Welcome to Monitor Notes, a weekly roundup of news items, event announcements, and updates on past Bay Area Monitor articles.
Branch Out
Save the Redwoods League is marking its 100th anniversary with free passes to more than 100 redwood parks on the second Saturday of next month (October 13). It’s a gift intended to connect people with the redwoods’ natural beauty and legacy. Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve in Sonoma County and Portola Redwoods State Park in San Mateo County are among several options to choose from in the Bay Area. For added inspiration, read Aleta George’s recent piece on how great the outdoors is for kids. The free park passes, available on a first-come, first-served basis, are available at FreeRedwoodsDays.org starting today.
Dam Right
The new 220-foot-high dam at the Calaveras Reservoir, which sits near the Santa Clara-Alameda county line, is open. An overhaul, over 15 years in the making, was necessary to ensure the dam meets modern earthquake standards, according to Paul Rogers, managing editor at KQED Science, in a Q&A. Rogers discusses the dam’s significance to the Bay Area’s water supply, why construction costs doubled, and remarkable fossils that crews unearthed. The Calaveras is the largest Bay Area reservoir in the Hetch Hetchy Regional Water System, which Robin Meadows wrote about in July.
Home Economics
What does it take to get affordable housing built? That’s a question constructed for a luncheon forum series organized by Silicon Valley at Home and other partners. The next forum is in Los Altos on Thursday, October 11, featuring a panel discussion with reps from local government and the developer and finance communities. They’ll home in on the cost of building market rate and affordable housing and walk participants through a project prototype. Some challenges like parking requirements that we wrote about in a transit-oriented development article will be addressed in other forums this fall. Head to SV@Home to sign-up for the October 11 forum.
Warming Trends
UC Berkeley researchers are sizing up carbon footprints and their analysis shows which Bay Area cities are the lowest and highest emitters. The research, which tracks greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, energy, and other sources is ripe for creating policies and programs that speed adoption of carbon-efficient technologies, per a Marin Independent Journal article. To see which cities are slowing the warming of our planet, click here. For more hot stuff, read our coverage about the “urban heat island effect” that occurs when roofs, streets, and sidewalks absorb and re-radiate heat, often with adverse environmental effects.
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