Loma Prieta Chapter eNewsletter: October, Volume 1
October 14, 2025
YOU Can Make a Difference. Read How Here.
► Learn about our involvement in opposing the Palo Alto Airport expansion.
► Help us congratulate Silicon Valley Clean Energy and Peninsula Clean Energy on their recent awards.
► Read our letter on the Concar Passage Redevelopment encouraging it maximize vegetation on the space.
► Learn about the hidden threats from sea level rise and join our Bay Alive Campaign.
Opposing the Palo Alto Airport Expansion
The Loma Prieta Chapter remains vigilant in protecting the Palo Alto Baylands from any expansion of the Palo Alto Airport. In doing so we collaborate with a number of local environmental groups including the Palo Alto Student Climate Coalition and the Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance. Our efforts were mentioned in recent Palo Alto article. If you are interested in getting involved, contact our Conservation Coordinator.
"The City Council paused the effort in September 2024 after heavy criticism from residents of Palo Alto, East Palo Alto -– and, to a lesser extent, Menlo Park – about the proposed expansion’s potential impacts on both the Baylands ecosystem and air traffic over residential neighborhoods. A coalition of nonprofit groups that included the Sierra Club and Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance were among the opponents of the expansion, as they made clear in a letter they submitted to the council."
ELECTRIFICATION
Electric Innovation Awards
During the past six years, the Loma Prieta Chapter has been successful in promoting the adoption of dozens of strong building codes, modeled by Silicon Valley Clean Energy and Peninsula Clean Energy, in cities and counties in our Chapter.
Silicon Valley, Start Your Electrification Journey
Whether you’re a homeowner replacing your gas equipment, a renter shopping for smaller appliances, or a business wanting to "go electric", eHub, the Silicon Valley Clean Energy (SVCE) interactive tool, has everything you need to make informed decisions. Join thousands of Silicon Valley homes and businesses who have already saved with SVCE offers and services — explore the new eHub for yourself.
Sierra Club Celebrates Loren Blackford as our Next Executive Director
The Sierra Club’s member-elected Board of Directors has unanimously appointed Loren Blackford as our next Executive Director, making her the first woman to lead the Sierra Club in our 133-year history!
Loren has been a leader in our movement for nearly two decades, serving as Sierra Club President, Interim Executive Director, and Sierra Club Foundation Board Chair. Now she’s ready to guide us through this pivotal moment.Read the full press release on Blackford's appointment.
What are the Hidden Threats from Sea Level Rise?
Below the surface of the land are vast reservoirs of groundwater. Groundwater is rain water that has soaked into the ground over many, many years.
Seawater also seeps into the ground under the sea floor. Seawater is salty and is heavier than groundwater. At the shoreline where the two waters collide under the surface of the land, the seawater stays under the groundwater. So when the sea rises, not only does the water flood across the beaches, mud flats, wetlands, and our communities, but under the surface, the seawater also pushes up the groundwater, contributing to more surface flooding and wreaking havoc underground where we can’t see it.
The Loma Prieta Chapter drew a round of applause from a packed room following Gita Dev’s presentation at last week’s Redwood Shores Library community information session, coordinated with the Redwood Shores Coalition’s talk on the Redwood Life bayfront redevelopment proposal. Gita, Bay Alive Campaign's Sea Level Rise Committee Vice-Chair, expertly informed the curious crowd about the Bay Alive Campaign’s work and the myriad nature-based community-wide benefits of implementing the Bay Conservation and Development Commission's Regional Shoreline Adaptation Plan’s resiliency measures around the Redwood LIFE campus and greater Redwood Shores bayfront. The enthusiastic questions that followed reflect the depth of the Redwood Shores community’s appreciation for the Bay Alive Campaign’s ongoing efforts to preserve our bayfront ecology. Do you know of an organization that might want to learn about our Bay Alive Campaign, or want us to come to your organization? Let us know.
Notice of Preparation for the Draft Environmental Impact Report
"At more than twice the size of the Oracle campus built in 1989, the Redwood Life Project would be the largest development in Redwood City’s modern history. Unlike past projects, however, it is proposed on a closed, degrading1 landfill surrounded by sensitive shoreline habitats and residential neighborhoods, and subject to accelerating risks related to sea level and groundwater rise. This creates unusually precarious site conditions for new development. The combination of unprecedented scale and uniquely vulnerable conditions raises extraordinary risks of long-term harm to people, the Bay ecosystem, and regional resilience. For these reasons, we urge the City to pursue a broad scope and rigorous analysis for the DEIR, evaluate the project’s long term impacts related to sea level rise using the projection criteria required by the Bay Conservation and Development Commission’s Regional Shoreline Adaptation Plan, and provide vigorous and enforceable mitigations beyond the minimum required by CEQA. If the City fails to fully evaluate and address these risks, the consequences could be irreversible."
