Some sort of sidewalk collapse occurred Thursday morning over a utility trench near the Lower Haight neighborhood, trapping one person underground.

The San Francisco Fire Department undertook a rescue effort near the intersection of Divisadero and Oak streets Thursday morning. A collapse occurred just before 10:30 a.m., and the SFFD’s public information officer, Captain Jonathan Baxter, tweeted that there was one person trapped under an estimated eight feet of dirt.

The nature of the trench or what kind of construction or other activity had been going on there is not clear. Firefighters were pictured in the area focused on the sidewalk and street just outside a garage, where they were digging to remove dirt. The garage can be seen below, between two Victorian buildings on the 1100 block of Oak Street.

Photo: Google Street View

Motorists are being told to avoid the area, and traffic is backing up on both Oak and Divisadero.

ABC 7 has live helicopter footage of the rescue effort.

Update: According to Captain Baxter, a “sidewalk collapse occurred during utility construction work.”

Update 2: Baxter confirmed as of around 12:15 p.m. that rescuers had reached the trapped individual, and he was deceased. The operation then transitioned into a body-recovery effort.

The nature of the work that was being performed in the trench and by whom has not yet been reported.

Rescuers on scene at Oak and Divisadero have reached the victim and confirmed the rescue has transitioned into recovery. SF Medical Examiner is on scene and the cause of the incident will be under investigation.
SFFD will remain on-scene until recovery operations are complete. pic.twitter.com/HvvFvTi8MF

— SAN FRANCISCO FIRE DEPARTMENT MEDIA (@SFFDPIO) September 28, 2023

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When it’s time to pick up a bag of charcoal, there are almost as many options in the barbecue aisle as there are candy bars at any grocery checkout station. And the debate about which one is best is a heated one — literally.

What burns hottest? What burns longest? What delivers the best flavor? What meats would pair best with it?

So we held a trial by fire for six kinds of charcoal, testing them to answer these chin-scratching questions. Every brand was given a full chimney starter’s worth of coals, which amounts to about 50 briquettes, or about a pound of the hardwood varieties that aren’t uniform in size.

With each test, the grill was cleaned out so no residue from any previous cook remained, allowing each charcoal to stand on its own merits. And with each type, I cooked an 8-ounce, thick-cut sirloin steak, seasoned only with kosher salt and coarse-ground black pepper, on a classic 20-inch kettle-style Weber grill. Each steak was given five minutes per side (10 minutes total) to see if it would reach the ideal medium-rare finish of a 135-degree internal temperature in that time.

No lighter fluid, was used and all charcoal was started with a propane torch. Here are the findings, with each charcoal rated Grill On, Average or Bag It.

B&B Competition Char-Logs: By far the most unusual take on charcoal ($19.99 for 30 pounds), these briquette logs are shaped like thick slices of pool noodles with a hole in the middle and are built more for longer cooks like low-and-slow smoking than your standard backyard cookout.

They took about 40 minutes to get to 450-500 degrees, but even after all that time, the size of the logs remained about the same. They failed to deliver charcoal flavor to the steak, although it did get to medium-rare in the 10-minute window I allowed.

But the strength in this brand is its ability to hold high heat for a long time with pieces of wood stacked on top. There is a reason “competition” is in the name: It’s a staple in that community and is the foundation for scores of briskets and pork ribs. Rating: Average

H-E-B Grand Champion Applewood: Apple doesn’t get much love in Texas, so this H-E-B variety ($4.48 for 8 pounds) begged for a taste test. I smoke a lot of pork with apple, and it produces a sweet, smoky finish. In charcoal form, the flavor wasn’t quite as dominating, but this brand fired up to 500 degrees in 20 minutes and stayed there like a book reader on a park bench.

The high heat delivered a crispy gristle on the steak that sealed in the seasoning like a blanket and allowed the beef flavor to stand out more than the fuel. This is a knockout charcoal that would work with anything, and it’s the runaway winner of the test. Rating: Grill On, and overall winner

Jack Daniel’s: The bag ($4.98 for 4 pounds) looks like the famous whiskey label and is infused with the white oak wood used to make the barrels of the good stuff. It also comes with a side bag of six pieces of actual barrel wood that you can use to add flavor.

