I’ve been fiddling for a while with a list of things the beavers have taught me and trying to turn it into something helpful to present at my talk at Close to Home in June. Mind you, this isn’t Letterman’s top ten list, but I’m pretty happy with it. Let me know if you think I missed anything.

1. Pick a subject that you love. Because you’re going to be stuck with it for a while.

2. Bring a camera. It helps if you can show people what you care about.

3. Offer solutions, approach the problems realistically. Find out whose famous for solving that problem and email them for help. It’s surprising how many well-known people return an email and how few will return phone calls.

4. Media. Don’t expect them to know about natural concepts like predators or tides or habitat or gravity. Provide photos, they like cute animals. Provide pithy quotes, they like easy copy. Provide video that is worth stealing and don’t expect credit.

5. When you say something don’t expect to be able to take it back. You have to get it right the first time. There is no time for context or mitigating circumstances. Short understandable sentences that are easy to relate to are best. Be prepared for the media to give the ’powers that be’ lots and lots more chances than they give you. Understand that they will probably never call them on obvious lies.

6. Identify your ultimate goal and be willing to make temporary alliances with anyone that moves you towards it. I mean anyone.

7. Remember that ultimate goal in your heart and be willing to sever or interrupt ties with anyone that threatens it. I mean anyone.

8. It’s not about you. Officials won’t do the right thing because they like you and for the most part they won’t do the wrong thing because they hate you. Mostly they have their own goals, alliances and Faustian contracts. You don’t matter at all. Keep that in mind.

9. Bring children. Children’s Art. Children’s Education. Images of children with the animal you are trying to save. Mothers with Children! Repeat as necessary.

10. Realize that the powers that be are counting on the fact that by the time you truly learn and understand steps 1-9, you’ll be so exhausted and demoralized that you won’t have the energy or inclination to do this again for some other species. Save something for the ride home and prove them wrong.

LA-17, a female Loggerhead, has just arrived at Audubon Aquatic Center, a facility of Audubon Nature Institute.Pictured from left to right Amanda Adkins, Jamie Mullins and Melissa Tomingas. photo credit Meghan Calhoun

How many miles to babylon?

Three score miles and ten

Can I get there by lantern light?

Aye, and back again.

I was thinking of this nursery rhyme today in terms of where we in the process of getting the city to accept/embrace the beavers. It’s been a year and a half. This is almost my 500th column. We’ve had the top watershed minds in the county working on this problem, and the top beaver experts in the world finding solutions. We have vast public interest, an active volunteer group, constant outpourings of good will. All these things should have fitted together and convinced even the most waivering of minds that these beavers belong in this city.

We should be in Babylon, and back again, already.

Instead we are still arguing with public works about the right to plant trees, explaining how our drought has nothing to do with the fact that the beavers haven’t made it flood yet, and getting snapped at by council members who would rather not have to deal with us.

Every time I think we have earned the last necessary support or found a “game changer” so compelling that the city will not be able to ignore the valueable role that these beavers have in this community, things snap back into tension state with elastic zeal.  It seemed like the beaver festival changed everything, but it is clear that isn’t true when the city manager tells me over breakfast that the habitat shouldn’t be replaced so that the beavers will just move on. It seemed like my being on the board of directors for the JMA would cement the beavers respectibility for the city, but of course that isn’t what happened at all.

At first night this year, when we were officially “on” the city schedule, Linda asked me happily “did you ever think this day would come?” And I answered without hesitation. Honestly? I thought it would come ages ago.

Babylon isn’t any closer it seems. It has greatly saddened me to think that we might never get there, but this morning I thought,  maybe that’s the point. Maybe its the journey, and not the destination, that matters. For the city, and for myself personally.

Maybe we’re not talking about Babylon, but Ithaka.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

C.P. Cavafy

Ahh spring, the chirping, sprouting time of year when tomato plants are wistfully laid in the ground and Worth A Dam annoys the city about planting trees. This year we wrapped our tree planting plans in a boyscout package to make it more attractive to a city that cannot possibly do something that might benefit beavers. Our “Trojan Eagle” has been fairly effective at getting cooperation, the city is allowing planting along the “beaver festival” park and the corp yard creek side. The planting will occur on the weekend of June 6th and 7th, and staff will help out and even extend a drip system to water some of the trees.

