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Sierra Club
Sierra ClubProtect America's Environment: For Our Families, For Our Future
Box 3357, Bakersfield, CA 93385-3357
(805) 323-5569
E-mail: kern-kaweah.chapter@sierraclub.org
Every Sierra Club member should take great pride in the work of our Sacramento office that resulted in the passage of AB 278 on Friday August 28. Led by Bonnie Holmes our senior lobbyist, two years of constant work on behalf of Martha Escutias (D.Bell) Childrens Health Bill alerted every politician that even though CHILDREN DON'T VOTE" Sierra Club members and thousands of their supporters do, and have long memories! It is absolutely disgraceful that not one Republican voted for this non partisan effort to protect their own children as well all the others. In writing AB278, Martha Escutia had the expert advice of Dr. Alvin Greenberg, former health director under the Brown administration, who pointed out the lack of any enforcement to establish special exposure limits for children! As expected Governor Wilson vetoed AB 278, along with many other bills designed to safeguard the health of our citizens.
But with the election of Gray Davis we can look forward to the reintroduction of AB278 and it being signed into law by our new governor. There is a new threat to the health of Kern County residents. The Niklor Corporation wants to locate its manufacturing and transfer facilities to a site just east of the town of Mojave. Their products of death include methyl bromide, chlorine, sulfuryl fluoride, dichloropropene, chloropicrin, and nitro methane. Fortunately, the Kern County Planning Department did a remarkably thorough job in writing the Draft Environmental Impact report and is recommending as the preferred alternative "Reduced Use" which denies Niklor any facilities for the storage, packaging or transfer of methyl bromide, 1,3 dichloroprpene, or sulfuryl fluoride! Niklor was denied a four year extension of their facility by the city of Carson that concluded the continued existence of the Niklor facility posed a serious danger to their citizens. Please write to the planning department and special projects chief, Glenn A Barnhill thanking him for their courageous decision (2700 M St. suite 100, Bakersfield, CA 93301).
Each of the 65 chapters of the Sierra Club selects a member to represent them on the Council of Club Leaders; I represent Kern-Kaweah. The Council advises the Club's decision-makers, (a Board of Directors directly elected by all Sierra Club members), and the Governance Committees appointed by the Board of Directors. The Board meets six times a year. The Council exchanges e-mail all year long and meets face to face for the two days preceding the Board's September meeting; the Annual Meeting of the Sierra Club of North America. Imagine over 100 dedicated energetic volunteers and two score staff discussing how to administer and finance the protection of the earth. These quotes are typical: "Canadian forests are being cut to hell to make paper, most of which is used in the United States." Elizabeth May, Executive Director, Sierra Club of Canada. "Influencing corporate behavior is of primary importance." David Brower, member, Sierra Club Board of Directors. It was noted that pension funds with hundreds of billions of dollars could invest with an eye to the environment. Should Sierra Club advise members and/or invest in a "green" fund?
The Council of Club Leaders advised the Organizational Effectiveness Governance Committee to see that when Sierra Club staff become involved in issues of local concern they act upon the advice and informed consent of local chapters. The Board of Directors was advised to reconsider our policy that allows fixed anchors for climbing in wilderness. It has been decided that small chapters like ours should get more money. Currently about one fifth of member dues are returned to each chapter. This will be increased to a minimum of $10,000 a year. There are only about ten chapters that do not already get over $10,000 a year. Our chapter gets $7,000 a year and should thus receive another $3,000 a year for the indefinite future. In addition, a $3+million bequest will probably result in all chapters receiving an additional $1,000 a year, for five years. Much of the rest of the bequest will be placed in an endowment for the entire Club . Matching funds for litigation by chapters will be available. Competitive funds for training chapter members in fund raising and other skills were discussed.
- Jeanie Stillwell-Haye
On 10 16 98. Senator Jim Costa, chair of the Agriculture and Water Resources Committee and Assembly Member Mike Machado, chair of the corresponding Assembly Committee held hearings at the Kern County Water Agency. The hearing was titled "Developing New Water Supplies for a Growing State". Nearly all witnesses represented agribusiness and called for increased "surface storage of water" (their phrase for build more dams). Mary Griffin and Mary Ann Lockhart helped prepare Arthur Unger to briefly discuss the case for more efficient water use and the underlying problem of increasing population.
1999 Sierra Club Calendars will be available for Owens Peak Group members from Dennis Burge (760) 375-7967.
The Rademacher Hills Trail close to Ridgecrest was featured in a recent article in "The Daily Independent", written by reporter and Owens Peak Group member Helen Huntley. Steve Smith, also an OPG member, has spearheaded the trail work as a BLM manager and as a very active volunteer. He told of the many years of involvement of OPG in the work on the trail, which features the Ron Henry Interpretive site. This project has incorporated the work of several local groups, including Boy Scouts and others. On Sept 2 the City of Ridgecrest will honor BLM and volunteers for work that has benefited the city, including construction of the trail. Ten years ago we were ashamed of the condition of the land south of the city, but now that area is a source of pride. Compliance by all users of the area has been very good in recent years, and most people who enjoy recreation there have a stake in seeing that the land continues to recover from the poor conditions of the past. Rehabbed desert land seldom returns to its original condition, but this project illustrates that slowly some of the desert comes back. The city council is at last realizing that a hiking/mountain biking/equestrian trail, near town, is the asset some of us always thought it would be.
