Media Coverage Archives

Securing SoCal Water to Benefit NorCal Salmon

December 5, 2019/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Hakai Magazineby Jane Braxton Little

Life is perilous for juvenile chinook salmon just starting their journey to the ocean: predatory striped bass lurk in gin-clear pools; low streamflows limit access to the shrimplike amphipods they feed on; downstream sloughs halt at dead ends. As young fish navigate from spawning grounds in California’s Feather River to the Pacific, climate change is further reducing the water available for their celebrated runs. Of the salmon populations struggling to survive along the Pacific Northwest, scientists worry California chinook may be the first to blink out.

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Update: Tahoe Ski Resorts Open More Lifts, Terrain Before Next Snow Dump

December 5, 2019/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /San Francisco Chronicleby Tom Stienstra

Early-season snow is prompting 18 of the 21 major ski areas around Tahoe and the high Sierra to open by this weekend.

On Wednesday, snow was falling lightly on the ridges surrounding the Tahoe Basin, and a storm due to arrive this weekend will allow ski areas across the board to open more chairlifts, ski runs and terrain and position themselves for the blitz that comes with the Christmas-New Year’s holidays.

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California Must Act Now To Prepare For Sea Level Rise, State Lawmakers Say

December 5, 2019/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Los Angeles Times by Rosanna Xia

The camera zooms in on the majestic sandy bluffs that make this stretch of the San Diego County coast so iconic: a close-up, everyone realizes, of that cliff crumbling in real time — ancient sand and soft, somewhat cemented rocks tumbling onto the beach below.

Moments later, a popular commuter rail rumbles by. Some in the room gasped. Lawmakers watched in sober silence.

“This is a natural phenomenon; it’s feeding the beaches, but it’s happening more and more frequently in part because of sea level rise,” said Merrifield, director of Scripps’ Center for Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation. “So what can do? That’s why we’re here, right?”

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As Climate Change Worsens, A Cascade Of Tipping Points Looms

December 5, 2019/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Yale Environment 360by Fred Pearce

Some of the most alarming science surrounding climate change is the discovery that it may not happen incrementally — as a steadily rising line on a graph — but in a series of lurches as various “tipping points” are passed. And now comes a new concern: These tipping points can form a cascade, with each one triggering others, creating an irreversible shift to a hotter world. A new study suggests that changes to ocean circulation could be the driver of such a cascade.

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Reclamation Seeks to Restore Sinking California Canal

December 5, 2019/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Bloomberg Environmentby Emily C. Dooley

Federal authorities are considering a plan to repair a California canal in the San Joaquin Valley that lost half its capacity to move water because of sinking ground.

Use of groundwater has caused land subsidence, affecting a 33-mile section of the Friant-Kern Canal, which supplies water to 1 million acres of farmland and more than 250,000 residents. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Dec. 3 published an environmental assessment detailing plans to repair, raise, and realign the canal, which it began building in 1949.

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Levee Break Shuts Down California Highway, Strands Students Overnight At School

December 5, 2019/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /The Weather Channel by Ron Brackett

A broken levee shut down U.S. Highway 101 in Northern California on Wednesday and forced about 30 students and teachers to spend the night in their school’s gym.

Meanwhile, a nursing home in a neighboring county evacuated its residents because of flooding.

The levee near the school in Chualar was partially breached about 2 p.m., KSBW reported. The rain came as an atmospheric river storm drenched the state.

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How Much Damage Do Atmospheric Rivers Cause

December 5, 2019/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /The New York Times by Jill Cowan

It rained in Southern California again on Wednesday.

The storm, Marty Ralph told me, was caused by an atmospheric river, a meteorological phenomenon you have been hearing more about lately as climate change drives bigger swings between tinder dry conditions and pounding rain.

And although the rain caused the usual traffic headaches and advisories against swimming at the beach, this particular atmospheric river was actually “primarily beneficial,” according to a scale that Mr. Ralph, the director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, helped develop.

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Offshore Wind Still Looks To Get A Foothold In California

December 5, 2019/in Media Coverage, San Diego County /by Mike Lee /The San Diego Union-Tribune by Rob Nikolewski

There may be a literal energy windfall off the coast of California but it is still unclear whether the federal government will give approval to specific sites and how long it will take before tall turbines are bobbing on the Pacific, sending electricity to customers across the Golden State.

Wind energy’s boosters are eager to see proposed projects get the go-ahead.

“Let’s get a couple of these rolling, get some floating offshore turbines out there and build this over time, which is exactly what you’re seeing on the East Coast,” said Tom Kiernan, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association.

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State Official: Faulty Reservoir System Contributed To Poway Water Contamination

December 5, 2019/in Media Coverage, San Diego County /by Mike Lee /KPBSby Matt Hoffman

The recent contamination of Poway’s water was caused in part by storm drain and reservoir connections that are not in compliance with state regulations, a state official told KPBS Wednesday.

The system was overwhelmed during last week’s rains and storm water flowed into a reservoir of treated water that was then piped into homes and businesses, according Sean Sterchi, the San Diego District Engineer for the state’s Water Resources Control Board Division of Drinking Water.

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