The Burlingame Voice

Spring treehugger post: Another Japanese maple

I just can't help admiring our Japanese maples every spring.  There are other lovely trees blooming--cherries especially and my apple and pear trees are just starting, but the Japanese maples are the best.  Notice this one has three colors at once--it sprouts in green then quickly transitions through yellow to red depending on which leaves get the most sun first.

The End of a Sad Story

Back when it happened, I consciously did not post about the terrible fallen-tree accident in Washington Park that took a woman's life and seriously injured two other people.  It was tragic and probably avoidable offering a severe lesson learned one hopes.  Now that the Daily Journal is reporting a final settlement, it merits a post for the historical record--such as it is.  Here is just a snippet of the article for the record

City Manager Lisa Goldman said the city’s insurance will cover $30 million of the initial claim with another $2.5 million coming from the city’s internal insurance fund. Burlingame’s budget for the current fiscal year is $117.7 million.

The city hired an independent arborist last year to provide tree inspection and maintenance services in addition to the city’s own program, Goldman said. Burlingame’s Park and Recreation Department oversees the maintenance of tens of thousands of trees citywide.

I took a photo back when it happened and that drives home the magnitude of the branch.  The end of a sad story all around.

Planting Trees: Official and Guerilla-style

The SF Comicle actually provided some value yesterday with a lengthy piece about a guerilla-style oak tree advocate in Oakland.  Here are a couple of good excerpts

Not long after a storm, Tim Vendlinski can be found in parks or small patches of grass around Oakland with a shovel and a few dozen acorns or oak seedlings in hand. He grabs his gardening tools from the trunk of his car, and with the swiftness of someone who has planted thousands of oaks in his life, he gets to work.  “How can you have a city named Oakland that doesn’t have any freaking oaks in it?” Vendlinski said.  His efforts represent a vigilante approach to urban forestry — a form of guerrilla gardening that is often at odds with the policies and standards of the city of Oakland’s tree supervisors. Both recognize the value of oaks, but they don’t always agree on where the oaks should go or how they should be maintained.

Oak trees are particularly important features of both urban and rural landscapes for several reasons, said Angela Moskow, an information network manager with California Oaks, a California Wildlife Foundation project focused on preserving the state’s oak trees.  Oaks foster enormous biodiversity — perhaps more than any other tree variety in California, sustaining more than 100 species of mammals, 170 species of birds and 4,000 species of insects, according to California Oaks.  Oaks are particularly good at sequestering carbon, both from the air and the ground.

I know the coastal live oak in my front yard has grown from 4' tall to 40' in the last 30 years and feeds a LOT of squirrels.

Oakland’s master street tree list, the list of trees approved to be planted on city sidewalks and medians, includes 59 tree species. Of those, eight are oaks. Only four of the trees on the list are native to Oakland, Vendlinski said, calling the list “horrific.”

Which leads me to back to B'game.  The city newsletter noted that

The Parks Division is in the process of planting 162 City trees throughout Burlingame in planter strip areas, tree lawns, and parks. The species of trees being planted will include red maples, eucalyptus Citriodoras, Chinese flame trees, crepe myrtles (Tuscarora), magnolia (Little Gem and Samuel Sommers), elms (Pioneer and Accolade), sycamores, Chinese pistaches, and Trident maples. This is the last of three plantings that will happen this year.

We got four of the 162 newbies on my street this week and I love them.  If you are interested in the "politics of trees" click through and read the whole article about what should go where, how it should or should not be watered, etc.  We live in a designated City of Trees regardless of whether SF wants to strangle our water supply or not. 

Water: One Man's Spigot is Another Man's.....Cesspool

There are days when I think the clowns at the San Francisco Comicle should pay me to read their fish wrap.  Once in a while the thought lasts a week.  This is one of those weeks.  The "editorial board" published a piece titled "S.F.'s spigot won't run forever".  That was in last Sunday's print edition.  The online version I just linked to was titled "Don’t let a few ‘monster’ storms fool you, S.F.’s water supply is unsustainable".  You think hey, maybe the public opinion polls, La Nina, the water measurements, the grotesque over-development or the warnings from Newsom might have sunk in?  Nope.  Didn't happen.  Here's what they said

On Oct. 20, state environmental officials sent an ominous letter to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which supplies drinking water to the city and nearly 2 million other Bay Area residents. It read in part:  “Proposed voluntary actions by water agencies on the San Joaquin River tributaries have fallen short of needed flow and habitat improvements, and viable proposals are not being offered at this time.”

What does that mean in layman’s terms?  It means Bay Area water users are unsustainably and likely unlawfully draining the sources of our supply — and killing the habitats and wildlife that rely on those sources. And we don’t have a workable plan to fix it.

