Dirty & Outdated PG&E Plant Protested

Some good news from the Sacto Valley, the locally operated SMUD (Sacramento Municipal Utility District) is proceeding with the annexation of PG&E customers in West Sacramento, Woodland and Davis. These annexations are supported by almost everyone in the city councils and many custmers fed up with PG&E's energy monopoly appear ready to give SMUD a try. SMUD is a regionally owned and operated challenger to PG&E's complete monopoly control as California's most powerful singular electric energy provider. PG&E is attempting to sue SMUD, though many believe this is only PG&E digging in their heels in an attempt to maintain their monopoly. SMUD is willing to research and develop other energy options (ex., solar, wind, etc..) besides the outdated toxin spewing power plants like PG&E's Bayview plant..

Coalition for Local Power;
Sacramento Municipal Utilities District (SMUD) Annexation of PG&E customers (West Sac, Woodland, Davis) articles
http://www2.dcn.org/orgs/localpower/Articles.html

Who Owns the Sun? Rooftop solar cells provide free power for decades;
http://www.chelseagreen.com/images/WhoOwnsTheSun.pdf.

Vertical axis windmills harness wind energy from any direction and are also bird friendly. Green VA windmills ride the wind and can fit easily on rooftops. Far less expensive than the natural gas combustion of PG&E's monstrosity at Bayview. Also less energy lost in miles of transmission lines from source to points of consumption..
http://www.greenwindmill.com/index.html


Vertical axis windmills were used for over 1500 years, with early appearances in Persia and China. This site shows some basic info..
http://www.globalwindtech.com/history.html

"The first windmills were developed to automate the tasks of grain-grinding and water-pumping and the earliest-known design is the vertical axis system developed in Persia about 500-900 A.D."
http://telosnet.com/wind/early.html

PG&E's Crimes against Bayview residents;

With all this free energy easily available, why do energy monopolies like PG&E cling to outdated and ecologically harmful technologies like the natural gas combustion at Bayview plant. Not only is the extraction of natural gas costly and damaging to ecosystems (see Bolivian natural gas protests), the combustion of natural gas for conversion to electricity is inefficient and causes air pollution. This is a much larger scale than natural gas stoves used for home cooking, thereby more destructive. The combustion of large amounts of natural gas in locations like Hunters Point can result in smog blankets containing harmful toxic gasses (NOx, CO, CO2, etc..) that result in asthma and over longer term exposures can lead to lung cancers, brain damage and other health problems..

"The energy-generation industry ranks as one of the nation's dirtiest. Coal-fired plants are by far the worst air polluters, but natural gas plants such as Hunters Point and Potrero are also culpable. They are the two largest stationary sources of air pollution in the city.

The San Francisco plants emit several pollutants, including dust and soot particles and nitrogen oxide, a chemical that has been tied to respiratory illness, smog, and acid rain."

read more @:
http://www.greenaction.org/hunterspoint/press/sfbg102401.shtml

Bolivia's Gas War
"It started with a peaceful march of thousands in major Bolivian cities on Sept. 19. Since then, the gas war has pushed Bolivia one of Latin Americas poorest countries, into a violent confrontation between marginalized classes and the right-wing government that hopes to sell natural gas to the United States."

read more @;
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1014-05.htm

The residents of Bayview are correct when voicing serious concerns about (?un?intentional) genocide against their community. If the Bayview residents were upper class (wealthy) Euro-americans like Gavin Newsome and his ilk, no doubt that PG&E's Bayview power plant would have been shut down years ago. since the residents of Bayview are lower income African-american residents of subsidized housing (black and poor), the PG&E Bayview power plant remains operational..

If that leaves any doubt in anyone's mind about what is happening, the forces of gentrification may come knocking at the doors of Bayview residents several years after the toxins of PG&E's Bayview plant have dispersed into non-existance. The real estate tycoons of SF are ready for their gentrification pogrom of lower income neighborhoods as housing prices in SF continue to skyrocket. It is up to the community of Bayview residents to organize and maintain their affordable housing and also demand clean air NOW, not whenever PG&E gets around to shutting down their NOXious gas chamber smog blanket machine..

PG&E's Crimes against the volcanic forest ecosystem..

