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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 5:27 p.m. Monday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last weekend’s major \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12025273/martinez-refining-company-investigating-if-leak-during-maintenance-contributed-to-fire\">fire at an East Bay refinery\u003c/a>, which caused dangerous air conditions and spurred a shelter-in-place order, has reignited concern from community members over the facility’s rocky few years and impact on their neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The blaze at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/martinez-refinery\">Martinez Refining Co.’s petroleum refinery\u003c/a> was reported by the company around 1:45 p.m. Saturday, hours after the Bay Area Air District began receiving complaints of odors in the area. It sent plumes of black smoke into the air for hours and forced much of Martinez and the surrounding communities of Pacheco and Clyde to shelter in place until late Saturday night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire officials mostly extinguished the fire by 11 a.m. Sunday and Martinez Refining Co. said it was fully contained to the refinery site. However, dangerous airborne chemicals released by the fire could spread much farther and linger for days, adding to the burden already faced by neighboring communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it’s a constant issue with the refinery that people are concerned about — what’s escaping the stacks?” asked Dawn Elton, who manages an ACE Hardware store less than a mile from the refinery. She shut down her store Saturday afternoon after seeing the huge black cloud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Monday afternoon, the Bay Area Air District issued two notices of violation to the Martinez refinery for public nuisance, excessive smoke and soot fallout. The agency said more violations are possible as it continues to investigate. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire started after two workers discovered a leak of hydrocarbon material while preparing for planned maintenance at one of the refinery’s process units. They evacuated the area before the material caught on fire and spread within the immediate vicinity, according to the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11968800\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11968800\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1467777894-e1738620843534.jpg\" alt=\"A view of two large industrial facilities — both refineries — each with many smokestacks - with hills in the background.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A view of the Martinez Refining Company in the foreground and the Marathon Refinery in the background, on Nov. 24, 2019, in Martinez, California. \u003ccite>(Michael R. Lopez/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At least six people have been treated for health concerns related to the fire, including three who were taken to hospitals with minor injuries. Workers who were taking air quality readings experienced dizziness, the company said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although most of the visible smoke had cleared by late Sunday and the shelter-in-place was downgraded to a health advisory — meaning conditions were mostly dangerous to elderly and immuno-compromised people — Elton is worried that there could also be longer-term effects for her and other locals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was raining, so did [rainwater] go into the soil? Was anything dangerous to us that will come back later to harm us in some way?” she asked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Living near oil refineries like the one in Martinez is already hazardous, even without a fire or flaring incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12025273 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/475966196_17941090172958161_4612211217959910985_n-e1738464480621-1020x706.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the Environmental Protection Agency, petroleum refineries can release thousands of pounds of BTEX compounds — benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene, as well as carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide — each year. Many of these are known or suspected to cause cancer and developmental or reproductive problems and worsen pre-existing respiratory conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There can be potentially more risk for people living nearby because they have chronic exposure to hazardous chemicals and then these spikes of exposure that could exacerbate many different types of health risks,” said David Gonzalez, an assistant professor at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. “This is something that people living near the refinery have been calling attention to for a long time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saturday’s fire was the third major incident at the Martinez refinery since Shell sold it to PBF Energy in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2022, the refinery released \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11952517/martinez-refinery-chemical-release-poses-no-long-term-hazard-tests-find\">nearly 50,000 pounds of powdered industrial chemicals\u003c/a> into the air. There were also more than a dozen notices that hazardous materials were released or spilled by the site in 2023, and flaring occurred at least three times last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martinez Refining Co. said in a statement that it would investigate the root cause of the fire and apologized “for the disruption and concern” it caused to the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, many residents want the site to be shut down, and some, like Samantha Viano, are hoping local officials will step in to make sure this trend doesn’t continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just seems like this kind of stuff is happening more and more, which is really scary,” said Viano.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of her extended family lives in Martinez, and she said in her 30 years in the city, there have been many spills, but only one other shelter-in-place order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How are they going to stop this from happening?” she said. “Because I think the whole community is really scared now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/shossaini\">\u003cem>Sara Hossaini\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it’s a constant issue with the refinery that people are concerned about — what’s escaping the stacks?” asked Dawn Elton, who manages an ACE Hardware store less than a mile from the refinery. She shut down her store Saturday afternoon after seeing the huge black cloud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Monday afternoon, the Bay Area Air District issued two notices of violation to the Martinez refinery for public nuisance, excessive smoke and soot fallout. The agency said more violations are possible as it continues to investigate. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire started after two workers discovered a leak of hydrocarbon material while preparing for planned maintenance at one of the refinery’s process units. They evacuated the area before the material caught on fire and spread within the immediate vicinity, according to the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11968800\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11968800\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1467777894-e1738620843534.jpg\" alt=\"A view of two large industrial facilities — both refineries — each with many smokestacks - with hills in the background.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A view of the Martinez Refining Company in the foreground and the Marathon Refinery in the background, on Nov. 24, 2019, in Martinez, California. \u003ccite>(Michael R. Lopez/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At least six people have been treated for health concerns related to the fire, including three who were taken to hospitals with minor injuries. Workers who were taking air quality readings experienced dizziness, the company said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although most of the visible smoke had cleared by late Sunday and the shelter-in-place was downgraded to a health advisory — meaning conditions were mostly dangerous to elderly and immuno-compromised people — Elton is worried that there could also be longer-term effects for her and other locals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was raining, so did [rainwater] go into the soil? Was anything dangerous to us that will come back later to harm us in some way?” she asked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Living near oil refineries like the one in Martinez is already hazardous, even without a fire or flaring incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the Environmental Protection Agency, petroleum refineries can release thousands of pounds of BTEX compounds — benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene, as well as carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide — each year. Many of these are known or suspected to cause cancer and developmental or reproductive problems and worsen pre-existing respiratory conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There can be potentially more risk for people living nearby because they have chronic exposure to hazardous chemicals and then these spikes of exposure that could exacerbate many different types of health risks,” said David Gonzalez, an assistant professor at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. “This is something that people living near the refinery have been calling attention to for a long time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saturday’s fire was the third major incident at the Martinez refinery since Shell sold it to PBF Energy in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2022, the refinery released \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11952517/martinez-refinery-chemical-release-poses-no-long-term-hazard-tests-find\">nearly 50,000 pounds of powdered industrial chemicals\u003c/a> into the air. There were also more than a dozen notices that hazardous materials were released or spilled by the site in 2023, and flaring occurred at least three times last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martinez Refining Co. said in a statement that it would investigate the root cause of the fire and apologized “for the disruption and concern” it caused to the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, many residents want the site to be shut down, and some, like Samantha Viano, are hoping local officials will step in to make sure this trend doesn’t continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just seems like this kind of stuff is happening more and more, which is really scary,” said Viano.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of her extended family lives in Martinez, and she said in her 30 years in the city, there have been many spills, but only one other shelter-in-place order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How are they going to stop this from happening?” she said. “Because I think the whole community is really scared now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/shossaini\">\u003cem>Sara Hossaini\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Months before the Eaton Fire tore through Altadena, Calif., destroying more than 9,400 homes and buildings, the community had already been debating a fateful question: are there places too risky for new housing to be built?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like so many communities, Altadena had grown over decades with little consideration of the risk of wildfires. Houses spread steadily into the foothills, nestled against the dense, flammable brush of the San Gabriel Mountains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December, Los Angeles County officials considered a new land use plan, one that would control building decisions for Altadena and the surrounding area for decades to come. The plan sought to balance two major problems. To address a housing shortage, more density would be allowed in the interior of Altadena. To reduce the danger from wildfires, new construction would be restricted in the foothills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the affected landowners pushed back, saying the plan devalued their property and their rights to use it. Those same tensions about where to build housing are playing out around the country, as hurricanes, floods and wildfires get more extreme as the climate gets hotter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Building regulation decisions generally fall to local elected officials, who have to balance their constituents’ concerns about land use with the reality of a national housing shortage and growing threat of extreme weather. As a result, few communities around the country have adopted strict development limits to reduce the risk of disasters. Now, as it picks up the pieces after the fires, Altadena will follow those new development rules as it rebuilds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody likes to hear about constraints but at the same time, do we want our neighborhoods to burn down?” says Jennifer Balch, professor of geography at the University of Colorado Boulder. “There are things that we can do and should be doing to mitigate that risk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12025114\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12025114\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-59.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"531\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-59.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-59-800x266.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-59-1020x339.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-59-160x53.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-59-1536x510.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The danger of wildfires was well-known to Los Angeles County. California is one of a handful of states that has mapped where the highest risk areas are. \u003ccite>(Ryan Kellman/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Altadena foreshadows a disaster\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the weeks after the Eaton fire, Nic Arnzen was running on little sleep. He was searching for temporary housing after he and his family lost their Altadena home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was completely gone,” Arnzen says. “I keep telling people the fridge was gone. I don’t understand how a fridge just disappears to dust.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, Arnzen had the whole community to think of. As vice chair of the Altadena Town Council, he and his colleagues were juggling the logistics of a disaster. Already, many residents were vowing to rebuild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The focus needs to be on: what can we plan for now?” Arnzen says. “How can we know the danger we live in now, and try to improve it?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Altadena had already been trying to plan for wildfires. Los Angeles County officials had been working on the \u003ca href=\"https://planning.lacounty.gov/long-range-planning/wsgvap/\">West San Gabriel Valley Area Plan\u003c/a>, a plan that would control building decisions through new zoning. (Altadena is an unincorporated area, so planning decisions are made at the county level.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Boosting housing is one big focus. Los Angeles is one of the most expensive housing markets in the country and as a whole, the county needs to add more than 90,000 housing units, part of a state requirement. The plan rezones land to allow for higher density of buildings and apartments along Altadena’s central corridors, where there’s already access to transportation and services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, properties on the outskirts of Altadena would be zoned for a lower density of housing, particularly areas labeled as “very high” risk of wildfires. That would limit the construction of new homes there, part of a larger county-wide policy to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/01/15/nx-s1-5256348/los-angeles-fires-safety-evacuation-improvement-preparation\">direct development away\u003c/a> from places that are likely to burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12025105\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12025105\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-9.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-9.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-9-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-9-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-9-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-9-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The fires in Los Angeles County could be the most expensive wildfire disaster in history. \u003ccite>(Ryan Kellman/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“This is the example of why,” Arnzen says, referring to the Eaton Fire. “To make our town safe, we do have to have some supervision. And we hate to dictate to anyone that: no, you can’t develop even though you’ve been waiting forty years to do that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Plan comes down to a vote\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In December, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors heard that exact feedback. A group of residents who own property in the foothills \u003ca href=\"https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2024/11/30/alan-zorthian-the-problem-with-the-west-san-gabriel-valley-area-plan/\">registered their opposition\u003c/a> during public comments at a hearing for the development plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For us, the property is more than just land,” said Altadena resident Joseph DiMassa. “It’s 50+ acres where we imagine buildings, homes for our children, grandchildren, and possibly even future generations. The downzoning of our property from 52 homes to two isn’t just a number, it destroys the dreams we hold for our family’s future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, many of the public comments were in support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The prevailing sentiment in Altadena is one of endorsement,” Victoria Knapp, chair of Altadena Town Council, testified at the meeting. “The plan will direct development away from the Altadena foothills and other high fire zones.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it came time to vote, the county supervisors passed the plan. That means as Altadena rebuilds and potentially expands, zoning restrictions limiting growth in the foothills will be in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the Eaton Fire, Joseph DiMassa’s daughter, Cara, says her family’s land in the foothills was burned, destroying a summer camp they run there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I love Altadena so much,” she says. “And all of that really is gone and it’s pretty heart-breaking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12025106\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12025106\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-10.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1074\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-10.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-10-800x537.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-10-1020x685.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-10-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-10-1536x1031.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Under Los Angeles County’s new plan, development would be limited in the foothills of Altadena, where the wildfire risk is highest. \u003ccite>(Mario Tama/Getty Images/Getty Images North America)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Her family had opposed the new zoning plan because they felt it drastically limited the housing that could be built on larger properties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We really feel like the county did not do a great job at taking a look at some of these really large parcels that are family-owned, that suddenly were becoming completely devalued,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, with so much devastation from the Eaton Fire, Cara DiMassa is glad the zoning plan is in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It gives us hope that our hillsides will be hillsides again and I certainly don’t want to see huge developments go up,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Tensions of housing needs and wildfire risk\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>By considering wildfire risk, Los Angeles County’s land use planning is ahead of many other Western communities. County supervisors \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/01/15/nx-s1-5256348/los-angeles-fires-safety-evacuation-improvement-preparation\">are also considering a new ordinance\u003c/a> that would put even more restrictions on construction in risky areas. The county knows which areas to target because the state \u003ca href=\"https://osfm.fire.ca.gov/what-we-do/community-wildfire-preparedness-and-mitigation/fire-hazard-severity-zones\">has mapped wildfire hazard zones\u003c/a>. Other states lack those maps or are in the process of developing them, \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/oregon-wildfire-hazard-map-45c0335d93632580e07512a276dea7da\">like Oregon\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across the country, new construction is expanding into areas that are prone to burning, known as the wildland-urban interface. Around \u003ca href=\"https://e3.eurekalert.org/news-releases/884454\">32 million homes were built\u003c/a> there between 1992 and 2015, according to one study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re building into flammable landscapes and just ignoring the fact that we’re building into flammable vegetation,” Balch says. “And we are increasingly doing that, and it’s not changing anytime soon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfires are also spreading more explosively, driven in part by climate change. A hotter, drier atmosphere pulls the moisture out of vegetation, making it more flammable. Balch and her colleagues found that between 2001 and 2020, there was a \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk5737\">400% increase in how fast fires grew\u003c/a> in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fires are getting harder to fight,” Balch says. “So we cannot expect to live in flammable landscapes, and firefighters are going to just come along and put out the ignitions in our homes. This is something we need to address well before the fire actually ignites.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12025108\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12025108\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-11.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-11.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-11-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-11-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-11-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-11-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Many communities around the country struggle with balancing the need for new housing with the growing risk from more extreme weather. \u003ccite>(Ryan Kellman/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Still, many communities are in desperate need of new housing and elected officials may not want to appear anti-growth. New housing also means an increase in local property taxes, a key source of funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Zoning laws and development regulations really do happen at local levels and so part of the challenge is: what are the incentive structures?” Balch says.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_12022146,news_12022375,news_12022615\"]California legislators have attempted to address how communities build in wildfire-prone areas at a statewide level. In 2020, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB182\">a bill was introduced\u003c/a> to put new restrictions on developments in risky areas, requiring them to have adequate evacuation routes and to fund programs to clear flammable vegetation. It was \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/SB-182.pdf\">vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom (PDF)\u003c/a>, who cited the state’s housing needs. Several similar bills have been introduced since then, but also failed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The biggest opponents were the builders and realtors,” says Hannah-Beth Jackson, a former California state senator who authored the vetoed bill. “People wanted to just keep building and building. The bottom line is the climate is changing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When communities build in wildfire-prone areas, there are also \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/11/25/936685629/rebuilding-after-a-wildfire-most-states-dont-require-fire-resistant-materials\">few rules about using fire-resistant materials in most states\u003c/a>. Studies show that following wildfire building codes can improve the chances a home will survive a wildfire. California has passed those codes, which means many homeowners rebuilding in Los Angeles will have to meet them. But the majority of other states have not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the conversation to build or not build can be tense, Altadena’s Nic Arnzen says, in light of the devastation his community is recovering from, it’s worth having that conversation, no matter the pushback.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To tell people no is a difficult thing to do because you care about them and they’re your constituents,” Arnzen says. “But you have to buffer their anger with your knowledge. And sometimes you have to, as I’ve done as a parent, you just have to say no and take the beating.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "L.A. County officials are considering a land use plan, one that would allow more density in the interior of Altadena to address a housing shortage, while restricting new construction in the wildfire-prone foothills.",
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"title": "'You Just Have to Say No': LA's Plan to Stop Building Homes in Fire Zones | KQED",
