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The post Peninsula Worldwide Dance Pageant will get transferring in San Mateo appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) – It is this industry that is expected to contribute to the revitalization of San Francisco by attracting the major players in artificial intelligence to the city center.

But on Monday, Replit, an AI company valued at over $1 billion, announced its withdrawal from the city.

Despite the move, Replit says it won’t go far.

They just move down the peninsula to Foster City.

“A single company is not a trend. That is my opinion,” said Ahmed Banafa.

MORE: San Francisco currently has 35% office vacancy rate, highest ever: Data

Banafa is a technology expert at San Jose State University.

He says the move doesn't change the fact that San Francisco remains the undisputed AI capital – not just here in the Bay Area, but around the world.

It's not clear how many employees Replit has, but Banafa says he would be concerned if larger companies like OpenAI decided to leave.

“They're called anchor companies that everyone cares about. But when you have companies that are just starting out or new to the field, there are thousands of AI companies,” Banafa said.

Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council, shared this view.

MORE: Experts explain how OpenAI's leadership shakeup could impact San Francisco

Because the Bay Area economy largely functions as a single unit, San Francisco will still benefit from Replit's proximity, Wunderman says.

“The fact that a company is in the middle of the action in San Francisco itself, in Silicon Valley, in San Jose or in San Mateo County, each has its own clear advantages. But the company's location also benefits those outside of that region,” Wunderman said.

But leaving San Francisco is only part of the story, said the company's CEO, who explained his reasons in a thread on X.

It states, among other things:

“The 'why' we're leaving is boring, sad, and predictable (crime, dysfunction, etc.), so instead let me tell you why we chose Foster City.”

MORE: Biden's executive order sets new rules for AI. Here they are.

In the rest of his article, he describes what he finds attractive about the city on the peninsula.

Namely the safe environment, the ideal location and the high standard of living.

Foster City officials say they are happy about this and hope that more companies will follow in Replit's footsteps.

“We are a prime location for offices and we have this technology center, this biotechnology center, all coupled with the beautiful residential and recreational amenities that the city has to offer,” said Marlene Subhashini, deputy city manager of Foster City.

If you use the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live

Copyright © 2024 KGO-TV. All rights reserved.

The post $1 billion synthetic intelligence firm Replit abandons San Francisco for the Bay Space Peninsula appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SEWARD PENINSULA — Ducks and swans flew overhead as Sylvester Ayek, 82, and his daughter Kimberly, 35, hauled rocks to anchor their small salmon net on the bank of a deep, tidal channel — 25 miles inland from the open Bering Sea coast. 

Nearby on that July day, Mary Jane Litchard, Ayek’s partner, picked wild celery and set out a lunch of past subsistence harvests: a blue-shelled seabird egg, dried beluga whale meat and red salmon dipped in seal oil.

Then, as they waited for fish to fill the net, the family motored Ayek’s skiff up the channel, known as the Tuksuk, spotting birds and seals and passing family fish camps where drying salmon hung on racks. Soon, the steep channel walls gave way to a huge, saltwater lake: the Imuruk Basin, flanked by the snow-dotted peaks of the Kigluaik Mountains. 

Ayek describes the basin as a “traditional hunting and gathering place” for the local Iñupiat, who have long sustained themselves on the area’s bounty of fish, berries and wildlife.

Sylvester Ayek, an Iñupiaq subsistence hunter, fisherman and sculptor, prepares to set his salmon net off the bank of the Tuksuk Channel on the Seward Peninsula. (Photo by Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

On a day trip subsistence fishing in the Tuksuk Channel, Mary Jane Litchard, 72, holds up a part of her family’s lunch: a hard-boiled murre egg. (Photo by Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

But despite a long Indigenous history, and a brief settler boom during the Gold Rush more than a century ago, a couple of weather-beaten cabins were the only obvious signs of human impact as Ayek’s boat idled — save for a set of tiny, beige specks at the foot of the mountains.

Those specks were a camp run by a Canadian exploration company, Graphite One. And they marked the prospective site of a mile-wide open pit mine that could reach deep below the tundra — into the largest known deposit of graphite in the U.S.

The mine could help power America’s electric vehicle revolution, and it’s drawing enthusiastic support from powerful government officials in both Alaska and Washington, D.C. That includes the Biden administration, which recently announced up to $37.5 million in subsidies for Graphite One through the U.S. Department of Defense. 

So far, the announcements from the project’s politically connected boosters have received far more attention than the several hundred Alaskans whose lives would be affected directly by Graphite One’s mine. 

While opinions in the nearby Alaska Native villages of Brevig Mission and Teller are mixed, there are significant pockets of opposition, particularly among the area’s tribal leaders. Many residents worry the project will harm the subsistence harvests that make life possible in a place where the nearest well-stocked grocery store is a two-hour drive away, in Nome.

Kimberly Ayek picks a salmon from her family’s net in the shallows of the Tuksuk Channel. (Photo by Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

“The further they go with the mine, our subsistence will just move further and further away from us,” Gilbert Tocktoo, president of Brevig Mission’s tribal government, said over a dinner of boiled salmon at his home. “And sooner or later, it’s going to become a question of: Do I want to live here anymore?”

Despite those concerns, Graphite One is gathering local support: Earlier this month, the board of the region’s Indigenous-owned, for-profit corporation unanimously endorsed the project. 

The Nome-based corporation, Bering Straits Native Corp., also agreed to invest $2 million in Graphite One, in return for commitments related to jobs and scholarships for shareholders.

The tensions surrounding Graphite One’s project underscore how the rush to bolster domestic manufacturing of electric vehicles threatens a new round of disruption to tribal communities and landscapes that have already borne huge costs from past mining booms.

Sylvester Ayek points toward the Kigluaik Mountains and the site of the Graphite One exploration project as his skiff bobs in the Imuruk Basin. (Photo by Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

Sylvester Ayek and his daughter Kimberly set their gill net in the Tuksuk Channel. (Photo by Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

Across the American West, companies are vying to extract the minerals needed to power electric vehicles and other green technologies. Proposed mines for lithium, antimony and copper are chasing some of the same generous federal tax credits as Graphite One — and some are advancing in spite of objections from Indigenous people who have already seen their lands taken and resources diminished over more than a century of mining.

The Seward Peninsula’s history is a case in point: Thousands of non-Native prospectors came here during the Gold Rush, which began in 1898. The era brought devastating bouts of pandemic disease and displacement for the Iñupiat, and today, that history weighs on some as they consider how Graphite One could affect their lives. 

Taluvaaq Qiñuġana, pictured in her home village of Brevig Mission, is opposed to Graphite One’s proposed mining project. The open pit mine would be built in the area of her family’s traditional subsistence harvesting grounds. (Photo by Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

“A lot of people like to say that our culture is lost. But we didn’t just go out there and lose it: It was taken from us,” said Taluvaaq Qiñuġana, a 24-year-old Iñupiaq resident of Brevig Mission. A new mining project in her people’s traditional harvesting grounds, she said, “feels like continuous colonization.”

But other Indigenous residents of Brevig Mission and Teller say the villages would benefit from well-paying jobs that could come with the mine. Cash income could help people sustain their households in the two communities, where full-time work is otherwise scarce. 

