ISLETON, Calif. (Dec. 16, 2024) – This map of Isleton from the California Public Utilities Commission shows that broadband internet – download speeds of at least 25 MB per second – is essentially non-existent in this rural Delta city of 800 people.
Last week at the Isleton Community Center, though, download speeds were clocked at over 900 MB per second.
What changed?
The results of the unWired speed test last week (Photo courtesy of unWired)
A new technology called Tarana Wireless and a public-private partnership between Isleton and unWired Broadband spurred a giant leap in economic, educational, health, safety, and social equity for this Delta town.
Broadband access is spotty in rural areas nationwide, and lack of access has become as detrimental to rural citizens’ opportunities as lack of electricity or phone service.
Bridging that gap in the Delta is even more challenging than in most rural areas: The preferred infrastructure solution – burying fiber optic cable along roads – isn’t an affordable option in Delta areas with high water tables and narrow levee roads.
Until now, that has left line-of-sight wireless as the main option, which can be problematic in heavily treed Delta communities.
A 2019 report (PDF) produced by Valley Vision for the Delta Protection Commission noted the severity of the problem in the Delta, and recommended solutions including public-private partnerships and using existing public assets, both of which happened in Isleton.
Tarana technology allows wireless signal to punch through trees and other obstacles, but it requires towers for transmission, and tower construction and permitting can be challenging. “The tower cannot lean or tip over, and we’re on an island that’s sinking,” said Isleton Vice Mayor David Kent, who took the lead for the City Council on the project.
unWired was – and still is – interested in piggybacking on the city’s iconic, but currently privately owned, water tower, but was not able to get access to it. One way the city was able to help was to provide a place for a tower on city land.
Installation of the unWired tower in Isleton earlier this month (Photo courtesy of unWired)
In exchange, the city gets rent and internet service for its facilities, and the option of better internet subscriptions for all its citizens.
Mark Peterson, Special Projects for unWired, said the company was serving about a dozen customers in Isleton with existing technology, but over 200 people expressed interest in the new technology, and the company has signed up 20 more since the tower went online.
These are small numbers compared with a service launch in an urban area, but this is the nature and challenge of rural broadband. It is also unWired’s focus. “Our mission has been to provide internet services to rural, underserved areas that couldn’t get underground high-speed providers like cable,” Peterson said.
One Isleton couple who attended the ribbon cutting reception last week – Byron Pon and Marlene Oyoung – saw an immediate transformation in their lives.
The retired couple bought a smart TV over a year ago, not realizing they could never get enough bandwidth to use it. They heard about unWired, signed up, and started watching all the programs they couldn’t watch on their old tube-style television, with its rabbit-ear antenna.
Marlene Oyoung and Byron Pon (Photo courtesy of unWired)
So far, that includes FX’s The Old Man, lots of basketball with endless on-demand replays, and a YouTube documentary. “We certainly have watched a lot,” Pon said. “To have it available after waiting a year is terrific.”
The better broadband also means business – including city business – can run more efficiently in Isleton, where just sending email has been routinely slow, and sometimes impossible during outages. It improves emergency response and access to remote work, telemedicine, and myriad educational opportunities.
Vice Mayor Kent called this progress “the proverbial win-win. It should be celebrated as an idealized and practical improvement to the quality of life for the citizens of Isleton.”
He wants it to serve as a test case for other rural communities as well. “If you can succeed here, you can succeed anywhere,” he said.
That’s also the focus of Valley Vision, which manages a broadband consortium funded by the state Public Utilities Commission.
“Most small cities have capacity problems,” said Valley Vision Managing Director Trish Kelly. Valley Vision works with agencies including the Delta Protection Commission to provide the advice and support needed to carry broadband projects to completion.
“It’s a big challenge, but we’re making progress,” Kelly said. “It’s a big milestone.”