It failed to generate heat, unable to get much hotter than a max of 325 degrees inside the closed grill dome, even after an hour of lighting the coals. And the real bummer was there was absolutely no trace of the whiskey flavor. Also, those barrel pieces burn off way too quickly to add anything of significance to the cook.

This charcoal is nothing more than a gimmick, producing a ho-hum steak that couldn’t get beyond the rarest of rare in 10 minutes. Rating: Bag It

Kingsford Original: This old warhorse ($6.99 for 8 pounds) has been around for more than 100 years and is the standard for backyard grilling. That leads to a little tension among cookout champs because it’s akin to the big-box store picking on the little guy, but it got to be the big name because it’s a tremendous product.

Kingsford heats very quickly (500 degrees in 15 minutes) and produces the nostalgic flavors of your childhood. It’s clearly designed for the hot dog and burger community, but it tackled the steak like a champ, and there’s no reason it can’t continue to be your default for anything else you throw at it.

The only drawback is that the briquettes get very ashy and burn off quickly, so it will require at least one or two reloads for cooks that extend beyond one hour. Rating: Average

Royal Oak Hardwood Lump: This hardwood lump variety ($7.98 for 8 pounds) is made with a mixture of oak, maple, hickory and other select woods with pieces that can range in size from a golf ball to a Coke bottle. It wastes no time getting hot, hitting 475 degrees under the dome in 20 minutes, and the temperature held for more than an hour.

Royal Oak burns very cleanly, and the wood chunks don’t get overly ashy, which makes this a great option for “S,” allowing you to toss the meat or vegetables directly onto the fire.

There were zero issues with the steak getting to medium-rare, but the flavor wasn’t a standout. Rating:
Average

Viva Pancho: Made in Mexico, Viva Pancho ($5.39 for 8 pounds) is pure mesquite, with chunks of random-size hardwood.

It burns hot and fast, reaching 500 degrees under the dome within 20 minutes of ignition. It held a steady temperature of at least 400 degrees for more than an hour. It produces so much smoke, you’ll smell like a chimney sweep after the cook, but it produced a wicked-good steak with a sweet yet smoky bite that hit the perfect medium-rare temperature in 10 minutes.

Great all around, but I would not use it for longer cooks because of the harshness of the mesquite smoke. Rating: Grill on

cblount@express-news.net

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Plumes of sinister-looking smoke were billowing over Midpines and Steve and Andrea Ward were scrambling to grab what belongings they could as the Oak Fire closed in on their Mariposa County home on Triangle Road.

The house, heavy with more than a decade of family memories, was where the Wards had been married just two weeks before their phones began blaring with evacuation orders.

They made it out safely Friday. But a day later, after hours of worrying, the Wards watched their home burst into flames on footage posted online by NBC News. The house was destroyed but for a chimney, a wood-burning stove and a propane tank.

The Wards’ wedding was the culmination of 14 years of memories in the house. They consider themselves lucky, in that the house wasn’t their primary residence. But the loss has impacted their long-term plans for building lifelong memories as a family.

“I’ve always wanted it to be something about family, where a family can go make memories and just be the special place,” Andrea said, tears welling in her eyes on a Zoom call. “I’m happy we had at least one event with our families coming together there,” she said, referring to the wedding.

Parts of the once-standing home of Andrea and Steve Ward can be seen after flames from the Oak Fire swept through Triangle Road in Mariposa County, Calif. on Tuesday, July 26, 2022.

Brontë Wittpenn/The Chronicle

“I woke up hearing the explosion over and over again,” Andrea wrote in a Facebook post Sunday morning. The Wards’ house was one of the first homes to burn in the Oak Fire, which by Wednesday had destroyed 74 structures, including at least 49 single-family homes.

“It was honestly such a heartbreaking moment. It was a jaw-drop moment, it’s jarring for sure,” Andrea said. “We were making it ours; we really were.”

Last year, Steve and Andrea had enjoyed their first date at the property, in what Andrea said was a magical moment. “We were able to get to a place that had this wonderful view and it was a moment where we could be quiet and enjoy the surroundings,” Andrea said.