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"nprByline": "\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/803934365/lauren-sommer\">Lauren Sommer\u003c/a>, NPR",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Months before the Eaton Fire tore through Altadena, Calif., destroying more than 9,400 homes and buildings, the community had already been debating a fateful question: are there places too risky for new housing to be built?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like so many communities, Altadena had grown over decades with little consideration of the risk of wildfires. Houses spread steadily into the foothills, nestled against the dense, flammable brush of the San Gabriel Mountains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December, Los Angeles County officials considered a new land use plan, one that would control building decisions for Altadena and the surrounding area for decades to come. The plan sought to balance two major problems. To address a housing shortage, more density would be allowed in the interior of Altadena. To reduce the danger from wildfires, new construction would be restricted in the foothills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the affected landowners pushed back, saying the plan devalued their property and their rights to use it. Those same tensions about where to build housing are playing out around the country, as hurricanes, floods and wildfires get more extreme as the climate gets hotter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Building regulation decisions generally fall to local elected officials, who have to balance their constituents’ concerns about land use with the reality of a national housing shortage and growing threat of extreme weather. As a result, few communities around the country have adopted strict development limits to reduce the risk of disasters. Now, as it picks up the pieces after the fires, Altadena will follow those new development rules as it rebuilds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody likes to hear about constraints but at the same time, do we want our neighborhoods to burn down?” says Jennifer Balch, professor of geography at the University of Colorado Boulder. “There are things that we can do and should be doing to mitigate that risk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12025114\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12025114\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-59.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"531\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-59.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-59-800x266.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-59-1020x339.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-59-160x53.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-59-1536x510.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The danger of wildfires was well-known to Los Angeles County. California is one of a handful of states that has mapped where the highest risk areas are. \u003ccite>(Ryan Kellman/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Altadena foreshadows a disaster\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the weeks after the Eaton fire, Nic Arnzen was running on little sleep. He was searching for temporary housing after he and his family lost their Altadena home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was completely gone,” Arnzen says. “I keep telling people the fridge was gone. I don’t understand how a fridge just disappears to dust.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, Arnzen had the whole community to think of. As vice chair of the Altadena Town Council, he and his colleagues were juggling the logistics of a disaster. Already, many residents were vowing to rebuild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The focus needs to be on: what can we plan for now?” Arnzen says. “How can we know the danger we live in now, and try to improve it?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Altadena had already been trying to plan for wildfires. Los Angeles County officials had been working on the \u003ca href=\"https://planning.lacounty.gov/long-range-planning/wsgvap/\">West San Gabriel Valley Area Plan\u003c/a>, a plan that would control building decisions through new zoning. (Altadena is an unincorporated area, so planning decisions are made at the county level.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Boosting housing is one big focus. Los Angeles is one of the most expensive housing markets in the country and as a whole, the county needs to add more than 90,000 housing units, part of a state requirement. The plan rezones land to allow for higher density of buildings and apartments along Altadena’s central corridors, where there’s already access to transportation and services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, properties on the outskirts of Altadena would be zoned for a lower density of housing, particularly areas labeled as “very high” risk of wildfires. That would limit the construction of new homes there, part of a larger county-wide policy to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/01/15/nx-s1-5256348/los-angeles-fires-safety-evacuation-improvement-preparation\">direct development away\u003c/a> from places that are likely to burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12025105\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12025105\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-9.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-9.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-9-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-9-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-9-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-9-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The fires in Los Angeles County could be the most expensive wildfire disaster in history. \u003ccite>(Ryan Kellman/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“This is the example of why,” Arnzen says, referring to the Eaton Fire. “To make our town safe, we do have to have some supervision. And we hate to dictate to anyone that: no, you can’t develop even though you’ve been waiting forty years to do that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Plan comes down to a vote\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In December, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors heard that exact feedback. A group of residents who own property in the foothills \u003ca href=\"https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2024/11/30/alan-zorthian-the-problem-with-the-west-san-gabriel-valley-area-plan/\">registered their opposition\u003c/a> during public comments at a hearing for the development plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For us, the property is more than just land,” said Altadena resident Joseph DiMassa. “It’s 50+ acres where we imagine buildings, homes for our children, grandchildren, and possibly even future generations. The downzoning of our property from 52 homes to two isn’t just a number, it destroys the dreams we hold for our family’s future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, many of the public comments were in support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The prevailing sentiment in Altadena is one of endorsement,” Victoria Knapp, chair of Altadena Town Council, testified at the meeting. “The plan will direct development away from the Altadena foothills and other high fire zones.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it came time to vote, the county supervisors passed the plan. That means as Altadena rebuilds and potentially expands, zoning restrictions limiting growth in the foothills will be in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the Eaton Fire, Joseph DiMassa’s daughter, Cara, says her family’s land in the foothills was burned, destroying a summer camp they run there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I love Altadena so much,” she says. “And all of that really is gone and it’s pretty heart-breaking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12025106\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12025106\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-10.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1074\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-10.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-10-800x537.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-10-1020x685.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-10-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-10-1536x1031.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Under Los Angeles County’s new plan, development would be limited in the foothills of Altadena, where the wildfire risk is highest. \u003ccite>(Mario Tama/Getty Images/Getty Images North America)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Her family had opposed the new zoning plan because they felt it drastically limited the housing that could be built on larger properties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We really feel like the county did not do a great job at taking a look at some of these really large parcels that are family-owned, that suddenly were becoming completely devalued,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, with so much devastation from the Eaton Fire, Cara DiMassa is glad the zoning plan is in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It gives us hope that our hillsides will be hillsides again and I certainly don’t want to see huge developments go up,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Tensions of housing needs and wildfire risk\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>By considering wildfire risk, Los Angeles County’s land use planning is ahead of many other Western communities. County supervisors \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/01/15/nx-s1-5256348/los-angeles-fires-safety-evacuation-improvement-preparation\">are also considering a new ordinance\u003c/a> that would put even more restrictions on construction in risky areas. The county knows which areas to target because the state \u003ca href=\"https://osfm.fire.ca.gov/what-we-do/community-wildfire-preparedness-and-mitigation/fire-hazard-severity-zones\">has mapped wildfire hazard zones\u003c/a>. Other states lack those maps or are in the process of developing them, \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/oregon-wildfire-hazard-map-45c0335d93632580e07512a276dea7da\">like Oregon\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across the country, new construction is expanding into areas that are prone to burning, known as the wildland-urban interface. Around \u003ca href=\"https://e3.eurekalert.org/news-releases/884454\">32 million homes were built\u003c/a> there between 1992 and 2015, according to one study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re building into flammable landscapes and just ignoring the fact that we’re building into flammable vegetation,” Balch says. “And we are increasingly doing that, and it’s not changing anytime soon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfires are also spreading more explosively, driven in part by climate change. A hotter, drier atmosphere pulls the moisture out of vegetation, making it more flammable. Balch and her colleagues found that between 2001 and 2020, there was a \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk5737\">400% increase in how fast fires grew\u003c/a> in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fires are getting harder to fight,” Balch says. “So we cannot expect to live in flammable landscapes, and firefighters are going to just come along and put out the ignitions in our homes. This is something we need to address well before the fire actually ignites.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12025108\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12025108\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-11.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-11.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-11-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-11-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-11-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-11-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Many communities around the country struggle with balancing the need for new housing with the growing risk from more extreme weather. \u003ccite>(Ryan Kellman/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Still, many communities are in desperate need of new housing and elected officials may not want to appear anti-growth. New housing also means an increase in local property taxes, a key source of funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Zoning laws and development regulations really do happen at local levels and so part of the challenge is: what are the incentive structures?” Balch says.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>California legislators have attempted to address how communities build in wildfire-prone areas at a statewide level. In 2020, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB182\">a bill was introduced\u003c/a> to put new restrictions on developments in risky areas, requiring them to have adequate evacuation routes and to fund programs to clear flammable vegetation. It was \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/SB-182.pdf\">vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom (PDF)\u003c/a>, who cited the state’s housing needs. Several similar bills have been introduced since then, but also failed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The biggest opponents were the builders and realtors,” says Hannah-Beth Jackson, a former California state senator who authored the vetoed bill. “People wanted to just keep building and building. The bottom line is the climate is changing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When communities build in wildfire-prone areas, there are also \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/11/25/936685629/rebuilding-after-a-wildfire-most-states-dont-require-fire-resistant-materials\">few rules about using fire-resistant materials in most states\u003c/a>. Studies show that following wildfire building codes can improve the chances a home will survive a wildfire. California has passed those codes, which means many homeowners rebuilding in Los Angeles will have to meet them. But the majority of other states have not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the conversation to build or not build can be tense, Altadena’s Nic Arnzen says, in light of the devastation his community is recovering from, it’s worth having that conversation, no matter the pushback.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To tell people no is a difficult thing to do because you care about them and they’re your constituents,” Arnzen says. “But you have to buffer their anger with your knowledge. And sometimes you have to, as I’ve done as a parent, you just have to say no and take the beating.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "ai-is-bringing-nuclear-power-back-from-the-dead-maybe-even-in-california",
"title": "Will California Revive Nuclear Power to Feed AI Energy Demands?",
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"headTitle": "Will California Revive Nuclear Power to Feed AI Energy Demands? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>If you’ve used ChatGPT to write a breakup text or figure out how to not burn the Christmas roast, you might’ve actually helped create jobs and profits in California, where the artificial intelligence tool was born.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unfortunately, you’ve probably also contributed to climate change. Artificial intelligence is an energy hog, and every query to ChatGPT is like running a lightbulb for 20 minutes, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/07/10/nx-s1-5028558/artificial-intelligences-thirst-for-electricity\">research scientist recently told NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Artificial intelligence is so wasteful, in fact, that its rapid spread could endanger California’s goal of eliminating all carbon emissions by 2045 — even as AI companies may be \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/10/ca-corporate-tax-revenue-surge/\">flooding the state treasury with tax revenue\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conundrum has legislators considering what was once unthinkable: Bringing back nuclear power as a driver of innovation and economic growth, sort of like it was the 1960s all over again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some lawmakers are pushing for exemptions to the state’s 49-year-old moratorium on the construction of new nuclear power plants; they’re also mulling a possible future for the once-left-for-dead Diablo Canyon on the Central Coast, the state’s last operational plant whose operator, Pacific Gas & Electric, said it is prepared for the possibility of the plant staying open longer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those are some of the signs of a subtle shift among state legislators and agencies, who just a few years ago seemed assured in their determination to close the book on nuclear power in California. They are being encouraged by a few outside influences: \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/climate-google-environmental-report-greenhouse-gases-emissions-3ccf95b9125831d66e676e811ece8a18\">Sweating their own emissions goals,\u003c/a> the state’s Big Tech companies have begun national efforts to rejuvenate the carbon-neutral energy source. And last summer, federal lawmakers \u003ca href=\"https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/governing-laws/advance-act.html\">overwhelmingly passed a bill\u003c/a>, signed by President Biden, to accelerate the development of nuclear reactors and new technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There have been a couple times where there’s been momentum, where people use the word ‘renaissance’” around nuclear energy, said Maureen Zawalick, PG&E vice president of business and technical services. “But nothing like it is now, where there’s bipartisan support, a significant amount of federal funding, programs and incentives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Democratic State Sen. Henry Stern, a member of the Senate Energy Committee and an environmental attorney, was mentored by anti-nuclear advocates/environmentalists and has been a critic of Diablo Canyon and PG&E. But he, too, believes “there’s going to be broader and broader bipartisan support to just put this stuff on the table,” he said, referencing certain forms of nuclear energy in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s possible artificial intelligence could grow more energy efficient, reducing the need for new power plants. Energy stocks \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/deepseek-is-upending-wall-streets-big-ai-power-trade-0e649925?st=agHiPL&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink\">recently sold off\u003c/a> after a Chinese company, DeepSeek, unveiled a powerful AI model it said was produced with a fraction of the resources used by its American rivals. The accuracy of those claims and how DeepSeek might change industry practices are hotly debated.[aside label='Related Coverage' tag='nuclear-power']Even assuming AI continues to stoke demand for electricity, nuclear power remains anathema to much of the statehouse, which in the last legislative session kept a measure to partially lift the moratorium bottled up in committee. Reactors are consistent sources of energy but also incredibly expensive to build and maintain, requiring stringent regulatory oversight, staffing, and upkeep. Disposing of radioactive waste is a time-intensive process with potential environmental harms, and there are always concerns of catastrophic outcomes at nuclear facilities: reactor meltdowns, cyberattacks, and other security threats. Building new facilities in the state means lifting the moratorium and clearing not only the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission but also a thicket of California agencies like the Public Utilities Commission, Water Resources Control Board and, depending on site location, potentially the Coastal Commission and State Lands Commission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These are among the reasons nuclear power skeptics are dubious of a comeback. Critics similarly question the merits of an emerging, allegedly safer form of nuclear power known as small modular reactors and whether tech companies are committed in their push for nuclear or if they’ll lose interest once they face the inevitable headwinds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nuclear is desperate to seem relevant, new, and improved,” said Sharon Squassoni, a research professor at George Washington University who specializes in the risks posed by nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. Of the use of nuclear power to power AI she added that “it’s a marriage that looks good on paper.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Big Tech ushers in a round of nuclear hype\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Renewed interest in nuclear harkens back to earlier times. President Richard Nixon \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/19/science/earth/19antinuke.html\">once called\u003c/a> for the construction of 1,000 nuclear reactors in the United States by the year 2000. That moonshot missed by roughly 900 reactors, and there are approximately 90 commercial reactors today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tech companies have signaled that they’d like to boost those numbers — and they’ve already taken steps outside of California to harness nuclear power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-cloud/blog/2024/09/20/accelerating-the-addition-of-carbon-free-energy-an-update-on-progress/\">Citing the need\u003c/a> to add “carbon-free electricity and capacity in the grids where we operate,” \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/8f47ba63a7aab8831a7805dfde0e2c39\">Microsoft signed a deal\u003c/a> in late September to eventually get one of the reactors at Three Mile Island in southeastern Pennsylvania, site of a partial meltdown in 1979, back up and running. In mid-October, \u003ca href=\"https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/sustainability/amazon-nuclear-small-modular-reactor-net-carbon-zero\">Amazon\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/google-kairos-power-nuclear-energy-agreement/\">Google\u003c/a> separately announced agreements with energy companies—one of which, Kairos Power, is based in California—that are in the business of designing small modular reactors. “The grid needs new electricity sources to support AI technologies that are powering major scientific advances, improving services for businesses and customers, and driving national competitiveness and economic growth,” \u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/google-kairos-power-nuclear-energy-agreement/\">Google wrote\u003c/a> in a statement about its deal with Kairos Power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://sustainability.atmeta.com/blog/2024/12/03/accelerating-the-next-wave-of-nuclear-to-power-ai-innovation/\">Meta announced\u003c/a> in early December that it was seeking proposals from nuclear energy developers who could help in the pursuit of “AI innovation and sustainability objectives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Big tech’s ambitions for new plants are especially focused on small modular reactors. The idea behind the reactors is that they’d function as mini-reactors, \u003ca href=\"https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/what-are-small-modular-reactors-smrs\">producing up to roughly one-third of the energy\u003c/a> as a conventional facility, but with factory-designed components that could be shipped to a predetermined location. This would, in theory, cut down on costs, allow for more flexible siting, and reduce the lengthy construction period typical for larger nuclear reactors. The International Atomic Energy Agency \u003ca href=\"https://www.iaea.org/topics/small-modular-reactors\">characterized\u003c/a> proposed designs as simpler and safer than already-running reactors, and more recently, the Department of Energy\u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/articles/biden-harris-administration-announces-900-million-build-and-deploy-next-generation-nuclear\"> accepted applications\u003c/a> to help fund the design and development of these smaller reactors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The problem is that small reactors exist more in the abstract than in reality. “They’re totally unproven. They exist basically on a computer,” said Allison Macfarlane, former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under the Obama administration. “Nuclear reactors aren’t like software or social media products. They’re not fungible in the same way. … You can’t apply the tech bro mentality to these nuclear facilities, but that is what is happening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Squassoni \u003ca href=\"https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.gwu.edu/dist/7/1053/files/2024/04/NewNuclearRisk_Report_2024_v4-1-0b59385f1c7d4153.pdf\">released a study in April 2024 (PDF)\u003c/a> noting that, “Although they are marketed as new and advanced, small modular reactors so far feature few true innovations among the scores of designs. Quite a few are old wine in new bottles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other than Microsoft’s Three Mile Island investment, and a Bill Gates-backed venture in Wyoming, it’s hard to say which other states could someday house the tech industry’s hypothetical nuclear facilities — small reactors or otherwise. California is currently one of the only states that \u003cem>isn’t\u003c/em> an option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/Nuclear_Power_Reactors_in_California_ada.pdf\">In 1976\u003c/a>, a California law placed a moratorium on the development of additional nuclear facility sites in the state until the federal government could come up with a permanent nuclear waste disposal plan. The moratorium was largely in response to environmentalist and anti-nuclear groups in California. Almost five decades later, the federal government still has not figured out a permanent disposal method. Nowadays, spent fuel often ends up in dry casks, which are generally considered a solid, but interim, solution for storing radioactive waste. California remains one of nine states with a nuclear energy moratorium, \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-nuclear-moratorium\">according to the Department of Energy\u003c/a>. Four states have repealed their moratoriums since 2016, and Illinois recently carved out an exemption for the construction of small modular reactors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2013, Southern California Edison announced it would shutter reactors at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Diego County \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/la-xpm-2013-jun-07-la-me-0608-san-onofre-20130608-story.html\">due to defects in new steam generators\u003c/a>. That reduced California’s nuclear energy arsenal to just the two reactors at Diablo Canyon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The issues at San Onofre, in addition to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan, further limited California lawmakers’ appetite for nuclear energy. Diablo Canyon was scheduled to shut down beginning in 2024, but those plans have been postponed a half-decade. The site’s two remaining reactors are a vital part of California’s power grid, even more so because of environmental concerns brought about by climate change, as well as the state’s growing energy needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The legislators trying to spark a chain reaction in the Capitol\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The world’s largest tech companies are racing to train and develop AI tools, which require immense amounts of electricity. The exact metrics, as far as total AI energy consumption is concerned, remain murky, largely because\u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/24066646/ai-electricity-energy-watts-generative-consumption\"> the tech industry has been murky\u003c/a> on the subject. It’s clear, though, that tech companies are reliant on big, windowless data centers to power AI, and that these data centers are extremely energy-intensive — and prevalent in California. The \u003cem>Los Angeles Times\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-08-12/california-data-centers-could-derail-clean-energy-goals\">reported in August\u003c/a> that the state has at least 270 data centers, many clustered, perhaps unsurprisingly, in Silicon Valley. Tech companies have eyed dozens more data centers up and down the state, the \u003cem>Times\u003c/em> reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those sorts of statistics are a major concern for California lawmakers. “Tech is a new part of the equation because of data centers, AI, and all these things,” said Republican Assemblymember Josh Hoover, a proponent of nuclear energy from the Sacramento suburbs. “The reality is that even before all of that, our grid was not nearly prepared for the energy demands of a clean energy future. And so I am a big believer that nuclear energy needs to be part of that conversation.”[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"science_1995286,news_12020857,news_11987803\"]Hoover is referring to California’s power grid and the state’s mandatory transition to 100% carbon-free energy by 2045, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-renewable-energy-law-signed-20180910-story.html\">under a 2018 measure\u003c/a>. California has \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/climate-change/2024/08/california-clean-power-progress-grid/\">made significant strides\u003c/a> toward the target but \u003ca href=\"https://gridclue.com/StateProfile?rs=California\">scores a low D- rating\u003c/a> for its resilience to extreme weather events and other disruptive threats, according to measurements by the nonprofit Grid Clue. Despite an ongoing shift to renewables, California is still heavily reliant on fossil fuels, and its grid is increasingly under peril because of wildfires, heat waves, and other weather events linked to climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Diablo Canyon provides roughly 9% of the state’s electricity, which is partly why Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/03/02/photos-governor-newsom-visits-diablo-canyon-power-plant/\">supported extending the use of its reactors to 2029 and 2030\u003c/a>. “That struck me as a courageous decision and the right decision, and I would hope that that’s reflective of his belief to look at all different energy sources,” said Republican Assemblymember Diane Dixon, who represents Newport Beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Representatives for PG&E, which owns and operates Diablo Canyon, have typically adopted a defensive posture when asked about their nuclear facility and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/pge-bills-diablo-canyon-19821155.php\">cost overruns\u003c/a> it routinely incurs. But the utility company has been singing a different tune lately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zawalick, the PG&E vice president, demurred when asked if she thinks Diablo Canyon will ultimately stay open past the station’s latest deadline. “We have to be asked by the state legislators to go longer than 2030,” she said. “But we will be ready, is what I say. And we’re planning to be.” She told CalMatters she hasn’t had any “formal” conversations with tech companies about Diablo Canyon’s future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stern described Diablo Canyon as a “cost-suck” and “old,” adding, “If you were building new nuclear, you would not build it like Diablo Canyon.” But Stern conceded that San Onofre’s shutdown strained the state’s energy grid (it also led to more greenhouse gas production), and he’s come to accept Diablo Canyon’s role, at least for now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Democratic Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula, who represents Fresno and has co-sponsored nuclear energy legislation, also worries “about what would occur if a member of our energy portfolio was taken offline, how that would increase rates for the rest of us.” Hoover echoed Arambula’s view and said he wants Diablo Canyon to stay open indefinitely.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An opening for small modular reactors\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Diablo Canyon is one (complicated) piece of the nuclear puzzle. Then there’s the separate conundrum of whether to roll back all, or some, of the state’s nuclear energy moratorium. As it stands, Republican lawmakers are the political faction that has pushed to change the moratorium. Last year, Dixon was a cosponsor of \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/bills/ca_202320240ab2092\">Assembly Bill 2092\u003c/a>, which would’ve asked the California Public Utilities Commission to conduct a feasibility studies about the possible benefits and effects of small modular reactors by the beginning of 2027. The bill never got a vote on the Assembly floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s good to have stretch goals,” Dixon said of the state’s zero emissions target. “But we have to be mindful of the impact on the local economy, on jobs, and driving businesses out of California. I want to at least start the process to study this important possible new alternative.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another recent proposal, \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/bills/ca_202320240ab65\">Assembly Bill 65,\u003c/a> would’ve created a moratorium exemption for the development of small modular reactors. Hoover and Arambula were co-sponsors on AB 65, and Arambula said he hopes to introduce a similar measure in the 2025–26 legislative session.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In April 2023, the last time lawmakers debated the bill to allow small modular reactors, Arambula was one of few Democratic politicians to publicly back pro-nuclear legislation. Los Angeles Democratic Assemblymember Rick Zbur, for instance, told his colleagues he couldn’t support the measure because, while he “used to be someone who believed that nuclear was part of the solution to a carbon-free future,” he changed his views after the 2011 nuclear power plant disaster in Japan. “I don’t think that the California public supports this,” he continued. “I don’t think that we need this to get to a carbon-free future.” (Zbur confirmed to CalMatters that his stance hasn’t changed of late.