September 3, 2022 • 30 mins
The heat of summer is one of the causes for why ducks and geese are dying at area ponds.
In this show, we hear from a wildlife veterinarian who explains why botulism is suspected in the regional water bodies, and how that is impacting waterfowl.
We also hear from an advocate for local senior citizens. She said people were taken by surprise when they learned the city of Reno was making plans to lease out a senior gathering space to a local nonprofit.
Also, acting Chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education, Dale Erquiaga, responds to faculty concerns about evaluations of Nevada campus presidents.
Faculty said campus presidents are not getting the regular evaluations that the public deserve.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
The summer heat is one of thecauses for why ducks and geese
(00:03):
are dying at Area ponds. Whenbirds die, they'll have some
level of toxin. And when maggotsgrow in the decomposing bird,
they pick up that botulism toxinand then other birds consume the
maggot.
get sick, and that's how theoutbreak can perpetuate. On
today's show, we hear from awildlife veterinarian who
(00:26):
explains why botulism issuspected in regional water
bodies and how that is impactingwaterfowl.
With what COVID did toeverybody, especially our
seniors, getting them back outof the house and into healthy,
you know, activity and hangingwith each other and you know,
(00:47):
socializing and all that that isbeing kept by the
dollars, you know, you justcannot we also hear from an
advocate for local seniorcitizens. She said people were
taken by surprise when theylearned that the city of Reno
was making plans to lease out asenior gathering space to a
local nonprofit.
(01:09):
With this week in Reno news, Iam Bob Conrad, this is reno.com.
Thank you for listening to theshow on kW and K community radio
at 97.7. FM, or on your favoritepodcast app. Please visit us
online at this reno.com to getthe latest news and events
coverage for the greater Renoarea.
(01:31):
Nevada faculty recentlysubmitted a letter to the new
chancellor of Nevada's highereducation system. They said
campus presidents are notgetting the regular evaluations
that the public deserves. So theBoard of Regents and the
chancellor's office received aletter from the Nevada faculty
Alliance expressing theiropinion about when periodic
evaluations of presidents shouldtake place. Particularly if a
(01:54):
president has his or hercontract extended. I spoke with
Acting Chancellor Dale ErkkiYaga, to get his response to the
letter presidents typically havea contract for about four years.
There have been instances in thelast couple of years where a
year has been added on.
And that's pursuant to boardpolicy that's allowable
(02:14):
contracts to be extended in thatway. And so the faculty Alliance
has really expressed an opinionon how that was done in the
past. And the way I look at itprovided a statement for what
they'd like to see in thefuture. Okay, and you sit you've
twice now said it's theiropinion, are you saying that you
don't agree with theirassessment? So the word policy?
(02:35):
Yeah, sure, the board policyrequires a periodic evaluation
of the President and allows forcontract extensions. So when
that periodic evaluation takesplace is typically triggered by
the end of the contract. But ifthe contract is extended, it's
my understanding that the policyinterpretation has been
internally that the evaluationwaits until the year before the
(02:57):
contract extends, the languagedoes not include currently in
policy statements such as atleast every four years.
That's something that could beadded. And as we look at all of
these policies, part of my jobas chancellor has to do so we'll
start looking at that Iappreciate the information and
have taken it, you know,in the spirit that I think it's
(03:18):
offered, we didn't like the waythis was handled, please handle
it differently in the future. Soas we come into a season of
periodic evaluations, which wewill do next year, a number of
our president's contracts expirein 24. So I'm sure the board
will take this intoconsideration. So this is
something that board would haveto change, essentially.
(03:39):
It's a policy word to bechanged. It's a board policy.
Yes. So I in the board receivedthe letter. And as I say, we're
coming into presidentialevaluation season next year,
there are five or six presidentsI think, whose contracts will
expire in 24. So as we go intothat process, the board could
direct the chancellor, whetherthat is me or a new chancellor,
(04:03):
to change when the periodicevaluations are done, or the
policy could be revised, if wefind other concerns. So
certainly, we'll take a look atthat. I don't have to make
decisions about periodicevaluations until sometime, I
think in the second quarter ofnext year. So that's April, May,
June of 23. So we have time tolook at it all. And again, I
(04:27):
appreciate the letter. Sure. Andyou mentioned a couple of
presidents, the only one I sawmentioned was GVC in that
letter. So the letter mentionsthat GBC was the president UPC
President Helens receives anextension last year. But if I'm
correct, and remember, I knew, Ithink President Johnson contract
(04:47):
was extended during the pandemicand I believe President
Patterson's contract wasextended as well.
Okay, and he was stepping downfrom Nevada State College so
it's not unheard of that this isdone as it was.
Explain to me by staff. It wasdone this year for President
Helens to again, I'm sort of inthis situation where I won't
(05:08):
revisit actions that were donein the past. I'm going to take
the informationon a face value of making a
contribution to the bettermentof the system. And we'll discuss
this with the board as we getinto 2023.
Waterfowl up in dinette areaponds causing concerns among
(05:30):
residents. A this is Reno readercontacted us about the
situation. I spoke with awildlife veterinarian Nate law
who who's with the NevadaDepartment of Wildlife. Here is
Nate. Yeah, so we've hadmultiple reports of
mostly duck and use mortalitiesin multiple urban ponds around
(05:50):
Reno.
We have confirmed botulism typeseed in a pond near the south
Meadows Parkway, it's an unnamedpond.
We're currently undergoingtesting for some additional
ponds, up in Sparks andnorth of north of AD. And then
(06:14):
we have additional reports fromVirginia lakes. And thinking
additional and yet additionalsome small additional ponds that
are either on kind of privateproperty or around some of the
warehouse.
Buildings in South Reno ofeither dead birds or birds
(06:40):
exhibiting signs consistent withbotulism. Okay, and what ponds
are those? Lake Park paradiseand Paradise Park? Okay, and
those but those are notconfirmed. Those are not
confirmed No. Okay, but thosedefines your scene point toward
avian botulism. The signs thatare, you know, I
(07:05):
that are reported to us by thepublic and that our urban
wildlife person has observedhead droop.
