these deliverables by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, July 31, 2015.
website:
Water Website under the “Watersheds” tab:
email address: SanDiego@waterboards.ca.gov
Diego Water Board staff:
Arias, PE
As you know, we here at Escondido Neighbors United appreciate our native snakes! Here’s a must listen PSA from an important neighbor. Please listen.
For those of us who believe we need to be taking action to prevent the worst impacts of climate change, this has been a good week.
First, Pope Francis issued Laudato Si: On Care for our Common Home Pope Francis’s Teaching on Climate Change, Pope Francis has written the first papal encyclical focused solely on the environment, attempting to reframe care of the earth as a moral and spiritual concern, and not just a matter of politics, science and economics. In the document, “Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home,” he argues that the environment is in crisis – cities to oceans, forests to farmland. He emphasizes that the poor are most affected by damage from what he describes as economic systems that favor the wealthy, and political systems that lack the courage to look beyond short-term rewards. But the encyclical is addressed to everyone on the planet. Its 184 pages are an urgent, accessible call to action, making a case that all is interconnected, including the solutions to the grave environmental crisis.
Next, led by the Mayor of Houston, a nationwide group of Mayors weighed in.
Mayors’ Letter to Obama on Climate Change
Following closely after the State EJ Screen maps, the US Environmental Protection Agency released their mapping of the most impacted communities in the country from a pollution burden perspective. The LA Times reported today Los Angeles Times EJ article
Southern California doesn’t fare well and, sadly, some Escondido areas show up in the highest percentiles for many of the hazards. You can take a look here. Federal EJ Screen
Our local areas with the worst indicators seem to line up, again, in areas in District 1. There is funding from the state to address these hardest hit neighborhoods. We have asked the Mayor and Council to pursue funding for projects to improve these impacted neighborhoods. We hope the city will work with community groups to develop a plan that can help alleviate some of these health and pollution burdens.
The LAFCO Preliminary Staff report on Oak Creek has been issued. Escondido Neighbors United has already registered our concerns about this in our April 2, 2015 ENU To LAFCO comment letter. The staff report does report on several of the issues that we are concerned but appears to support the annexation or ‘reorganization’.
In this time of drought, it seems meaningful that the new project will create a huge new water demand of at least 33,150 gallons a day in a time when Rincon del Diablo has been given a requirement to reduce water use by 32%. A recent article in the San Diego Union Tribune showed that Rincon had only reduce by 12%. We continue to ask the question, how will we meet water conservation reductions if agencies continue to permit new homes, especially in current open space areas.
LAFCO also increased the annexation area to include more of Hamilton road, but does not remedy the two significant de-facto jurisdictional islands that this project creates.
More later but we wanted to be sure you had access to this report.
The LAFCO hearing date has not yet been set but their meetings are the first Monday of the month.
Escondido Neighbors United is opposed to this reorganization and will communicate our opposition to LAFCO.