DALY CITY (KPIX 5) — It’s pretty difficult these days to find an open public restroom. But there’s a movement now to exchange all of the fixtures. When that’s done, it’s believed that these restrooms will be much safer.

Westlake Shopping Center in Daly City, which stretches for nearly 40 acres, has 98 businesses, is going all-touchless in its public restrooms.

“They don’t have to touch anything! Either toilets, either faucets or soap dispensers, nothing,” said Westlake Kimco Reality Facilities Engineer Marlon Bautista.

The new demand for touchless fixtures couldn’t have come sooner, says plumbing contractor Paul Rowe. “Any business is going to be worried because we have no idea what’s going to happen,” said Rowe. “But, I did feel comfortable being a plumbing contractor that we were going to have work.”

Paul’s company has re-focused, finding new work with proximity sensor fixtures because dozens of handle faucets are coming out. Proximity sensor faucets have special battery-powered control modules that should last for two years, depending on usage.

It’s not just Westlake Shopping Center making the move. Rowe believes the switch is going nationwide. “Our supplier has had a hard time providing us with the quantity of that we need and I think that’s because the whole nation needs these touchless sensor fixtures. The supply is going to have to catch up with demand.”

Soap, paper towels, and everything else are all going automated.

A lot of folks are shopping for food or getting take-out at Westlake, but the facilities engineer says public restrooms will remain closed until the upgrades are completed, and that depends on how soon the additional proximity sensor fixtures arrive.

More from CBS News

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SAN FRANCISCO — The Port of San Francisco and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are planning on raising the iconic, historic Ferry Building by as much as seven feet.

The daring plan is an attempt to combat the impacts of sea level rise and extreme weather, both triggered by the climate change, and our warming planet.

How the SF Ferry Building will be raised

“We’re already seeing flooding on the Embarcadero. We know that the Bay is rising; we know that it will continue to rise”, explained Port of San Francisco Director Elaine Forbes.

Earlier this year, according to the United Nation-backed International Panel of Climate Change or IPCC for short, the planet is rapidly approaching a catastrophic threshold of heating. NOAA is tracking the melting of glaciers and ice sheets, as well as the rising ocean waters.

“Humanity is on thin ice, and that ice is melting fast,” said Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres in a recent address.

Port of San Francisco officials have held a series of public meetings with stakeholders along the 7.5 miles of bay coastline under the Port’s control. One neighborhood includes the Ferry Building.

The feedback was clear: those who work and/or live along the Embarcadero waterfront want to see the landmark Ferry Building remain on site and functioning. Currently, it is home to six ferry piers, used by millions of commuters and tourists each year. The Ferry Building also houses 44 different shops and restaurants as well as a world-famous Farmer’s Market.

And less known, it’s 2nd and 3rd floors have 190,000 square feet of offices and meeting spaces.

Port Engineer and member of the Water Resilience Team Steve Reel joined Juliette Goodrich in the CBS News Bay Area Virtual Set and in an exclusive report, demonstrated on how the Port and the U.S. Corps of Engineers are planning on raising the huge landmark.

The project will break ground in about a decade. The U.S. Corps will pick up 65% of the cost.

San Francisco’s Prop A — which was passed by 82.7% of voters in 2018 — authorized $425 million general obligation bonds that will partially fund the Waterfront Resilience Program. That includes funding improvements for earthquake safety of the three-mile long Embarcadero Seawall, near-term flood protection improvements, and planning for other long-term resilience.  

More from CBS News

Juliette Goodrich

Emmy award winning reporter and Bay Area native Juliette Goodrich joined KPIX 5 in 1997 and has performed a variety of anchoring and reporting assignments during her time with the station. She is currently the weekend nighttime anchor.

Read More

The post Port of San Francisco, US Military Corps of Engineers plan to lift landmark Ferry Constructing because of rising sea ranges appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

LONDON (AP) — Wildfires fueled by climate change have ravaged communities from Maui to the Mediterranean this summer, killing many people, exhausting firefighters and fueling demand for new solutions. Enter artificial intelligence.

Firefighters and startups are using AI-enabled cameras to scan the horizon for signs of smoke. A German company is building a constellation of satellites to detect fires from space. And Microsoft is using AI models to predict where the next blaze could be sparked.

With wildfires becoming larger and more intense as the world warms, firefighters, utilities and governments are scrambling to get ahead of the flames by tapping into the latest AI technology — which has stirred both fear and excitement for its potential to transform life. While increasingly stretched first responders hope AI offers them a leg up, humans are still needed to check that the tech is accurate.

California’s main firefighting agency this summer started testing an AI system that looks for smoke from more than 1,000 mountaintop camera feeds and is now expanding it statewide.

The system is designed to find “abnormalities” and alert emergency command centers, where staffers will confirm whether it’s indeed smoke or something else in the air.

“The beauty of this is that it immediately pops up on the screen and those dispatchers or call takers are able to interrogate that screen” and determine whether to send a crew, said Phillip SeLegue, staff chief of intelligence for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The cameras, part of a network that workers previously had to watch, provide billions of bytes of data for the AI system to digest. While humans still need to confirm any smoke sightings, the system helps reduce fatigue among staffers typically monitoring multiple screens and cameras, alerting them to look only when there’s possible fire or smoke, SeLegue said.

It’s already helped. A battalion chief got a smoke alert in the middle of the night, confirmed it on his cellphone and called a command center in San Diego to scramble first responders to the remote area.

The dispatchers said that if they hadn’t been alerted, the fire would have been much larger because it likely wouldn’t have been noticed until the next morning, SeLegue said.

San Francisco startup Pano AI takes a similar approach, mounting cameras on cell towers that scan for smoke and alert customers, including fire departments, utility companies and ski resorts.

The cameras use computer vision machine learning, a type of AI.

“They’re trained very specifically to detect smoke or not, and we train them with images of smoke and images of not smoke,” CEO Sonia Kastner said.

The images are combined with feeds from government weather satellites that scan for hotspots, along with other data sources, such as social media posts.

The technology gets around one of the main problems in the traditional way of detecting wildfires — relying on 911 calls from passers-by that need confirmation from staffers before crews and water-dropping planes can be deployed.