Graphite One executives say one of their highest priorities, as they advance their project toward permitting and construction, is protecting village residents’ harvests of fish, wildlife and berries. They say they fully appreciate the essential nature of that food supply.

“This is very real to them,” said Mike Schaffner, Graphite One’s senior vice president of mining. “We completely understand that we can’t come in there and hurt the subsistence, and we can’t hurt how their lifestyle is.”

The Iñupiaq residents of the village of Brevig Mission depend on subsistence harvests of fish, wildlife and berries. Some fear a planned graphite mine nearby could interfere with their way of life. (Photo by Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

U.S. produces no domestic graphite

Graphite is simply carbon — like a diamond but far softer, because of its different crystal structure. Graphite is used as a lubricant, in industrial steelmaking, for brake linings in automobiles and as pencil lead.

It’s also a key component of the high-powered lithium batteries that propel electric cars. 

Once mined and concentrated, graphite is processed into a powder that’s mixed with a binder, then rolled flat and curled into the hundreds of AA-battery-sized cylinders that make up the battery pack.

America hasn’t mined any graphite in decades, having been undercut by countries where it’s extracted at a lower cost.

China currently produces more than half of the world’s mined graphite and nearly all of the highly processed type needed for batteries. The country so dominates the supply chain that global prices typically rise each winter when cold temperatures force a single region, Heilongjiang, to shut down production, said Tony Alderson, an analyst at a price tracking firm called Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

Some forecasts say graphite demand, driven by growth in electric vehicles, could rise 25-fold by 2040. Amid growing U.S.-China political tensions, supply chain experts have warned about the need to diversify America’s sources of graphite. 

Last year’s climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act, written in part to wrest control of electric vehicle manufacturing from China, is accelerating that search.

For new electric cars to qualify for a $3,750 tax credit under the act, at least 40% of the value of the “critical minerals” that go into their batteries must be extracted or processed domestically, or in countries such as Canada or Mexico that have free-trade agreements with the United States. 

That fraction rises to 80% in four years.

Graphite One is one of just three companies currently advancing graphite mining projects in the United States, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. And company officials are already marketing their graphite to global electric vehicle makers.

But when they presented their preliminary plans to Tesla, “they said, ‘That’s great, we are interested in buying them, but we would need to write 40 contracts of this size to meet our need,’” Schaffner, the Graphite One vice president, said at a community meeting this year, according to the Nome Nugget. 

In response, Graphite One is now studying a mine that could be substantially larger than its original proposal.

The Tuksuk Channel, which reaches inland to the Imuruk Basin and its surrounding tundra, is a vital area for harvests by residents of the nearby Iñupiaq villages of Brevig Mission and Teller. (Photo by Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

It’s too early to know how, exactly, the mine’s construction could affect the surrounding watershed. One reason is that the level of risk it poses is linked to its size, and Graphite One has not yet determined how big its project will be.

While graphite itself is nontoxic and inert, the company also hasn’t finished studying the acid-generating potential of the rock that its mine could expose — another key indicator of the project’s level of risk. Stronger acid is more likely to release toxic metals into water that Graphite One would have to contain and treat before releasing back into the environment.

One fish biologist in the region has also said he fears the mine’s construction could negatively affect streams flowing out of the Kigluaik Mountains, though Graphite One officials disagree. The streams’ cool water, according to Charlie Lean, keeps temperatures in the shallow Imuruk Basin low enough to sustain spawning salmon — a critical source of abundant, healthy food for Brevig Mission and Teller residents.

Graphite One plans to store its waste rock and depleted ore in what’s known as a “dry stack,” on top of the ground — rather than in a pond behind a dam, a common industry practice that can risk a major breach if the dam fails. 

But experts say smaller-scale spills or leaks from the mine could still drain into the basin and harm fish and wildlife.

“There is always a possibility for some sort of catastrophic failure. But that doesn’t happen very often,” said Dave Chambers, president of the nonprofit Center for Science in Public Participation, which advises advocacy and tribal groups across the country on mining and water quality. “There’s also a possibility there will be no impact. That doesn’t happen very often, either.”

Anthony Huston, Graphite One’s chief executive, said his project will incorporate local knowledge and protect residents’ subsistence harvests.

“We are completely focused on making sure that we create a stronger economy, and the entire Bering Straits region, and all of Alaska, for that matter. And that’s something that this project will bring,” he said in an interview. “But it will never bring it at the expense of the traditional lifestyle of Alaska Native people.

Freshly cut salmon dries on beach racks in Teller, a traditional Iñupiaq village on Western Alaska’s Seward Peninsula. Salmon are an essential food source for Teller residents, who otherwise must drive 70 miles on a gravel road to reach affordably priced groceries. (Photo by Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

Alfred Kakoona, 45, cuts up his morning’s catch of fresh salmon, a staple food for the Indigenous peoples of the Seward Peninsula, on the beach at Brevig Mission. (Photo by Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

A way of life at stake 

There are no Teslas in Brevig Mission or Teller, the two Alaska Native villages closest to the proposed mine. 

To get to the communities from the nearest American Tesla dealership, you’d first board a jet in Seattle. Then, you’d fly 1,400 miles to Anchorage, where you’d climb on to another jet and fly 500 more miles northwest to Nome, the former Gold Rush town known as the finish line of the Iditarod sled dog race.

A 70-mile gravel road winds northwest through tundra and mountains before dipping back down to a narrow spit on the Bering Sea coast. The road ends in Teller, population 235, where most residents lack in-home plumbing — let alone own electric cars.

If you need a bathroom here, you’ll use what’s known as a honey bucket.

Brevig Mission, population 435, is even more remote than Teller. It sits across a narrow strait and is accessible only by boat or plane.

(Map by Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

The region’s Indigenous history is memorialized in the 1973 book “People of Kauwerak,” written by local elder William Oquilluk. It documents the founding of Kauwerak, an Iñupiaq village by a sandbar near the Imuruk Basin’s innermost reaches.

The area was chosen, according to the book, for the same reasons it’s treasured now: abundant fish and birds, berries and moose, even beluga whales. Kauwerak became one of the Seward Peninsula’s largest villages before it was abandoned in the 19th century, as residents left for jobs and schools.

Whalers, then gold miners, brought profound changes to the Indigenous way of life on the Seward Peninsula, especially through the introduction of pandemic diseases. One outbreak of measles and flu, in 1900, is thought to have killed up to one-third of residents in one of the region’s villages. In Brevig Mission, 72 of 80 Native residents died from the 1918 Spanish flu.

Today, the miners and whalers are gone. In Teller, the population of 250 is 99% Alaska Native. 

Four in 10 residents there live below the poverty level, and a typical household, with an average of three people, survives on just $32,000 a year, according to census data.

At the community’s main store, the shelves are completely barren of fresh fruits and vegetables. A box of Corn Chex costs $9.55, and a bottle of Coffee-Mate runs $11.85 — more than twice the Anchorage price. 

Residents can buy cheaper groceries in Nome. But gas for the 70-mile drive costs $6.30 a gallon, down from $7 in July.

