As oil washes on shore, locals worry about wildlife and rally around first responders
BRITTNY MEJIA and ANH DO. LA Times: : "Throughout Sunday afternoon, people gathered at the mouth of the Santa Ana River between Newport Beach and Huntington Beach after at least 126,000 gallons of crude oil spilled into Orange County coastal waters. A berm of sand blocked off the ocean and prevented the oil from getting into the river, where birds swooped down to catch fish.
Some people walked barefoot along Newport Beach, around globs of oil.
Mike Ruby, a Manhattan Beach resident, paddled out on a surfboard, occasionally lifted by gentle waves. As the water rose, dark globs of oil were visible before they crashed back down."
READ MORE about the Oil Spill: Crews race to limit damage from major California oil spill -- AMY TAXIN and CHRISTOPHER WEBER, AP; Oil spill threatens Southern California wildlife and closes beaches as Coast Guard investigates -- RACHEL PANNETT, PAULINA FIROZI, HANNAH KNOWLES and BRYAN PIETSCH, Washington Post; Oil spill: What is Beta Offshore and what does it do? -- RYAN CARTER, Mercury News; The smell of oil wafted in the air Friday. Why did it take another day to identify massive O.C. spill? -- HANNAH FRY, JACLYN COSGROVE, RONG-GONG LIN II, and ANH DO, LA Times; Oil spill underscores urgency to shut wells, environmentalists say -- MARTIN WISCKOL and LAYLAN CONNELLY, OC Register; Oil spill laps at “heartbeat” of California beach community -- AMY TAXIN, AP; What it was like to surf on day of Orange County oil spill: Frantic dolphins, exhaust smell -- JOE MOZINGO, LA Times; Photos: Major oil spill closes Orange County beaches -- ALLEN J. SCHABEN and MYUNG CHUN, LA Times.
California’s biggest oil spills in recent decades
BAY AREA NEWS GROUP: "The California Coastal Commission records these major oil spills that caused environmental damage from Southern California to the San Francisco Bay Area.
A pipeline leak in the waters off Orange County that started Saturday Oct. 2, 2021 has spilled at least 126,000 gallons, fouling beaches and killing wildlife from the Huntington Beach Pier to Newport Beach.
Here is the commission’s brief history of big California oil spills along with information on the environmental damage a spill can cause."
SacBee, DALE KASLER: "Staci Buttermore turned a faucet on the morning of May 28. She got nothing more than a stuttering sound, a staccato burp of air.
Her well, 95 feet deep, had gone dry.
For 24 years she and her husband had lived on a small ranch in Glenn County without a hint of water problems. Her husband’s family had lived there for a quarter-century before that, and every time the faucet was turned on, the water gushed out."
Newsom admin gives ground on COVID vaccine order to state worker union
WES VENTEICHER, SacBee: "The state Human Resources Department agreed this week to negotiate with California’s largest state worker union before imposing new vaccine rules, backing away from a proclamation Gov. Gavin Newsom made two months ago.
The agreement won’t change much immediately for California state workers. If they do not show proof of vaccination, they will have to accept regular testing for COVID-19.
Newsom garnered national headlines July 26 when he announced new vaccine mandates for California, including a requirement that all state employees show proof of vaccination or submit to regular COVID-19 testing."
Why experts hope this is the last big gasp of COVID in the Bay Area
The Chronicle, ERIN ALLDAY: "On a recent muggy San Jose afternoon, Dr. Sara Cody sat on a shady bench outside her downtown office in the Santa Clara County Public Health Department. Even the mask covering half her face couldn’t quite hide her smile, and definitely not her laughter.
It’s been a grueling 18 months for Cody, the county health officer, and though she’s anticipating a bumpy fall and winter in the pandemic, she’s buoyed by signs that the worst of COVID may be in the past, at least in her pocket of the country.
“I feel pretty confident that in the Bay Area, whatever the ups and downs we have ahead, they’re going to be softer and milder here than elsewhere,” said Cody, eyes crinkling with happiness."