Except for the “bad trees”.

Worth A Dam has insisted at every possible juncture that three trees were needed at the lodge site, to protect the lodge from sun and intruders. Their own biologist, (that Janet Kennedy kindly reminded me the city spent painful dollars to obtain three times), Skip Lisle, recommended increased cover for the lodge. Rona Zollinger’s students pledged to plant the trees and carefully wire wrap them. Dates were laid, plans were made, and the entire project was detailed for the mayor at the May 6th presentation to the council.

Alas, it was not to be. Those, dear readers, are “bad trees”.

We were told those three trees were not “authorized”, were not approved by tree experts, were not part of the “buy-in” from the business community, were too much for an Eagle scout project, and were too controversial for Boy Scouts to be involved. These of course were offered in serial succession as each defense was challenged with pesky fact checking. They were  “authorized” by their own biologist, and by the creek plan originally outlaid by the army corp of engineer, and by the city’s own watershed planting grant, and by the biologist they forced us to secure for the project. There are no property owners on that side of the creek but the city, and certainly no businesses. The Environmental Studies Academy students, who have already undertaken copious planting and stewardship for the city, could take on the responsibility and not over extend the scouts. And finally, three trees is as close to a “teapot” as the beaver “tempest” will ever be.

Sadly the city’s powerful logic-deflector shields were already raised. and our arguments were meaningless.The bad trees could not possibly be allowed under any conceivable circumstances. We were asked deftly “How would John Muir feel about planting trees for beavers?”

W.W.J.M.D.?

If I were to write one more time that I was dismayed or disappointed by this response, I would run the risk of being compared to Charlie Brown and Lucy holding the football. So I won’t be surprised. I just want to ask if this clever WWJMD test could be freely applied in other circumstances as well? What would John Muir think, for example, about removing trees to install sheetpile along a living creek? What would he think about removing trees to build parking lots and covering the earth with asphalt? What would John Muir think about controlling plant growth by spraying along the creek with pesticides? What would John Muir think about forming a redevelopment agency, for that matter?

This is fun. Can anyone play?

Far be it from me, now a member of the John Muir Association board of directors, of which two are descendents of Muir himself, and which are owners of the most extensive collection of Muir information and original documents in the world, far be it from me to attempt to answer that question. I will do what I always do, and pass it along. There’s a board meeting tonight in fact, and I will make sure that I ask how Muir felt about replacing stolen habitat to benefit wild things.

I can’t wait.

One of the things I love about days like yesterday, is meeting with people who understand all the footnotes without even glancing down to the bottom of the page. I’m talking here about the inherent recognition that the living things in an environment are valuable, that the habitat is worth saving, that the good will of a hundred volunteers with a sense of community is irreplaceable, and that a myopic and concrete-lined city council could fail to see this again and again.

Last night Lisa Owens Viani of the San Francisco Estuary Project, who organized a very demanding day with lots of bumps in the road, who cut her environmental teeth saving Baxter Creek in El Cerrito, and who now pals around with buddies like Ann Riley who wrote “Restoring Streams in Cities“, this very Lisa wrote me a quote from her eco-advocate friend in Portland.

“Endless Pressure, Endlessly Applied.”

Turns out this is a famous quote from Brock Evans, ex-marine, environmentalist and highly successful attorney who is now in Washington DC. His list of publications is impressive, and he is recognized as one of the most successful environmental attorneys in the nation. He practiced for a long time in Washington State (beaver mecca) and even ran for congress. Although he didn’t win, his campaign manager is now a US senator. (Maria Cantwell). In a recent blog post he discusses the thunderdome match between the environment and the redeveloper, and how much still has been accomplished.

How could all this happen, given the wealth and political clout of developers?

Answer: the same way as it has always been. By small bands of determined individuals who personally knew and loved the places, or the values, about to destroyed. The enormous public support came a bit later. First it was necessary to speak out, to challenge and take action — to show the way. The vast majority were volunteers. All they really had was their courage, their determination to never back down. Ordinary folks like the rest of us. They are the ones who did it.