For decades, San Francisco and the Bay Area have enjoyed one of the cleanest and most reliable water supplies in the country, 85% of which comes from Hetch Hetchy. But we’ve taken that resource for granted. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is decades behind other California water agencies in building alternative and sustainable new water infrastructure.

You have to love the unsubstantiated use of "unlawfully".  But what to do about this impending disaster that the Comicle has just discovered?  Well?  Let's get the new SFPUC general manager--a long-time EssEff insider, Dennis Herrera-- to force the Peninsula under its thumb.  How?  Let's start with Green Envy

San Franciscans are known for being sparing with our own water usage. But many of the nearly 2 million other Bay Area residents that use Hetch Hetchy water to are not nearly as parsimonious in their usage as we are.  San Francisco should not be complicit in the extinction of several aquatic species so that Peninsula homeowners can keep their lawns green.

The same fishwrap that whines about how many Sequoias were burned in the wildfires thinks we mere Peninsulans should let our lawns die--not realizing the trees live on the lawns and drink the same irrigation.  I know, it's complicated for someone who spends their day stepping over discarded hypodermic needles and broken glass.  But wait, there's more.  The "toilet to tap" trope rolls out with a new twist.  We get to be the City's septic tank:

Water recycling for potable use presents technical and legal challenges. It generally demands pumping treated sewage into the ground, pulling it out and treating it again before delivering it to customers. The Peninsula has storage capacity for this that San Francisco largely lacks.  Demanding better water conservation from neighbors while partnering on sustainable projects will be a tough needle to thread. Thankfully, Herrera has signaled that he’s up to the challenge. San Francisco residents need him to mean it.

I love that "neighbors" part.  With neighbors like EssEff we should all be getting Dobermans and an extra lock.  With what else they are exporting we should all be getting an extra lock anyway.  SF can build luxury senior living penthouses that rent for $324,000 a year with rooftop pools, but the poop should be filtered on the Peninsula.  You should read the rest of the EssEff BeeEss in the editorial--I don't have the heart to quote all of the "outflow".

 

 

 

Fall Treehugger Post: Unusual Selection

The Fall colors seem a bit muted this year probably due to the nasty drought and perhaps less daily temperature change than usual.  I'm always fooled by how late the change comes to B'game as I was last year when the Japanese maple was the star of the show.

Not being a tree expert, just a regular treehugger, I don't know what this year's selection is, but it has cool "berries".  Located near the corner of Occidental and Ralston Ave.  It might not even qualify as a tree, but rather a shrub?  If you know, tell us.

Turf vs. Grass: More to it than meets the eye

Millbrae is leading the way in examining whether or not artificial turf is a good residential lawn -- or not -- according to the DJ

Artificial turf may soon be illegal to install in Millbrae, at least for a period of time, with the City Council citing environmental concerns and the need to establish permanent rules surrounding the landscaping material often seen as a low maintenance and low water use alternative to real grass.

The move comes amid a worsening drought in the state leading many residents to seek alternate yard treatments that require less water. But according to experts, the environmental drawbacks of artificial turf likely outweigh the upsides. The city is now seeking a moratorium on the installation of the plastic material until permanent guidelines on its use can be researched and established.  Among concerns are increased heat, reduced water absorption and toxic runoff from disintegrating plastic — problems that could exacerbate climate issues often linked with drought. 

“You have in the case of a field … baked, sealed, compressed dirt that is completely dead underneath,” said Diana Conway, president of Safe Healthy Playing Fields, a volunteer organization that advocates against artificial turf. “That means not only is there no worm or bee activity, you have no runoff capacity, you have no water infiltration capacity, you have no carbon sink that you would have with grass.”  Additionally, artificial turf is 30% to 60% hotter than ambient temperatures on a warm sunny day, Conway said.

There is more here concerning whether or not the turf is really recyclable as claimed and whether or not Millbrae cracking down on people paving their yards will use artificial turf to try to avoid the lot paving coverage limits.  No mention of how bad it is for any trees that are nearby and thus  do not get watered properly.  As usual, the Law of Unintended Consequences kicks in.  Kudos to Millbrae for taking a look.  B'game, what say you?  Perhaps we can copy something smart?

Growing Season Goes "Pear-shaped"

Right around Labor Day my pears usually ripen--if there are any pears.  It becomes man vs. squirrel.  Recall I had a bountiful crop in 2019.  Then last year was a bit of a bust, but regular contributor HMB noted "Some apple and pear trees/varieties are more likely to be biennial bearers. I have a pear like that.".  Thus I was hoping for another bounty, but alas this year has gone "pear-shaped".  Per Wikipedia, that term may have originated with the U.K Royal Air Force.  In any case, here is the total harvest this year.......the normally reliable Gravenstein apple yield was way down too.

