Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve Proposed Mitigated Negative Declaration Water System Improvements Project

 

Armstrong Woods flora ~ Darris B. Nelson

We have until May 2, 2014, to send our comments about this project to Patricia DuMont, Environmental Coordinator for State Parks. If you care at all about this park I urge you to read the project proposal and respond. In my opinion, this project could have permanent negative consequences to the old growth redwoods within Armstrong Woods. Below is a link to an article in the Sonoma County Gazette by Linda Lucey that outlines the proposal:

Sonoma County Gazette article regarding the Armstrong Woods proposed water improvement project.

Below is my letter sent to Patricia DuMont addressing my concerns. I've included two email addresses where you can send your letters. Keep in mind your letter does not have to be lengthy it can be a short comment of concern. Thank you so much for taking the time to move on something you care about. YOU DO make a difference! 

 'The Touch' by John Cushman ~ Armstrong Redwoods SNR

April 21, 2014

Patricia DuMont, Environmental Coordinator                           

DPR - Northern Service Center

One Capitol Mall, Suite 410

Sacramento, CA 95814

CEQA.NSC@parks.ca.gov
Patti.DuMont@parks.ca.gov

RE: Armstrong Redwoods SNR: MND Water System Improvement Project

Dear Ms. DuMont,

Thank you for the extended time in which to comment on the proposed Armstrong Water System project.

As the wife of a Certified Arborist (35 years in Sonoma County), I have grave concerns about the impact this project will have on the redwoods within the park.  While I understand that the existing water system is in dire straits and must be addressed to meet health and safety standards, I believe the health of the trees must be the first consideration before moving ahead with this project.

For 21 years I owned a 5 1/2 acre property with hundreds of redwoods, oaks, bays and fir trees.  Although we carefully chose our homesite to lessen the impact our footprint would have on the surrounding area, the careful digging and narrow trenches for water, waste and power had dire consequences on the trees even 100 feet from the building site.

It’s evident by the top die off of the redwoods in Armstrong Woods that the trees are stressed by drought conditions.  In 21 years of living in a forest I witnessed what drought conditions could do to thriving trees. Old growth trees can withstand years of drought but add to that the stress of current high rates of acidic conditions then damage their root systems from trenching, fill their canopies with toxic fumes, fuel and oil from heavy equipment, chemical drilling compounds, and the soil compaction this equipment will create, and it’s a very real possibility these ancient trees will succumb. 

During construction our home building site was a wildlife ‘dead zone’. The birds and other typically abundant wildlife left the area. What consideration has been given to the nesting birds and other wildlife that will be dislocated during this proposed project?

Our family have been regular visitors of the park for over 50 years. As farmers and arborists we’ve always noticed and appreciated the vibrant health of the magnificent redwoods within Armstrong Woods. During a recent visit with 70 other members of a Sonoma County photography group, I watched and listened to hundreds of visitors from around the world marvel at the site of our majestic old growth redwoods. First and foremost we have a responsibility to care for these trees and the wildlife that exists within them. I urge State Parks to consider all possibilities before moving ahead with any plan that could ultimately destroy the very trees that draw people to the park in the first place.

I understand this is a difficult dilemma for State Parks and I appreciate you taking the time to consider all comments and questions about this project.

Darris B. Nelson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Armstrong woods ~ Darris B. Nelson

Blue Sway . . .

sea stars ~ photo, db Nelson

waiting for high tide . . . ~ photo, db Nelson

tide pooling ~ photographer, Barbara Denham

National Geographic ~ Bodega Bay Tidepools

'Brimming Pools' is a featured article in National Geographic this month. Along with beautiful photographs by David Liittschwager, writer Mel White takes us on a journey of Bodega Head Tidepoos. Guided by Sarah Ann Thompson, a marine biologist from the Farallon Institute in Petaluma, White describes his experience:

The rocks and pools here create an abundance of opportunities and host a diversity of life to rival any rain forest. Pisaster is just one of scores of species that have adapted to innumerable micro-habitats with a seemingly endless variety of physical shapes and lifestyles. One little worm can shoot a harpoon out of its head to stab its prey. A limpet tends and guards its own farm plot. A seaweed releases acid for defense when it's injured. A nudibranch (which looks like a gussied-up slug) eats poisonous creatures and implants stinging cells under its own skin to repel predators.
Why all the aggression? It's simply the result of lots of plants and animals competing for resources in a highly productive but limited space. In nature, as in real estate, location is everything, and the intertidal zone is Park Avenue.

