When it comes to building new reservoirs and hydroelectric plants, there are good dams and bad dams. A new online-calculator developed by Sebastopol’s Conservation Strategy Fund is a tool designed to help tell them apart.

What’s the difference between a good dam and a bad dam? CFS President John Reid offers examples of each.

Check out  the new web-based HydroCalculator here! development of this new online tool was made possible with support from the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

An unpopular plan to privatize the Sonoma County dump has been voted down by county supervisors, rekindling hope that they might still be able to resume operations at the facility, which has been inactive for the past four years.

A sizable crowd was on hand for the meeting Tuesday morning, many of them wearing "Go Green" badges to indicate their opposition to the proposed divestiture deal. Some of them were apparently mobilized by the eight-minute video below, which was posted on YouTube the preceding weekend.

“This agreement does not have a constituency,” observed Supervisor Shirlee Zane, after the parade of speakers unanimously denounced the proposal Tuesday morning. Windsor Town Council member Deborah Fudge (right)  faulted the county for much of that, saying that closed door meetings and a process that assumed any outreach would happen after the divestiture was approved, had backfired on the Board.

One of the repeated messages during public comments on the divestiture proposal was that, even if approved by the board of supervisors, it will still be dependent on the full participation of most of the local municipalities. Yet council members from Santa Rosa, Windsor, and Healdsburg  all expressed reservations. Petaluma, which has already opted out and is now shipping their waste to Novato, might still be open to working with the county, suggested Mayor Pam Torliatt. But none of that seemed to inspire a desire for cooperation in Supervisor Paul Kelley.

Also see these previous North Bay Reports on the Sonoma County landfill issue:

The Deal for the Dump  (Oct. 1, 2009)

Landfill Leak (July 7, 2009)

The Landfill's Future (March 31, 2009)

Sonoma County is far from alone is struggling to deal responsibly and locally with its garbage. This video takes a critical look at the situation in neighboring Marin County.

Sonoma County inventor James McElvaney (right), has developed a system to convert organic waste into energy and other beneficial byproducts, one that creates the energy that powers it in the bargain.

Bob Hillman, McElvaney's partner in their start-up,  Bioconverter LLC,  sees their new technology as a tool to capture greenhouse gases while also combating invasive, non-native plants, such as the Ludwigia, or Creeping Water Primrose, now prevalent in the Laguna de Santa Rosa.

The company offers a more comprehensive explanation of their processes on the FAQ page of their website, but you can read an overview here.

The primary process of bioconversion takes place in a series of vertical tanks, such as those seen at left.  In addition to the environmental benefits of bioconversion, Hillman notes that it has the economic potential to actually fund some of those productive outcomes.

Some invasive plants in northern California will not tolerate higher temperatures and other habitat changes resulting from global warming. But there are others that can be expected to thrive and spread even further.

Elizabeth Brusati is program manager for the California Invasive Plant Council.  She was among the presenters at the State of the Laguna Conference in Rohnert Park last week, where  one area of emphasis was  strategies for adapting watershed ecosystems to climate change.