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Wildflowers are starting to bloom in Kern County and you can get a glimpse of the early display this weekend in the Kern Valley, where Alison Sheehey of Audubon's Kern River Preserve will lead a tour Saturday morning. It's free and all you have to do is show up. (Details below)

Enthusiasts are expecting a good showing this spring thanks to the winter rains. Blooms generally start in March but some blossoms are already appearing around Kern. To prepare for a good season, The Californian has created a Wildflower Map where you can post and view the location of blooms in the area. Please contirbute and help us keep track of the show!

Kern Valley wildflower tour

What: A glimpse at the early-season display

When: 9 a.m. to noon Saturday

Where: The group will meet at the Kern River Preserve, 18747 Highway 178, Weldon. Get directions here. (about 90 minutes from Bakersfield)

More info: Be prepared to carpool. Alison Sheehey will take the group to see the wildflowers just beginning to bloom in the area and also point out birds, butterflies and other interesting things along the way.

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Food safety investigators have concluded that a Kern County farm is responsible for an e. coli outbreak in late 2006 that sickened more than 80 people in Iowa and Minnesota.

Tainted lettuce served by Taco John’s locations in Iowa and Minnesota was grown at the Wegis Ranch in Buttonwillow, according to a report on the outbreak released last week.

More than 80 people in both midwestern states reported becoming sick and at least 26 were hospitalized with e. coli infections after eating the lettuce.

Of the five farms that grew lettuce served at Taco John's, positive samples of e. coli were only found at Wegis Ranch, according to the report. Positive samples were also found by investigators at two dairies next to Wegis Ranch.

Samples from Wegis Ranch and the two dairies genetically matched the strain found in the Taco John’s lettuce.

The two neighboring dairies are Maya and West Star North.

The report does not definitively state how the lettuce at Wegis Ranch became tainted. However, it says the investigation revealed several points in a water distribution system at the farm where fresh water and dairy lagoon water flowed together. Inadequate "backflow protection devices" in the water system "presented a possible route for conveyance of contaminated water to fields adjacent" to fields where the lettuce suspected in the outbreak was grown, the report said.

The report indicated that Wegis Ranch mixes dairy lagoon water from the neighboring dairies with freshwater to irrigate some animal feed crops it grows.

The investigation and report were done by officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the California Department of Public Health Food and Drug Branch.

Check www.bakersfield.com later for full story.

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The Californian has launched a new web page dedicated to news about plans to expand the Big West of California refinery on Rosedale Highway.

Check it out: www.bakersfield/com/refinery

On the page you can read past stories, watch a video about the expansion, join a blog discussion, take a poll and find links to more information.

As you may know, permitting for the expansion started last year but stopped after major questions arose about the project's safety and air quality impacts. The permitting process will start up again soon with the release of a new environmental impact report.

We plan to post all future news about the expansion on the refinery web page, so check back often. Also, check this Sunday’s Californian for stories that recap the major issues. (Or read them now on the refinery page!)

In the meantime, what questions do you have about the refinery and its plans? Post them here and we'll provide the answers in our ongoing coverage.

-- Reporter Stacey Shepard

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The Big West of California refinery is located in the heart of a growing metropolitan area. Some say this is reason enough to deny the facility's expansion plans. Many argue that if the refinery wants to expand, it should do it somewhere else.

Refinery officials say the cost to build a brand new refinery is way too high to be realistic. Industry trends support their claim. No new refinery has been built in the United States in nearly three decades. If existing refineries can't expand, supporters of the project ask, how will the demand for gas and diesel continue to be met?

The county planning commission that approved thousands of new homes around the refinery in recent decades will decide if the facility can expand.

What do you think? Can an expansion be done in a way that doesn't diminish the safety and quality of life for its neighbors?

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The California Living Museum is looking for volunteer guides. Candidates must love people and animals.

Sound interesting? Here's the details from CALM:

Do you enjoy talking to people, like animals and take pleasure in working outdoors? If so, the California Living Museum (CALM) may offer an opportunity that is to your liking. CALM, located between Lake Ming and Hart Park on Alfred Harrell Highway in northeast Bakersfield, is currently recruiting for volunteer docents. CALM is looking to train individuals who are interested in educating students and the general public about our animals and the environment around us.

Interested individuals will attend training in the CALM Library on March 1, 8, 15, 29 and April 5 and 12 from 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m., each day. There is no charge for the training. Requirements include a current CALM membership, attending and passing all training classes, purchase of a chambray-style shirt and proof of having received a current tetanus vaccination. Trainees must also pass a Kern County Superintendent of Schools fingerprint clearance.

For more information and to sign up for training, please contact Debby Kroeger, education and volunteer services manager, at (661) 872-2256, ext. 12.

CALM is a zoo, botanical garden and natural history museum. It provides residence to animals native to California that because of injury or abandonment can no longer survive on their own in the wild.
 

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This a post about the human touch but not necessarily in the warm, feel-good sense.

