Keep Mendo Clean!
Monday, January 31, 2022
NEWSBOY contents
City groundwater sales
Renaming Fort Bragg?
Ground water project: it’s back
Quote: John Muir
Hello, subscriber.
The weather is nice–thank goodness we are not somewhere like Fargo, N.D., where you would be lucky to see a high temperature above zero.
But no rain is an unsettling thought. These frosty mornings and sunny days of January must give way to more precipitation in Feb. or March or we’ll be back to where we were.
There is an issue that I began looking into—
Caltrans cleaned out an area where people camped just north of town on the west edge of the road last summer.
Over several days, workers bagged the garbage and crews cut vegetation and small trees in the area of the unsanctioned camp.
I submitted a California Public Records Act request five months ago to Caltrans with a desire to learn about what or who guided the clean up of the camp.
Each month I was told I would receive a “complete” response in another 30 days.
Caltrans told me that some of the records are off-site and may take longer to process.
UPDATE: Follow up email sent Friday, response letter in my inbox Monday morning.
Next step: Locate this information in state’s public records portal.
-Zack
Park Well by-the-numbers
The Park Well. It’s the non-descript little building by the old baseball fields on Commercial Street. It’s where water trucks fill up all-summer-long with non-potable sold by the City of Willits.
NEWSBOY asked the city for 2021 data on Park Well water sales.
Total volume: 11.1 million gallons or 33.75 acre feet Total revenue: $192, 464
Look at it this way:
Willits’ reservoirs hold 1,330 acre-feet, so Park Well usage was equal to about 3 percent of Willits’ total reservoir capacity.
Brooktrails’ reservoirs hold 400 acre-feet, so Park Well usage was equal to about 8 percent of Brooktrails’ total water storage capacity.
Let’s say a water truck carries 4,000 gallons. Based on that, trucks would have made approximately 2,750 trips to the fill station in 2021.
If a home uses more than 300 gallons per day (EPA estimate) it would use a total of more than 0.33 acre-feet in one year.
At 0.33 acre-feet per home, Park Well water was enough to provide water for 102 homes.
1 acre-foot is 325,851 gallons.
Name change: Fort Bragg
Talk about changing the name of Fort Bragg grabbed headlines last week.
Citizen’s complaints can be summarized:
1. Braxton Bragg became a confederate general.
2. The US Army’s presence on the coast, at Fort Bragg, links directly to harm inflicted on Native Americans.
It is Bragg’s connection to the South that seems to draw the most attention.
United Kingdom-based The Guardian, SFGATE and The Press Democrat covered the story. It made the California Sun newsletter, too.
A group assigned to investigate changing Fort Bragg’s name reported to Fort Bragg city council members last week.
No change for now. But the group reported unanimous support on other recommendations.
People, including tribal members, are talking about a cultural center and more education to tell the truth.
“We can get some land purchased to build a culture center and to educate the community for every culture that exists,” Lucy Stanley said.
The committee also favored a formal policy to work with tribal governments.
Think about it: Aren’t we all part of history, be it Fort Bragg or Willits?
This could be what is taking shape with our coast neighbors: It could be that those faced with such challenges accept the truth and do what is right without changing names. One controversy is created by removing Bragg and another is born with the town divided over choosing a new name.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to NEWSBOY to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.