The main store in Teller lacks fresh produce and charges steep prices for groceries, making subsistence harvests particularly essential for the village’s Iñupiaq residents. (Photo by Nathaniel Herz/Northern Journal)

The high cost of goods combined with the few available jobs helps explain why some Teller and Brevig Mission residents are open to Graphite One’s planned mine, and the cash income it could generate. 

As Ayek, the 82-year-old subsistence fisherman, pulled his skiff back into Teller with a cooler of fish, another man was slicing fresh sides of salmon a little ways down the beach.

Nick Topkok, 56, has worked as a contractor for Graphite One, taking workers out in his boat. As he hung his fish to dry on a wood rack, he said few people in the area can find steady jobs.

“The rest are living off welfare,” Topkok said. The mine, he said, would generate money for decades, and it also might help get the village water and sewer systems.

“I’ll be dead by then, but it’ll impact my kids, financially,” he said. “If it’s good and clean, so be it.”

Topkok also acknowledged, however, that a catastrophic accident would “impact us all.”

Many village residents’ summer fishing camps sit along the Tuksuk Channel, below the mine site. Harvests from the basin and its surroundings feed families in Brevig Mission and Teller year-round.

“It’s my freezer,” said Dolly Kugzruk, president of Teller’s tribal government and an opponent of the mine.

Researchers have found all five species of Pacific salmon in and around the Imuruk Basin. Harvests in the area have hit 20,000 fish in some years — roughly 30 per fishing family, according to state data.

At a legislative hearing several years ago on a proposal to support Graphite One’s project, one Teller resident, Tanya Ablowaluk, neatly summed up opponents’ fears: “Will the state keep our freezers full in the event of a spill?”

Some 30 miles outside Nome, supplies for Graphite One’s remote mining exploration camp wait at a staging area the company uses for its helicopters. (Photo by Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

Gold Rush prospector’s descendants would reap royalties

Elsewhere in rural Alaska, Indigenous people have consented to resource extraction on their ancestral lands on the basis of compromise: They accept environmental risks in exchange for a direct stake in the profits.

Two hundred miles north of the Imuruk Basin, zinc and lead unearthed at Red Dog Mine have generated more than $1 billion in royalties for local Native residents and their descendants, including $172 million last year. On the North Slope, the regional Iñupiat-owned corporation receives oil worth tens of millions of dollars a year from developments on its traditional land.

The new Manh Choh mine in Alaska’s Interior will also pay royalties to Native landowners, as would the proposed Donlin mine in Southwest Alaska.

No such royalties would go to the Iñupiaq residents of Brevig Mission and Teller, based on the way Graphite One’s project is currently structured.

The proposed mine sits exclusively on state land. And Graphite One would pay royalties to the descendants of a Gold Rush-era prospector — a legacy of the not-so-distant American past when white settlers could freely claim land and resources that had been used for thousands of years by Indigenous people.

Nicholas Tweet was a 23-year-old fortune seeker when he left Minnesota for Alaska in the late 1800s. His quest for gold, over several years, took him hiking over mountain ranges, floating down the Yukon River by steamboat, walking hundreds miles across beaches and, finally, rowing more than 100 miles from Nome in a boat he built himself.

Tweet settled in Teller with his family, initially prospecting for gold. 

As graphite demand spiked during World War I, Tweet staked claims along the Kigluaik Mountains, and he worked with a company that shipped the mineral to San Francisco until the war ended and demand dried up. 

Today, Tweet’s descendants are still in the mining business on the Seward Peninsula. And they still controlled graphite claims in the area a little more than a decade ago. That’s when Huston, a Vancouver entrepreneur, was drawn into the global graphite trade through his interest in Tesla and his own graphite-based golf clubs.

News of a possible deal with Huston’s company arrived at one of the Tweets’ remote mining operations via a note dropped by a bush plane. They reached an agreement after months of discussions — sometimes, according to Huston, with 16 relatives in the room.

So far, the Tweet family, whose members did not respond to requests for comment, has received $370,000 in lease fees. If the project is built, the family would receive additional payments tied to the value of graphite mined by Graphite One, and members could ultimately collect millions of dollars.

Bering Straits Native Corp., owned by more than 8,000 Indigenous shareholders with ties to the region, recently acquired a stake in Graphite One’s project — but only by buying its way in. 

The company announced its $2 million investment this month. The deal includes commitments by Graphite One to support scholarships, hire Bering Straits’ shareholders and give opportunities to the Native-owned corporation’s subsidiary companies, according to Dan Graham, Bering Straits’ interim chief executive. He declined to release details, saying they have not yet been finalized.

As it considered the investment, Bering Straits board members held meetings with Brevig Mission and Teller residents, where they heard “a lot of concerns,” Graham said. Those concerns “were very well thought through at the board level” before the corporation offered its support for the project, he added.

“Graphite One is very committed to employing local workers from those villages, to being as transparent as possible on what the development is,” Graham said.

Graphite One officials say they have work to do to ensure the region’s residents are trained for mining jobs in time for the start of construction. The company had a maximum of 71 people working at its camp this summer, but Graphite One and its contractors hired just eight people from Teller and Brevig Mission. Sixteen more were from Nome and other villages in the region, according to Graphite One.

Company officials say they have no choice but to develop a local workforce. Because of graphite’s relatively low value in raw form, compared to gold or copper, they say the company can’t afford to fly workers in from outside the region.

Graphite One says it’s also taking direction from members of a committee of local residents it’s appointed to provide advice on environmental issues. In response to the committee’s feedback, the company chose not to barge its fuel through the Imuruk Basin earlier this year; instead, it flew it in, at an added cost of $4 a gallon.

Since Graphite One acquired the Tweets’ graphite claims, progress on the development has been slow. But now, escalating tensions with China and the national push to Americanize the electric vehicle supply chain are putting Huston’s project on the political fast track.

In Nome, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski walks away from a helicopter that flew her to the Graphite One project, a mining exploration camp that the Canadian company is developing to build an open pit graphite mine. (Photo by Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

‘We don’t have a choice.’

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, stands in the Nome airport, holding a bag with chunks of graphite she received at Graphite One’s exploration project. (Photo by Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

In July, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski boarded a helicopter in Nome and flew to Graphite One’s remote exploration camp overlooking the Imuruk Basin.

A few days later, the Alaska Republican stood on the Senate floor and brandished what she described as a hunk of graphite from an “absolutely massive,” world-class deposit.

“After my site visit there on Saturday, I’m convinced that this is a project that every one of us — those of us here in the Congress, the Biden administration — all of us need to support,” she said. “This project will give us a significant domestic supply, breaking our wholesale dependence on imports.”

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, and GOP Gov. Mike Dunleavy have all expressed support for the project.

Graphite One has enlisted consultants and lobbyists to advance its interests, according to disclosure filings and emails obtained through public records requests.

They include Clark Penney, an Anchorage-based consultant and financial advisor with ties to the Dunleavy administration, and Nate Adams, a former employee of Murkowski and Sullivan who’s worked as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C.

Murkowski has said the mine will reduce dependence on foreign countries that lack America’s environmental and human rights safeguards.