Southern Sierra Exploratory
The weekend car camp outing of September 26-27 proved to be a transition not only in landscape, but weather as well. Twenty-eight Sierra Club members joined the Southern Sierra Exploratory in Sand Canyon, east of Tehachapi, for a weekend of hiking and camping. On Saturday, bright sunshine flooded the picturesque rock formations of Tomo Kahni, Californias newest state park. Led by an able docent, the group enjoyed a glimpse of Kawaiisu Indian life, including a village site at Nettle Springs, and polychromatic pictographs at Creation Cave.
Dark storm clouds threatened rain late Saturday afternoon as the hikers scrambled up the dramatic narrow canyon passageway of granite spires of the south fork of Oil Canyon.
The clouds parted on Sunday for the mostly sunny hike up a scenic ridgeline to the Pacific Crest Trail, offering spectacular views of the maze of canyonlands below, and distant mountains and valleys. As we passed through several plant communities, wildlife signs were abundant. Tracks of deer, bear, and mountain lion often crossed our own. The weary hikers returned to camp better acquainted with this little known scenic portion of the Southern Sierra Nevada. Remote and wild, this corner of Sand Canyon is well worth a return visit. Georgette Theotig
Arthur and Lorraine Unger took the Sierra Club table to the Neighborhood Festival, Oct. 10th at Martin Luther King Park in Bakersfield. There were lots of informational booths regarding community resources and many activities geared to children. Our booth had green sun visors for the kids to crayon and an environmental quiz for all ages.
Nov. 12 is GEO Day at East Hills Mall in Bakersfield. The Ungers will again people our booth at an event that focus on "Geography is Fun" and assist high school students to learn about GIS, Graphical Information Systems, which permit mapping with the help of satellites.
Anyone familiar with the writings of Flannery OConner must appreciate her mastery of a very special literary phenomenon. She could achieve a paradoxical effect in her readers, making the horrible and the comic occur simultaneously so that one is shocked into laughter at the most unlikely moment. The stimulus to laughter is grotesque irony, and it is powerful. Not everyone experiences the paradox, but I am helpless in it no matter how many times I read her work. I have a friend whose response to OConner is the same as mine, so that on occasion, when such irony occurs in the life around us, we just look at each other and say the name, Flannery, with perfect understanding.
Just now I am sitting with my right leg elevated and in a cast. A little over a week ago, at the Shakespeare festival in Cedar City, Utah, I stepped on a rock while taking a walk, and broke my ankle. The day before my misstep, I had arrived early enough to take a camera to the lovely campus of Southern Utah University, the festival center. Cedar City, at the edge of Zion National Park, enjoys sweet air and pure light, and the university is so beautiful that it begs to be photographed.
Among the best features of the campus are bronze sculptures dedicated to people who were great in mind and spirit. Most impressive was the statue of a young girl striding along in a pioneer dress, barefoot, with her shoes tied together by the laces and thrown over her shoulder. A plaque honoring her memory tells us that this was Ellen Purcell who, with her parents, left Ohio to join a community in Utah. Caught in an early snowstorm, her parents froze to death. Ellen, by sheer will and courage, made it to help, but not before her feet were frozen. Not long thereafter, she was strapped to a board, and both her legs were amputated below the knees, without benefit of anesthesia. The rest of her life she had to go about very painfully, pioneer conditions and the times precluding any chance of adequate prostheses.
Up to that point I was moved only by admiration and sympathy. However, I read on to discover that this poor girl grew up to become the plural wife of a gentleman named Mr. Unthank, and that Mr. Unthank had, over the course of their long marriage, given her the gift of six children. At that moment, the ghost of Flannery OConner rose up beside me and I laughed.
Now I was shocked by the laugh, but helpless to prevent it, caught up in the irony of the moment as surely as I always am in an OConner story. The dubious morality of my response threatened my composure right up to the following morning, and I was just in the process of trying to justify it in a literary sense when I hit that rock the wrong way and crashed to the sidewalk with a broken ankle.
Through the rest of a remarkably wonderful festival, I limped along with crutches and a walking boot, pondering Shakespearean questions about human frailties and courage with new appreciation. I do not think of this ankle as Mrs. Unthanks revenge; she was far too forgiving for that. But had she been of an ironical turn of mind, she might have laughed. Flannery would. Im not sure about Shakespeare.
© 1998 Ann Williams
These are local Kern-Kaweah Chapter, Sierra Club outings, except as noted. Everyone is welcome; you need not be a Sierra Club member. Space on some outings may be limited by the leader. So as not to hold back the other participants, you should be in appropriate condition and have appropriate expertise for the outing you choose. Note that Sierra Club outings rules are in effect! Call (805) 872-2432 for information about future outings.
All but noted area codes are (805)
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