White also gets an education about sea creatures from Erik Sanford, a biologist with the Bodega Marine Lab. White tells us:

So there's the magic. Eric Sanford is holding, in one hand, representatives of more than one-fourth of all the animal life on Earth: nine phyla on one rock. In comparison, the entire land surface of the planet, from Poles to Equator, is home to only about a dozen phyla.

Sanford is actually a little crestfallen because he can't find a peanut worm, an odd thing in the phylum Sipuncula that would give us an even ten. The thrill would have been strictly numerical, though. I've already seen a peanut worm, and it has all the aesthetic appeal of used chewing gum. (I must admit, however, that the one thing it does, it does very well: extending a hydraulically powered, tentacle-tipped proboscis several times the length of its body to grab tiny bits of drifting dead stuff. Sanford calls it "this crazy sort of Dr. Seuss-like thing.")

This article is a great way to learn a bit more about our precious and unique coast. For more information contact the Bodega Marine Lab for a tour. Public drop in tours are available Fridays, 2-4 for groups less than 10 people. 

Thank you to our own (future) Bodega Bay Veterinary Hospital for bringing this to our attention.



Previously Unreleased track, 'Blue Sway' Written Nearly 20 Years Ago Dedicated to Linda McCartney . . .

'Blue Sway' music video

Paul McCartney recruited award-winning surf filmmaker Jack McCoy to create a music video for his previously unreleased track "Blue Sway." Written nearly 20 years ago, McCartney's never-before released song, "Blue Sway," is available for the first time on the bonus audio disc of the special edition of McCartney II. The music video created by McCoy is also featured on the bonus DVD included in the set. McCartney II will be released on June 14th by MPL and Concord Music Group.

Jack McCoy has been capturing the surfing vision in a truly unique way. Using a high powered underwater jet ski, the filmmaker found that he was able to travel behind a wave, creating underwater images that have never been seen before.

Over the past couple of years, McCoy set out to capture footage for his surf film, A Deeper Shade of Blue. During the editing process, McCoy put one of his surfing sequences to a song off McCartney's The Fireman album. A mutual friend, Chris Thomas, saw the footage while visiting McCoy in Australia, and when he returned to the UK he gave McCartney a copy of the sequence.

"Paul was pretty stoked with what I'd created. He immediately thought my images might be suitable to go with his unreleased song "Blue Sway." said McCoy.

McCoy spent the next six weeks creating the music video, while also working full days on making A Deeper Shade of Blue. McCoy compiled and edited footage that he filmed off Tahiti's Teahupoo reef to create what became the "Blue Sway" video.

"When I saw Jack McCoy's underwater surfing footage put to the soundtrack of "Blue Sway" I was blown away," said McCartney.

"Blue Sway" won 'Best Music Video' at NYC BE FILM Short Festival this past May, and the video will be featured as part of Surfrider Foundation's summer PSA campaign. Surfrider Foundation is a non-profit grassroots organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of our world's oceans, waves and beaches.

For more information about the McCartney II : http://paulmccartney.com.
For more information on Jack McCoy's A Deeper Shade of Blue: http://adeepershadeofblue.com
For more information on Surfrider Foundation: http://surfrider.org.

Too amazing not to repost . . .

Our Beautiful Bodega Bay . . .

Kick butt kite-boarder . . .

This guy was so much fun to watch! He went all-out - flying down the beach faster than I could shoot! He was obviously having a blast as evidenced by his hootin' and hollerin' . . . I should've shot a video but I got so caught-up in watching him I was just enjoying the moment and not thinking about much else. . .
 

Great informational messages about alternatives to plastic and rethinking plastic waste . . .

 

 

No More Plastic!

 

 

Beach trash ~

Beach trash ~ cheap plastic toy & bait container . . .

The Nurdle hurdle . . .

Plastic 'Nurdles' ~ photo credit: onemoregeneration.org

What's a Nurdle?

by Charles Moore, Founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, onboard the Esperanza

Plastic is now everywhere. When locating plastics anywhere in the environment, scientists have little difficulty fulfilling the age-old saying, "Seek, and ye shall find."

But where do plastics come from? Most plastics are made from the natural gas portion of our petroleum resources. The gasses, like ethylene, are purified and turned into plastic by the use of polymer catalysts, which link ethylene molecules together to make polyethylene. Polyethylene plastics make water bottles, clothing fabric, and Tupperware as well as thousands of other products. So how does the polymer get to the processor who makes the goods for the consumer. The answer is “nurdles.” Over 250 billion pounds of nurdles are shipped around the world to plastic processing factories every year. Nurdles are plastic resin pellets that represent the most economical way to ship large quantities of a solid material, that is, in a pelletized form.