Delta Week was created in 2022 with state Senate Concurrent Resolution 119 to call on all Californians “to acknowledge the high value of the Delta and the multiple benefits of a healthy Delta region.”
This year, we’d like to celebrate Delta Week by sharing five ways to honor the Delta.
The Delta’s waterways are critically important to wildlife, farmers, and people. Its rivers and sloughs are not a place to dump trash, automobiles, or boats. Removing abandoned vehicles and vessels is costly, and once their oil, fuel, and other toxic materials escape into the water, the damage is done.
The Delta’s throughways are primarily two-lane roads, often on narrow levees, and they serve slow-moving farm vehicles, not just hurried commuters. Please be patient and courteous with all who share the road, and pass only where it is legal to do so, and only when it is safe.
The Delta is filled with farmstands and U-pick operations where you can taste the bounty that rich Delta soils produce all summer long. It’s also a wine-producing region where you can sample and buy from producers big and small year-round.
The Delta’s culture and history are so distinctive and important that Congress designated it a National Heritage Area, California’s first and only NHA. The Delta Narratives, produced for the Delta Protection Commission by Sacramento State, is filled with information about the region’s history. And the VisitCADelta website links to heritage and cultural resources throughout the Delta.
The program targets potential or emerging leaders in the Delta from all walks of life – agriculture, law enforcement, local government, non-profit organizations, local business, and the tourism and hospitality sectors, among others. It puts participants through an intensive curriculum to expand their knowledge of key issues and challenges in the Delta, teach them leadership skills and tools, build relationships and trust, and foster community.
The ultimate goal of the program, which has been operating since 2016, is to build a cadre of dedicated leaders to protect and improve the Delta. Alumni can be seen in leadership positions throughout the Delta and often appear in the news.
What’s Involved
Interested participants can apply, or they can be nominated. (Application information is below.)
Nominations and applications are accepted through Nov. 22, participants are announced the week of Dec. 9, and the curriculum – five day-long seminars – runs January through April. Nominees must commit to 100% attendance on these dates to be considered for participation in the program:
Seminar 1: Jan. 10 in Sacramento
Seminar 2: Feb. 7 in Stockton
Seminar 3: Feb. 28 in Rio Vista
Seminar 4: March 28 in Oakley
Seminar 5: April 25 in Clarksburg
In addition to attending seminars, participants work on team projects designed to benefit the Delta, with some of the work occurring during seminars and some on their own time – about two hours per month. When feasible, participants take a tour of the Delta by boat in the late spring.
The program concludes with a graduation at the Delta Protection Commission meeting tentatively scheduled for 5 p.m.May 15 at a location in the Delta. The exact date and location will be determined in November, when Commission sets its 2025 meeting schedule. (Information continues below photo.)
Scenes from the 2024 Delta Leadership Program
Nominating or applying
The application form can be completed online. The deadline is midnight Friday, Nov. 22, 2024.
The quality and content of the nomination is critical to the candidate’s success. Try to include specific examples and make sure you have included all of your nominee’s civic and leadership experience and service.
If you are nominating someone, they will be notified of your nomination as soon as you submit it. Nominees accepted into the program will be notified by the week of December 9, 2024.
Class size is limited, so not all nominees will be accepted – as a courtesy to all applicants, please refrain from announcing nomination submissions publicly.
REQUIRED: Upload at least one and no more than three substantial letters of recommendation. You will upload these during the online application process.
REQUIRED: Nominee/applicant must complete Letter of Commitment online, also by Nov. 22 (they will get a link when your nomination is submitted).
OPTIONAL: Upload nominee’s resume, if available. You can upload this during the application process.
QUESTIONS?
If you have questions, please contact Program Coordinator Erik Vink at erik.vink@delta.ca.gov or (530) 650-6327.
Registration is now open for the Delta Heritage Forum, a free, full-day annual event that celebrates Delta stories, nurtures collaboration, and inspires new thinking and initiatives in the Delta heritage community.
