Far and Wide: A wastewater reuse project puts the already endangered Russian River Watershed at further risk.

Up a Creek

Wastewater reuse plan threatens watershed, wine industry

By Tara Treasurefield

Turtle Creek winds through Marty Griffin’s property in Healdsburg on its way to the Russian River. This creek, like many others in the Russian River Watershed, has suffered serious abuse. Gravel miners nearly destroyed it when they dug a huge pit at its mouth in the early 1960s. For 38 years, Griffin, whose property includes Hop Kiln Winery and who cofounded Friends of the Russian River, has been repairing the damage. Now, just as Turtle Creek is beginning to heal, there’s a new threat: A group of farmers, the city of Santa Rosa, and the Sonoma County Water Agency intend to use city wastewater for irrigation.

Three of the 17 reservoirs described in the plan would be in the headwaters of Turtle Creek. Reservoirs leak, says Griffin, and that’s a problem. “This wastewater is lethal to aquatic life. [Wastewater leakage from the reservoirs] would kill the little animals and plants that live in streams and creeks and the Russian River.” The plan also calls for five reservoirs next to the Bishop’s Ranch retreat center, just above water agency wells. “There must be better locations for wastewater storage than right in the watershed that feeds your drinking-water wells,” says Judith Olney of the Healdsburg Association for Responsible Citizenship.

Some of the proposed reservoirs are 120 feet high, and that presents other problems. “They want to put them in steep canyons with very unstable soil,” says Griffin. “They’re going to have to take out hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of soil. It will make a God-awful mess. If [the reservoirs] break–which is very likely, because this is a very active earthquake area–they would inundate parts of our ranches with a wall of water that would wipe out everything on the way down.” Bishop’s Ranch is also alarmed and is a plaintiff on three of the 19 lawsuits filed against the project.

Celebrate the Watershed: We are all part of the watershed.

Dan Carlson, capitol projects manager for the Santa Rosa Utilities Department, acknowledges that reservoirs leak, that Santa Rosa’s treated wastewater kills marine life, and that Healdsburg is prone to earthquakes. He says that environmental impact reports will evaluate all this, as well as mitigations that include lining reservoirs to prevent leakage, determining if the amount of leakage would significantly impact downstream users, and evaluating the effects of an earthquake. Pam Jeane, deputy chief engineer at the Sonoma County Water Agency, says, “Whoever proposes a project will have to do an environmental review. People will have a chance to comment at that time.” No specific project has been selected yet, she says.

But Griffin has no doubt that the plan to construct 17 wastewater reservoirs and 74 miles of distribution lines in North County is a done deal. It costs $875,000 to develop the plan and over $20 million to make the geysers’ pipeline large enough to accommodate wastewater for irrigation. Santa Rosa is also prepared to pay up to 100 percent of the cost of constructing reservoirs on private agricultural land. Acknowledging that all this amounts to a sizable investment in a project that hasn’t even gone through an environmental impact report yet, Carlson says, “I believe that [the Santa Rosa City Council and Board of Supervisors] believe that some part of that project will likely go ahead in the future, if not all of it.”

A major appeal of the project is that it will allow Santa Rosa to build affordable housing in the city center. Carlson says that though front yards and backyards are good places to dispose of wastewater, the new dwellings won’t have any yards. The wastewater has to go somewhere. Carlson says, “Why not use it for agriculture? Farmers already need it, and we want to make sure that if those areas want to use the water, we have it available to them.”

Tom Hobart at Clos du Bois Winery in Healdsburg supports the project because vineyards will be “at the bottom of the list” for fresh water as it becomes increasingly scarce. “Twenty or 25 years from now, this may be the most important thing we ever did,” he says. But as owner of a winery himself, Marty Griffin questions the wisdom of using wastewater to irrigate vineyards. “It may hurt the reputation of vineyards in North County,” he says. “It’s very hard to clean up, and there are a lot of chemicals left in the wastewater even after treatment.”

What’s really driving this project, says Griffin, is greed. “Sonoma County is a developer-controlled county, and Santa Rosa is a developer-controlled city. They’ll do anything to get rid of the wastewater, because it’s the only thing that’s holding up development. Sonoma County could end up like Los Angeles. I think they should slow down their growth, stop their growth. They should recycle all this wastewater in their own backyards and not ours. It’s a big rip-off for North County.”

Devoted as ever to Turtle Creek and the Russian River Watershed, Griffin says, “They’re going to build those reservoirs over our dead bodies.” On second thought, he adds, “I’ve never believed in lying down in front of bulldozers, because by then it’s too late. We have to stop them in the courts and in the court of public opinion.”

