Month: August 2010

Back To School, The Green Way

The amount of trash a school can generate is staggering.

This year, Montclair Elementary plans to join other schools in the area in trying to cut down its trash. There’s a lot to reduce. Each week, a garbage truck hauls 12 cubic yards of trash away from the school. The Green Team is the brainchild of parents Jane McCrea and Kim Hoffman. McCrea said that once they had the idea last school year, it didn’t take long to find a bunch of other parents eager to make the school more green. The Green Team will have six components: Gardening and composting, zero-waste lunch, walk to school, art and the environment, energy efficiency, and green fundraising.

McCrea said the Green Team will borrow best practices from other schools, such as Peralta, Joaquin Miller, and Glenview, which have made efforts to make their campuses greener.

Rara Avis in Claremont Canyon

We’re going to stick with the wildlife a little bit longer.

Indigo Bunting (Photo by Pat Bachetti)Kay Loughman runs a beautiful and fascinating website called Wild Life in the North Hills. It’s all about the flora and fauna in Claremont Canyon. She has pictures of everything from a grey fox lounging on a patio chair to a banana slug slithering across a stone. She’s a keen naturalist and a skilled photographer. The only thing more remarkable than all of the natural beauty at our doorstep is how easy it is to forget it’s there during the course of a busy week. Loughman’s website is a good reminder.

We asked Loughman for the news this summer from the world of Oakland’s birds, bugs, and other critters. She said that the big story so far was the indigo bunting sharp-eyed birdwatchers spied in Claremont Canyon back in June. Common back east, the indigo bunting is very rare this far west. Phila Rogers wrote about it on her blog at the Lawrence Hall of Science.

Dead Trout Mystery in Sausal Creek

What killed the rainbow trout in Sausal Creek? At the beginning of August, city workers found dead trout in the creek not far from the culvert at Wellington Street. They found 25 in all, the largest was nine inches long.

Rainbow Trout in Sausal Creek (City of Oakland)

A federal lab in Charleston, South Carolina is investigating the cause of death. But until there are answers, Kimra McAfee, the executive director of Friends of Sausal Creek, wants to remind folks that the city’s riparian habitats are fragile. Tap water in our creeks can be lethal for fish.

What many people don’t realize is that tap water is disinfected with chloramine or chlorine, and both can be toxic to fish. Residual traces of chloramine at concentrations considered safe for human consumption remain in tap water. As aquarium owners know, chlorine dissipates into the atmosphere pretty rapidly, but chloramine combines chlorine with ammonia, and ammonia is very toxic to fish and doesn’t dissipate like chlorine. Consider, for example, the act of draining a swimming pool or Jacuzzi spa directly to a storm drain or a creek. Without first treating the water to remove traces of chlorine and ammonia, fish and other aquatic life in the creek could be harmed. – Kimra McAfee

McAfee said that the dead fish were found in only one location, and creek watchers have spotted healthy fish in other pools. Whatever killed the fish is out of the creek now.

This isn’t the first time there’s been a fish kill in Sausal Creek. In February 2008, runoff from a construction site killed 11 trout.

 

District 4 Candidate Forum Announced

It’s settled. A whopping seven candidates have qualified with the City Clerk’s office to run to replace Jean Quan as District 4’s representative on the Oakland City Council. In alphabetical order, they are: Jill Broadhurst, Jason Gillen, Ralph Kanz, Clinton Killian, Libby Schaaf, Melanie Shelby and Daniel Swafford.

A few months ago, the Piedmont Pines Neighborhood Association had a cocktail party for the candidates to meet some potential voters, as well as one another.  Jay Ward, a member of the PPNA’s board, said that the “debutante’s ball” drew around 60 people. Ward expects a lot more for the candidate forum the PPNA is hosting on September 14 at Joaquin Miller Elementary School.  He said that the precise format hasn’t been finalized, a tricky task with so many candidates.  All of the candidates have confirmed that they’ll be there except for Daniel Swafford, said Ward.

Since that party at Monaghan’s in early June the candidates have made progress.  Take a peek, for example, at Libby Schaaf’s list of endorsements.

What: District Four Candidate Forum

When: September 14, 7pm

Where: Joaquin Miller Elementary School, 5525 Ascot Drive

Montclair’s Storyteller

He was exactly what NPR needed. Three years ago, Montclair’s own Glynn Washington entered an NPR contest looking for a new host. He won.

Now Washington presides over a burgeoning multi-media empire in downtown Oakland, of which the flagship is Snap Judgment – the freshest show going on NPR. OakBook interviewed Glynn way back when he was still just a contender. This week, the Trib and the Chron both did great profiles of Montclair’s newest radio star.

Snap Judgment is on at 11 pm Saturdays on KQED 88.5 FM and at 11pm Tuesdays and 1pm Wednesdays on KALW 91.7 FM. Listen anytime at www.snapjudgment.org. Submit your own snap judgment stories on the website, or call the “Snap Judgment” hot line at 888-304-7627.