From NPR’s Food Blog - The Salt
by DAN CHARLES
A clampdown on contamination in growing fields has pushed out wildlife and destroyed habitats. Adam Cole/NPR
NPR has an in-depth article on the Leafy Green Marketing Agreement that seems to have made spinach safer – and raised other environmental concerns.
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A Save Our Shores mural at the Safeway in Aptos aims to save shopper the trouble of arriving at the check stand without reusable bags. Photo: Wes Sims
By Wes Sims
Grocery shopping in unincorporated areas of Santa Cruz County has changed since late March, when a ban on single-use plastic bags went into effect. Customers of the Aptos Safeway store are now expected to bring their own bags or pay 10-cents apiece for paper bags … a price that will go up in the future, until shoppers get the message that plastic, and to a lesser degree, paper, can be environmentally hazardous.
Santa Cruz County Supervisor Ellen Pirie represents a large mid-county district that stretches from the Santa Cruz Mountains to the shores of Monterey Bay.
“Plastic bags often find their way into the ocean. Some of the fish eat them, they get caught up in things, they can really do a lot of damage,” Pirie Says.
Spearheading the effort to ban single-use plastic bags is Save Our Shore; a non-profit organization focused on keeping harmful products from reaching the ocean.
“Our goal at Save our Shores is to get every jurisdiction around our sanctuary to have bans on Styrofoam and plastic bags,” says Save Our Shores executive director Laura Kasa.
“Sanctuary” refers to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary … 276 miles of federally protected off-shore water stretching from Cambria to north of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.
San Francisco was one of the first cities to actually put forth a ban. And now they’re finding resistance from Stephen Joseph and the Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, trying to fight them on that.”
San Francisco attorney Stephen Joseph represents a long list of plastics and packaging companies which oppose restrictions on plastic bags.
“We oppose plastic bag bans for a number of reasons. The primary reason is that the bag have been based on mis-information. And in fact the worst case that we have seen of mis-information is in Santa Cruz County, ” Joseph says. “For instance, the Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors say that the production of disposable plastic bags causes the deaths of thousands of marine mammals each year. That is not true. The London Times exposes as a myth. It is based upon a typographical error. The report on which it’s supposed to be based never mentioned plastic bags. It says that the mammals are being killed by discarded fishing nets.”
Lawsuits filed by Stephen Joseph are the reason that restaurants can still put “to-go” orders in Styrofoam containers and plastic bags in Santa Cruz County. Joseph promised to drop his challenge to the plastic bag ban, as long as the county agreed to exempt restaurants.
“So what the county decided to do was say, ok, we’ll take the restaurant piece out. We’ll separate it out. And then we’re going to go back and add the restaurants in later, so that if he wants to sue us, it’ll just be on that restaurant piece. ” Kasa says
Environmentalist, Dan Haifley headed-up Save Our Shores back in the 1990’s. He says it’s a matter of getting back to things that are re-usable, and not harmful to the environment.
“Thirty, forty years ago we all used re-usable bags to go shopping with. You go back even a hundred years. People carried a basket to carry their items in. And we can go back to doing that and there can be an industry in this and it can create jobs,” Haifley says.
Meanwhile, back at the Aptos Safeway. A checker offers a customer assistance carrying groceries to her car.
“We don’t charge for that,” she says.
The customer replies, “You’re not charging for that? Thank god!”
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Smithsonian environmental research biologist Chris Brown surveys marine organisms that collect on a piece of plastic . Photo by Julia Scot
Take a trip to the bottom of San Francisco Bay, and you’d find a lot of critters that aren’t supposed to be here at all – according to scientist Chris Brown.
Chris Brown: It’s unfortunately on the rarer side to find those things that should be here.
Brown is a biologist with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, based in Marin. His lab works to locate and identify foreign marine life, which is why he’s standing here, at the San Francisco Marina, surrounded by sailboats. Brown says the Bay is like an underwater zoo, with species from all over the world.
