Valley Water is introducing two new approaches to combating pollution created by homeless encampments near creeks—portable toilets and debit cards. The water district announced earlier this week that it will place portable toilets and wash stations at 20 key sites near homeless encampments along the creeks through an initiative called the Portable Toilet Facilities Program....
Santa Clara County fire prevention aided by AI
The use of artificial intelligence has spread like wildfire into the world of fire prevention in Santa Clara County. County officials are implementing AI sensors to analyze air temperature and particles in the air to locate fires and prevent larger ones from igniting. This comes as experts throughout the county have been looking at ways...
San Jose’s oldest park remains in disrepair
One of California’s oldest municipal parks in San Jose is still in disrepair after suffering damages from historic rain storms and ongoing neglect by the city. Alum Rock Park in the foothills of the Diablo mountains was one of the hardest hit areas by the January storms and has yet to make a full recovery....
Santa Clara County leads electric car sales
Santa Clara County is leading the way in electric car purchases as sales soar across the state. More than 43% of new car purchases registered in the county this year were zero emission vehicles, the highest in the state, according to 2023 California Energy Commission data. Last year the county’s percentage was 34%. Laura Neish,...
San Jose’s Trash Punx brings new twist to garbage removal
One man is working to make San Jose and the world cleaner, one piece of trash at a time. All his life, San Jose resident Justin Imamura has been motivated to give back to the community and care for the environment. He leads The Trash Punx, a San Jose nonprofit dedicated to both. It hosts waterway...
‘It’s just a matter of time’: How Santa Clara County is preparing for fires
A few embers from a fire can become catastrophic in minutes, igniting new blazes that can rip through homes, businesses and acres of land. That’s why Ali Tohidi, mechanical engineering assistant professor at San Jose State University, and his team are studying how embers, also known as firebrand showers, spread. The team at SJSU’s Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research...
East San Jose lake finally receives funding for restoration
After failed attempts to restore the much-neglected Lake Cunningham, San Jose has found a way to kickstart the lake’s revival. The state budget allocated $1.5 million to improving the East San Jose lake last week, which for years has suffered under the weight of faulty infrastructure and poor water quality. San Jose Assemblymember Ash Kalra, who...
East San Jose residents demand environmental justice
Contamination clean-up efforts have been slow going at an abandoned East San Jose building that was the site of a large fuel spill in 2015. Residents and leaders gathered at the site Friday demanding the city expedite the process amid growing air quality threats. Nearly a dozen community members, including Councilmember Peter Ortiz, said the contamination situation...
How do San Jose parks fare against other U.S. cities?
A recent ranking of U.S. city parks places San Jose in the top half, and locals are torn on touting the city’s open spaces as needing a higher ranking—or more improvement. A new study by Trust for Public Land, a park and land conservation nonprofit, has San Jose’s park system in 32nd place, trailing behind...
San Jose housing left out of state environmental reform
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has made a habit of taking big swings on critical policy issues, laid out a proposal earlier this month for reforming the California Environmental Quality Act, aiming to make it easier to build major infrastructure projects. But with California facing a deficit of millions of homes, and officials up and down...