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other prominent Democratic politicians are beginning to sound more bullish on nuclear energy sources. Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco told CalMatters that he’s noticed “a gradual increased openness among Democrats to nuclear,” and that he thinks nuclear “should certainly be part of the conversation.” Stern, the Senate environment committee member, said he’s interested in giving consideration to some nuclear power bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stern previously authored a law that required the California Energy Commission, in consultation with other state agencies, to write an assessment of commercially feasible energy sources. That assessment, \u003ca href=\"https://efiling.energy.ca.gov/Lists/DocketLog.aspx?docketnumber=21-ESR-01\">which was released in August 2024\u003c/a>, suggested more research and development into small modular reactors and recommended that the legislature pass a law to exempt such reactors from the state’s nuclear moratorium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Newsom’s office left the door open to the possibility of small modular reactors and a nuclear moratorium exemption in California. “The Governor has always maintained an interest in new, promising technologies, including advancements in emerging nuclear power technologies, that follow strong safety, cost, and environmental considerations,” Newsom’s Deputy Director of Communications Daniel Villaseñor wrote to CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State Sen. Josh Becker, the new chair of the Senate Energy Committee, also left the door open to nuclear technologies in California: “Climate change is an urgent crisis demanding a comprehensive and proactive response,” the Silicon Valley Democrat wrote in a statement. “To address it effectively, we must consider every viable solution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What happens next?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The 2025–26 legislative session will be instructive in showing state lawmakers’ willingness to embrace nuclear energy. Any policy changes in California — followed by a hypothetical nuclear site selection process — would proceed at a slow, methodical pace, the exact opposite of how tech companies prefer to operate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to needing to get a carve-out from the state’s nuclear moratorium and approvals from various state and federal entities, nuclear plant builders could well face lawsuits and other pushback from anti-nuclear groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With all those factors in mind, the legislative session will \u003cem>also \u003c/em>reveal whether tech companies feel emboldened to push for nuclear energy sites in California, or if they’re satisfied pursuing their energy needs in other states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After all, just because many key AI companies are based in California doesn’t mean their data centers have to be. The recent failed bills to permit some kind of nuclear power in California were proposed shortly before tech’s fast and furious incursion into the nuclear energy space and thus weren’t part of the industry’s 2023–24 legislative lobbying efforts. Public support and lobbying for the two bills came from a handful of relatively small pro-nuclear advocacy groups, as well as a handful of labor groups, and the Nuclear Energy Institute, a pro-nuclear trade association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s too soon to tell how serious these tech firms are about promoting nuclear energy to power their electricity needs,” Squassoni said. “It could be a fad — it could be that once they get a real whiff of the costs and time it takes to build new plants, they may back off a little bit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawmakers who spoke to CalMatters said they aren’t against tech companies joining in on broader policy debates around California’s energy grid. Hoover said tech’s nascent nuclear interest may “allow for new conversations to happen,” while Wiener characterized the industry’s involvement as a “positive thing,” so long as companies participate in expanded clean energy initiatives that aren’t exclusively nuclear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stern, for his part, posited that tech’s interest “certainly doesn’t hurt the zeitgeist around nuclear being a less toxic and scary thing.” He added: “There’s some other incredible tech that, in a lot of cases, beats nuclear from a cost perspective. But it doesn’t quite make sense to me anymore that we don’t let nuclear compete in that contest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Will California Revive Nuclear Power to Feed AI Energy Demands? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>If you’ve used ChatGPT to write a breakup text or figure out how to not burn the Christmas roast, you might’ve actually helped create jobs and profits in California, where the artificial intelligence tool was born.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unfortunately, you’ve probably also contributed to climate change. Artificial intelligence is an energy hog, and every query to ChatGPT is like running a lightbulb for 20 minutes, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/07/10/nx-s1-5028558/artificial-intelligences-thirst-for-electricity\">research scientist recently told NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Artificial intelligence is so wasteful, in fact, that its rapid spread could endanger California’s goal of eliminating all carbon emissions by 2045 — even as AI companies may be \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/10/ca-corporate-tax-revenue-surge/\">flooding the state treasury with tax revenue\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conundrum has legislators considering what was once unthinkable: Bringing back nuclear power as a driver of innovation and economic growth, sort of like it was the 1960s all over again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some lawmakers are pushing for exemptions to the state’s 49-year-old moratorium on the construction of new nuclear power plants; they’re also mulling a possible future for the once-left-for-dead Diablo Canyon on the Central Coast, the state’s last operational plant whose operator, Pacific Gas & Electric, said it is prepared for the possibility of the plant staying open longer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those are some of the signs of a subtle shift among state legislators and agencies, who just a few years ago seemed assured in their determination to close the book on nuclear power in California. They are being encouraged by a few outside influences: \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/climate-google-environmental-report-greenhouse-gases-emissions-3ccf95b9125831d66e676e811ece8a18\">Sweating their own emissions goals,\u003c/a> the state’s Big Tech companies have begun national efforts to rejuvenate the carbon-neutral energy source. And last summer, federal lawmakers \u003ca href=\"https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/governing-laws/advance-act.html\">overwhelmingly passed a bill\u003c/a>, signed by President Biden, to accelerate the development of nuclear reactors and new technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There have been a couple times where there’s been momentum, where people use the word ‘renaissance’” around nuclear energy, said Maureen Zawalick, PG&E vice president of business and technical services. “But nothing like it is now, where there’s bipartisan support, a significant amount of federal funding, programs and incentives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Democratic State Sen. Henry Stern, a member of the Senate Energy Committee and an environmental attorney, was mentored by anti-nuclear advocates/environmentalists and has been a critic of Diablo Canyon and PG&E. But he, too, believes “there’s going to be broader and broader bipartisan support to just put this stuff on the table,” he said, referencing certain forms of nuclear energy in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s possible artificial intelligence could grow more energy efficient, reducing the need for new power plants. Energy stocks \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/deepseek-is-upending-wall-streets-big-ai-power-trade-0e649925?st=agHiPL&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink\">recently sold off\u003c/a> after a Chinese company, DeepSeek, unveiled a powerful AI model it said was produced with a fraction of the resources used by its American rivals. The accuracy of those claims and how DeepSeek might change industry practices are hotly debated.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Even assuming AI continues to stoke demand for electricity, nuclear power remains anathema to much of the statehouse, which in the last legislative session kept a measure to partially lift the moratorium bottled up in committee. Reactors are consistent sources of energy but also incredibly expensive to build and maintain, requiring stringent regulatory oversight, staffing, and upkeep. Disposing of radioactive waste is a time-intensive process with potential environmental harms, and there are always concerns of catastrophic outcomes at nuclear facilities: reactor meltdowns, cyberattacks, and other security threats. Building new facilities in the state means lifting the moratorium and clearing not only the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission but also a thicket of California agencies like the Public Utilities Commission, Water Resources Control Board and, depending on site location, potentially the Coastal Commission and State Lands Commission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These are among the reasons nuclear power skeptics are dubious of a comeback. Critics similarly question the merits of an emerging, allegedly safer form of nuclear power known as small modular reactors and whether tech companies are committed in their push for nuclear or if they’ll lose interest once they face the inevitable headwinds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nuclear is desperate to seem relevant, new, and improved,” said Sharon Squassoni, a research professor at George Washington University who specializes in the risks posed by nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. Of the use of nuclear power to power AI she added that “it’s a marriage that looks good on paper.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Big Tech ushers in a round of nuclear hype\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Renewed interest in nuclear harkens back to earlier times. President Richard Nixon \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/19/science/earth/19antinuke.html\">once called\u003c/a> for the construction of 1,000 nuclear reactors in the United States by the year 2000. That moonshot missed by roughly 900 reactors, and there are approximately 90 commercial reactors today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tech companies have signaled that they’d like to boost those numbers — and they’ve already taken steps outside of California to harness nuclear power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-cloud/blog/2024/09/20/accelerating-the-addition-of-carbon-free-energy-an-update-on-progress/\">Citing the need\u003c/a> to add “carbon-free electricity and capacity in the grids where we operate,” \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/8f47ba63a7aab8831a7805dfde0e2c39\">Microsoft signed a deal\u003c/a> in late September to eventually get one of the reactors at Three Mile Island in southeastern Pennsylvania, site of a partial meltdown in 1979, back up and running. In mid-October, \u003ca href=\"https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/sustainability/amazon-nuclear-small-modular-reactor-net-carbon-zero\">Amazon\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/google-kairos-power-nuclear-energy-agreement/\">Google\u003c/a> separately announced agreements with energy companies—one of which, Kairos Power, is based in California—that are in the business of designing small modular reactors. “The grid needs new electricity sources to support AI technologies that are powering major scientific advances, improving services for businesses and customers, and driving national competitiveness and economic growth,” \u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/google-kairos-power-nuclear-energy-agreement/\">Google wrote\u003c/a> in a statement about its deal with Kairos Power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://sustainability.atmeta.com/blog/2024/12/03/accelerating-the-next-wave-of-nuclear-to-power-ai-innovation/\">Meta announced\u003c/a> in early December that it was seeking proposals from nuclear energy developers who could help in the pursuit of “AI innovation and sustainability objectives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Big tech’s ambitions for new plants are especially focused on small modular reactors. The idea behind the reactors is that they’d function as mini-reactors, \u003ca href=\"https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/what-are-small-modular-reactors-smrs\">producing up to roughly one-third of the energy\u003c/a> as a conventional facility, but with factory-designed components that could be shipped to a predetermined location. This would, in theory, cut down on costs, allow for more flexible siting, and reduce the lengthy construction period typical for larger nuclear reactors. The International Atomic Energy Agency \u003ca href=\"https://www.iaea.org/topics/small-modular-reactors\">characterized\u003c/a> proposed designs as simpler and safer than already-running reactors, and more recently, the Department of Energy\u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/articles/biden-harris-administration-announces-900-million-build-and-deploy-next-generation-nuclear\"> accepted applications\u003c/a> to help fund the design and development of these smaller reactors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The problem is that small reactors exist more in the abstract than in reality. “They’re totally unproven. They exist basically on a computer,” said Allison Macfarlane, former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under the Obama administration. “Nuclear reactors aren’t like software or social media products. They’re not fungible in the same way. … You can’t apply the tech bro mentality to these nuclear facilities, but that is what is happening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Squassoni \u003ca href=\"https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.gwu.edu/dist/7/1053/files/2024/04/NewNuclearRisk_Report_2024_v4-1-0b59385f1c7d4153.pdf\">released a study in April 2024 (PDF)\u003c/a> noting that, “Although they are marketed as new and advanced, small modular reactors so far feature few true innovations among the scores of designs. Quite a few are old wine in new bottles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other than Microsoft’s Three Mile Island investment, and a Bill Gates-backed venture in Wyoming, it’s hard to say which other states could someday house the tech industry’s hypothetical nuclear facilities — small reactors or otherwise. California is currently one of the only states that \u003cem>isn’t\u003c/em> an option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/Nuclear_Power_Reactors_in_California_ada.pdf\">In 1976\u003c/a>, a California law placed a moratorium on the development of additional nuclear facility sites in the state until the federal government could come up with a permanent nuclear waste disposal plan. The moratorium was largely in response to environmentalist and anti-nuclear groups in California. Almost five decades later, the federal government still has not figured out a permanent disposal method. Nowadays, spent fuel often ends up in dry casks, which are generally considered a solid, but interim, solution for storing radioactive waste. California remains one of nine states with a nuclear energy moratorium, \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-nuclear-moratorium\">according to the Department of Energy\u003c/a>. Four states have repealed their moratoriums since 2016, and Illinois recently carved out an exemption for the construction of small modular reactors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2013, Southern California Edison announced it would shutter reactors at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Diego County \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/la-xpm-2013-jun-07-la-me-0608-san-onofre-20130608-story.html\">due to defects in new steam generators\u003c/a>. That reduced California’s nuclear energy arsenal to just the two reactors at Diablo Canyon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The issues at San Onofre, in addition to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan, further limited California lawmakers’ appetite for nuclear energy. Diablo Canyon was scheduled to shut down beginning in 2024, but those plans have been postponed a half-decade. The site’s two remaining reactors are a vital part of California’s power grid, even more so because of environmental concerns brought about by climate change, as well as the state’s growing energy needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The legislators trying to spark a chain reaction in the Capitol\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The world’s largest tech companies are racing to train and develop AI tools, which require immense amounts of electricity. The exact metrics, as far as total AI energy consumption is concerned, remain murky, largely because\u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/24066646/ai-electricity-energy-watts-generative-consumption\"> the tech industry has been murky\u003c/a> on the subject. It’s clear, though, that tech companies are reliant on big, windowless data centers to power AI, and that these data centers are extremely energy-intensive — and prevalent in California. The \u003cem>Los Angeles Times\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-08-12/california-data-centers-could-derail-clean-energy-goals\">reported in August\u003c/a> that the state has at least 270 data centers, many clustered, perhaps unsurprisingly, in Silicon Valley. Tech companies have eyed dozens more data centers up and down the state, the \u003cem>Times\u003c/em> reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those sorts of statistics are a major concern for California lawmakers. “Tech is a new part of the equation because of data centers, AI, and all these things,” said Republican Assemblymember Josh Hoover, a proponent of nuclear energy from the Sacramento suburbs. “The reality is that even before all of that, our grid was not nearly prepared for the energy demands of a clean energy future. And so I am a big believer that nuclear energy needs to be part of that conversation.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Hoover is referring to California’s power grid and the state’s mandatory transition to 100% carbon-free energy by 2045, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-renewable-energy-law-signed-20180910-story.html\">under a 2018 measure\u003c/a>. California has \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/climate-change/2024/08/california-clean-power-progress-grid/\">made significant strides\u003c/a> toward the target but \u003ca href=\"https://gridclue.com/StateProfile?rs=California\">scores a low D- rating\u003c/a> for its resilience to extreme weather events and other disruptive threats, according to measurements by the nonprofit Grid Clue. Despite an ongoing shift to renewables, California is still heavily reliant on fossil fuels, and its grid is increasingly under peril because of wildfires, heat waves, and other weather events linked to climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Diablo Canyon provides roughly 9% of the state’s electricity, which is partly why Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/03/02/photos-governor-newsom-visits-diablo-canyon-power-plant/\">supported extending the use of its reactors to 2029 and 2030\u003c/a>. “That struck me as a courageous decision and the right decision, and I would hope that that’s reflective of his belief to look at all different energy sources,” said Republican Assemblymember Diane Dixon, who represents Newport Beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Representatives for PG&E, which owns and operates Diablo Canyon, have typically adopted a defensive posture when asked about their nuclear facility and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/pge-bills-diablo-canyon-19821155.php\">cost overruns\u003c/a> it routinely incurs. But the utility company has been singing a different tune lately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zawalick, the PG&E vice president, demurred when asked if she thinks Diablo Canyon will ultimately stay open past the station’s latest deadline. “We have to be asked by the state legislators to go longer than 2030,” she said. “But we will be ready, is what I say. And we’re planning to be.” She told CalMatters she hasn’t had any “formal” conversations with tech companies about Diablo Canyon’s future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stern described Diablo Canyon as a “cost-suck” and “old,” adding, “If you were building new nuclear, you would not build it like Diablo Canyon.” But Stern conceded that San Onofre’s shutdown strained the state’s energy grid (it also led to more greenhouse gas production), and he’s come to accept Diablo Canyon’s role, at least for now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Democratic Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula, who represents Fresno and has co-sponsored nuclear energy legislation, also worries “about what would occur if a member of our energy portfolio was taken offline, how that would increase rates for the rest of us.” Hoover echoed Arambula’s view and said he wants Diablo Canyon to stay open indefinitely.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An opening for small modular reactors\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Diablo Canyon is one (complicated) piece of the nuclear puzzle. Then there’s the separate conundrum of whether to roll back all, or some, of the state’s nuclear energy moratorium. As it stands, Republican lawmakers are the political faction that has pushed to change the moratorium. Last year, Dixon was a cosponsor of \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/bills/ca_202320240ab2092\">Assembly Bill 2092\u003c/a>, which would’ve asked the California Public Utilities Commission to conduct a feasibility studies about the possible benefits and effects of small modular reactors by the beginning of 2027. The bill never got a vote on the Assembly floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s good to have stretch goals,” Dixon said of the state’s zero emissions target. “But we have to be mindful of the impact on the local economy, on jobs, and driving businesses out of California. I want to at least start the process to study this important possible new alternative.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another recent proposal, \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/bills/ca_202320240ab65\">Assembly Bill 65,\u003c/a> would’ve created a moratorium exemption for the development of small modular reactors. Hoover and Arambula were co-sponsors on AB 65, and Arambula said he hopes to introduce a similar measure in the 2025–26 legislative session.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In April 2023, the last time lawmakers debated the bill to allow small modular reactors, Arambula was one of few Democratic politicians to publicly back pro-nuclear legislation. Los Angeles Democratic Assemblymember Rick Zbur, for instance, told his colleagues he couldn’t support the measure because, while he “used to be someone who believed that nuclear was part of the solution to a carbon-free future,” he changed his views after the 2011 nuclear power plant disaster in Japan. “I don’t think that the California public supports this,” he continued. “I don’t think that we need this to get to a carbon-free future.” (Zbur confirmed to CalMatters that his stance hasn’t changed of late.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other prominent Democratic politicians are beginning to sound more bullish on nuclear energy sources. Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco told CalMatters that he’s noticed “a gradual increased openness among Democrats to nuclear,” and that he thinks nuclear “should certainly be part of the conversation.” Stern, the Senate environment committee member, said he’s interested in giving consideration to some nuclear power bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stern previously authored a law that required the California Energy Commission, in consultation with other state agencies, to write an assessment of commercially feasible energy sources. That assessment, \u003ca href=\"https://efiling.energy.ca.gov/Lists/DocketLog.aspx?docketnumber=21-ESR-01\">which was released in August 2024\u003c/a>, suggested more research and development into small modular reactors and recommended that the legislature pass a law to exempt such reactors from the state’s nuclear moratorium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Newsom’s office left the door open to the possibility of small modular reactors and a nuclear moratorium exemption in California. “The Governor has always maintained an interest in new, promising technologies, including advancements in emerging nuclear power technologies, that follow strong safety, cost, and environmental considerations,” Newsom’s Deputy Director of Communications Daniel Villaseñor wrote to CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State Sen. Josh Becker, the new chair of the Senate Energy Committee, also left the door open to nuclear technologies in California: “Climate change is an urgent crisis demanding a comprehensive and proactive response,” the Silicon Valley Democrat wrote in a statement. “To address it effectively, we must consider every viable solution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What happens next?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The 2025–26 legislative session will be instructive in showing state lawmakers’ willingness to embrace nuclear energy. Any policy changes in California — followed by a hypothetical nuclear site selection process — would proceed at a slow, methodical pace, the exact opposite of how tech companies prefer to operate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to needing to get a carve-out from the state’s nuclear moratorium and approvals from various state and federal entities, nuclear plant builders could well face lawsuits and other pushback from anti-nuclear groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With all those factors in mind, the legislative session will \u003cem>also \u003c/em>reveal whether tech companies feel emboldened to push for nuclear energy sites in California, or if they’re satisfied pursuing their energy needs in other states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After all, just because many key AI companies are based in California doesn’t mean their data centers have to be. The recent failed bills to permit some kind of nuclear power in California were proposed shortly before tech’s fast and furious incursion into the nuclear energy space and thus weren’t part of the industry’s 2023–24 legislative lobbying efforts. Public support and lobbying for the two bills came from a handful of relatively small pro-nuclear advocacy groups, as well as a handful of labor groups, and the Nuclear Energy Institute, a pro-nuclear trade association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s too soon to tell how serious these tech firms are about promoting nuclear energy to power their electricity needs,” Squassoni said. “It could be a fad — it could be that once they get a real whiff of the costs and time it takes to build new plants, they may back off a little bit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawmakers who spoke to CalMatters said they aren’t against tech companies joining in on broader policy debates around California’s energy grid. Hoover said tech’s nascent nuclear interest may “allow for new conversations to happen,” while Wiener characterized the industry’s involvement as a “positive thing,” so long as companies participate in expanded clean energy initiatives that aren’t exclusively nuclear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stern, for his part, posited that tech’s interest “certainly doesn’t hurt the zeitgeist around nuclear being a less toxic and scary thing.” He added: “There’s some other incredible tech that, in a lot of cases, beats nuclear from a cost perspective. But it doesn’t quite make sense to me anymore that we don’t let nuclear compete in that contest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update, 3:00 p.m. Sunday: \u003c/strong>Officials with the Martinez Refining Co. say they’re investigating whether a leak that occurred during maintenance at the refinery may have contributed to the huge fire that ignited on Saturday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of 11:00 a.m. Sunday, Contra Costa County officials said the fire was almost entirely extinguished. The fire burned for hours, sending plumes of black smoke into the air and leading to a shelter-in-place alert for residents nearby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That alert was lifted Saturday night. An advisory remains in effect recommending people with respiratory sensitivities continue to stay inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regional and county regulators are also investigating the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update, 10 a.m. Sunday:\u003c/strong> Bay Area air regulators are investigating a fire at the Martinez Refinery that ignited Saturday, causing public health officials to issue a shelter-in-place alert for nearby residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The alert was lifted Saturday night, but a health advisory remains in effect. Public health officials advise people with respiratory sensitivities to consider remaining indoors until that is lifted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area Air District began receiving complaints of odors around 10:45 a.m. Saturday, \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/files/compliance-and-enforcement/incident-reports/2025/mrc-fire-2_1_25-pdf.pdf?rev=4e1e2b47ec72460bafafc5f44b4d95f1&sc_lang=en\">according to an incident report\u003c/a>. The Contra Costa County health department issued a shelter-in-place alert hours later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The concerns we are most worried about would be severe exposures that cause respiratory distress, lung distress, shortness of breath, or cardiac distress,” said Contra Costa County deputy health officer Sara Levin. “Should you experience any chest pain, shortness of breath, please do not hesitate to dial 911 and get emergency care.