ECR: The Renewal Project Goes off the Rails

This is a tough post for me to write.  That's why it has taken me two weeks to write it since the Caltrans virtual meeting about the El Camino Real Roadway Renewal project on July 14th.  I really want to see some things fixed on ECR as noted here, here here and here.  But sometimes the cure can be worse than the illness and from what I heard, this is one of those times.  The virtual meeting had numerous presenters each with their own piece of the project, but the overarching view was obscured by bureaucracy and over-regulation along with some over-engineering.  We heard about this "once in a generation project" which is an understatement--a generation is 20-30 years--and while the project may take half of that to complete (certainly more than the 2 years stated), we will be living with the results for much longer---if it happens.

Caltrans presented three options:  the No Build alternative, the Roadway rehab without undergrounding the utilities and the Roadway rehab with undergrounding.  At least the horrendous "road diet" option reducing regular users to one lane in each direction with a center turn lane and all sorts of other goodies for people who don't actually drive on ECR is "not viable".  The good news ends there, because once the anti-eucalyptus forces start drooling over the two Roadway rehab options, we are headed for a dramatic changes that will take years to recover.  PG&E and the city council want the utilities underground.  I'm still not sure why when you consider the historic, nationally-registered eucalyptus grove will be a casualty of that move.  The renderings of what a denuded ECR would look like were all "20 years post-build" and even after 20 years still looked like a sad shell of the canopy we have now.  One astute questioner noted that they drive south on ECR every weekday morning and there are several months of the year when the sun is directly in the eyes of drivers.  Only the towering eucs make for a partial sun shield that surely makes for safer driving and pedestrian crossings.  Been there, experienced that.  And it's not just sun blindness--remember this incident?

Given how long it took to take out just one eucalyptus at Howard Ave. a couple years ago (about a week), we could be faced with a year or more of horrific traffic closures as there are 390 of them in the tree rows.  The claim is that only 3% of them are in "good condition".  And yet they go on year after year with minimal incidents.  It seems like selective replacement as we have been doing is better than a wholesale removal and replacement with 7 to 14' trees.

As for the rough sidewalks pushed up by tree roots, one of the Caltrans personnel finally said what I have been thinking for years-- why not just "bridge over slightly raised roots".  It is apparently allowed and would work in the places that are not too bad.  Throw in some serious digging at the 4 or 5 known flooding areas to clear roots and debris and rebuild the drains and you have what I would call a "Light Build alternative".  Public comment can be made at www.ElCaminoRealProject.com until next Monday, August 2nd.  I'm not sure it will do much good at this point, but a light build is all we need.

Wildfires and Sacramento Grifters

Anyone have a relative who is constantly asking for a "little loan" but drives a nicer car than you do?  I don't--except for my state Assembly, Senate and Governor.  Wildfires are a long-term problem in the state that have been ignored by our electeds for years--maybe decades.  It's easier to blame PG&E and the Feds than to do anything about it.

You might ask "why should we B'gamers care?"  I can think of two reasons.  First, with 20 of my neighboring Tahoe homeowners, I spent the morning clearing brush, pine needles and dead wood from the area around our Tahoe homes.  20 of us filled a 15 yard and a 5 yard dumpster in a couple hours and there is more to be done.  We cleared a space about the size of a single B'game lot--maybe two.  While we were cutting and raking it all up, my thoughts were on Mills Canyon and the vast expanses of Hillsborough that look like a fiery disaster-in-waiting.  It's easy to think about the Oakland Hills or Sonoma and say "it won't happen here" but don't bet on it.

The second reason to care is the grifters from Sacramento are dipping into in our pockets again.  The state has a $75 Billion, with a "B" surplus this year and another $25 Billion with a "B" injection from the Feds for "Covid relief", but get this; as reported in today's Comicle--the grifters are pushing

Among the bills being advocated by the fire-focused senators is SB45, which would place a $5.6 billion bond before voters next year.

Really?  None of these geniuses can figure out that sending "tax rebate" money to Californians who didn't pay any state taxes in the first place while mortgaging the state's future with new bonds that we could easily finance now just out of current "surpluses" is a bad proposition?  Really?  

2021 Spring Treehugger Post

We may be way behind on rainfall and we are not going to "catch up" this year, but the trees got enough to do well so far.  We will see stress later in the Summer and Fall, but for now the Spring bloom was excellent in B'game.  The lovely white street trees that took the Spring honors last year did well again, but I have to give the prize to the non-bearing cherry trees that some of my neighbors were smart enough to plant years ago.  I haven't seen any on the public median strip, but the ones on private property have been spectacular.  Like this one