Environmental Topics 

Plastic makes up 3% of beach litter worldwide.

Only 17% of plastic is recycled.

Ten rivers carry 90% of the plastic polluting the oceans.

Plastic kills 1 million seabirds and marine animals each year.

The average person eats 70,000 micro plastics each year.

Plastic takes 1,000 years, on average, to degrade in a landfill.

Plastic nets, 6-pack holders and bags are suffocating marine life.

Replace your plastic bottles, ziplock bags, and straws with reusable alternatives.

Encourage businesses, schools, and public places to have water filling stations and recycling receptacles.

Seas and oceans absorb a quarter of all man-made carbon emissions, which changes the PH of the water and leads to acidification, killing coral reefs.

The majority of the garbage that enters the ocean is plastic.

Eight million tons of plastic is discarded instead of recycled.

The increase of human generated ocean noise pollution is altering the under water acoustic landscape, harming and even killing marine species worldwide.

Four billion plastic microfibers per square kilometer litter the deep seas.

Promote grates at storm drains to catch plastic debris.

Decrease you use of plastic. Replace your plastic bottles, ziplock bags, and straws with reusable alternatives.

Encourage businesses, schools, and public places to have water filling stations and recycling receptacles.

San Joaquin County's location in the Central Valley, surrounded by mountain ranges, contributes to air pollution problems. Temperature inversions and stagnant air masses can trap pollutants close to the ground, leading to localized air quality issues, particularly during periods of high pollution levels.

Polluting industries in the region have been too influential in shaping policies. If you want air quality to improve, you have to take power away from the polluting industries who are collaborating to stop progress.

Heat is a major contributor to ozone pollution, which happens when emissions react under heat and sunlight. Wildfires also release hazardous particles into the air. These particles are tiny enough to enter the bloodstream and cause health challenges like asthma and lung cancer.

Poor air quality leads to limited outdoor activity, the loss of work and school days, and health issues, all of which carry a financial cost.

Encourage city leaders to adopt a Warehouse Ordinance to address diesel emissions because they are 9 times more toxic to lung tissue.

Convert the municipal automotive fleet to cleaner fuels and lower emissions.

Encourage city leaders to stop the loss of prime agricultural land which is increasing demand on our infrastructure.

San Joaquin Valley drinking water is among the most contaminated nationwide, according to government testing. Testing private wells is not required and some water agencies do not provide required water quality reports, or they are difficult to understand.

Most affected are small, rural communities.

The majority of residents in the San Joaquin Valley rely on groundwater for some or all of their drinking water, and many California groundwater basins are contaminated with a mix of man-made and naturally occurring toxicants.

The San Joaquin Valley is hard hit by nitrate, a probable human carcinogen. In 2015, 63% of the state's public water systems that reported violations of health standards were in the Valley. 

High levels of nitrate in groundwater are attributed to fertilizers, septic systems, animal feedlots, or industrial waste, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Other sources of contaminants in the San Joaquin Valley include banned pesticides that still linger in the environment.

The City of Tracy can develop a water efficient landscape ordinance to be at least as effective as the State Department of Water Resources Model Efficient Landscape Ordinance. This ordinance requires a 12% reduction of outdoor potable water use through irrigation efficiency, plant species, recycled wastewater, and captured rainwater.

Do not dispose of household chemicals or medications down the sink or toilet.

Collect cooking fat in a "fat jar," don't pour it down the sink.

Make a compost pile from vegetable scraps instead of using chemical fertilizers.

Minimize the use of pesticides.

The San Joaquin Valley is home to 4 million residents. A significant number of residents live in rural type settings, including low income households employed in the agricultural sector.

Access to education and health represents a significant barrier to fostering healthy communities and social equity. More than 20% of San Joaquin Valley residents live below the federal poverty level. Reduced life expectancy, premature deaths, asthma, and other health ailments and diseases are disproportionately concentrated in low-income minority and rural communities.

According to CalEnviroScreen2.0, of the population that experiences the worst environmental quality in the state, 33% is located in the San Joaquin Valley despite, the Valley's low share of California's total population.

Meeting the transit needs of the rural residents poses several issues for our counties who are attempting to implement Sustainable Communities Strategies policies to reduce vehicle miles traveled and green house gas emissions while addressing mobility, access and efficiency deficiencies in our transportation system. As a result, many critical transportation needs are foregone including health care visits, and access to educational and employment opportunities.

