The Burlingame Voice

Recycling Update: Running Out of County Landfill

The County Civil Grand Jury has kindly provided the Voice with its latest press release on the growing challenge of dealing with all of the plastic and organic recycling waste we generate every day.  Here's a synopsis of the complete report found here

San Mateo County and its 20 cities face huge challenges in managing their recycling programs and waste disposal needs, according to a new report issued by the San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury, Planning for the County’s Waste Management Challenges.  The biggest challenge is meeting the state’s new 75 percent organic waste reduction target. New facilities, and programs such as edible food rescue, will be needed to process nearly 300,000 tons per year of organic waste from San Mateo County alone.  Organics make up about 71 percent of all waste landfilled by this county and reducing this will require major new or expanded organics diversion programs and facilities.

Another new problem is that foreign buyers of recyclables often reject loads with mixed material types.  The county’s largest waste manager, Rethink Waste, informed the Grand Jury that it now landfills all plastic Types #3-#7 collected through its recycling programs.

That's news - when you think you are "recycling" certain plastics, they are really just going in the landfill.  And to top it all off

Limited space at Ox Mountain landfill near Half Moon Bay is also a concern. Population growth and a booming economy have increased the annual tonnage disposed by 20 percent since 2012. Without an increase in recycling, Ox Mountain is expected to reach capacity in 2034. A new or expanded landfill could easily take 10 to 15 years to secure required approvals and permits.

If that strikes you as a more immediate and climate-impacting challenge that politicians can actually do something about right here where we live (as opposed to say sea-level rise in 50 years), then you are on the right track.  But does the Grand Jury report have any teeth?  And if so, who's going to get bit?

SFO Runway Noise: My Own Monitor

For the next two weeks I have my very own SFO-provided noise monitor in my yard.  You will recall that I accepted the offer during my meeting with the team at the Noise Abatement office.  The team installed it last Friday and I am looking forward to the specific measurements and the human correlation with flights that this stream of data enables.  This past Tuesday night was particularly bad and, lo and behold, last night was pretty quiet.  The noise abatement team attributes the differences to the weather - warm temps and clear skies are good, colder temps or cloudy skies are bad for noise.  If that proves true then the question becomes how to modify airport operations accordingly.  Operations change due to weather all the time, so perhaps this input can be accommodated as well.

Here is the microphone and the computer case that is recording a steady stream of noise data.  The thresholds to filter what to analyze have been set at 57 dB from 7am to 10pm and 52 dB in the nighttime.  In the meantime, the waiting for the verdict continues.

I also got a great tip from the SFO team about a free app called Flightradar24 that quickly pinpoints your location, maps all of the planes (on the ground and in the air) and allows you to see the flight information for each icon.  It's very cool to know where the plane over your house came from or is going.


 

Music in the Park Blossoming

Our own Music in the Park series appears to have jumped in popularity probably because the bands are a notch better than in the past.  The new raised stage funded by Facebook as part of its move into B'game doesn't hurt and neither has the spectacular weather.  I missed the show two Sundays ago, but I hear Pride and Joy drew an amazing crowd.  I did make it to the Fog City Swampers this past Sunday and the crowd was sizable.  There is one more show this coming Sunday with All-star Jukebox - I've seen them before and they are really fun.  Here's last Sunday's gig.

Historical Find from La Pinata

Things have been quite serious here at the Voice over the last few months.  It goes with our mission to "inform and empower the Burlingame community", but we do have a lighter side.  So here is the first of two posts that are a bit like a light summer breeze blowing through the blog.

A friend with a great eye and a sense of B'game history rescued this La Pinata ashtray as it was on its way to the trash.  He knew that many people remember La Pinata fondly.  In fact, we were still a paper-based Burlingame Voice when it closed and we interviewed customers on the last day.  The fondness for the restaurant extended to their cheeky ashtrays.  I won't translate it for you--but if you do, you'll know how fun it is.  Many thanks to the guy with the great eye!

 

Tree-hugger Update: Great Pear Season

My natural inclination of being a tree-hugger is always reinforced at this time of year as I watch my pears and Gravenstein apples start to get big.  The pears are a particular joy since they are very inconsistent from year to year, but this year appears to be a great one for both the pears and the apples-- as long as I get to them before the squirrels get them.  Here are just a few of perhaps two dozen on my really old tree.

I'm even more joyful about the pears because 20+ years ago an arborist told me I should just cut it down since it wouldn't bear any fruit due to its age and its trunk being in bad shape.  A little wire supporting the weight and voila-- pears for decades!

Berserkley: Natural Gas and Gasbags

I could create a new Voice category called "Berkeley Insanity" and it would easily merit a dozen posts per year.  Ridiculing Berserkley is so easy that it can get addictive, but I'll just take this one hit and then stop for awhile.  Today's Chronicle front page piece says "Berkeley: City first in U.S. to bar gas lines in home construction".