Inability to fly,are consistent with botulism,
given that we've are alsodiagnosed botulism in South
Reno. The conditions in thoseponds are similar. We do have, I
wouldn't say regular, but we'vehad frequent, somewhat frequent
(07:31):
botulism outbreaks in Reno overthe years.
So it's not an uncommon thing tohappen this time in the summer.
So you say over the years, howoften or this happened every
year.
The last report outbreak that wediagnose was 2020. We didn't
(07:52):
have any in 2021. We diddiagnose it in 2020, in Virginia
lakes.
And there were some other pondsat that time, I believe, that
had some few dead birds or signsconsistent, but viable samples
were never obtained from thoseponds. You know, they gotta be
somewhat fresh birds in order todo the QA testing. We didn't
(08:15):
have any reported last year,there's probably frequently some
small level of botulismmortality that occurs, that just
does not doesn't rise to thelevel that the public notices.
But yeah, 2020 was our last lastknown outbreak. Well, why is
this happening? Why does thishappen? Yeah, so it happens,
(08:37):
because of how the pond system,you know, all of our urban ponds
and that kind of the ecology ofour urban ponds. So botulism
types, see, or any botulism is aClostridium bacteria
that produces a toxin, when itreproduces, and it only
reproduces really underanaerobic conditions. And so
(09:01):
what happens is through causeit's a soil borne bacteria, so
areas, you know, it's normallyin the soil but areas that you
had previous outbreaks, you'regoing to have a higher soil load
than areas where there hasn'tbeen an outbreak before.
And basically what happens iswhen you get reproduction that
(09:21):
bacteria through ever anaerobicconditions and that toxin is
reproduced the environment.
When birds die, they'll havesome level of toxin and when
maggots growin and and, you know in the in
the decomposing bird, they pickup that botulism toxin and then
(09:44):
other birds consume the maggot.
get sick, and that's how theoutbreak can perpetuate. It's
the consumption of maggotadditional birds dying. They
decomposed under anaerobicconditions with maggot growth.
Those Words are consumed. So,you know, all birds have some
small level of bacillus sporeswithin their liver.
(10:08):
But, you know, reaches a pointwhere you get an outbreak during
and the anaerobic conditions,you know, you have a lot of
growth. And they reproduce moreto under anaerobic conditions,
the warm temperatures, so wehave, you know, warm
temperatures.
And that what that does is acouple things. One is it, the
warmer the temperature, thelower the dissolved oxygen, and
(10:30):
a body of water is going to bethe less oxygen that can be
dissolved in that water.
The colder the water, thehigher, the higher, the more
oxygen can be dissolved in thatwater,
too, we get warm temperatureslead algal growth. And when the
algae died, the decomposition ofthat algae also, you know, uses
(10:53):
the decomposition process thatprocess whenever you have any,
you know, allergies kind ofhappens specifically now, but
any dead vegetation wasdecomposing uses oxygen, so it
can use up oxygen during that.
And then we also have low flows,low flows with the warmer water
at least stagnant water, youknow, to turn over water
aeration of water, water movingin is all sources that are going
(11:13):
to bring cool or higher, moreoxygenated water into a pond.
And so what we have in a lot ofthese urban areas is these warm,
shallow ponds, lots of algaegrowth, but a water movement,
you know, high amount of duckfeces, so a lot of nitrogen
algal growth. And it just setsup this kind of perfect
(11:37):
condition for botulism to growand outbreak to occur.
So does that, does that answerthat question? For you? Yeah, it
does. So basically, what I'munderstanding is that increasing
water flow would have preventedthis, but some of these ponds
(11:58):
don't have a lot of water flow.
Is there a reason for that?
You know, I'm not familiar withthe ins and outs of all the
ponds.
You know, I mean, honestly, theTruckee Meadows was
historically, you know, a marshywetland that always had slow
moving water towards theTruckee, and we've
turned that into, you know,little urban cemented in urban
(12:23):
ponds that are shallow, thatdon't have shade covers, so
they're getting hotter, youknow, they don't have adequate
water flow. I mean, the droughtcertainly plays a role, but a
lot of its, you know, that theconstruction of these ponds, you
know, historically wasn'tnecessarily meant to mimic, you
(12:45):
know, a natural ecosystem.
They're meant to be, you know,nice ponds for people to walk
around. And soor they're meant to, you know,
how stormwater runoff or thingslike that, and so, there's yet a
lot of issues how they areconstructed, there's low water
flow, there's, you know, kind ofthis
(13:06):
cemented in things that createmore warmth. There's nothing
normal read cover that mightprovide some shade and some
cooling. And you know, we havehotter temperatures, we have a
drought.
All in then we have a lot ofcongregation of birds, we have
fertilizer use, you know, on allthose green spaces, which runs
(13:27):
off creates algal blooms, andthen the subsequent anaerobic
conditions from algal die. Soall of those kind of lead to
that situation, you know, whereI mean, not to say that there
aren't botulism outbreaks innatural ecosystems, they
certainly are and they happenyou know, it's out of
Stillwater, we always have somelevel of small numbers of
animals that die from botulism.
(13:49):
So I know that we're on a flightfor bird species, is there any
concern that this could impact?
Rare danger? Otherwise, concern?
Um, you know, potentially, butit's honestly in the grand
scheme of things. It's a smallit's very small outbreak here in
Reno. One is we're still in thesummer.
(14:15):
Most of the birds hanging aroundhere resident birds, often by
the time the main migrationcomes through the this doesn't
always happen, but you may seethat the weather has cooled off.
And this this bosses Maverickshave gone away with cooler
weather, and less reproductionof the bacteria. So far, every
(14:37):
report we're getting is mallardsand Canada geese. So you know
not species of concern.
