Lisa Sgarlato - Mountain Network News

Choosing between death and inconvenience
The Laurel Barrier
Neil Wiley
Caltrans has installed a temporary barrier on Highway 17 at Laurel Road to protect drivers
from oncoming traffic. Southbound drivers will be blocked from left turns on to Laurel Road.
According to Luis Mendez of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission,
the notorious Laurel curve has been responsible for more accidents than any other section
of Highway 17 between Summit and Santa Cruz. Many people have told me about losing
traction at this curve during wet weather.
In March, when Gerard Wener lost control of his Nissan Altima and crossed over into
northbound traffic, he hit two cars and was killed. Caltrans had no choice but to take
emergency action. A temporary concrete barrier was installed. Caltrans plans an experimental
high-friction pavement treatment and has added a southbound curve warning sign. I watched
the sign one Sunday afternoon. More than fifty cars passed by. Not one had reduced their
speed to the legal forty miles per hour. Also, I found that exiting Laurel Road for a right turn
was scary, even in my sports car.
Preventing cross-overs is a necessity, but the barrier poses inconvenience and safety concerns
for Laurel-area residents. Although there are several places, south and northbound, to make a
left turn, any left turn across Highway 17 is dangerous. The overpasses at Granite Creek and
Summit Road are safer, but they seem a long way away, especially in an emergency.
The answer in an ideal world would be an underpass. This would help Laurel residents while
offering a needed passageway for wildlife blocked by Highway 17, especially mountain lions,
deer, and other wide-ranging animals.
In our less than ideal world, we can hope that high-friction pavement, and perhaps in the
future, a protected turn lane, will promise safety and convenience.
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Mountain Network News
may 2012
CSA Means Community-Supported Agriculture
Nancy Paduano
The unique micro-climate of the Santa Cruz Mountains is ideal for enjoyable, year-round
farming of a variety of interesting crops. Our groves of pomegranates, persimmons, kiwis,
citrus, and avocados produce mostly during the wet winter months, and our annual row
crops appreciate the extended spring, hot summer, and long fall seasons.
For a second year, Abounding Harvest Mountain Farm is operating a communitysupported
agriculture program. We offer the local community a “share” of our harvest in
the form of a weekly box of organic fruits and vegetables. We spent this winter opening up
new areas of the farm for cultivation of row crops, setting up a packing/storage room with a
walk-in cooler, growing seedlings in our greenhouse, and enriching our soil with a bell bean
cover crop.
We have expanded the depth and breadth of our offerings over last season. The twenty-week CSA will include market-variety fruits and
vegetables (e.g., lemons, mandarins, potatoes, onions, leeks, kale, chard, collards, spinach, salad mixes, peppers, tomatoes, squashes, peas,
broccoli, beans, cucumbers, corn, radishes, beets, basil, and herbs). We will offer more unusual vegetables such as Mizuna, Tatsoi, other
Asian greens, turnips, fennel, purple carrots, red garlic, poblano peppers, tomatillos, mesclun salad mix, arugula, butterhead and romaine
lettuce, fingerling potatoes, gold zucchini, red cabbage, celeriac, soybeans, melons, pomegranates, and lavender. Our tomato plants (over
twenty varieties of both heirloom and hybrid) are extremely large this year and ready to be planted as soon as the rains end and nighttime
temperatures rise. We already have many seeds and seedlings in the ground and continue to plant around the late rain.
Mountain Harvest CSA members receive produce that is locally grown, certified organic by CCOF, and harvested on the day of delivery.
We provide a convenient pick-up at the Summit Veterinary Hospital on either Tuesday or Friday. Visit MountainHarvestCSA.com for more
information, or to sign up. We look forward to growing for you this season.
may 2012 Celebrating life in the Santa Cruz Mountains
page 15