Environment

By Dan Oney

A year after San Jose approved its Bring Your Own Bag ordinance; the City has released its initial findings on the plastic bag ban’s effectiveness. And the city is trumpeting the program as a success.

Among the justifications for the declaration of success, the City had assigned resources to evaluate the impact that the first year had on the use of plastic bags, their prevalence in trash processing facilities, and related water-borne pollution. The resulting data showed a significant reduction in bag-related waste.

By Catherine Portman and Pam Nieberg

Guest Comentary – As many local environmentalists recall, nesting burrowing owls at Mace Ranch were illegally disked into the ground in 2000. As part of the mitigation for this loss, the City of Davis, as the lead agency for the Mace Ranch development project, worked with Yolo County to create a Burrowing Owl Reserve at Yolo County Grassland Park on Mace Blvd. south of Davis.

The Mitigation Agreement (“Agreement for the Management of Burrowing Owl Habitat at the Grasslands Regional County Park” 2004) included a Management Plan (“Yolo County Grasslands Park Burrowing Owl Habitat Management Plan”, Albion Environmental, Inc. September 2004) for the Reserve. The Management Plan requires the vegetation on the Reserve be kept short, as burrowing owls require short vegetation to avoid predators and see their prey in order to survive.

COMMENTARY: Council Ordinance Strikes the Right Balance Between Public Health and Privacy – The first time the issue of a wood burning ban came up back in January 2009, it became a tremendous point of controversy.

On the one side were some environmentalists and some health advocates concerned with both the impact of wood burning on the environment as well as health implications.  On the other side were citizens who, for a variety of reasons, use wood during the few cold months of the year to heat their homes and provide themselves with some sort of aesthetic enjoyment.

It took a while and council had to sort out competing views from the public – one group of whom expressed concern about the intrusion into their private lives, the other concerned about personal or public health impacts of wood-burned smoke.

In the end, the council moved forward with a rather modest compromise measure by a 5-0 vote that will allow them to come back in a year and see what impact the measure had on the issue.

by Alan Pryor

GUEST COMMENTARY – While many Davis residents are aware that the Davis City Council is considering a Staff recommendation on wood burning restrictions this Tuesday, few probably realize that there are actually 2 additional somewhat competing recommendations that the Council is considering. One is a long-awaited “Guidance” document submitted by the Yolo Solano Air Quality Management District. The other is a recommendation passed 6-1 by the Natural Resources Commission resulting at their September meeting.

Each of these recommendations or proposals are similar in that they would prohibit wood burning on certain days when PM2.5 (particulate matter less than 2.5 um diameter) concentrations in the region are expected to exceed certain thresholds. Each of the recommendations also differ with respect to which projected PM2.5 threshhold is used to issue mandatory “No-Burn” advisory, which air quality agency’s PM2.5 projections are used, and whether EPA Phase II stoves and pellet stoves are exempted from compliance with the otherwise mandated “No-Burn” notices.

In a marked shift in policy, staff is moving away from past voluntary wood burning bans which largely failed and is now recommending that council adopt an urgency ordinance and introduce a regular ordinance that would regulate wood burning.

Since 2009, the City has been implementing a voluntary wood burning program in coordination with the Yolo Solano Air Quality Management District (YSAQMD). During this period the City and YSAQMD coordinated on air quality monitoring activities and consideration of alternatives to the voluntary policy.

Dr. Tom Cahill has been working with the city since October on establishing guidelines for wood burning that will be based on solid scientific foundations that enable people’s health issues to be addressed while at the same time respecting people’s rights to the fullest extent possible.

The city council last night heard from a wide variety of experts, many of whom have been in countless hours on the issue of wood burning.

This morning residents in Davis wake up to more coverage of the Target issue. However, in marked contrast to the article two weeks ago in the Davis Enterprise, the Sacramento Bee and California Aggie present largely balanced arguments weighing the concerns of the local citizen’s groups against the stance of the EPA.

On Monday December 22, 2008, the Vanguard broke the news that local group, Frontier Fertilizer Superfund Oversight Group (FFSOG) was concerned about the discovery of new detection levels of TCP at the Target Superfund site. The group was asking for new testing before Target was set to lay the foundation for the new store on January 5, 2009 (coincidentally today).

The headline reads: “Smoke Police Begin Crackdown on Newly Illegal Chimney Fires” The article goes on to…

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