There's been a lot of buzz lately about a new film called "Manufactured Landscapes" that features photographs of things like quarries, mines and factories in China to illustrate how industrialization and our ever-growing demand for consumer goods have impacted the earth. The photographer Edward Burtynsky has even photographed oil fields in Beldride and McKittrick, though I'm not sure they're in the movie. (You can see them on his web site under Works - Oil)

After watching a clip of the movie on YouTube, it brought to mind some other examples of how humans have altered the Kern County landscape. I've always marveled at the view as you drive by the Kern River on Coffee Road (near Truxtun Extension) and see man-made canals full of water running parallel to the bone-dry river bed. Another example came on a drive along Highway 46 through Lost Hills last year. I passed a beautiful patch of brilliant-colored flowers adjacent to an expanse off bobbing and rusty oil derricks. Even this weekend, while driving by the orchards along Highway 99 on the way to Fresno, I was practically hypnotized as we passed row upon row of perfectly aligned trees (don't worry, I was a passenger, not the driver.) The trees just seemed so unnatural because of how they were arranged.

Maybe these things stand out to me because I've only lived in Bakersfield for less than two years but can anyone else think of examples of how humans have affected Kern's landscape?

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Guess we aren't the only ones who hate being the final destination for the the state's toilet leftovers.

Imperial County voters Tuesday approved a ballot measure that prohibits sludge from other counties being trucked there for disposal.

Interestingly, however, the whole effort to pass the ban got underway because of a Bakersfield company's plans to build a sludge-to-energy plant there, according to the Imperial Valley Press.

That company, Liberty Energy, plans to build a similar plant in Kern. Except, here, it's seen as a good thing. Why? Because it means incinerating some 760,000 tons of sludge that's currently laid out to dry at the company's composting facility in Lost Hills. (It's the state's largest sludge composting facility).

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in Imperial County. A judge overturned Kern's ban last year saying it was discriminatory since the ban on land application only pertained to unincorporated areas (where L.A. does their spreading) instead of the entire county (which would affect Bakersfield's spreading turf.) From recent stories in the Imperial Valley Press there don't appear to be other "imported sludge" disposal operations there affected by this. So it could very well stick.

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The Chino meat-processing facility accused of cow abuse that I posted about last week has been shut down by the feds, according to the Associated Press.

Here's the story:

CHINO, Calif. (AP) Federal officials said Tuesday they had suspended operations at a California meat company accused of mistreating cattle.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the suspension will remain in effect for the Westland Meat Company until “written corrective actions” are submitted that verify animals have been treated humanely.
The agency took action after a video surfaced last week that showed workers brutalizing sick and crippled cows at the Chino facility. The video prompted Westland Meat to voluntarily stop operations last Friday, while two major hamburger chains and dozens of school districts around the nation banned its meat.
Westland president Steve Mendell said in a letter posted on the company’s Web site that he was “shocked and horrified” about what was on the video and the company is cooperating with federal authorities.
“We are dedicating our full efforts and resources to fully cooperate with the USDA investigative team that has been assigned to our plant,” Mendell said.

Also, the USDA has suspended the use of meat from the facility in school lunch programs.

-- Posted by Stacey Shepard

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Big West of California has hired a L.A. production company to produce a six-minute video that touts plans for a $600 million expansion at the Rosedale Highway facility. I got to see it Thursday at the Bakersfield Energy and Clean Air Expo at the Holiday Inn. However, my attempts to post it here  fell short. I  was given a copy Thursday only to have it plucked from my hands minutes later after refinery officials were informed that someone who appears in the video (we don't know who) hadn’t consented to it being shown publicly.

As you may recall, an environmental impact report on the expansion came out last year but was put on hold so the county could do more research. The revised report is expected to be made public in the next month or so.

Hopefully, we’ll get a copy of the video soon. But in the meantime, here's some highlights:

Along with the standard interviews you might expect with refinery and industry officials, local supporters who appeared in the video included Fruitvale School Board Trustee Kevin Burton, Bakersfield Fire Capt. Quincy Sloan and Greater Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce President Debra Moreno. The interviews are spliced with images of the refinery and the local community. The main message: the expansion is good for the community because it will create jobs, increase tax revenue, boost the local gas/diesel supply and because it will be a safe and clean project.

Fruitvale School Board Trustee Kevin Burton says “Kern County will benefit in so many ways from this project,” because it will create more revenue for schools (from increased property taxes), and because the refinery will plant 1,000 trees in the community and implement other “environmental programs.”

The video was heavy on environmental aspects of the expansion, called the Clean Fuels Project because it will allow the facility to convert more crude into “clean” gasoline and diesel (which means the fuel meets standards to be sold in the state). For example, the video unveils the refinery’s plans to set up a $6 million “Global Protection Fund” to reduce greenhouse gases at the refinery ($5 million) and in the community ($1 million).
In a section on safety at the facility, Bakersfield Fire Capt. Quincy Sloan says that “refinery operators will be fully trained in safety measures” and that the expansion will make the refinery “one of the best and cleanest in the state of California.”

The appearance by a public sector employee in the video raised some eyebrows at the Kern County Planning Department, the agency that’s preparing the environmental impact report. But since the video hasn’t gotten much play in the public yet, it’s hard to know what others might think.