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire is still burning, but in a statement, company officials said it is “under their control,” adding that flaring could continue as a safety measure and residual smoke may continue to be visible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update, 10 p.m. Saturday: \u003c/strong>A shelter-in-place alert has been lifted for parts of Martinez north of the Martinez Refining Company’s refinery, as well as parts of the nearby communities of Pacheco and Clyde, according to Contra Costa County public health officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company reported the fire around 1:45 p.m. Saturday, sending thick black plumes of smoke into the air for hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a Saturday night \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/MartinezRefiningCompany/posts/pfbid02i6MooFCDrAr3y2VZSRPfh2qz1bwz3vLwnryZ1whHFo5wzrwCZkeppertt8FEjQPEl\">post on the company’s Facebook page\u003c/a>, officials said firefighters had made “significant progress on the fire at the refinery.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public health officials said a lesser advisory for the same areas remains in effect, warning that individuals with respiratory sensitivities may experience irritation from smoke in the air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update, 9 p.m. Saturday:\u003c/strong> Contra Costa County officials said Saturday evening that the fire at the Martinez Refining Company’s facility continues to burn despite efforts to extinguish it that have gone on for hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a press conference around 7 p.m. Saturday, officials said, so far, they have been unable to shut off the pipes or “lines” carrying chemicals as part of the refining process that are feeding the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials said there had been a total of six people treated as a result of the fire. Three were taken to the hospital with minor injuries, and three were released at the scene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A shelter-in-place warning remains in effect for parts of Martinez north of the refinery due to impacts from smoke. Sirens will continue to go off in the area every half hour until the incident has ended.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Original story, 6 p.m. Saturday:\u003c/strong> Contra Costa officials have issued a shelter-in-place warning in response to a fire at the Martinez Refinery Company that has led to at least one injury and sent thick plumes of smoke into the air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials are asking residents in parts of Martinez — in particular to the north of the refinery — to stay inside, close all windows, and turn off air conditioners or heaters to avoid smoke impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire is now classified as a \u003ca href=\"https://cwsalerts.com/?fbclid=IwY2xjawILrqVleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHQ2oOcP1dE4_W3AF0haJSfXFqbAshfIJHumshMmCY12V0k_El7lnxaQS6Q_aem_HI3oUqFr5IYD_WZAFiLrtA\">Level 3 Alert\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/AirDistrict/status/1885828450801619396\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is a petroleum-based fire, so we are monitoring for aspects of that, and we also are working with the air district,” said Adam Springer, an assistant director with Contra Costa County Hazardous Materials Programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public health officials say anyone experiencing irritation should go inside and rinse any affected area of their body with water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Updates can be found at \u003ca href=\"http://cwsalerts.com\">CWSAlerts.com\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/MartinezRefiningCompany\">shared on social media\u003c/a> at 5:15 p.m. Saturday, company officials said the fire is “contained to the refinery.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company said three people have been transported off-site, and one person has been treated and released, but no other information about injuries was provided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier Saturday afternoon, Brian Gonzalez said he was closing his restaurant, located just blocks away from the facility in Martinez, because he could see the flames.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11988025,news_11975650,news_11968786\"]“Seems like it could be a tower or building, but for sure, inside the refinery, the flames are getting bigger and bigger.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contra Costa County firefighters are also responding to the scene. It’s unclear what started the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, community members are expressing fear as large amounts of black smoke was released into the air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heidi Taylor, founding member of Healthy Martinez: Refinery Accountability Group, defined the fire as “terrifying” despite what she called assurances from health officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would challenge anybody to look at that plume of smoke and think, ‘Oh, it’s no big deal, I’ll just stay inside and watch a movie.’ That’s not how this works, this is scary as hell, get out!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Health Martinez began advocating for more accountability and transparency from the refinery after the company released nearly 50,000 pounds of powdered industrial chemicals into the air in 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Juan Carlos Lara, Rachael Vasquez, and Dana Cronin contributed to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update, 3:00 p.m. Sunday: \u003c/strong>Officials with the Martinez Refining Co. say they’re investigating whether a leak that occurred during maintenance at the refinery may have contributed to the huge fire that ignited on Saturday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of 11:00 a.m. Sunday, Contra Costa County officials said the fire was almost entirely extinguished. The fire burned for hours, sending plumes of black smoke into the air and leading to a shelter-in-place alert for residents nearby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That alert was lifted Saturday night. An advisory remains in effect recommending people with respiratory sensitivities continue to stay inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regional and county regulators are also investigating the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update, 10 a.m. Sunday:\u003c/strong> Bay Area air regulators are investigating a fire at the Martinez Refinery that ignited Saturday, causing public health officials to issue a shelter-in-place alert for nearby residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The alert was lifted Saturday night, but a health advisory remains in effect. Public health officials advise people with respiratory sensitivities to consider remaining indoors until that is lifted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area Air District began receiving complaints of odors around 10:45 a.m. Saturday, \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/files/compliance-and-enforcement/incident-reports/2025/mrc-fire-2_1_25-pdf.pdf?rev=4e1e2b47ec72460bafafc5f44b4d95f1&sc_lang=en\">according to an incident report\u003c/a>. The Contra Costa County health department issued a shelter-in-place alert hours later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The concerns we are most worried about would be severe exposures that cause respiratory distress, lung distress, shortness of breath, or cardiac distress,” said Contra Costa County deputy health officer Sara Levin. “Should you experience any chest pain, shortness of breath, please do not hesitate to dial 911 and get emergency care.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire is still burning, but in a statement, company officials said it is “under their control,” adding that flaring could continue as a safety measure and residual smoke may continue to be visible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update, 10 p.m. Saturday: \u003c/strong>A shelter-in-place alert has been lifted for parts of Martinez north of the Martinez Refining Company’s refinery, as well as parts of the nearby communities of Pacheco and Clyde, according to Contra Costa County public health officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company reported the fire around 1:45 p.m. Saturday, sending thick black plumes of smoke into the air for hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a Saturday night \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/MartinezRefiningCompany/posts/pfbid02i6MooFCDrAr3y2VZSRPfh2qz1bwz3vLwnryZ1whHFo5wzrwCZkeppertt8FEjQPEl\">post on the company’s Facebook page\u003c/a>, officials said firefighters had made “significant progress on the fire at the refinery.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public health officials said a lesser advisory for the same areas remains in effect, warning that individuals with respiratory sensitivities may experience irritation from smoke in the air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update, 9 p.m. Saturday:\u003c/strong> Contra Costa County officials said Saturday evening that the fire at the Martinez Refining Company’s facility continues to burn despite efforts to extinguish it that have gone on for hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a press conference around 7 p.m. Saturday, officials said, so far, they have been unable to shut off the pipes or “lines” carrying chemicals as part of the refining process that are feeding the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials said there had been a total of six people treated as a result of the fire. Three were taken to the hospital with minor injuries, and three were released at the scene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A shelter-in-place warning remains in effect for parts of Martinez north of the refinery due to impacts from smoke. Sirens will continue to go off in the area every half hour until the incident has ended.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>“It is a petroleum-based fire, so we are monitoring for aspects of that, and we also are working with the air district,” said Adam Springer, an assistant director with Contra Costa County Hazardous Materials Programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public health officials say anyone experiencing irritation should go inside and rinse any affected area of their body with water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Updates can be found at \u003ca href=\"http://cwsalerts.com\">CWSAlerts.com\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/MartinezRefiningCompany\">shared on social media\u003c/a> at 5:15 p.m. Saturday, company officials said the fire is “contained to the refinery.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company said three people have been transported off-site, and one person has been treated and released, but no other information about injuries was provided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier Saturday afternoon, Brian Gonzalez said he was closing his restaurant, located just blocks away from the facility in Martinez, because he could see the flames.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Seems like it could be a tower or building, but for sure, inside the refinery, the flames are getting bigger and bigger.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contra Costa County firefighters are also responding to the scene. It’s unclear what started the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, community members are expressing fear as large amounts of black smoke was released into the air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heidi Taylor, founding member of Healthy Martinez: Refinery Accountability Group, defined the fire as “terrifying” despite what she called assurances from health officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would challenge anybody to look at that plume of smoke and think, ‘Oh, it’s no big deal, I’ll just stay inside and watch a movie.’ That’s not how this works, this is scary as hell, get out!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Health Martinez began advocating for more accountability and transparency from the refinery after the company released nearly 50,000 pounds of powdered industrial chemicals into the air in 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Juan Carlos Lara, Rachael Vasquez, and Dana Cronin contributed to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>State utility regulators on Thursday approved a settlement that will require Southern California Edison customers to foot about $1.7 billion in claims from the 2017 Thomas Fire and the resulting 2018 Montecito Debris Flows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company’s equipment, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11732765/southern-california-edisons-power-lines-caused-thomas-fire-investigators-say\">investigators previously found\u003c/a>, caused the December 2017 fire, which burned more than 280,000 acres in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-thomas-fire-contained-20180112-story.html\">killing two people\u003c/a>. Rainfall the following month led to debris flows that killed 23 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s an agreement to settle contested claims that would have been litigated with an unknown result if this settlement is not adopted,” Alice Reynolds, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, said after the vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The settlement comes as Edison disputes \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-27/power-lines-eaton-canyon-sudden-boost-in-current\">evidence \u003c/a>that its power lines \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/26/us/los-angeles-eaton-fire-cause.html\">may have\u003c/a> ignited the Eaton fire in Los Angeles County earlier this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agreement between the utility and ratepayers representative Cal Advocates is about $1 billion less than the utility originally requested be passed to customers. It passed 4-0 as part of the commission’s consent agenda. Commissioner Matthew Baker recused himself from the vote; he was head of Cal Advocates, which represents ratepayers before the commission, while the settlement was being hashed out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label='Related Coverage' tag='thomas-fire']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re pleased with the commission’s approval of the settlement,” said David Eisenhauer, spokesperson for Southern California Edison. “The settlement is a fair outcome given the evidence put forward by [Southern California Edison] and Cal Advocates.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those affected by utility-caused wildfires would typically have eligible claims paid out by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cawildfirefund.com/\">California Wildfire Fund\u003c/a>, a state-run pool of money funded by the three major investor-owned utility companies — Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric. But the fund was established under a law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019, after the Thomas fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of the agreement, Southern California Edison must set aside $50 million in shareholder funds over five years for wildfire mitigation costs, which customers will not be responsible for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because the decision was on the consent agenda, there was no discussion of the item at Thursday’s meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The utility has also asked for the commission to have ratepayers pay for damages amounting to $5.4 billion for the 2018 Woolsey Fire. A decision on that request will be made at a later date.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>State utility regulators on Thursday approved a settlement that will require Southern California Edison customers to foot about $1.7 billion in claims from the 2017 Thomas Fire and the resulting 2018 Montecito Debris Flows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company’s equipment, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11732765/southern-california-edisons-power-lines-caused-thomas-fire-investigators-say\">investigators previously found\u003c/a>, caused the December 2017 fire, which burned more than 280,000 acres in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-thomas-fire-contained-20180112-story.html\">killing two people\u003c/a>. Rainfall the following month led to debris flows that killed 23 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s an agreement to settle contested claims that would have been litigated with an unknown result if this settlement is not adopted,” Alice Reynolds, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, said after the vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The settlement comes as Edison disputes \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-27/power-lines-eaton-canyon-sudden-boost-in-current\">evidence \u003c/a>that its power lines \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/26/us/los-angeles-eaton-fire-cause.html\">may have\u003c/a> ignited the Eaton fire in Los Angeles County earlier this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agreement between the utility and ratepayers representative Cal Advocates is about $1 billion less than the utility originally requested be passed to customers. It passed 4-0 as part of the commission’s consent agenda. Commissioner Matthew Baker recused himself from the vote; he was head of Cal Advocates, which represents ratepayers before the commission, while the settlement was being hashed out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re pleased with the commission’s approval of the settlement,” said David Eisenhauer, spokesperson for Southern California Edison. “The settlement is a fair outcome given the evidence put forward by [Southern California Edison] and Cal Advocates.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those affected by utility-caused wildfires would typically have eligible claims paid out by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cawildfirefund.com/\">California Wildfire Fund\u003c/a>, a state-run pool of money funded by the three major investor-owned utility companies — Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric. But the fund was established under a law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019, after the Thomas fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of the agreement, Southern California Edison must set aside $50 million in shareholder funds over five years for wildfire mitigation costs, which customers will not be responsible for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because the decision was on the consent agenda, there was no discussion of the item at Thursday’s meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The utility has also asked for the commission to have ratepayers pay for damages amounting to $5.4 billion for the 2018 Woolsey Fire. A decision on that request will be made at a later date.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Supervisors Reject Proposal to Ban Artificial Turf on Santa Clara County-Owned Land",
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"content": "\u003cp>Citing concerns over equity and access to recreation areas, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday evening abandoned a proposed plan to eventually remove almost all county-owned artificial turf fields and prohibit the installation of new ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amid knotty discussions about the “forever chemicals” often found in synthetic grass fields and the unsettled science about the harm they may be causing to people and the environment, the five-member board rejected the total ban by a 2–3 vote while also voting down two other moderate proposals that allowed for broad exceptions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lack of any action means the county will continue to maintain its existing turf fields and consider proposals to install new ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The divisive issue has stirred debate among residents and community leaders for months, at times pitting advocates concerned about youth having enough outdoor spaces to recreate against those worried about the health impacts of the chemical compounds the synthetic surfaces are made out of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is something that I have been completely torn on,” District 2 Supervisor Betty Duong said during Tuesday’s meeting before ultimately voting against the proposal. “It is a false choice to balance the wellbeing and immediate access for our children, especially our most underserved communities, with environmental values that we all deserve to have.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 100 impassioned community members and advocates spoke during the meeting,, including parents, doctors, youth sports coaches and workers who manage the fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Board President Otto Lee, a leading champion of the ban, at one point jokingly asked his colleagues if their understanding of an upcoming vote was “clear as mud.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The balk comes about 10 months after the board \u003ca href=\"https://sanjosespotlight.com/santa-clara-county-to-study-ban-on-artificial-turf-athletics-sports-fields-grass/\">first began exploring the issue\u003c/a> last spring, twice postponing a vote so county staff could further research the issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the failure to pass something, Lee said he doesn’t think the entire effort — including an extensive report examining the potential risks of artificial turf fields — was in vain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We tried to make a statement to the community that we want to care about our kids when it comes to using all county property fields,” Lee said. “And at the same time, I do think that the work that we have accomplished from that report is still a public record and that would be used potentially by many other jurisdictions because this is actually a fairly hot issue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the staunchest opponents of the proposed ban include local youth sports advocates, who argue it would further limit capacity for crucial outdoor exercise, particularly for lower-income families with less access to decent recreational facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"more South Bay news\" tag=\"south-bay\"]“We have a dire lack of athletic fields in our community, and a grass field, even the best grass field, can be used for maybe 1,000 hours a year, and an artificial turf field can be used for 3,000 hours a year,” said Sandra Todd, a youth soccer coordinator in Sunnyvale, who emphasized the importance of sports in helping kids build life skills and connections to others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a huge obesity epidemic. We have an isolationist problem where families, children and young adults are feeling more and more isolated from each other and from their community,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Industry groups also opposed the ban, insisting that manufacturers of synthetic turf are working to minimize or eliminate harmful chemicals in their products and underscoring the water conservation benefits of fake grass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Synthetic turf allows families to enjoy its benefits and athletes to play year-round — in contrast, a grass field simply cannot remain usable at the same rate, in the rain, or during the months when grass doesn’t grow,” Melanie Taylor, president and CEO of the Synthetic Turf Council, wrote to the board this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Lee, and Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga, who also supported the ban, both seemed to agree that real grass fields are the superior choice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Plastic turf fields are definitely cheaper to maintain, but in life, we also learn that you get what you pay for. Side by side, plastic turf fields are not as good as properly maintained grass fields, and we know that because professional athletes and games are played on grass fields,” Lee said during the meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Noe Guzman, the president of Healing Grove Sports in San José, said he works with “Hispanic kids of color and low-income families” and argued that axing turf fields would be detrimental to youth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are a lot of kids that don’t have a place to play,” Guzman told the board at Tuesday’s meeting. “If you ban this, I guarantee you that you’re going to have a lot of people feeding that pipeline of your incarceration.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the proposed ban had passed, it would have had perhaps the biggest impact on the development of a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sjearthquakes.com/fairgrounds/home\">long-envisioned soccer facility\u003c/a> at the county-owned fairgrounds that would be managed by the San José Earthquakes, who opposed the measure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024637\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250129-SCCTURF-JG-5.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024637\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250129-SCCTURF-JG-5.jpg\" alt=\"A closeup shot of an artificial turf soccer field.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250129-SCCTURF-JG-5.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250129-SCCTURF-JG-5-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250129-SCCTURF-JG-5-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250129-SCCTURF-JG-5-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250129-SCCTURF-JG-5-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250129-SCCTURF-JG-5-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ground-up tires converted into rubber crumbs are commonly used as infill material on artificial turf fields, like the ones at Twin Creeks Sports Complex in Sunnyvale. \u003ccite>(Joseph Geha/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The most recent public plans call for eight fields on the site, half of them to be used as practice facilities for the team and the other half for public use. Five of the fields at the proposed facility would be artificial turf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The proposal to ban turf athletic fields will severely limit needed recreational access for our community, especially our youth,” Jared Shawlee, president of the Earthquakes, told the board. “The reality in our county is that we are one of the most under-resourced metro areas in the country for public field space.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Partly in response to plans for the new soccer facility, the Santa Clara County Medical Association also weighed in on the debate in recent months, advocating for natural grass fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The SCCMA Environmental Health Committee has carefully examined this issue and strongly\u003cbr>\nrecommends that you do not place artificial turf, but rather require all soccer fields to be natural grass turf, to benefit the health and safety of children, athletes and the environment,” the association wrote to the board last year. “Furthermore, we believe that this decision should apply to all sports fields, including those in schools.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The county’s 2024 report examining the health risks associated with turf and artificial grass, noted that the fields often contain perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which are commonly referred to as “forever chemicals” because they don’t naturally break down in the environment, and can last for thousands of years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The PFAs “contribute to cancer, immune and endocrine dysfunction, impaired development, and overall mortality when they are ingested,” the county’s report said, \u003ca href=\"https://dceg.cancer.gov/research/what-we-study/pfas\">echoing well-established findings\u003c/a>. But it also noted that “it remains uncertain if and to what extent use of artificial turf causes meaningful human exposure to these substances.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while some manufacturers have recently claimed to produce turf with no trace of the chemicals, “there is not yet an industry standard to test for and establish the presence of PFAS,” the report said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The county also considered an option to allow for new turf fields in the future, but only if they are proven to be free of PFAS and use no “infill” material, such as ground-up tires, to help stabilize the turf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Duong, noting the inconclusive science, said she believes natural grass is the best option but said voting for the ban would send the message that it’s “grass or nothing,” even in some communities where grass isn’t practical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I know that’s not the message we’re trying to put out there today, but in its application, I believe that is the message that will land,” Duong said. “I still believe that the best option is for us to have autonomy, flexibility, and evaluate proposed fields on a case-by-case basis, always looking towards the north star of natural grass first.