To illustrate, he pulls up a rope attached to a piece of plastic that’s been sitting on the Bay floor, growing species like a rock.
Brown: So here you can see lots of different little barnacles growing on it, possibly eburneus, the introduced acorn barnacle.
Last month, the Department of Fish and Game’s Marine Invasive Species Program announced that four new exotic aquatic species had been identified in San Francisco Bay. The acorn barnacle was one of them.
Brown: You can see this little bright orange blob here; this is a colonial tunicate, actually from the east coast of the U.S. as well.
DNA experts at the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories’ Genomics Lab identified some of these new species, which include a tiny shrimp from Japan; an acorn barnacle from the North Atlantic Ocean, red algae native to Korea; and a little orange worm that was first found in San Diego Bay 12 years ago.
With these new species, no one really knows what the effects will be. It’s too early to tell whether they may turn out to be as destructive as the quagga mussel, which clogs intake pipes along the Colorado River Aqueduct and has cost water agencies millions of dollars to remove. Or the Asian clam, which has been partly blamed for the decline of Delta smelt.
One species has raised some red flags, says Randy Imai, Environmental Program Manager with the Department of Fish and Game.
Randy Imai: The most worrisome is the red algae. It can reproduce quickly, and it can spread quickly, like a weed. And it competes for light and space with native pop of marine algae, plants and animals.
San Francisco Bay is already one of the most invaded estuaries in the world – with at least 280 foreign species here already, Imai says four more may not make much of a difference.
The bigger issue is that officials can’t seem to stop the migration. And that’s because these animals are stowaways. Chris Brown.
Brown: You can see this boat that we’re right next to, here. It is literally covered from bow to stern with muscles and algae, and everything else that you find here on the docks.
Most foreign invaders get here by hitching a ride on the hulls of yachts and cargo vessels. Then they work their way up the coast with the shipping traffic.
Brown: And if this boat travels to another location, all these things growing on it have the potential to colonize in new environments.
California leads the country with strict new rules on filtering ballast water ships pick up at sea, water that often carries foreign species from other ports of call. But there are no regulations pertaining to the hulls themselves, which can be very hard to clean.
That’s why Chris Brown believes more species than we know of may have already snuck in the back door – though he may not find them right away. And once it joins the party, it’s usually here to stay.
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Kent Hibino explains how a wider tractor tool reduces fuel use. Photo Danielle Venton
If you’re traveling through the Salinas Valley, especially ahead of planting season, you might see a machine that can do what three machines did previously. It’s a wild looking piece of equipment. With metal parts twisted like corkscrews, rotating blades, claws that dig into the ground and extensive hydraulics, its a farm tool for the new millennium.
Kent Hibino: In the front you have these disk blades that chop things up, in the back this roller thing that mulches up the dirt, so we’re accomplishing two or three different things with this one piece of equipment, it costs a lot of money but we’re making fewer passes through the field.
By investing in machinery like this Kent Hibino, a vegetable grower in the Salinas Valley, can reduce the number of times his machines pass through the fields. His motivation? Saving on fuel. Gas prices have risen sharply for farmers, like they have for all of us. But with thousands of acres to work, and machines that use 12 to 15 gallons per hour, farmers look to cut their fuel consumption by all means possible.
Hibino: We have purchased new equipment, wider equipment, we make less passes through the field.
Some of Kent’s tractors also have GPS on board. The drivers know where they’ve passed through the field to an accuracy of seven inches. They can make sure they don’t miss sections of a field, or pass over the same area twice, saving on time, money and energy.
He’s also switched from diesel-powered water pumps to electrically-powered ones, with help from a program through his electrical utility.
Hibino: They give us discounted rate for a couple years, we’re saving a lot more money when we’re going to these new systems, we’re saving money on electricity, water and inputs.
Norm Groot: Everyone is becoming much more conscious of the effect, how it’s grown in the footprint, trying to conserve as much as they possibly can.
