Use Reusable Bags!

Recycle Leftover Cooking Oil, Grease from Your Kitchen

Here's a press release from the Environmental Services Department of the City of El Paso:

Recycle Leftover Cooking Oil, Grease from Your Kitchen

Thinking of frying a turkey for the holidays? Not sure what to do with the leftover used cooking oil and grease?

Citizens can now take used frying and cooking oils to a City of El Paso Citizen Collection Stations. The City of El Paso Environmental Services Department has partnered with Global Alternative Fuel, LLC, to provide residents with a way to recycle used cooking and frying oils.

Residents should never wash cooking fats, oil or grease down the drain, as they can cause the sewer line to back up into your home or in the storm drains, which flow to our wastewater treatment plants.

The goal of the partnership is to convert the spent cooking oil and grease into biodiesel. The service is being offered as a pilot project. The service is free and available solely to residents, who pay a solid waste disposal fee to the City of El Paso. Used cooking oils from businesses, including restaurants, will not be accepted.

Residents can dispose of up to 15 gallons of used cooking oil per person, per visit to a Citizen Collection Site.

The sites also accept many household hazardous wastes, such as old paint, pesticides, and fluorescent lamps. For a list of household hazardous waste accepted at the sites visit http://www.ci.el-paso.tx.us/environmental_services/citizen_collection.asp or call 621-6700.
Citizen Collection Stations are open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. They are located at:

· NORTHEAST: 4501 HONDO PASS
· CENTRAL: 2492 HARRISON
· WESTSIDE: 121 ATLANTIC
· SOUTHSIDE: 4200 DELTA
· EASTSIDE: 9000 ESCOBAR

The sites will be closed on Thanksgiving Day but they will resume operations on Friday.

Discover the Bosque: Last Chance Before the Wall!

For more information about the producer, go to http://www.youtube.com/user/kschlyer.

Native Plant Sale and Oktoberfest a Must Do

The Native Plant Sale at Keystone Heritage Park (4200 Doniphan in the Upper Valley) is followed by another Oktoberfest event from 3:30 until 9. Enjoy food, fine wine, premium beers. Stay for a fabulous sunset. Admission is only $10.

The Wall Versus Our Environment

Mark your calendars now for a very special event: Discover Rio Bosque on Saturday morning, November 15. At the Rio Bosque Wetlands Park the once prevalent ecosystem along the Rio Grande is being restored. Unfortunately, it is in danger because of the Homeland Security wall that is now being rapidly built. (If you get the chance, drive along the border highway some day and see what is going on.) The negative impact of the wall on the environment is documented in the above video.

Keep El Paso Beautiful!

PRIDE DAY
SATURDAY OCTOBER 18, 2008
CITY WIDE CLEAN-UP EVENT
Join thousands of volunteers in an effort to clean up our community!
Need tools?
No worries!
You can find them at ANY KEPB Community Tool Shed located at your nearest Fire Station!
For more information, please call Keep El Paso Beautiful at 915.546.6742.

On Saturday, October 18th:

· Clean up front and side yards and driveways
· Mow, edge, weed, gather trash
· Clean grass and weeds from sidewalks and medians
· Clean alleys – let’s all try to help with this!
· Bag or bundle all trash/debris
· Bag or bundle all trash and debris
· Take the bags to Richmond & Newman Park by 12:00 Noon


Join the official KICK OFF for PRIDE DAY
Host – Central Regional Command Center
When – Friday, October 17, 2008
Where – Grande View Park located at 3100 Jefferson
Media interviews – 4:30 pm
Official Pride Day Kick-Off Celebration – 5 to 6:30 pm
Food and Drinks provided City Representative Susie Byrd
Desserts provided by Albertsons and KEPB

Click on the Let's Get To Work Logo above!!!

Storm Detention Pond Gets Makeover

The storm detention pond beautification project is moving along. New trees and other plants have been planted; new sidewalks have been put in; a rock facade will add beauty to an old retention wall. Let's just hope that vandals will leave the plants alone. (After new trees were planted at Newman Park this spring, a couple were pulled out of the ground.) Let's also hope that graffiti thugs will also stay away or be caught if they commit their vile vandalism.

