Just announced!

Saturday June 21st, 8-4PM - Kunde Sustainable Winemaking Hike

Science in Action is returning, this time with a tour for the adults. We will be going on a hike through the sustainable vineyards at Kunde. It’ll be a 4 hour adventure through the volcanic hills above Kunde’s property…all the while learning about sustainable wine growing practices. The hike ends at the tasting room where we will all partake in Kunde’s wine before setting off back to SF.

The cost is $15/person (a portion of the proceeds goes to the Sonoma Ecology Center). The fee covers a wine tasting and the docent’s time.

Should be an incredible adventure. If you’re interested, send me an email.

If you missed the pesticide science cafe, boy did you miss a good one. Here’s a 2 minutes recap:

The Presentation (Flash is required)
To move to the next slide, click on the right side of the current slide. Click on the left side to go back.

Videos from the Pesticide event are up on the website. As always, you can watch snippets of the video on YouTube as well.

Once again, there was front page news in the SF chronicle on earthquakes. Every few months, we get a new study saying essentially the same thing: Hayward Fault has earthquakes on average 140 years apart (based on the last 5). The last big one was 1868, so its time to be concerned. Most likely, the earthquake will be 6-7 range based on statistics, but there are more homes on the Hayward than any other fault in the Bay Area.

What this new study shows is the rate of uninsured along the fault. 95% of residences along the fault are NOT insured, exposing millions to some serious risk. But if Bear Stearns taught us anything, the government will pick up the tab.

Other than that, the info on shaking hasn’t changed much since our April talk on the Hayward Fault.

More Info
USGS Press Release
1868 Hayward Alliance (Preparation and Safety)
Predictive Intensity Map along Hayward Fault

Part one of the Bay Area Science Forum, a collaboration between the Cal Academy, UC Berkeley, & Stanford, launched last Thursday.

In the part one, Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute & Ellen Hanak of the Public Policy Institute of California spoke on water quantity and quality here in California, focusing on where our water comes from, the rough breakdown of us, and the economics of efficiency/conservation. The podcast should be available online shortly.

I was especially impressed with Peter Gleick (I had been chasing him as a speaker for DtaS). He had an astounding breadth of knowledge of the water industry, which is a gigantic field.

I’m definitely going to part 2 on the Delta, April 3rd @ UC Berkeley. I encourage other to attend as well.

He mentioned a couple reports by Pacific Institute on Water issues…links to the articles can be found below.

I’ll summarize my thoughts on one particle article: The SFPUC’s request to divert an additional 25 MGal/day from the Tuolumne.
Currently, the SFPUC draws 85% of its water from the Tuloumne. 80% of the projected increase will be sold to other agencies (Alameda, Hayward, Milpitas, Santa Clara). The SFPUC project most of that increase comes from commercial and industrial users. The Pac Institutes refutes that growth projection for commercial users, expecting an economic growth of 17 percent.

The Pac Institute also indicates that the PUC underestimates water recycling and reuse (PUC projects 3% of increased demand met with recycling/reuse programs).

More Info
Tuolumne Analysis Paper
Desalination Report
The Human Right to Water
Report on Water Resources