“Security of supply would be assured from day one, and the standards for the mine’s development and operation would be both exceedingly high and fully transparent,” Murkowski wrote in a letter to the Biden administration in 2022.

The Defense Department, meanwhile, announced its grant of up to $37.5 million for Graphite One in July. This month, the company also announced it had received a $4.7 million Defense Department contract to develop a graphite-based firefighting foam. 

In a statement, a department spokesman said the July agreement “aims to strengthen the domestic industrial base to make a secure, U.S.-based supply of graphite available for both Department of Defense and consumer markets.”

In Teller and Brevig Mission, Graphite One’s opponents have noticed how the electrical vehicle transition seems to be driving interest in the mine planned for nearby. 

Gilbert Tocktoo is the president of the tribal government in Brevig Mission. In an interview at his home, he said he opposes the large graphite mine planned on state land near the Imuruk Basin. (Photo by Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

As the project gathers outside political support, some village residents said that local attitudes have been shifting, too, in response to the company’s offers of jobs and perks. 

Tocktoo, the chief of Brevig Mission’s tribal council, said resistance in his community has diminished as Graphite One “tries to buy their way in.”

The company awards door prizes at meetings and distributes free turkeys, he said. Two years ago, the company gave each household in Brevig Mission and Teller a $50 credit on their electrical bills.

The project, though, remains years away from construction, with production starting no earlier than 2029.

Before it can be built, Graphite One will have to obtain an array of permits, including a major authorization under the federal Clean Water Act that will allow it to do construction around wetlands.

And the project also faces geopolitical and economic uncertainties. 

At least last year, Graphite One was tight on cash. It had to slightly shorten its summer exploration season because it didn’t have the money to finish it, company officials said at a public meeting this year. 

And while Graphite One is counting on a partnership with a Chinese business to help set up its graphite processing and manufacturing infrastructure, the partner company’s top executive has said publicly that U.S.-China political tensions may thwart the transfer of necessary technologies.

Murkowski, in an interview at the Nome airport on her way home from her visit to Graphite One’s camp, stressed that the project is still in its very early stages. 

The permitting process and the substantial environmental reviews that will accompany it, she added, will give concerned residents a chance to pose questions and raise objections.

“There’s no process right now for the public to weigh in. And it’s all so preliminary,” she said. “When you don’t know, the default position is, ‘I don’t think this should happen.’”

Lucy Oquilluk is president of the tribal government of the Iñupiaq village of Mary’s Igloo. Though the Mary’s Igloo village site near the Imuruk Basin is now abandoned, the area is still important for subsistence fishing, hunting and gathering for local Indigenous descendants, many of whom reside in the nearby community of Teller and maintain their own tribal government. (Photo by Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

But opponents of the project in Brevig Mission and Teller say they fear their objections won’t be heard. Lucy Oquilluk, head of a Teller-based tribal government, said she feels a sense of inevitability.

“It just feels like we have nothing to say about it. We don’t have a choice,” Oquilluk said. “They’re going to do it anyways, no matter what we say.”

This story was produced by Northern Journal, APM Reports and Alaska Public Media as part of the Public Media Accountability Initiative, which supports investigative reporting at local media outlets around the country.

Nathaniel Herz welcomes tips at [email protected] or (907) 793-0312. This article was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Herz. Subscribe at this link.

The post A brand new rush arrives on the Seward Peninsula: for graphite, not gold appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Commercial, retail and residential space has opened on the Baltimore Peninsula, the ambitious 235-acre mixed-use development on the site of an old industrial port in the Port Covington neighborhood of South Baltimore.

The first office tenants and residents have moved into three newly constructed buildings on the historically underused site, which borders several predominantly black communities to the south.

MaryAnne Gilmartin, Founder and CEO of MAG Partners, the leading developer, doesn’t stop there.

“We need Baltimore to be on everyone’s radar,” she said.

More than 800 townhouses, a large entertainment center and plans to redesign major nearby streets and highways are also in the works for the multi-block project, which will span approximately 200 acres. Existing tenants include City Garage, Sagamore Spirit Distillery and Rye Street Tavern.

The $5.5 billion waterfront project, hot for its record-breaking tax hike funding package that allows developers to use site-generated property taxes to repay bonds early issued to meet public infrastructure needs is highly competitive, promises more than 14 million square feet of new construction upon completion. City residents, housing activists and economic watchdog groups have also spoken out against using such a large stimulus in light of Baltimore’s other urgent and existing needs — the city council approved $660 million in tax-boost funding in 2016.

Baltimore could be on the hook to pay back borrowing costs if developers don’t lease the site, which has only landed two new office tenants so far. Between the first two residential buildings, 11 units are rented.

The H. Chambers Company, a planning and design firm specializing in private clubs and hospitality, is the first tenant to move into an office in the Rye Street Market commercial complex at 2455 House St.

Rick Snellinger, President and CEO of The H. Chambers Company, greets visitors during the office tour. (Carl Schmidt/for the Baltimore banner)

The building accommodates smaller businesses with around 25,000 square feet of space, but larger floor plans also exist. The spaces are divided by glass walls and doors, and “the sun, light and air abound in every corner of the floor panel,” Gilmartin said.

Office at The H. Chambers Company. (Carl Schmidt/for the Baltimore banner)

Robert Hickman, the design firm’s chief executive officer, said the company had been looking across the region for its sixth office location.

But it was the Baltimore Peninsula that offered a “really special” location, including access to an outdoor balcony.

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“We needed something that would really bring nature inside. And we act in the private club world … it’s all about the inside and the outside,” Hickman said.

Roof of 2455 House St. building (Carl Schmidt/for the Baltimore banner)

CFG Bank has also signed an agreement to lease approximately 100,000 square feet on the Baltimore Peninsula. They want to move in by the end of 2023.

By 2024, Gilmartin expects enough activity to have nearly 75% of commercial space leased, she said.

Rye Street Market commercial space. (Carl Schmidt/for the Baltimore banner)

Across the courtyard are two mixed-use residential buildings, Rye House and 250 Mission, where maritime-inspired units—with natural wood, glass, and steel finishes—are available. Other amenities include spacious green spaces, co-working spaces, and some Juliet balconies.

Rye House Lobby. (Carl Schmidt/for the Baltimore banner)

Ryan Watts, general manager of real estate developer Bozzuto, said occupancy as of early April amounts to 15% of units at Rye House and 10% of units at 250 Mission.

Of the 416 units at Rye House, 54 will be for households earning 80% of the area’s median income or AMI, while another 35 will be for those earning 50% of the AMI.

Communal dining area at Rye House. (Carl Schmidt/for the Baltimore banner)

Last year, New York-based MAG Partners and San Francisco-based MacFarlane Partners took over the large-scale development, first envisioned in 2016 by Under Armor founder Kevin Plank and his development company Sagamore Ventures. Plank and his associates began buying up the land for the site about ten years ago. Since then, the sportswear company’s sales have slumped and the company has scaled back plans for its new offices on the Baltimore Peninsula.