Encourage city leaders to invest in new transportation technology that reduces emissions.

Increasing land use for warehouses results in loss of prime agricultural land, increases food insecurity and increases demand on our infrastructure.

Encourage city leaders to adopt a Warehouse Ordinance to address diesel emissions because they are 9 times more toxic to lung tissue.

Convert the municipal automotive fleet to cleaner fuels and lower emissions.

Encourage city leaders to stop the loss of prime agricultural land which is increasing demand on our infrastructure, therefore, increasing food insecurity.

Encourage city leaders to increase the frequency and capacity of inter-city buses connecting Tracy and its rural areas to Bay Area cities, Stockton, and other Valley employment centers.

Encourage city leaders to work with school districts to create ride-sharing or bike-to-school programs, extend existing bike lanes, provide bike racks, and build bicycle storage facilities.

Encourage city leaders to adopt a warehouse ordinance to follow our attorney general's best practices on warehouse growth.

Renewable energy is energy produced from sources like the sun and wind that are naturally replenished and do not run out. Renewable energy can be used for electricity generation, space and water heating and cooling, and transportation. In contrast, non-renewable energy comes from finite sources that could get used up, such as fossil fuels like coal and oil.

Fossil fuels, such as coal and natural gas, have been our country’s primary source of power for decades. However, the process of getting fossil fuels out of the ground and into our homes creates pollution and damages ecosystems. 

More and more people have been pushing for cleaner, renewable energy solutions. These include green energy, clean energy, sustainable energy and more. Energy is sustainable if it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Benefits of renewable energy include: enhanced reliability, security, and resilience of the nation's power grid, job creation throughout renewable energy industries, reduced carbon emissions and air pollution, increased U.S. energy independence, and increased affordability as many types of renewable energy are cost-competitive with traditional energy sources.

Advocate for city leaders to convert city buildings to solar and company cars/fleets to electric.

Encourage public transit/bike ridership.

Provide charging stations in public areas.

Convert landscape equipment from gas power to battery.

Methane is one of the most harmful gases that massively contributes to global warming and climate change. When the food scraps, yard waste and other biodegradable stuff we throw out is deposited in landfills, it emits methane as it breaks down. Globally, landfills and wastewater emit 67 million metric tons of methane — that's 20% of methane emissions.

The Senate Bill 1383 regulations require that cities conduct education and outreach on organics recycling to all residents, businesses (including those that generate edible food that can be donated) haulers, solid waste facilities, and local food banks and other food recovery organizations.

As of January 1, 2023, all municipalities are required to ensure most food and yard waste is kept out of landfills. By 2025, 75% of all organic waste must be diverted from landfills, ensuring that methane emissions from buried refuse are greatly reduced. The regulations require instead that 15 million tons of organic waste be either composted or anaerobically digested. This digestion process creates fertilizer and renewable natural gas that is molecularly the same as the fossil natural gas used to heat homes and generate electricity.

If California eliminated the methane emitted from landfills today, we’d prevent more than 255,000 metric tons of methane from going to the atmosphere — equal to more than 21.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. To put this more simply, doing so would have the same climate benefit of taking nearly 4.7 million cars off California’s roads — more than 31% of all passenger vehicles registered in the state.

Learn how to compost your food scraps to keep them out of landfills or dispose of properly in the green organic waste bins https://calrecycle.ca.gov.

The more we learn about sustainability the more we can build a healthier environment for our future. Learn as much as you can.

Monocropping, the practice of planting a single crop in one field for consecutive years, can deplete soil nutrients, reducing the diversity of essential bacteria and microorganisms necessary for soil fertility. Consequently, this requires increased application of fertilizers and pesticides to sustain productivity.

Ranches exclusively dedicated to animal husbandry contribute substantially to greenhouse gas emissions. However, incorporating crop cultivation or integrating trees or shrubs alongside animal raising can effectively address weed management, soil fertilization, and ultimately, decrease greenhouse gas emissions. 

Tilling and leaving soil uncovered lead to depletion and significant release of greenhouse gases. To mitigate this, plant cover crops and minimizing soil disturbance during planting and harvesting processes.

Rotating crops in the same field over multiple seasons, growing multiple crops in the same field, and planting cover crops during fallow periods or between main crops, promotes soil health and ecosystem resilience. 

Shop local and buy organic. Organic farmers know the importance of soil health and tend to rotate crops to maintain yields.

Use organic fertilizers like compost and natural pest control like plants and beneficial insects.