Top Environmentalist to Keynote Los Altos Sierra Club Celebration

Written by Susan Shena

Dr. Nina Roberts, a Fulbright scholar and environmental expert from San Francisco State University, will speak on “Conservation and the Changing Face of America,” at Saturday's 80th anniversary celebration of the Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club, which serves Los Altos and Santa Clara County.

The topic is particularly fitting as the chapter looks forward to the next 80 years. 

The afternoon program begins at 4 p.m. at the Garden House at Shoup Park in Los Altos with a silent auction, followed by a cocktail-hour buffet and live music. Master of ceremonies will be State Senator Jerry Hill. 

Tickets to the event are sold out, but those interested can be placed on a waiting list. Details are here.
 
The Loma Prieta Chapter was founded by a dedicated group of hikers gathered at Hidden Villa in Los Altos Hills. Sixty charter members established what would become one of the largest Sierra Club chapters, with over 16,000 members to date.

The local chapter was instrumental in: preserving creek setbacks in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties from encroaching development; in supporting the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration efforts; and the adoption of plastic bag and polystyrene ordinances in dozens of cities.

Other efforts over the past 80 years include: the passage of the Coastal Act; defeat of the environmentally destructive Devil’s Slide bypass resulting in the recently opened Tom Lantos Tunnels; in the adoption of legislation that requires disclosure of information about the cumulative impacts for past logging in California’s forests; in a settlement with Lehigh Cement resulting in an agreement that will lead to restoration for steelhead in Permanente Creek; in the adoption of a strong Santa Clara Valley Habitat Conservation Plan, in fighting to save the bucolic Panoche Valley from a poorly sited solar farm that would impact several endangered species.