In November, developers at MAG and San Francisco-based MacFarlane Partners rebranded the development, changing the name from Port Covington to the Baltimore Peninsula. They said they hoped to turn a page in the project’s controversial history.

Sagamore Ventures still holds a “major interest” in the project, and a new corporate headquarters for Under Armor is slated to open in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Looking northeast along Atlas Street. (Carl Schmidt/for the Baltimore banner)

Gilmartin said the master plan allows for flexibility, and she envisions building a large entertainment or sports venue and an accompanying hotel and conference center.

She also believes the project’s size and easy access to a major thoroughfare will make it attractive to the film industry.

“So we’re looking at ways that the public sector could develop programs that attract that industry because they’re really good jobs, they train people both on the other side of the camera and behind the camera,” she said. “And they need the space that our master plan allows.”

Baltimore Banner reporter Hallie Miller contributed to this story.

penelope.blackwell@thebaltimorebanner.com

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Als Palo Alto und Menlo Park ihre jeweiligen Bemühungen starteten, die Einwohner von Erdgasgeräten abzubringen und die Elektrifizierung zu fördern, betrachteten beide Städte den Wechsel als wertvolles, aber riskantes Vorhaben.

In jedem Fall sehen die Stadtbeamten die Elektrifizierung als einen wichtigen Schritt auf ihrem Weg zur Nachhaltigkeit. Beide haben Regeln erlassen, die neue Entwicklungen für vollelektrische Warmwasserbereiter und Raumheizgeräte erfordern. Gleichzeitig entschieden sich beide dafür, von den Bewohnern keine Umstellung von Gas auf Strom zu verlangen, und verwiesen auf die hohen Kosten für den Austausch von Geräten und ein unzuverlässiges Stromnetz.

Diese Risiken gewannen letzte Woche für die Region an neuer Dringlichkeit, als der Bay Area Air Quality Management District neue Vorschriften verabschiedete, die die Region zur ersten im Land machen, die den Verkauf und die Installation neuer Gasgeräte verbietet. Nach einer Debatte mit Hunderten von schriftlichen und mündlichen Kommentaren stimmte der Vorstand des Distrikts mit 20 zu 0 Stimmen bei einer Enthaltung dafür, seine Vorschriften so zu ändern, dass gasbetriebene Geräte in den Gerichtsbarkeiten des Distrikts, einschließlich Alameda, Contra, schrittweise abgeschafft werden Die Grafschaften Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara und Napa sowie Teile der südwestlichen Grafschaften Solano und südlichen Sonoma.

Die neue Richtlinie zielt auf Stickoxide (NOx), Schadstoffe, die ein Nebenprodukt der Verbrennung sind und die laut Bezirksbeamten sowohl die Luftqualität als auch die Gesundheit schädigen. Sie reagieren auch mit anderen Chemikalien in der Luft, um Feinstaub (PM 2,5) und Ozon zu bilden, so die Mitarbeiter des Luftbezirks. Beide Schadstoffe sind gesundheitsschädlich, wenn sie eingeatmet werden, heißt es in einem Bericht des Luftbezirks. Die Mitarbeiter schätzen, dass die Richtlinie die Reduzierung der NOx-Emissionen um 3.236 Tonnen pro Jahr reduzieren könnte.

Phil Martien, Direktor der Abteilung für Bewertungsinventar und Modellierung des Distrikts, sagte, dass die Verringerung der Feinstaubemissionen erhebliche gesundheitliche Vorteile bringen würde, insbesondere in Gebieten wie East San Francisco, Städten in der East Bay und Teilen von San Jose. Er stellte fest, dass diese Gebiete auch die höchste Konzentration an Farbigen aufweisen und dass diese Bevölkerungsgruppen am meisten von der vorgeschlagenen Politik profitieren würden.

„Wir sprechen hier von Partikeln, die kleiner als 2,5 Mikrometer im Durchmesser sind“, sagte Martien dem Vorstand auf der Sitzung am 15. März. „Sie können tief in die Lungen eindringen und sogar die Luft-Blut-Grenze überschreiten, um eine lange Liste von gesundheitlichen Auswirkungen zu verursachen, einschließlich vorzeitiger Sterblichkeit.“

Für die Befürworter der neuen Politik stehen die gesundheitlichen Vorteile im Vordergrund. Laut einem Bericht von Executive Officer Philip Fine schätzt der Air District, dass durch die Reduzierung von sekundärem PM2,5, das aus chemischen Reaktionen mit anderen NOx resultiert, schätzungsweise 23 bis 52 Todesfälle pro Jahr und etwa 71 neue Asthmafälle pro Jahr vermieden werden könnten . Wenn man primäres PM2,5 einbezieht, das direkt von den Geräten emittiert wird, soll die Richtlinie schätzungsweise 37 bis 85 vorzeitige Todesfälle pro Jahr und etwa 110 neue Asthmafälle pro Jahr vermeiden und zwischen 400 und 890 Millionen US-Dollar für die Gesundheit einsparen Betreuungskosten.

Vicki Veenker, Mitglied des Stadtrats von Palo Alto, die Santa Clara County im Vorstand des Luftbezirks vertritt, sagte in einem Interview, dass sie aufgeregt sei, für die neue Richtlinie zu stimmen, und verwies auf ihre gesundheitlichen und ökologischen Vorteile. Sie sagte, sie sei besonders überzeugt von den Ärzten und Mittelschülern, die über die gesundheitlichen Auswirkungen der Umweltverschmutzung aussagten.

„Die Möglichkeit, die Kosten für das System zu senken, ist enorm“, sagte Veenker dieser Nachrichtenorganisation. „Aber auch den Nebennutzen der Reduzierung der Treibhausgasemissionen und der Anpassung an unsere Klimaziele zu haben, ist eine Win-Win-Situation. Es gibt gegensätzliche Bedenken, aber diese Bedenken sind keine Gründe, dies nicht zu tun. Das sind Gründe, um sicherzustellen, dass wir es tun Mach es gut.”

Der Leiter des Bezirks San Mateo, Ray Mueller, ein ehemaliges Mitglied des Stadtrats von Menlo Park, hatte eine andere Sichtweise. Als einziges Mitglied des Air District Board, das sich der Stimme enthielt, verwies Mueller auf die großen Auswirkungen, die die neuen Vorschriften auf die Verbraucher haben würden, insbesondere auf diejenigen, die keinen Anspruch auf finanzielle Unterstützung haben, wenn sie einen Ofen oder einen Warmwasserbereiter ersetzen müssen.

„Wir werden landesweit die Ersten sein, aber diese Agentur hat das dem Verbraucher noch nie angetan“, sagte Mueller bei der Anhörung. “Und das ist etwas, womit wir weitermachen und auch ehrlich sein müssen.”

Wie Veenker sagte Mueller, er wolle den Übergang zu Elektrogeräten sehen. Er argumentierte jedoch, dass der vorgeschlagene Zeitplan zu ehrgeizig sei und dass die Luftbezirkspolitik die Kosten der Umstellung, den derzeitigen Finanzierungsmangel und den derzeitigen Mangel an Elektrogeräten nicht berücksichtige.

