Environment

A vegetation fire threatening several homes in the 18500 block of Montevina Road above Los Gatos didn't end up consuming any structures or injuring anybody this afternoon, authorities said. The blaze sparked around noon and as Santa Clara County Fire Department and Cal Fire crews...

The publicly traded company that provides Los Gatos with water recently got the go-ahead to fire up two solar power generating stations—one in Los Gatos and one in Saratoga. Together they’ll help keep about 21 tons of greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere each year,...

This past Wednesday, the Los Gatos Town Council and Planning Commission held a joint special session to discuss the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA (pronounced SEE-qua), as it pertains to developments planned for the community. David J. Powers and Associates, an Oakland-based private environmental...

Home gardens and landscapes should be compatible with their respective climates. For local chaparral climates, plants that do not need much watering through the long and dry summers are appropriate. Aquatic plants are the extreme opposite. They require regular replenishment of the ponds that...

Santa Clara County suffered an estimated $15.4 million in damage to local roadways during the winter storms that doused the West Coast in the first three months of the year, according to county officials. The initial storms during the end of December 2022 and throughout...

A few months back, neighbors Maggie Contro, an 8-year-old third-grader at Daves Avenue Elementary, and Arlo Britz, a 7-year-old boy a grade below, were sweeping her home’s porch, when they realized they were doing something worth scaling. Contro had been wanting to start some kind...

California State Parks announced yesterday it has begun burning hundreds of piles of dead sticks, leaves and branches at various locations in the Santa Cruz Mountains. This work will be dependent on dry weather and conditions that allow for smoke dispersal. Burning will continue as it...

The Los Gatos Creek Watershed Collaborative was awarded a $6,336,790 Cal Fire Forest Health Grant to continue work in the watershed, incorporating new treatment areas with Aldercroft Heights Firewise and Lupin Lodge, the Santa Clara County FireSafe Council announced May 2.  This forest health project...

Wednesday morning around 7:45am, 6,301 homes lost power, after a fault was reported on a line that serves the San Lorenzo Valley, according to utility officials. The outage occurred on a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. circuit that has Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings built in,...

Before you pull up any more “weeds” in your garden, you may want to consider what Alrie Middlebrook has to share about native edible plants and trees. This past Saturday and Sunday, 50 or so gardens around the San Francisco Bay participated in the...