“Generally, only one in 20 of these 911 calls are actually a wildfire. Even during fire season, it might be a cloud or fog or a barbecue,” Kastner said.

Pano AI’s systems do still rely on final confirmation, with managers playing a time lapse of the camera feed to ensure it’s smoke rising.

For fighting forest fires, “technology is becoming really essential,” said Larry Bekkedahl, senior vice president of energy delivery at Portland General Electric, Oregon’s largest utility and a Pano AI customer.

Utility companies sometimes play a role in sparking wildfires, when their power lines are knocked down by wind or struck by falling trees. Hawaii’s electric utility acknowledged that its power lines started a devastating blaze in Maui this summer after apparently being downed by high winds.

PGE, which provides electricity to 51 cities in Oregon, has deployed 26 Pano AI cameras, and Bekkedahl said they have helped speed up response and coordination with emergency services.

Previously, fire departments were “running around looking for stuff and not even really knowing exactly where it’s at,” he said. The cameras help detect fires quicker and get teams on the ground faster, shaving up to two hours off response times.

“That’s significant in terms of how fast that fire can can spread and grow,” Bekkedahl said.

Using AI to detect smoke from fires “is relatively easy,” said Juan Lavista Ferres, chief data scientist at Microsoft.

“What is not easy is to have enough cameras that cover enough places,” he said, pointing to vast, remote areas in northern Canada that have burned this summer.

Ferres’ team at Microsoft has been developing AI models to predict where fires are likely to start. They have fed the model with maps of areas that burned previously, along with climate and geospatial data.

The system has its limitations — it can’t predict random events like a lightning strike. But it can sift through historical weather and climate data to identify patterns, such as areas that are typically drier. Even a road, which indicates people are nearby, is a risk factor, Ferres said.

“It’s not going to get it all perfectly right,” he said. “But what it can do is it can build a probability map (based on) what happened in the past.”

The technology, which Microsoft plans to offer as an open source tool, can help first responders trying to figure out where to focus their limited resources, Ferres said.

Another company is looking to the heavens for a solution. German startup OroraTech analyzes satellite images with artificial intelligence.

Taking advantage of advances in camera, satellite and AI technology, OroraTech has launched two mini satellites about the size of a shoebox into low orbit, about 550 kilometers (340 miles) above Earth’s surface. The Munich-based company has ambitions to send up eight more next year and eventually put 100 into space.

As wildfires swept central Chile this year, OroraTech said it provided thermal images at night when aerial drones are used less frequently.

Weeks after OroraTech launched its second satellite, it detected a fire near the community of Keg River in northern Alberta, where flames burned remote stretches of boreal forest repeatedly this summer.

“There are algorithms on the satellite, very efficient ones to detect fires even faster,” CEO Thomas Gruebler said.

The AI also takes into account vegetation and humidity levels to identify flare-ups that could spawn devastating megafires. The technology could help thinly stretched firefighting agencies direct resources to blazes with the potential to cause the most damage.

“Because we know exactly where the fires are, we can see how the fires will propagate,” Gruebler said. “So, which fire will be the big fire in one day and which will stop on their own.”

___

AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay in San Francisco contributed.

Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

The post The specter of wildfires is rising. So is new synthetic intelligence options to struggle them appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The last time Mission District icon La Doña released an EP, she was on the cusp of a national breakthrough. While 2020’s “AlgoNuevo” introduced her incantatory “femmeton” blend of cumbia, reggaetón, and R&B to a wider audience, an extensive tour with her band ended up being preempted by the pandemic. Released last week, her new single, “Paloma No Vuelve Amar,” picks up where “AlgoNuevo” left off, grabbing attention with a sound that’s sensuous and inviting, forthright and commanding.

The song has received a burst of attention, landing just after President Barack Obama included her tune “Penas Con Pan” on his widely watched summer playlist. The track is from her upcoming EP, “Can’t Eat Clout,” which is slated for release Sept. 15. It’s not a song cycle, but the project describes the uplifting trajectory of a young artist coming to embrace herself, her lover and her art, drawing on the Latin music idioms that Cecilia Cassandra Peña-Govea has accumulated since she was a child playing community events around the Mission with her parents and older sister in La Familia Peña-Govea. La Doña plays an early set Friday on the Lands End Stage at the sold-out Outside Lands festival. 

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Speaking of La Doña and the fabulous creative team surrounding her, congratulations to second-generation sign-painter and artist Lauren D’Amato, who was just tapped by the Headlands Center for the Arts for the 2023-24 Tournesol Award, “which recognizes an emerging Bay Area painter in support of establishing and maintaining a career in the region.” The award includes a $10,000 stipend, a private studio, and a culminating exhibition or project of the artist’s choice. Mission Local covered her solo show at House of Seiko in March, and you can watch her in action on La Doña’s irresistible “Dembow y Sexo (Visualizer).”

Music and activism have been inextricably entwined for San Francisco pianist/composer Jon Jang since the beginning of his career. A co-founder of Asian Improv, the record label and arts organization that’s been a primary vehicle for the Asian-American jazz movement, he’s developed an arresting repertoire drawing on traditional Chinese melodies and adventurous post-bop improvisation. 

Jang presents “Civil Wrongs: Music about Black American & Japanese American Incarceration” Thursday at Sha’ar Zahav. Produced by the Community Music Center as part of a series showcasing the organization’s faculty, the free concert commemorates the 35th anniversary of the signing of the federal law granting reparations to Japanese Americans wrongly incarcerated by the U.S. government during World War II. Featuring Erika Oba on flute, Gary Brown on double bass, and drummer Deszon Claiborne, who’s also on the CMC faculty, the program includes Jang’s 1987 composition “Reparations Now!,” which he wrote in tribute to the National Coalition for Redress and Reparations for Japanese Americans. 

The program also features “Meditations on Integration,” an extended work that Charles Mingus wrote in 1964 in response to a newspaper article about detention camps being built to hold protestors fighting segregation. Mingus recorded the piece several times under various names, including as “Meditation (For a Pair of Wire Cutters)” on the live album recorded in North Beach in 1964, “Right Now: Live at the Jazz Workshop.”