“We were looking to have this (house) symbolize a place of unity and togetherness for our family to come together and celebrate as a respite away from the chaos of day to day life,” Steve said.

Andrea, 42, said the house had been in her family since she was 28. That same year, 2008, they held Christmas at the house when they experienced their first snow as family on the property. Kids outside captured snow on their tongues.

“It was just a lovely moment,” Andrea said.

The once-standing home of Andrea and Steve Ward can be seen after flames from the Oak Fire swept through Triangle Road in Mariposa County, Calif. on Tuesday, July 26, 2022.

Brontë Wittpenn/The Chronicle

Andrea said the house represented a milestone in her efforts to move away from a difficult upbringing, and a way to give a better life to her newly blended family.

“To me, it really is the completion, it was a major thing for me to be able to give that to someone else to be able to have those experiences,” Andrea said.

The day after they saw their house blow up in flames, Steve and Andrea were able to return to the site with news crews.

“It was absolutely surreal getting to walk around the property,” Andrea said.

Andrea said that although the house was gone, elements from their wedding, a windmill, cherry tree and concrete where their “welcome” mat use to sit survived the destruction.

“It was a sign that we’ve got to find a way to rebuild. There’s just still so many memories there and I want to get that again,” Andrea said.

Now the couple, who returned to their home in Merced after the fire started, look to eventually rebuild the house. But, they will do so without having homeowner’s insurance. Andrea said that her home will take a “very” long time to rebuild.

“Looking at our destruction and turning around to see that our neighbors and communities are still standing was good,” Steve said. “When you look and see that homes and families, things we were looking to create in our place are still intact for many others, I was just grateful that so many in the community didn’t have to go through our struggles.”

“Next year we’ll find ourselves having a picnic on the property and use it as a milestone,” Steve said with a smile.

Jordan Parker (he/him) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jordan.parker@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @jparkerwrites.

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Temperatures rise, waters rise and now tensions rise, as climate change becomes an increasingly prominent topic in legislation and politics across the world — with 53% of Americans having experienced extreme weather in recent years, according to a CBS News poll.

From fire to floods, Sonoma County is no stranger to the devastations of natural disasters amid a changing climate. As student concern for sustainability surges and the issue’s presence becomes ever-pressing, Santa Rosa Junior College proceeds in an ambitious pursuit of achieving zero energy, zero water, zero waste and carbon neutrality by 2030.

“We have come a long way,” said SRJC Waste Diversion Technician Guy Tillotson regarding SRJC’s sustainability progress and plans over the course of his seven years on campus. “But we have lots of goals.”

SRJC’s Sustainability Committee, composed of students, faculty, classified staff and administrators, outlines how to allocate resources — notably $35 million from the Measure H Bond — and plan for an environmentally-friendly college in “Sustainable SRJC Greenprint,” a document President Dr. Frank Chong initially signed in 2015.

New drafts of “Greenprint 2.0” are now in the works, outlining initiatives within eight distinct categories, including transportation, curriculum and education, engagement and culture, resource use and climate, built environment, economics, food, and administration and organization.

“This district tries to put its attention on students and student support more than anything else,” Tillotson said. “So the committee and I are always like, ‘Don’t forget about sustainability; keep working on it a little bit.’”

Throughout the past decade, SRJC pursued several of these developments in the college’s infrastructure and practices — many of which are materializing in physical structures and administrative decisions today.

Zero Net Energy

Achieving zero net energy will require SRJC’s energy consumption to be equivalent to or below its renewable energy production.

“There’s holistic planning around how much energy we’re using and where it’s going,” SRJC Energy and Sustainability Manager David Liebman said.

SRJC’s largest source of renewable energy is photovoltaic arrays and solar panels, placed on buildings and carports. Estimated to save more than $1 million a year, the systems complement each other to provide an estimated 60% of energy needed to run the Santa Rosa campus, 100% at the Petaluma campus, 100% at the Public Safety Training Center and 90% at Shone Farm. They’re also expected to be implemented at the Southwest Center during its ongoing construction process.

“The big change is beginning to see that we are making a sustainable energy infrastructure system,” Liebman said.

