Creek Week 2017!

 

Celebrate the 27th Annual Creek Week 2017

We Are Creeks

The 27th Annual Creek Week splashes off on April 21st with county-wide educational activities, creek tours, and an April 29th cleanup day and volunteer celebration.

The Sacramento Area Creeks Council invites you to participate in cleaning area creeks in conjunction with Creek Week 2017. The fun begins April 21st when Creek Week “splashes off” for a week of county-wide educational activities, creek tours, nature walks, and more! The “Big Day” is on April 29th when volunteers remove tons of trash and invasive plants, as well as conduct water monitoring along area creeks. Then they celebrate their accomplishments later that day at Carmichael Park.

It may seem like a small act of community service, but these local activities have large-scale environmental impacts. Habitat restoration and litter removal improves wildlife habitat and helps filter pollutants before they reach the river.

Also important to note, keeping trash out of streets and waterways helps prevent flooding during rain storms by allowing storm water to flow through unobstructed storm drains and creeks.

Be part of an area-wide volunteer effort to improve and enhance our urban waterways. Trash and invasive plant removal and water quality testing all help support a healthy creek system.

The annual Creek Week event, now in its 27^th year, raises awareness about sources of water pollution, and gives participants of all ages and abilities an opportunity to have a great time and feel great about protecting our environment.

Visit http://www.creekweek.net to learn more about how to volunteer and for activity locations and times. Creek clean up locations include:

• Citrus Heights
• Carmichael & Arden-Arcade
• Rio Linda
• Natomas, North Sacramento, & North Highlands
• South Sacramento County
• Rancho Cordova
• Antelope
• Folsom
• The Delta
• Orangevale

Volunteers must register by Friday, April 28th at http://www.creekweek.net or call one of the numbers indicated on the web site. All volunteers must complete and sign a waiver form.

The Sacramento Area Creeks Council preserves, protects, restores and maintains the natural streams in our urban communities through education, advocacy, financial support and technical expertise. Our goal is to educate the general public on the aesthetic, recreational, educational, and ecological value of our urban creeks.

Connect on Facebook at #creekweek.sac

 

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Climate Modelling at 50

I just read this article on climate change and climate change modelling. Written by Ethan Siegel and appearing in Forbes, this article is a great primer on what climate change is, how it happens, and some of the ways people go about studying it. Easy to read and understand, this is a terrific read for anyone who wants to learn a little about the force of nature that is going to dramatically reshape all of our lives.

True color image of earth from orbit. Photo by NASA.

It describes one of the first climate models, which was published in paper in 1967 by Syukuro Manabe and Richard T. Wetherald, and can be read here. This model made a number of predictions about how various gasses insulate the earth and also how they interact with one another. Using this information and interactions, the model was also able to predict how much global temperatures would rise given various increased amounts of those gasses. And after 50 years, the predictions of that model have been borne out to be right on the mark!

The article ends with a very important paragraph: “We’ve known what’s coming for half a century now, and we’re on the precipice of its arrival. There’s never been a more important time to listen to the science.”

I could not agree more.

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Conservancy Currents: Winter 2017

The latest Conservancy Currents is now available! Conservancy Currents is the newsletter of the Delta Conservancy that comes out twice a year to update one and all about what we at the Conservancy have been up to.

This issues includes information on a range of subjects and project that the staff of the Delta Conservancy has been working on over the past few months. One piece is on the launch of the Delta Mercury Exposure Reduction Program signs in the Delta. This is a public information campaign to educate the public on which fish in caught is various parts of the Delta are  safe to eat, and which should be avoided due to high levels of Mercury in their tissues. There is also a brief update is on the Proposition 1 grants that we are giving out, now in its second year, to fund projects advancing habitat restoration, water quality improvement, and sustainable agriculture in the Delta. There is a piece by yours truly on the Student and Landowner Education and Watershed Stewardship program and I have been participating in to bring high school students out to get hands on experience with habitat restoration and land stewardship ideas. There is also a report on a drought conference the Delta Conservancy organized, a brief update on a major planning process that the Delta Conservancy is helping to lead to plan for habitat restoration in the Cache Slough Complex in the northwest Delta, an announcement of the Delta informational website that will be launching soon, and an expert from “Images from America: The California Delta” by Hal Schell, one of the foremost literary voices about the Delta, in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of his death.

It is a great issue, and I encourage you to give it a read through! The newsletter can be found here.

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