Down to its final weeks, the Trump administration is working to push through dozens of environmental rollbacks that could weaken century-old protections for migratory birds, expand Arctic drilling and hamstring future regulation of public health threats.
The California Coastal Commission, on Nov. 6, will be considering a permit application to replace a stretch of shallow contaminated sediment at Los Cerritos Wetlands with clean sediment. Los Cerritos Wetlands, LLC, filed the remediation request with the Coastal Commission.
About 0.47 acres of the Synergy Oil Field at Los Cerritos Wetlands – which is relatively close to Alamitos Bay Marina and Naples Island in Long Beach – has, according to Coastal Commission staff, been used “as a disposal site for oil field-related wastes.”
The Board of Supervisors Wednesday unanimously approved a draft version of a North County region conservation plan. A final draft of the plan is expected for board consideration by 2024 or 2025. Supervisors voted to receive the revised North County Multiple Species Conservation Plan, which according to the Parks and Recreation Department would provide the greatest environmental benefits.
In a congressional hearing Thursday that starkly illuminated partisan divides, California Democrats called on the federal government to provide greater assistance in remedying environmental and public health crises at the Salton Sea. All but one GOP members were absent, and the one who did attend criticized the organizers for holding the hearing.
The American West is ablaze with fires fueled by climate change and a century of misguided fire suppression. In California, wildfire has blackened more than three million acres; in Oregon, a once-in-a-generation crisis has forced half a million people to flee their homes. All the while, one of our most valuable firefighting allies has remained overlooked: The beaver.
Former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt writes that a “Grand Bargain” in California water is needed to end the “political culture of deferral” and allow major water projects to advance. On the contrary, what’s needed is an adult regulator that will make hard choices that water users refuse to make.
For at least five years, the state and various water users have postponed balancing the state’s water budget by promising a grand bargain. This promised new grand bargain is not the solution to the aptly named “culture of deferral.” The grand bargain is the current center of deferral.
The winner of the Olivenhain Municipal Water District 2020 WaterSmart Landscape Contest created a wildlife habitat by removing grass and replacing it with climate-appropriate plants. The District’s Board of Directors honored Laura Lisauskas as the winner of the contest during its September 9 meeting.
The Salton Sea presents one of California’s most pressing ecological and environmental justice crises. The shrinking sea threatens habitat for millions of fish and birds, and as the sea’s shoreline recedes, a pollutant-laced dust spills into nearby communities and threatens the health of 650,000 people living nearby.
In spring and summer, when the skies are warm and the shadows thin, California’s snowy Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades unleash billions of gallons of fresh water each day, a melted bounty that nourishes the state’s mightiest rivers before converging slowly on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt calls for “a ‘Grand Bargain’ in which all the parties achieve a consensus, confirmed in legislation, to apportion Delta water between exports and an adequate ecological flow to San Francisco Bay.” We agree. Let’s start with a statewide water audit. Leadership now asks, “How much was promised?” That question ignores the reality of how much water actually exists and leads to endless litigation, as Babbitt explained.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