“How do we start generating our energy as close to us as possible, how do we store that energy and how do we efficiently use what we’re storing?”

At SRJC, a significant portion of that solar energy is stored in a micro-grid on the Santa Rosa campus. Photovoltaic arrays convert solar energy into electricity that gets stored in batteries, a process that is amplified during peak hours of use. The stored electricity supplements regular energy needs and can be used during power outages.

“These projects work together to create that real sustainable energy infrastructure that we need to reach our goals,” Liebman said.
SRJC’s sustainability managers also oversaw the development of the Geothermal Plant Project, composed of 300 geothermal bores that are 400-feet-long and buried beneath Bailey Field. The groundwater, which has a constant temperature that is warmer than the air in the winter and cooler than the air in the summer, is transferred through small pipes to heat or cool Burbank Auditorium, Garcia Hall, and Analy and Forsyth halls.

“Maintaining the heating and cooling systems of 100-year-old buildings is very difficult,” Tillotson said. “We’ve replaced a lot of the [old] systems.”

Additional energy reduction plans include the installation of LED lights on the Santa Rosa and Petaluma campuses, which will save an estimated $300,000 a year and improve lighting quality.

“We’re producing renewable energy at each site,” Liebman said. “We’ve done significant energy efficiency improvements, and each site has a lot more underway.”

SRJC’s new dormitory at the soon-to-open Polly O’ Meara Doyle hall, is tied to the same energy system as the rest of the campus and will be able to optimize current solar power and heat pumps; Liebman also plans to add solar panels that will offset some of the impact.“One of the challenges with this building was how to maximize keeping rents low while achieving high sustainability,” Liebman said. “It’s just one of those design entities that we’ll have to keep working through.”

Eliminating net nonpotable water consumption

The Greenprint 2.0 calls for using potable water in volumes equal to or less than the amount of rainwater that falls on campus within a year, and non-potable water being used for all irrigation, plumbing and all other non-drinking purposes possible.

One of the larger contributors to this goal is SRJC’s Quinn Central Plant Project, expected to reduce the Santa Rosa campus’ water usage by roughly 20%. Its tank, located near Maggini Hall, holds 50,000 gallons of water, most of which will be used for irrigation, plumbing and cooling towers.

The plant collects water from a natural spring that was discovered in the 1970s, during the initial digging process for the Quinn Swim Center. It’s been long treated as a hazard for basement flooding; for years, SRJC transferred the spring water to the storm drain in a hasty attempt to alleviate the risk.

“It ended up being close to six or seven million gallons of water a year,” Liebman said. “To put that into perspective, the Santa Rosa campus uses about 25 million gallons of water a year — so 25% of all of our water supply, we were just pumping into the storm drain.”

The plant runs on an entirely separate plumbing system to prevent cross-contamination with clean drinking water, subsequently limiting its ability to be implemented in newer buildings. “To do more buildings over time, we’ll really phase into them as those buildings go through renovations,” Liebman said.

It’s gone through several trials with completion projected for June 2023.

SRJC’s Petaluma campus also uses reclaimed wastewater for irrigation, optimizing its close proximity to a wastewater plant.
“Recycled water is held to a high standard. It would be better to use that water than fresh drinking water, which is really vital and important for people; it isn’t needed to water our lawns or water our plants,” Liebman said.

“One of the challenges with this building was how to maximize keeping rents low while achieving high sustainability,” Liebman said. “It’s just one of those design entities that we’ll have to keep working through.”

SRJC currently diverts 50% of its waste; Tillotson drafted a goal of 80% by 2030 in Greenprint 2.0. “To me, zero waste means doing everything you possibly can, to reduce the amount of waste you produce and then how much you divert,” he said. “So the procedure would be to identify the kinds of waste you’re producing and come up with strategies to reduce it.”

Reducing and diverting campus waste

Tillotson noted a significant decrease in campus landfill waste during his time at SRJC, after the Sustainability Committee advocated for a designated person to focus full-time on waste management and raise awareness about excessive waste on campus.

“I set up a bunch of systems to increase the number of bins and to talk to people,” he said. “The garbage started going down, and the recycling started going up; it was great.”

