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Jeff Gould:Hello, Alameda. Welcome to the Island City Beat podcast. I'm Jeff Gould, one of the founding members. Today we're at Linear Park, across from the old commissary site along Main Street and on the West End. And we're here to cover the planting of 10 trees, which is this project that has been sponsored by the Rotary Club.
Jeff Gould:With me, I have Joyce Mercado who is the president.
Joyce Mercado:Yes.
Jeff Gould:Of the Rotary Club here in Alameda.
Joyce Mercado:Yes.
Jeff Gould:So Joyce, what is the Rotary Club and what do they do?
Joyce Mercado:The Rotary Club of Alameda is a service organization. Our motto is service above self and we do an awful lot to give back to the Alameda community and to the world. So we do community grants and community matching grants for nonprofits in town. We give out scholarships to graduating high school students. We do a lot of community service like planting trees in parks.
Joyce Mercado:And we also do world service. So we did an Ethiopian couple of tractors for families in Ethiopia to plow and put rain in for the first time. So we do a variety of service in the community and the world.
Jeff Gould:Okay. So why this particular tree planting in Alameda? Have you you've provided the funds for this? Is that correct?
Joyce Mercado:Yes. Came from a from our program called the matching grants program, where a Rotarian can donate up to a thousand dollars in $250 increments to an Alameda charity of their choice and then our foundation arm matches it a 100%. So a generous Rotarian gave $500 and the foundation matched it with another $500 so we got a thousand dollars for planting trees which is can purchase 10 very nice trees. So we gave it to CASA and CASA a Community Action for Sustainable Alameda and they decided to do a tree planting.
Joyce Mercado:And so Rotary is supporting them financially as well as we have several volunteers coming to help plant the trees with CASA.
Jeff Gould:Okay, full disclosure, I've been involved with CASA over the years.
Jeff Gould:Not so much lately, but and I know you have too.
Joyce Mercado:Yes.
Jeff Gould:So yeah, we have that in common. Do you know what kind of trees we're planting today?
Joyce Mercado:They're cedars. They are a native species of cedar. So we were really pleased that we worked with Alameda Rec and Park Department. They've been super supportive about partnering with 100K Trees for Humanity. And ..
Jeff Gould:That's Amos White.
Joyce Mercado:That's Amos White and Volunteers to plant trees, do tree plantings. And then I forgot what the question was.
Jeff Gould:Type of trees.
Joyce Mercado:Oh, type of trees. Yes. And so previously, we've been planting non native species. And this time we asked if we could plant a native species and they cooperated and we're going to do a native species tree planting today.
Jeff Gould:Great. I think these are redwoods we're looking at.
Joyce Mercado:Yeah, those are redwoods up on the side here.
Jeff Gould:Yeah that's a nice mix.
Joyce Mercado:Yes.
Jeff Gould:Okay. One of the things that I've been wondering about is how how do these community projects work in with the city of Alameda's tree plan? Know there have been meetings and seminars and discussions in the past with city government about climate action. The planting of trees has been one of the primary takeaways from those meetings.
Jeff Gould:So I'm confused about how an event like this works in with the Alameda City Government's tree plan.
Joyce Mercado:Well, the tree plan includes tree plantings in parks. And so we work with Alameda Rec and Park Department has a whole master plan for trees in parks. So we work with them on selecting a park and what type of trees to put in, and now we're trying to push more native trees. And then we work together with one hundred k Trees for Humanity sources the trees for us at a discount, and they teach us how to plant the trees. And Alameda Rec and Park often puts digs the holes for us in advance and they ensure that the long term irrigation for the trees are going be in place.
Jeff Gould:Okay. I see they've already dug the holes for these today.
Joyce Mercado:Yes.
Jeff Gould:Makes it easy.
Joyce Mercado:Yes. So that's how it fits into the overall scheme of things.
Jeff Gould:Okay. Well, thank you for all the illuminating comments and we'll get to work soon.
Joyce Mercado:Okay. Sounds good. Thank you.
Jeff Gould:Thank you.
Jeff Gould:OK we're here with Caesar of Parks and Rec from the city of Alameda. And you helped us out this morning by doing the real work today on this tree planting.
Ceasar (parks&rec):Yeah. We're just trying to help help out. Uh-huh.
Jeff Gould:Well, we we appreciate it. You're doing your part for global warming, climate Change and making Alameda a more beautiful place.
Ceasar (parks&rec):Yeah. The more trees, the better.
Jeff Gould:Yeah. More oxygen. Alright. Thank you.
Ceasar (parks&rec):You're welcome.
Jeff Gould:Alright. So I'm here with Amos White from 100K trees for humanity. I'm reading it off his t-shirt .
