Delta Regional Group: who we are

"Hail and Farewell, Dear People! Good Earth, Inc. has been jogging along over six years, trying to safeguard and improve the East County Environment. Yet our support remains very limited." Thus opened the final Good Earth Newsletter for Winter 1986. After six years of working with unenlightened city and county officials in East Contra Costa County, Good Earth members decided that our efforts could have better results if we affiliated with a national environmental organization.

Thus in January 1987, with the help of Bay Chapter conservation director David Nesmith, the Delta Regional Group of the Sierra Club came to hold its first meeting. The newly established group extended from Bay Point to Discovery Bay in Eastern Contra Costa County, and many of those former Good Earth members are still actively involved.

As can be expected from the location, many of our activities are water-related. The Group has adopted Contra Loma Reservoir and Park in Antioch, performing trash pick-ups along the reservoir shoreline and the one-mile park entrance road. Delta Group members serve on Pittsburg's Kirker Creek Watershed Planning Group and Partners for the Watershed, doing ongoing creek clean-up and water-quality studies, and on the Board of Directors for the Delta Science Center at Big Break, an East Bay Regional Park District facility in Oakley. Members have served on stakeholder committees for Contra Costa Water District's Los Vaqueros Reservoir studies, and attend CalFed meetings, held to determine statewide water diversions that could threaten the health of the San Francisco Bay-Delta ecosystem.

The Group's primary focus today is on solving the problems created by East Contra Costa's rapid urban sprawl development, and the resulting inadequate infrastructure and traffic congestion. It is urgent to develop a sensible Urban Limit Line and growth-management program to protect our prime agricultural lands and open space, and to limit future growth until transportation and infrastructure improvements can be built.

In addition to conservation efforts, Delta Group activities include easy to moderate hikes, art-sketch hikes, and special-interest outings such as Delta bird safaris. General program meetings include time for refreshments and sociability and vary in programming from environmental issues to travel and adventure presentations. They are usually held on the third Tuesday of January, March, May, September, and November at the Antioch Library, 501 W. 18th St. To receive the Delta Group newsletter, send a $5 check, payable to:

Sierra Club, Delta Group
Tish Brown
51 Danridge Court
Antioch, CA 94509

For information about Delta area environmental concerns, call Tim Donahue at (925) 754-8801. For information about Delta Group activities, call Janess Hanson at (925) 458-0860. We invite East Contra Costa residents to join us, get involved, and "explore, enjoy, and protect the planet"!

Janess Hanson