The event will be held during the day (tentatively 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.) at the Antioch Historical Society Museum. Attendance is free, but seating is limited. Food will be provided. Registration deadline is Nov. 1.
The theme of this year’s forum is “Creating Community Through Heritage.”
The event will feature panel discussions, short storytelling sessions, and Lightning Talks (short presentations). Panel topics include:
Using public art to cultivate sense of place
Leveraging relationships with partners to get more done
Getting youth involved in, and excited about, heritage
Tricia Canton (Photo courtesy of Delta Sculling Center)
Water defines the Delta, and access to water defines people’s connection to the Delta.
For both Dr. Pat Tirone and Tricia Marie Canton, there was no access in the beginning. Their early time as Stockton residents was completely disconnected from the water that flows through the city.
“I lived here for three years and didn’t know the Delta was here,” said Tirone, a physical therapist and graduate of the 2024 Delta Leadership Program.
When she first stumbled onto a city park with water access, she saw not the water and boat ramp that were hidden from view, but a private boat club, and it was unclear whether she even had the right to access the water.
Then she came across a rowing club that was raising money at a shopping center one day. That’s when she learned the public does have access to the water, and that there were ways to enjoy it without buying a power or sail boat or joining an exclusive yacht club.
That launched her into something that would become not just a personal passion, but a professional one: sculling.
Canton’s path was different. Born and raised in Stockton, she discovered her love of water only when she moved to Southern California to attend UC Irvine, becoming an avid beachgoer.
Then in 2014, at the age of 28, she had a ruptured brain aneurysm and three strokes that nearly killed her, leaving the entire left side of her body paralyzed. Her family was told she would probably never walk, talk or even breathe on her own again, and they moved her back to Stockton to take care of her.
This is where both Canton’s and Tirone’s stories would meet.
Pat Tirone
As part of Tirone’s rehab work, she spent much of her time taking her clients into nature, often at Berkeley’s Bay Outreach and Recreation Program, which had an entire barn full of adaptive recreational equipment. But as soon as her clients were discharged from rehab, their access to those opportunities ended.
“My husband listened to me complain that there was nothing like that in our community and finally told me to put up or shut up,” Tirone said. So together they started the Delta Sculling Center in Stockton in 2013, buying boats, renting storage space for them, and acquiring gear needed to adapt to rowers’ various needs.
“Rowers joined us as volunteers, and all a sudden we had a whole program,” she said.
Canton learned about Delta Sculling Center in 2022.
Being immunocompromised, she had been confined to her home since the beginning of the Covid pandemic, and her rehab stopped during that time. As the pandemic was receding, her doctor told her about a program that teaches people with disabilities to row, and that’s when she contacted “Coach Pat.”
The Sculling Center had a way to compensate for poor grip in her left hand: a Velcro connection to the oar, and a handle that would release if the boat turned over so the connected oar wouldn’t drag her down. The Center also had gear that would help her climb into the boat. And of course, volunteers who would row with her.
She used her arms more in her first session than she had the entire time since the aneurysm, and rowing has increased her endurance and strength. Just last week, she set a new personal record: 7 km on a day when her goal was 5.
But it’s about more than that. “On land I have to worry about gravity, other people, and the terrain – if it’s slippery, if there’s an incline, if there’s gravel, if there’s sand,” she said. “On the water, I’m just free.”
Beyond that, nature is endlessly delightful, a chance to encounter ducklings growing from one outing to the next, sea lions swimming near the boat, herons threatening to “drop bombs,” or the rush of dozens of blackbirds lifting from a powerline all at once.
And then there are the local landmarks, like the miniature Statue of Liberty at the confluence of the San Joaquin and Calaveras rivers. Canton rowed there recently with Tirone’s husband Bob, and they spontaneously sang God Bless America.
