Donors Help UCSC Cal Teach Sponsor Summer Enrichment

Graniterock Summer Algebra Academy (August 12-17): Under leadership from the UCSC Math Department’s Nandini Bhattacharya, Cal Teach interns will support rising 8th graders in an algebra acceleration program sponsored by leading local company Graniterock at their headquarters in Watsonville. Cal Teach and UCSC’s MBAMP program hope to extend the collaboration with Graniterock, with Cal Teach interns to coach follow-up Math Clubs in regional middle schools in 2013-14.

On April 22^nd,Graniterock welcomed a herd of goats and their kids along with the guard dog “Baby” and her puppies “in training” at the Santa Cruz Sand Plant. The goats are being used as part of a holistic management plan to decrease the amount of non-native grasses in the area and encourage growth of natives. 

The goats graze an area called Sandy Flat, which was previously a mining location at the Santa Cruz Sand Plant. During the original reclamation, the valley was seeded with Santa Cruz County’s 1990 Best Management Practice erosion control seed mix to revegetate the area as grassland. Unfortunately the seed mix contained a handful of non-native invasive grasses that quickly became established in the small valley and out-competed any native grasses that might have grown there.

Graniterock’s aim is to enhance Sandy Flat by encouraging the growth of native grasses and controlling non-natives with holistic management techniques. Timing is critical when it comes to grazing. Other important factors that must be considered for a successful grazing regime include grazing goals, species of goat, weather, and flowering and seeding times of plant species.  Our first step was to monitor non-native grasses throughout the winter and early spring in order to determine when they were starting to produce seed. It took a certain amount of prediction to decide whether we were going to have a second winter rainy season or an early spring, but conversations with botanists throughout Santa Cruz County suggested that an early spring was in order for 2013.

Livestock Landscape Solutions owner Ben Long supplied goats to do the grazing work. Long met with Graniterock Environmental Specialist Alex Simons to determine timing of grazing, the breed and number of goats to be used and what the duration of the project should be for optimum results.  Having both the land owner and grazer discuss project details is crucial to the success of such a project. The grazer knows what his herd is capable of doing and the owner is able to specify land management goals. Together they agreed to implement the grazing project before non-native grasses could produce viable seed. Having the goats graze before the grasses could produce seed prohibited the spread of unwanted seed.

The method they decided on was to have the goats eat in small fenced enclosures for two to three days before moving on to the next enclosure. The goats leave behind the stubble of non-native plants stripped of their seed. Before and during grazing, native grass seed are spread within the cell, including California poppy, meadow barely, tomcat clover, sky lupine, purple needle grass, California brome, and blue wild rye.

In October 2012, Ben’s herd was hired to graze ponds within Graniterock’s Habitat Conservation Area, a 10.5 acre protected breeding and foraging ground for the federally endangered California red-legged frog. The herd was hired to graze the tule within the ponds to maintain frog breeding habitat. By spring an extra benefit was noticed; within the enclosures, the goats had eaten native sky lupine and carex seed and that had encouraged more to flourish around the pond. These successful results sparked the idea to use goats to graze and use native seed to enhance the grassland area. While the goats are eating and walking through their enclosure, they eat and press scattered seed into the ground and create fertilizer for the seed. Following next winter’s rains, Sandy Flat vegetation will be monitored for native species and to determine overall success of the grazing project.

With each grazing project, Sandy Flat will be returned over time to California grassland filled with native grasses and forb species. With every native grass or forb that comes back, Graniterock expects to see more native pollinators like birds, animals and insects follow to make a new home.

Are you interested in having the goats of Livestock Landscape Solutions graze your site?

Contact Ben Long at 650-479-GOAT

Nationwide home prices including distressed sales were up 10.5% year-over-year in March, according to CoreLogic’s latest home price report. On a monthly basis home prices were up 1.9%.

This was the thirteenth straight monthly rise, and the fastest pace of increase since March 2006. Ex-distressed sales, home prices were up 10.7% year-over-year and 2.4% on the month.

“For the first time since March 2006, both the overall index and the index that excludes distressed sales are above 10 percent year over year,” said Dr. Mark Fleming, chief economist at CoreLogic in a press release. Home prices are being driven by demand from investors and homebuyers even as supply stays tight.