Well this I am starting to believe. From Susan Kirks  with badgers to Heidi Perryman with beavers, just ordinary folks doing what they knew was right even when they felt discouraged or hopeless or slighted. Endless Pressure, Endlessly Applied.

The journey really is to Ithaka, not Babylon.

Find something outside yourself that is yourself

Then devote yourself to it with all your heart.

Bob Walker, Photographer and Activist

Cheryl Reynolds sent me this quote by Bob Walker, photographer for the East Bay Regional Parks. His photographs and passion are credited with saving much of the open space in the Bay Area and beyond, and with helping people see their own backyard in an entirely different way. He apparently became an activist after a “For Sale” sign appeared on one of his favorite landscapes.

When working with local officials failed, he stepped up to the task by offering slide shows of the region, leading hikes into the area and raising public awareness. He brought his images to the EBRP: interesting staff, persuading local officials and gradually shifting the focus of the board. He worked with several conservation groups on open space issues, including Save Mount Diablo and the East Bay Trails Alliance. In 1998 measure AA was passed, largely because of his efforts, a $225 million dollar bond that increased EBRP space by a third.

A retrospective of his work “After the Storm:Bob Walker and the Art of Environmental Photography”, was shown at the Oakland Museum and a book of the same name was published. A showing of unpublished photos is a current exhibit at the Oakland Museum “In our Own Backyard“. Walker died young but left a remarkable living legacy that spans more than the nine Bay Area counties.

I guess I know the thing I’ve found “outside myself that is myself”. Walker used this metamorphosis to transform the Bay Area. All we’ve done is extend the life of a few beavers.

Thanks to all our donors at the Farmer’s Market and beyond yesterday. My favorite story of the day was the possible existence of a group at County hospital forming called “Doctors for Beavers”. Worth A Dam and friends had a good planning meeting which will help with this next leg of beaver support. We passed around the book and toyed with the idea of a Beaver Better Business Bureau. In closing I’ll leave you with a final Walker quote

“To involve the public you have to make each one of your pictures a thousand times more spectacular than what you would see on the most exquisite day–otherwise you’ll never convey one tenth of what it feels like to be there on the dullest gray day when nothing’s going on”

Beaver friend, fellow blogger and superhuman activist, Susan Kirks from Sonoma360.com writes that they are hard at work in Petaluma taking care of these guys on Paula Lane. With much labor, cajoling, inspiring and “badgering” they are in the last stages of an openspace deal that will purchase the land where these little fellows hang out.

Beavers and Badgers Part 3

The badgers have been on Paula Lane since the early 1900s. Long-time residents will share stories of seeing several badgers slithering across the land of the existing City of Petaluma water tank site. One resident who’s lived along the lane since the 1970s says a badger once chased his daughter on a bicycle (likely a threatened female), with of course no harm done. But, seeing a badger these days is a rare occurrence, if at all. Somehow, the badgers have remained, adapted and still have, thanks to the efforts of many concerned citizens, a protected movement corridor and protected habitat. Just recently, new burrows were seen in land on Paula Lane where the presence of badgers had not been known for 15 years.

The Paula Lane Action Network (PLAN) is a 501(3)c nonprofit with a dream for an open space preserve on the land. Like all cities, in 2000  the edges of Petaluma were rapidly growing, and Paula Lane was once farmland that went up for sale. The idyllic curve of land is a beloved spot for watching the last rays of sun on the city, so it has been dubbed “sunset hill”. I’m sure the city had dollar signs in its eyes and said something like “Badgers? We don’t need no stinking badgers!”, but PLAN had vision of open space that was part of the ring trail that circles the city and makes a wildlife corridor.

You think it takes a long time to save beavers? PLAN has been hard at work on this goal since 2003. The issue has been pushed back and pushed forward again and again, but in 2006 the family that owned the land took it off the market and indicated a willingness to sell it for open space. The two 1800’s farm homes on the site will be rented by “caretakers” who keep an eye on the land, and adjoining schools will have environmental classrooms in the region. Hiking trails and inviting open space will make room for the badgers and the people who need to breathe open air and see the sun set at the edge of their community.

From Corey Young: The Argus Courier

From there, things began looking up for the preserve’s supporters. That year, the city included the Paula Lane site as one of four properties on a list of requests for matching grants from the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District.

