Twenty-five years ago, river citizens were enraged when they learned that Santa Rosa was planning an illegal dump of 800 million gallons of secondarily treated wastewater into the Russian River because their storage ponds were too full. Russian River Watershed Protection Committee has been pressuring them incessantly ever since to limit winter discharges. The City finally achieved zero discharge last year. But sadly, some summer discharges have just been legalized in the guise of "non-storm water runoff"!

New permit allows some runoff into impaired water bodies... On October 1st, the Regional Water Quality Control Board adopted a new joint permit for Santa Rosa, the Sonoma County Water Agency, and the County of Sonoma, with the intent of controlling storm and non-storm water runoff. Storm water runoff causes many pollutants deposited on city streets during the dry season, such as grease and oil from vehicles, to run off into our waterways when it rains and seriously degrade water quality.

Hazardous Water "Runoff" »

The opportunity to attend a seminar on reducing poverty drew this writer to Resurrection Church in West Santa Rosa on September 28 to hear Father Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA and newly appointed by Barrack Obama to sit on the President’s Council of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Fr. Snyder’s presentation stressed that 39.8 million people now live in poverty in America, based on the 2009 guidelines naming $22,050 yearly income as the poverty line for a family of four. That 39.8 million is projected to reach 50 million before the recovery takes hold, due to the delay in jobs creation. One stark number stands out as reflecting the depth of current distress: Twenty-five percent (25%) of Americans do not have any tangible assets—no house, no savings, nothing other than their wages and expenses. Most individuals hidden inside these statistics are too young, too old, or too infirm to work.

Interfaith Charities Respond to Economic Need »