“This version is based on the Town Hall recording, a work introduced to me by James Newton,” Jang said, referring to the eminent flutist and composer with whom he worked widely in the 1980s and ‘90s. “We performed as a duo at anti-apartheid events and were ultimately invited to perform at the Arts Alive Festival in Johannesburg right after the election in 1994. The energy was electrifying. We played with two Black South African musicians in the rhythm section, and what was really moving was that they had not been allowed to perform in Johannesburg under.”

Reed maestro Sheldon Brown, who’s been busy recently touring with Cuban pianist Omar Sosa and Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros featuring The Wolfpack, plays a duo show Thursday Aug. 10 at the Red Poppy Art House with guitarist Scott Foster, renewing a collaboration that dates back some 25 years. The concert is presented by Jazz In the Neighborhood, an organization dedicated to getting fair wages for musicians. 

Jazz at the Make Out Room returns on Tuesday Aug. 15 with the protean duo of drummer Scott Amendola and saxophonist Phillip Greenlief, offering  a preview of their upcoming album “Stay With It” on Clean Feed Records. Pianist Motoko Honda, a pianist and composer who combines a wry sense of humor with a knack for startling harmonies, plays a solo opening set. 

Don Malcolm has been plumbing the cinematic shadows for the past decade at The Roxie, and he shows no signs of exhausting the darkness. Kicking off Sunday afternoon, A Rare Noir Is Good to Find offers a double bill, pairing the classic 1950 Mexican “cabareteraAventurera (The Adventuress)” with 1964’s “La muerte siba un blues (Death Whistles the Blues),” about a nightclub singer working undercover at a Caribbean casino. The series runs through Aug. 20. 

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When Jordan Donica was about 9 or 10 years old, his aunt took him to New York City with one mission: to get the idea of ​​making it on Broadway out of his head. Fortunately, this mission failed spectacularly.
“It was raining and I was dancing the streets of Times Square enjoying every second of it. “My aunt had to tell me to slow down,” he recalls, now a happier New Yorker. “What I love most is here, at its peak – the core from which everything explodes.”
With determination and talent, Donica still hasn’t faltered, earning his first Tony Award nomination for playing the handsome, gallant knight Sir Lancelot in a beautiful revival of the classic musical Camelot at the Lincoln Center Theatre.
“I’m just grateful and that just makes me want to do the work even more. Really. That was the first thought I had: ‘I’m excited to get back to work,'” he says.
Donica’s story is about a man with a huge voice who moved a lot in his youth but always had Broadway as his North Star. Even in middle school, he told friends that he knew what he wanted to do with his life. His first email address contained the words “Broadway Bound”.

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A 2016 graduate of Otterbein University, Donica honed his craft in regional theater, playing Jesus in “Jesus Christ Superstar” at the Weathervane Playhouse in Ohio and was in the ensemble in “South Pacific” at the Utah Shakespeare Festival.
He made his Broadway debut in 2016 as Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera, which came full circle. As a child he had been in the audience at that New York visit and had been fascinated by the Phantom’s abilities. “I thought, ‘I have to learn to use my voice the way a man uses his voice.’ And that’s what I intend to do.”
Donica has had roles in the television series “Charmed” and “Blue Bloods”, and has also played the roles of Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in the ensembles of the musical “Hamilton” in Los Angeles and San Francisco. He was the originator of the role of Freddy Eynsford-Hill in the Lincoln Center Theater’s 2018 revival of My Fair Lady.
In the lavish, sweeping “Camelot,” he plays a virtuous if selfish knight caught in a love triangle with King Arthur and Guenevere. The story was updated by Aaron Sorkin to focus on the dream of democracy, but Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s songs remain.

Tony Award-winning director Bartlett Sher cast Donica in both My Fair Lady and Camelot, roles that required the actor to be passionate and sweet in the first role and a cheeky, sword-catching dude in the second.
“You have a wonderful artist on your hands who is able to dive into a role and into a world and deliver very different things in each case,” says Sher. “There’s that kind of connection in his body, that connection to his voice, deep intelligence and endless creativity that makes him so special.”
Donica in “Camelot” first appears almost like a righteous angel on stage – she sings “C’est Moi” with the lyrics “Here I stand as pure as a prayer/Incredably clean with virtue to spare” – but ends the musical very human. what he describes as a sobering yet entertaining journey.
“For me, Camelot is America. And we must fight every day to tell the stories of what freedom is and what America is. Because if we don’t talk about it and put it into action, it doesn’t really exist,” he says.
The role is vocally and physically demanding. He had previously gained 15 pounds and expected to sweat much of it off. He recently visited his physiotherapist, who immediately knew that Donica had lost weight because the settings on the table no longer suited him.
Born in Minnesota, Donica spent his first birthday in Chicago, then moved to Tennessee for eight years and then on to Indiana. He looked at kidz bop and TV commercials with children singing – Oscar Mayer hot dogs and Welch’s juice commercials – and wondered if that was a way.
“I remember as a little kid I saw the kids in those commercials and I turned to my mom and said, ‘I could do that.’ Why don’t I?’” he says. “I don’t think she really thought, I’m that serious. But I think I meant it very seriously.”
He joined a community theater in Indianapolis and attended theater camp where there was once a team building trust activity and Donica was the only one willing to commit and fall back into a stranger’s arms.
“I remember the teacher saying, ‘You will get good results here because you trust,'” he recalls. “The theater world is a safe place. I was taught to trust, which means you will get into a dangerous situation.”
The trip to New York was a test for a boy who loved open fields and disliked crowds. His mother didn’t want to dissuade him, just to make sure he really wanted it. Now she has been invited to see him at the Tony Awards.
On June 11, he will compete against Shucked’s Kevin Cahoon and Alex Newell, Kimberly Akimbo’s Justin Cooley and Some Like It Hot’s Kevin Del Aguila for best performance by an actor in a leading role in a musical. ”

Donica, who used to watch old Tony ceremonies on YouTube, still can’t imagine him being there. “I don’t think I really believe it anymore because I never really set out to win a Tony Award or anything like that. As a kid, all I dreamed of was performing with the Tonys.”