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Citing concerns over equity and access to recreation areas, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday evening abandoned a proposed plan to eventually remove almost all county-owned artificial turf fields and prohibit the installation of new ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amid knotty discussions about the “forever chemicals” often found in synthetic grass fields and the unsettled science about the harm they may be causing to people and the environment, the five-member board rejected the total ban by a 2–3 vote while also voting down two other moderate proposals that allowed for broad exceptions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lack of any action means the county will continue to maintain its existing turf fields and consider proposals to install new ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The divisive issue has stirred debate among residents and community leaders for months, at times pitting advocates concerned about youth having enough outdoor spaces to recreate against those worried about the health impacts of the chemical compounds the synthetic surfaces are made out of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is something that I have been completely torn on,” District 2 Supervisor Betty Duong said during Tuesday’s meeting before ultimately voting against the proposal. “It is a false choice to balance the wellbeing and immediate access for our children, especially our most underserved communities, with environmental values that we all deserve to have.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 100 impassioned community members and advocates spoke during the meeting,, including parents, doctors, youth sports coaches and workers who manage the fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Board President Otto Lee, a leading champion of the ban, at one point jokingly asked his colleagues if their understanding of an upcoming vote was “clear as mud.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The balk comes about 10 months after the board \u003ca href=\"https://sanjosespotlight.com/santa-clara-county-to-study-ban-on-artificial-turf-athletics-sports-fields-grass/\">first began exploring the issue\u003c/a> last spring, twice postponing a vote so county staff could further research the issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the failure to pass something, Lee said he doesn’t think the entire effort — including an extensive report examining the potential risks of artificial turf fields — was in vain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We tried to make a statement to the community that we want to care about our kids when it comes to using all county property fields,” Lee said. “And at the same time, I do think that the work that we have accomplished from that report is still a public record and that would be used potentially by many other jurisdictions because this is actually a fairly hot issue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the staunchest opponents of the proposed ban include local youth sports advocates, who argue it would further limit capacity for crucial outdoor exercise, particularly for lower-income families with less access to decent recreational facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“We have a dire lack of athletic fields in our community, and a grass field, even the best grass field, can be used for maybe 1,000 hours a year, and an artificial turf field can be used for 3,000 hours a year,” said Sandra Todd, a youth soccer coordinator in Sunnyvale, who emphasized the importance of sports in helping kids build life skills and connections to others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a huge obesity epidemic. We have an isolationist problem where families, children and young adults are feeling more and more isolated from each other and from their community,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Industry groups also opposed the ban, insisting that manufacturers of synthetic turf are working to minimize or eliminate harmful chemicals in their products and underscoring the water conservation benefits of fake grass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Synthetic turf allows families to enjoy its benefits and athletes to play year-round — in contrast, a grass field simply cannot remain usable at the same rate, in the rain, or during the months when grass doesn’t grow,” Melanie Taylor, president and CEO of the Synthetic Turf Council, wrote to the board this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Lee, and Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga, who also supported the ban, both seemed to agree that real grass fields are the superior choice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Plastic turf fields are definitely cheaper to maintain, but in life, we also learn that you get what you pay for. Side by side, plastic turf fields are not as good as properly maintained grass fields, and we know that because professional athletes and games are played on grass fields,” Lee said during the meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Noe Guzman, the president of Healing Grove Sports in San José, said he works with “Hispanic kids of color and low-income families” and argued that axing turf fields would be detrimental to youth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are a lot of kids that don’t have a place to play,” Guzman told the board at Tuesday’s meeting. “If you ban this, I guarantee you that you’re going to have a lot of people feeding that pipeline of your incarceration.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the proposed ban had passed, it would have had perhaps the biggest impact on the development of a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sjearthquakes.com/fairgrounds/home\">long-envisioned soccer facility\u003c/a> at the county-owned fairgrounds that would be managed by the San José Earthquakes, who opposed the measure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024637\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250129-SCCTURF-JG-5.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024637\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250129-SCCTURF-JG-5.jpg\" alt=\"A closeup shot of an artificial turf soccer field.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250129-SCCTURF-JG-5.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250129-SCCTURF-JG-5-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250129-SCCTURF-JG-5-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250129-SCCTURF-JG-5-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250129-SCCTURF-JG-5-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/250129-SCCTURF-JG-5-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ground-up tires converted into rubber crumbs are commonly used as infill material on artificial turf fields, like the ones at Twin Creeks Sports Complex in Sunnyvale. \u003ccite>(Joseph Geha/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The most recent public plans call for eight fields on the site, half of them to be used as practice facilities for the team and the other half for public use. Five of the fields at the proposed facility would be artificial turf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The proposal to ban turf athletic fields will severely limit needed recreational access for our community, especially our youth,” Jared Shawlee, president of the Earthquakes, told the board. “The reality in our county is that we are one of the most under-resourced metro areas in the country for public field space.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Partly in response to plans for the new soccer facility, the Santa Clara County Medical Association also weighed in on the debate in recent months, advocating for natural grass fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The SCCMA Environmental Health Committee has carefully examined this issue and strongly\u003cbr>\nrecommends that you do not place artificial turf, but rather require all soccer fields to be natural grass turf, to benefit the health and safety of children, athletes and the environment,” the association wrote to the board last year. “Furthermore, we believe that this decision should apply to all sports fields, including those in schools.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The county’s 2024 report examining the health risks associated with turf and artificial grass, noted that the fields often contain perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which are commonly referred to as “forever chemicals” because they don’t naturally break down in the environment, and can last for thousands of years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The PFAs “contribute to cancer, immune and endocrine dysfunction, impaired development, and overall mortality when they are ingested,” the county’s report said, \u003ca href=\"https://dceg.cancer.gov/research/what-we-study/pfas\">echoing well-established findings\u003c/a>. But it also noted that “it remains uncertain if and to what extent use of artificial turf causes meaningful human exposure to these substances.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while some manufacturers have recently claimed to produce turf with no trace of the chemicals, “there is not yet an industry standard to test for and establish the presence of PFAS,” the report said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The county also considered an option to allow for new turf fields in the future, but only if they are proven to be free of PFAS and use no “infill” material, such as ground-up tires, to help stabilize the turf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Duong, noting the inconclusive science, said she believes natural grass is the best option but said voting for the ban would send the message that it’s “grass or nothing,” even in some communities where grass isn’t practical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I know that’s not the message we’re trying to put out there today, but in its application, I believe that is the message that will land,” Duong said. “I still believe that the best option is for us to have autonomy, flexibility, and evaluate proposed fields on a case-by-case basis, always looking towards the north star of natural grass first.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "how-will-this-second-trump-presidency-impact-different-parts-of-california-you-told-us",
"title": "How Will This Second Trump Presidency Impact Different Parts of California? You Told Us",
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"headTitle": "How Will This Second Trump Presidency Impact Different Parts of California? You Told Us | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>How do you think the next four years under President Donald Trump will affect your daily life and community?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12022187/how-would-another-trump-term-impact-your-corner-of-california\">the question KQED and its California public radio partners in The California Newsroom posed\u003c/a> to our listeners and readers around the state as Trump returned to the White House for a second term. More than 150 of you shared your questions, hopes and fears about the coming years, from concerns about immigration, the economy to social services and the future of California under Trump 2.0.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ve gathered this selection of responses below from Californians across the state. If these comments strike a chord with you — or if you don’t see your particular issues or concerns reflected below — you can \u003ca href=\"#A\">submit your own thoughts using our Google Form below\u003c/a>. What you share with us could be shared on kqed.org, KQED Public Radio or KQED’s social media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Responses have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The future of California under Trump \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12004715\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12004715\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240913-TRUMPRALLY-JG-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240913-TRUMPRALLY-JG-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240913-TRUMPRALLY-JG-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240913-TRUMPRALLY-JG-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240913-TRUMPRALLY-JG-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240913-TRUMPRALLY-JG-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240913-TRUMPRALLY-JG-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Paul Nguyen of San José chants on the side of El Camino Real in Palo Alto during a rally supporting Donald Trump for President on Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. \u003ccite>(Joseph Geha/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Being a California resident for all my life, I feel that Trump policies will have little effect on California residents other than costing taxpayers millions that our state will spend on lawsuits against the federal government. Just seeing California Trump-proof itself by using taxpayer funds to litigate all things Trump instead of looking at the future makes me want to leave this great state in search of a more pleasant and positive place in America. I hope there can be some kind of peaceful alternative to all the upcoming lawsuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– James, Shasta\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump’s cabinet selections are to me the most troubling. There are none that aren’t willing to do his bidding, rather than what is in the best interest of the United States … Therefore, they will be willing to take hostages and make California pay for any slight they feel they have suffered. This time around, there will be very few people standing in his way when he wants to enact poor policies that further degrade the environment, the social safety net, and humanitarian relief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Ana, Contra Costa County\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think that I will benefit from the increased job possibilities from oil drilling and as a business owner I am glad to see limits on the EPA’s oversteps into our daily work. As a realtor I look forward to reduced regulations that will lead to more urgently needed housing being built.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Shannon, San Luis Obispo County\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It will be very disruptive. We have just suffered catastrophic wildfires that are still burning, and he doesn’t care. We are a region of immigrants proud of our diversity, and he wants to rip that apart with deportations. We are increasingly harmed by the climate crisis and he calls that a hoax. His tariffs will stop business at our ports. Congress under the Republicans will try to harm us and he will enjoy that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Sally, L.A.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The economy\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024465\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024465\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/food-stamp-cuts-photo-1-_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1316\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/food-stamp-cuts-photo-1-_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/food-stamp-cuts-photo-1-_qed-800x526.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/food-stamp-cuts-photo-1-_qed-1020x671.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/food-stamp-cuts-photo-1-_qed-160x105.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/food-stamp-cuts-photo-1-_qed-1536x1011.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/food-stamp-cuts-photo-1-_qed-1920x1263.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Antoinette Martinez does her weekly grocery shopping at FoodMaxx on July 26, 2019. \u003ccite>(Anne Wernikoff/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I can’t help but think his economic ideas will cause problematic inflationary issues. His threats to withhold federal emergency funds cause me to wonder if there’s a way we can “redirect” our federal tax payments to the state of California as a way to challenge his audacity. As he requires quid pro quo of other nations to receive our support, maybe we as a state should enact the same mentality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Carl, Manteca\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I am hoping for lower taxes, cheaper gasoline and utilities, and streamlined regulation for small businesses. I am optimistic about better economic growth and the enforcement of law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Emerson, Pleasant Valley\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think I’ll be hurt. Silicon Valley has caved to this man and many within that community, while not supporting him philosophically, recognize that economically they will do well. For people like me, who have professional jobs but can’t compete with high tech and finance salaries, the struggle will drive me out or limit my lifestyle. Meanwhile, many of my more privileged friends just want to avoid the news for the next 4 years. That’s not an option. We need to know what is coming at us and our nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Andria, San José\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People have given up looking for jobs and everything is so expensive I’m going into credit debt. I think the economy will get better and I hope housing prices can go down decreasing the homeless here in CA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– John, Folsom\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Discrimination and civil rights\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024467\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1777px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024467\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_1361_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1777\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_1361_qed.jpg 1777w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_1361_qed-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_1361_qed-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_1361_qed-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_1361_qed-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1777px) 100vw, 1777px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People protest President Donald Trump’s decision to bar transgender people from serving in the military, in a march through San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood on July 26, 2017. \u003ccite>(Polly Stryker/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I am a transgender woman and my life is severely impacted. With the recent passing of executive orders on January 20. With changes like workplace protections and private spaces, I no longer have the safety and security of how I do trivial things like shop, go to a bathroom, workout in a gym, or even use the post office. … Right now my right to live as who I am is under siege, and I don’t see myself staying in the U.S. much longer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Kaedi, Tustin\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Any online interactions have increased bigotry since the bigots feel protected now, which is unfortunate. I am an LGBTQ ally but I wouldn’t consider myself in that bracket. I get attacked online for mentioning that everyone has a right to their opinion and their identity. I’m also concerned for myself that we are regressing in terms of rights for minorities as I am a minority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Alexander, San Francisco\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The media is making a lot of noise, but Trump’s tactics of shock and awe can be very effective. Some fights/policies will fail and some I’ll disagree with, but the nation requires a much needed kick in the ass, so we could lead again, instead of being the woke nation that’s more focused on gender equality and DEI initiatives than creating opportunities for all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Cindy, Encinitas\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I live in East San José, a vibrant and ethnically diverse neighborhood. I also work for the UC system and was a community college counselor for years. I have seen first hand the long term/short term effects of the bigotry, blatant racism, and discrimination against undocumented Americans and folks who identify as LGBTQIA. Former students and their families living under intense fear is detrimental to their health and yet they all work here and pay taxes that they get zero benefits for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Nohemy, San José\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hope that I am not directly impacted, but I believe that Trump’s elitism and selfishness will empower the rich and the ignorant to treat perceived “others” with discrimination, contempt, or worse. As a white person, I am not that fearful; as a woman, I am extremely anxious and concerned. And for people of color, I am also very anxious and concerned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Sarah, Orange County\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The impact of fear, preparation, and resolve has been felt by the trans community since he was nominated to run for the Republican Party. We began to save medications, learn self-defense, understand our fragile rights, and learn to read legislation and Supreme Court tea leaves. … My optimism comes from knowing my elders have fought this before. Trans people have always, and will always, exist. We find joy in small moments while rusting the gears of the hate machine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chloe, L.A.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Housing and homelessness\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024498\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024498\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/027_KQED_WoodStreetEncampment_07192022_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/027_KQED_WoodStreetEncampment_07192022_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/027_KQED_WoodStreetEncampment_07192022_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/027_KQED_WoodStreetEncampment_07192022_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/027_KQED_WoodStreetEncampment_07192022_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/027_KQED_WoodStreetEncampment_07192022_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/027_KQED_WoodStreetEncampment_07192022_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign says, ‘Housing is a Human Right’ at the Cob on Wood Project at the Wood Street encampment in West Oakland on Tuesday, July 19, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I wish to see reduced homelessness, easier paths to home construction and easier agricultural access to water. Optimistic about the America First policies to focus on building more homes and propping up businesses by reducing the onerous regulatory state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Shannon, San Luis Obispo \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We need to help the homeless more as well as build housing for them and also for people whose income is considered “extremely low” and “low” income. I live in Senior subsidized housing so I have the lowest rent I can find but I worry if Trump takes away housing subsidies, rent will go up and I’ll be on the street as will many other seniors who live here.I also worry that I won’t be able to afford food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Jody, Contra Costa County\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By no means MAGA, I consider myself pretty moderate. But this state and much of the country needs a hard reboot. Voters feel overburdened with the cost of utilities, gas and housing. … Though Trump will not get some of his agenda accomplished, he’s going to shake things up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Cindy, Encinitas\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Immigration and border security \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971660\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971660\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/080923_Salinas-Farmworkers_SN_CM_16-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/080923_Salinas-Farmworkers_SN_CM_16-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/080923_Salinas-Farmworkers_SN_CM_16-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/080923_Salinas-Farmworkers_SN_CM_16-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/080923_Salinas-Farmworkers_SN_CM_16-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/080923_Salinas-Farmworkers_SN_CM_16-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Farmworkers harvest strawberries in Salinas on Aug. 9, 2023. \u003ccite>(Semantha Norris/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I went to work yesterday, the first day of class; the first day since Trump’s executive orders. I am sitting in a circle with my students. These are first generation young adults from all over California and a few international students from Uganda, Nigeria and China. My heart stops. What can I say to them to reassure them? As I pass out markers and construction paper so they can place their names, I add that they can also write their preferred pronoun. “Oops,” I add, “I just broke an executive order.” I refrain from saying that I will defy the other orders. If ICE comes to remove them, they will have to remove me too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Susan, Merced\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We need to prioritize fairness and justice. It’s unacceptable that illegal immigrants are often treated better than our Native American communities — this has to change, and I stand firmly for it. Ending birthright citizenship is a strong first step toward addressing these issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Amanda, Crescent City\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I live near the border and to see families separated from one another is heartbreaking. I’ve experienced immigration raids when I lived at the racetrack and the agents are completely lacking in compassion. My sister may have a harder time getting the medicine she needs. My adult children are half Mexican and already fear racist policies. I’m a bilingual teacher (white) and I worry for students. I work in minority communities. I’m afraid for the gardener here at the apartment complex where I live. And I’m angry at people who voted for Trump including my younger sister and brother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Stacey, La Mesa\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I am very concerned that we have illegal immigrants, gang members in drug cartels in our community and the state is refusing to work with the Trump administration to clear criminals out. I am concerned that California has become a criminal enabling state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Kerry, Los Angeles\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I am a teacher and I know there are several undocumented families in our community. I fear the day where I might not see my students anymore. I love my students and I will worry about them for the next four years. Also I have undocumented family members. I fear for their safety and whether the last day I saw them would have been my last.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Cynthia, Santa Clara County\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If this incoming administration deports undocumented Americans, imagine all the jobs that would be unfilled, education enrollments would continue to drop, tax revenue would decrease, but most tragic of all is that we would lose wonderful people who make our country better. In my 13 plus years of being in education, no one works harder and wants to be a contributor to our country than undocumented Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Nohemy, East San José\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Climate and the environment\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12021737\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12021737\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192687291.jpg\" alt=\"Firefighters look on as a big red smoky blaze comes over a hill.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192687291.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192687291-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192687291-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192687291-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A view of Palisades Fire as firefighting planes and helicopters drop water over flames in Mandeville Canyon in Los Angeles, on Jan. 10, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I think that I will benefit from the increased job possibilities from oil drilling and as a business owner I am glad to see limits on the EPA’s oversteps into our daily work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Shannon, San Luis Obispo\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I am worried about California receiving financial help for the L.A. fires. And I am afraid Trump will undo all climate change legislation, and as a result there will be more catastrophic weather events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Susan, San José\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It will be very disruptive. We have just suffered catastrophic wildfires that are still burning, and he doesn’t care. We are increasingly harmed by the climate crisis and he calls that a hoax. Our recovery from the Palisades and Eaton fires is likely to be harder, slower and meaner with his administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Sally, Los Angeles\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Division and anxiety \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12007728\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12007728\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/20240623_GAZAEVACUATION_GC-20-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/20240623_GAZAEVACUATION_GC-20-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/20240623_GAZAEVACUATION_GC-20-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/20240623_GAZAEVACUATION_GC-20-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/20240623_GAZAEVACUATION_GC-20-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/20240623_GAZAEVACUATION_GC-20-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/20240623_GAZAEVACUATION_GC-20-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Angelica Davila (right) faces off with a counterprotester at Window on the Bay Park in Monterey on June 23, 2024. Ceasefire demonstrators and Former President Trump supporters rallied at the same park. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Trump’s presidency is intentionally designed to keep us in constant states of anxiety and depression so that we’ll be worried about what he intends to do next and depressed about what he has done already. He will lie constantly & convince us to mistrust reliable sources of news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Barbara, Newark\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lies and disinformation that Trump’s team will be spewing out will certainly cause me great emotional distress because I fear it will lead more and more people from factual information and therefore to actions threatening our democracy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Elli, Yolo County\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It will make my life a living hell of chaos and confusion along with the never ending pack of lies that he tells … Why are there two systems of justice in this country? One for white males and the other for the rest of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– D.C., Fresno\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s going to be more chaos and hate. Less facts. Unfortunately I live in a predominantly red area in SLO County … I’ve had to be very careful not to discuss politics in any way shape or form for fear of being bullied and insulted for not confirming to the MAGA way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Catherine, Atascadero\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I won’t be decreasing my amitriptyline dose anytime soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Charmaine, Walnut Creek\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Cuts to social services programs\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024503\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024503\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240903-OverdoseResponse-56-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240903-OverdoseResponse-56-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240903-OverdoseResponse-56-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240903-OverdoseResponse-56-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240903-OverdoseResponse-56-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240903-OverdoseResponse-56-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240903-OverdoseResponse-56-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Paramedic Isaac James (left) and counselor Chantel Hernandez-Coleman, members of the Street Overdose Response Team, speak with 2 people sitting on the street in the South of Market neighborhood in San Francisco on Sept. 3, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Since I am disabled & have Medicare & Medi-Cal I worry that funding for my healthcare will be cut. I worry that there may be reduced funding for Section 8 (subsidized housing) and that also will affect me directly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Delia, South San Francisco\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m hoping the next four years under [Trump] will have little to no effect on my life or community, since the only effect we might see will be negative. Plans to cut social services, including Medicare and Social Security while cutting taxes for the oligarchs and increasing tariffs on foreign goods, including food, may bankrupt our family and put us out onto the street, worst case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Mike, Merced\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m not optimistic that anything will get better. I think he’s out to dismantle health care, Medicare and social security. I’m concerned for the farm workers who are instrumental in our rural agricultural community. His rhetoric is mean spirited and negative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>– \u003cstrong>Claudia, Nicolaus\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prices are going to go crazy and those of us on programs like Medicare, Social Security etc. will shiver in our boots until Trump leaves office. It’s very difficult to live under these threats when you are old and barely getting by as it is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Jody, Contra Costa County\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca id=\"A\">\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>Tell Us: How Will a Second Trump Presidency Impact Your Corner of California?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe-6Em0FA1xZECy5BUiL9ZpDYksuiNmoh2TaPYkoWn-fV9wlQ/viewform?usp=preview\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "How Will This Second Trump Presidency Impact Different Parts of California? You Told Us | KQED",
"description": "How do you think the next four years under President Donald Trump will affect your daily life and community? That’s the question KQED and its California public radio partners in The California Newsroom posed to our listeners and readers around the state as Trump returned to the White House for a second term. More than 150 of you shared your questions, hopes and fears about the coming years, from concerns about immigration, the economy to social services and the future of California under Trump 2.0. We’ve gathered this selection of responses below from Californians across the state. If these comments",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>How do you think the next four years under President Donald Trump will affect your daily life and community?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12022187/how-would-another-trump-term-impact-your-corner-of-california\">the question KQED and its California public radio partners in The California Newsroom posed\u003c/a> to our listeners and readers around the state as Trump returned to the White House for a second term. More than 150 of you shared your questions, hopes and fears about the coming years, from concerns about immigration, the economy to social services and the future of California under Trump 2.0.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ve gathered this selection of responses below from Californians across the state. If these comments strike a chord with you — or if you don’t see your particular issues or concerns reflected below — you can \u003ca href=\"#A\">submit your own thoughts using our Google Form below\u003c/a>. What you share with us could be shared on kqed.org, KQED Public Radio or KQED’s social media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Responses have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The future of California under Trump \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12004715\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12004715\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240913-TRUMPRALLY-JG-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240913-TRUMPRALLY-JG-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240913-TRUMPRALLY-JG-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240913-TRUMPRALLY-JG-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240913-TRUMPRALLY-JG-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240913-TRUMPRALLY-JG-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240913-TRUMPRALLY-JG-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Paul Nguyen of San José chants on the side of El Camino Real in Palo Alto during a rally supporting Donald Trump for President on Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. \u003ccite>(Joseph Geha/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Being a California resident for all my life, I feel that Trump policies will have little effect on California residents other than costing taxpayers millions that our state will spend on lawsuits against the federal government. Just seeing California Trump-proof itself by using taxpayer funds to litigate all things Trump instead of looking at the future makes me want to leave this great state in search of a more pleasant and positive place in America. I hope there can be some kind of peaceful alternative to all the upcoming lawsuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– James, Shasta\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump’s cabinet selections are to me the most troubling. There are none that aren’t willing to do his bidding, rather than what is in the best interest of the United States … Therefore, they will be willing to take hostages and make California pay for any slight they feel they have suffered. This time around, there will be very few people standing in his way when he wants to enact poor policies that further degrade the environment, the social safety net, and humanitarian relief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Ana, Contra Costa County\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think that I will benefit from the increased job possibilities from oil drilling and as a business owner I am glad to see limits on the EPA’s oversteps into our daily work. As a realtor I look forward to reduced regulations that will lead to more urgently needed housing being built.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Shannon, San Luis Obispo County\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It will be very disruptive. We have just suffered catastrophic wildfires that are still burning, and he doesn’t care. We are a region of immigrants proud of our diversity, and he wants to rip that apart with deportations. We are increasingly harmed by the climate crisis and he calls that a hoax. His tariffs will stop business at our ports. Congress under the Republicans will try to harm us and he will enjoy that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Sally, L.A.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The economy\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024465\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024465\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/food-stamp-cuts-photo-1-_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1316\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/food-stamp-cuts-photo-1-_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/food-stamp-cuts-photo-1-_qed-800x526.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/food-stamp-cuts-photo-1-_qed-1020x671.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/food-stamp-cuts-photo-1-_qed-160x105.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/food-stamp-cuts-photo-1-_qed-1536x1011.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/food-stamp-cuts-photo-1-_qed-1920x1263.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Antoinette Martinez does her weekly grocery shopping at FoodMaxx on July 26, 2019. \u003ccite>(Anne Wernikoff/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I can’t help but think his economic ideas will cause problematic inflationary issues. His threats to withhold federal emergency funds cause me to wonder if there’s a way we can “redirect” our federal tax payments to the state of California as a way to challenge his audacity. As he requires quid pro quo of other nations to receive our support, maybe we as a state should enact the same mentality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Carl, Manteca\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I am hoping for lower taxes, cheaper gasoline and utilities, and streamlined regulation for small businesses. I am optimistic about better economic growth and the enforcement of law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Emerson, Pleasant Valley\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think I’ll be hurt. Silicon Valley has caved to this man and many within that community, while not supporting him philosophically, recognize that economically they will do well. For people like me, who have professional jobs but can’t compete with high tech and finance salaries, the struggle will drive me out or limit my lifestyle. Meanwhile, many of my more privileged friends just want to avoid the news for the next 4 years. That’s not an option. We need to know what is coming at us and our nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Andria, San José\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People have given up looking for jobs and everything is so expensive I’m going into credit debt. I think the economy will get better and I hope housing prices can go down decreasing the homeless here in CA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– John, Folsom\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Discrimination and civil rights\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024467\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1777px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024467\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_1361_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1777\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_1361_qed.jpg 1777w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_1361_qed-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_1361_qed-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_1361_qed-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_1361_qed-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1777px) 100vw, 1777px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People protest President Donald Trump’s decision to bar transgender people from serving in the military, in a march through San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood on July 26, 2017. \u003ccite>(Polly Stryker/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I am a transgender woman and my life is severely impacted. With the recent passing of executive orders on January 20. With changes like workplace protections and private spaces, I no longer have the safety and security of how I do trivial things like shop, go to a bathroom, workout in a gym, or even use the post office. … Right now my right to live as who I am is under siege, and I don’t see myself staying in the U.S. much longer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Kaedi, Tustin\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Any online interactions have increased bigotry since the bigots feel protected now, which is unfortunate. I am an LGBTQ ally but I wouldn’t consider myself in that bracket. I get attacked online for mentioning that everyone has a right to their opinion and their identity. I’m also concerned for myself that we are regressing in terms of rights for minorities as I am a minority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Alexander, San Francisco\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The media is making a lot of noise, but Trump’s tactics of shock and awe can be very effective. Some fights/policies will fail and some I’ll disagree with, but the nation requires a much needed kick in the ass, so we could lead again, instead of being the woke nation that’s more focused on gender equality and DEI initiatives than creating opportunities for all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Cindy, Encinitas\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I live in East San José, a vibrant and ethnically diverse neighborhood. I also work for the UC system and was a community college counselor for years. I have seen first hand the long term/short term effects of the bigotry, blatant racism, and discrimination against undocumented Americans and folks who identify as LGBTQIA. Former students and their families living under intense fear is detrimental to their health and yet they all work here and pay taxes that they get zero benefits for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Nohemy, San José\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hope that I am not directly impacted, but I believe that Trump’s elitism and selfishness will empower the rich and the ignorant to treat perceived “others” with discrimination, contempt, or worse. As a white person, I am not that fearful; as a woman, I am extremely anxious and concerned. And for people of color, I am also very anxious and concerned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Sarah, Orange County\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The impact of fear, preparation, and resolve has been felt by the trans community since he was nominated to run for the Republican Party. We began to save medications, learn self-defense, understand our fragile rights, and learn to read legislation and Supreme Court tea leaves. … My optimism comes from knowing my elders have fought this before. Trans people have always, and will always, exist. We find joy in small moments while rusting the gears of the hate machine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chloe, L.A.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Housing and homelessness\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024498\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024498\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/027_KQED_WoodStreetEncampment_07192022_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/027_KQED_WoodStreetEncampment_07192022_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/027_KQED_WoodStreetEncampment_07192022_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/027_KQED_WoodStreetEncampment_07192022_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/027_KQED_WoodStreetEncampment_07192022_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/027_KQED_WoodStreetEncampment_07192022_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/027_KQED_WoodStreetEncampment_07192022_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign says, ‘Housing is a Human Right’ at the Cob on Wood Project at the Wood Street encampment in West Oakland on Tuesday, July 19, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I wish to see reduced homelessness, easier paths to home construction and easier agricultural access to water. Optimistic about the America First policies to focus on building more homes and propping up businesses by reducing the onerous regulatory state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Shannon, San Luis Obispo \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We need to help the homeless more as well as build housing for them and also for people whose income is considered “extremely low” and “low” income. I live in Senior subsidized housing so I have the lowest rent I can find but I worry if Trump takes away housing subsidies, rent will go up and I’ll be on the street as will many other seniors who live here.I also worry that I won’t be able to afford food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Jody, Contra Costa County\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By no means MAGA, I consider myself pretty moderate. But this state and much of the country needs a hard reboot. Voters feel overburdened with the cost of utilities, gas and housing. … Though Trump will not get some of his agenda accomplished, he’s going to shake things up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Cindy, Encinitas\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Immigration and border security \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971660\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971660\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/080923_Salinas-Farmworkers_SN_CM_16-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/080923_Salinas-Farmworkers_SN_CM_16-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/080923_Salinas-Farmworkers_SN_CM_16-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/080923_Salinas-Farmworkers_SN_CM_16-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/080923_Salinas-Farmworkers_SN_CM_16-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/080923_Salinas-Farmworkers_SN_CM_16-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Farmworkers harvest strawberries in Salinas on Aug. 9, 2023. \u003ccite>(Semantha Norris/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I went to work yesterday, the first day of class; the first day since Trump’s executive orders. I am sitting in a circle with my students. These are first generation young adults from all over California and a few international students from Uganda, Nigeria and China. My heart stops. What can I say to them to reassure them? As I pass out markers and construction paper so they can place their names, I add that they can also write their preferred pronoun. “Oops,” I add, “I just broke an executive order.” I refrain from saying that I will defy the other orders. If ICE comes to remove them, they will have to remove me too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Susan, Merced\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We need to prioritize fairness and justice. It’s unacceptable that illegal immigrants are often treated better than our Native American communities — this has to change, and I stand firmly for it. Ending birthright citizenship is a strong first step toward addressing these issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Amanda, Crescent City\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I live near the border and to see families separated from one another is heartbreaking. I’ve experienced immigration raids when I lived at the racetrack and the agents are completely lacking in compassion. My sister may have a harder time getting the medicine she needs. My adult children are half Mexican and already fear racist policies. I’m a bilingual teacher (white) and I worry for students. I work in minority communities. I’m afraid for the gardener here at the apartment complex where I live. And I’m angry at people who voted for Trump including my younger sister and brother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Stacey, La Mesa\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I am very concerned that we have illegal immigrants, gang members in drug cartels in our community and the state is refusing to work with the Trump administration to clear criminals out. I am concerned that California has become a criminal enabling state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Kerry, Los Angeles\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I am a teacher and I know there are several undocumented families in our community. I fear the day where I might not see my students anymore. I love my students and I will worry about them for the next four years. Also I have undocumented family members. I fear for their safety and whether the last day I saw them would have been my last.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Cynthia, Santa Clara County\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If this incoming administration deports undocumented Americans, imagine all the jobs that would be unfilled, education enrollments would continue to drop, tax revenue would decrease, but most tragic of all is that we would lose wonderful people who make our country better. In my 13 plus years of being in education, no one works harder and wants to be a contributor to our country than undocumented Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Nohemy, East San José\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Climate and the environment\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12021737\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12021737\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192687291.jpg\" alt=\"Firefighters look on as a big red smoky blaze comes over a hill.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192687291.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192687291-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192687291-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192687291-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A view of Palisades Fire as firefighting planes and helicopters drop water over flames in Mandeville Canyon in Los Angeles, on Jan. 10, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I think that I will benefit from the increased job possibilities from oil drilling and as a business owner I am glad to see limits on the EPA’s oversteps into our daily work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Shannon, San Luis Obispo\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I am worried about California receiving financial help for the L.A. fires. And I am afraid Trump will undo all climate change legislation, and as a result there will be more catastrophic weather events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Susan, San José\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It will be very disruptive. We have just suffered catastrophic wildfires that are still burning, and he doesn’t care. We are increasingly harmed by the climate crisis and he calls that a hoax. Our recovery from the Palisades and Eaton fires is likely to be harder, slower and meaner with his administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Sally, Los Angeles\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Division and anxiety \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12007728\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12007728\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/20240623_GAZAEVACUATION_GC-20-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/20240623_GAZAEVACUATION_GC-20-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/20240623_GAZAEVACUATION_GC-20-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/20240623_GAZAEVACUATION_GC-20-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/20240623_GAZAEVACUATION_GC-20-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/20240623_GAZAEVACUATION_GC-20-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/20240623_GAZAEVACUATION_GC-20-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Angelica Davila (right) faces off with a counterprotester at Window on the Bay Park in Monterey on June 23, 2024. Ceasefire demonstrators and Former President Trump supporters rallied at the same park. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Trump’s presidency is intentionally designed to keep us in constant states of anxiety and depression so that we’ll be worried about what he intends to do next and depressed about what he has done already. He will lie constantly & convince us to mistrust reliable sources of news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Barbara, Newark\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lies and disinformation that Trump’s team will be spewing out will certainly cause me great emotional distress because I fear it will lead more and more people from factual information and therefore to actions threatening our democracy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Elli, Yolo County\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It will make my life a living hell of chaos and confusion along with the never ending pack of lies that he tells … Why are there two systems of justice in this country? One for white males and the other for the rest of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– D.C., Fresno\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s going to be more chaos and hate. Less facts. Unfortunately I live in a predominantly red area in SLO County … I’ve had to be very careful not to discuss politics in any way shape or form for fear of being bullied and insulted for not confirming to the MAGA way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Catherine, Atascadero\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I won’t be decreasing my amitriptyline dose anytime soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Charmaine, Walnut Creek\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Cuts to social services programs\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024503\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024503\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240903-OverdoseResponse-56-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240903-OverdoseResponse-56-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240903-OverdoseResponse-56-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240903-OverdoseResponse-56-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240903-OverdoseResponse-56-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240903-OverdoseResponse-56-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240903-OverdoseResponse-56-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Paramedic Isaac James (left) and counselor Chantel Hernandez-Coleman, members of the Street Overdose Response Team, speak with 2 people sitting on the street in the South of Market neighborhood in San Francisco on Sept. 3, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Since I am disabled & have Medicare & Medi-Cal I worry that funding for my healthcare will be cut. I worry that there may be reduced funding for Section 8 (subsidized housing) and that also will affect me directly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Delia, South San Francisco\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m hoping the next four years under [Trump] will have little to no effect on my life or community, since the only effect we might see will be negative. Plans to cut social services, including Medicare and Social Security while cutting taxes for the oligarchs and increasing tariffs on foreign goods, including food, may bankrupt our family and put us out onto the street, worst case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Mike, Merced\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m not optimistic that anything will get better. I think he’s out to dismantle health care, Medicare and social security. I’m concerned for the farm workers who are instrumental in our rural agricultural community. His rhetoric is mean spirited and negative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>– \u003cstrong>Claudia, Nicolaus\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prices are going to go crazy and those of us on programs like Medicare, Social Security etc. will shiver in our boots until Trump leaves office. It’s very difficult to live under these threats when you are old and barely getting by as it is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>– Jody, Contra Costa County\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca id=\"A\">\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>Tell Us: How Will a Second Trump Presidency Impact Your Corner of California?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__shortcodes__shortcodeWrapper'>\n \u003ciframe\n src='https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe-6Em0FA1xZECy5BUiL9ZpDYksuiNmoh2TaPYkoWn-fV9wlQ/viewform?usp=preview?embedded=true'\n title='https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe-6Em0FA1xZECy5BUiL9ZpDYksuiNmoh2TaPYkoWn-fV9wlQ/viewform?usp=preview'\n width='760' height='500'\n frameborder='0'\n marginheight='0' marginwidth='0'>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "rebuilding-la-heres-what-fire-survivors-and-experts-say-is-key",