Tillotson is currently working to pass a single-use plastics resolution, wherein departments would no longer be able use single-use plastics for items such as utensils, bags and food containers.

“You can’t walk into every classroom and talk to every student,” Tillotson said. “Passing laws and passing resolutions to eliminate waste is a lot better than just going around saying, ‘Hey, thanks for using a travel mug.’”

He’s also responsible for so-called “waste installations” seen throughout campus, which highlight common sources of waste from students– primarily coffee cups and plastic water bottles, casually arranged across a lawn. “The district culture allows for that kind of expression,” Tillotson said.

The installations began to appear around 2017 and gradually grew to occupy more space. “People say [the installations] have an effect on them; that’s why I keep doing them,” Tillotson said. “You have to push boundaries a little bit to create discomfort.”

Tillotson also observed a sharp decline in paper waste since COVID-19, as a change to online learning led several departments to reduce paper use indefinitely. “Everyone was relieved,” Tillotson said. “Several people, including myself, were like, ‘It’s time to just leave it online.’”

Tillotson expects SRJC’s new student housing to lead to a significant increase in campus waste initially — however, he also sees the change as an opportunity to promote healthy and sustainable choices in tandem with SRJC’s food vendors. This would prospectively include more plant-based and locally sourced options within students’ meal plans and at campus vending machines.

“A lot of people don’t have cooking experience; they’re going to tend to bring a lot of fast food back to their room and throw it all in the garbage,” Tillotson said of student incoming dormitory residents. “But if we have alternatives available, and some education about a zero-waste lifestyle, then they’re gonna be influenced to live a more sustainable lifestyle.”

Carbon neutrality means improving transportation options for students

Besides structural changes, carbon neutrality also addresses individual habits that contribute to methane, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. It involves optimal reduction of carbon output, in tandem with carbon-offsetting behaviors.

“Carbon neutral operation really focuses on the things that are within the college’s control,” Liebman said. “It’s reducing our emissions to a point where our energy electricity is clean, we’re shifting away from gasoline and diesel for vehicles and generators, and using electricity — as well as natural gas — for heating our buildings or cooking.”

Students and staff driving themselves to campus is the largest contributor to SRJC’s greenhouse gas emissions, estimated to comprise 60% of the school’s carbon use.

“We don’t want to say, ‘Everyone needs to take public transportation’; public transportation doesn’t work like that,” Liebman said. “But we acknowledge that driving a single-use vehicle that’s powered by gas is our largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and to a changing climate.”

But SRJC’s “commuter school” nature makes this a challenging number to tighten. Coordinating bus schedules and other sustainable transport options becomes unrealistic with more than 20,000 students attending classes on SRJC’s five campuses.

SRJC’s sustainability team is currently corresponding with the City of Santa Rosa to implement sustainable transportation that’s more feasible for students, including new public transport from Sonoma to SRJC and a bus schedule that runs more frequently and at later hours.

“[Public transportation] is going to be much more convenient for students and staff the more frequent the transportation is and the more flexible the schedule is,” Tillotson said. “So we’re advocating for those things.”

SRJC students are eligible to receive free Clipper Cards through the Clipper BayPass program, currently set to run through summer 2024. The cards waive students’ transportation costs at any Bay area public transit system that receives Clipper, including the Santa Rosa CityBus, SmartTrain, San Francisco Bay Ferry and BART.

“The BayPass is one program I can really attest to,” said student Jason Loureiro at SRJC’s Climate Action Night April 20. “I use it to commute to my job after the JC, and it’s really saved me a lot of money on gasoline.”

Several sustainability committee members have also called for attention toward the “bikeability” of SRJC’s Santa Rosa campus and surrounding area.

“If you’re on a bicycle, you’re on your own,” said Alexa Forrester, SRJC philosophy instructor and Bikeable Santa Rosa volunteer. “So what you get is bicyclists doing everything like riding against traffic or cutting across lanes; it’s not safe for anybody.”

Bikeable Santa Rosa, a nonprofit organization advocating for safer biking opportunities throughout the city, has additionally directed attention toward improving the roads surrounding SRJC and campaigning for “protected and connected bike lanes into and around campus,” Forrester said.

