Louis’ Restaurant going green

By Alison Hawkes

06/10/2011

Anyone headed out to hike the Coastal Trail in San Francisco has a place to feel good about tanking up. Louis’, a 70-year institution, is undergoing a makeover that includes a green renovation of the cliffside restaurant and a menu change to locally sourced, organic foods (tomatoes excluded). Apparently some of these changes were pushed by the National Park Service, which recently granted the family-owned business the right to remain. [Read more - Richmond District Blog].

Delta water pumps catching huge numbers fish

By Alison Hawkes

06/10/2011

A tiny native fish to the California Delta has been getting chewed in huge numbers in the giant pumps that send water to Central Valley farmers. In May, 6 million spittail, a kind of minnow, were killed or entrain at the pumping site, stoking efforts to re-list the species threatened under the Endangered Species Act and to slow down the pumps. Tens of thousands of chinook salmon have also been trapped since October. “This was supposed to be a rebuilding year for salmon and spittail,” said Jeff Miller of the Center for Biological Diversity. [Read more- San Francisco Chronicle].

Santa Clara electric utility No. 1 in solar power

By Alison Hawkes

06/10/2011

Silicon Valley Power has topped the nation of electric utilities with the most solar power installed per customer. The Santa Clara municipal utility installed 1.8 megawatts of solar last year, sending an average of 40 watts to each customer. PG&E came in second place with a total of 157 megawatts installed in 2010. [Read more - San Jose Mercury News].

State may close Mono Lake’s park

By Alison Hawkes

06/10/2011

On the list of California state park closures is Mono Lake, a stunning expanse of salty blue in the high desert east of Yosemite. In the 1980s the lake was in danger of extinction from thirsty Los Angeles, which had diverted its tributary streams into the LA aqueduct. Instead, Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve was set up to save the lake and receives 250,000 visitors a year. Lake advocates contend that closing the park won’t save the state a dime. Most of the day-to-day work is done by volunteers and visitor activities, such as interpretive programs and kayak tours, have been paid by private donations. [ Read more -California Watch].

SF Public Utilities Commission headquarters among city’s greenest

By Alison Hawkes

06/09/2011

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s new headquarters is being touted as the city’s greenest, although a number of the eco-features were scrapped to meet budget. The 13 story building at the corner of Polk and Golden Gate has a LEED Platinum award for, among other features,water saving toilets, solar panels, and 75 percent recycled concrete. The SF PUC also avoids sending sewage to the treatment plants it manages as it has its own treatment plant on site. What’s been dumped? Double paned windows and rooftop wind turbines. [Read more -- San Francisco Examiner].

Marin turtle makes epic cross county journey

By Alison Hawkes

06/09/2011

A Marin turtle has made an epic journey of 18 miles, past two dams and a 500 foot climb. Slow and steady, the western pond turtle plodded along for five years as it made its way from Phoenix Lake near Ross to Lagunitas Creek near Point Reyes Station. A Marin water district aquatic ecologist, who first marked the turtle in 2004, was surprised when he saw it turn up years later in another part of the county. Turtle No. 9 (its unimaginative name) may have been looking for mates.[Read more - Marin Independent Journal].

Apple touts eco-design of new Cupertino campus

By Alison Hawkes

06/08/2011

Apple CEO Steve Jobs made a surprise visit to the Cupertino City Council to pitch a spaceship-like, circular campus to house 12,000 employees. The new building will take the property of what is now a Hewlett-Packard campus. Jobs played up the project’s eco-design, saying 20 percent of the footprint will be landscaped with a doubling of the number of trees, including an apricot orchard. The campus will be powered off its own natural gas generator (no mention of renewables though). “It’s a little like the spaceship landed,” Jobs told an enthusiastic city council. [Read more - San Jose Mercury News].

Bill forces Bay Area to plan for sea level rise

By Alison Hawkes

06/08/2011

An action plan for sea level rise would become a part of every Bay Area city’s planning under a bill that has passed the California State Assembly. The legislation would require coastal cities and other jurisdictions –including airports, ports, and sanitary districts — to put on paper how it would withstand storm surges and flooding. A Bay Area News Group analysis showed that only half of the Bay Area’s 12 major bayfront developments in the works have a sea level rise strategy, with the rest risking $56 billion in property damage by century’s end. Despite being the world’s most urbanized estuary, the San Francisco Bay is not protected by any laws requiring developers to account for sea level rise. [ Read more - Oakland Tribune].

San Francisco officials approve Treasure Island environmental report

By Alison Hawkes

06/08/2011

San Francisco city officials approved the environmental impact report for the $1.5 billion Treasure Island redevelopment project. In doing so, they rejected an appeal by environmental groups which opposed the plan, despite its hyped-up eco-credentials, for being too car-centric and at risk for tsunamis and earthquakes. The decision at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is more than a decade in the making. [Read more - San Francisco Chronicle and SF Appeal]

Fracking for oil, gas in California largely unmonitored

By Alison Hawkes

06/07/2011

California’s oil resources department said it has no idea where and how often oil and natural gas fracking occurs in the state because its budgets prevents it from developing regulations. After issuing drilling permits and keeping tabs on groundwater quality, drillers have free reign to pull the oil or gas from the ground however they choose. State legislators are now cracking down on the industry, introducing a bill they say would be among the most stringent in the nation. California is the nation’s second largest oil producer. [Read more - Sacramento Bee].

Facebook shares specs for its energy efficient computer servers

04/08/2011

By Victoria Schlesinger

While Facebook has been heavily criticized by Greenpeace for using energy from coal-fired power plants to run their energy-hungry computer servers, the social networking company yesterday made public their design efforts to reduce their energy consumption. They say their open-source hardware initiative called Open Compute Project has improved energy efficiency by 38 percent, and they hope by sharing the information others will follow suit. The company said they think energy efficiency is more important than the energy source. That’s sure to draw some fire. [Read more - San Francisco Chronicle]

Tags: coal-fired power plants, computer servers, energy efficiency, facebook, open compute project