Environmental Stewardship Program 2025 - 2026 Registration is Open
If you are curious about environmental issues and would like to take action to protect our environment, this is the program for you. Space is limited so register today.
At our in-person Environmental Stewardship Program you will learn about critical environmental issues, learn how to be an activist, enjoy nature through connections to optional outings, and receive a certificate of completion. These goals will be accomplished through screenings of award-winning environmental documentaries, discussion, presentations and learning to work with legislators.
Previous program participants have afterwards played integral roles in various environmental organizations, both grassroots NGOs and government agencies, including elected officials, and have ranged in age from high school students to senior citizens. They are continuing to work to build a better world.
"As a follow up to our meeting on September 23rd, below are the main comments we made verbally at the meeting with you on the Formal Application (of August 4, 2025). SLU would like to see these comments factored into the final approved project. SLU would also be interested in meeting with you again as we expect to have more comments as the project goes through its approval process. We do plan to meet with City Staff, as well."
"The undersigned organizations respectfully urge the Planning Commission to deny the appeal of the Vista de Almaden project. As with previous appeals to the Commission in the past few weeks, this project did not meet the 90-day deadline for complete applications and was appropriately deemed incomplete. The Planning Commission should uphold the staff incompleteness determination for the Vista de Almaden project and deny the appeal."
Sign the Petition to Save San Bruno Mountain
A massive threat looms over one of our most cherished natural treasures. San Bruno Mountain is not just any mountain, it is a sanctuary for endangered butterflies, a haven for rare plants, and a refuge of unparalleled ecological significance. The proposed project threatens to unravel the delicate balance of this natural treasure, and we urge you to take action to protect it.
The City of Brisbane is considering a plan to build a massive 1.3 million-square-foot warehouse, 100 feet tall, right in the heart of San Bruno Mountain, at the historic Guadalupe Quarry.
This industrial facility would bring hundreds of workers (1,500!) and an incredible amount of traffic through our city and into the heart of sensitive habitat. Sign the petition today.
Sudden Oak Death (SOD) is a tree disease caused by the invasive, fungus-like pathogen Phytophthora ramorum, which was first described in the mid-1990s. SOD primarily affects specific species, and especially the coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia), canyon live oak (Quercus chrysolepis), California black oak (Quercus kelloggii), Shreve’s oak (Quercus parvula shrevei), and a related species known as tanoak (Notholithocarpus densiflorus). It has had devastating impacts in the coastal area within the Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter, as well as other coastal areas throughout Northern California and Southern Oregon. Learn more about Sudden Oak Death.
Forest Protection Forum
Extreme Climate and Active Management Drive Unprecedented Forest Degradation October 27th, 4:00 pm Presented by Dr. Dominick A. DellaSala
Forests around the world and in North America are under unprecedented stressors from climate change interacting with inappropriate active management practices that amplify the global climate and extinction crises. Dr. DellaSala will outline what's driving fast-fires, insect outbreaks, and forest degradation in western North America. This talk may help activists deal with overzealous thinning projects and related logging and road building that falsely claim to restore and prepare ecosystems for climate change. The talk is based on peer-reviewed articles with co-authors from forest regions in North America (US & Canada), western Europe, and south-eastern Australia that are finding the same patterns of forest losses despite major differences in biogeographical locations. It should help in pushing back on inappropriate active management. Learn more and register.
In the Community
Cleanups, (October 14th and 18th), Restoration (October 19th), and BioBlitz (October 25th) from our friends at Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful.
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.
In History
October 1st, 1890: Yosemite National Park established
The Loma Prieta Chapter was founded in 1933; what happened in October that year? 1933, October 12: The United States Army Disciplinary Barracks on Alcatraz was acquired by the United States Department of Justice, to incorporate the island into its Federal Bureau of Prisons as a federal penitentiary. 1933, October 17: Albert Einstein arrived in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany.
“One farmer says to me, 'You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;' and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods
Note: for several years the Guardians of Nature Benefit for the Loma Prieta Chapter has been happy to offer our attendees exclusively vegetarian and vegan food.