Although unsuccessful, the project was back for consideration this spring, and ultimately won support from the Open Space District. This fall, the county Board of Supervisors agreed to give $1 million toward the city’s purchase of the site, if the city and PLAN would take on maintenance and operation responsibilities.

Still to be determined is the final purchase price. A 2005 appraisal pegged the value of the land at $3 million, but the drop in property values has likely reduced that.

A new appraisal is under way and the city’s latest estimate of the property’s cost is $2 million, according to a recent application for a $990,000 grant from the California Coastal Conservancy.

Are you noticing those dates and numbers? This is a huge undertaking that makes me positively dizzy to consider. Susan is an acupuncturist by trade who also started a wildlife rehabilitation center. I am so thoroughly impressed with what she has inspired I could just sit with my mouth open for weeks. Honestly I thought that having your life completely taken over by an issue so that there are traces of your advocacy efforts leaking into every day and visible in every room of your home was occasionally necessary but very, very weird. It turns out that there are amazing people making space to make a difference all around us.

Find something outside yourself that is yourself, and devote yourself to it with all your heart, said Bob Walker the EBRP photographer who is credited with saving much of the open space in the Bay Area and beyond. I guess you found yours, Susan.

I know the beavers would want me to thank you so much for all the hard work you have done to leave a legacy of badgers on sunset hill.

So the Gazette has an editorial today in response to my letter. My letter isn’t printed, but the response, of course, is. It accuses Worth A Dam of being “Conspiracy Theorists” and then proceeds to describe the conspiratorial means by which we ply our conspiring trade. Apparently she got three letters in response to sundays column on the same day. It is of course impossible that any of our 500+ regular readers of this blog would have had their own reaction to the paper running the story after the election. Its not like people stopped me at the dam when I wrote about the historic photo or when they heard about it on the news and asked, “have you sent this to the Gazette? They should run something”.

Obviously, no one other than conspiracy theorists would think that the fact that it appeared on the blog on the 29th, and in the paper on the 9th, is confusing. Surely only JFK whackos could be dismayed by the final “Seeking Council” column on affordable housing appearing on election Tuesday, when it was slated for the Thursday before.

Still, I’m not sure how one person making a bad decision constitutes a conspiracy.

I don’t know why the story wasn’t run before the election. I know for a fact it was received, but it may have been mislaid, forgotten, or shuffled out of site. I know that I can do more to followup when I’m not siting 8 hours a day on bridge watch before going to work. Maybe it will never happen again, and its a complete accident that it happened now. I’d feel more reassured if my letter, (unfounded accusation that it was), or any of the mysterious trio, was printed along with the rebuttal.

In the meantime, we are told to expect a column Thursday on the bank stabilization project. Since the Gazette is reading this blog at the moment, (to find what offensive material they might need to react to next), allow me to suggest what will happen when you contact councilman Ross and the city manager. Ross’ response will likely be the same as for Bay City Media, in which he says the bank of Bertola’s was never  the concern. You may want to review the engineering reports to check if that’s true. I have highlighted the relevant passages here. If confronted that this is not what was said in court, the next excuse will be that this job was planned all along for that wall but the city ran out of money in 2000. To verify that you would have to get the city plans from the engineer, because to my knowledge no one’s ever seen them. Actually, I wouldn’t bother because the argument was never over whether this was planned for the wall, but whether it was an EMERGENCY that could affect downtown businesses if delayed. Finally, it would be useful to go back through the special assessment tax records and find out what the property owner paid in 1999 towards the flood project. I’m sure readers would like to know the Return On Investment he received.

Here’s some nice beaver followup in the meantime.

After the death of our kit in March, I was contacted by Susan JunFish of Parents for a Safer Environment. She has worked fairly tirelessly since the group’s founding in 2002 to raise awareness about pesticides and safer alternatives. She advocates Integrated Pest Management (IPM) a policy which utelizes chemical control only after less invasive measures have failed. She points to the fact that many of our pesticides are known endocrine disruptors and carcinogens, and that when studies show that they are safe in low levels they are failing to take into account our hazardous lives of multiple and cumulative exposure.