Here are some details from the report:

• Including distressed sales Nevada had the biggest home price gain at 22.2%. The other top five states include California, Arizona, Idaho, and Oregon.
• Delaware, Alabama, Illinois, and West Virginia were the only four states to see home prices decline.
• Ex-distressed sales home prices were up the most in Nevada, up 20.8

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/corelogic-home-prices-2013-5#ixzz2TTDp1VY0

Each and every day, men and women from around the world return home from work to their families injury and illness free thanks to occupational safety, health and environmental (SH&E) professionals, who have dedicated their careers to protecting people, property and the environment.

SH&E professionals work behind the scenes identifying and eliminating potential hazards in workplaces around the world, and their efforts are often achieved with little or no fanfare.

In an effort to recognize and to celebrate the lifesaving efforts of the thousands of SH&E professionals in the U.S. today, the American Society of Safety Engineers established Occupational Safety and Health Professional (OSHP) Day in 2006 to give these unsung heroes some much deserved recognition for the difference they make in the lives of every working man and woman.

Held every year during North American Occupational Safety and Health (NAOSH, May 5th-11th, 2013) Week during the first full week of May, OSHP Day will take place this year on May 8th. On this day we encourage employers, co-workers, and the general public to say “thank you” to those who spend work around the clock making sure that every day spent on the job is a safe one.

OSHP Day was also established to raise awareness and pride in the SH&E profession, and to salute the years of education, training and practical experience and skills that it takes to be qualified to identify workplace hazards, and to develop methods of prevention of on-the-job injuries, illness and property damage. Throughout the world, the SH&E profession has earned a reputation as being one of the most challenging and rewarding careers today!

April 29, 2013

A chorus line of more than two dozen skeletal construction cranes looms over San Francisco’s skyline. A stroll down Market Street – or sections of Mission or Octavia or many other major thoroughfares – is punctuated by the clatter of pile drivers and jackhammers. Around the city, thousands of workers are busily erecting more than 140 building projects, big and small, that will yield about 4,000 new housing units. The vast majority are multiunit buildings – predominantly apartments with a smattering of condo complexes – along with some new office high-rises and office-building renovations. Then there are some massive public projects: the Transbay Transit Center complex, the long-planned Central Subway, and new hospital buildings at San Francisco General and UCSF Mission Bay. “We’re having the biggest residential construction boom that we’ve had in many decades,” said Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of SPUR, an urban policy nonprofit.

Read more: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-s-building-boom-brings-change-to-city-4469660.php#ixzz2Ry97vd1H

Stone was one of our first building materials. It has been used to construct everything from humble dwellings to our most iconic structures. As a building material, stone requires virtually no manufacturing and is so durable that stone structures built thousands of years ago are still used today—characteristics few contemporary “green” products can equal. Yet stone has been largely overlooked by the green building movement, while ephemeral products made of recycled plastic often carry green labels. Granted, stone has some significant environmental impacts, but they may not be as big as you think, and the stone industry has undertaken noteworthy sustainability efforts. This ancient building material may be more relevant than ever in today’s green building industry.

Dimension stone—stone that has been tooled, as opposed to crushed stone or aggregate—can be used as flooring, exterior cladding, solid surfaces, and walls as well as for landscaping and many other applications. Of the estimated 1.88 million tons (1.71 million metric tons) of dimension stone produced in the U.S. in 2011, 808,400 tons (735,000 metric tons) were used by the building industry, according the U.S. Geological Survey (for comparison, 95.6 millions tons of raw steel were produced in 2011, with 19.1 millions tons used in construction). Imports from Brazil, China, India, Italy, and other countries provide roughly half of the total U.S. supply, according to industry sources.

Jobless numbers for both Salinas and Monterey County continued to decline during February, according to data released Friday by the state Employment Development Department. It marks the second straight month the local economy has seen jumps in the number of employed residents.

The unemployment rate for Monterey County stood at 13.5 percent in February, down nearly a full percentage point from February 2012’s mark of 14.4 percent, according to the EDD data. That translates into 13,800 more people who had employment last month compared to the same time last year.