Experiences like these are what Pat Tirone cherishes about her time on Delta waters as well. “The other day, I was out rowing by myself and the sound of all the birds at 6 in the morning was just overwhelmingly beautiful,” she said. “I just turned the recorder on my phone on, laid it down on the deck of my boat and captured their beautiful music. In the middle of Stockton! What a gift.”
All people need to be able to connect with this gift – the water that is the lifeblood of the Delta – is access.
Learn more about:
The Delta Sculling Center. The center is a non-profit whose mission is to provide inclusive rowing opportunities to people of all abilities. Tagline: “Where EveryBODY Sculls,” and “EveryBODY” includes adults of all ages, military veterans with disabilities, and middle and high school aged youth, especially those who come from under-resourced parts of the region.
The Delta Aquatic Center. The Delta Sculling Center has been instrumental in the development of the Delta Aquatic Center of Stockton project, a new facility in Stockton that would increase access to the water for the community. A $2.5 million grant from the Delta Conservancy is funding planning for the project.
DELTA PROTECTION COMMISSION
Diane Burgis, Chair (Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors)
2101 Stone Blvd., Suite 200, West Sacramento, CA 95691
(916) 375-4800 | delta.ca.gov
June 14, 2024
The Honorable John Garamendi
United States House of Representatives
2004 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Subject: Support for H.R. 7719, Abandoned and Derelict Vessel Removal Act of 2024
Dear Congressman Garamendi:
I write to express the Delta Protection Commission’s strong support for this legislation. The Commission has long advocated for removal of abandoned and derelict vessels (ADVs) from Delta waterways, and remediation of the environmental damage ADVs cause to the rivers and sloughs that are vital to irrigating farmland, supporting recreational and commercial fisheries, and providing enjoyment in all kinds of water recreation. ADVs pose real and significant threats to public safety and property from navigation hazards, and damage to docks, marinas, and levees.
The Delta Protection Commission is a California state agency charged with protecting and enhancing the unique values of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a resource of state and national importance that, largely owing to your tireless efforts, was recognized by Congress as California’s first and so far only National Heritage Area in 2019. The Commission provides a “forum for Delta residents to engage in decisions regarding actions to recognize and enhance the unique cultural, recreational, and agricultural resources of the Delta” [Public Resources Code (PRC) § 29703.5(a)]. As such it includes representatives from city and county governments in each of the five main Delta counties, Delta reclamation districts, four state agencies and one non-voting, ex-officio member each from the Senate and Assembly.
As a primary function, the Commission maintains and oversees implementation of a comprehensive long-term Land Use and Resource Management Plan (LURMP) that includes goals and policies aimed at protecting, maintaining, enhancing, and restoring the overall quality of the Delta environment. Public Resources Code applicable to ADVs requires that the LURMP policies must “preserve and protect open-space and outdoor recreational opportunities,” “preserve and protect opportunities for controlled public access and use of public lands and waterways consistent with protection of natural resources and private property interests,” and “preserve, protect and maintain navigation” [PRC§29760 (b)(9-11)].
The Commission has worked with local law enforcement marine patrol units, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), the State Parks’ Division of Boating and Waterways (Boating and Waterways), State Lands Commission, Recreational Boaters of California, CalRecycle, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, and other stakeholders to promote and facilitate abandoned vessel removal. The Commission’s collaborative project with the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response to identify and map ADVs within the Delta in 2019 led to state legislation that provides limited funding for removal of commercial ADVs by the State Lands Commission. Additional funding by Boating and Waterways supports removal of recreational vehicles. The USCG can only remove hazards to navigation. Thus it typically falls to local law enforcement marine units with limited resources to remove non-commercial ADVs in their counties. However, the scope of all these efforts is significantly constrained, largely due to funding, and limitations on where and how federal agencies such as the USCG and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) could assist.
The Abandoned and Derelict Vessel Removal Act, H.R. 7719, would bring much needed cohesion to this patchwork management by providing additional funding and organization. Significantly, the bill would authorize the Corps to remove any abandoned vehicles regardless whether they impede navigation, and to create and maintain a national inventory of ADVs. Such an inventory could help identify more regional-based solutions and coordination in areas such as the Delta where there is overlapping jurisdiction among responsible agencies.