"title": "Rebuilding LA: Here's What Fire Survivors and Experts Say Is Key",
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"headTitle": "Rebuilding LA: Here’s What Fire Survivors and Experts Say Is Key | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Annie Barbour knows what it feels like to lose everything she worked for in an instant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The home she bought in Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park neighborhood in 1989 was almost paid off. She had just started to make renovations to prepare it for her son and his wife to live there someday. Then it burned — along with \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2017/10/8/tubbs-fire-central-lnu-complex/\">more than 5,600 other structures\u003c/a> in the 2017 Tubbs Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she returned to the spot where her home once stood, all she could see was rubble.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This whole place looked like a bomb had gone off,” she said. “You could see all the way through Coffey Park. No houses all the way to the railroad tracks. It was decimated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, there’s a one-story, taupe house with white eaves and a neatly trimmed front yard. Many of her neighbors’ homes have been rebuilt, as well. To the untrained eye, it might look like any other suburban neighborhood in the state, but most of the homes now have features designed to withstand wildfires to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barbour and her neighbors’ experiences with rebuilding offer lessons — backed by the latest research from architects and experts — for Southern Californians displaced by January’s wildfires, who are now just beginning to think about whether to rebuild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024077\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024077\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left, fire survivors and neighbors, Annie Barbour, Ernest Chapman and Danielle Bryant in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. Their homes burned down during the Tubbs Fire in 2017. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Barbour said she never considered not rebuilding her home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were all in shock,” she said. “And it took us a bit to just get our feet on the ground. But I really felt propelled by my anxiety to move forward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not every fire survivor can rebuild. A year after Barbour lost her home in Santa Rosa, the Camp Fire destroyed more than 18,000 structures in Paradise. Remaining residents have slowly built back some of those homes, about \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/11/08/1209471739/a-california-town-wiped-off-the-map-by-wildfire-is-still-recovering-five-years-o\">600 a year\u003c/a>, but the city is significantly less populated than it was before the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, the cost to rebuild has only increased and most insurance companies have \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101906641/california-regulators-roll-out-plan-to-stabilize-home-insurance-market\">limited, or altogether stopped\u003c/a>, offering policies in certain areas with high fire-risks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are looking at $10,000 to $20,000 a year for fire insurance, which doesn’t work for middle class Californians or those on a fixed income,” said Dr. Crystal Kolden with UC Merced’s Department of Engineering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for those who can and want to rebuild, fire experts say understanding how wildfires move and grow can help homeowners protect their house against the next one. That means reducing the fuels that feed fires, said Ian Giammanco, a researcher at the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you think about a hurricane or tornado, they’re not getting more intense because they’ve destroyed a bunch of buildings, but a wildfire absolutely is when it turns into one of these conflagration events,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The solution? Starve the fire of fuels by hardening homes, redesigning yards with fires in mind, and implementing neighborhood-scaled mitigation measures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024073\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024073\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1345\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-800x538.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-1020x686.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-160x108.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-1536x1033.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-1920x1291.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Annie Barbour’s former home where she raised her son, in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. Annie’s home burned down during the Tubbs Fire in 2017. Since then, she has rebuilt her home to better protect it from wildfires, where her son and daughter-in-law now live. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Rebuilding a home with fire-resistant materials\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When homeowners consider hardening their homes against earthquakes or hurricanes, they have to consider its structural integrity. With wildfires, it’s all about the outside of the house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting from the top, Giammanco said an up-to-date roof can make a world of difference for a home’s chances of surviving a fire. A \u003ca href=\"https://surviving-wildfire.extension.org/fire-ratings-for-roofing-material/#:~:text=Class%20A%20is%20the%20highest,an%20untreated%20wood%20shake%20roof.\">“Class A” roof\u003c/a>, which can be made of asphalt and fiberglass, concrete, clay or other materials, is the most fire resistant and is often required \u003ca href=\"https://codes.iccsafe.org/s/CABC2022P1/chapter-15-roof-assemblies-and-rooftop-structures/CABC2022P1-Ch15-Sec1505.2\">by California’s building code\u003c/a> for new construction in fire-sensitive areas. Some homeowners may choose a metal roof, which can be more expensive than an asphalt one, but is slightly more durable than asphalt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Below the roof, vents and eaves on the outside of the home can sometimes carry embers or hold debris, which can ignite inside or along a home. \u003ca href=\"https://readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/hardening-your-home/\">Cal Fire\u003c/a> recommends installing vents with metal mesh screens, which block the embers before they enter a home and will not immediately melt in the heat, along with closing eaves with similar, nonflammable materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024079\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024079\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Air vents constructed at Annie Barbour’s former home in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Moving down, the \u003ca href=\"https://readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/hardening-your-home/\">walls of a home\u003c/a> can also be built using stucco, concrete fiber board siding, or insulated concrete form, all of which are both less combustible and more energy efficient. These building materials are used to construct some homes today, but Giammanco said they would need to be adopted more broadly, especially in fire-prone areas, in order to achieve the scale needed to see them as the default option in homes across the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most of these materials are readily available today,” he said. “We are not asking for something new to be invented. We can take building materials we already know about that we already use and simply apply them in this way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lastly, Giammanco said it’s important to make sure the bottom of the house is not sitting on flammable material. The most critical part of the wall is the six inches between the ground and the home, which should be noncombustible, he said. Barbour’s home was rebuilt on a thick concrete slab, which holds the house slightly above the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024492\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024492\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The bottom of Annie Barbour’s home sits on a concrete slab in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. Concrete, which is naturally fire-proof, will protect the bottom of the home from fire damage. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Architect Brandon Jørgensen had recently finished a home in Napa, when the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2017/10/9/atlas-fire-southern-lnu-complex\">2017 Atlas Fire\u003c/a> started. The blaze, which broke out the same night as Santa Rosa’s Tubbs Fire, destroyed 783 structures and killed six people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The home was built with a Class A roof, without gutters or vents where embers could collect and had walls made of stone and cedar. Each external wall had several inches of concrete and earthen berms — compacted dirt or gravel — at its base to protect them from embers that could collect there during a fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The house took on a large amount of embers and those embers collected in the dead spaces at the base of the walls,” he said. “And the house was undamaged.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Landscaping makes a difference \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The next line of defense against a wildfire is the area immediately surrounding a home, what researchers call “\u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/dspace\">Zone Zero\u003c/a>.” This area should have \u003ca href=\"https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/zone-zero-mandates-near-completion-high-wildfire-risk-areas\">nothing combustible within it\u003c/a>. Imagine concrete sidewalks, beds of stone pebbles or gravel around the home instead of shrubs, wood mulch and wooden fences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Five feet around our homes — it’s the last place where things connect fire physically to our homes,” Giammanco said. “If we can make that noncombustible, we help break that chain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s Mediterranean climate means some of the state’s vegetation is flammable and is adapted to fire, according to Kolden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two of the most common — and also most flammable — plants Kolden sees in Californians’ yards are Italian cypress trees and juniper shrubs. Italian cypress trees can burn down quickly and spread embers through the air, igniting whatever it lands on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1604312663660502\">Juniper trees\u003c/a>, when set on fire, can become a “Roman candle” and shower flames around it. As homeowners in Southern California rebuild, Kolden, a former firefighter, hopes they will rethink planting these trees near their homes and instead choose plants that are still aesthetically pleasing, but less flammable, like succulents or flower annuals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024491\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024491\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A bed of pebbles line up the front yard of Annie Barbour’s former home in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. Pebbles are not flammable. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Before the Tubbs Fire, a wooden fence encircled Barbour’s home and acted as a wick, spreading the fire from house to house. Since then, Barbour has rebuilt much of that fence, but the last five feet — the part that touches her home — was replaced with a metal gate, which can stop the flame from reaching her home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her neighbors still have wooden fences that touch their homes, but after seeing Barbour’s gate, some have asked her for quotes on how much it might cost to make that change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My home is paid off, I don’t need to lose it again, so I’ll do whatever I can do,” she said. “It would be really ridiculous for me to not set an example.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024074\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024074\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A 5-foot metal gate which separates Annie Barbour’s former home from the neighbor’s home in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. The metal gate breaks the spread of a wildfire to the home. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But a house is still a home, and there are certain changes Barbour knows she needs to make to ensure hers is wildfire-resistant. Though, it doesn’t mean those changes are any less painful to enact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, a Japanese maple tree sits in her backyard, a gift a friend gave her after she rebuilt her home. Its branches and brightly colored leaves touch her home’s back wall, closest to the primary bedroom. She knows she will have to cut it down eventually, but she said it will hurt. She recently cut down a blooming wisteria vine on her boyfriend’s property to make it more fire-safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was beautiful, and he was like ‘I’ve trained that for years, it’s one of my happiest features when I come around in the garage, and it is draped around the porch,’” she said. “We finally came to a meeting of minds, and he stayed inside while I hacked it down. It was very hard for him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Building back your community\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Many homes in the Pacific Palisades and Malibu that were destroyed in the fires were in an area fire experts call the “wildland-urban interface,” or WUI. \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/dspace\">According to Cal Fire\u003c/a>, one of the most effective ways to mitigate wildfires is to create a large “defensible space” of clean, noncombustible materials 100 feet around a home.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"science_1965575,news_12023793, science_12022615,news_12015150,news_12021019\"] The homes rebuilt there should not only use wildfire-focused building codes to ensure it can meaningfully resist fire, Giammanco said, but should be spaced farther apart from each other, especially if they are within 10 feet of their neighbor’s house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The key is to make sure the outer ring of structures that butt up against where the wildfire is going to enter that community have as much protection as we can give them,” he said. “It allows us to use almost a perimeter defense working our way inward where we could allow dense construction because we’ve got really good provisions and protections.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Coffey Park, a cement wall runs along the back of Barbour’s property and the other homes along her street, which is parallel to a busy thoroughfare. This type of wall is commonplace in suburbs across the country. California has spent more than any other state — over \u003ca href=\"https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/noise/noise_barriers/inventory/graphs/graph01.cfm\">$1 billion since 1963\u003c/a> — to construct these walls, which block sound pollution from highways and busy roads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the fire, Coffey Park’s wall had a wooden beam running along the top of it, which spread the flames across the neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024478\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024478\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2500\" height=\"833\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2.jpg 2500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-800x267.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-1020x340.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-160x53.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-1536x512.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-2048x682.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-1920x640.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: A hopper wall, seen from Annie Barbour’s former home, built to block out the sound from the busy road, is also fire-resistant, on Jan. 23, 2025. In the inside of the wall is a metal cage with styrofoam inside, supported by rebar and cement, then covered with concrete which makes the wall more fire-resistant than a simple concrete wall. Right: A hopper wall along Hopper St. in Santa Rosa, built to block out the sound from the busy road, is also fire-resistant, on Jan. 23, 2025. In the inside of the wall is a metal cage with styrofoam inside, supported by rebar and cement, then covered with concrete which makes the wall more fire-resistant than a simple concrete wall. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But these walls, if constructed with fire resistant materials, can also act as a barrier against oncoming flames. Coffey Park’s wall was rebuilt with styrofoam supported by rebar and cement, encased in a metal cage and concrete. Those materials, assembled by the building company\u003ca href=\"https://www.rsg3d.com/\"> RSG-3\u003c/a>, make the wall more fire resistant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As California, and the rest of the world, grapples with the increasingly damaging impacts of climate change, Kolden said the state cannot afford to design its cities the same way it has for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are places that were predominantly built during an era of really different approaches to building communities — more suburban tracts of cookie-cutter housing was the norm,” she said. “What Altadena and Pacific Palisades have right now is an opportunity to say, ‘Alright, we have a blank slate with a lot of stakeholders, and every parcel owner is a stakeholder in the future.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The L.A. fires destroyed nearly 12,000 homes so far. As the city rebuilds, what design factors should be considered so that homes can better withstand wildfires and other natural disasters in the face of climate change? ",
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"title": "Rebuilding LA: Here's What Fire Survivors and Experts Say Is Key | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Annie Barbour knows what it feels like to lose everything she worked for in an instant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The home she bought in Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park neighborhood in 1989 was almost paid off. She had just started to make renovations to prepare it for her son and his wife to live there someday. Then it burned — along with \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2017/10/8/tubbs-fire-central-lnu-complex/\">more than 5,600 other structures\u003c/a> in the 2017 Tubbs Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she returned to the spot where her home once stood, all she could see was rubble.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This whole place looked like a bomb had gone off,” she said. “You could see all the way through Coffey Park. No houses all the way to the railroad tracks. It was decimated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, there’s a one-story, taupe house with white eaves and a neatly trimmed front yard. Many of her neighbors’ homes have been rebuilt, as well. To the untrained eye, it might look like any other suburban neighborhood in the state, but most of the homes now have features designed to withstand wildfires to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barbour and her neighbors’ experiences with rebuilding offer lessons — backed by the latest research from architects and experts — for Southern Californians displaced by January’s wildfires, who are now just beginning to think about whether to rebuild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024077\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024077\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left, fire survivors and neighbors, Annie Barbour, Ernest Chapman and Danielle Bryant in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. Their homes burned down during the Tubbs Fire in 2017. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Barbour said she never considered not rebuilding her home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were all in shock,” she said. “And it took us a bit to just get our feet on the ground. But I really felt propelled by my anxiety to move forward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not every fire survivor can rebuild. A year after Barbour lost her home in Santa Rosa, the Camp Fire destroyed more than 18,000 structures in Paradise. Remaining residents have slowly built back some of those homes, about \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/11/08/1209471739/a-california-town-wiped-off-the-map-by-wildfire-is-still-recovering-five-years-o\">600 a year\u003c/a>, but the city is significantly less populated than it was before the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, the cost to rebuild has only increased and most insurance companies have \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101906641/california-regulators-roll-out-plan-to-stabilize-home-insurance-market\">limited, or altogether stopped\u003c/a>, offering policies in certain areas with high fire-risks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are looking at $10,000 to $20,000 a year for fire insurance, which doesn’t work for middle class Californians or those on a fixed income,” said Dr. Crystal Kolden with UC Merced’s Department of Engineering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for those who can and want to rebuild, fire experts say understanding how wildfires move and grow can help homeowners protect their house against the next one. That means reducing the fuels that feed fires, said Ian Giammanco, a researcher at the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you think about a hurricane or tornado, they’re not getting more intense because they’ve destroyed a bunch of buildings, but a wildfire absolutely is when it turns into one of these conflagration events,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The solution? Starve the fire of fuels by hardening homes, redesigning yards with fires in mind, and implementing neighborhood-scaled mitigation measures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024073\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024073\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1345\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-800x538.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-1020x686.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-160x108.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-1536x1033.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-1920x1291.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Annie Barbour’s former home where she raised her son, in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. Annie’s home burned down during the Tubbs Fire in 2017. Since then, she has rebuilt her home to better protect it from wildfires, where her son and daughter-in-law now live. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Rebuilding a home with fire-resistant materials\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When homeowners consider hardening their homes against earthquakes or hurricanes, they have to consider its structural integrity. With wildfires, it’s all about the outside of the house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting from the top, Giammanco said an up-to-date roof can make a world of difference for a home’s chances of surviving a fire. A \u003ca href=\"https://surviving-wildfire.extension.org/fire-ratings-for-roofing-material/#:~:text=Class%20A%20is%20the%20highest,an%20untreated%20wood%20shake%20roof.\">“Class A” roof\u003c/a>, which can be made of asphalt and fiberglass, concrete, clay or other materials, is the most fire resistant and is often required \u003ca href=\"https://codes.iccsafe.org/s/CABC2022P1/chapter-15-roof-assemblies-and-rooftop-structures/CABC2022P1-Ch15-Sec1505.2\">by California’s building code\u003c/a> for new construction in fire-sensitive areas. Some homeowners may choose a metal roof, which can be more expensive than an asphalt one, but is slightly more durable than asphalt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Below the roof, vents and eaves on the outside of the home can sometimes carry embers or hold debris, which can ignite inside or along a home. \u003ca href=\"https://readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/hardening-your-home/\">Cal Fire\u003c/a> recommends installing vents with metal mesh screens, which block the embers before they enter a home and will not immediately melt in the heat, along with closing eaves with similar, nonflammable materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024079\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024079\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Air vents constructed at Annie Barbour’s former home in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Moving down, the \u003ca href=\"https://readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/hardening-your-home/\">walls of a home\u003c/a> can also be built using stucco, concrete fiber board siding, or insulated concrete form, all of which are both less combustible and more energy efficient. These building materials are used to construct some homes today, but Giammanco said they would need to be adopted more broadly, especially in fire-prone areas, in order to achieve the scale needed to see them as the default option in homes across the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most of these materials are readily available today,” he said. “We are not asking for something new to be invented. We can take building materials we already know about that we already use and simply apply them in this way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lastly, Giammanco said it’s important to make sure the bottom of the house is not sitting on flammable material. The most critical part of the wall is the six inches between the ground and the home, which should be noncombustible, he said. Barbour’s home was rebuilt on a thick concrete slab, which holds the house slightly above the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024492\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024492\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The bottom of Annie Barbour’s home sits on a concrete slab in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. Concrete, which is naturally fire-proof, will protect the bottom of the home from fire damage. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Architect Brandon Jørgensen had recently finished a home in Napa, when the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2017/10/9/atlas-fire-southern-lnu-complex\">2017 Atlas Fire\u003c/a> started. The blaze, which broke out the same night as Santa Rosa’s Tubbs Fire, destroyed 783 structures and killed six people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The home was built with a Class A roof, without gutters or vents where embers could collect and had walls made of stone and cedar. Each external wall had several inches of concrete and earthen berms — compacted dirt or gravel — at its base to protect them from embers that could collect there during a fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The house took on a large amount of embers and those embers collected in the dead spaces at the base of the walls,” he said. “And the house was undamaged.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Landscaping makes a difference \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The next line of defense against a wildfire is the area immediately surrounding a home, what researchers call “\u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/dspace\">Zone Zero\u003c/a>.” This area should have \u003ca href=\"https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/zone-zero-mandates-near-completion-high-wildfire-risk-areas\">nothing combustible within it\u003c/a>. Imagine concrete sidewalks, beds of stone pebbles or gravel around the home instead of shrubs, wood mulch and wooden fences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Five feet around our homes — it’s the last place where things connect fire physically to our homes,” Giammanco said. “If we can make that noncombustible, we help break that chain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s Mediterranean climate means some of the state’s vegetation is flammable and is adapted to fire, according to Kolden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two of the most common — and also most flammable — plants Kolden sees in Californians’ yards are Italian cypress trees and juniper shrubs. Italian cypress trees can burn down quickly and spread embers through the air, igniting whatever it lands on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1604312663660502\">Juniper trees\u003c/a>, when set on fire, can become a “Roman candle” and shower flames around it. As homeowners in Southern California rebuild, Kolden, a former firefighter, hopes they will rethink planting these trees near their homes and instead choose plants that are still aesthetically pleasing, but less flammable, like succulents or flower annuals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024491\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024491\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A bed of pebbles line up the front yard of Annie Barbour’s former home in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. Pebbles are not flammable. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Before the Tubbs Fire, a wooden fence encircled Barbour’s home and acted as a wick, spreading the fire from house to house. Since then, Barbour has rebuilt much of that fence, but the last five feet — the part that touches her home — was replaced with a metal gate, which can stop the flame from reaching her home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her neighbors still have wooden fences that touch their homes, but after seeing Barbour’s gate, some have asked her for quotes on how much it might cost to make that change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My home is paid off, I don’t need to lose it again, so I’ll do whatever I can do,” she said. “It would be really ridiculous for me to not set an example.