Generally resident species arenot resident species to choose
me but the birds that are aroundhere in the summer or resident
birds, they're not migratorybirds, right. Okay. So you're
talking about water conditionsthat are not essentially healthy
for birds. What are the thingsterms for humans you know,
(15:06):
obviously, you know,there's as far as botulism goes,
you know, it is a disease thatyou get by consuming it. So
there's you know, unlesssomebody was to go out and eat a
botulismyou know, infected bird which I
don't know that anybody wouldwant to go do that they've moved
(15:27):
to Ottawa. You know, if they'reout the fall even, you know,
duck hunting, then they wanthealthy buying birds.
So that's, that being said, withalgal blooms. The high nitrogen
you can you can get blue greenalgae outbreaks Don't you know,
certainly just lead to kind ofunhealthy water conditions.
(15:50):
Congregation of too many birdscan also
lead to parasite that causesswimmers itch if people want the
water.
And so, you know, we definitelyadvise people, you know, don't
go on the water when you seedead birds, you know, don't
handle their their sick birds.
Or if you do, you know, you havea pond that you're disposing of,
(16:11):
you know, wear gloves, you justtrash bag, those kinds of things
to prevent exposure to yourself.
Anything else you want to add?
It sounds like this willdisappear. Once the temperatures
cool a bit. Yeah, I mean, itshould go away once the
temperature cools. I mean, forthose that own, you know,
private ponds, where they canthey can,
(16:36):
they can definitely help thesituation by and prevent future
outbreaks or help decrease thechance of future outbreaks by
adding aerators to the pond. SoI know Virginia lakes has tried
to do that. You know, so forsome of these HOAs, and things
like that, with these privateponds, definitely, you know,
improving water qualitymanagement includes, you know,
(16:58):
improving things.
And then improving aeration,this system will help prevent
future outbreaks and can reducethe severity of the outbreak. I
would say that's the main themain thing I would just
recommend, and then I would justtell people yet don't handle
dead birds. Hopefully this willgo away.
Or it should go away once coolerweather prevails. So basically,
(17:19):
you've got one confirmed at thisSouth Meadows pond and suspected
at Paradise. And I suspectthat's what's going on with
everyplace I've had calls about.
I've had calls on multipledifferent private areas kind of
in south. SoI wouldn't leave. So that one.
Yeah. I mean, we've had concernsfrom the public about dead or
(17:41):
sick birds. But when our urbanwildlife person's gone out
there, they haven't located any,so I'm not sure if they've been
cleaned up. Orif people messed up that so that
one I'm we haven't gotten thesamples from because our urban
wildlife burst has been outthere a couple times and hasn't
hasn't found any birds that areconsistent with botulism, there
(18:04):
may be I mean, there's alwaysgoing to be you have the huge
congregation of Burgess and hispaws, there's always going to be
one or two dead ones, right?
Just with the number of birdsthat you have, so that the
Virginia lakes I suspect thatmay be going on there, we've had
a history of it there. But wehaven't gotten any carcasses or
(18:24):
clinical signs there by any ofour staff to confirm that
whereas paradise Park Lake Park,a little more consistent, and I
suspect that we've had carcassesfrom there that we're sending
off for testing. So Sue, youknow, I but I would suspect that
you know, with a number ofreports I'm getting around
across across Reno, that, youknow, we have quite a few number
of small botulism outbreaks justin our ponds. You know, don't
(18:48):
obviously let your pets likeconsume birds or come in contact
with that, you know, kind ofour, our advice, you know, that
we go with, that we kind of giveto the public about wildlife
mortalities, and secondarywildlife, you know, holds true
here, just less than anythingelse, which is, you know, don't
let your pets come in contactwith sick or dead wildlife. You
(19:10):
know, don't come in contact withsacred dead wildlife, if you
need to move it or throw itaway, use gloves, wash your
hands.
All those kinds of good hygienepractices. You know, if there's,
water doesn't look so good, alot of birds in there that stay
out of the water, keep your petsout of the water, that kind of
thing. So pretty poor waterquality in a lot of these lakes.
(19:32):
A lot of these ponds. So I mean,I think people kind of specially
look at a lot of these ponds,and that when there's a hybrid
contact, they kind of know, youknow, hey, that doesn't look so
good. When so when the waterquality looks pretty
questionable, then yeah, I wouldtell them, you probably don't
want to have your pets drinkingout of that either. Okay, but
not just from a botulismstandpoint, but from just a
(19:53):
general health standpoint.
Donna clients has been alongtime advocate for seniors in
the Reno area. And she recentlysent a press release to the news
media. She said that seniorswere outraged at the City of
Reno. I asked her about whathappened. The building was
(20:13):
called a tegu. Yes, ParadisePark Activity Center has been a
senior activity place sinceabout 1997. And it's a it's a
small building that's locatedin the city's paradise Park.
It's across the street fromBernice Matthews.
And it it has about 1500 seniorresidents living right around
(20:37):
nearby. And they're the onesthat can walk over to go to
exercise class or play beanbagbaseball or play cards or do
some other other kinds of funactivities and hang out with
their friends and have a cup ofcoffee and that kind of thing.
But we found out a few daysbefore the 16th of August that
(20:57):
the city of Reno is planning tolease wants, well, they want to
lease the building to anonprofit here in town. How did
how did you? How did you come tofind that out had nobody not
communicated with you or that isright. The whole senior
community was pretty much takenby surprise. It had to go on a
(21:19):
public agenda for the Renocommission, Recreation and Parks
Commission. And so they'rethey're a group of appointed
folks that give advice to citycouncil about the Parks
Recreation and Parks programs.
So something like this goes ontheir agenda before it can go to
council and they give arecommendation. So it appeared
(21:40):
on the on their agenda for the16th of August for meeting at
six o'clock in the evening. AndI didn't even find out about
until that day someone called meand said, Do you know that this
is happening? I said what? So Iwas on Zoom? To watch it because
I COVID at the time, and Icouldn't go Oh, no. Yeah, so it
(22:01):
was it was like COVID, it wasjust a bad cold kind of COVID.