Amos White:Put the soil around it. Yeah. Like, see the roots here? You don't wanna see the roots. So you want soil on top of that.
Amos White:See the roots here? Just right on top. See how you covered that up, and then we're gonna put mulch on the rest of it. So flat right there. Now all the soil out to here.
Amos White:Use the gray soil, come all the way out here with the gray soil, and then put your compost. You'll get more compost. We'll put it on top. Compost will feed it. Really good good nutrients.
Amos White:Good. Good. Take a picture, Sammy. Okay. So I'm here with Amos pictures?
Amos White:Yeah. Awesome. Is it okay? Hold on. Wait.
Amos White:No. We need a lot more soil. Here. Oh, okay. Like, all this stuff right here It's gotta work until we get ..
Amos White:Good. Hi Jeff. All this stuff right here, you can pull the clods aside, clods of things, grass. But take it like this and throw it all around it here. Make a circle with it. But get rid of all this soil.
Amos White:Do it circle it, your tree, and then go around the circle again because we don't wanna leave the soil here in a pile. You wanna use all your soil. So just take this, throw it in here because this will all melt into the ground when it rains and when the irrigation comes on, and then we'll cover it with some more of the good compost. Okay? Alright.
Amos White:But always throw your work from the backside around to the front. Looking like a tree. So go ahead and take all your soil out here and come all the way out to here with your soil. Don't leave any of this behind. Go ahead and start on the backside where you got Grand Canyon over there.
Amos White:Oh, okay. And then we'll no. No. No. Don't scrape off.
Amos White:See all the roots there? It's okay. It's okay to keep a a thin layer of this stuff right on top. Then we're gonna throw some mulch. Then we're gonna throw some mulch on her.
Amos White:This is a really good job, you guys. Put the black stuff on last or put that on closest to the tree like you're doing all the way around, like 10 inches around, and put all this gray stuff in a circle around that. Slide slide it flat on the ground. There you go.
Amos White:Good. Good.
Jeff Gould:We got a few questions for you, Amos.
Amos White:Oh, sure.
Jeff Gould:What is one hundred thousand Trees for Humanity and why are you here?
Amos White:Well, 100K Trees is an urban reforestation nonprofit. We exist to plant the planet by 2030 in urban cities and impacted communities of color that have a disproportionate amount of tree canopy, tree shade. And that's to reach the goal of 30% canopy by 2030 for planting trees for climate, for equity and for public health.
Jeff Gould:We've talked previously about public health. How do trees impact public health?
Amos White:Oh my gosh. The simplest, just seeing a tree outside your window or sitting amongst a tree has a direct impact on your neuro system, your biological system. It decreases stress just sitting amongst three trees and within fifteen to twenty minutes, having anxiety attack or just even if you're just normal decreases your stress, your diastolic rate of your blood pressure back to normal within fifteen to twenty minutes. That's an effect most commonly referred to as biophilia, the effect of nature seeing green and its impact on our bodies as we too are a part of nature. Trees filter air, the pine trees, the cedars that we're planting here today, these 10 cedars, California natives.
Amos White:These conifer trees are best for absorbing volatile organic compounds, the gases that come off of like diesel fuel.
Jeff Gould:That's Main Street right there.
Amos White:Yeah, it's right here. We're right along Main Street. And right here, you're actually in the lowest street canopy spot of Alameda on the West End. Yes. Traditionally red line, traditionally the place that black and brown people could only live.
Jeff Gould:My neighborhood. Yeah.
Amos White:Hey, where you also live. I do recall that. And closes right here to the port and the rail yards and the three freeways of Oakland, which really make this quite a challenge. The air quality here is also the worst with its proximity to the 580, the 880, the 80, and the 980, and the Port Of Oakland, Amtrak, and all the rail cars going right to and the then over 1,100 semi trucks a day. Now a lot of that pollution burden goes directly to West Oakland, but when you look at the air quality index at calenviroscreen.org, this area, literally the bleed over from this transit area is immense into this community.
Amos White:So planting these trees is gonna have a tremendous benefit in filtering out that air and in creating fresh, clean air as well.
Jeff Gould:Okay. Can't forget the Oakland Airport
Amos White:Oakland Airport no you can't. Yeah, Oakland Airport and all down the freeway. Yeah.
Jeff Gould:So we're across from the old commissary, which has now been demolished. Yep. Along Main Street. I noticed that the public works is here helping us. They dug the holes for this project.
Amos White:Yeah, they made their contribution.
Amos White:Oh, it is. They prepped this and that cuts that cuts the majority of time, having the holes prepped in advance.
