Ecotopia Stephen Tchudi and Susan Tchudi

Our guest on this edition was Laura Gladson. She’s a PhD Candidate with Department of Environmental Medicine, New York University Grossman School of Medicine,  and a Research Scholar, Marron Institute of Urban Management at NYU. Laura is also a Chico resident, whom we met via Zoom a few weeks ago at the get together of the Environmental Council of Butte County at the This Way to Sustainability Conference. Her research interests include air quality; health effects of air pollution; policy-driven research; translational research; and environmental justice. In this program she gave us a brief course in Pollution 101, described the methods used to measure air pollution, and discussed the impacts on the population, with particular emphasis on Environmental Justice. For additional information, check out healthoftheair.org.

Our guests on this program were Marc Maddox and Katie Simmons. Marc is Paradise’s Public Works Director and Town Engineer, and Katie Simmons is the town’s Disaster Recovery Director. They spoke with us about the town’s Long Term Community Recovery Plan (schematic above) after the 2018 Camp Fire, including road repair and regeneration and plans to put utilities underground.  Of particular interest was their explanation of the proposed sewer project, which would send Paradise sewage to the Chico plant via a pipeline. They discussed other options under consideration and explained why the Chico route may be the only possible one.  They also explored funding options for this massive project.

We recently read some essays about the environment printed in the Chico Enterprise Record. These were written on topic of water conservation by 5th graders at Parkview Elementary School. We were very impressed by the writing and the students' insights.  Their major concern was lawns, and they have lots of ideas on how we can eliminate grass and replace it with native plants, mulch, and compost. We spoke with Brayden Peacock,Kaitlyn Wassinger, Audrey Vu, Sean Kelley and their teacher Tammy Janos.

Chico Attorney Richard Harriman spoke candidly about the Chico affordable housing crisis and need need for affordable infill rather than suburban developments for the affluent. He lamented the lack of community input for the revision of the Chico general plan housing element and argued that the community wants more diversity and more affordable housing while developers, who have a loud voice, ignore community needs and cater to the wealthy who are fleeing the big cities and seeking more affordable McMansions.  If Chico keeps going this way, he warned, "It's going to look just like Stockton."

KZFR programmer and polymath Gayle Kimball, author of over twenty books, spoke with us about her newest book, Climate Girls Changing Our World. She  interviewed 54 young women in seven continents and found a vigorous,  inspired, inspiring and dedicated climate activists. We asked her about  how climate change issues vary in such areas as Africa, Asia, Europe,  and North America and how these young people are acting on them.  She  also shared her view of what these climate activists have in common,  including family birth order, motivation, commitment, and career  ambitions

This program focused on the Sierra Nevada snowpack, which supplies about one-third of California’s water and serves as a vast winter reservoir. We spoke with Sean de Gusman of the Department of Water Resources. He is chief of DWR’s Snow Supply and Water Forecasting Section and is responsible for measuring the Sierra snowpack and figuring out how much water it contains. We asked him how he measures the snowpack. He told us about the extraordinarily complex process that involves physical, on-the-scene measurements at Phillips Station in the Sierra, 120 electronic sensing sites, airplane and satellite determinations, and more. At the close of the program, we read excerpts from a Wikipedia article on the great flood of 1862, when above average snowpack coupled with spring rains turned the Sacramento valley into a vast lake. Read the press release that sparked this interview: https://water.ca.gov/News/News-Releases/2020/Dec-20/December-2020-Snow-Survey    See the actual data at cdec.water.ca.gov.