Berkeley has become the first city in the nation to ban the installation of natural gas lines in new homes.  The City Council on Tuesday night unanimously voted to ban gas from new low-rise residential buildings starting Jan. 1.  The natural gas ordinance, introduced by Councilwoman Kate Harrison, requires all new single-family homes, town homes and small apartment buildings to have electric infrastructure.

California Energy Commission Chairman David Hochschild, a Berkeley resident, also spoke at the meeting and said that 50 cities across the state, including San Francisco, are considering similar action and Berkeley would pave the way for future legislation.

What makes this so stupid is that just last week the big headlines were about PG&E's plans to shut off electricity during high fire danger situations.  Anyone remember the Oakland hills fire?  Anyone think it couldn't happen again?  And to top it all off, the U.S. has been a net exporter of natural gas for more than a year and has driven the price of natural gas down 87% from its peak in 2005.  In the meantime, hardly anyone thinks electricity prices are going anywhere but up.  So much for "affordable housing" from that bastion of East Bay wisdom.  I'm grateful these sorts of ideas don't infect Burlingame too often although we must be vigilant every two years at election time (which is fast approaching again).

The Ups and Downs of Caltrain

With the recent news about Caltrain, I have an opportunity to connect some dots - or at least try to connect some dots since they don't all fit very well.  First we have the news that Caltrain ridership is down again.  Mid-week ridership dropped for the sixth straight month and is down 2.3% this year compared to last year or down about 1500 boarding per week.  In Monday's Daily Post our County supe, Dave Pine, was quoted as saying overcrowding maybe one factor.  Sort of like Yogi Berra's old saw "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

Some other factors are a shortage of shuttle drivers for the last-mile connections to business parks and medical centers, the increase in pass prices, the wet winter, and according to Caltrain COO Michelle Bouchard "overall economic cooling"!  Doesn't feel cooler out there to me.  The second dot is the planning for capacity increases.  Last Friday, the Daily Journal had a piece that you might be able to link to here if you haven't used up your free allotment for the month.  The basic question is how many trains to add, how many stops to add with those additional trains and where might four tracks be needed to accommodate the increased frequency?  The transit agency has been studying three scenarios for growth - "moderate", "baseline" and "high".  High-growth equates to 2.5 to 3.25 times the recent mid-week ridership and would require more expresses and a local stopping every 15 minutes along the route--which in turn drives the need for four tracks.  You have to wonder how Caltrain would pull off even modest lengths of four-track given the new housing developments immediately next to the right of way?  We've seen it in San Mateo and San Carlos and there are more on the way.

The "moderate" scenario in Caltrain's 2040 vision would actually trim stops at the downtown San Mateo station from 70 to 58 while the baseline would drive 116 stops.  The high-growth would need 196 stops and a number of grade separations to keep from completely snarling car traffic on the Peninsula- including ambulance, police and fire trucks.  That's a lot of money that doesn't exist right now meaning that dot is hard to connect.  And of course we have the specter of High-cost Rail running on the Peninsula.  Money continues to be burned on high-speed rail planning even though there is no real plan to get through the mountains in either Northern or Southern California.  The current thinking is that no new passing tracks would be needed on the Peninsula for HSR, but the confluence of moving parts makes that a tenuous decision at best.  The hand-waving in today's Daily Journal piece was impressive.  I think it's safe to say neither the local cities nor the County nor the State have a clue how train service will accommodate the needs of growth on the Peninsula.  The dots are disconnected.

Ferrying Commuters to B'game?

A letter to the Daily Journal reminded me of a longstanding discussion about having ferry service to the B'game Bayfront.  A local resident named Orhan Kurt writes:

Regarding the idea of ferry terminals, my friends and I here in Burlingame are shocked to watch as Foster City aggressively pushes to be the regional hub and to be part of the upcoming Water Emergency Transportation Authority (WETA) study (June 17 edition of the Daily Journal).

Why does Burlingame wait on the sidelines? A regional hub should be right next to SFO.  Burlingame has officially recognized the need and accepted the ferry hub concept for Burlingame as was approved in the latest general plan. So where is the follow-up Burlingame?  Our own general plan consultants have encouraged us to connect the rail and SFO to the ferry system.

This seems like a) a no-brainer to decide to do and b) pretty easy given what we already have at the Bayfront right next to the Facebook/Oculus complex under construction.  Check out this landing option that used to house The Sherman.  Mr. Kurt may be expanding on what the General Plan says deep on page 154

M-4.8  Water-Based Transportation

Consider emerging water-based transportation options to improve multimodal access options to the Bayfront.  [AC, SO}

But he's on the right track, or is it tack?