YOU Can Make a Difference; Read How in This eNewsletter
► Join our Lobbying Training and help ensure the BCDC commissioners set the correct standards that will impact us all for decades.
► Read our Peninsula Clean Energy comment letter.
► Register for the 22nd Annual Death Valley Camping Trip with Loma Prieta Pride.
► Learn about wildlife, such as Black Skimmers and Night Herons, at risk from sea level rise.
► Take a hike! See the comprehensive list of activities available with your chapter through mid-April.
Urgent and Unprecedented Opportunity to Protect Our Communities and Preserve Our Healthy, Living Bay
2024 will be a crucial year for Bay Advocacy! Our Bay Alive Campaign’s efforts are yielding promising results and we have an unprecedented opportunity to help ensure that our whole region plans for sea level rise in a visionary, equitable, and coordinated way. The Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) will complete a Regional Shoreline Adaptation Plan by the end of this year that will set the standards for local sea level rise planning in every city on the Bay shoreline. We’ll all have to live with the results for decades to come. Please help us make sure that BCDC gets it right!
Bay 101 Lobbying Training
April 3rd | 7:00 - 8:30 pm
Join us for a workshop where we’ll discuss the issue at hand and provide training for lobby-style meetings with the commissioners of the BCDC. Learn more and register today!
Check out our new video and revamped Bay Alive Campaign website to learn more and please join us to shape a resilient and sustainable future for our beloved San Francisco Bay and leave a lasting legacy for generations to come. Read more.
The goal of Sierra Club Military Outdoors is to improve the lives of veterans and their family members through connections with the outdoors, offering free training for veterans and their family members.
Peninsula Clean Energy
"It is very encouraging to hear that PCE is offering funds in its Community Reinvestment Package for local energy resources, including microgrids. We hope to publicize this among city officials in San Mateo and will be asking them to pinpoint a location for a microgrids project; [...] This envisioned microgrids entity will serve as a demonstration project in the city and will have a practical purpose as well because it will provide backup power to residents during times of grid outage. We hope that the existence of this microgrids entity will motivate city residents to consider rooftop solar/battery backup microgrids for their own homes. It would help facilitate such local clean energy microgrids projects if PCE forms a small task force whose part-time responsibility is to assist local officials with their clean energy projects." Read the full letter.
22nd Annual Death Valley Camping Trip
Wednesday, March 27th - Sunday, March 31st
Loma Prieta Pride Sierrans (formerly GLS) is excited to offer their 22nd Annual Death Valley National Park camping trip. Join them! The campsite is located in the Furnace Creek area with views of the surrounding hills. It offers picnic tables, drinking water, dishwashing stations, flush toilets, a grill, nearby commercial showers, plenty of room for tents and on-site parking with space for a couple vans. Cost: $80 per person. Learn more and register.
Celebrating Women's History Month
March is Women's History Month and we'd like to take this opportunity to celebrate the women who serve as leaders with the Loma Prieta Chapter and dedicate so much of themselves to the amazing conservation work that you all see magically happen. Learn more about them and the work they do!
Bay 101 Lobbying Training
April 3rd | 7:00 - 8:30 pm
2024 is a crucial year for sea level rise planning, and we need your help to enshrine nature-based solutions and community health! Join us for a workshop where we’ll discuss the issue at hand and provide training for lobby-style meetings with the commissioners of the BCDC.
This is the second of an awareness through artwork series, by our 16 year-old volunteer Aiden Chen, that we introduced in January.
Nests made by skimmers are on beaches and are vulnerable to flooding from sea level rise. Areas that skimmers settle in tend to also be frequented by humans, who trample and destroy nests. To conserve and save these birds, Sierra Club's Bay Alive and 30x30 campaigns promote the use of nature based solutions to protect the San Francisco Bay wetlands, associated habitats, and human communities from sea level rise. The 30x30 campaign works to conserve 30% of California’s lands and waters by 2030. Learn more.
Heron and the Green Crayon
California's Senate Bill 272, passed in the fall, requires coastal cities and towns to develop plans for adapting to sea level rise - while giving them the flexibility to develop their own approaches. What could this mean for wildlife? Let the Heron and the Green Crayon show you.
