Valley Headlines

1.1 million bee hives lost

GV Wire. 1.1 million bee colonies died this winter; race is on to learn why.
Synopsis: Reporter Edward Smith puts startling numbers to a story that came out a couple of weeks ago about the loss of bees. The death of 1.1 million hives (nationwide) leaves a shortfall of 500,000 hives for the pollination season. That loss of bees is the most since 2006 when sudden colony collapse became top-of-mind. “With no pollination, you have no food production, period. And we have almost zero visibility into what’s happening,” said Omer Davidi, CEO of BeeHero Monitoring. Some folks think the varroa mite is at fault; others say pesticides. The varroa mite attacks the bee larva in the cone. Worse, the sprays that used to kill the mite don’t work any longer.

CA’s shelters filled with ‘chaos’

Cal Matters. ‘A volunteer jail’: Inside the scandals and abuse pushing homeless out of shelters.
Synopsis: Reporter Lauren Helper looks at “chaos” that has been documented in shelters in Salinas (family of staff taking best donations), a “security” worker committing sex crimes daily in LA, child abuse in Fresno, black mold in Oakland, etc. It has led to “an epidemic of shelter deaths.” Overall, your chances of dying in one of the state’s 61,000 shelter beds are higher than dying in one of our 78,000 jail cells. What we’re doing isn’t working and the broken parts are doing real harm. “Shelters become a bridge to nowhere.” One shelter CEO notes that shelters are required to serve as psychiatric wards, so “what the fuck did you think was going to happen?” One shelter staffer, upon becoming homeless, chose to stay in her car. Complaints are ignored by the state, and even shelter operators wonder why the state doesn’t inspect them.

Cal Matters. They were arrested for sleeping outside while homeless, now they are headed to trial.
Synopsis: After the Supreme Court said homeless people can be arrested for appearing in public, counties are putting them in jail. Story focuses on one man’s “interaction” with the court system, in which he repeatedly appeared early only to be “delayed” at the county’s request. “The stressful, unpredictable nature of life on the streets doesn’t lend itself to keeping appointments,” writes the reporter. Mostly, the cases are dismissed or never brought to trial because prosecutors would rather divert or drop the cases than prosecute folks for having nothing.
MAD Take: On one hand, shelters are hellholes. On the other, prosecutors know most homeless folks pose less danger to the public than the other way around. But the public hates seeing them. In the face of this conundrum, the governor unveiled a website on Monday so you can view data. It’s unfair to criticize honest effort, but the timing is awful; will a website add anything to what we already know? During the Governor’s 100 Day Challenge in Merced, we learned what actually works -- close contact with the homeless, finding out who they are and what they need and having the resources to provide it. That’s the hard part.

Shelters breed more despair

Cal Matters. When I lived in a homeless shelter, my hope turned into despair. 
Synopsis: Patrick Hogan writes about being homeless in Orange County for 10 months, seeing the “cruelty that the homeless inflicted on each other,” misconduct by police, and the lack of real effort for change. He writes: “The shelter systems in place today are designed to isolate, infantilize and frustrate those who are unlucky enough to get into them.” Then he describes how shelters “turn hope into despair.” His only answer: Creating housing that people can afford.

Protests outside Rep’s office

Modesto Bee. Constituents protest outside McClintock’s Modesto office; what they want.
Synopsis: Kathleen Quinn reports on the 150 folks who showed up in front of McClintock’s office demanding that he push back against any effort to remove Medicare and Medicaid funding, to betray Ukraine or support Elon Musk. Others, including one veteran, fears dictatorship from Trump. Another is completely reliant on Social Security and worries it will be cut.

Flora wants to empower nurses

Modesto Bee. State bills would remove physician oversight from nurse anesthetists in Stan County.
Synopsis: Heath Flora has introduced two bills to “upgrade the status of nurse anesthetists” to help ease the shortage of MD anesthesiologists in rural hospitals. Instead of their work being overseen by anesthesiologists, they will be on their own and able to administer pain meds and controlled substances. This gets back to a situation last year when the state banned nurse anesthetists at DMC due to a lack of oversight by doctors. Dr. Antonio Hernandez Conte says this will remove any oversight by doctors and lower standards. He says it is “out of line with the best practices nationally and has the potential to threaten the lives of CA patients.”

