![Caltrans plans to widen the 91 Freeway [again], spending $1.3 Billion to improve commute speeds 1.5 miles per hour, while further destroying the only wildlife connection between the Santa Ana Mountains and the Puente-Chino Hills. Commuter trains, anyone?](https://wilderutopia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Jerry-Collamer-91-Freeway-Insane-Toon-115x115.jpg "Caltrans Driving Us to Freeway Insanity")
An Array of Utopian Flowers
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Reclaiming Land, Culture, & Narrative Through Black, Indigenous, & Queer Stewardship
Posted on October 3, 2022 | 1 Comment - Historic Political Transitions in Honduras, Colombia, and Haiti
Posted on September 26, 2022 | No Comments - Cultural Fire: Native Land Management and Regeneration
Posted on September 20, 2022 | 3 Comments - Tales of the Fifth Dimension – The Fifth Fedora Anthology
Posted on September 19, 2022 | 1 Comment - How to Establish a Food Forest with Jim Gale
Posted on September 11, 2022 | No Comments
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WilderUtopia in 102 Languages
‘Medicine Walk’ Featured in SBLitJo
Santa Barbara Literary Journal released ‘Bellatrix: Volume 3’ in June 2019, which among adventurous fiction, poetry, essays, and lyrics, features an excerpt of Jack Eidt’s psychic-animism fiction, Medicine Walk. Buy the book!
Orange County Archive
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Deadly Waters – Oil Spills & The Future of Offshore Drilling
Posted on October 29, 2021 | 2 CommentsEcoJustice Radio covers the deadly waters of oil spilling in Orange County, CA, and how to move beyond offshore drilling in the US after recent disasters. Jack Eidt from WilderUtopia and Emily Parker from Heal the Bay speak with Jessica Aldridge. -
Earth-Honoring Traditions of the Acjachemen with Spiritual Leader Adelia Sandoval
Posted on August 14, 2019 | 3 CommentsCarry Kim talks with Rev. Adelia Sandoval, the Spiritual Leader for the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians/Acjachemen Nation. The Acjachemen people are the indigenous people of Orange County in Southern California and have stewarded and inhabited this region for roughly 12,000 years. -
Orange County Toll Road Agency Pushing 241 Extension AGAIN
Posted on October 17, 2016 | 2 CommentsJerry Collamer expounds on the not-so-shockingly tone-deaf antics of the Orange County Toll Road Agency that will literally do anything to extend their oft-rejected SR 241 Foothill Toll Road through the backcountry wilderness and down around world class surf destination, Trestles Beach. What did Einstein say about doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results? -
Shipping Containers as Sustainable, Affordable Housing?
Posted on September 27, 2016 | 2 CommentsCan re-purposed shipping containers become the next inexpensive, quick to construct, green building solution for affordable housing? Danish "starchitect" Bjarke Ingels, as well as a recent Orange County, California, project, assert yes to all of the above, but there are limitations. -
Preserve Newport Banning Ranch as Sacred Archaeological Site Genga
Posted on May 12, 2016 | 9 CommentsNewport Beach's Banning Ranch, the site of a proposed mega commercial and residential development, is an extraordinary archaeological site. Once the site where an ancient Native American coastal village called Genga, a ritual and trading hub for both the Tongva and Acjachemen Native American Nations, existed for over a thousand years. -
Laguna Beach “Ranch” Hotel Renovation Violates Coastal Rules
Posted on January 8, 2015 | 22 CommentsThe California Coastal Commission failed to enforce the Coastal Act and did not require a Laguna hotel renovation to address destruction of affordable rooms and environmental habitat as well as finish the long-awaited Trail to the Sea. -
Orange County Automates Toll Road Collections to Increase Profits
Posted on May 30, 2014 | 1 CommentOC's toll roads have a new way to make money from their empty lanes crisscrossing the county: Hundreds of dollars charged in automated fines per missed toll payment, versus a measly single-time $6-per toll. Commuters beware. -
Sprawl vs. Open Space: “Rio Santiago” Again Threatens Orange
Posted on May 13, 2014 | 1 CommentJack Eidt writes on the dangers of proposing mixed use development far from urban amenities and alternative transportation. The real estate industry in Orange County, California and beyond, has consistently violated engineering and planning wisdom by building in floodplains, paving over precious open space land and losing opportunities to preserve wildlife habitat and recreation opportunities amid the suburban sprawl at the edge of the wilderness. -
OC Toll Road Follies: CEO Resigns Amid Funding Anti-Enviros
Posted on March 14, 2014 | No CommentsOrange County Transportation Corridor Agencies (TCA) CEO Neil Peterson, who was placed on leave last month, has offered to resign in exchange for receiving a hefty out-the-door payment. This from an agency suffering low toll revenues and misguided attempts to extend their roads against environmental rules and opposition. -
Caltrans Driving Us to Freeway Insanity
Posted on January 5, 2014 | 1 CommentCaltrans plans to widen the 91 Freeway [again], spending $1.3 Billion to improve commute speeds 1.5 miles per hour, while further destroying the only wildlife connection between the Santa Ana Mountains and the Puente-Chino Hills. Commuter trains, anyone? -
OC Toll Road: Empty, Failing, Better Used as Landing Strip
Posted on December 12, 2013 | No CommentsWhen a pilot instructor and student emergency-landed a small plane in the perpetually-empty northbound lanes of the debt-ridden, failing-business-model 241 toll road in Orange County, California, he exclaimed: "What a waste of perfectly good asphalt." -
Toll Roads, Please Take Me Away!
