Leopard Lily. Photo by Erica Crawford   June, July & August Outings

New report shows birds in decline The Brown Pelican is federally listed as endangered. Brown Pelicans rebounded after the pesticide DDT was banned in the United States. Ventana staff photo A new report released by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar shows that nearly a third of the nation’s 800 bird species are in trouble due to habitat loss, invasive species, and other threats. The report, The U.S. State of the Birds, synthesizes data from three long-running bird censuses conducted by thousands of citizen scientists and professional biologists. Birds in trouble include not only the California Condor and the Marbled Murrelet, but other local favorites such as the Snowy Plover, Solitary Sandpiper, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, and Pine Siskin... [more]

On Sunday, June 8, 2008 an illegal campfire escaped control in the Monterey Ranger District of Los Padres National Forest, initiating the Indians Wildland Fire. Less than two weeks later, a powerful electrical storm made landfall on the Big Sur coast, igniting a series of wildfires that would form the infamous Basin Complex. Both blazes evaded containment for over a month, resulting in something of a “perfect storm” that would ultimately blacken over 240,000 acres of Central Coast wildlands. Within the Ventana Wilderness, only the Cone Peak area was spared, but that too burned in October’s 16,000-acre Chalk Wildland Fire. Citing hazardous conditions and a depleted management budget, the US Forest Service closed most of the Monterey Ranger District for the better part of a year... [more]

Sierra backpackers are familiar with the Yellowbelly Marmot often found in rock piles and talus slopes. Photo Erica Crawford

Years of volunteer work in organizing and mapping potential new wilderness areas by club members and others paid off this spring as Congress passed the largest expansion of national wilderness in 15 years. The new wilderness designation will safeguard two million acres nationwide including about 700,000 acres in California... [more]

In a two-year study to document the way humans are affecting the oceans on the West Coast, Halpern and colleagues overlaid data on the location and intensity of 25 human-derived sources of ecological stress, including climate change, commercial and recreational fishing, land-based sources of pollution, and ocean-based commercial activities.

With the information, they produced a composite map of the status of West Coast marine ecosystems. The lead scientists on the study previously conducted a similar analysis on a global scale published last year in Science... [more]

Production of bottled water for U.S. consumption in 2006 required the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil. Photo by Debbie Bulger

The bottled water industry —led by Nestlé, Coke, and Pepsi— aggressively promotes bottled water through sexy marketing campaigns that undermine people’s trust in public water systems. Their campaigns rival the Joe Camel ads that hooked kids on cigarettes and the Happy Cows ads that belie the California dairy industry’s animal factories that dominate subsidized agriculture here. This trendy “healthy” drink can cost 500 to 4,000 times more than tap water.... [more]

A great legal settlement obtained in October by the Sierra Club, in a case challenging the city of Stockton’s General Plan update, has demonstrated the power of litigation as part of an overall campaign to prod counties and cities to address global warming. Reinforcing this message, a court order issued on March 19 found for the Sierra Club in its challenge to the city of Tulare’s General Plan update and agreed with the Sierra Club on all its global-warming claims... [more]

When a creek contains excess sediment, cobbles and gravels necessary for fish to lay eggs and rear young are smothered in sand. Photo Don Alley

The State Board of Forestry will hold a Public Hearing, June 24, in Sacramento on proposed rules to enhance streamside protection for endangered salmon. This meeting will be crucial for the future of imperiled coho salmon statewide and in our Central Coast streams.

Over the past two years the State Board of Forestry has engaged in an extensive review process to look at the sufficiency of current logging rules designed to protect coho salmon and steelhead trout. The Board hired a consultant to conduct a Scientific Literature Review... [more]

The federal government is proposing new rules to reduce airborne mercury pollution from cement kilns for the first time. When finally adopted after the public comment period, the rules will apply to the Cemex plant in Davenport and 150 other plants across the nation. The plant in Davenport is currently closed because of the decreased demand for cement due to the economy, but could reopen in the future.

In 2005 the Cemex plant emitted 170 pounds of mercury, making it one of the biggest emitters of mercury nationwide... [more]
 

> Most Central Coast water bodies listed as impaired > Santa Cruz County and City adopt new programs to encourage energy independence > Traffic pollution linked to new cases of asthma > How can Parsons Slough be restored? > Local residents propose environmental laws > County Supervisors support net metering

Sierra Club members who are eligible to vote in the annual national Board of Directors election now have the option to receive their ballot, ballot statements and voting instructions electronically - helping save time, money and paper.

Click here to register for electronic delivery of annual national election information or to find out more about this option.

Many of you have voted online in our national elections in the past and now you can join us in further helping to protect our environment by taking advantage of this opportunity to reduce waste by using less paper, save money on postage, and increase our ability to deliver this important information to you in an efficient and timely manner.

A bumblebee searches for nectar in a Flannel Bush blossom. Photo: Erica Crawford “What bees ask of us is simple: a world free from poisons and other stressors, with places where they can nest and a sweet, season-long supply of flowering plants. In return, they offer to teach us their deepest lesson yet. Much as a honeybee belongs to her colony, so we humans belong to the living community of the Earth.” —Candace Savage, Bees: Nature’s Little Wonders