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The 35th Annual SLV River & Road Clean Up
Volume 10: Issue: 9 www.SantaCruzMountainBulletin.net September-October 2021
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Left: Debra Feickert proudly shows off all the trash and recyclables she collected during the Valley Women’s Club’s 35th Annual River & Road Clean Up. Right: Mike Holton helping Dustin Cochrane weigh in his materials in Boulder Creek
by Nancy Macy
Volunteers enjoyed a cool day for their daunting task of removing trash and recyclables from along the San Lorenzo River and its creeks, as well as nearby roads. Over seventy volunteers, ranging in age from 1st grade to over 80 years, ventured out to remove trash before any hoped-for rains might come to wash it down the waterways into the Bay. The Clean Up this year was only three hours, but 1,000 pounds of trash – including large amounts of plastic -- and recyclables were removed from the riparian area and neighboring roads. The Annual Cleanup event has been organized by The Valley Women’s Club since 1986, partnering with the support of the Santa Cruz County and the SLV Water District since its inception, and with Save Our Shores for the past ten years.
With an early arrival in Felton, Debbie Wingo proudly brought in huge bags of material that she and her daughter picked up and brought to the Covered Bridge Park registration/weigh-in site staffed by Brackin Andrews, Roger Wapner and Jerry DeLany. Father-son team Greg and Caleb Jones went deep into the water behind the park to pull out all sorts of trash and items, including a unique seat with pedals for use by disabled persons. A large contingent of the Old Orchard School students and parents came all the way from Campbell to Felton to help as well!
In Ben Lomond, SLV Rotary member Cindy Sekkel and her friends Lonette Cutter and Ed Titus braved the steep embankment to pull out a large broken mirror and filled several bags with trash, bringing them to site volunteers Judi Sherman and Jasmine Paredes to weigh in. Other volunteers helped add to the large pile of materials from neighboring areas. In Boulder Creek there were several champions at work, including Ida Josie Hubert, her daughter, and her folks Laurie and Dan Hennig, who tackled piles of trash along Bear Creek Rd. Joining in there was Supervisor Bruce McPherson
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How Did Southern California Edison (SCE) Achieve Wildfire Mitigation While PG&E Has Failed?
by The Valley Women’s Club Environmental Committee
Unlike PG&E, SCE publicly acknowledged that their distribution system was unsafe and unreliable after suffering disastrous wildfires in 2016-17, acknowledging that it was vulnerable to many ignition drivers.1 So, SCE created an “end of life” to their antiquated strategy (also fixated on tree trimming) and implemented a new Best Practices model based on infrastructure improvement. In contrast, PG&E’s failure to update and modernize demonstrates that they have never utilized effective Best Practices model decision making, and the CPUC continues to rubber stamp this failure. {Note: the third large Investor Owned Utility (IOU), San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), has also implemented a covered conductor program to replace all bare wires. So has the tiny Bear Valley Electric Company serving Big Bear and its surroundings, among others.}
Understandably, SCE has thus been successful in:
● minimizing vegetation management, system maintenance and replacement ● reducing costs-per-line-mile considerably ● ensuring safety and reliability year-round ● progressing significantly toward eliminating any PSPS
How? SCE studied world-wide successes since the 1970’s where covered conductor provided reliability improvement in dense vegetation areas (Scandinavia, UK, New England), dense populations (Japan), animal protection (Thailand, Malaysia), reduction of “bushfires” (Australia)2 and so: ● undertook a careful and thorough risk/benefit analysis Continued page 3
The 35th Annual SLV River & Road Clean Up
by Nancy Macy
Volunteers enjoyed a cool day for their daunting task of removing trash and recyclables from along the San Lorenzo River and its creeks, as well as nearby roads. Over seventy volunteers, ranging in age from 1st grade to over 80 years, ventured out to remove trash before any hoped-for rains might come to wash it down the waterways into the Bay. The Clean Up this year was only three hours, but 1,000 pounds of trash – including large amounts of plastic -- and recyclables were removed from the riparian area and neighboring roads. The Annual Cleanup event has been organized by The Valley Women’s Club since 1986, partnering with the support of the Santa Cruz County and the SLV Water District since its inception, and with Save Our Shores for the past ten years.
With an early arrival in Felton, Debbie Wingo proudly brought
in huge bags of material that she and her daughter picked up and brought to the Covered Bridge Park registration/weigh-in site staffed by Brackin Andrews, Roger Wapner and Jerry DeLany. Father-son team Greg and Caleb Jones went deep into the water behind the park to pull out all sorts of trash and items, including a unique seat with pedals for use by disabled persons. A large contingent of the Old Orchard School students and parents came all the way from Campbell to Felton to help as well!
In Ben Lomond, SLV Rotary member Cindy Sekkel and her friends Lonette Cutter and Ed Titus braved the steep embankment to pull out a large broken mirror and filled several bags with trash, bringing them to site volunteers Judi Sherman and Jasmine Paredes to weigh in. Other volunteers helped add to the large pile of materials from neighboring areas. In Boulder Creek there were several champions at work, including Ida Josie Hubert, her daughter, and her folks Laurie and Dan Hennig, who tackled piles of trash along Bear Creek Rd. Joining in there was Supervisor Bruce McPherson
who has joined in to help at the Clean Up for many years. Helping them weigh in their materials were Michele Estrin-Gelblum and Mike Holton, who were impressed by the amount of materials people on foot were able to bring in, including a 9’x12’ rug and a 10’ iron pipe. “Each resident of the San Lorenzo Valley can help make every day ‘River & Road Clean Up Day’ by removing the trash from along
their road frontage or from the pull-outs along Highway 9 and other major roads. Don’t wait for a year to help protect your waterways and their wildlife from the impacts of cigarette butts, plastics and other debris’ contamination,” Environmental Committee Chair Nancy Macy said. “Everyone should try to protect the River year-round.”
Left: Debra Feickert proudly shows off all the trash and recyclables she collected during the Valley Women’s Club’s 35th Annual River & Road Clean Up.
