Category: Environment

Community meeting Aug. 10, 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM Point Loma campus of the San Diego Community College – West…

Editor: We received this report on San Diego’s best dog beaches from Wet Nose Guide, a New York City online dog directory that’s expanded to San Diego, and … surprise! Ocean Beach’s Dog Beach made the list! We knew we had the best dog beach, now “everyone” knows.
_______________

by Doug Pierce / Wet Nose Guide

With the sun in their face and the sand at their paws, San Diego’s dog beaches provide the perfect controlled environment for your pooch to cast off her leash and enjoy a frisky carefree day at the beach. The list of dog-friendly San Diego beaches is long, but three in particular provide you and your pup a slice of laidback California beach life at its most relaxed. Ocean Beach Dog Beach, Coronado Dog Beach, and Fiesta Island Dog Park are the best for you and your pup to play fetch, doggy-paddle, or simply have a snore-fest on the warm sand.

Three Steps to Establish a Politics of Global Warming

By Bil McKibben / August 4, 2010

Try to fit these facts together:

* According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the planet has just come through the warmest decade, the warmest 12 months, the warmest six months, and the warmest April, May, and June on record.

* A “staggering” new study from Canadian researchers has shown that warmer seawater has reduced phytoplankton, the base of the marine food chain, by 40% since 1950. …

This is the future of Ocean Beach. These are the architect’s drawings of what Saratoga and Abbott will look like, once the twelve, 3-story condos are developed.

With the news that the corner site at Abbott Street and Saratoga has been sold (1984-92 Abbott St. and 5113-19 Saratoga Ave.), residents of the community will be confronting the reality that a significant corner of the beachfront will be forever transformed.

Some consider this site, next to Saratoga Park and right on the beach, to be one of the most “important” within OB. Whatever does or does not happen there will help to define this community’s identity.

By Kyla Calvert / KPBS / August 4, 2010

SAN DIEGO — CalTrans is holding public meetings to gather input on a proposal to ease congestion on Interstate 5. The project could add up to six lanes to the freeway between La Jolla and Oceanside. Some people at these meetings are asking why there aren’t more plans to develop public transit in the corridor.

People have lots of concerns about the proposal to expand I-5. Homeowners worried about increased noise from new lanes. Environmentalists were asking questions about impacting the seven lagoons in the project area. Labor representatives wanted to know how many local workers the expansion is likely to employ.

On Wednesday night, August 4th, the Ocean Beach Planning Board will consider requests by San Diego City Planners to loosen construction restrictions that apply to OB multi-unit properties. The City is interested in eliminating the more restrictive requirements for floor area ratios (FAR) and for parking. Currently, OB properties are limited to a .7 FAR with 25% of the floor area reserved for parking.

by Jon Christensen / Originally posted Union-Tribune / August 1, 2010

Why is selling the Miramar Landfill a good idea? Like a used car with 150,000 miles, it’s mostly used up, at least according to the campaign for a new landfill in Gregory Canyon in the North County. Miramar’s life as a landfill can be measured in months rather than years. So it must be a good idea to sell it now. Once filled up, there’s limited commercial value; you can’t build on a landfill. Parks, playgrounds, parking lots or just open space is their destiny.

ALL DETAILS AND LINKS INSIDE:

OB Library Gets a New Rug
__________
“Terriers” airs on September 8th
__________
World War Two Weather ?
__________
3 Out of 4 Readers Against Publicly Funded Downtown Football Stadium
__________
Police Praise OB Heathens
__________
Woman Jogger Hassled Along Sunset Cliffs
__________
Ground-breaking on New OB Entryway in October
__________
$7000 From Supervisor Cox for Abbott Street Trees
__________
Who were Dusty Rhodes and Bob Kenny anyhow? (Help us out.)
__________
OBMA Historical Tour – Online
__________
OB Town Council to hold elections in August
__________
Planning Board General Meeting August 4th
__________
OB Centric: Creating community – one art project at a time – August 5th, 17th and 23th
__________
Pepe’s Annual Tomato Contest – August 15th
__________
Historical Society: “Hot Curl” Cartoonist Michael Dormer – August 19th
__________
Get Ready for the Jazz 88 OB Music & Art Festival! – September 11th

The San Diego City Council voted to award a $6.6 million contract to build a demonstration plant that will treat recycled wastewater and turn it into safe drinking water. This historic turn-around for the Council reflects a shift in their and the public’s thinking about recycled water. The Council voted 4 to 2 for the project, with Councilwoman Sherri Lightner and Councilman Carl DeMaio voting ‘no’.

Water treated at the demonstration facility, to be built at North City Water Reclamation Plant, will be added to the city’s graywater system and not be added to the drinking water.

Melisa Shafer’s deal with her three children was pretty simple: spend 20 minutes Saturday morning helping restore a fragile coastal dune and marsh area in Ocean Beach and they could go to the beach. The kids didn’t know it, but the point of their work had little to do with the physical labor involved.

The natural world is important to us,” said Shafer, 36, as she and the children lined rocks along a footpath through sensitive native vegetation. “If we don’t teach the next generation about it, we’ll lose it.”

I went to see the doctor the other day because I’ve been so tired lately. “Are you depressed?” he asked me.

After weeks of seeing photos of the devastation in the Gulf of Mexico; watching YouTube videos of pelicans suffocating in an oily sarcophagus, marshes saturated in putrid, brown slime and what appears to be oily rain and a surf belching noxious gases; reading reports of outright incompetence in dealing with the situation, the application of millions of gallons of a chemical dispersant that no one seems to understand the environmental ramifications of using, news of a judge with a vested interest in the oil industry rescinding a ban on deepwater drilling” Good God, who wouldn’t be depressed!

On Saturday, June 26th, I took the bus to Ocean Beach with my husband and a friend, to participate in one of the “Hands Across the Sand” events. There was a hundred or so of us lined up on the beach.

by Jim Bell

We humans are something special and rare.

In spite of there being an estimated 5 to 100 million species of life on our planet, our species is the only one sufficiently conscious to become conscious of existence and our place in it on all levels.

On the most foundational level, this means that if enough of us become conscious enough, soon enough, we will be able to pass the birthright of a peaceful and life-supporting world to our children and future generations.