The post Jordan Donica, Tony Award nominee for ‘Camelot,’ is Broadway’s rising star – Los Angeles Sentinel appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

NEW YORK — When Jordan Donica was about 9 or 10 years old, his aunt took him to New York City with one mission: to banish the notion of making it on Broadway from his system. Fortunately, this mission failed spectacularly.

“It was raining and I was dancing the streets of Times Square enjoying every second of it. “My aunt had to tell me to slow down,” he recalls, now a happier New Yorker. “What I love most is here, at its peak – the core from which everything explodes.”

With determination and talent, Donica still hasn’t faltered, earning his first Tony Award nomination for playing the handsome, gallant knight Sir Lancelot in a beautiful revival of the classic musical Camelot at the Lincoln Center Theater.

“I’m just grateful and that just makes me want to do the work even more. Really. That was the first thought I had: ‘I’m excited to get back to work,'” he says.

Donica’s story is about a man with a huge voice who moved a lot in his youth but always had Broadway as his North Star. Even in middle school, he told friends that he knew what he wanted to do with his life. His first email address contained the words “Broadway Bound”.

A 2016 graduate of Otterbein University, Donica honed his craft in regional theater, playing Jesus in “Jesus Christ Superstar” at the Weathervane Playhouse in Ohio and was in the ensemble in “South Pacific” at the Utah Shakespeare Festival.

He made his Broadway debut in 2016 as Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera, which came full circle. As a child he had been in the audience at that New York visit and had been fascinated by the Phantom’s abilities. “I thought, ‘I have to learn to use my voice the way a man uses his voice.’ And that’s what I intend to do.”

Donica has had roles in the television series Charmed and Blue Bloods, and has also starred as Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in the ensembles of the Los Angeles and San Francisco musical Hamilton. He was the originator of the role of Freddy Eynsford-Hill in the Lincoln Center Theater’s 2018 revival of My Fair Lady.

In the lavish, sweeping “Camelot,” he plays a virtuous if selfish knight caught in a love triangle with King Arthur and Guenevere. The story was updated by Aaron Sorkin to focus on the dream of democracy, but Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s songs remain.

Tony Award-winning director Bartlett Sher cast Donica in both My Fair Lady and Camelot, roles that required the actor to be passionate and sweet in the first role and a cheeky, sword-catching dude in the second.

“You have a wonderful artist on your hands who is able to dive into a role and into a world and deliver very different things in each case,” says Sher. “There’s that kind of connection in his body, that connection to his voice, deep intelligence and endless creativity that makes him so special.”

Donica in “Camelot” first appears almost like a righteous angel on stage – she sings “C’est Moi” with the lyrics “Here I stand as pure as a prayer/Incredably clean with virtue to spare” – but ends the musical very human. what he describes as a sobering yet entertaining journey.

“For me, Camelot is America. And we must fight every day to tell the stories of what freedom is and what America is. Because if we don’t talk about it and put it into action, it doesn’t really exist,” he says.

The role is vocally and physically demanding. He had previously gained 15 pounds and expected to sweat much of it off. He recently visited his physiotherapist, who immediately knew that Donica had lost weight because the settings on the table no longer suited him.

Born in Minnesota, Donica spent his first birthday in Chicago, then moved to Tennessee for eight years and then on to Indiana. He looked at kidz bop and TV commercials with children singing – Oscar Mayer hot dogs and Welch’s juice commercials – and wondered if that was a way.

“I remember as a little kid I saw the kids in those commercials and I turned to my mom and said, ‘I could do that.’ Why don’t I?’” he says. “I don’t think she really thought, I’m that serious. But I think I meant it very seriously.”

He joined a community theater in Indianapolis and attended theater camp where there was once a team building trust activity and Donica was the only one willing to commit and fall back into a stranger’s arms.

“I remember the teacher saying, ‘You will get good results here because you trust,'” he recalls. “The theater world is a safe place. I was taught to trust, which means you will get into a dangerous situation.”

The trip to New York was a test for a boy who loved open fields and disliked crowds. His mother didn’t want to dissuade him, just to make sure he really wanted it. Now she has been invited to see him at the Tony Awards.

On June 11, he will compete against Shucked’s Kevin Cahoon and Alex Newell, Kimberly Akimbo’s Justin Cooley and Some Like It Hot’s Kevin Del Aguila for best performance by an actor in a leading role in a musical. ”

Donica, who used to watch old Tony ceremonies on YouTube, still can’t imagine him being there. “I don’t think I really believe it anymore because I never really set out to win a Tony Award or anything like that. As a kid, all I dreamed of was performing with the Tonys.”

___

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

The post Jordan Donica, Tony Award nominee for ‘Camelot,’ is Broadway’s rising star appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

IndexBox, Inc.

NEW YORK, March 24, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) – The research firm IndexBox has released a new report on the Global HVAC Market, providing in-depth analysis, forecasts and industry insights. The report, which can be accessed on the IndexBox website via this link https://www.indexbox.io/store/world-hvac-equipment-market-analysis-forecast-size-trends-and-insights/, offers trial access to the market data of the platform to interested parties.

The report contains market forecasts till 2030 with a comprehensive analysis of the factors driving and limiting the growth of the industry. The main growth drivers include the increasing demand for energy-efficient systems, increasing construction activity and technological advances. However, the industry also faces challenges such as high installation and maintenance costs, environmental concerns and market saturation.

The report also provides an overview of the major industries consuming HVAC equipment, including residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. The major consumer industries influence the demand for HVAC equipment and the report examines the key factors driving the demand in each sector.

The residential HVAC segment is driven by the growing demand for energy efficient and environmentally friendly systems, which has led to the development of smart and connected home systems. The segment is also being driven by increasing home construction and renovation activities. The commercial HVAC segment, on the other hand, is being driven by growth in the construction and retail sectors. The use of HVAC systems in commercial buildings is necessary to maintain indoor air quality and comfortable temperature levels, making the segment a key growth driver in the industry.

In the industrial HVAC segment, there is a growing demand for process cooling and heating systems in industries such as food processing, pharmaceuticals and chemicals. The use of HVAC systems is vital in these industries to maintain specific temperature and humidity levels to ensure product quality and safety.