Anyway, I'm done. And I'mhealthy again. Anyway, so. So
what I was told by the other theother seniors is that somehow
they found out about it just afew days before the meeting. And
they rallied as many folks asthey could get to show up at in
person at the at the best thiscommission meeting was over at
(22:24):
McKinley Park and they filledthe room, they had to actually
move it into the, into theauditorium instead of a little
room that they usually usebecause they had, you know,
about 9090 folks comein protest and but 30 of them
made public comment to sayplease don't do this, this is
this place means a lot to usand, and you know all the
(22:46):
reasons why it is a great placefor for the seniors that live
around there. And even who comefrom other parts of town for
your news release noted thatthe facility costs $70,000 a
year to run. But because of thepandemic,
(23:09):
nobody was using it. And nowthey're saying because of lack
of use, that's why they're goingto maybe use it out to this
nonprofit that are correct.
That's correct. It's a littlethere's a little more to it.
There before COVID, the paradisePark had about I don't know 1617
different activities that happenthroughout the day, it was
(23:30):
pretty, pretty packed, prettybusy place. And there were
nearly 10,000 folks a year thatwe're in and out of that
building using the using thegoat you know, participating in
the programs inside. It isn't itdoesn't have tennis courts, or
basketball courts or pickleballspace or any of that it's just a
big, it's one big room. So itcan't really take on a lot more
(23:53):
of the active things that go onat the other recreation centers
like Evelyn mount or no road. Itwas it was pretty busy before
COVID. And then COVID happenedand they shut shut the building
down. And it was the last one ofthe facilities that they decided
to open back up again. And whenthey opened it up, they only put
they only allowed like sixactivities again, so they cut
(24:15):
they slashed the programsdrastically. So that's one of
the reasons that there aren't alot of numbers to count. But the
seniors that go there you knoware there in in pretty good
numbers considering it was liketwo thirds of the two thirds of
the programs and about twothirds of the of the the old
numbers are still showing up.
(24:39):
And the other part about the70,000 which I didn't know that
Jamie Jamie Schroeder who I typoit in that first release. I know
someone that Rodriguez I don'tknow that. Anyway, Jamie told
everybody that it costs about70,000 because somebody asked,
you know what, you know what,what does it cost and what's the
least likely to be in there?
(25:00):
So they hadn't worked thedetails out yet of the lease,
but she said 70 70k The peoplethat that go to Paradise Park
are, many of them are lowincome. And during just before
COVID, the, the, the, the Recand Park folk created a free
pass for people that are lowincome to go to a lot of
(25:24):
programs that, that they'll paynothing for. They qualify for
the past, and they have thecost. And that is what a lot of
our seniors that go to ParadisePark, go there, it's free to
them, they don't pay, they don'tpay a dime, which is the reason
it was created that way toencourage folks to come and do
recreation and socialize. Evenif they don't have much money,
(25:48):
which is wonderful, it's agreat, it's a great thing. But
that means Paradise has got verylittle income, because a lot of
their places and people that gothere don't have to pay
anything. And the others that dopay, it's only like two bucks,
instead of the costs of theother rec centers, which are
lots of different programs, andthere's a lot more cost. So they
can, they can naturally bring ina lot more money. So it's it's
(26:11):
apples and oranges, you can'tcompare that,
you know that that? Whatever theincome turns out to be. So we
disputed that at the meeting.
One of themembers of the Commission
actually is somebody who spendstime at Paradise parking and
knew that the numbers were or,you know, brought in the numbers
(26:31):
that that are the correct ones.
And so that there was disputebetween what the what the staff
was saying and then what the thecommissioner had gotten some,
some better info. So that wasone of the reasons that that the
rec Commission decided topostpone their their decision to
(26:52):
get more public input and alsoto, you know, find out what the
right numbers are. One of thethings I learned from being, you
know, kind of involved in thisstuff for a while is that
recreation programs are not evenexpected to bring in the full
cost, right in revenue that theythat it costs because it's a
public service. And I thinksenior programs are only
(27:13):
supposed to have to bring in andthis is from from a consultant's
report a few years ago, I thinkit was like 25% is is kind of
looked at as you know, you aimfor that. But if you don't get
it, you know, you're still doingyour public service, and you got
to take into account yourcommunity and stuff like that. I
don't know if it was misleading,but it certainly doesn't jibe
(27:33):
with what we we knew which wastrue.
And so after the meeting, I knowthat staff from from record
parks, started checking furtherinto it. So I don't know what
the final outcome is going to beon the numbers, but
the staff, the gal who's directleader at Paradise Park, kept
(27:54):
very good records of, you know,the numbers of folks that were
in, in there for whatactivities, and they had to turn
in the money every day for theyou know, every every few days,
to the you know, to, to get iton the books. So they knew how
much money they brought in. Andthey also knew, you know, how
many were coming for what, whatactivities because they have
(28:17):
people sign in when they comein. So most of them
so they've got records ofparadise parks, actual use
usage, it's way more than whatthey were reporting and they
made it they made it sound likeit was underutilized. And, and
that it would be better andbetter served to the you know,
to the community at large. Doyou have that building? You
(28:39):
know, bring in the you know,better revenue, which you know,
you can you weigh that in thatmakes that, you know, that's a
it's a public policy kind ofthing. But to me, you can't, you
can't forget that it's serving ahuge community right nearby and
with what COVID did toeverybody, especially our
seniors, getting them back outof the house and into healthy,
(29:00):
you know, activity and hangingwith each other and, you know,
socializing and all that that isgoodbye that cost dollars. You
know, you just cannot. I am asenior and I am a private
citizen, and I care about thingslike this. So thanks a lot, Bob.
I really appreciate and Iappreciate how you know how
closely you're followingeverything and everybody. So Oh,
(29:22):
thank you. I rely on tips quitea bit. Yeah. Great. Well, thanks
for the attention on this one.
