About

I'm sure you are wondering, what's the purpose of this website?

Bidwell Ranch is a public land parcel owned by the City of Chico north of the entrance to Upper Bidwell Park. It has had a long and checkered history, going from grazing land, to being planned for housing development, to being a subject of a voter referendum, to foreclosure on the developer for sewer fees to being a potential funding mechanism for the city parks plan.

Yet few people have seen, much less walked the land, since it is now declared "no trespassing" by signs posted by the City of Chico. Since it is public land, I felt it at least deserved to be "virtually" seen.

Since few have seen it firsthand, and because there are environmental groups that regularly do have access to the land for botanical surveys and other field trips that may need weather data, I thought it useful to provide live webcam monitoring of the land as well as localized weather data for those that have an interest in it. The weather station and web camera are environmentally friendly, and are 100% solar powered. They are placed near Bidwell Ranch close to a storm-water drainage channel, which will provide rainfall data which will help the city in storm-water and groundwater recharge analysis.

This is all done as a free public service at my own expense, no public monies or tax dollars were used in acquiring the camera and weather equipment or making this website a reality for the public. I hope you enjoy its presentation and can make use of the data and images presented.

Thanks for visiting!

Anthony Watts

Tell us what you think about the web site, , or anything else that comes to mind.  Comments and suggestions are welcome.