Jeff Gould:You and I have had conversations about the interface between what you're doing with 100 ks trees and the city's master tree plan. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Amos White:Well, these trees are contributing to that. I mean, the city's master tree plan calls for 300, three fifty trees a year that the city has planned to budget for. Actually, these trees are not part of that plan, but they contribute to the overall burden that they're helping to relieve in terms of the climate, the climate goal of getting more trees in the ground.
Jeff Gould:Of course, they do.
Amos White:Yeah. Alameda, on the books, Alameda has 26, 20 26 to 29,000 street trees that we're accountable for. There's over almost 20% are missing. Some 9,000 or so odd trees are missing. You know, died, never replaced, sick, cut down, hit by a car, what have you.
Amos White:And we need to refill those tree holes. But in terms of the disproportionate tree canopy, like, you know, the majority of trees are in the East End, two to one, two and a half, two and a half times to one of the West End. Tree canopy here is at 5%. We're standing in a tree canopy area of six to 9%, one more than just right there across the street on the base, which is at 5%. To get up to 30%, we need six times as many trees.
Amos White:So that's literally where we are in terms of planting. The West end alone could sustain over 20,000 new trees.
Jeff Gould:Today we're planting 10 of them.
Amos White:Well, yeah, it goes at a time. But we're planting 10, literally two months ago. These 10 are going right between the 55. We planted just two months ago. And two years ago, in February, across the street, we planted either 55 or 85.
Amos White:I forget how many, around there, 55 or 85 trees. Maybe we had 85 volunteers where we planted like another 55 trees across the street. So, you know, it's adding up. This park alone could sustain easily another 200 trees.
Jeff Gould:Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of barren along here at linear park.
Amos White:Until these trees were planted, there were none. There were absolutely none along either of these two walkways and nothing there bordering the the street. So, yeah, we've got a long way to go here in Alameda, but you can see with the heart and the commitment and the volunteers that showed up today, we're definitely on a path to get there.
Jeff Gould:Yeah. It looks like there might be 50 people here.
Amos White:Yeah. Just shy. I'd say, It's pretty good call. About 45 people, 50 people.
Jeff Gould:Including Island City Beat.
Amos White:There you go.
Jeff Gould:Thanks, Amos.
Amos White:Yeah. Appreciate it.
Jeff Gould:You're my friend.
Amos White:Yeah. Appreciate it Thanks much. You guys.
Jeff Gould:Okay. Let me, Now I'm here with Ruth Abbey. She's the head person for CASA, community action for sustainable Alameda. Full disclosure, I was involved in that for a while, not that much lately.
Jeff Gould:Ruth, your organization CASA is sponsoring this event here. Is that correct?
Ruth Abbey:Well, yes. So the Rotary Club gave us a grant for $1,000 It was matched 50% by a Rotary member. So $500 from a Rotary member and $500 from the Rotary Foundation. And they gave that grant to CASA specifically so that we could plant 10 trees. And then 100K Trees for Humanity provided the trees, purchased the trees for us, we're able to get that discount, which was great.
Jeff Gould:That's Amos White.
Ruth Abbey:Yeah that was our friend Amos. And then we were able to recruit CASA members, Rotary members, 100 ks tree volunteers. So I don't know, what do you think? We had about 25 people here out today?
Jeff Gould:We called it 50.
Ruth Abbey:Oh, we got 50 people out here today to plant 10 trees. So many hands makes light work. That's really cool.
Jeff Gould:You and I and your sister planted the Island City beet tree.
Ruth Abbey:Right. The one right at the end. We'll always remember it's the one the closest to the traffic light.
Jeff Gould:Okay.
Ruth Abbey:All right, the Island Beat tree.
Jeff Gould:Island City Beat.
Ruth Abbey:Island City beet tree. There you go. All right, we did a good job.
Jeff Gould:Yes, we did. Yeah. So what is CASA exactly?
Ruth Abbey:All right. Well, CASA is Community Action for a Sustainable Alameda and it was founded in 2008 exclusively to help the city implement its climate action plan. And so we've found it as a five zero one(three). And you know, there was some talk at the time, should the city have a sustainability commission? Should it have a zero waste commission?
Ruth Abbey:And at the or climate commission, something like that. And the decision was made that, well, maybe a five zero one(three) would have more flexibility in, for example, obtaining grants. And we have had quite a few grants over the years different projects, recycling in the schools, reusables on Park Street. We were partnered with Okapi. So, you know, we've had some really great success getting grants and then supporting the city in the implementation of the Climate Action Plan and then also doing the update.
