scale for water that comes out of a bottle?

I think people are willing to pay more because they think that the water in the bottle is better. It took off because of very clever marketing that prayed on our ideas about health and wellness and beauty and weight loss and things like that and we were told that we needed to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate and drink 8 ounce glasses a day and so portability became really important and that marketing worked really, really well. It turned bottled water from a $150 million a year industry in 1990 to a $11.5 billion a year industry in 2007........Well, bottled water has been around for many centuries, but essentially, the bottle water craze in this country we can trace to that. It was 1977 when Perrier was introduced and it was very much a niche product at first. Yuppies drank it, it was an urban thing. Nobody was walking down the street with that pretty green glass bottle swigging it, but the water had a certain cache: it was French, it had those great bubbles and Orson Wells did the ads and so that started us thinking about celebrity and status and the big change, actually, isn't that dramatic. It was a technological innovation. In 1989, it became possible to put bottled water in bottles made of PET plastic -- that's the lightweight bottles -- and all of a sudden, it became much easier and cheaper to put water into these bottles and that's when the marketing tens of millions of dollars were spent pushing bottled water on us.

Yesterday and today for May standards around here (Santa Rosa) have been incredibly HOT as most of my fellow bloggers know.

What are some ways you and your kids are staying cool while keeping your "carbon foot print" light? 

Presented by the City of Santa Rosa....

April 10, 2008 -Low Water -Use Plants

April 17, 2008- Irrigation Efficiency  for the Home

April 24, 2008 - Drip Irrigation Systems

Classes are free. Call 707-543-3737 to sign up.

Classes will be :

Finley Community Center 

2060 College Ave West

6-8 pm 

It was recently reported that trace amounts of pharmaceuticals were found in our water supply. The city of Santa Rosa's Safe Medicine Disposal  Pilot Program  provides citizens designated drop off areas in which to safely dispose of medicines.

If you don't live in Sonoma County, search the internet for a location near you to dispose of unused or expired medicines.  

I was listening to an interesting story on NPR's Marketplace last night about our precious water supply and how much of it is polluted and unusable. Blue Planet Run, put together by photojournalist Rick Smolan, illustrates how we have the same amount of fresh water now as we did during the dinosaur days. However, now we have 6.5 billion people living here needing it for survival and we have less unpolluted, drinkable to share with one another. 

Blue Planet Run provides readers with a fascinating and thought-provoking look at the water problems facing humanity on every continent, as well as some of the hopeful solutions and courageous "water heroes" focused on alleviating this crisis. By the end of the book, readers are left to form their own conclusions as to whether or how the human race is capable of taking the necessary steps to solve this global crisis before it's too late.

The City of Santa Rosa is offering water conservation classes in October. There are also two new rebate programs the city is offering as well as incentives for people to conserve more water.