Susan informed me that even though San Francisco, Alameda, Marin, Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties had stopped spraying herbicides on plants that lined the water ways, Contra Costa was still a prime offender. These chemicals leach into our waterways and travel downstream right to the beavers. She wondered whether there could be any effect on kit vulnerability overall because of this cumulative exposure, and whether we would be willing to explore this if funds could be obtained for a grant to look at liver toxicity in the necropsy of the kit.

An interesting and eye opening conversation began. Susan was interested in using our visibility on this issue, and I was interested in providing the most safe habitat for our beavers. On Monday Susan had arranged a meeting with State Senator Mark DeSaulnier’s office and a few community leaders interested in the issue. She invited Worth A Dam to be there, along with a representative of the West County Toxics Coalition, Moraga Parks & Rec Commission, Life Gardens, and Gardens at Heather Farms. The plan was to explain the issue, its far-reaching consequences, and demonstrate broad community support for Senator DeSaulnier if he should introduce legistation about a statewide IPM.

As I listened to Susan’s intelligent and persuasive presentation, I was a particularly struck by how much endless pressure she had already administered, and how well she managed her own frustration at the snail’s pace with which change moved forward. It reminded me that part of good advocacy is not just passion but temperament. You need to keep saying the same thing over and over again, sometimes to the very same people, and not get furious, impatient or condescending. You need to be able to hear each repetitive, obstinant, insular and ignorant question and answer it like you were thinking about the issue for the first time. You need to appear to weigh the pros and cons of your position even though you have a wealth of data and research to back you up and you know the other side is bogus and wrong.

(In short, you need to walk softly and carry your big stick under your coat.)

As a woman who has spent a comparatively tiny fraction of time trying to advocate for these beavers, I can tell you how enormously exhausting that is. Not just the tireless, scrappy, confrontation of THEIR SIDE but the sustained, internal self management of MY SIDE that restricts one from exploding at one’s (sometimes stubbornly) unenlightened audience, slapping them on the forehead and yelling “WTF!!!!!!!” Self management and other management is a massive responsibility, and one that I’m learning certain kinds of people are better suited for.

I definitely understand why some give up on the reasoned discourse side, and just chain themselves to a tree or do this:

The outcome of the meeting? The snail moved forward a 16th of an inch–a conversation was started, a dialogue opened. Another day in the life of an advocate.

I heard the most amazing story yesterday on All Things Considered. A pair of unrelated 16 year old girls, whose fathers were deployed in Afghanistan, were planning to organize a conference for some 400 Military daughters, under the motto “Unite. Inspire. Lead.” They understood that their own experience of feeling isolated, burdened, insecure and “adultified” by the absence of their respective fathers was a common problem. There sadly isn’t much attention to or understanding of our military children, especially the children of reservists, who aren’t part of a military community and aren’t surrounded by other kids going through the same thing. With the current structure of the armed forces we have more of these kids than we ever did but they are scattered around the country and often do not know each other or have access to any support. Moranda Leah and Kaylei Deakin knew that more could be done, and they were willing to be the ones to do it.

The National Guard helped them attend Maria Schriver’s conference to inspire young women to follow their dreams, and apparently that seed rooted deep. Now they have presented to Schriver’s staff, several brigadier generals, and have even booked the conference center. Their coverage on PRI yesterday was a huge accomplishment, and generated a ton of overnight interest.

The high school girls, who will start their senior year in the fall, have decided to do something that nobody has done before — not Pentagon officials, not governors, not mayors (at least, NPR can’t find a record of it). They are trying to organize the first major get-together for the children, specifically daughters, of troops who have gone to war.”We’d like to boost these girls and their self-esteem and their self-confidence,” Deakin tells the camera.”We are growing the sisterhood, with our mantra: unite, inspire, lead,” Hern adds. They call their conference “The Sisterhood of the Traveling BDUs” — a play on the title of a popular novel and Army speak for battle uniforms.

The entire ATC piece is so inspiring I urge you to listen to it in its entiretly. It will reassure you that this next generation, despite their IPOD’s and constant texting, can carry the burden of our nation towards a brighter and better future. It will inspire you that one person can make a difference and two people can make a movement. It will make you remember when you were in High School and dared to dream impractical things that couldn’t possibly happen.

And it will make you smile.