Yeah, this is exactly kind ofthe story that we like to follow
because yeah, it's local. It'srelevant to a large group of
people. And that's that'susually sort of our criteria for
stories as the city decidedafter news media coverage of the
situation to change its mind andnot pursue the lease.
(29:51):
That's it for this week in Renonews. Please give the show
review on your favorite podcastapp and visit us online at this
is reno.com
The summer heat is one of thecauses for why ducks and geese
(00:03):
are dying at Area ponds. Whenbirds die, they'll have some
level of toxin. And when maggotsgrow in the decomposing bird,
they pick up that botulism toxinand then other birds consume the
maggot.
get sick, and that's how theoutbreak can perpetuate. On
today's show, we hear from awildlife veterinarian who
(00:26):
explains why botulism issuspected in regional water
bodies and how that is impactingwaterfowl.
With what COVID did toeverybody, especially our
seniors, getting them back outof the house and into healthy,
you know, activity and hangingwith each other and you know,
(00:47):
socializing and all that that isbeing kept by the
dollars, you know, you justcannot we also hear from an
advocate for local seniorcitizens. She said people were
taken by surprise when theylearned that the city of Reno
was making plans to lease out asenior gathering space to a
local nonprofit.
(01:09):
With this week in Reno news, Iam Bob Conrad, this is reno.com.
Thank you for listening to theshow on kW and K community radio
at 97.7. FM, or on your favoritepodcast app. Please visit us
online at this reno.com to getthe latest news and events
coverage for the greater Renoarea.
(01:31):
Nevada faculty recentlysubmitted a letter to the new
chancellor of Nevada's highereducation system. They said
campus presidents are notgetting the regular evaluations
that the public deserves. So theBoard of Regents and the
chancellor's office received aletter from the Nevada faculty
Alliance expressing theiropinion about when periodic
evaluations of presidents shouldtake place. Particularly if a
(01:54):
president has his or hercontract extended. I spoke with
Acting Chancellor Dale ErkkiYaga, to get his response to the
letter presidents typically havea contract for about four years.
There have been instances in thelast couple of years where a
year has been added on.
And that's pursuant to boardpolicy that's allowable
(02:14):
contracts to be extended in thatway. And so the faculty Alliance
has really expressed an opinionon how that was done in the
past. And the way I look at itprovided a statement for what
they'd like to see in thefuture. Okay, and you sit you've
twice now said it's theiropinion, are you saying that you
don't agree with theirassessment? So the word policy?
(02:35):
Yeah, sure, the board policyrequires a periodic evaluation
of the President and allows forcontract extensions. So when
that periodic evaluation takesplace is typically triggered by
the end of the contract. But ifthe contract is extended, it's
my understanding that the policyinterpretation has been
internally that the evaluationwaits until the year before the
(02:57):
contract extends, the languagedoes not include currently in
policy statements such as atleast every four years.
That's something that could beadded. And as we look at all of
these policies, part of my jobas chancellor has to do so we'll
start looking at that Iappreciate the information and
have taken it, you know,in the spirit that I think it's
(03:18):
offered, we didn't like the waythis was handled, please handle
it differently in the future. Soas we come into a season of
periodic evaluations, which wewill do next year, a number of
our president's contracts expirein 24. So I'm sure the board
will take this intoconsideration. So this is
something that board would haveto change, essentially.
(03:39):
It's a policy word to bechanged. It's a board policy.
Yes. So I in the board receivedthe letter. And as I say, we're
coming into presidentialevaluation season next year,
there are five or six presidentsI think, whose contracts will
expire in 24. So as we go intothat process, the board could
direct the chancellor, whetherthat is me or a new chancellor,
(04:03):
to change when the periodicevaluations are done, or the
policy could be revised, if wefind other concerns. So
certainly, we'll take a look atthat. I don't have to make
decisions about periodicevaluations until sometime, I
think in the second quarter ofnext year. So that's April, May,
June of 23. So we have time tolook at it all. And again, I
(04:27):
appreciate the letter. Sure. Andyou mentioned a couple of
presidents, the only one I sawmentioned was GVC in that
letter. So the letter mentionsthat GBC was the president UPC
President Helens receives anextension last year. But if I'm
correct, and remember, I knew, Ithink President Johnson contract
(04:47):
was extended during the pandemicand I believe President
Patterson's contract wasextended as well.
Okay, and he was stepping downfrom Nevada State College so
it's not unheard of that this isdone as it was.
Explain to me by staff. It wasdone this year for President
Helens to again, I'm sort of inthis situation where I won't
(05:08):
revisit actions that were donein the past. I'm going to take
the informationon a face value of making a
contribution to the bettermentof the system. And we'll discuss
this with the board as we getinto 2023.
Waterfowl up in dinette areaponds causing concerns among
(05:30):
residents. A this is Reno readercontacted us about the
situation. I spoke with awildlife veterinarian Nate law
who who's with the NevadaDepartment of Wildlife. Here is
Nate. Yeah, so we've hadmultiple reports of
mostly duck and use mortalitiesin multiple urban ponds around
(05:50):
Reno.
We have confirmed botulism typeseed in a pond near the south
Meadows Parkway, it's an unnamedpond.
We're currently undergoingtesting for some additional
ponds, up in Sparks andnorth of north of AD. And then
(06:14):
we have additional reports fromVirginia lakes. And thinking
additional and yet additionalsome small additional ponds that
are either on kind of privateproperty or around some of the
warehouse.
Buildings in South Reno ofeither dead birds or birds
(06:40):
exhibiting signs consistent withbotulism. Okay, and what ponds
are those? Lake Park paradiseand Paradise Park? Okay, and
those but those are notconfirmed. Those are not
confirmed No. Okay, but thosedefines your scene point toward
avian botulism. The signs thatare, you know, I
(07:05):
that are reported to us by thepublic and that our urban
wildlife person has observedhead droop.
Inability to fly,are consistent with botulism,
given that we've are alsodiagnosed botulism in South
Reno. The conditions in thoseponds are similar. We do have, I
wouldn't say regular, but we'vehad frequent, somewhat frequent
(07:31):
botulism outbreaks in Reno overthe years.