Chertoff Wall Endangers Wildlife

The Southwest Environmental Center released this statement in opposition to the Chertoff Border Wall:

"The Southwest Environmental Center is opposed to the proposed fence along the entire U.S.-Mexico border--currently being built with exemptions to state and federal environmental laws--because it will block the movement of wildlife, leading to habitat fragmentation, isolation of populations, and declining wildlife numbers--in a word, extinction. If you don't believe this is a real threat, please see the attached photos of a mountain lion attempting (unsuccessfully) to cross the border.These photos were taken this month at the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona. Surely there must be a better way to address border security and illegal immigration issues. Let your representatives know!"

Environmental Services in El Paso

One of the best run departments in the City of El Paso (if not the best) is Ellen Smyth's Environmental Services. Among all the things that they do (collect garbage and recycling as well as promote and enhance "a clean and healthy environment"), they make sure that folks are in compliance with those codes that have to do with keeping a neat yard and sidewalk, disposing of garbage correctly, following zoning restrictions, maintaining walls and fences and so forth.

That is why it is surprising that some disgruntled neighbor in or around Dyer Street felt it necessary to counterfeit compliance notices and mail it to some of his or her neighbors. Why go to the time and expense when a call to 774-4500 will do the trick? Even easier for those online is to fill out the General Request Form of Environmental Services. (I would give the form a new name such as Compliance Form or something like that. There is nothing about General Request that tells me that is where I should click to report a compliance issue.) Complaints are kept confidential and investigations with results follow quickly.

New Subdivision Rules

Following the leadership of our own Council rep, Mayor Pro Tem Susie Byrd, the El Paso City Council voted today to approve the new subdivision development rules. A brief story by David Crowder in the Newspaper Tree about the passage can be found here.

I emailed Susie after I got home from watching this historic discussion and debate. I told her:

"I am so proud to be an El Pasoan today. Thank you for your leadership and hard work with the subdivision ordinance. There was no need for further delay. It was time to act and City Council did so.

I continue to hear some inspiring leadership coming from you, Beto and Eddie. It tells me that the City is going in the right direction and will have great leadership for many, many years to come."

Charlie Wakeem, The President of the Coronado Neighborhood Association and member of the Ad-hoc Subdivision Ordinance Committee, stated that the new ordinance would "will have an impact on taxes, quality of life, health, safety & welfare, transportation and much more. Some improvements to the subdivision standards include narrower streets, wider sidewalks, more parkland dedication and open space, requiring parks in the Extra Territorial Jurisdiction (ETJ) outside of the city limits, better drainage, more street lights, a connectivity index that links our neighborhoods better for walkability, and much more."

In short, the ordinance is quite forward-thinking and we are fortunate in El Paso to have the great young (and old) leadership that will serve us well for many years to come.

El Paso: A Tree City USA

Today at the Texas State's official 119th Arbor Day celebration, El Paso was designated a Tree City USA. This is a huge victory for our City of El Paso Tree Board now led by my dear friend, Eileen Parr Karlsruher. It's also a big win for our Urban Forester, Oscar Mestas as well as Ray Bader and Wynn Anderson.

There were many dignitaries there but I most enjoyed hearing from the President of the West Texas Urban Forestry Council, Jennifer Barr Ardovino and the Executive Director of Keep El Paso Beautiful, Katherine Gunter Palafox. Palafox spoke boldly about banning all those plastic bags that smother ocotillo, prickly pear and just about everything else.

A major goal of the WTUFC and the Tree Board is to restore the canopy of El Paso with native trees. There are several good places online for you to learn about native trees and other native plants for your yard. There's the Tree and Plant List of the City of El Paso. WTUFC offers a tree selection guide. The Texas Forest System has both a custom and an express guide. Finally, the Chihuahuan Desert Gardens offers a list of Chihuahuan Desert Plants.

Let's plant trees. Let's restore our canopy. There are other ways to reduce water consumption through good xeriscaping rather than "zero"-scaping our yards with concrete that absorbs heat during the day and releases it at night - making for some pretty hot summers 24/7. Cut Energy Consumption: Plant a Tree!

Thoughts on Earth Day

For me Earth Day is always about "Place" - a specific Place - a home, a neighborhood, a region. Saving the planet gets a bit blurry when we imagine the problems caused by deforestations and mining and famines in places faraway. It is not that I think that we shouldn't care about the other places and devise policies that support indigenous peoples and their economies while sustaining Mother Earth. It is just that it is here in this Place where I am most immediately responsible - where I dance with air and fire and water and earth.

