The Burlingame Voice

Not Ready to Use the D-word yet.

It appeared the storm door had opened last week, but per the SacBee

The month is forecast to finish with a little more than half the normal rainfall of a typical January in Sacramento.  No rain is forecast for today or for Tuesday, making the total precipitation for January 2012 just 2.52 inches, well below the month's average of 4.18 inches.

In addition to the rising garbage collection bills, B'gamers may soon be seeing rising water bills as they choose to turn their sprinklers back on.  Let's not say "drought" just yet.

Leaf Blowers - Part 2

What to do, if anything, about leaf blowers in town is back on Tuesday night.  It was a hot topic back in June on the Voice and was one of Ricardo Ortiz' best zingers during the election.  The council took it off-line back in August to study it and have come up with the following results.  They current proposal is to divide the city into sections and limit each section to a different day of the week per this map.

The study notes

This approach does not distinguish gasoline from electric, nor does it completely prohibit the use of gasoline blowers.  The thinking was that although electric blowers do not add carbon monoxide to the environment they stir up as much dust and allergens and are almost as noisy as gasoline powered blowers.   Given the concerns and cost implications of the switching to electric blowers for the professional gardeners the consensus of the committee was to minimize the hours of the week that residents are exposed to any type of mechanical leaf blower.

Of course, the challenge is "which problem are we trying to solve?" since some want to stop carbon emissions, some want to reduce the ambient dust from any type of blower and some worry only about the noise.  The gardeners have to worry about scheduling not just B'game customers, but the surrounding towns' customers in the same day, along with rain, sick days, holidays and, of course, the cost of going to electric.  Furthermore, they worry that battery-powered blowers won't last for a full day of work so that would require homeowners to add front and back electrical outlets that are estimated to average about $1500 per home.

I happened to be in a San Diego neighborhood back in September and the gardeners were using battery-powered blowers.  I have to admit they were very quiet and appeared to be as efficient.  We will see what comes out of the study session on Jan 3rd, but several well-informed wags in town think the different-day-per-section of town idea is crazy and unenforceable.

Climate Capping and Trading

Yesterday's "adoption" in Sacramento is a good reason to remind you of our Climate thread on the Voice.  From the Daily Journal piece we learn

California formally adopted the nation’s most comprehensive so-called “cap-and-trade” system Thursday, an experiment by the world’s eighth-largest economy that is designed to provide financial incentives for polluters to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

and the reaction was

Some businesses regulated under the program argue it will increase the price of electricity for consumers and hurt job creation by raising the cost of doing business in the state. But the program’s supporters expect cap-and-trade to spur economic recovery and innovation, by pushing business to invest in clean technologies.

While implementation of some parts of the program will begin in 2012, compliance for power plants and other of the worst polluting facilities actually starts in 2013, with others joining in 2015. In total, the plan will cover 85 percent of California’s emissions.

Yet the main issue is never actually addressed.  From a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal last week by Donald K. Forbes of the Virginia Scientists & Engineers for Energy & Environment, he notes that global temperatures

"for the period 1981-2010, as measured by NASA and Remote Sensing satellites, shows average global temperature departures varying from a low of minus 0.2C in 1985 to a high of plus 0.2C in 2005, with temperature departures plateaued to slightly cooling since 2005.  Moreover, that history is significantly influenced by warming and cooling spikes from natural phenomena, such as volcanic eruptions (cooling), short-term warming and cooling from ocean oscillations El Nino and La Nina."

Recall that this inconvenient data was exactly what the IPCC "scientists" were trying to hide by deleting e-mails and refusing peer review on their "research".  The hockey stick doesn't exist.  With today's announcement that California's unemployment rate dropped .2% to 11.9%, one has to wonder if Sacramento is focussed on the right things?

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Pedal Away, B'game gets $560K

B'game continued its streak of getting funding for more bicycle and pedestrian improvements this week by getting three grants approved by the Transportation Authority.  East side bike improvements will get $91,700 and the West side project will get $168,700.  Additionally, the Avenew pedestrian and bike planning will see a $300K in-flux.

Some of you know that my lovely wife, Cathy, has spent eight years as an elected member of the committee that evaluates these plans each year.  When she started, B'game had no "bicycle master plan" nor did it have an advisory committee so B'game was ineligible for funds.  We now have both of those and a five year run of funding for improvement projects like

• Countdown signals at crosswalks
• Bike lanes on Howard Ave
• "Sharrows" on California Ave.
• Lighted crosswalks on Carolan and B'way
• Hwy 101 bike crossing
• Bike signage all over town

This is a big part of the greening of B'game that includes building ordinances, water efficient landscaping ordinances, and discontinuing solar permit fees.  The City staff have done a nice job describing and justifying all of these projects.