From the May 16-22, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Hop On: Feel the wind through your hair.

Road Rush

Bike to Work Day gets the wheels of change turning

By James Knight

Here, in a place some would call the most beautiful on earth, cyclists seem to fall into two categories: after-work mountain bikers, and those who don’t seem to be employed at all. The sight of day-glo-clad groups of cyclists, their aerodynamically sculpted spandex butts in the air, is surely familiar to wine country drivers. And there must be thousands of miles of mountain bike tracks ripping up local park trails. But mostly these activities involve putting the bike on a car, driving it somewhere, then driving it back. And this isn’t mentioning those who drive to the gym to ride a stationary bicycle.

Fortunately, Bike to Work Day (May 16) has a lot more going for it than, say, Eat Your Brussels Sprouts Day. Not only is bicycling good for you and good for the environment, but people generally agree that it’s an enjoyable recreational activity.

Support for Bike to Work Day has been growing and growing. Steven Schmitz, who has run an “energizer station” in Sebastopol at the Joe Rodata Bike Trail head for the past seven years, says that while job-bound cyclists used to number about 15 to 20, last year saw more than 100. The energizer stations, open from 6:30am to 9am in at least 40 locations around Napa, Sonoma, and Marin counties, perform a “cheerleading” function, says Schmitz, who also heads the Sonoma County Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Committee.

Volunteers hand out bags of goodies donated by BTWD sponsors and disseminate maps and useful cycling information. The stations and other events that make up Bike to Work Week are sponsored by RIDES for Bay Area Commuters, which is funded by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. More bicycles, less pollution.

Unfortunately, BTWD is held concurrently with Pollute Your Way to Work Day, an event of unprecedented success that has been held each day for nearly a century. The irony of the Lung Association’s sponsorship of BTWD is that cyclists probably get a bigger dose of exhaust in their faces than drivers. As anyone who has ridden outside the protected domain of parks or quiet neighborhood streets can tell you, getting from point A to point B in the North Bay is not such a carefree lark.

To the cyclist, the everyday routine of traffic transforms into a life-threatening world of hazards. Marked bike lanes suddenly disappear; pollution-belching vehicles whiz by your elbow; motorists blindly make right turns in front of you. The fatality statistics for bicyclists in this area are dismaying, among the highest in the state.

The Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition hopes to change that with its Share the Road campaign, funded by a $200,000 state grant. The campaign, targeted at bicyclists and motorists, will eventually include billboards, radio, and bilingual information. Schmitz hopes that this year’s BTWD will kick off the campaign and says he’s excited about the next year and a half. Share the Road will address the issues of cyclist vs. motorist, hoping to bring greater understanding between the two that will allow them, well, to share the road.

If this reporter were to bike to the Bohemian offices, he’d have to find side streets to get to the Luther Burbank Center, where the Bohemian is located. Mendocino Avenue, a road that passes through the center of Santa Rosa, numerous shopping centers, a high school, and one of the biggest community colleges in the state, has no bicycle lane. It’s exactly this kind of squeaking one’s way down the gutter of a busy street that puts a thorn in the tube of practical, everyday cycling.

Joan Moulthrop of Santa Rosa’s Transit and Parking Department, says that while there is no Mendocino route planned, in the near future bicyclists will have a lane on Santa Rosa Avenue all the way into downtown. To get an idea of other plans, and to find those elusive bike lanes, the city provides a detailed map. That in itself is a good sign. The Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition provides information on maps for other municipalities, as well.

So put on that helmet, get in gear, and visualize lanes. There are a lot of events to help you get going, including bicycle repair workshops in Santa Rosa and Sebastopol. Stop by the energizer stations and pick up a treat on the way to work. If enough people follow suit, the real reward may be far greater.

From the May 16-22, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Fruits Of Child Labor: Chocolate: rich, delicious, and completely unjust.

Blood and Chocolate

Are American candy companies sweetening their profits with child slavery?

It was hot for February. The sun was beating down on the sidewalk in front of the See’s candy store where I was about to pick up a pound of assorted truffles as a Valentine’s Day treat for my wife and kids. My mouth was already watering in anticipation of the Mom’s Apple Pie truffle I was planning to throw in as a little present to myself. Out on the sidewalk, just to the right of the store entrance, a threesome of smiling young people stood by the door, holding cameras and a big basket full of little paper hearts. As I approached, one of them said, “Happy Valentine’s Day,” and handed me a piece of paper. Assuming they were employees of See’s, I accepted the paper, expecting it to be a discount coupon or perhaps a list of Valentine’s Day specials.