In Salinas, which always has a higher jobless rate than the county does, the unemployment rate dropped to 18.7 percent, a dramatic drop of more than 2 percentage points from the same time a year ago.

To read more, please go to http://www.thecalifornian.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013303290054&nclick_check=1

Lance Milbrand is an acclaimed filmmaker who has worked on a variety of projects including public relations films, corporate promotional videos and wildlife documentaries. He has had a wide variety of clients including NOAA, CBS news, BBC Blue Planet and National Geographic Explorer. New to Santa Cruz County, Lance was looking for opportunities to film amphibian species in the Central Coast Area. Graniterock said “Yes, we will” and offered Lance the opportunity to come to the Santa Cruz Sand plant to view the endangered California Red-Legged Frog during an annual night survey with wildlife biologist Dana Bland and Graniterock environmental specialist Alex Simons.

Environmental Specialist Alex Simons (left), and Dana Bland (right)

The most common method of surveying for CRF is the visual-encounter survey. The survey follows US Fish and Wildlife Service protocol. The night surveys are conducted no earlier than an hour after sunset (USFWS 2005 Revised Guidance). Biologists detect California Red-Legged Frogs by using service approved lights to spot their eye-shine while walking around the pond. Once the eye shine is detected, the biologists record if the frog is an adult or juvenile.

Lance spent his time in the Habitat Conservation Area, a protected area  Graniterock set aside 15 years ago for frog breeding and foraging habitat . No time was wasted as he hastily set up his film equipment along the shore of a pond. Lance was surprised at how easy it was to find the Red-Legged Frog foraging along the banks of the pond , or as he thought, “posing for the camera.” He then focused on filming the nocturnal behavior of the Red-Legged Frog. As many wildlife filmmakers say, it takes patience to first locate the animal you are filming, then spend time observing their natural behavior. “If I could, I would be here until sunrise,” Lance said enthusiastically as he wrapped up the survey for the evening. “Good wildlife photography starts with land access and scientific knowledge. Thanks to you and Dana today, I got a little of both!”

It was a great opportunity for Graniterock to offer a learning experience to someone who is fascinated by California Red-Legged Frogs, hungry for information, and able to share his findings through educational wildlife photography and video. Increasing  public knowledge of the California Red-Legged Frog and partnering with filmmakers, biologists and other distributors of information helps encourage the protection efforts of this endangered species. Graniterock has protected  this area of the  Santa Cruz Sand Plant in perpetuityspecifically for this frog species. Biologists have monitored the area for 15 years, and the monitoring has proven Graniterock’s conservation efforts to be very successful for California Red-legged Frogs. Lance hopes to return to this Habitat Conservation Area later in the year to film other parts of the frogs live stages, such as tadpoles in early summer and egg masses next winter.

For more information on Lance Milbrand, please visit www.MilbrandCinema.com

(All photos courtesy of Lance Milbrand)

The housing downturn and recession clobbered the construction industry, wiping out 2.2 million jobs nationwide and about 380,000 in California.

But now, those jobs are coming back — and the Bay Area with its current building boom, is the epicenter of a recovery in solid, blue-collar employment for skilled tradespeople, as we investigate here.

Construction provided the silver lining in an otherwise grim March employment report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday.

“The solid increase in construction employment in March, which brought the average monthly gain during the first quarter to 30,000 jobs, the biggest in seven years, supports the view that the housing recovery continues to march on despite headwinds from fiscal drags,” said Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae chief economist, in a statement.

To read more, please go to: http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2013/04/07/construction-jobs-bolster-economic-recovery/

The city of Salinas (BCM) this week unveiled a new strategy to entice new companies, expand existing companies and grow local startups with the hope of bringing badly needed jobs to the Salinas Valley.

Components of the economic development strategy include a new logo, a new website, marketing materials and a lot of shoe leather invested in educating the world about Salinas.

The strategy will focus on key attributes the city has to offer, what City Manager Ray Corpuz said is a matter of “taking what is special about Salinas and turning that into an economic development strategy.”

To read further: http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=e7fa518eaac6aecf13414a929&id=d699162e3d