Sea Level Rise Webinar Series
How can local cities and residents use nature-basedadaptations to sea level rise? Watch recordings of our webinar series with SF Bay experts and please share with your local elected officials.
Spring Backpacking Course
Lightweight Backpacking Course
April 6th and 19th-21st
Imagine backpacking, and feeling like a you're on a day-hike. How much farther could you go? How much more could you see? Find out in our class for experienced backpackers on lightweight and ultralight backpacking skills, gear, and techniques. Registration required.
Harms of Artificial Turf Comment Letters
Our Plastics Prevention Committee has been calling for the rejection of artificial turf use locally. Plastic grass is bad for our children’s health, harms the environment, and doesn’t save money when lifecycle cost is factored in. Fortunately there are healthy, drought tolerant, high performance alternatives.
Letters have been submitted to Fremont Union High School District, the City of Mountain View, Campbell Union School District Board, and Campbell Union High School District Board. Read them all.
California forests aren’t fuel: Golden State Natural Resources’ (GSNR) Biomass Boondoggle April 15th, 4:00 pm
FeaturingRita Vaughan Frost, Forest Advocate at Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
Questions about environmental safety and community health loom over the greenwashed industry and proposed export scheme. Two proposed wood pellet plants in California will create industrial-scale facilities in Tuolumne and Lassen counties, exporting one million tons a year out of Stockton to overseas energy markets. Learn more and register.
San Jose Stormwater Permit Requirements, Homelessness and Neighborhood Considerations Comment Letter
"In recent times, impacts of homeless encampments along San Jose waterways have been accumulating with trash, toxic debris and human waste, as well as erosion and denuding of riparian vegetation. The impacts have devastated ecosystems along the creeks and impaired water quality locally, downstream, and in the Bay. Clean-up efforts have removed millions of tons of trash, and yet the problem persists. The people experiencing homelessness in these conditions and our waterways deserve better, and so do San Jose residents in all city neighborhoods." Read the full letter.
In the Community
Cleanups (March 24th and April 7th) and Restoration (April 20th) from our friends at Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful.
Power in Nature and 30x30 Meet with Assemblymember Addis's Staff
Power in Nature, the statewide lobbying group for 30x30, hosted a meeting with Assemblymember Addis' staff, Kylie Baranowski, on February 27th. Assemblymember Addis is a member of the California Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee. This committee's focus is on water resources, flood management, fish and game, parks and recreation, and wildlife. The Sierra Club Loma Prieta 30x30 is a member of the Power in Nature Central Coast Regional Group that is made up of five counties, San Benito County being one of the three counties served by Loma Prieta. Read more.
One of the best ways to safeguard a thriving and just future is by ensuring that your Loma Prieta Chapter remains a champion for the environment of Santa Clara, San Mateo, and San Benito Counties. Naming us as a beneficiary in your bequest will provide meaningful and enduring resources that will allow continued local and powerful environmental activism.
Please contact our Chapter Development Coordinator Justyna Guterman for the specific language for your estate planning and/or read more here. For additional information about planning a bequest please contact Julia Curtis, (800) 932-4270.
Photographers, see the great images in our Chapter Annual Summaries and help protect local nature with your images! Share with us your high-resolution photos of local nature, with or without people, to inspire local residents to support Loma Prieta Chapter work. Please contact Chapter Development Coordinator Justyna Guterman.
2024.03.16 Chapter Director's hike in Skyline Ridge Open Space Preserve, with view of Mt. Umunhum (see "cube" on top) and Loma Prieta (highest peak in Santa Cruz Mountains).
"The world has not to be put in order. The world is order incarnate.
It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order."
Henry Miller
Your Local Rental Property Can Support Conservation
Your Loma Prieta Chapter Director needs to find a new home before April 1st: 1+ bedroom, 2+ bathroom, >800 sq ft, w&d, ac, 1+ garage, 3+ total parking, patio/balcony./yard. If you know of an opportunity, please contact James.Eggers@sierraclub.org.