So it's not an uncommon thing tohappen this time in the summer.
So you say over the years, howoften or this happened every
year.
The last report outbreak that wediagnose was 2020. We didn't
(07:52):
have any in 2021. We diddiagnose it in 2020, in Virginia
lakes.
And there were some other pondsat that time, I believe, that
had some few dead birds or signsconsistent, but viable samples
were never obtained from thoseponds. You know, they gotta be
somewhat fresh birds in order todo the QA testing. We didn't
(08:15):
have any reported last year,there's probably frequently some
small level of botulismmortality that occurs, that just
does not doesn't rise to thelevel that the public notices.
But yeah, 2020 was our last lastknown outbreak. Well, why is
this happening? Why does thishappen? Yeah, so it happens,
(08:37):
because of how the pond system,you know, all of our urban ponds
and that kind of the ecology ofour urban ponds. So botulism
types, see, or any botulism is aClostridium bacteria
that produces a toxin, when itreproduces, and it only
reproduces really underanaerobic conditions. And so
(09:01):
what happens is through causeit's a soil borne bacteria, so
areas, you know, it's normallyin the soil but areas that you
had previous outbreaks, you'regoing to have a higher soil load
than areas where there hasn'tbeen an outbreak before.
And basically what happens iswhen you get reproduction that
(09:21):
bacteria through ever anaerobicconditions and that toxin is
reproduced the environment.
When birds die, they'll havesome level of toxin and when
maggots growin and and, you know in the in
the decomposing bird, they pickup that botulism toxin and then
(09:44):
other birds consume the maggot.
get sick, and that's how theoutbreak can perpetuate. It's
the consumption of maggotadditional birds dying. They
decomposed under anaerobicconditions with maggot growth.
Those Words are consumed. So,you know, all birds have some
small level of bacillus sporeswithin their liver.
(10:08):
But, you know, reaches a pointwhere you get an outbreak during
and the anaerobic conditions,you know, you have a lot of
growth. And they reproduce moreto under anaerobic conditions,
the warm temperatures, so wehave, you know, warm
temperatures.
And that what that does is acouple things. One is it, the
warmer the temperature, thelower the dissolved oxygen, and
(10:30):
a body of water is going to bethe less oxygen that can be
dissolved in that water.
The colder the water, thehigher, the higher, the more
oxygen can be dissolved in thatwater,
too, we get warm temperatureslead algal growth. And when the
algae died, the decomposition ofthat algae also, you know, uses
(10:53):
the decomposition process thatprocess whenever you have any,
you know, allergies kind ofhappens specifically now, but
any dead vegetation wasdecomposing uses oxygen, so it
can use up oxygen during that.
And then we also have low flows,low flows with the warmer water
at least stagnant water, youknow, to turn over water
aeration of water, water movingin is all sources that are going
(11:13):
to bring cool or higher, moreoxygenated water into a pond.
And so what we have in a lot ofthese urban areas is these warm,
shallow ponds, lots of algaegrowth, but a water movement,
you know, high amount of duckfeces, so a lot of nitrogen
algal growth. And it just setsup this kind of perfect
(11:37):
condition for botulism to growand outbreak to occur.
So does that, does that answerthat question? For you? Yeah, it
does. So basically, what I'munderstanding is that increasing
water flow would have preventedthis, but some of these ponds
(11:58):
don't have a lot of water flow.
Is there a reason for that?
You know, I'm not familiar withthe ins and outs of all the
ponds.
You know, I mean, honestly, theTruckee Meadows was
historically, you know, a marshywetland that always had slow
moving water towards theTruckee, and we've
turned that into, you know,little urban cemented in urban
(12:23):
ponds that are shallow, thatdon't have shade covers, so
they're getting hotter, youknow, they don't have adequate
water flow. I mean, the droughtcertainly plays a role, but a
lot of its, you know, that theconstruction of these ponds, you
know, historically wasn'tnecessarily meant to mimic, you
(12:45):
know, a natural ecosystem.
They're meant to be, you know,nice ponds for people to walk
around. And soor they're meant to, you know,
how stormwater runoff or thingslike that, and so, there's yet a
lot of issues how they areconstructed, there's low water
flow, there's, you know, kind ofthis
(13:06):
cemented in things that createmore warmth. There's nothing
normal read cover that mightprovide some shade and some
cooling. And you know, we havehotter temperatures, we have a
drought.
All in then we have a lot ofcongregation of birds, we have
fertilizer use, you know, on allthose green spaces, which runs
(13:27):
off creates algal blooms, andthen the subsequent anaerobic
conditions from algal die. Soall of those kind of lead to
that situation, you know, whereI mean, not to say that there
aren't botulism outbreaks innatural ecosystems, they
certainly are and they happenyou know, it's out of
Stillwater, we always have somelevel of small numbers of
animals that die from botulism.
(13:49):
So I know that we're on a flightfor bird species, is there any
concern that this could impact?
Rare danger? Otherwise, concern?
Um, you know, potentially, butit's honestly in the grand
scheme of things. It's a smallit's very small outbreak here in
Reno. One is we're still in thesummer.
(14:15):
Most of the birds hanging aroundhere resident birds, often by
the time the main migrationcomes through the this doesn't
always happen, but you may seethat the weather has cooled off.
And this this bosses Maverickshave gone away with cooler
weather, and less reproductionof the bacteria. So far, every
(14:37):
report we're getting is mallardsand Canada geese. So you know
not species of concern.
Generally resident species arenot resident species to choose
me but the birds that are aroundhere in the summer or resident
birds, they're not migratorybirds, right. Okay. So you're
talking about water conditionsthat are not essentially healthy
for birds. What are the thingsterms for humans you know,
(15:06):
obviously, you know,there's as far as botulism goes,
you know, it is a disease thatyou get by consuming it. So
there's you know, unlesssomebody was to go out and eat a
botulismyou know, infected bird which I
don't know that anybody wouldwant to go do that they've moved
(15:27):
to Ottawa. You know, if they'reout the fall even, you know,
duck hunting, then they wanthealthy buying birds.
