Welcome to the Slo Coast Journal. Published online monthly, the Journal is here to bring you information specific to our part of California's Central Coast.
"The notion of a free press, of an institution that monitors those in power and those who wish to be in power, that ferrets out truth from lies, that draws public attention to the pressing issues of our times, is a cornerstone of a liberal democratic theory."
Robert McChesney in the Political Economy of the Media
Help Environmental Organizations Think Through a Smart Energy Policy
There are twelve things environmental groups in this country need to recognize about the risks from smart meter technology. Read More
Bears in Our Woods
This family of bears was seen hitch-hiking near Windy Cove in Morro Bay the morning of April 11. Warning - No matter how cute they appear to be, never pick up bears.
JoAnne Heaney, Los Osos Treasure
JoAnne's story began far from these ocean views in the river valley of the small Connecticut town where her father farmed tobacco, and then, with the coming of the Great Depression, potatoes. Her early penchant for science—perhaps formed on the farm—eventually led her to study chemistry at Smith College in Massachusetts and finally to Stanford College in California. Here JoAnne abandoned science for the study of art and English that would serve as a foundation for the rest of her life's work. Read More
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"Plan B" suddenly emerged as a possible way to build a new Morro Bay-Cayucos wastewater treatment plant—just by upgrading the old existing plant with dubious prospects for approval by the California Coastal Commission—and Michael Foster is appointed by the Cayucos Sanitary District Board to sit in on interviews of consultants to develop studies of a new project, but Noah Smukler is given a cold shoulder by the Morro Bay City Council to do the same. Read More
Surprise! Diodati Resigns from Planning Commission
After more than 15 speakers castigated the Morro Bay City Council for considering to fire John Diodati from the city Planning Commission during two hours of impassioned pleas by residents, the council apparently backed off and adopted an unclear resolution that the city attorney says leaves it up to him to attend enough meetings this year to remain on the commission. Read More
Are Morro Bay and Cayucos Contemplating an End Run Around the CCC?
Morro Bay Mayor Bill Yates and wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) project manager Dennis Delzeit recently made statements which might indicate that the city of Morro Bay and the Cayucos Sanitary District (CSD) are considering backing out of their commitment to build a new WWTP that provides tertiary treatment of sewage by 2014. Some residents believe that since the granting of the existing WWTP's 301 (h) waiver was apparently based, in part, on the commitment to tertiary treatment, an attempt to back out of it could cause serious problems. Read More
Smart Meter Opt-In Left Out
There should have been a customer "opt-in" to the PG&E wireless smart meter program when it was originally proposed as a primarily wired program in 2006 for 1.7 billion ratepayer dollars. Or perhaps when PG&E switched the smart meter program to wireless in 2009, when they came back to request an additional half billion dollars of ratepayer money. Read More
Electronic House Meets
Low-EMF Design
Wireless technologies, compact fluorescent bulbs, and dimmer switches all come at a big price – the comfortable and healthful environment you want to create in a living space. Read More
Conservation?
A lot of people today hope that when the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant's licenses to operate expire in 2024 and 2025, they will not be renewed, and the plant will close. I confess I am one of them. The thought of making radioactive waste that will remain lethal for hundreds of thousands of years makes me cringe. Read More
Mystery in Morro Bay: Update
The November, 2010, Journal article Mystery in Morro Bay invited readers to explore unanswered questions that had arisen in connection with a proposed project that would completely change the face of Morro Bay—a "green university" to be built on power plant property. Morro Bay residents have offered a theory on a possible connection between the proposed development and the seemingly-inexplicable push by local government to keep the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) at its current location. The heart of the matter, the residents theorize, may be the water supply needed to allow the development project to proceed. Read More
The Nearly Invisible Part
of the Energy Puzzle
By now it is clear that oil, oil sands, natural gas, coal, and nuclear power all have major environmental and/or safety problems. In comparison, renewables have minimal but some problems. Further, whether renewables can fully pick up the slack for those other fossil fuels is uncertain. What's left?
Energy conservation/reduction should be a major component of the energy mix and yet it's playing nowhere the role it should or can. Why is that? Read More
Help Environmental Organizations Think Through a Smart Energy Policy 