Instead it turned out to be a protest flyer, emblazoned with the headline, “See’s Candies: Slavery and Exploitation Break Our Hearts!” Under that were the words, “We want Fair Trade not child slavery and poverty wages!” There was a photo of three emaciated boys sitting beside a pile of cocoa pods, staring blankly at their hands. Happy Valentine’s Day indeed.

This was no promotional campaign for See’s. The polite-as-punch trio was, in fact, standing out in the heat on behalf of Global Exchange, the remarkably well-organized political action alliance that puts pressure on companies engaging in questionable trading practices in regards to human rights and fair wages.

The flyer announced that 43 percent of the world’s cocoa comes from plantations on the Ivory Coast, a part of the planet where child slavery is very much in practice. In response to massive national poverty caused in part by the bottoming out of cocoa prices, parents there are taking cash in exchange for sending their children to work the plantations. In other cocoa-producing regions, those workers actually paid to harvest the cocoa earn such low wages their families are “on the brink of debt and starvation,” according to the flyer. Workers who try to escape are severely beaten, as are any who fall under the weight of the cocoa bags they’re forced to carry.

As for Global Exchange and today’s sidewalk campaign, the plan was to collect as many signed paper valentines as possible, each bearing a note asking See’s to support a chocolate industry agreement to end child slavery by 2005, and send them off to Charles N. Huggins, president of See’s Candies, Inc. I signed one of the hearts, spelling out my name and address to show I was a real person with legitimate concerns.

That accomplished, I went in and bought a dozen chocolates. (In my defense, I did forgo buying the Apple Pie truffle for myself. Take that, you oppressors of children!) I kept the flyer and, once Valentine’s Day was over and my kids’ sugar highs had subsided, I did a bit of research on the subject of child slavery in the chocolate industry.

Global cocoa prices have taken a serious tumble over the last ten years, with bulk cocoa currently trading at 40 to 50 cents a pound. With West and Central Africa already experiencing devastating levels of poverty, the lost profits in the local cocoa industry have pushed the population into a desperate crisis. According to a report published by CNN in April 2001, the rise in child-slave trafficking has a direct link to the levels of poverty in West and Central Africa. Facing starvation, many parents are handing their children over to traffickers, sometimes under the mistaken belief that they’ll be given an education and a better life, though frequently families are actually paid for their children, receiving between $1.50 and $14 per child.

UNICEF reports that over 200,000 children are traded each year. Most of the girls end up in the domestic or sex trades, while the boys get used as manual labor in a variety of trades such as coffee and cocoa.

Two weeks after Valentine’s Day, I received a letter from Charles N. Huggins himself.

“I am in receipt of your note regarding child slave labor in the farming of cocoa beans,” the letter began. “We do care deeply about the matter of child slavery in the Ivory Coast, which came to our attention several months ago.” According to Huggins, See’s has signed the Chocolate Manufacturer’s Association protocol to end child slavery and has been actively supporting efforts by the CMA, the World Cocoa Foundation, and the American Cocoa Research Institute to “strongly condemn” child-slavery practices and to cooperate with the antislavery efforts of the U.S. Department of Labor and the governments of cocoa-producing countries. “It is my belief,” the letter concludes, “that public response from concerned citizens such as yourself, along with the economic assistance of groups such as [the aforementioned organizations], will help to ensure that such practices are eliminated.

“Thank you for writing to me and for thinking of See’s.”

You’re welcome.

Though Mr. Huggins seems to be stating that See’s has done everything it can to stop the use of child labor on cocoa plantations–they’ve signed a petition, which, to be truthful, is pretty much all I’ve done–there are those who have another idea for See’s and every other major American chocolate company: Pay more money for the chocolate.

“We believe the $13 billion chocolate industry owes it to the cocoa farmers around the world to be paid fairly,” says Deborah James of Global Exchange, “and particularly to the West African farmers–some of which are, unfortunately, under conditions of actual child slavery–to be paid fairly. And obviously, not to be enslaved.”

Global Exchange is encouraging American candy companies to adopt Fair Trade Certification, essentially an agreement to pay cocoa farmers a guaranteed minimum price of $80 dollars per pound, which would, in theory, allow cocoa plantations to pay their workers a living wage. It would also boost the economy so that families would no longer be forced to sell their children.

“To accomplish this,” says James, “we need an international monitoring system that’s Fair Trade, to guarantee that farmers, organized into co-ops around the world, are paid a minimum price per pound.”

As for the rest of us, we can write more letters. We can even–I hate to say it–make it clear that we might buy less chocolate until something is done. As for me, if things haven’t improved by next Valentine’s Day, then, like it or not, my wife and kids are all getting flowers.

From the May 9-15, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.