 Salmon study: kill the lights

Maven / University of Colorado. How young salmon navigate a gauntlet of danger en route to sea.
Synopsis: A team of University of Colorado researchers studied how salmon move out of the Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers into the San Joaquin then to the ocean. Only 5% make it in a good year, with most eaten by bass. The paper’s author says the “salmon fishery in the San Joaquin River delta area is on the verge of collapsing.” Apparently, the survivors are adept at altering their migration techniques to match the threat. The study says limiting light pollution from cities could help fish survive.
MAD Take: This study tells us almost nothing new. We’ve known about predation since the early 2000s when FishBio and Cramer Fish Sciences proved it, but the environmental community rejected any hint that it might be bass – and not inadequate flows – destroying the salmon fishery. Suggesting that turning out the lights in Modesto would help salmon hide is, well, suspect.

Activism disguised as reporting

Cal Matters. Even in wet years, wells are still dry; why replenishing CA’s groundwater is slow.
Synopsis: “Reporter” Alastair Bland starts his story by noting reservoirs are at 120% of normal but then shifts to groundwater use. “Even after multiple wet winters, and despite a state law that’s supposed to protect and restore the state’s precious groundwater, thousands of wells – mostly in rural, low-income communities in the San Joaquin Valley – have gone dry because of over-pumping by growers.” Deep in the story, he notes that people like Don Cameron and Sarah Woolf – both farmers – are doing something about this on their own, taking water that overflows the canals and putting it into recharge basins. But he immediately brings up the problem with diverting water for recharge – even when it is “excess” water beyond the needs of the environment – to fish flows, saying it hurts the environment. There is almost no reporting on the water board’s efforts to force subbasin organizations to reach sustainability.
MAD Take: Two problems with Alastair’s reporting. 1) Nowhere does he mention SGMA timeframes, so this story is premature. 2) Alastair remains more activist than reporter. While he provides numbers, he seldom provides context. He notes, derisively, that in 2023 (the last year for which we actually have figures), farmers put 7.6-million-acre feet into aquifers. What he doesn’t mention is that 7.6 MAF is the equivalent of Lake Shasta, Don Pedro and Lake McClure combined. He writes that groundwater gains “have not undone decades of unregulated groundwater pumping.” Huh? Nothing can undo subsidence. Alastair then closes by trying to denigrate everything agriculture is trying to do to improve the situation: “Farmers are not going to be able to recharge their way out of this.”

Judge, sharks coming to Modesto

Modesto Bee. The first Black female judge in Northern CA is coming to Modesto.
Synopsis: Judge LaDoris Hazzard Cordell will be the main speaker at the MJC Modesto Peace/Life Center on Saturday as part of the ongoing Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration. During the event, Gladys Williams will receive the MLK Jr. Legacy Award.

Modesto Bee. MJC lecture series for families will feature shark expert from Merced.
Synopsis: The Modesto Area Partners in Science program on Feb. 28 at Sierra Hall on the West Campus will feature Sora Kim, an associated professor from UC Merced. She’s been featured on Shark Week programming. There are other programs on tap later this Spring.

How is 5-23 acceptable?

Fresno Bee. Fresno State’s men’s basketball is 5-23 and in a gambling probe, and that’s acceptable?
Synopsis: Columnist Marek Warszawski writes about the problems at Bulldog State, where three of the team’s leading scorers are no longer playing and a new record for futility has been achieved. He says coach Vance Walberg was hired due to backing from influential donors. “I have to believe that a 5-23 record combined with players alleged to have placed bets involving their own games would result in a complete do-over. Not at Fresno State.” It’s the worst black eye since 2006 when a starter was convicted of murder following a botched drug deal. “This is what rock bottom feels like.”