„Ehrlich gesagt, was meiner Meinung nach in dieser Diskussion fehlt, ist die Tatsache, dass es da draußen gerade eine Mittelklasse gibt, die wirklich leidet. Die Inflation bringt sie um“, sagte Mueller. „Es gibt Leute, die ein anständiges Einkommen haben, die Hypotheken haben, die versuchen herauszufinden, wie sie ihre Kinder durch das College bringen können, und ich höre hier keine Diskussion über sie.“

Für Befürworter und Kritiker gleichermaßen ist PG&E ein wichtiger Joker in der neuen Politik. Alle sind sich einig, dass ohne ein zuverlässiges Stromnetz jede Umstellung auf Elektrifizierung ein riskantes Unterfangen wäre, und die Erfolgsbilanz von PG&E in den letzten Monaten hat den Einwohnern wenig Grund gegeben, sich zuversichtlich zu fühlen. Mueller sagte, er werde neue Gesetze unterstützen, die PG&E verpflichten würden, die Zuverlässigkeit seiner elektrischen Infrastruktur zu verbessern.

Mueller bemerkte, dass PG&E deutlich gemacht habe, dass es der Bay Area keine Priorität einräumen werde, um elektrische Leitungen unterirdisch zu verlegen. In einer Region, in der regelmäßig Bäume auf Stromleitungen umstürzen, sei die Idee, die Menschen abhängiger von Elektrizität zu machen, „sehr besorgniserregend“, sagte er.

Zahlreiche Anwohner teilten dem Vorstand auch mit, dass sie besorgt seien, dass die Regeländerung ihr Risiko erhöhen würde, Strom zu verlieren und für längere Zeit keinen Zugang zu Heizung oder Warmwasser zu haben. Die in Los Altos lebende Mabry Tyson, die während der Stürme der letzten Woche den Strom verlor, sagte, die neue Richtlinie würde das Leben in den Wintermonaten erschweren, wenn Stromausfälle häufiger auftreten.

„Zwingen Sie uns nicht, auf ein neues Pferd zu springen, es sei denn, Sie wissen, dass dieses Pferd keine spröden Beine hat“, sagte Tyson.

Während die Mitarbeiter des Luftbezirks glauben, dass bis 2027 mehr Ausrüstung verfügbar sein wird, behaupteten Mueller und andere Kritiker der Regeländerung, dass der Zeitplan zu ehrgeizig bleibt. Nach den neu verabschiedeten Vorschriften werden Warmwasserbereiter und Boiler mit einer Kapazität von weniger als 75.000 British Thermal Unit (BTU)/Stunde, die in Einfamilienhäusern typisch sind, als erste ausfallen. Ab dem 1. Januar 2027 werden sie gemäß den neuen Vorschriften nicht mehr in der Bay Area verkauft. Das Verbot würde sich ab dem 1. Januar 2029 auf Erdgasfeuerungen erstrecken. Und im Jahr 2031 würde es alle Warmwasserbereiter und Boiler mit mehr als 75.000 BTU/Stunde umfassen, die in Mehrfamilienhäusern und Gewerbegebäuden typisch sind.

Zum Vergleich verwies Mueller auf Tesla, das 2002 gegründet wurde und 2008 sein erstes Auto produzierte.

„Wir haben noch keine vollständige Sättigung des Marktes gesehen und wir haben immer noch nicht die Infrastruktur, um all diese Autos zu unterstützen“, sagte Mueller bei der Anhörung.

Andere teilten seine Sorge. Das Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI), eine Industriegruppe, die Hersteller vertritt, stellte die Kostenschätzungen in Frage, die der Luftbezirk für neue Wärmepumpengeräte vorlegte, und stellte fest, dass der Wechsel weitaus teurer sein könnte, wenn er Upgrades erfordert zu Schalttafeln. Die Gruppe schätzte den Durchschnittspreis für den Austausch eines Warmwasserbereiters in der Bay Area auf 8.577 $ und für Wärmepumpen auf 22.745 $. Die Gruppe empfahl dem Air District, eine Alternative einzuführen, die das Konformitätsdatum für alle Geräte auf 2035 verschiebt.

Kyle Bergeron, Senior Regulatory Engineer der Gruppe, stellte in einem Brief fest, dass Upgrades normalerweise erfolgen, wenn eine vorhandene Appliance ausfällt. Wenn das Haus ein Panel-Upgrade benötigt, um eine Null-NOx-Lösung aufzunehmen, könnte es mehrere Tage, wenn nicht Wochen ohne Raum- oder Wasserheizung auskommen, schrieb er.

„Wenn ein solches Ereignis während eines Kälteeinbruchs passieren würde, könnten erhebliche Bedenken hinsichtlich der Gesundheit und Sicherheit der Insassen bestehen“, schrieb Bergeron. „Der Distrikt muss Lösungen für das Notfallersatzproblem in Betracht ziehen, einschließlich proaktiver Ersatzprogramme, damit die Auswirkungen der vorgeschlagenen Regeln 9-1 und 9-6 den sicheren und zuverlässigen Zugang zu Diensten nicht beeinträchtigen.“

Der Distrikt seinerseits plant, das Problem der Netzunsicherheit anzugehen, indem er eine Implementierungsarbeitsgruppe einrichtet, die sich aus 35 Interessengruppen zusammensetzt, darunter PG&E, die den Air District Board regelmäßig über die Marktverfügbarkeit und die technischen Aspekte des Übergangs informieren wird.

Air District-Mitarbeiter räumten in ihrem Bericht ein, dass NOx-freie Raum- und Wasserheizungstechnologien derzeit nur begrenzt verfügbar sind und die Installation in bestehenden Gebäuden teuer sein könnte. Der Distrikt geht davon aus, dass die Verfügbarkeit in den kommenden Jahren steigen und die Kosten sinken werden, und er plant, Zwischenberichte zu erstellen, bevor die Politik in Kraft tritt, um die Verfügbarkeit solcher Geräte zu bewerten. Als Teil des Berichterstattungsprozesses wird der Distrikt “relevante Marktveränderungen berücksichtigen und gerechte Ergebnisse bei der Umsetzung der vorgeschlagenen Standards sicherstellen”, heißt es im Bericht der Distriktmitarbeiter.

Einige Befürworter haben vorgeschlagen, dass die neue Regeländerung das Angebot an emissionsfreien Geräten ankurbeln könnte, indem den Herstellern klar gemacht wird, dass es einen Markt für die neue Technologie geben wird. Debbie Mytels, eine Einwohnerin von Palo Alto, die als Vorsitzende der Peninsula Interfaith Climate Action fungiert, einer Koalition von 35 Gemeinden mit „grünen Teams“, forderte den Air Board letzte Woche auf, die neuen Regeln voranzutreiben.

„Es wäre wunderbar, wenn Sie der Fertigungsgemeinschaft ein Signal geben würden, dass wir weitermachen und damit beginnen sollten, viel mehr Möglichkeiten für Menschen zu schaffen, ihr Heizsystem auszutauschen und die saubere Luft zu schaffen, die wir alle zum Atmen brauchen“, sagte Mytels.