The story goes on

The global HVAC market is highly competitive and segmented into several regions including North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, South America and Middle East & Africa. North America is the largest market for HVAC systems, with the United States being the largest contributor to the region’s growth. The growth of the market in the region is attributed to the increasing demand for energy efficient systems, technological advances and strict regulations on energy consumption.

In Europe, the market is driven by the increasing demand for air conditioning in residential and commercial buildings. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing market for HVAC systems, driven by growth in the construction industry and increasing demand for energy efficient systems. Significant growth is also expected for the market in South America, the Middle East and Africa due to increasing investments in infrastructure development and industrialization.

The report also highlights the key manufacturers in the industry including Carrier Corporation, Daikin Industries Ltd. and Lennox International Inc.

According to Aleksandr Romanenko, CEO of IndexBox: “Our report on the global HVAC market provides a comprehensive analysis of the industry, including its growth prospects, key drivers and challenges, and key players. We believe this report will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in this important sector.”

For more information or to purchase the report, please visit https://www.indexbox.io/store/world-hvac-equipment-market-analysis-forecast-size-trends-and-insights/

Keywords: HVAC market, global, forecasts, growth drivers, challenges.

CONTACT: Contact Mekhrona Dzhuraeva, Editor, at media@indexbox.io.

The post HVAC Market Set to Expertise Regular Development at CAGR of 5.5% Attributable to Rising Demand for Vitality-Environment friendly Programs and Technological Developments appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Take a look at the construction of the new apartment complex in Napa: SoCo Napa. It is located in Central and Soscol in Napa. Most units will be off the shelf.

Jennifer Huffman, Register

A “Maker” workspace. A bicycle “kitchen”. A community garden, lounge, pool, waterfall, two exercise areas, game room and even a pet spa.

These are some of the amenities new residents of SoCo Napa Apartments can choose from in the 15-acre complex.

A total of 171 units are currently under construction across seven buildings in downtown Napa. As of last week, the hammering and building work is about 60% complete, said Kevin Meier, site manager at Cresleigh Homes. The first apartments are to be rented by the end of May.

A proposed apartment complex in central Napa would offer not only 172 rental units, but also a dozen two-wheeler rentals.

Located at 725 and 737 Central St., the SoCo Napa project was originally intended to be developed by Napan Wayne O’Connell and partners.

He planned to name it Pietro Place in honor of his grandfather, Pietro Lepera, an immigrant from Italy, O’Connell said in 2015.

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However, in 2016, O’Connell sold the project to builder and developer Cresleigh Homes.

The new SoCo name was inspired by nearby Soscol Avenue, said Abigail Buffaloe of Cresleigh Homes.

During a tour last week, Buffaloe noted that Cresleigh isn’t new to Napa. With offices in Roseville and San Francisco, the company also owns and operates the Towpath Village condominium complex in Napa on Old Soscol Way.

Large and buildable lots are becoming increasingly scarce in Napa, and another is on the way to being filled by a new condominium complex.

“We’ve been in the neighborhood,” Buffaloe said. Cresleigh Homes is “really drawn to populating residential areas, (and) we just fell in love with the project.”

Napa is “such a unique community,” she said. It’s close to the larger Bay Area, “You’ve got a bustling downtown, art and music, and great restaurants.” (all) in the “world-class” Napa Valley.

“And we really want to share that with our residents and give them a new place to call home.”

The unit could potentially be sold at some point in the future, but for now they will be leased at market rates, Buffaloe said.

That ranges from about $2,500 per month for a one-bedroom unit to $3,000 for a two-bedroom unit.

Because SoCo uses a dynamic pricing engine, lease rates can actually fluctuate on a weekly or even daily basis. It all depends on supply and demand in the market, Buffaloe said.

A condominium complex has permission to fill one of Napa’s last major land blocks near downtown.

However, a total of 12 units are rented out to eligible residents at “affordable” rates. Depending on income and household size, those units could start at about $1,250 a month, Buffaloe said.

Almost half of the units have one bedroom; the other half, two. The complex does not have studios or three bedroom units. A total of 305 parking spaces are planned, including 109 garage parking spaces.

The seven residential buildings are each in different construction phases. For example, the building next to Central Avenue is about 90 percent complete, Meier said. Appliances, countertops and other surfaces are currently being installed. At the other end of the spectrum, part of the complex on Soscol Avenue will be fitted with heating and plumbing. The building is about 30% complete, Meier said.

That could happen around the first quarter of 2024, Buffaloe said.

“It will be a nice project,” adds Meier.

Guided tours are not yet available, but see Cresleigh.com for information on the apartments.

PHOTOS: Take a sneak peek inside these Napa apartments under construction

SoCo Napa Apartments 2

A construction worker works at the new SoCo Napa Apartments in Napa on Wednesday, April 5.

Nick Otto, Registry

SoCo Napa Apartments 1

A construction worker is seen Wednesday, April 5 near the unfinished pool at the new SoCo Napa Apartments in Napa.

Nick Otto, Registry

SoCo Napa Apartments 3

Construction workers work at the new SoCo Napa Apartments in Napa on Wednesday, April 5.

Nick Otto, Registry

SoCo Napa Apartments 4

Clubhouse tour on Wednesday, April 5th at the new SoCo Napa Apartments in Napa.

Nick Otto, Registry

SoCo Napa Apartments 5

A construction worker works at the new SoCo Napa Apartments in Napa on Wednesday, April 5.

Nick Otto, Registry

SoCo Napa Apartments 5

A construction worker works at the new SoCo Napa Apartments in Napa on Wednesday, April 5.

Nick Otto, Registry

SoCo Napa Apartments 7

A construction worker works at the new SoCo Napa Apartments in Napa on Wednesday, April 5.

Nick Otto, Registry

SoCo Napa Apartments 8

Construction workers work at the new SoCo Napa Apartments in Napa on Wednesday, April 5.

Nick Otto, Registry

SoCo Napa Apartments 9

Construction workers are seen Wednesday, April 5 near the unfinished pool at the new SoCo Napa Apartments in Napa.