That’s Norm Groot, Executive Director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau. The Salinas Valley, he says, is at the forefront of using new technology and techniques for growing. Norm says farmers trying to save money, and reduce their impact on the earth in lots of ways. Their use of chemicals, their affect on water and their carbon footprint.
Groot: There is a lot more consciousness. There are a lot of farmers that are actively embracing these new concepts to who are trying to conserve as much as possible.
Hibino: Land is expensive right? Some of the most expensive dirt in the world: we have to make sure we get every efficiency down, to make sure we have a good yield.
Minimizing his footprint by conserving energy, water and chemical inputs, says Kent, is good for business, and good for the planet. For KUSP, I’m Danielle Venton.
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By Danielle Venton
Science has made it increasingly clear that agricultural runoff harms the environment. Regulation and techniques for controlling that runoff have followed. In Monterey County, growers use satellite and other 21st century technologies along with a bit of just giving nature some room to work. KUSP’s Danielle Venton reports.
This broccoli seedling is watered first by sprinklers then by drip tape. Photo Danielle Venton.
April Mackie: Hola, buenos dias, OK.
April Mackie works at Martin Jefferson and Sons, a large, family-run farm in the Salinas Valley. It’s her job to make sure the farm complies with food safety and environmental regulations. From the height of her Truck, she looks out over two water basins that collect runoff from the farm. The ponds contain a few cat tails, and maybe a bird here or there.
Mackie: All of the water on this ranch gets collected into these two basins instead of getting up into a water way On this farm, and on many others in Monterey County, growers are becoming more aware of their water. Environmental scientists have developed an increasing understanding that when fertilizers, pesticides and topsoil leaves farmlands and enters waterways it harms the health of life downstream. As this understanding grows, regulations are following. Benny Jefferson, of Martin, Jefferson and Sons is a fifth generation family farmer, he says the change is for the better.
Jefferson: So much more conscious than we were a couple generations ago. We are creating our own ecosystem, earthworms coming back, ducks, hawks, proof is in the visual as well as the measuring.
Norm Groot: Everyone thought weeds are bad, now we think weeds are good, engineered wetlands.
That’s Norm Groot, executive director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau. Water management will continue to improve, Norm believes, as new technologies come online. For example, soil moisture can now be tracked by automated sensors and GPS technology, translating into less waste and runoff. This is the sort of advancement that he hopes will appeal to the next generation of farmers.
Groot: And that will allow more computerization of irrigation schedules based, not putting thumbs in the air. Computer modeling may becoming part of that solution in the near future. On Kent Hibino’s lands they haven’t started consulting satellites or computers yet, but in the past 10 years they have installed acres of drip tape, better sprinkler heads, and they check the fields before deciding to water.
Hibino: I’ve been in business since 95, in the past 10 years there has been a lot of chance in terms of technology, (more drip, more efficient ways to lay the drip, tractors, higher tech tractors, and implements). to find the moisture.
Farming accounts for 70 percent of all water used worldwide, according to the UN. In the face of a California water supply already stretched to its limit, farmers like Kent will keep looking for ways to get the most out of their water use. For KUSP, I’m Danielle Venton.
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Workers prepare a Salinas area field for planting. As methods have grown more sophisticated, this process has involved less pesticide application. Photo: Danielle Venton
By Danielle Venton
The fields of Henry Hibino Farms are empty. Neat rows of raised dirt stretch along the fields, ready for the next planting. Farmer Kent Hibino said, “this is more of clay loam, it’s got a higher organic matter, as you get to the river it’s a sandy loam”. Kent looks out on his fields from his Chevy truck. “They’re bare now, but a few weeks ago they held lettuce, romaine, celery, broccoli and cauliflower”. Kent is a third generation farmer in the Salinas Valley, managing about 1,000 acres. And while these fields grow many of the same crops Kent knew as a child, he’s seen some big changes since then.