Thank you for your commitment to finding solutions to this complex public safety issue of concern to Delta farmers, residents, and business owners, and the many visitors who come to the Delta.
Sincerely,
Bruce Blodgett
Executive Director
CC: The Honorable Laphonza Butler, U.S. Senator
The Honorable Alex Padilla, U.S. Senator
The Honorable Mark DeSaulnier, U.S. Representative
The Honorable Josh Harder, U.S. Representative
The Honorable Doris Matsui, U.S. Representative
The Honorable Mike Thompson, U.S. Representative
When Azorean Portuguese arrived in the California Delta during the Gold Rush, they brought with them a Medieval tradition that has proved resilient in a sea of constant change: the Holy Ghost Festa.
“My dad always talked about ‘the footsteps, the footsteps, the footsteps,'” said Jim Souza, one of the organizers of the Freeport/Clarksburg Festa. The oldest in the Delta, it was founded in 1893, and has been held at the same hall since 1905.
“He was referring to the fact there was a lot of history there.”
The particulars of this tradition have changed, but its core tenet remains the same: feeding people, for free, as an act of generosity and sharing.
Festas began the 1400s in mainland Portugal, inspired by the lore of Queen Isabel, who took food from her own table to feed the poor during a famine. But their roots trace back even further to a radical utopian ideology promulgated by an Italian monk born in 1132. (Story continues below photos.)
When the Portuguese settled in the Azores in the mid-1400s, they took the tradition of Festa with them, and it thrived there, even as it mostly died off on the mainland. Azoreans comprise the bulk of Portuguese who immigrated to California in the 1800s, and the tradition followed them here.
For Souza, Festa has always been part of his life. “I was born into it,” he said. “My parents were involved in it. That’s where they made their first connection!”
As a kid, Festa meant getting a new pair of jeans and cowboy boots and maybe a hat that he’d wear to the dance. “And obviously you’d see all your cousins and Portuguese friends and whoever else came along,” he said.
Festa also involves the crowning of a young queen, in honor of Queen Isabel. Professor Diniz Borges, the founding director of the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute at Fresno State, said the queen is a feature that arose in California.
“There were no queens in the Festas in the Azores. We don’t know where or why it started, but they’ve become part of the tradition in California,” he said. And now some Azorean Festas have begun adopting the tradition.
The Queens Court in television news coverage of the 2024 Freeport/Clarksburg Festa – click to watch video.
An even newer evolution is the growing presence of non-Portuguese at Festas. “More and more they attract a lot of outsiders,” Borges said. “I’m happy to say we now have queens who are not of Portuguese backgrounds, and people playing in marching bands who are of different ethnicities as well.”
But there is one constant that dates back to Medieval origins: “They are religious in nature, but the church doesn’t control them,” Borges said. “There is a Mass, there is a coronation, but the whole idea of the serving of food free of charge to everybody, the idea behind the celebration, whether it’s music or parades or whatnot, is it’s all done by a committee of men and women.”
Souza became the youngest president of the Freeport/Clarksburg Festa’s organizing council at 17, and he remains a key organizer to this day. It is a mountain of work – “five days of preparation, one day of festivities, one day of cleanup.”
But it’s worth it.
He tells the story of a psychic advisor who came with a potential buyer to view the property next to the Hall where the Festa is held. The advisor told the buyer he could see someone on one side of the property who wasn’t happy.
“What do you see over there?” the buyer asked him, nodding at the Hall, Souza recalled.
“There’s just nothing but happiness,” the advisor said. “There’s children everywhere and they’re all smiling.”
Scenes from the Cherry Pit and Ah-May’s Strawberry U-Pick in Brentwood and Victoria Island Farms/Sabbatical distillery in Holt.