Most roads immediately surrounding SRJC have no designated biking area, and those that do are highly trafficked and offer minimal space. “It’s just intense fumes and checking over your shoulder,” Tillotson added, referencing the bike lane on Mendocino Avenue.
Forrester also commented on new construction at SRJC’s Southwest Center; she believes the campus’ infrastructure limits opportunities for sustainable transportation.

“If we really want to help our students choose alternatives to cars, making our campus welcoming to bikes and making people on bikes feel like they’re welcome here, that’s going to help change the culture,” Forrester said. “And it would really help our greenhouse goals as a community if we could have more people biking to campus.”

The City of Santa Rosa also recently postponed construction for the bicyclist and pedestrian bridge extending from Elliott to Edwards Avenue after reallocating funding. The original proposed bridge, which offered students on the Santa Rosa campus easy access to Coddingtown Mall rather than having to cross Highway 101, went through additional stages of design refinement in December 2022 before getting delayed.

“There is still some money for the bridge, but the city needs to back it,” Sustainability Committee Co-chair Abigail Zoger said. “What I would like to see is SRJC students, SRJC student government, SRJC faculty and SRJC administrators be more active with the City of Santa Rosa in the County of Sonoma, demanding sustainable development that helps our students.”

Because eliminating transportation-related emissions isn’t possible for a large portion of students, given uncoordinated work schedules and other personal circumstances, SRJC is taking other measures to minimize its impact and offset the impact of greenhouse gasses.

“That’s the reality of the world,” Liebman said. “Student responses tell me, ‘Okay, I need to make sure to invest in electric vehicle infrastructure,’ because there are students who might eventually get an electric vehicle.”

The new dormitory is also expected to help reduce SRJC’s transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions, potentially bleeding into its overall carbon footprint. “Having on-campus residence halls is an excellent idea for sustainability,” Tillotson said of the new construction. “So I’m hoping we build a second, even a third, residential tower.”

Shone Farm’s acreage also provides SRJC “carbon credit” that shrinks the district’s total carbon footprint. Crop photosynthesis sequesters carbon in the soil, which is subsequently subtracted from final emissions calculations.

Individual impacts

SRJC Energy and Sustainability Manager David Liebman urged students to reach out to college leaders and administrators with suggestions that the college should take regarding climate-related resolutions.

“As we get to every younger generation, their future is becoming more and more impacted by the changing climate,” he said. “Students have a voice; it’s all based around power and what students want to see.”

Sustainability Committee Co-chair Abigail Zoger also emphasized the importance of student advocacy for larger scales of change.

“I think individuals can do lots, but I’d like to see students get involved with city and county politics,” Zoger said. “The truth is that we have to make systemic change.”

Tillotson also noted that sustainable choices can be more economical for students; they often involve minimizing consumerism and purchasing fewer high-waste products.

“Sometimes it’s just habits, not buying a huge pack of water bottles and refilling at home,” Tillotson said. “Who wouldn’t want to save four, five, six hundred dollars for just a little habit?”

The big picture

Liebman added that students have opportunities to get involved in sustainability-related clubs as additional ways to support campus initiatives.

“Whether it’s about biodiversity, landscapes or learning about renewable energy and wanting to see it on your campus, students getting together with a passion for sustainability provides so much power in expanding the culture of sustainability,” he said.

To quantify and compare its environmental performance, SRJC became the first California community college to implement the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS), by submitting to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education extensive data detailing the college’s emissions, waste and energy usage.

SRJC’s bronze ranking expired in 2022, but a reevaluation is expected within the next year and a half.

“We’re hoping that by then we’ll achieve a silver ranking,” Liebman said. “We might be able to push it to a gold.”

As SRJC proceeds to expand resources for students, climate advocates push for the administration to implement sustainability-related infrastructure and practices that support the 2030 goals set by Greenprint 2.0.

“By this time next year, we’ll probably be around halfway there,” Liebman said of the college’s 2030 goals. “But even with all the amazing work that we’re doing, being halfway there still means we have a long way to go.”

Solar panels on the Zumwalt Parking Garage have contributed to the most significant reduction in SRJC’s carbon emissions over the past several years.

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