Environment and conservation

We live in an ecologically delicate neighborhood. A large portion of our community is federal parkland -- the beautiful Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Many different kinds of wildlife -- from deer, racoons, squirrels and skunks to coyotes, foxes, chipmunks and some endangered species live here too. The wooded canyons of Tam Valley contain many types of birds, including hawks and buzzards.

This section of the Tam Valley website will cover the Tam Valley watershed, fire prevention, erosion control, flooding, endangered species, native plants and animals, alternatives to clear-cutting eucalyptus, French Broom (ginestra) control, alternatives to pesticides and Pesticide Free Zones, flooding and other natural disasters and how to prevent them. This section will also cover air and water quality, conservation, recycling, disposal of hazardous materials and other ecological concerns.

If you have expertise in any of these subjects and would be willing to share please email us at webmaster@tamvalley.org.

A scientific assessment of health of the local environment

The Natural Resources Defense Counsel's website has a section -- The Green Gate: NRDC's Guide to the S.F. Bay Area - which evaluates the Bay Area environment and gives "'report cards' on the region's handling of air, water, wildlife, urban living, and health issues." Our grades aren't so good. We got "C's" - no clear trend toward improvement or worsening - in most categories. We'll just discuss the categories where we got good and bad marks. See the NRDC Green Gate website for the complete picture.

Our worst grades were in Air and Energy - where we show a worsening trend for "individual contributions to global warming," gasoline consumption & vehicle use, diesel use, and partical pollution. On Water we showed a worsening trend for residential water use and water diverted from the delta. On Wildlife and Wetlands we show mixed results - with improvement in the health of our wetlands, and a worsening trend in the Southern Sea Otter, endangered species, and invasive species categories.

In the Urban Living category, population, sprawl and garbage are worsening, but we're showing improvement in public transit use and environmentally friendly legislators.

On Health we also had mixed results, with the childhood lead poisoning problem improving, while the contamination of Bay fish worsened. Childhood asthma rates and cancer rates showed no noticeable trend, which probably is good news. Pesticide use has gone down in San Francisco while rising in surrounding areas.