U-pick season has begun, and Northern California families are flocking to Delta farms to pick their own cherries, strawberries, blueberries, and more.
U-pick is an experience that combines a drive through the countryside, family time, tradition, fresh air, walking, perfectly ripe fruit, and connections with the farmers who produce America’s food.
It’s farm-to-table eating without a grocery store or a restaurant as middleman. And it’s the freshest fruit possible without the responsibility of managing a farm year-round.
Families we spoke with recently at the Cherry Pit in Brentwood all had stories to tell.
The Carter family came from Groveland – near Yosemite! – to continue an 11-year tradition that began when they lived in Half Moon Bay. The Gonzales family from Oakland had been picking there for 16 years, and proudly pointed out their teenage daughter, whose mother was still pregnant with her on her first visit.
Kyle and Caitlin Martin live in Brentwood and figured it was time to start checking out the local farms with their son Campbell, and they had a luscious Black Forest Cake in their future. Danny Pham and his uncle Thu Vo come at the beginning of every season, and Pham was planning to take 100 pounds of cherries back to Vietnam.
The u-pick experience is equally important to farmers, who get to forge connections – and share their world – with consumers.
Victoria Island Farms in Holt began blueberry u-pick operations in 2020 at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, when people were looking for opportunities to get outside and do things together.
“Blueberries are perfect for social distancing,” said farm co-owner and fourth-generation farmer Jack Zech. “You just send one family down each row.” Even as the pandemic waned, the program remained popular.
Financially, the u-pick operation doesn’t move the needle for the farm, Zech said. “But it makes our employees happier. They like it when people come see what they do and appreciate it. There’s a sense of pride that people come out.”
One year after the farm began u-pick, it opened a distillery – Sabbatical – that visitors can tour and shop at as well. “A lot of the older dads aren’t trying to go out there in the heat,” Zech said. The distillery, with its shaded patio, gives them another option.
For some farms, u-pick is an important part of their profitability. When customers pick their own, the farmer doesn’t have to pay for picking, packing, or shipping, said James Chinchiolo, owner of Lodi Blooms.
And he was unprepared for how popular it would be. “We get upwards of 2,000 visitors a day. The first year it happened, it scared me!”
The opportunities for agri-tourism keep growing.
In 2002, there were just 39 farms offering “agritourism and recreational services” in the six Delta counties (Alameda, Contra Costa, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Solano, and Yolo), according to the USDA Census of Agriculture.
In 2022, the count stood at 150.
Ready to start picking?
If you’re looking to visit a u-pick in the Brentwood area, there is a website dedicated to local farmers with a map and details about what’s available at each farm as various crops ripen: https://harvestforyou.com. You can also type “u-pick near me” on your phone’s map app during your next drive through the Delta.
WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Feb. 29, 2024) – The Great California Delta Trail may grow its network of trails with a new segment from West Sacramento to Clarksburg.
The segment would run along 6.4 miles of the Clarksburg Branch Line of the Sacramento Northern Railroad. West Sacramento acquired the right of way in 2005.
The addition would create a safe, healthy way for pedestrians and cyclists to reach Clarksburg, a historic Delta community with popular wine-tasting venues. It could also help improve broadband access in the Delta by including conduit for fiberoptic cable.
Project partners are West Sacramento, Yolo County, the Yolo Transportation District, and the Delta Protection Commission, which is the coordinating agency for the Great California Delta Trail. West Sacramento leads the project, and the DPC will:
Contribute toward required local matching funds.
Lead community outreach.
Ensure the project meets guidelines for designation as part of the Great Delta Trail.
The partners have applied for a grant from the Sacramento Area Council of Governments to fund trail development. If funded, the next step would be seeking public input on design. The target completion date would be in 2029.
This project would extend one of five existing segments of the Great Delta Trail: the Clarksburg Branch Line Trail. The other four segments are:
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The Forum is organized by the 