The pellets come in rail tank cars, and at 20-25,000 per pound, there are about a billion of them in each tanker. So many have escaped over the last half century during the transfer from rail car to factory by vacuum hoses, washing during rainstorms from rail sidings to the sea, that nurdles now represent about 10% of the litter counted on beaches worldwide.

In surface trawls for plastic particles aboard the Greenpeace vessel Esperanza, nurdles have been found in every trawl. The plastic industry itself is the biggest single source of plastic particles in the environment.

 More beach trash ~

Kite boarder at sunset . . .

Bodega Bay Wildlife . . .

seals & gulls near Diekman's Market

I leapt out of the car to get this shot so it's not the best photo but captures something many people never see.


Doran Beach Castles and Kites Day . . .  

Castles and Kites entry ~ April 23, 2011 ~ Photo by Darris

Petaluma entry ~ Photo by Darris

twisted shark humor . . . ~ Photo by Darris

nose humor ~ Photo by Darris

Doran Beach Dragon ~ Castles and Kites Day ~ Photo by Darris

Valley Springs, CA sand artists ~ Photos by Darris

 
I didn't get a photograph (had ya there for a minute though didn't I!) but I spotted two breaching Orca whales just beyond the breaking waves. There were other whales swimming along with them, possibly Gray whales. Uncommon to see whales at all at Doran Beach but to see Orca's is rare indeed.

Orca ~ photo credit/National Geographic

Bobcat-Spring Lake ~ Thomas Reynolds, photographer

This bobcat wasn't photographed in Bodega Bay but it's such a great shot! These guys are roaming all over our coastal hills but are rarely seen. Wildlife photographer and park volunteer, Tom Reynolds, told me he and a friend spotted this bobcat off the trail at Spring Lake, sunning on a rock.

An avid bird-watcher and photographer, Tom is photographing wildlife all over Sonoma County everyday. He generously shares his photographs with me and frees me up to share them with you. 

Immature Great Horned Owl ~ Tom Reynolds, Photographer

Peregrine Falcon ~ Thomas Reynolds, photographer

Castles and Kites Celebration . . .

 
My photographer friend Tom, AKA 'Birdman', sent an email letting me know that he will be photographing the Castles and Kites Celebration at Doran Beach Regional Park.  This event is from 11:00 until 5:00 this Saturday, April 23rd. The event is free but unless you have a Regional Parks Pass, it will cost you $6.00 to enter the park.

It's breezy Spring weather here on the coast so remember to dress in layers. Bring a picnic or grab a sandwich and snacks at Diekmann's Bay Store or Pelican Plaza Grocery and Deli.

Doran is located south of Bodega Bay at 201 Doran Beach Road. This is an opportunity to watch expert sand castle builders or to participate. Park staff will be at the beach and will have tools and molds for children to use. 

Try your kite flying skills. Bodega Bay kite vendors, Candy & Kites and Second Wind will both be at the event with kites for you to try.  Stunt kite demonstrations will take place all day, along with kite making workshops for the kids and a free kite repair clinic. 

This fun filled day is sponsored by the Sonoma County Regional Parks Foundation, Candy & Kites, and Second Wind. For more information, contact the Regional Parks office (707) 565-2041 or visit www.sonoma-county.org/parks.

I Love Cumulus Clouds . . .

Cumulus clouds . . . Wikipedia's definition:

Cumulus clouds are a type of cloud with noticeable vertical development and clearly defined edges. Cumulus means "heap" or "pile" in Latin. They are often described as "puffy" or "cotton-like" in appearance. Cumulus clouds may appear alone, in lines, or in clusters. Cumulus clouds are often precursors of other types of clouds, such as cumulonimbus, when influenced by weather factors such as instability, moisture, and temperature gradient. Cumulus clouds are part of the larger category of cumuliform clouds, which include cumulus, cumulus congestus, and cumulonimbus clouds, among others.^[1] The most intense cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds may be associated with severe weatherhail, waterspouts and tornadoes.

the clouds look like caribou antlers

I was discouraged by the trash . . . 

Styrofoam breaks down into tiny molecular pieces that are ingested by sea creatures. They're difficult to pick up and to hang on to because they're so light and blow away easily.

Cheap plastic beach toys annoy me  . . . a metal pail and a garden trowel are much more interesting. When my son was little we made a ritual out of packing up his toy trucks, pails and shovels into his wagon as a gentle close to the day . . . he never liked saying "goodbye" to the beach . . . 

ditch the plastic toys and Styrofoam beach coolers

I never like leaving the beach either . . .