Nick Otto, Registry

SoCo Napa Apartments 10

Construction workers work at the new SoCo Napa Apartments in Napa on Wednesday, April 5.

Nick Otto, Registry

SoCo Napa Apartments 11

Construction workers work at the new SoCo Napa Apartments in Napa on Wednesday, April 5.

Nick Otto, Registry

SoCo Napa Apartments 12

A construction worker works at the new SoCo Napa Apartments in Napa on Wednesday, April 5.

Nick Otto, Registry

SoCo Napa Apartments 13

A construction worker works at the new SoCo Napa Apartments in Napa on Wednesday, April 5.

Nick Otto, Registry

SoCo Napa Apartments 14

A construction worker works at the new SoCo Napa Apartments in Napa on Wednesday, April 5.

Nick Otto, Registry

You can reach reporter Jennifer Huffman at 707-256-2218 or jhuffman@napanews.com

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The post 171 new flats rising in central Napa appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

As sea levels rise and torrential rains sweep the land, an invisible threat rises from beneath our feet, groundwater experts say. They urge municipalities to consider the massive infrastructure and public health risks posed by overflowing water tables.

The climate crisis is usually associated with water tables being depleted by extreme heat and drought. But “in some areas, thanks to rising sea levels and more intense rainfall, that water is actually rising higher, bringing with it a wave of problems that few communities are prepared for,” writes Grist.

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“Places in the United States where water tables are getting inch by inch — along the coasts, yes, but also inland, in parts of the Midwest — are already beginning to have infrastructure problems,” the message adds. Old, cracked pipes are flooded, making the pipelines unsuitable for rainwater and waste. “The road is deteriorating faster. Trees drown when the soil becomes more brittle and their roots are deprived of oxygen.”

For poor and low-lying communities, a dangerous concern is that “rising groundwater will mobilize pollutants that have lurked in the ground for years, left behind by industrial and military sites, and allow them to spread unnoticed beneath our feet.”

That threat is now a reality in West Oakland in the San Francisco Bay Area.

“A once thriving black community decimated by racist urban planning practices,” West Oakland has proven over the years to be the home of all manner of toxin-producing industries, from shipyards to smelters to a former military base.

In February 2020, a local high school was forced to close for several weeks after the carcinogenic industrial solvent trichlorethylene (TCE) was discovered in groundwater beneath campus. The source of the TCE was never located, but a local news organization reported at the time that it could be “any or all of five polluting sites within a half-mile radius of the school, including a metalworking shop and a former dry cleaner’s.”

The rise in groundwater is compounding an already acute environmental injustice, said Kristina Hill, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who studies groundwater rise in urban coastal areas. “Now these areas have both polluted the soil through military or industrial activities, [and] They also have rising groundwater,” Hill said.

Across the country, in low-lying Beaufort County, South Carolina, rising groundwater is threatening septic systems. Just like in West Oakland, sea-level rise is pushing water not just up, but inland, “raising water tables miles from shore,” says Grist. This phenomenon occurs near coasts where the saturated soil below the water table itself sits on salt water from the ocean. “As sea levels rise, groundwater is pushed up because salt water is denser than fresh water,” explains MIT Technology Review.

And that’s not the only way oceans and groundwater are connected, notes Grist.

Daniel Rozell, a Stony Brook University engineer whose 2021 study warned that coastal cities are ignoring the dangers of rising groundwater, said policymakers need to recognize that groundwater is sinking into the sea in an ongoing process called “undersea drainage.” sea ​​shall flow.”

This means that seawalls designed to keep out the rising oceans must also be able to drain groundwater so it doesn’t back up behind the wall and cause the very problems the seawall was designed to prevent.

Septic tank failure is a real threat in places like Beaufort County because the process depends on there being adequate clearance between the septic tank and groundwater. Otherwise, there is no time or space for waste to be filtered off the ground and eaten by bacteria, and raw sewage ends up being washed up into local waterways.

About 20% of US homes depend on sewage systems, and even in offshore areas, groundwater will still rise after climate-related rains.

In some places along Illinois’ Vermilion River, “groundwater seeps into uncased pits that contain coal ash — a hazardous waste — and carry heavy metals into drinking water aquifers,” reports Grist.

Coal ash mines are concentrated in the Midwest and South and are a serious environmental threat. By 2019, the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice had found that more than 90% had contaminated nearby groundwater with heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium and mercury.

The post Rising Groundwater Poses Hidden Risk to Public Well being, Infrastructure appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Beneath our feet there is an invisible ocean. Within the cracks of rock slabs, sand, and soil, this water sinks, swells, and flows — sometimes just a few feet under the surface, sometimes 30,000 feet below. This system of groundwater provides a vital supply for drinking water and irrigation, and feeds into rivers, lakes, and wetlands. Across the globe, it contains 100 times as much fresh water than all of the world’s rivers and lakes combined.

As Earth warms, groundwater — long seen as an immutable resource — is in flux. Most often, climate change is associated with a decrease in groundwater, fueled by worsening drought and evaporative demand. But in some areas, this water is actually creeping higher, thanks to rising sea levels and more intense rainfall, bringing a surge of problems for which few communities are prepared.

Places in the United States where the water table is inching higher — along the coasts, yes, but also inland, in parts of the Midwest — are already beginning to experience problems with infrastructure. Cracks in aging and poorly maintained pipes are being inundated, leaving plumbing unable to carry away stormwater and waste. Pavement is degrading faster. Trees are drowning as the soil becomes soupier, starving their roots of oxygen. During high tides and when it rains, groundwater is even reaching the surface and forming temporary ponds where there never used to be flooding.

This phenomenon — groundwater rise — could also have dire effects on people’s health, exposing them to new or unearthed pollutants. In the San Francisco Bay Area, rising groundwater threatens to spread contamination that can evaporate and rise into the air inside homes, schools, and workplaces. In Beaufort County, South Carolina, it is flooding septic systems, leaching raw sewage into nearby waterways. Along the Vermilion River in Illinois, it is seeping into unlined pits containing coal ash — a hazardous waste — and carrying heavy metals into drinking-water aquifers.