So that's, that being said, withalgal blooms. The high nitrogen
you can you can get blue greenalgae outbreaks Don't you know,
certainly just lead to kind ofunhealthy water conditions.
(15:50):
Congregation of too many birdscan also
lead to parasite that causesswimmers itch if people want the
water.
And so, you know, we definitelyadvise people, you know, don't
go on the water when you seedead birds, you know, don't
handle their their sick birds.
Or if you do, you know, you havea pond that you're disposing of,
(16:11):
you know, wear gloves, you justtrash bag, those kinds of things
to prevent exposure to yourself.
Anything else you want to add?
It sounds like this willdisappear. Once the temperatures
cool a bit. Yeah, I mean, itshould go away once the
temperature cools. I mean, forthose that own, you know,
private ponds, where they canthey can,
(16:36):
they can definitely help thesituation by and prevent future
outbreaks or help decrease thechance of future outbreaks by
adding aerators to the pond. SoI know Virginia lakes has tried
to do that. You know, so forsome of these HOAs, and things
like that, with these privateponds, definitely, you know,
improving water qualitymanagement includes, you know,
(16:58):
improving things.
And then improving aeration,this system will help prevent
future outbreaks and can reducethe severity of the outbreak. I
would say that's the main themain thing I would just
recommend, and then I would justtell people yet don't handle
dead birds. Hopefully this willgo away.
Or it should go away once coolerweather prevails. So basically,
(17:19):
you've got one confirmed at thisSouth Meadows pond and suspected
at Paradise. And I suspectthat's what's going on with
everyplace I've had calls about.
I've had calls on multipledifferent private areas kind of
in south. SoI wouldn't leave. So that one.
Yeah. I mean, we've had concernsfrom the public about dead or
(17:41):
sick birds. But when our urbanwildlife person's gone out
there, they haven't located any,so I'm not sure if they've been
cleaned up. Orif people messed up that so that
one I'm we haven't gotten thesamples from because our urban
wildlife burst has been outthere a couple times and hasn't
hasn't found any birds that areconsistent with botulism, there
(18:04):
may be I mean, there's alwaysgoing to be you have the huge
congregation of Burgess and hispaws, there's always going to be
one or two dead ones, right?
Just with the number of birdsthat you have, so that the
Virginia lakes I suspect thatmay be going on there, we've had
a history of it there. But wehaven't gotten any carcasses or
(18:24):
clinical signs there by any ofour staff to confirm that
whereas paradise Park Lake Park,a little more consistent, and I
suspect that we've had carcassesfrom there that we're sending
off for testing. So Sue, youknow, I but I would suspect that
you know, with a number ofreports I'm getting around
across across Reno, that, youknow, we have quite a few number
of small botulism outbreaks justin our ponds. You know, don't
(18:48):
obviously let your pets likeconsume birds or come in contact
with that, you know, kind ofour, our advice, you know, that
we go with, that we kind of giveto the public about wildlife
mortalities, and secondarywildlife, you know, holds true
here, just less than anythingelse, which is, you know, don't
let your pets come in contactwith sick or dead wildlife. You
(19:10):
know, don't come in contact withsacred dead wildlife, if you
need to move it or throw itaway, use gloves, wash your
hands.
All those kinds of good hygienepractices. You know, if there's,
water doesn't look so good, alot of birds in there that stay
out of the water, keep your petsout of the water, that kind of
thing. So pretty poor waterquality in a lot of these lakes.
(19:32):
A lot of these ponds. So I mean,I think people kind of specially
look at a lot of these ponds,and that when there's a hybrid
contact, they kind of know, youknow, hey, that doesn't look so
good. When so when the waterquality looks pretty
questionable, then yeah, I wouldtell them, you probably don't
want to have your pets drinkingout of that either. Okay, but
not just from a botulismstandpoint, but from just a
(19:53):
general health standpoint.
Donna clients has been alongtime advocate for seniors in
the Reno area. And she recentlysent a press release to the news
media. She said that seniorswere outraged at the City of
Reno. I asked her about whathappened. The building was
(20:13):
called a tegu. Yes, ParadisePark Activity Center has been a
senior activity place sinceabout 1997. And it's a it's a
small building that's locatedin the city's paradise Park.
It's across the street fromBernice Matthews.
And it it has about 1500 seniorresidents living right around
(20:37):
nearby. And they're the onesthat can walk over to go to
exercise class or play beanbagbaseball or play cards or do
some other other kinds of funactivities and hang out with
their friends and have a cup ofcoffee and that kind of thing.
But we found out a few daysbefore the 16th of August that
(20:57):
the city of Reno is planning tolease wants, well, they want to
lease the building to anonprofit here in town. How did
how did you? How did you come tofind that out had nobody not
communicated with you or that isright. The whole senior
community was pretty much takenby surprise. It had to go on a
(21:19):
public agenda for the Renocommission, Recreation and Parks
Commission. And so they'rethey're a group of appointed
folks that give advice to citycouncil about the Parks
Recreation and Parks programs.
So something like this goes ontheir agenda before it can go to
council and they give arecommendation. So it appeared
(21:40):
on the on their agenda for the16th of August for meeting at
six o'clock in the evening. AndI didn't even find out about
until that day someone called meand said, Do you know that this
is happening? I said what? So Iwas on Zoom? To watch it because
I COVID at the time, and Icouldn't go Oh, no. Yeah, so it
(22:01):
was it was like COVID, it wasjust a bad cold kind of COVID.
