Feature Archives

On September 4th, forest activists in Southern Humboldt county reported that two activists were arrested, and that lumber company climbers were raiding the village and taking away supplies. Some activists have raised concerns that the company is violating the law by cutting branches during Marbled Murrelet nesting season, which ends on September 15th.

On August 29, the University of California Police Department staged an early morning operation at the Memorial Oak Grove located on the South East of the UC Berkeley campus. UCPD officers erected a ten foot high chain-link fence along the perimeter of the tree-sits to prevent supporters from bringing food and water to the tree-sitters. Support marches are leaving from the Oak Grove at noon on both Friday, August 31st and Saturday, September 1st. An emergency hearing was scheduled for Thursday at 1:30pm in Alameda County Superior Court, to consider whether the fencing of the oak grove is a violation of the current court ordered injunction.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger keeps repeating at his press conferences and meetings the big lie that no dams or water storage facilities have been constructed in California in the past 20 to 30 years. Apparently, the Schwarzenegger administration believes in the classic propaganda technique that if a big lie is repeated enough, it will eventually be accepted as truth by the media and public.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture and the United States Department of Food and Agriculture released official notices in Monterey County which state, "Due to an infestation of Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM), aerial applications of CheckMate®OLR-F (a pheromone mating disruptor) are necessary." Aerial application of the moth pheromone began in Monterey County on September 9. The operation that night covered just part of the eradication area... additional plane flights were scheduled on September 10th and September 11th.

Despite the fact that there is overwhelming vacant commercial space in Santa Cruz County, the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County (CFSCC) decided to build a new office building in Aptos. Instead of building around the gorgeous landscape that defines the downtown Aptos area, CFSCC contracted Lewis Tree Service to cut down one of the few remaining Monterey Cypress trees on August 11th.

The San Jose City Council will hold a public hearing about the future of Coyote Valley on Monday, August 13th. Coyote Valley is a large, rural space between San Jose and Morgan Hill. It is one of the last remaining open spaces of its size in Santa Clara County, and is home to many endangered animals and plants. Developers are planning to build housing for 80,000 residents in Coyote Valley. People will gather at 5pm in front of City Hall, located at 200 East Santa Clara Street, San Jose and then they will attend the 5:30pm Coyote Valley Task Force meeting.

On August 9th, East Palo Alto youth rallied against environmental racism and celebrated the partial shutdown of Romic Technologies. Romic is a hazardous waste recycling facility that has been operating in East Palo Alto since 1964 and has not had a proper operating permit for the past 14 years. Community residents have waged a campaign to shut down Romic in East Palo Alto since 1989.