Sometimes solidarity against a common tyrant like PG&E can bring diverse communities together. Another opponent of PG&E's policies are the mountain residents of the Sierra foothills. Here PG&E leases out their land to Sierra Pacific Industries for clear cutting logging operations. This results in massive erosion and sedimentation of regional watersheds..

During energy deregulation, PG&E sells land to SPI;

http://www.loe.org/shows/shows.htm?programID=98-P13-00003

A large amount of the PG&E land leased out for logging occurs on the slopes of a regional volcano, Mt. Lassen. Since Peter Lassen wasn't very kind to the regions indigenous inhabitants, many people are asking for this volcano to be renamed. Some background info on regional tribes..

http://www4.hmc.edu:8001/humanities/indian/lassen/Lassen1.htm

"Ishi grew up in an area south and west of Mount Lassen, California, and south and east of the city of Red Bluff. Ishi's group were hunters and expert fishermen, they fashioned crude sticks for digging roots, gathered berries, acorns and other seeds and fruits. They belonged to the Hokan superfamily of language, and Yana was broken into four distinct dialects. The varied land of California supported separate little nations, rather like Greek city states in size, with much less sophistication. They isolated themselves further by growth of dialects and separate languages. Of the six super-languages of North America, five are represented among California Indians, divided into 21 basic languages unintelligible to each other, further divided into 113 known dialects. A profile of their life fits all of them and is quite distinct from those Indians east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains."

An earlier genocide of the indigenous peoples of the Sierra foothills continues today as any survivors are forced to choose between assimilation in the workforce of the cities or poverty and drug addiction in the reservations. Local ecosystem exploiting corporations like Sierra Pacific Industries economically coerce local residents into providing the contracted labor for SPI by cutting down their forest ecosystems for profit. CEOs like SPI's Red Emmerson remain on the top 500 wealthiest individuals while many SPI loggers remain one paycheck away from houselessness. That is if they're not laid off already. Overharvesting for short term profit results in lack of forests for the future generations..

"SPI chairman Red Emmerson is ranked 161 on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans (based on an estimated worth of $1.1 billion)."

"When Gordon Robinson was hired as a forester by the Southern Pacific in 1937, the railroad owned a million acres of old growth forest. Half a century later, the big trees are gone:"

"In 1997, when SPI purchased land, a sawmill, and a particle-board plant from and from Georgia-Pacific, it already owned three other lumber mills within 40 miles of Martell, so it closed the sawmill, saying that some of the 200 millworkers were expected to be hired at the particle-board plant."

http://www.endgame.org/spi.html

Casinos don't seem to be helping indigenous people besides a select few politician's favorites. Yet despite overwhelming odds many survivors of north america's holocaust against indigenous peoples are rekindling their cultural legacy and traditional ecological wisdom to teach the future generations..

That Ishi will not be forgotten..

"Ishi grew up in an area south and west of Mount Lassen, California, and south and east of the city of Red Bluff. Ishi's group were hunters and expert fishermen, they fashioned crude sticks for digging roots, gathered berries, acorns and other seeds and fruits. They belonged to the Hokan superfamily of language, and Yana was broken into four distinct dialects. The varied land of California supported separate little nations, rather like Greek city states in size, with much less sophistication. They isolated themselves further by growth of dialects and separate languages. Of the six super-languages of North America, five are represented among California Indians, divided into 21 basic languages unintelligible to each other, further divided into 113 known dialects. A profile of their life fits all of them and is quite distinct from those Indians east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains."

http://www.2think.org/frame_of_reference_sextus_stele.shtml

The Yana language may live on..

Some sacred texts of Native California;
http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/ca/index.htm

Yana texts;
http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/ca/yat/index.htm

PG&E is content to continue with their destructive activities in Bayview, Sierra foothills and many other places yet unmentioned. What may be needed is for the Shut Down PG&E Bayview campaign to reach out to other less organized groups that want to stop the PG&E monopoly, and possibly get some tips from SMUD about local energy co-ops for the Bayview and other SF neighborhoods. For the Bayview housing projects to provide free and clean wind and/or solar energy for residents would help make PG&E's excessive energy waste look like the outdated toxic monster it is..