Anyway, I'm done. And I'mhealthy again. Anyway, so. So
what I was told by the other theother seniors is that somehow
they found out about it just afew days before the meeting. And
they rallied as many folks asthey could get to show up at in
person at the at the best thiscommission meeting was over at
(22:24):
McKinley Park and they filledthe room, they had to actually
move it into the, into theauditorium instead of a little
room that they usually usebecause they had, you know,
about 9090 folks comein protest and but 30 of them
made public comment to sayplease don't do this, this is
this place means a lot to usand, and you know all the
(22:46):
reasons why it is a great placefor for the seniors that live
around there. And even who comefrom other parts of town for
your news release noted thatthe facility costs $70,000 a
year to run. But because of thepandemic,
(23:09):
nobody was using it. And nowthey're saying because of lack
of use, that's why they're goingto maybe use it out to this
nonprofit that are correct.
That's correct. It's a littlethere's a little more to it.
There before COVID, the paradisePark had about I don't know 1617
different activities that happenthroughout the day, it was
(23:30):
pretty, pretty packed, prettybusy place. And there were
nearly 10,000 folks a year thatwe're in and out of that
building using the using thegoat you know, participating in
the programs inside. It isn't itdoesn't have tennis courts, or
basketball courts or pickleballspace or any of that it's just a
big, it's one big room. So itcan't really take on a lot more
(23:53):
of the active things that go onat the other recreation centers
like Evelyn mount or no road. Itwas it was pretty busy before
COVID. And then COVID happenedand they shut shut the building
down. And it was the last one ofthe facilities that they decided
to open back up again. And whenthey opened it up, they only put
they only allowed like sixactivities again, so they cut
(24:15):
they slashed the programsdrastically. So that's one of
the reasons that there aren't alot of numbers to count. But the
seniors that go there you knoware there in in pretty good
numbers considering it was liketwo thirds of the two thirds of
the programs and about twothirds of the of the the old
numbers are still showing up.
(24:39):
And the other part about the70,000 which I didn't know that
Jamie Jamie Schroeder who I typoit in that first release. I know
someone that Rodriguez I don'tknow that. Anyway, Jamie told
everybody that it costs about70,000 because somebody asked,
you know what, you know what,what does it cost and what's the
least likely to be in there?
(25:00):
So they hadn't worked thedetails out yet of the lease,
but she said 70 70k The peoplethat that go to Paradise Park
are, many of them are lowincome. And during just before
COVID, the, the, the, the Recand Park folk created a free
pass for people that are lowincome to go to a lot of
(25:24):
programs that, that they'll paynothing for. They qualify for
the past, and they have thecost. And that is what a lot of
our seniors that go to ParadisePark, go there, it's free to
them, they don't pay, they don'tpay a dime, which is the reason
it was created that way toencourage folks to come and do
recreation and socialize. Evenif they don't have much money,
(25:48):
which is wonderful, it's agreat, it's a great thing. But
that means Paradise has got verylittle income, because a lot of
their places and people that gothere don't have to pay
anything. And the others that dopay, it's only like two bucks,
instead of the costs of theother rec centers, which are
lots of different programs, andthere's a lot more cost. So they
can, they can naturally bring ina lot more money. So it's it's
(26:11):
apples and oranges, you can'tcompare that,
you know that that? Whatever theincome turns out to be. So we
disputed that at the meeting.
One of themembers of the Commission
actually is somebody who spendstime at Paradise parking and
knew that the numbers were or,you know, brought in the numbers
(26:31):
that that are the correct ones.
And so that there was disputebetween what the what the staff
was saying and then what the thecommissioner had gotten some,
some better info. So that wasone of the reasons that that the
rec Commission decided topostpone their their decision to
(26:52):
get more public input and alsoto, you know, find out what the
right numbers are. One of thethings I learned from being, you
know, kind of involved in thisstuff for a while is that
recreation programs are not evenexpected to bring in the full
cost, right in revenue that theythat it costs because it's a
public service. And I thinksenior programs are only
(27:13):
supposed to have to bring in andthis is from from a consultant's
report a few years ago, I thinkit was like 25% is is kind of
looked at as you know, you aimfor that. But if you don't get
it, you know, you're still doingyour public service, and you got
to take into account yourcommunity and stuff like that. I
don't know if it was misleading,but it certainly doesn't jibe
(27:33):
with what we we knew which wastrue.
And so after the meeting, I knowthat staff from from record
parks, started checking furtherinto it. So I don't know what
the final outcome is going to beon the numbers, but
the staff, the gal who's directleader at Paradise Park, kept
(27:54):
very good records of, you know,the numbers of folks that were
in, in there for whatactivities, and they had to turn
in the money every day for theyou know, every every few days,
to the you know, to, to get iton the books. So they knew how
much money they brought in. Andthey also knew, you know, how
many were coming for what, whatactivities because they have
(28:17):
people sign in when they comein. So most of them
so they've got records ofparadise parks, actual use
usage, it's way more than whatthey were reporting and they
made it they made it sound likeit was underutilized. And, and
that it would be better andbetter served to the you know,
to the community at large. Doyou have that building? You
(28:39):
know, bring in the you know,better revenue, which you know,
you can you weigh that in thatmakes that, you know, that's a
it's a public policy kind ofthing. But to me, you can't, you
can't forget that it's serving ahuge community right nearby and
with what COVID did toeverybody, especially our
seniors, getting them back outof the house and into healthy,
(29:00):
you know, activity and hangingwith each other and, you know,
socializing and all that that isgoodbye that cost dollars. You
know, you just cannot. I am asenior and I am a private
citizen, and I care about thingslike this. So thanks a lot, Bob.
I really appreciate and Iappreciate how you know how
closely you're followingeverything and everybody. So Oh,
(29:22):
thank you. I rely on tips quitea bit. Yeah. Great. Well, thanks
for the attention on this one.
Yeah, this is exactly kind ofthe story that we like to follow
because yeah, it's local. It'srelevant to a large group of
people. And that's that'susually sort of our criteria for
stories as the city decidedafter news media coverage of the
situation to change its mind andnot pursue the lease.
(29:51):
That's it for this week in Renonews. Please give the show
review on your favorite podcastapp and visit us online at this
is reno.com
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