 

Leaf Blower Ban?

From the current e-newsletter from the City we learn

In July the Burlingame City Council will be discussing a proposal to further restrict and possibly completely ban the use of leaf blowers. In preparation for the study session we would appreciate your feedback by responding to a survey that you can take by clicking on the following link.

As usual with SurveyMonkey surveys put together by non-professionals, the survey is a bit disjointed but basically gets the options on the table.  Comments welcome here, too.

Thirsty Trees

The City is reminding everyone to water their greenery.  Thankfully there should be plenty of water to go around since the Tahoe ski areas are able to open over the Fourth of July weekend for mid-summer skiing!  Here's how to take care of our 16,250 trees per the City

The Parks Division encourages residents to water their City trees as well as their private property trees especially during these warm summer months. This will assist us in maintaining our beautiful urban forest. Younger trees should receive at least 5 gallons of water once each week, not only to keep the tree from dying, but also to help the young tree grow and remain healthy throughout its life cycle.

I'm also worried about gophers going for the roots of trees and shrubs.  Anyone else noticing a lot more gopher holes this summer?

Climate Fearmongering

You may have seen a letter to the editor in the Mercury Times yesterday from Alan Talansky and Linda Asbury of the San Mateo Area Chamber of Commerce that reads

We have strong concerns about the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission's proposed amendments to the Bay Plan on Climate Change. We recognize that global warming is expected to result in sea level rise in the bay of 16 inches by midcentury and 55 inches by 2100. By then, more than 213,000 acres of bayside communities will be vulnerable to sea rise.

The San Mateo Chamber of Commerce encourages the BCDC to go back and adopt a strategy that will affirm local government authority on land-use decisions and the need to first assess sea level threats to bayside communities before adoption of new zoning controls and guidelines; as well as acknowledge the role private investment and development could play in providing protection solutions to threats posed by sea level rise-related flooding, storm surge and inundation.

The letter is a synopsis of a much larger press release from a group called Protect Our Bayside Communities.  Their cover letter is signed by Asbury and William Nack of the local Building & Construction Trades Council and includes this little gem

Few people would dispute that global warming is causing oceans and the San Francisco Bay to rise.  Some scientists even predict that we'll see a 55 inch rise in Bay waters before the end of the century.

I guess these people aren't reading the news--"global warming" had to be recast as "climate change" since the data on warming is ever more suspect as the UN IPCC members' e-mails leak out and raise serious questions about scientists' integrity.  We will be following "Protect Our Bayside Communities" positions but right now it looks more like "Protect Our Special Interests" and fearmongering looks to be the main tactic.

Getting Greener

After a 10am cloud burst cleared the air, the 4th Annual Green Fair proceeded as planned.  Located next to the Farmer's Market, the Green Fair drew in plenty of B'gamers with exhibits on solar power, recycling, electric cars, green building principles, etc, etc.  It was a nice way to kick-off the summer's events

 

Our Greenest Citizen? Probably

I had a chance to meet the founder and CEO of our locally-based e-waste company, Green Citizen, at the Green Fair today.  James Kao is a B'game resident and member our our Green Ribbon Taskforce who is building a business recycling residential and commercial e-waste.

James and his team took my old electronics and he gave me an overview of his operation located at 801 Mahler Rd, Suite 1 here in B'game.  The firm has other centers in Palo Alto, Berkeley and SF with plans for San Jose, but everything we need is right here in B'game.  They're accepting items six days a week.  Most items are accepted for free and there are some other services offered like PC and cell phone repair for a fee.  We'll add some more detail after we tour the Mahler facility.  Here's James and a hard disk drive they destroyed (another of their services).

 

Bye, bye Styrofoam

There's formal notice of the styrofoam ban at the end of this piece in the Daily Journal.  It notes

The Burlingame City Council decided to bar use of Styrofoam and similar products.

In February, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors passed a ban on polystyrene which goes into effect July 1. Under the county ordinance, vendors in the unincorporated areas of the county are asked to use recyclable, biodegradable or compostable materials like paper, cardboard, corn starch, potato starch or sugarcane instead of polystyrene, commonly known as Styrofoam. Last night, the Burlingame City Council introduced a nearly identical ordinance which would go into effect Jan. 1, 2012. The proposal will go before the council again Monday, May 16.

Gas-powered leaf blowers are next, but not banned yet.