Schon vor der Regeländerung haben die Städte der Halbinsel die Entwicklung emissionsfreier Technologien sorgfältig verfolgt. Menlo Park verlangt bereits elektrische Raumheizungen und Warmwasserbereiter in Neubauten, ein Gesetz, das im Januar 2020 in Kraft trat. Bis heute hat der Rat jedoch keine Elektrifizierung in bestehenden Gebäuden vorgeschrieben und sich stattdessen auf Öffentlichkeitsarbeit, Bildung und finanzielle Unterstützung verlassen für einkommensschwache Einwohner.

Palo Alto hat auch eine rein elektrische Anforderung für Wasser und Raumheizung in neue Entwicklungen eingeführt. Die Stadt hat in diesem Jahr auch ein neues Programm gestartet, das darauf abzielt, 1.000 Kunden in diesem Jahr durch ein optimiertes Genehmigungsverfahren und eine Finanzierung auf Rechnung, die es ihnen ermöglicht, die Zahlungen für das neue Gerät zu verteilen, auf Warmwasserbereiter mit Wärmepumpe umzustellen. Das Programm hat einen vielversprechenden Start hingelegt, mit 421 Kunden, die sich laut Stadtmitarbeitern am Dienstag dafür entschieden haben.

Diese lokalen Bemühungen, sagte Veenker, werden den lokalen Städten helfen, sich auf die neuen Regeln des Luftbezirks vorzubereiten, sobald diese 2027 in Kraft treten. Sie sagte in einem Interview, dass der Ansatz des Luftbezirks bereits die vielen Herausforderungen der Elektrifizierung berücksichtigt, indem er Zwischenberichte einbezieht , die Implementierungsgruppe und einen Zeitplan, der Technologien priorisiert, die leichter verfügbar sind und weniger Strom benötigen.

„Bis diese Regeln regional in Kraft treten, werden unsere Bewohner in der Lage sein, einen reibungslosen Übergang zu haben, und hoffentlich werden wir auch ein Vorbild für andere Städte sein“, sagte Veenker.

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SAN MATEO (KPIX) — On Saturday, those heading to the San Mateo County Event Center were focused on volleyball not vaccinations.

It was the first time in several months where the site did not serve as the county’s primary booster and vaccination clinic. Earlier in the week, the county pulled the plug on the clinic, which served only 120 people on its final day in operation. The county has been scaling down the site for several weeks as the vaccine demand has decreased, a spokesperson said.

Now, San Mateo County will focus on community-based vaccine and booster sites that have regular hours and which are located throughout the county. As of this week, 93.5 percent of the county’s eligible population has been vaccinated, according to a spokesperson.

“I think we’re moving from an emergency response with all hands on deck to one that’s more individualized and personalized,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at UCSF. “We’re doing pretty well from this surge but, of course, we don’t know what’s going to happen next. Next doesn’t mean that it’ll be in the next month or two months. Next may mean next winter or fall.”

dr Chin-Hong says COVID isn’t going to just disappear once the surge subsides. However, this wave is almost over.

“We can sort of enjoy the next lull and hopefully that lull will last long. But we really need to drive down those deaths before we can think of it like another flu,” he said. “You know the storm will come at some point, because COVID isn’t going anywhere any time soon. It’s still circulating in the world and not enough of the world is immune, so we will undoubtedly see it again.”

With the situation calming down, COVID-related restrictions are easing on the Peninsula and throughout most of the Bay Area. All of the counties, with the exception of Santa Clara County, will lift the indoor mask mandate for vaccinated individuals after Feb. 15. Individual business owners will be able to require masks if they choose to.

“I really haven’t decided yet,” said Lewis Cohen, owner of B Street Books in San Mateo. “I’m kind of waiting to see what other businesses are going to do and what my clientele seems to want.”

Susan Engle, who lives in San Mateo, is glad to see the mandate will be coming to an end in a few days.

“I’ll be very happy. I think I’ll still carry a mask and wear a mask in certain situations but it’ll be nice to take them off,” she said. “If I’m in the gym and there’s someone right next to me on the elliptical, sweating, I think I’ll put the mask on.”

dr Chin-Hong says he’s not going to completely ditch the mask indoors just yet.

“I for one, for example, will still wear my mask in a crowded, indoor setting, until we hit sea-level in COVID,” he said. “We’re almost there but not quite yet.”

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REDWOOD CITY (KPIX) — New express lanes along Highway 101 running from the Santa Clara County line to Whipple Ave. in Redwood City are set to open Friday.

“This will be transformative for commuters in this corridor, make no mistake about it,” said Kevin Mullin, a California state assemblyman. Mullin said that this commuter corridor between San Francisco and San Jose is the most economically productive in the state.

The express lanes will operate from 5 am to 8 pm on weekdays but will be free for vehicles with three or more people inside. Single-occupant cars or those with two people will pay a toll and all drivers need to have FasTrak.

“Projects like this are making a difference. They’re providing significant savings to those who use the corridor to go to work, go to appointments, centers of education or wherever they need to go,” said Carolyn Gonot, general manager of the Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority.

Express lanes recently opened along a stretch of Interstate 880 between Oakland and Milpitas. The carpool lanes were converted in October, 2020 so more drivers had the option to move faster along the freeway by paying the toll.

“Moving more people in fewer cars through our most congested corridors. That’s what express lanes are all about,” said John Goodwin, public information officer for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. “They really don’t generate that much cash. In an ideal world they don’t generate any cash at all because the lane would be filled with carpoolers or buses.”

While money is not the goal, revenue from tolls increased 23 percent from the second quarter of 2021 to the third quarter. Drivers are moving at a faster speed in the express lanes, between 16 to 18 miles per hour faster than other lanes during peak hours.

“Time spent in traffic is not time that is productively spent. Consequently, that’s a drag on the economic efficiency of the whole Bay Area,” Goodwin said. “The numbers are clear. People are voting for express lanes by using them and the usage numbers are rising steadily.”

In the most recent quarter with data available, trips on that stretch of I-880 were approaching 4 million, more than a million above the same quarter in the prior year. Express lanes will continue to expand in the Bay Area including on Highway 101, extending north later this year.

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SAN MATEO (CBS SF) – A band of intense rains rolled across the San Francisco peninsula Wednesday morning, triggering a National Weather Service flood alert as runoff from the saturated hills jammed into streets and flowed into creeks and creeks.

Forecasters said the recommendation would stay in place until at least 1 p.m.

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“At 9:55 am, the Doppler radar showed heavy rain moving in the direction of the San Mateo Coast,” the weather service said in its statement. “This will lead to flooding in cities and small streams.”

Some places flooding will occur, forecasters said, including San Francisco, Daly City, San Mateo, Redwood City, South San Francisco, San Bruno, Pacifica, Burlingame, Half Moon Bay, and Hillsborough.

Sudden floods have already proven fatal during the current storm.

The San Mateo County coroner office on Monday identified the couple who were found dead in a flooded vehicle in a flooded underpass in Millbrae during last week’s storm.

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The coroner’s office said the victims were 63-year-old Rolando Ortigas Glorioso and 62-year-old Susana Glorioso, both from Millbrae.