National Guard helps rural California hospitals as locals resist ‘death dart’ vaccine
RYAN SABALOW and PHILLIP REESE, SacBee: "Widespread evacuations from the Fawn Fire and a surge COVID-19 infections have put a significant strain on medical staff and hospitals in far Northern California, as rural areas continue to show significantly lower vaccination rates than urban counties.
The two main hospitals in Shasta County, Mercy Medical Center and Shasta Regional Medical Center, last week received a deployment of 16 National Guard medics and other staff to help treat patients at the overwhelmed facilities that serve as a major medical hub for a wide swath of rural Northern California.
The medics will stay and help for at least another week."
UCSF's Monica Gandhi on how COVID will impact your life over the next decade (OP-ED)
The Chronicle, MONICA GANDHI: "How will COVID-19 impact your life next year, in 2025 or in a decade? Will you be masked in perpetuity? Will a vaccine-resistant variant emerge that sets the world back to square one?
To fully understand COVID-19 and its long-term implications for our society, it is important to first understand some key definitions in infectious diseases epidemiology.
An epidemic is an infectious outbreak that causes disease within a large number of people in one region. A pandemic, meanwhile, is the spread of that disease to multiple countries or continents across the world."
Fawn Fire burning in Shasta County north of Redding fully contained by Cal Fire crews
Sacramento Bee, VINCENT MOLESKI: "The Fawn Fire, burning in Shasta County north of Redding, was fully contained Saturday evening after more than a week of highly active wildfire conditions.
In a Saturday update, Cal Fire said the 8,578-acre blaze was 100% contained as of 6 p.m. The fire forced the evacuation of thousands of residents in the areas north of Redding to the shores of Shasta Lake and destroyed 185 structures, including dozens of homes. Three firefighters were hurt while fighting the blaze.
Cal Fire investigators suspect that the Fawn Fire was intentionally set Sept. 22 near Fawndale Road and Radcliff Road. A 30-year-old Palo Alto woman was taken into custody shortly after the fire flared up and has been charged with felony arson."
New Bay Area clinics provide mental health care, other services to youths
The Chronicle, MARK KREIDLER: "Phebe Cox grew up in what might seem an unlikely mental health danger zone for a kid: tony Palo Alto, in the heart of Silicon Valley. But behind its facade of family success and wealth, she said, is an environment of crushing pressure on students to perform. By 2016, when Cox was in middle school, Palo Alto had a teen suicide rate four times the national average.
Cox’s family lived by the railroad tracks where many of the suicides occurred. She got counseling. But that option, she said, is not always easily available to teens in crisis — and she and her peers regarded school mental health services as their last choice because of concerns about either confidentiality or anonymity.
A new program, designed largely by the people who use it, provides an alternative. Called Allcove, it offers stand-alone health and wellness sites to those ages 12 to 25, often on a walk-in basis, at minimal or no cost. Although Allcove is built to support a wide range of physical, emotional and social needs, its overarching goal is to deal with mental health challenges before they develop into deeper problems."
Remote work's downside: Empty offices mean SF could miss out on millions in tax revenue
The Chronicle, CHASE DIFELICIANTONIO: "In its early days, the pandemic seemed like it might displace our way of life for a few weeks. But as weeks turned into months, and more, many workers realized a return to the office wasn’t on the horizon and began cramming desks into living spaces and bedrooms as proof that the virus had changed working life — maybe for good.
More than a year and a half later, many of us are still waiting for the return to our offices. In COVID-conscious San Francisco, things may never go back to the way they were as companies are reducing their office spaces with more workers preferring to continue working from home. But while remote work has kept people safe, it’s having an ill effect on the city’s tax revenue — with losses that could reach into the millions.
“The city’s business tax base, which is our second largest revenue source next to property tax, is based in part on where people are working from,” said San Francisco City Controller Ben Rosenfield."