Modern farming, he says, uses new techniques that let farmers apply fewer chemicals to their land. Take, for example, the soil tests they do before a planting. Kent sends dirt samples from each field to a lab. The lab tests for nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium and a host of other elements. The results inform him exactly what to apply.
Hibino: so we’ll take a hard look at that before pre-plant and sometimes we don’t even pre-plant because we feel everything is there, so that’s definitely a change from my dad’s time where they were just on program, now we look at everything field by field, what does that field need to survive.
Kent sees a slow, steady movement among farmers. Acre for acre, they’re having less of an environmental impact now than they did 10 years ago. Regulations are strict and pesticides and fertilizers have become expensive. Maximizing their efficiency is all a matter of staying competitive.
According to the California Department of Pesticide Regulation, this trend is real, and dramatic. Between 1998 and 2009 the total pounds used of the broad-based, more highly-regulated and generally more toxic pesticides — things like organophosphates, for example, declined 66 percent.
Growers now use licensed pest control officers to issue spray orders. They’ll only recommend a spray if pests are present above certain thresholds. Many farmers now use drip irrigation as well. This waters the plants at the roots, and reduces the chance of mildew. Using drip irrigation, by some estimates, allows farmers to cut fungicide use by half, and their pesticide use by a quarter.
Hibino: when you’re using drip irrigation, your spray bills will be a lot less when you use drip irrigation, and and you can fertilize through them, not using creating a mildewy microclimate overhead.
Farmers are also fertilizing through the drip systems. By targeting the application they can apply less overall. And farmers switch plantings to put organic matter back in the soil, and reduce the chance their crops will catch a disease.
April Mackie: that’s one reason we rotate crops, if you grow lettuce, that’s why we rotate with strawberries, reduce the number of bacteria and viruses in the soil
April Mackie is the Food Safety Manager for Martin Jefferson and Sons a large, family-run operation in Castroville. Spraying costs a couple of hundred dollars per acre so, April says, they’d rather not do it all.
Mackie: we don’t spray just to spray, we have a guy walking the fields if he sees a certain amount an area then he’ll know he needs to apply, it’s so expensive, they try not to spray if they can get away with it, that’ll eat you alive.
In this way, simply watching the bottom line is helping farmers have a smaller footprint.
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By Sean Rameswaram
Charlie Hong Kong is a Santa Cruz fast food restaurant that has made a number of moves to run as green an operation as possible. It recently won an award from a local environmental advocacy group for doing so. But is Charlie Hong Kong’s model practical for any restaurant?
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Courtesy of Flickr user benketaro
By Sean Rameswaram
Fumigation season is approaching on the Central Coast and foes of methyl iodide are ramping up the campaign to have the known carcinogen banned. They’re taking their case to court and to Governor Jerry Brown via Facebook.
Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency has made a landmark decision regarding the use of methyl iodide’s predecessor methyl bromide: The EPA found that Latino schoolchildren on the Central Coast and in Ventura County were exposed to the toxic pesticide at a greater level than their peers.
Some say the settlement is historic: The EPA has never before confirmed “adverse disparate impact” on a community in a civil rights case. But others say justice was stymied in the name of a toothless settlement that quickly closed out a complicated case.
Sebastian Kennerknecht’s Endangered Neighbors Show at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History through September 10, 2011.
All photos courtesy of Sebastian Kennerknecht
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Photo by Sebastian Kennerknecht
By Sean Rameswaram
The Monterey Bay area is home to a number of endangered species. Local photographer Sebastian Kennerknecht spent the last 4 years of his life taking photos of them. He hopes his artful images will compel people to take action and help conserve species’ habitat. He gave KUSP’s Sean Rameswaram a tour of Endangered Neighbors, a collection of his work showing now at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History.
Find out more about Sebastian Kennerknecht
Visit the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History.
Central California is a locus of science and conservation organizations exploring how humans can bring their behavior into balance with the environment. KUSP Reports: Environment highlights this work and these ideas.