The authorities also confirmed that the couple were married. The couple tragically died last Thursday in floods during the storm that flooded the Bay Area with rain.

A spokesman for the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office said firefighters had to respond to reports of flooding on Hemlock Ave at around 5:45 a.m. and E. Hillcrest Blvd. reacted. in Millbrae, where E. Hillcrest goes under Caltrain Railway.

Tragic incident here in Millbrae this morning. The San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office says two people died after the car they were in went into hiding in a flooded area on Hillcrest & Hemlock. Details at 12 noon on @KPIXtv pic.twitter.com/veVdYjNO1E

– Jocelyn Moran (@jocelynamoran) December 23, 2021

“Upon arrival, they noticed a person standing on the roof of a vehicle. The fire brigade got into the water to save the person in the vehicle. They discovered that there was a second vehicle in the water, ”said Detective Javier Acosta of the sheriff. “When they rescued the first person, they tried to gain access to the vehicle in the water. However, the conditions changed quickly and it became too dangerous for the emergency services. The water rose very quickly and they had to withdraw. “

Caltrain Underpass where two people were found dead in a submerged car on E. Hillcrest Blvd. between Hemlock Ave. and Aviador Ave. in Millbrae, December 23, 2021. (CBS)

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Acosta said it took the crews several hours to drain the water in the area and when firefighters got access to the second vehicle they found two dead in it.

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MONTEREY – A fast-moving storm brought about a third of an inch of rain to the Monterey Peninsula from Monday night through Tuesday morning, not only bringing useful moisture to the area but also slowing morning commutes.

“It was a nice little system that happened quickly,” said David King, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Monterey office. “It made a number of showers from Sonoma County and San Francisco all the way down to Monterey County.”

While the storm tapped tropical moisture through an atmospheric river, it wasn’t as severe as last month’s storm, which brought gusts of winds in excess of 50 mph and rain in Monterey County, causing minor flooding and widespread power outages. The Monterey County’s regional fire protection district responded to a mudslide in the River Road area Tuesday morning, with the scars from the River Fire likely contributing to the mess.

The Monterey County regional fire protection district responded Tuesday to a mudslide along River Road south of Salinas. (Courtesy of the Monterey County Regional Fire Department)

“There were a few pulses that were a bit stronger, but mostly we just had nice little rain showers overnight,” said King.

Monterey Airport received 0.38 inches of rain from the storm while Salinas Airport received 0.52 inches of rain. Watsonville received 0.93 inches of rain. The weather service said the rain-shadow effect was fully effective, with much of the San Jose area and the southern Salinas Valley receiving less than 0.05 inches of rain. King said Big Sur and the Santa Lucia Range saw just under an inch of rain in most locations.

“I can’t really comment on the word ‘drought’ because it really is owned by the state, but what we can say is that the atmospheric flow that came in late October and the addition from it certainly add to the fire concerns to disperse. ” he said. “It really helped wet most of the fuel in Monterey County, so any kind of fire concern is incredibly, incredibly minor right now.”

Rainfall totals vary from normal but are close to 200% along much of the Monterey Peninsula and Upper Salinas Valley, King said, while warning that most rain usually falls later in the year.

“We beat that compared to the current average for what we’d expect by early November, and that’s because we usually get our rainfall after Thanksgiving,” he said. “January and February are the big months to get precipitation events. That is certainly a lot of precipitation very early in the year and we are happy to take it, we do not give it back, but we are only at the beginning (the rainy season). “

The forecast calls for the area to dry out for the remainder of the week, with sunny conditions and highs in the Monterey Peninsula in the mid-1960s and lows in the mid-1950s.

“We know we’re entering a slightly drier period,” said King. “We don’t expect too much rainfall before Thanksgiving.”

A muddy field between Castroville and Moss Landing on Tuesday morning. (Tom Wright – Monterey Herald)

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After installing gigabit fiber in businesses and homes in San Francisco in recent years, Santa Rosa-based Internet service provider Sonic has moved its expansion of those connections in Northern California to the East Bay and the Peninsula for the time being, according to CEO Dane Jasper.

Following installations in Brentwood, Berkeley and Albany, the company is currently installing cables to Oakland properties and has projects in San Carlos, Burlingame, Daly City and Redwood City.

“Oakland is the second major Bay Area flagship city we’re launching,” Jasper told the Business Journal.

An important catalyst for this expansion was Sonic’s win in the tender to provide the data network for city schools.

“Oakland Unified School District’s sourcing of Sonic fiber gave Sonic the opportunity to build a city-wide backbone for connecting all public schools,” said Jasper. “These schools are in the neighborhood, so the schools are in a unique position to catalyze new developments.”

The same opportunity arose when Sonic won contracts for the Old Adobe and Petaluma City Schools neighborhoods a few years ago, followed by fiber optic for city government facilities. This led to the expansion of fiber optics to commercial areas in the north and south of the city as well as the surrounding houses.

After the Berkely schools struggled with the spotty high-speed internet connections needed for distance learning during the pandemic, Sonic recently announced that they will provide free fiber-optic to-home services to about 7,000 households, covering around 10,000 students At the end of this year.

Sonic’s first fiber-to-the-home projects were Sebastopol and Brentwood. The latter was attractive because the city of East Bay was an early adopter of building standards that make installing fiber optic ducts easier in areas where cable television, power and telephone lines for neighborhoods were buried, Jasper said.

Unlike conventional connection trenches, which are 5 to 8 feet deep and several inches wide, one-half inch diameter micro-trenches for the fiber channels are 10 to 18 inches deep and 1 to 2 inches wide. In older parts of the city with antenna connections, the fiber optic cables are connected to households or companies via masts.

Sonic reached out to the City of Santa Rosa about 10 years ago for approval to expand the fiber in an existing commercial area. The city was ready to allow this under a limited pilot program that would allow officials to better understand possible long-term implications for roads, according to Gabe Osburn, assistant director of development services. Sonic used traditional drilling and digging methods.

“Since then, applications from all service providers, including Sonic, have used traditional drilling and trenching methods,” Osburn said in an email. “Sonic is currently upgrading the infrastructure in the city center with traditional construction methods. We haven’t received any microtrenching requests from any of the active communication providers recently. Our willingness to review this technology and possibly include an allowance in a pilot program has not changed and we are ready to respond to the requests as they come. “

Sonic has used a relationship with Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit to expand its fiber optic backbone in both counties, Jasper said.

“That was the key,” he said.

The company supplies SMART with fiber optics for crossing signals as well as ticket machines and WiFi. Sonic has illuminated several commercial areas, including the Airport Business Park and North Dutton Business Park in Santa Rosa, South McDowell Business Park in Petaluma, the former State Farm complex in Rohnert Park, and Hamilton Landing and Bel Marin Keys in Novato.

The planned expansion of SMART’s service to Windsor, which is expected to be completed early next year, will include the expansion of fiber into that city, Jasper said.

Jeff Quackenbush covers wine, construction, and real estate. Prior to the Business Journal, he wrote for the Bay City News Service in San Francisco. He graduated from Walla Walla University. Reach him at jquackenbush@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4256.

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