These three communities, profiled below, demonstrate the risks that other parts of the country may soon face as climate change alters a system long taken for granted.

West Oakland, California

Oceans do not stop where the sea meets the shore. Along the coasts, saltwater creeps through porous soil and rock, creating an underground saltwater table that can extend miles inland.

Many Americans are familiar with sea-level rise. As we crank up the planet’s thermostat, the melting of glaciers and ice sheets and the thermal expansion of seawater mean the oceans are rising and intruding farther and farther inland — both on top of the land and underneath it.

Few regions expect an inundation from below, explained Kristina Hill, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies rising groundwater in urban coastal areas. “They think that building a levee is going to protect them from rising seawater. But, of course, a levee doesn’t affect much about the way that groundwater rises behind it.”

One of many concerning possibilities is that rising groundwater will mobilize contaminants that have been lurking in the soil for years, left behind by industrial and military sites, and allow them to spread, unnoticed, beneath our feet. 

Grist

Phoenix Armenta has been working to educate communities around the San Francisco Bay Area about this threat for years. In February 2020, McClymonds High School, which is not far from where Armenta lives in West Oakland, was forced to close for several weeks after a cancer-causing chemical called trichloroethylene, or TCE, was found in the groundwater below the school. 

West Oakland — a once-thriving Black community decimated by racist urban-planning practices — has been the site of shipyards, car manufacturers, metal smelters, and a former Army base, and is close to a major port and several highways. It’s unclear where the TCE in the groundwater below McClymonds High School migrated from, but NBC Bay Area reported that the industrial solvent could have come from any or all of five polluting sites within a half-mile of the school, including a metal-finishing shop and a former dry cleaner. 

Armenta, who was working for a local environmental justice organization at the time, was deeply concerned, but not surprised, by the news. “That entire school is surrounded by toxic sites and toxic contaminants,” they said. 

Hill said that rising groundwater could have played a role in transporting the TCE from a contaminated site to below McClymonds High School. U.S. Geological Survey modeling shows that groundwater levels in West Oakland are already climbing, meaning more contamination is likely on the move in parts of the city. But it’s difficult to link specific instances, like what happened at McClymonds High School, to changes induced by rising seas — that would require more monitoring wells to track groundwater levels at a granular level and to map the flow of contamination. 

Contaminants that have a gas component, like petroleum products and solvents, are particularly dangerous because they can wind up in the air people breathe. These substances can enter sewage systems through cracked pipes, evaporate, travel up into buildings, and then seep into homes, schools, and workplaces. They can also enter directly through cracks in building foundations.

The California Department of Toxic Substances Control conducted testing and found that TCE was not present in the air inside McClymonds High School. Eventually, the agency allowed the school to reopen, but that doesn’t mean the risk has gone away. As groundwater in West Oakland continues to rise, scientists and activists warn that more contamination will spread, and the risk of hazardous substances seeping into homes, schools, and businesses will grow. “It’s likely to be a hot spot where these things will happen early,” Hill said.

The communities most at risk are disproportionately people of color and people with low incomes. Racist housing policies, including redlining, have pushed Black Americans, in particular, into low-lying areas that flood frequently and neighborhoods surrounded by refineries, factories, and other sources of pollution. “Now those areas have both polluted soil from military or industrial activities, [and] they also have rising groundwater,” Hill said.

Armenta wants to see better monitoring, and they also want to see the toxic sites remediated. “The businesses that have been polluting in this community should be cleaning it up,” they said. If the sites are left unaddressed, rising groundwater will continue to spread contamination and people will get sick.

Beaufort County, South Carolina

Everywhere you look in Beaufort County, South Carolina, there is water. The low-lying coastal county, which sits at the bottom of the state, is laced with streams and rivers, and flanked by marsh and barrier islands. Sea-level rise is obvious here, according to Larry Toomer, who owns an oyster market and restaurant in Bluffton, a fast-growing town in the southern part of the county. On sunny days, water pools in parking lots, and during the full moon, the high tide overtakes roads. 

But Toomer worries about the water he can’t see. 

Similar to San Francisco Bay, sea-level rise in this part of South Carolina is pushing water not only up, but inland, raising groundwater levels miles away from the coast. For the rural communities that dot Beaufort County and rely on residential septic systems, this creep spells trouble. As the water table climbs, it can infiltrate and impair septic systems, from the pipes to the leach fields, causing raw sewage — and the viruses, bacteria, and nitrogen it potentially contains — to spill into nearby waterways. It’s an existential problem for a town like Bluffton, where shellfish harvests fortify the economy and residents spend days on the water and nights roasting oysters over the fire. “Without good water quality, you won’t have good seafood,” said Toomer, who serves on the Bluffton town council as mayor pro tempore.

A working septic system depends on the distance between its underground tank and the groundwater below. Waste flows from homes into a tank, where solids sink to the bottom to be eaten by bacteria and liquids flow into a nearby field. There, the wastewater seeps through the earth, where it’s filtered by soil and digested by bacteria. Eventually, clean water trickles into the groundwater. 

When rising seas narrow the gap between a septic tank and groundwater, waste can’t be properly treated. Toilets back up, and raw sewage oozes into yards, where it can be washed into surrounding waterways. The fumes can cause respiratory problems, while nitrates may spur algal blooms.

Grist

Bluffton is bisected by the May River, which isn’t a river at all, but more like a river-shaped bay, fed by the tides of the Atlantic. In recent decades, extreme rainfall and booming development have eroded the river’s water quality. In 2009, high levels of fecal coliform, bacteria like E. coli associated with human and animal waste, led the state to halt shellfish harvests on the upper third of the river. While fecal coliform aren’t always dangerous, they’re considered an indicator for water quality. 

Kim Jones, Bluffton’s watershed resilience manager, said the city has surveyed septic systems, looking for failing tanks. As of last summer, they’ve only found five. “But we continue to get these positive hits,” Jones said, indicative of bacteria being swept into the river when tides below ground encounter groundwater.