What is this Place - this neighborhood in El Paso along the Rio Grande in the Chihuahua Desert nestled beneath ancient formations of rock and sediment? Take a moment to watch a short clip on YouTube about our ecoregion. It puts things in perspective about our Place.

Largest of the North American deserts and rich in animal and plant life, our Chihuahua Desert is young geologically. It is a recent ecological development in this area that goes back a billion years with the formation of the Castner Marble that we can see along Trans Mountain Road. A nearby but ancient caldera can no longer be seen although it once exploded with the force of a thousand Mt. Saint Helens and fried an ancient beach and created a lovely white crystalline strata in the North Franklins. (It was a bad day for algae.) The forces of rifts and faults over millions of years uplifted the Franklin Mountains from ancient seas. Deep beneath the soil of the Hueco Boson is a rift that is one of the three deepest inter-continental rifts in the world - rivaling the Great Rift of Africa where populations of hominids evolved over millions of years to become modern homo sapiens. This Place has been home to volcanoes, igneous intrusions, lava fields not to mention prehistoric creatures such as the woolly mammoth who once wandered near present day Santa Teresa.

This Place, our Home, is rich and deep and high and old - very old geologically and yet very young as an ecosystem.

My friends in the Pacific Northwest do not understand how I could have left the vast green beauty of the Cascades and the deep glacial waters of Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish or the beauty of Puget Sound. Indeed, I miss those places - but this place is just as vast with flora and fauna. This spring that we are now enjoying is abundant with more species of birds and populations of birds than I have ever seen in El Paso. A Phainopepla now sings above the Bird of Paradise flowers in my backyard. The other day I swear I saw a Gila Woodpecker busy for bugs on a yucca on Richmond and Kentucky. Mexican Hummingbirds hover wherever I look.

Some call the beauty of this place Surreal - and it is and Psychedelic too. But it is also just a true natural gem.

So, I hope that we can develop City and County policies that support sustainability and prevent unnecessary sprawl and preserve arroyos and restore the lost urban canopy with native trees. I hope that we can find something to do with all of the trash that flies about and mars the ocotillo and prickly pear of our mountainside and neighborhoods. Wind is a fact but so too is careless behavior.

Loving this Place begins with each of us taking responsibility. And, yet, that sounds so juridical. Try this instead: It begins with our singing with bird and coyote and fox and dancing with the wind and venerating with souls afire all the colors of the desert day.

Scenic Sundays!

Our neighborhood couldn't be luckier. This Sunday begins Scenic Sundays when Scenic Drive from Rim Road to Alabama will be closed from 6 to Noon. We don't have to drive to begin our scenic walk, bike ride or run. All we have to do is step out our front doors, take a deep breath, and join in the fun. There couldn't be a better first entry for our new Newman Park blog. Here's the official Press Release from the City:

City Kicks Off Summer-long Scenic Sundays Event

The City of El Paso Parks and Recreation Department, District 2 Rep. Susie Byrd and District 1 Rep. Ann Lilly this Sunday will officially open Scenic Sundays, a summer-long event where El Pasoans, their families and pets are invited to walk, jog, skate and bike along Scenic Drive.

Beginning April 6 and lasting through August 31, Scenic Drive, from Rim Road to Alabama Street, will be closed to vehicle traffic from 6:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. with barriers provided by J.A.R. Concrete. The El Paso Police Department will have officers patrolling the route to ensure all participants can safely enjoy the event.

Last year’s Ciclovia, which opened Rim Road for residents to enjoy to a host of outdoor activities, was a tremendous success with over 5,000 participants in its one-month span. Scenic Sundays will extend that unique opportunity for Sun City residents to enjoy El Paso’s beautiful weather and breathtaking scenery throughout the summer months.

District 1 Rep. Ann Lilly, District 8 Rep. Beto O’Rourke and Parks and Recreation Open Space Coordinator Shamori Whitt all were instrumental in organizing Ciclovia and Scenic Sundays and they will be available for interviews as Rep. Byrd is attending a conference in Austin this weekend.

Please help us promote this exciting event. For more information, contact Rene Leon with Rep. Byrd’s office at (915) 541-4996, or at LeonR@elpasotexas.gov.