Environmental-Issues

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For Ploughshares Nursery, the medium truly is the message. The huge, weeded mound that stands between the nursery and Alameda Point Collaborative's urban farm on the former Navy base will soon be leveled to make way for a new, sustainable education and retail center, and the dirt that otherwise would be hauled away will instead fill earth bags that will be used to construct the building.

[Includes audio report]

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This month may be the moment of truth for six Bay Area communities. Each one is vying to be the new home of a high-profile national research center. But when it comes to development in the Bay Area, there are no easy answers.

Oakland, Alameda, and Berkeley, Emeryville, Albany, and Richmond are the six cities in the running for what you might call the 2012 Cadillac of Bay Area Development Projects: A new, second campus for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

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The Ploughshares Nursery of Alameda has been awarded a $32,074 grant from the Yahoo Employee Foundation, which will help the nonprofit Alameda Point Collaborative nursery construct a new ultra-green building featuring straw bale and earth bag construction, a living roof, and rainwater catchment and reuse systems. The building will use photovoltaic power.

The 2,500-square-foot facility will provide a retail center as well as educational workshop space, product storage and offices for the nursery.

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On Sunday, November 11, Dutra Dredging wrapped up five weeks of maintenance dredging in the channel leading to the Alameda Point docks. This channel is on the south side of Alameda Point where the maritime ships and USS Hornet are docked. Half of the dredge soil went to the in-bay disposal site at Alcatraz. The other half, unfortunately, was towed 50 miles out into the ocean—past the Farallon Islands—for disposal at a federally approved disposal site. A multi-agency effort to divert dredge material to beneficial reuse in the Bay and Delta proved ineffective in this case.

[Video Report]

SUMMARY
The next major innovation in wind power might not involve big, white turbines dotting the countryside. KQED QUEST reports on research being done on "tethered airfoils" that could capture wind energy more efficiently that earthbound turbines. This report is part of the NewsHour's Connect series of quality public media reporting.

Transcript Excerpt:

On a windswept tarmac at the former Naval Air Station in Alameda, California, an inventive group of scientists and engineers is testing the concept of a new clean energy technology.

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Welcome to Alameda Point Going Forward, the community's source of information about the City's process for redevelopment of Alameda Point.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This design review application is a proposal to build a new freestanding building at the Ploughshares Nursery. The proposed design includes a number of unique sustainable design features that may generate significant public interest; therefore, staff chose to refer the design review application to the Planning Board in accordance with Section 30-36.1.
Staff is recommending that the Planning Board approve the design review application.

Excerpt:

Tern Watch is a volunteer predator observation program at Alameda Point. The intention of Tern Watch is to give a broader picture of predator presence during the least tern breeding season, allowing USFWS to conduct proactive predator management. Annually, volunteers are recruited and trained to observe the tern colony from a vehicle outside the colony fence line, for three hours at a time. Volunteers record predator and Least Tern activi- ties during daytime hours, seven days a week.

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San Francisco Bay Status: Stable

The largest colony in San Francisco Bay is located at Alameda Point on the runway complex of the former Naval Air Station, Alameda. The 3.9 hectare breeding area is surrounded by a chain link fence.