Watershed Watch Blog October 2006
Ride my bike to work! AM I CRAZY?!
October 5, 2006
I ride my bike to work. I don't need the exercise. There isn't any fresh air to breath. The route is mostly ugly. Why do I do this? Why do I tolerate psychotic drivers, sickening exhaust, excessive noise, sunburns, and disappointing views to get to work? Why, why, WHY?!
I almost can't remember. Let me think... Ohhh yeah. I do it for environmental reasons. I want to minimize my fossil fuel consumption. I don't want to pollute the air. I want to set a good example for others. The problem is that nobody is watching. Nobody seems to care. I have to remind myself that I live in Orange County. Orange County is not well-known for caring. Well...I care, at least. I care about where I live. I care about beauty, clean air, sustainability. Everyday, I watch my home and this is what I see:
Who needs tolerance when you live in the city of Orange?
October 18, 2006
As a professional naturalist, I regularly educate the public on simple ways to better accommodate the natural environment. One way is to establish a habitat garden. By planting native plants in a section of your yard, you can provide a new home for threatened wildlife, especially birds, who lose their homes because of residential, commercial, or industrial developments. Starting a habitat garden also conserves water and fossil fuel in the continual maintenance of your yard. I don't want to be a hypocrite when it comes to helping the environment, so I figured that I should start my own habitat garden to set an example for others. I put up a sign with my home phone number in the front yard to inform the neighbors of my plan. Then, I began the process of letting our front lawn die, so it could be replaced with native, drought-tolerant vegetation. Apparently, somebody in the neighborhood does not appreciate my endeavor. First, I found my sign defaced. Then, a nasty letter was left hanging on one of the native plants next to the mailbox. I also realized, upon further investigation that some of the newly installed plants had been sprayed with herbicide. Is this the way to treat your neighbors?
"As mayor of munchkin city..."
October 20, 2006 (From letter to Frank Mickadeit at the OC Register)
As you know, Carolyn Cavecche is running for mayor. Yesterday (Sunday, September 17) at 4PM, she appeared at my door. I live in East Orange, off of Santiago Canyon Road. She had a brochure in her hand and was pitching her strategy for election. She said she wanted to focus on "slippage," which she described as graffiti, weeds in medians, and degradation of public infrastructure. I felt that those fairly trivial issues did not really address the serious environmental problems and design flaws that face the city of Orange. I told her that the city needs to work on its land use policy. I said that my neighborhood, for example, was unplanned sprawl. Carolyn immediately cut me off before I could get into the specifics and told me her beliefs. She said that all the big chunks of land were already in the process of being developed and she was confident that the Fieldstone proposed development was planned far enough away from the Santiago Creek floodplain. Then she spoke about East Orange proposed development. She said The Irvine Company (TIC) was in the process of scaling down their plans because the housing market was soft. She said she had been to some land use planning seminars and felt that high-density as a substitute for spread-out developments did not make sense. I said that it [TIC's proposed development next to Irvine Lake, the tollroad, and Jamboree] should not exist either way, meaning that I was opposed to the development outright. She argued that that was not a realistic point of view and she only dealt with realty. At that point I was offended by her remark. She made me feel small and invalid. She then proceeded to say that she had a gun to her head regarding the pending approval of TIC's East Orange proposed development! I laughingly argued that she did not really have a gun to her head. She continued to argue that she really did, and clarified by saying that TIC was processing the development proposal with the County simultaneously. She said it would have been a much worse project had the County approved it instead of the city of Orange. I asked if she really felt that Orange had more control of the project now that it was approved by the city. She said yes because TIC has to go back to the city at some point and go over details. At this point, I did not feel very good about the city or county that I live in. I also felt that the real issue had already been lost in the political mind games that Carolyn was used to playing. Whether the big chunks of land are spoken for or not, there needs to be stricter guidelines for how the city and county use undeveloped and developed land. There are simple, realistic solutions like using native, drought tolerant landscaping around public buildings, in public parks, and along roads and trails to save water and improve conditions for local birds and butterflies. We can work with the water district to penalize those who waste water or allow polluted runoff. We can work to establish more parks in existing neighborhoods. We can decrease road widths to accommodate bikeways, trails, and other alternative forms of transportation. We can redesign the lighting system throughout the city, so it saves energy and doesn't cause so much light pollution. We can adopt green building practices as well as retrofit old buildings so they are environmentally friendly. We can set guidelines for grading before a new project goes in. We can restore our flood control channels from cement ditches back to natural streams throughout urban centers. You get the idea. Does that sound unrealistic? Does taking a stand against a completely unnecessary development sound unrealistic?
I wonder who is more realistic? As a conservationist and fairly informed individual, I accept the reality that we are limited in our natural resources (water, fossil fuel, mineral deposits, timber, etc.) There is almost a universal consensus that we can't afford to deplete our region's limited water supply any further. We can't afford to degrade or remove anymore natural habitat for the sake of housing, malls, industrial complexes, roads, and other forms of public infrastructure. It seems to me that our current politicians and wealthy developers are trying to escape reality with their endless money-making schemes, fake compromises, faulty mitigation. It seems that they are in denial about the consequences of their actions. Severe compromises were made many years ago. Now is not the time to dig a bigger hole. It is time to stop these unrealistic views before it really is too late.
What's happening to Yorba Park?
October 23, 2006 
It looks like Yorba Park is being used for some sort of construction or heavy equipment storage. Just because it is a former landfill, doesn't mean it should be treated so poorly. All this space should be converted to Coastal Sage Scrub (CSS) as soon as possible. CSS is shallow-rooting, so it won't disturb the landfill. Restoring the CSS to Yorba Park can provide suitable habitat for traveling wildlife along Santiago Creek. Add a loop trail around the restoration and you have a low-maintenance, drought-tolerant, and bioligically sustainable passive park. Who am I kidding? Orange loves wasting water and fossil fuel so Argentinian ants have a place to live.