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Sierra Club Monthly Meeting
November 23 @ 7:03 am
The Austin Regional Group of the Sierra Club meets on the second Tuesday of each month at 7:00 pm in the north dining room of Scholz Garten, 1607 San Jacinto*. Come as early as 6:00 p.m. for happy hour and ordering eats.
JUNE 11, 2013 Native Plants for Texas Landscapes with Andrea DeLong-Amaya, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, University of Texas at Austin, at Scholz Garten, 7 p.m.
With increased drought and watering restrictions predicted for the foreseeable future, regionally native plants are the obvious choices for successful, beautiful, and water-wise gardens. Selecting the right native plants for your garden is both art and science and Andrea DeLong-Amaya will suggest and describe a few native plants for specific landscape situations and how they may be used in a variety of landscape styles from naturalistic to formal designs. Resources for further information will also be presented.
Andrea DeLong-Amaya, a member of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center staff since 1998, manages the Texas native plant gardens and propagation facility at the Center as the Director of Horticulture. She teaches classes in native plant horticulture and oversees the master plan for the gardens, currently focused on creating the 4.5 acre Luci Baines Johnson and Ian Turpin Family Garden that incorporates environmentally sustainable landscaping approaches and is a pilot project for the Sustainable Sites Initiative. She has written articles on gardening for Neil Sperry’s Gardens, Tauton’s Fine Gardening, Rodale’s Organic Gardening, the American Public Garden Association’s Public Garden, and the Wildflower Center’s quarterly magazine, Wildflower. She received a BA in Geography from the University of Texas at Austin and served two years as Vice President of Administration for the Native Plant Society of Texas and is currently the chair of the native plant section for the APGA. With over 20 years of professional experience in garden design and maintenance in Central Texas, her passion is to facilitate the use and appreciation of locally native plants in planned landscapes.
JULY 9, 2013 BIKE AUSTIN!
Annick Beaudet and Chad Crager will give an overview of Austin’s upcoming Bike Plan Amendment and Urban Trails Master Plan. Austin is one of six cities partnering with the Green Lane Project on a two-year program to implement protected bike lanes, also called green lanes. The next-generation bike lanes are separated from traffic and sidewalks, and make riding a bike for short trips an attractive option for more people. Austin’s network of green lanes is growing rapidly, with new lanes on Rio Grande, Bluebonnet, Barton Springs Road, 3rd Street, and more.
Annick Beaudet, Program Manager with the City of Austin Public Works Department, Neighborhood Connectivity Division, is responsible for the planning and implementation of bicycle and urban trail related infrastructure, consistent with the City's Bicycle Master Plan. She plays a key role in the coordination and integration of bicycle transportation into ongoing City planning processes, private development, and regional transportation projects. Ms. Beaudet has been an avid transportation bicyclist in Austin for over 30 years. She has an educational background in Kinesiology and Urban Geography from the University of Texas at Austin. She was recently accepted into an executive Masters of Public Administration (MPA) program at Pennsylvania State University and plans to finish the program in 2015.
Chad Crager, Project Manager, is responsible for managing the planning, design, and construction of bicycle and urban trail infrastructure. Chad has been an avid cyclist in Austin for over 7 years. He has an educational background in Civil Engineering from Texas A&M University and uses his experience in contracts, planning, design, and construction to efficiently deliver bicycle infrastructure for the City of Austin.
AUGUST 13, 2013 Birding in Your Backyard.
Mikael Behrens, long-time Austin birder, has found over 200 species of birds in his northwest Austin neighborhood. A proponent of exploring and observing nature locally – in places where you find yourself every day, he says, “Birding is one of the most accessible ways to observe and enjoy wildlife, and it doesn't require planning trips or even leaving your neighborhood. It's a window into the bigger pictures of nature and ecology, and provides opportunities to contribute to citizen science. I also lead monthly bird walks in my neighborhood and on Hill Country Conservancy's Nalle Bunny Run preserve. See his latest photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikael_behrens/ His blog at http://birdingonbroadmeade.blogspot.com/
SEPTEMBER 10, 2013 Plastics and Chemicals in the Environment.
A recent study has shown the large majority of commercially available BPA-free plastic products readily leach chemicals having estrogenic activity. Leaching increases when products are subjected to common-use stresses such as dishwashing, microwaving and sunlight. George Bittner, Professor of Neurobiology and Pharmacology at The University of Texas, will discuss endocrine disrupting chemicals and his groundbreaking work in chemicals in plastics. In 2000, he founded a company to create plastic bottles free of all chemicals with estrogenic activity (EA). Dr. Bittner is now working on a certified EA-Free baby bottle, water bottles, food packaging, and medical devices. Bittner earned his B.A. in chemistry from Duke University and his Ph.D. in Neuroscience at Stanford University. He began his postdoctoral work in the Department of Anatomy and the Brain Research Institute at UCLA and joined the faculty at UT in 1969. A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, his research is widely known both nationally and internationally. Dr. Bittner was one of four founding members of the Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Texas. He is also an adjunct Professor at the Department of Physiology/Biophysics at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) at Galveston, TX.
*The nearest bus, #20, runs along Red River, two blocks away. A bike lane runs along Trinity. Free street parking is available after 5 and is usually free in the state parking garages after 6 pm – next to, behind and across from Scholz Garten. Directions and menus at www.scholzgarten.net.