HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT, STRONG ECONOMY, VIBRANT COMMUNITIES
In the next 20 years, the number of people living in San Diego County will grow by 750,000. That's more than three times the population of Chula Vista.
"What will that do to our traffic? What will that do to our open spaces and our land use? What will we do if we run out of landfill space?" asked Marion Paul, executive director of the Equinox Center.
Colorado's top water official is optimistic that a setback to a California water conservation plan won't derail an agreement affecting the use of Colorado River by six other states in the West.
Dick Wolfe, director of the Colorado Division of Water Resources, said Tuesday that water officials have shown a new collective will to overcome obstacles to cooperation on the river.
A California state judge invalidated a conservation plan intended to curtail Southern California's overuse of the river. Among other things, the plan called for an effort to restore California's Salton Sea, an enormous desert lake.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jan/19/official-optimistic-ruling-wont-hurt-water-deal/
Solar energy has long been one of the great hopes for fighting climate change and liberating the world from fossil fuels. And it’s easy to see why solar has captured the collective imagination: All those photovoltaic panels look so shiny, futuristic, clean, and green.
That’s not quite the case. Any form of energy production has its dirty side and solar is no exception. While its impact is nowhere near that of coal-fired power plants, photovoltaic modules are made from a witch’s brew of toxic chemicals. Arsenic, cadmium telluride, hexafluoroethane, lead, and polyvinyl fluoride are just some of the chemicals used to manufacture various types of solar cells.
None of this poses much, if any, threat during a solar panel’s working life. Solar modules—which are linked together to form a solar panel—for instance, are solid state and encased in glass or other protective material to keep them dry. The problem, as the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition pointed out in a 2009 report, comes at the beginning and end of a panel’s life. Toxins potentially can be released during the manufacturing process—putting workers at risk—and when panels finally hit the scrap heap decades later.
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-01-06-solars-dirty-little-secret
The long-planned, oft-delayed Gregory Canyon landfill in North County is likely facing another delay.
The Environmental Protection Agency has recommended that the Army Corps of Engineers have an environmental impact statement prepared to study what long-term effects the project might have on the San Luis Rey River and its tributaries. The Corps will decide by the end of the week whether to require the developers to undertake the study, which traditionally can take years to complete.
Few projects in the county have been more studied than the proposed 183-acre trash dump that would be about three-and-a-half miles east of Interstate 15, just south of state Route 76.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jan/13/new-report-required-gregory-canyon/
Second up in our little series of Q&As is Marco Gonzalez, an environmental attorney. He's most prominent as the public face and legal representative of the Surfrider Foundation and Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation.
SAN DIEGO — The new year ushered in higher water rates for San Diegans, who joined residents countywide in paying more to cover the rising wholesale cost of water.
In November, the San Diego City Council approved a 7.75 percent rate increase for typical single-family homeowners after agreeing with a staff report that said the city had no choice but to recoup the additional money it is spending on water. The study estimated that higher wholesale rates amount to about $30 million more a year citywide.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jan/04/another-increase-price-water/
San Diego County has received a $5.1 million federal grant to promote energy efficiency and conservation projects, the latest award under the federal economic-stimulus plan approved earlier this year.
The money will be used to support solar-panel installation, updating air-conditioning systems and assisting developers with energy-saving projects, county officials said.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/dec/22/county-gets-51-million-energy-projects/
Environmentalists are celebrating new water quality regulations passed by the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board on Dec. 16, but elements of the new Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems (known as MS4) leave unclear how cities are to regulate certain elements of the permit. “The permit was adopted and is effective immediately, although a number of specific requirements in the permit have phased-in deadlines by which certain actions must be completed or started,” said Tom Bonigut, San Clemente’s assistant city engineer and head of the city’s environmental programs.
San Diego County’s community colleges are going green to train unemployed workers for new environmentally friendly jobs.
With $3.7 million in federal stimulus money, the colleges are starting programs to train hundreds of laid-off workers in jobs such as solar panel installers and landscape auditors.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/dec/24/grants-fund-training-green-jobs/
A recent report, “Many Shades of Green: Diversity and Distribution of California’s Green Jobs,” published in December 2009, provides comprehensive data about green jobs, tracking the most recent available data on green companies from 1995 to 2008, job type, location and growth across every sector and region of California.
The Sacramento Area ranked first in green job growth, expanding 87 percent. The San Diego Region followed with 57 percent, while the Bay Area grew by 51 percent.
http://www.equinoxcenter.org/articles-admin/article-add.html?pid=15