Posted on June 29, 2013 | No CommentsNo matter where they're stuck in OC's sprawling road network: on I-5, the 405, Crown Valley Parkway, or in their own driveway -- a magical toll road miles from their moribund vehicular situation will time-travel them up, to that heavenly place of commuter-bliss, where slowdowns never occur. -
Orange County Toll Road to Nowhere Denied Permits
Posted on June 19, 2013 | 3 CommentsOrange County's Toll Road Agency is pushing the first segment of a previously rejected road extension that will have significant and irreversible environmental and economic impacts. According to the Save San Onofre Coalition and the State Attorney General, the project had failed to undertake sufficient environmental studies. As a result, the Regional Water Board in San Diego decided to deny the project a waste discharge permit. -
Stupid Toll Road (STR-241) to Nowhere, Still Nowhere Fast
Posted on March 15, 2013 | 2 CommentsA movement to pave over San Onofre State Beach and Trestles with a toll-road-to-nowhere-for-nobody-but-developers was rejected by the California Coastal Commission and Federal Commerce Department in 2008. Yet, here again the State Water Boards will decide in May whether to grant a permit for the "Stupid Toll Road" to dump contaminated runoff into creeks and the ocean while keeping the dream alive of paving over Trestles. -
Trestles Beach: National Treasure or Toll Road Off-Ramp?
Posted on March 12, 2013 | 3 CommentsWorld-renowned San Onofre and Trestles have been synonymous with California surfing since the 1930s. A movement to pave over the park and beach with a toll road was rejected by in 2008. We now have the opportunity to have it recognized for its historical contributions by being listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and stop that toll road project for good. -
Show Goes on in Bid to Restart Leaking Nuke Plant – By Jerry Collamer
Posted on February 20, 2013 | No CommentsFor darn sure don't mention that cancerous creaky ol'nuke plant you were so handsomely paid to cheer for. Because talk of radioactivity at home, in the workplace, or at your kid's school, ruins an otherwise perfect day, no matter what. -
Toll Lanes as Congestion Management: Mobility for the Wealthy Few
Posted on July 4, 2012 | No CommentsConverting freeway lanes to tollways in the name of congestion management, without viable transit alternatives, will only reduce mobility for the majority in exchange for wealthy drivers getting to work on time. -
Extreme Water: Tapping the California Desert to Feed Growth Addiction?
Posted on May 19, 2012 | 4 CommentsCadiz Inc.'s potentially lucrative groundwater mining proposal for the Mojave Desert intends to water lawns and pools for suburban Southern California at the expense of taxpayers and ultimately the desert ecosystem. The company could realize $1 billion to $2 billion in revenue over the plan's 50-year life. Opponents say public resources are being used for private profit. -
Santa Ana Mountains: Vestige of Wild Coastal Southern California
Posted on May 5, 2012 | No CommentsFollowing the footsteps of Willis E. Pequegnat, a biologist from the 1930s who explored the wild Santa Ana Mountains in Orange, Riverside, and San Diego Counties, this video field journal logs the wonders and threats to this thriving resource. -
Will a Magical Toll Road Get Us Out Alive?
Posted on November 20, 2011 | No CommentsAnd while we're in a wishing mode, a resident living down here in the shadow of San Onofre Nuke Plant (SONGS) recommends paving a Toll Road through the backcountry of San Onofre State Beach and the San Mateo Creek Watershed, as the ultimate solution to us escaping SONGS' unscheduled meltdown. -
The Atoms Family: Radiation is Everywhere!
Posted on August 19, 2011 | No CommentsEdison illuminates for elementary schoolers nuclear fission's faulty towers, "Let's Color and Do Activities with The Atoms Family!" Cancer or evacuations not included. -
Property Values Go Nuclear
Posted on July 27, 2011 | 1 CommentYou can evacuate after a nuclear meltdown, but your mortgage stays put, radiating downward. A sad syndrome, easily avoided by shutting San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station now. -
Regulating Nukes? There’s No Escaping the Plume
Posted on July 18, 2011 | No CommentsThe lingering death-knell hidden inside the million vulnerabilities of every nuke-plant cannot be supervised away. Gaming electrical power from nuclear generation is too-complex a technology not to finally fail. When it does, all hell breaks loose, and nukes' evil genie never goes back in the bottle. Loose-nukes / radioactive meltdown, released to the atmosphere, doesn't sink ships, it sinks society. -
Nuclear Waste: San Onofre’s Heavy Lament By Jerry Collamer
Posted on June 30, 2011 | 4 CommentsSouthern California residents are right to worry about the storage of "spent" fuel-rods at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), as Japan's Fukushima Daiichi melts-thru to who knows where. To what horrific end, no one can predict. -
San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station – The Scariest Workplace in the USA – By Jerry Collamer
Posted on March 18, 2011 | 17 CommentsReading this will upset a bunch of folks living near the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, called SONGS, between Orange and San Diego Counties, California. Because as far as I can tell, the truth percolating inside SONGS nuke plant ain't getting out.
