Welcome to the Sierra Club San Gorgonio Chapter

Serving the Inland area of Southern California, Riverside and San Bernardino counties..

Tuesday

September 2

COUNTING SHEEP:

(Restoring the Sierra Nevada Bighorn)

What happens when a protected predator threatens an endangered prey? High in California’s Sierra Nevada wilderness, the last few native bighorn sheep are fighting for survival. Threats from mountain lions have forced wildlife officials to take extraordinary measures to protect the bighorn.

Two remarkable men stand between the bighorn and extinction. An oboe-playing mountain man turned consummate scientist finds an unlikely ally: a mountain lion tracker of skill and instinct—a modern-day frontiersman. This dramatic story is played out in the breath-taking remote reaches of the bighorn habitat: jagged cliffs, far-flung canyons and narrow ledges two miles high.

Programs begin at 7:30 p.m.
San Bernardino County Museum in Redlands
(California St exit 10 Fwy)

Up To 40,000 Daily Diesel Truck Trips Could be Added to Hwy 60

By Margie Breitkreuz

Starting with two projects that will be coming forward later this year, developers will be requesting that the City of Moreno Valley change its General Plan to accommodate the development of warehouse/distribution centers (logistics centers). The warehouses, sized at 2 million square feet each, will almost certainly be the start of an estimated 35 million square feet of warehouses on approximately 1500 acres in the central eastern portion of the city.

The General Plan, adopted in 2006, has current zoning for the area as commercial and residential. Throughout General Plan review, residents were adamant that they did not want industrial zoning in this area. The General Plan already places such uses in the industrial areas of the city along the 215 industrial corridor and prohibits them in smaller business and residential areas.

At a public forum sponsored by councilmember Frank West of the third district, speakers from the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, USC’s Keck School of Medicine, and the South Coast Air Quality Management District addressed the impact warehouses have on the health, environmental quality, air quality, traffic, and lifestyle of a community.

Placing huge warehouses in the central eastern portion of Moreno Valley would mean even more freeway congestion with up to 40,000 diesel truck trips per day on Highway 60 through Moreno Valley. Health issues of particulate pollution from diesel truck engines near existing and planned residential neighborhoods, public areas, and businesses have been validated extensively by USC and UCLA. The zone change would have significant traffic, environmental, noise, aesthetic, safety and other irreversible impacts on Moreno Valley and surrounding areas.

Your help is needed to stop the city from approving inappropriate development in this area and to convince them that quality of life and positive economic development are important and real issues. You can support the struggle to stop the warehouses by doing at least one of the following things:

How Can You Help?

Contact Residents for a Livable Moreno Valley, P.O. Box 6195, Moreno Valley CA 92554-6195 or for more information, please visit our website at www.residents4alivablemorenovalley.org or call 951.924.2154.

San Gorgonio Outings Calendar August 1 to October 31, 2008

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