KQED Archives

Millions For Climate, Environmental Priorities In Newsom’s May Budget

California Gov. Gavin Newsom threw some more money into the environmental pot Thursday as part of the state’s May budget revision. The new funding includes about $250 million for climate-related programs, thanks to the state’s cap-and-trade program, and $75 million to fund an assessment of wildfire protection plans. The update of his January budget proposal, required by the state constitution, reflects tax revenue collected through April 15. The record $213.5 billion spending plan includes about $4 billion in additional revenue above his January budget. The Legislature now has until June 15 to pass a budget for the 2019-20 fiscal year, which begins July 1.

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‘There’s So Much Here That’s Still Alive’: Young Filmmakers Document A Dying Salton Sea

April 14, 2019/in Home Headline, Media Coverage, San Diego County /by Mike Lee /KQED (San Francisco)by Sasha Khokha

Massive fish-die offs. Dead birds. A toxic stench. Bryan Mendez and Olivia Rodriguez are dissatisfied that those sad facts are the only things most Californians ever hear about the Salton Sea, one of the largest inland seas in the world. “We’ve heard on and on about the birds, the fish, they’re dying. We know that,” says Rodriguez. “How do we transform this narrative, to show there’s also a community of people here?”

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California’s Monster Snow Year … ‘It’s Been A Wild Ride’

April 1, 2019/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /KQED by Craig Miller

It’s been a big year for snow in the Sierra Nevada range. This is the time of year—April 1—when the snowpack is typically at its peak and on Tuesday, when surveyors do their monthly manual survey, they’re likely to find a snowpack at about 160 percent of the average. Mammoth Mountain, which soars to 11,000 feet in the central Sierra, has had 50 feet of snow pile onto its sweeping inclines. The nearby Mammoth ski resort tweeted that it had broken its snowfall record for February—and it was only two weeks into the month.

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Oroville Dam’s Rebuilt Spillway Is Nearing Its First Use Since 2017 Disaster

March 26, 2019/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /KQED (San Francisco)by Dan Brekke

The agency that manages Oroville Dam says the facility’s rebuilt spillway is likely to be pressed into service for the first time as soon as next week. The Department of Water Resources announced Tuesday that Lake Oroville has risen close to the point where the agency will need to release water to maintain empty reservoir space for runoff from incoming storms and spring snowmelt. DWR said it will give the public between 24 and 72 hours advance notice of a release, which can be expected to cause relatively rapid rises on the Feather River downstream of the dam.

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FEMA Details Why It Rejected State’s Request For Oroville Spillway Funds

March 20, 2019/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /KQED (San Francisco)by Dan Brekke

Federal emergency relief officials have provided new details on their decision to reject California’s request to reimburse the state for work to rebuild and reinforce the badly damaged spillways at Oroville Dam. The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced earlier this month that it would not reimburse the state for $306 million in construction on the spillways, which failed in February 2017 and prompted mandatory evacuation orders for 188,000 people living downstream of the nation’s tallest dam.

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One Increasingly Popular Way To Control Floods: Let The Water Come

March 19, 2019/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /KQEDby Hannah Hagemann

In California’s Central Valley, 100 miles east of San Francisco, the San Joaquin and Tuolumne rivers meet. Their waters mingle amid a wide flat plain of shrubs, cottonwood and oak trees. The Dos Rios Ranch Preserve, 1,600 acres of wetlands, river habitat and rolling hills, sits at the site of this juncture. On clear days, the Sierra Nevada rises in the east and the Coast Range to the west.

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Two California Water Agencies Battling Over Colorado River Drought Plan

March 14, 2019/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /KQED (San Francisco)by Felicia Fonseca and Jonathan J. Cooper

A major Southern California water agency is trying to push the state through a final hurdle in joining a larger plan to preserve a key river in the U.S. West that serves 40 million people. Most of the seven states that get water from the Colorado River have signed off on plans to keep the waterway from crashing amid a prolonged drought, climate change and increased demands. But California and Arizona have not, missing deadlines from the federal government.

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It Took A While, But California Is Now Almost Completely Out Of Drought

March 11, 2019/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /KQED (San Francisco)

This particular California winter has unfolded in good news/bad news fashion. Courtesy of a string of recurring atmospheric rivers, potent storms have caused flooding, power outages and canceled flights. But they have also lifted all but a thin slice of the state near the Oregon border completely out of drought. On the left, below, you can see the map released last week by the U.S. Drought Monitor, which is almost completely devoid of colors indicating various levels of parchedness. On the right is the same map from three years ago, bleeding brick-red and showing nearly 40 percent of the state in the most advanced stage of drought.

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Trump Pressure On California Water Plan Excludes Public, Rushes Science, Emails Show

March 7, 2019/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Andrea Mora /KQED (San Francisco)by Lauren Sommer

The Trump Administration has ordered federal biologists to speed up critical decisions about whether to send more water from Northern California to farmers in the Central Valley, a move that critics say threatens the integrity of the science and cuts the public out of the process. The decisions will control irrigation for millions of acres of farmland in the country’s biggest agricultural economy, drinking water for two-thirds of Californians from Silicon Valley to San Diego, and the fate of endangered salmon and other fish.

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Before And After: See California’s Monster Snow Year By Satellite

February 20, 2019/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /KQED (San Francisco)

A rolling conveyor belt of storms this winter has left the Sierra Nevada blanketed in a thick layer of snow. The year started modestly, with the snowpack measuring around 70 percent of average on the first of the year. A robust January and February has brought the snowpack up to around 145 percent of normal for this time of year. April 1 typically marks the peak of Sierra snowpack accumulation and the start of the spring runoff. Move the sliders below to view the terrain before and after snowstorms.

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