Around one in five households in the U.S. rely on septic systems to treat wastewater, meaning they’re not connected to a central public sewer. Rising groundwater will challenge systems up and down coastal areas, particularly lower-elevation states like Florida and Virginia. Communities need to plan for this now, said Molly Mitchell, a coastal researcher at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. “Houses built today, in 30 years, will be in a very different environment,” she said. “Being aware of it could help reduce a lot of future impacts.”

Bluffton is in the process of phasing out septic systems and constructing a community sewer system — a major investment that requires building sewer lines and hook-ups to each home. But many communities can’t afford such projects, or residents may not be willing or able to pay new monthly bills on top of connection fees. Other alternatives — like community septics or above-ground systems — aren’t cheap, either.

Meanwhile, an effort is underway to assess how sea-level rise affects groundwater throughout Beaufort County. Scientists are measuring the height of the water table and how it changes with the tides. That can be used to model what will happen as oceans keep rising or rainfall intensifies. Already, residents complain of pumping out waterlogged leach fields. Alicia Wilson, a project scientist from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, expects that will only become more frequent. “The question is,” she said, “when do things fall apart?”

Such data collection isn’t widespread but will be crucial for helping towns prepare for the future. Rising groundwater is “out of sight, out of mind,” Jones said. But the tides underfoot shape the health, economy, environment, and very essence of her town. “It’s going to be an increasing issue for a lot of communities.”

Vermilion River, Illinois

Inland, far from America’s coastlines, climate change is driving a rise in groundwater levels through an increase in rainfall. Heavy precipitation — particularly when it comes over a short period of time — can cause lakes and rivers to flood and saturate the ground directly. That excess water then percolates down through the soil, raising the groundwater below, explained Mark Hutson, a geologist who previously worked for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. 

In the Midwest, this change is already underway. As the climate has warmed, the frequency of extreme rainfall events in the region has doubled since the early 1900s. In some places, the resulting rise in groundwater levels from this extreme rainfall — known as “groundwater flooding” — is temporary, receding once the earth is able to absorb the extra moisture. Elsewhere, like in the Great Lakes, steadily rising water levels — which could be up to 17 inches higher on average by 2050 — can permanently change the depth of the water table. 

As groundwater levels have risen, so too have concerns about the fate of hundreds of coal ash impoundments — typically unlined pits containing waste from power plants that burn coal for electricity. 

Though these dump sites are scattered around the country, they’re concentrated in the Midwest and South. Coal ash contains contaminants like mercury, cadmium, and arsenic, which can leach into the groundwater supply that towns and private well owners rely on for their drinking water. It can also pollute nearby waterways, poisoning plants and wildlife. A 2019 investigation by the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice, which examined 265 coal-fired power plants that monitored the environment around their coal ash dump sites, found that more than 90 percent had already contaminated nearby groundwater with these heavy metals. 

Grist

At the Vermilion Power Station in central Illinois, which was operated by the Texas-based Dynegy corporation until its closure in 2011, three unlined ponds contain over 3 million cubic yards of coal ash, which has already contaminated the groundwater with boron, arsenic, and sulfate, testing by the Illinois EPA found. And that groundwater has already begun leaching toxins into the nearby Middle Fork Vermilion River; according to a 2018 report by the Illinois nonprofit Prairie Rivers Network, “the riverbank nearest the coal ash is stained brightly orange and has an oily sheen.” The organization has pointed out that groundwater flooding after heavy rains in this region could carry even more pollution from the Vermilion site.

In 2015, hoping to address concerns about groundwater pollution, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency adopted new regulations that required most of the country’s coal plants to stop sending waste to unlined pits and begin closing them entirely. (New coal ash waste has to be sent to lined sites that don’t cut into the aquifer). 

That usually meant capping them with a hard shell to prevent rainfall from getting in — but the rules said nothing about the threat from below, said Andrew Rehn, a water resources engineer with the Prairie Rivers Network. 

“If you have an ash pond, and it’s got a cap on it, and it starts raining, that cap does prevent that rain from getting in the ash,” Rehn said. “And then you say, ‘Oh, look, it works.’ [But] you’ve ignored groundwater.” 

The rules also exempted hundreds of coal ash sites that weren’t actively receiving new waste, but which contain as much as half of the coal ash ever produced in the U.S. Groups like Earthjustice have sued the EPA to force the agency to regulate these so-called “legacy” impoundments. 

Under the Biden administration, the EPA has started to look more closely at how groundwater affects coal ash sites. Last year, the agency created a list of 163 coal ash sites with waste potentially located below the water table. Nearly half of these are located in just four states: Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and Indiana. 

Dealing with the problem would require moving coal ash to a landfill that’s “high and dry,” Rehn said. But sites like the coal plant in Waukegan, Illinois, plan to cap and monitor the coal ash instead, despite protests from local communities. 

“​​This is a very urgent issue, because the closure is required, the closure is happening,” said Jenny Cassel, an attorney with Earthjustice who worked on coal ash cases. “And in some places, it’s happening in ways that are not going to alleviate the problem.”

Across the United States

This slow-moving crisis is popping up in communities across the U.S., but there are some common steps that can be implemented anywhere to help stem the spread of contaminants through climate-driven groundwater rise. Hill said one of the most important for government agencies and municipalities to take is simply more monitoring — in particular, at “maximum groundwater moments,” such as a few days after a heavy rain or at a high tide. Currently, sampling tends to be so infrequent that it doesn’t catch the movement of the contamination. 

“There are ways that we could be sampling and trying to catch the maximum risk, instead of kind of smoothing it all over with sampling that isn’t related to rain events or tide events,” Hill said. “Ideally, we’d help local people be involved in that sampling so that they know what’s happening in their own neighborhoods.”

Understanding, though, has to be paired with action. Along with taking broader steps to address climate change and its impacts, agencies need to ensure polluters clean up toxic sites, rather than just capping them and hoping for the best. 

Mitchell, the coastal researcher in Virginia, hopes that officials will use such data sets to more proactively address groundwater rise. 

“I think sometimes when we talk about issues related to changing environments, it can seem overwhelming or depressing,” she said. “But I really think the important thing is that when we have good information about the future, we make better decisions.”

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/article/what-it-means-groundwater-is-rising/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

The post It’s not simply oceans which might be rising. Groundwater is, too appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.