KQED Archives

‘We’re Not Prepared’: Experts Call for Doubling Levee Protections as California Faces Increasing Floods

May 2, 2023/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Gayle Falkenthal /KQED by Ezra David Romero

California water experts and environmental justice advocates are calling for state leaders to mandate that new levees be built with double the federal required protection to withstand the increasingly severe storms caused, in part, by human-caused climate change.

California’s levee protection regulations are not uniform; the state’s seemingly endless dikes and causeways are overseen by a patchwork of widely varying rules. Some communities like Pajaro in Monterey County, which was swamped by floodwaters this year, are protected only against smaller storms that happen every eight years, while levees protecting urban areas of the Central Valley are bolstered against much more powerful storms.

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Paradise Residents Still Can’t Drink the Water

September 30, 2019/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /KQEDby Molly Peterson

Since last November, when the Camp Fire almost completely destroyed the town of Paradise, the cancer-causing chemical benzene has tainted the town’s water, leaving it undrinkable. Now an independent team of scientists will begin testing for the carcinogen and other pollutants inside the houses that the fire left standing.

“The main goal is to really understand what’s going on, basically, and to address any issues that come up,” environmental health investigator Dr. Gina Solomon told residents at a recent Paradise Irrigation District meeting.

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Where Animals And Plants Might Survive Climate Change

September 30, 2019/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /KQEDby Lauren Sommer

Scientists are searching for pockets of ecological resistance in the face of climate change, places that seem to be warming less quickly than others due to unique natural conditions.

The hope is that as the earth continues to get hotter, these “climate refugia” could serve as strongholds for plants and animals

For a decade, scientists have been studying this phenomenon in a steep mountain valley in the Sierra Nevada. Devils Postpile National Monument is known for its distinct geologic formations, where the crumbling columns of rock from an ancient lava bed resemble, well, a pile of posts.

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These Trees Survived California’s Drought And That’s Giving Scientists Hope For Climate Change

September 23, 2019/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /KQEDby Lauren Sommer

When California’s historic five-year drought finally relented a few years ago, the tally of dead trees in the Sierra Nevada was higher than almost anyone expected: 129 million. Most are still standing, the dry patches dotting the mountainsides.

But some trees did survive the test of heat and drought. Now, scientists are racing to collect them and other species around the globe in the hope that these “climate survivors” may have a natural advantage, allowing them to cope with a warming world a bit better than others in their species.

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Chevron Faces New Demands From Regulators As Kern County Oil Releases Continue

September 10, 2019/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /KQEDby Ted Goldberg and Dan Brekke

After months of back and forth with Chevron over a series of uncontrolled crude petroleum releases in a Kern County oil field, state regulators are demanding new information about its operations in the spill area.

California’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, or DOGGR, issued a formal directive to the San Ramon-based company Tuesday, requiring the firm to provide a wealth of technical data on its petroleum extraction practices in the Cymric oil field.

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Administration Sidelines Federal Biologists Who Could Stand In Way Of More Water For Calif. Farmers

July 12, 2019/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /KQED (San Francisco)by Lauren Sommer

After rushing forward on a plan to send more water to California’s Central Valley, the Trump Administration has unexpectedly hit the brakes and ordered the work already done by federal scientists to be completed by a different team. Just days before federal biologists were set to release new rules governing the future of endangered salmon and drinking water for two-thirds of Californians, the administration replaced them with an almost entirely new group of lawyers, administrators and biologists to “refine” and “improve” the rules, according to an email obtained by KQED.

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Trump’s Pending Rules On California Water Marked By Missing Documents And Hurried Reviews, Say Scientists

July 1, 2019/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /KQEDby Lauren Sommer

Independent scientists have raised serious concerns about a Trump administration plan to divert more water to California farmers, according to documents obtained by KQED.

In their analyses, they write that the plan poses risks to threatened fish; that the process is rushed; that they didn’t receive enough information to provide a complete scientific review; and that the Trump administration may be skewing the science to make the environmental impact look less serious.

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‘Centers Of Insurrection’: Central Valley Farmers Reckon With Climate Change

June 23, 2019/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /KQED (San Francisco)by Mark Shapiro

On an average day on the Burroughs farm outside of Denair, about an hour’s drive southeast of Modesto, you might witness the surprising sight of cows wandering amidst the almond trees. Chickens might peck their way by. And most definitely there will be plenty of free-spirited birds and bees and insects flickering across the scene, not to mention flowers and grasses unbound on the ground, making for a thick undermat amidst the rows of trees.

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California Bill On PFAS Chemicals Advances, But In Watered Down Form

June 21, 2019/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /KQED (San Francisco)by Hannah Hagemann

A California Senate committee has voted in favor of a bill requiring that water providers notify their customers if they detect a class of chemicals called PFAS in drinking water. The Environmental Quality Committee passed AB 756 on Wednesday, 6-0. The bill now heads to the Appropriations Committee. If it passes there, the full Senate will vote on it. PFAS, which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are waterproof, grease-repellent, and heat-resistant chemicals that are fairly ubiquitous, found in popcorn bags, firefighting foams, nonstick pans, makeup, and even food like ground beef. Scientists estimate there are 4,700 PFAS, some of which have been linked to cancer, infertility, developmental disorders, increased cholesterol and weakened immunity.

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These California Environmental Bills Made It To The Next Round

June 4, 2019/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /KQED (San Francisco)by Kevin Stark

For California bills and their sponsors, Friday was pass-or-die time in the Legislature. It’s an annual rite of spring: If on a certain date proposed bills don’t pass out of their house of origin, be it the Assembly or the Senate, they die for the year. This year, the Legislature considered a slate of new environmental policies. A bill that prohibits California from authorizing new oil and gas infrastructure on state public lands, AB 342, moved on to the Senate. A bill that would require smog checks for semitrucks, SB 210, moved on to the Assembly.

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