Ruth Abbey:So in 2019, the city did a brand new climate action plan called the Climate and Resiliency Plan. That CARP. Yep. And then that plan has just gone through an update process, a mid year. It was a ten year plan.
Ruth Abbey:It was 2019. It just got updated this year to say, hey, how are we doing? And we're doing well. We're on the path to getting a reduction. Our goal was a 20% reduction by 2020, which we achieved.
Ruth Abbey:And so then the city achieved that as a whole. And now in the latest assessment, we're at 29% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from year 2005 levels. And the biggest contribution to that, Jeff, as you know, is from AMP, Alameda Municipal Power, because as a former PUB board member, you know that we maintain 100% renewable, well, carbon power. It's renewable and hydro, large hydro, which does not count as renewable, but it does count as non carbon. So as long as AMP maintains that power mix, we'll continue to get that huge credit from that greenhouse gas production.
Jeff Gould:Yeah, and we've also been pushing electric vehicles in the city, which is near and dear to my heart.
Ruth Abbey:Yeah, and electric vehicle charging. The city is implementing a pilot to put curbside chargers so that people who can't charge at home or can't have access to a charger, they're going to be installing some curbside chargers this So that's exciting.
Jeff Gould:I hope so.
Ruth Abbey:Yeah. So there's a lot to do in climate. Know, there's waste reduction, which contributes quite a bit. There's electrification, which the city is working on. There's the EVs, the sustainable transportation.
Ruth Abbey:Oh, we're also supporting folks and getting them on the buses because we are actually blessed with a pretty good bus infrastructure through AC Transit. And we had a program supported Mastic Senior Center, and MASTIC has done a lot of training with their seniors to get them their pass, their AC Transit Senior Pass, and get them on the bus. And so COSA had a little project where we were offering bus buddies to seniors so that they could, you know, figure out how to ride the bus if it's their first time, then they could actually get on the bus and feel a little confident in it.
Jeff Gould:Right. So Yeah. I remember back in the day, when I was involved, did we at CASA, we did some film screenings. Oh, yeah. We did some seminars, you know, pretty active in, you know, exposing people to the issues as well.
Jeff Gould:And then COVID came along and CASA reinvented itself to contribute to food items. Can you explain about that?
Ruth Abbey:The reusable food work? Or the
Jeff Gould:The programs to send out food to people that were at home.
Ruth Abbey:Yeah. That was great. So we originally, during COVID, had the idea of having folks donate, contribute, and then we would pay for the restaurants to provide food for hungry people. We did that for the first responders initially, so we had delivered food to the hospital and to the fire station.
Ruth Abbey:And then the firefighters, this was awesome, they said, you know what? We're fine with the food. I we think maybe we should be contributing the food to others. And so they got involved in helping us contribute to hungry people. And then we formed a partnership with the All Good Living Foundation, Chris And Ham, you
Jeff Gould:We've done an episode on him already.
Ruth Abbey:Oh, that's awesome. Because they do amazing things, one of which is feed hungry people through their program, through the youth in Alameda, through the schools. So they know the families that could use a little bit of extra support. So we were able to do that. And then the city took over the program.
Ruth Abbey:Sarah Henry at the city did the whole Alameda Strong, you know, project and that kind of took off. So we did a little seed planting and then she made it, you know, really a big deal. So that was awesome.
Jeff Gould:So seed planting and tree planting.
Jeff Gould:Exactly. Exactly. Today. Yeah.
Jeff Gould:Okay, Ruth. Thank you
Ruth Abbey:for Yeah. Well, thank you so much. All the best to Island City Beach.
Jeff Gould:Island City Beat.
Ruth Abbey:Island City Beat. You're gonna be doing wonderful things for Alameda. Let Alamedans know about what's going on. So anyway, a little plug. You can go to casa-alameda.org if you want to get involved.
Ruth Abbey:Get involved in any kind of volunteer activities that we have going on. Today, not only are we doing this tree planting with the rotary and a 100 k trees, but over on Alameda Point at the Seaplane Lagoon, we're doing a coastal cleanup with DOER, Durham Marine. So that's that's another project that we're doing today. And then this afternoon, we're gonna be at the Rising Tides, you know, performance event sponsored by Rhythmics, and we're gonna be tabling on the adaptation projects that the city are doing. The city is doing a long range plan on adaptation.
Ruth Abbey:So, anyway, that's gonna be cool. Big day for CASA. Busy.
Jeff Gould:Yep. Thank you, Ruth.
Ruth Abbey:Alright. Thanks so much, Jeff. Appreciate it. Thanks, you guys. Thanks for your work.
Jeff Gould:This is Jeff Gould .. signing off for Island City Beat. Thank you.