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024074\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024074\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A 5-foot metal gate which separates Annie Barbour’s former home from the neighbor’s home in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. The metal gate breaks the spread of a wildfire to the home. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But a house is still a home, and there are certain changes Barbour knows she needs to make to ensure hers is wildfire-resistant. Though, it doesn’t mean those changes are any less painful to enact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, a Japanese maple tree sits in her backyard, a gift a friend gave her after she rebuilt her home. Its branches and brightly colored leaves touch her home’s back wall, closest to the primary bedroom. She knows she will have to cut it down eventually, but she said it will hurt. She recently cut down a blooming wisteria vine on her boyfriend’s property to make it more fire-safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was beautiful, and he was like ‘I’ve trained that for years, it’s one of my happiest features when I come around in the garage, and it is draped around the porch,’” she said. “We finally came to a meeting of minds, and he stayed inside while I hacked it down. It was very hard for him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Building back your community\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Many homes in the Pacific Palisades and Malibu that were destroyed in the fires were in an area fire experts call the “wildland-urban interface,” or WUI. \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/dspace\">According to Cal Fire\u003c/a>, one of the most effective ways to mitigate wildfires is to create a large “defensible space” of clean, noncombustible materials 100 feet around a home.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> The homes rebuilt there should not only use wildfire-focused building codes to ensure it can meaningfully resist fire, Giammanco said, but should be spaced farther apart from each other, especially if they are within 10 feet of their neighbor’s house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The key is to make sure the outer ring of structures that butt up against where the wildfire is going to enter that community have as much protection as we can give them,” he said. “It allows us to use almost a perimeter defense working our way inward where we could allow dense construction because we’ve got really good provisions and protections.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Coffey Park, a cement wall runs along the back of Barbour’s property and the other homes along her street, which is parallel to a busy thoroughfare. This type of wall is commonplace in suburbs across the country. California has spent more than any other state — over \u003ca href=\"https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/noise/noise_barriers/inventory/graphs/graph01.cfm\">$1 billion since 1963\u003c/a> — to construct these walls, which block sound pollution from highways and busy roads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the fire, Coffey Park’s wall had a wooden beam running along the top of it, which spread the flames across the neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024478\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024478\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2500\" height=\"833\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2.jpg 2500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-800x267.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-1020x340.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-160x53.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-1536x512.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-2048x682.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-1920x640.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: A hopper wall, seen from Annie Barbour’s former home, built to block out the sound from the busy road, is also fire-resistant, on Jan. 23, 2025. In the inside of the wall is a metal cage with styrofoam inside, supported by rebar and cement, then covered with concrete which makes the wall more fire-resistant than a simple concrete wall. Right: A hopper wall along Hopper St. in Santa Rosa, built to block out the sound from the busy road, is also fire-resistant, on Jan. 23, 2025. In the inside of the wall is a metal cage with styrofoam inside, supported by rebar and cement, then covered with concrete which makes the wall more fire-resistant than a simple concrete wall. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But these walls, if constructed with fire resistant materials, can also act as a barrier against oncoming flames. Coffey Park’s wall was rebuilt with styrofoam supported by rebar and cement, encased in a metal cage and concrete. Those materials, assembled by the building company\u003ca href=\"https://www.rsg3d.com/\"> RSG-3\u003c/a>, make the wall more fire resistant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As California, and the rest of the world, grapples with the increasingly damaging impacts of climate change, Kolden said the state cannot afford to design its cities the same way it has for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are places that were predominantly built during an era of really different approaches to building communities — more suburban tracts of cookie-cutter housing was the norm,” she said. “What Altadena and Pacific Palisades have right now is an opportunity to say, ‘Alright, we have a blank slate with a lot of stakeholders, and every parcel owner is a stakeholder in the future.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "monterey-county-battery-fire-linked-surge-heavy-metals-nature-reserves-soil",
"title": "Monterey County Battery Fire Linked to Surge of Heavy Metals in Nature Reserve’s Soil",
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"headTitle": "Monterey County Battery Fire Linked to Surge of Heavy Metals in Nature Reserve’s Soil | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>After a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12023562/after-huge-monterey-county-battery-fire-locals-describe-headaches-nausea-and-a-taste-of-metal\">massive fire\u003c/a> at a Monterey County energy storage facility this month, scientists at San José State University have found heightened levels of heavy metals in the nearby Elkhorn Slough Reserve, they said Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unusually high concentrations of nickel, manganese and cobalt were detected in soils within 2 miles of the lithium battery storage site, according to field surveys conducted by the university’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, which has monitored the area for years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite initial reports from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and local authorities that the Jan. 16 fire did not release toxins, local environmental groups have warned of the potential for dangerous levels of particulate matter and other chemicals and have pushed for more testing of nearby soil and water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire at the storage facility owned by Vistra Corporation, which supplies energy back to the power grid, engulfed about 80% of the building and its 100,000 batteries in flames, sending a dark plume of smoke high into the air for hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Ivano Aiello, the chair of San José State’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, said that after the fire, his lab tested the soil in a 2-mile radius of the plant, which is near the Elkhorn Slough estuary. After taking multiple measurements from about 100 locations, his lab observed a hundreds-fold rise in the concentration of the three toxic heavy metals along the top layer of the soil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aiello said his team linked the heightened levels to the fire because the concentration of the heavy metals was only elevated in the top millimeters of the soil, indicating that they were recently deposited. The spherical nanoparticles they found are also used in materials for lithium-ion batteries, connecting the contamination to the battery fire, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022726\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022726\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/MossLandingFire1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/MossLandingFire1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/MossLandingFire1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/MossLandingFire1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/MossLandingFire1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/MossLandingFire1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/MossLandingFire1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A fire burns at Moss Landing Power Plant on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Iman-Floyd Carroll)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“They are clearly the type of material from a battery, so you can link directly the occurrence increasing of this toxic heavy metal to the source, which is a battery,” he said. “The line of evidence from a scientific perspective is pretty solid. There’s no other explanation as to why before the concentrations were much lower and now are much higher, and those elements are linked to those nanoparticles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA had set up nine monitoring stations to monitor the air for small particulate matter and hydrogen fluoride, a highly toxic gas emitted by lithium-ion battery fires, for the four days after the fire broke out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials said that they did not detect heightened levels of the pollutants, and neither did a company hired by Vistra to detect the same two compounds. A Facebook group of almost 3,000 locals in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, however, has amassed discussion of headaches, sore throats, nausea and other symptoms that residents believe could be related to the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Polkabla, the principal industrial hygienist with BioMax Environmental, a consulting firm specializing in hazardous materials and industrial hygiene, told KQED last week that the EPA’s air monitoring stations wouldn’t tell the full story because hydrogen fluoride likely wouldn’t be detectable once the plume of smoke was cleared. He also raised the alarm about metals like cobalt, manganese and nickel, along with lithium, and pushed for soil and water testing both at the battery facility and in nearby areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12023562 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/MossLandingGetty-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monterey County, which was initially vague about whether it would test water and soil around the power plant, announced Thursday that it would work with the state to collect water, debris and dust samples at and around the Vistra facility. A spokesperson for Vistra said the company “might” test soil “if there are indications around the site that there might be some compounds or constituents that we think need to be tested.” The company did not respond to a request for comment on Monday about what the company’s most recent plans are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The county said Monday that it was currently analyzing soil and water samples with experts from the California Department of Public Health, state-level EPA and epidemiologists, looking for any potential health concerns and determining next steps. A spokesperson said they hope to provide preliminary results later this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Public health and environmental safety remain our top priorities, and we are committed to providing transparent, science-based updates to the community as we assess the findings in collaboration with our state and federal partners,” the statement reads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aiello’s team is also turning to assess the impact of their findings on the Elkhorn Slough, which he said is the second-largest estuary in California and one of the most diverse and essential ecosystems for hundreds of fish and bird species. It acts as a carbon sink and buffer for sea level rise, he told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to understand exactly how those particles move through the soil, whether they get in the groundwater, whether they’re getting to waterways and how they may move to the food web — from microbes in the sediments to invertebrates in the soils or in the water to fish and mammals,” Aiello said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While those particles are interacting with the environment, they will change,” he continued. “The different toxic metals will start reacting with the surroundings, so that will change a molecular form, and they might become bioavailable. That’s something that we need to study.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aside from the potential impact on the food chain, it’s also unknown how the heavy metals will affect people who live nearby or were exposed during the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cobalt has been associated with cardiomyopathy, lung disease and hearing damage, while nickel is categorized as a carcinogen, according to the National Institutes of Health. Manganese can “cause a disorder alike to idiopathic Parkinson’s disease,” the site said, and all three have been known to cause negative effects at the cellular and molecular levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/danbrekke\">\u003cem>Dan Brekke\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Scientists at San José State University said Monday that after the huge fire this month, they found unusually high levels of nickel, manganese and cobalt in the Elkhorn Slough.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12023562/after-huge-monterey-county-battery-fire-locals-describe-headaches-nausea-and-a-taste-of-metal\">massive fire\u003c/a> at a Monterey County energy storage facility this month, scientists at San José State University have found heightened levels of heavy metals in the nearby Elkhorn Slough Reserve, they said Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unusually high concentrations of nickel, manganese and cobalt were detected in soils within 2 miles of the lithium battery storage site, according to field surveys conducted by the university’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, which has monitored the area for years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite initial reports from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and local authorities that the Jan. 16 fire did not release toxins, local environmental groups have warned of the potential for dangerous levels of particulate matter and other chemicals and have pushed for more testing of nearby soil and water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire at the storage facility owned by Vistra Corporation, which supplies energy back to the power grid, engulfed about 80% of the building and its 100,000 batteries in flames, sending a dark plume of smoke high into the air for hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Ivano Aiello, the chair of San José State’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, said that after the fire, his lab tested the soil in a 2-mile radius of the plant, which is near the Elkhorn Slough estuary. After taking multiple measurements from about 100 locations, his lab observed a hundreds-fold rise in the concentration of the three toxic heavy metals along the top layer of the soil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aiello said his team linked the heightened levels to the fire because the concentration of the heavy metals was only elevated in the top millimeters of the soil, indicating that they were recently deposited. The spherical nanoparticles they found are also used in materials for lithium-ion batteries, connecting the contamination to the battery fire, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022726\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022726\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/MossLandingFire1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/MossLandingFire1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/MossLandingFire1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/MossLandingFire1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/MossLandingFire1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/MossLandingFire1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/MossLandingFire1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A fire burns at Moss Landing Power Plant on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Iman-Floyd Carroll)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“They are clearly the type of material from a battery, so you can link directly the occurrence increasing of this toxic heavy metal to the source, which is a battery,” he said. “The line of evidence from a scientific perspective is pretty solid. There’s no other explanation as to why before the concentrations were much lower and now are much higher, and those elements are linked to those nanoparticles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA had set up nine monitoring stations to monitor the air for small particulate matter and hydrogen fluoride, a highly toxic gas emitted by lithium-ion battery fires, for the four days after the fire broke out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials said that they did not detect heightened levels of the pollutants, and neither did a company hired by Vistra to detect the same two compounds. A Facebook group of almost 3,000 locals in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, however, has amassed discussion of headaches, sore throats, nausea and other symptoms that residents believe could be related to the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Polkabla, the principal industrial hygienist with BioMax Environmental, a consulting firm specializing in hazardous materials and industrial hygiene, told KQED last week that the EPA’s air monitoring stations wouldn’t tell the full story because hydrogen fluoride likely wouldn’t be detectable once the plume of smoke was cleared. He also raised the alarm about metals like cobalt, manganese and nickel, along with lithium, and pushed for soil and water testing both at the battery facility and in nearby areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monterey County, which was initially vague about whether it would test water and soil around the power plant, announced Thursday that it would work with the state to collect water, debris and dust samples at and around the Vistra facility. A spokesperson for Vistra said the company “might” test soil “if there are indications around the site that there might be some compounds or constituents that we think need to be tested.” The company did not respond to a request for comment on Monday about what the company’s most recent plans are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The county said Monday that it was currently analyzing soil and water samples with experts from the California Department of Public Health, state-level EPA and epidemiologists, looking for any potential health concerns and determining next steps. A spokesperson said they hope to provide preliminary results later this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Public health and environmental safety remain our top priorities, and we are committed to providing transparent, science-based updates to the community as we assess the findings in collaboration with our state and federal partners,” the statement reads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aiello’s team is also turning to assess the impact of their findings on the Elkhorn Slough, which he said is the second-largest estuary in California and one of the most diverse and essential ecosystems for hundreds of fish and bird species. It acts as a carbon sink and buffer for sea level rise, he told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to understand exactly how those particles move through the soil, whether they get in the groundwater, whether they’re getting to waterways and how they may move to the food web — from microbes in the sediments to invertebrates in the soils or in the water to fish and mammals,” Aiello said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While those particles are interacting with the environment, they will change,” he continued. “The different toxic metals will start reacting with the surroundings, so that will change a molecular form, and they might become bioavailable. That’s something that we need to study.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aside from the potential impact on the food chain, it’s also unknown how the heavy metals will affect people who live nearby or were exposed during the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cobalt has been associated with cardiomyopathy, lung disease and hearing damage, while nickel is categorized as a carcinogen, according to the National Institutes of Health. Manganese can “cause a disorder alike to idiopathic Parkinson’s disease,” the site said, and all three have been known to cause negative effects at the cellular and molecular levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/danbrekke\">\u003cem>Dan Brekke\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Trump Eliminates Protections for Black and Latino Communities Hit Harder by Pollution",
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"content": "\u003cp>For four years, the Environmental Protection Agency made environmental justice \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/biden-environmental-justice-climate-change-a0575c5d26502d562d44411b7b0bf7b2\">one of its biggest priorities\u003c/a>, working to improve health conditions in heavily polluted communities often made up largely of Black, Latino and low-income Americans. Now that short-lived era is over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Donald Trump, in his first week, eliminated a team of White House advisors whose job it was to ensure the entire federal government helped communities located near heavy industry, ports and roadways. Trump eliminated the “Justice40” initiative the Biden administration had created. It required 40% of the benefits from certain environmental programs go to hard-hit communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the government reviews new facilities now, experts say officials are likely to ignore how any pollution they create may exacerbate what communities already experience. Trump’s actions will likely halt funds from the Biden administration’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, for climate programs and environmental justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In making the decision this week, Trump eliminated federal \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-illegal-discrimination-and-restoring-merit-based-opportunity/\">policy dating back to the Clinton era\u003c/a>, which had established a government priority of addressing environmental health problems for low-income and minority groups. He also withdrew \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/trump-paris-agreement-climate-change-788907bb89fe307a964be757313cdfb0\">the nation from the Paris\u003c/a> Agreement aimed at combatting climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new administration’s moves combine two goals: clawing back what Trump officials say are onerous environmental policies that constrain development and fighting \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/trump-executive-orders-dei-7ef0bf4ce1d465f6b61f3fcfde544593\">diversity, equity and inclusion\u003c/a>, according to Joe Luppino-Esposito, federal policy chief with the free-market law firm Pacific Legal Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve had this discussion at the Supreme Court and otherwise for many years, past discrimination is not an excuse for future discrimination,” he said, adding that Trump’s executive orders allow the law to be enforced “without a specific racial tinge to it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many experts say Biden accomplished more than any previous administration in this area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An EPA-funded study found, for example, that Black people at all income levels are more likely to breathe pollution that causes heart and lung problems. Under Biden, regulators wrote public health rules, tighter air pollution standards and proposed mandates for harmful lead pipes. The EPA issued the largest-ever fine under the federal Clean Air Act and \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/epa-enforcement-inspections-environmental-justice-75c7997b101632d4666d879772261fd8\">said it slashed more than 225 million pounds of pollution\u003c/a> in overburdened communities. Federal grants went to communities to clean up Superfund sites or buy low-emissions school buses. The EPA set up an office to facilitate its substantial environmental justice work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What I’m grappling right now with is both the grief of these losses and the fact that we were on an upward swing, if you will, just weeks ago,” said Jade Begay, an Indigenous rights and climate organizer in New Mexico.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, government support for grassroots environmental justice efforts rose and fell depending on who occupied the White House. Scrappy, local groups found ways, sometimes with help from foundations, to get their work done regardless. The Biden administration spent time, attention and resources on the issue, making it higher profile — and a bigger target, according to Christophe Courchesne, a law professor and interim director of the Environmental Law Center at the Vermont Law and Graduate School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental justice got swept up into “this pitched battle over diversity, equity and inclusion,” Courchesne said. “This developed over time into a target of conservative activism.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Daniel Gall, an EPA spokesman, said the agency under Trump would work for clean air, land and water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“EPA is working to diligently implement President Trump’s executive orders,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The policy changes diverge from the last time Trump was president. Scott Pruitt, who headed the EPA for part of Trump’s first term, once called environmental justice conversations “critical to improving environmental and public health outcomes.” Trump’s new orders are more sweeping; moves that Rena Payan, chief program officer at the Oakland, California nonprofit Justice Outside, called “rolling back decades of progress in addressing environmental discrimination.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration is not only ditching long-standing policies, it is directing agencies to eliminate jobs dedicated to environmental justice and diversity, equity and inclusion issues, \u003ca href=\"https://www.opm.gov/media/0gpnja24/opm-memo-guidance-regarding-rifs-of-deia-offices-1-24-2025.pdf\">according to a recent memo.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They are not limited to the public sphere. The new administration is also looking to remove diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the private sector — a step that goes further than some anticipated, according to Julius Redd, an environmental attorney at Beveridge & Diamond P.C.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anne Rolfes, director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, which helps communities in the heart of the petrochemical industry, echoed other advocates and said the Biden administration did some great things but didn’t do nearly enough to enforce the law, allowing polluters too much free reign in heavily industrialized Louisiana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now it’ll get worse, and an already industry-friendly state is likely to let polluters build even more quickly. “We just have to buckle up and get ready,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label='Related Coverage' tag='environmental-justice']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That change feels disheartening to Ash LaMont, national campaigns director for Honor The Earth, a nonprofit focused on raising awareness and support for environmental issues in Native American communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve been spending a lot of time really figuring out what is our next step, what are the things that we can do that will last, despite the administration, and what are the very apparent needs of our community members,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump’s decision to cut off support will hurt, but many of these local organizations will return to operating without federal support, said Peggy Shepard, co-founder and executive director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice in New York.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocacy will shift to the state and local level. That might work in some places, but it’ll be an uphill battle in Republican-controlled states like Louisiana and Texas, where there’s little receptivity to that advocacy, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were finally beginning to get support at the EPA and at the White House,” she said, “and this is a big step back for the communities who are front line to some of these issues.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For four years, the Environmental Protection Agency made environmental justice \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/biden-environmental-justice-climate-change-a0575c5d26502d562d44411b7b0bf7b2\">one of its biggest priorities\u003c/a>, working to improve health conditions in heavily polluted communities often made up largely of Black, Latino and low-income Americans. Now that short-lived era is over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Donald Trump, in his first week, eliminated a team of White House advisors whose job it was to ensure the entire federal government helped communities located near heavy industry, ports and roadways. Trump eliminated the “Justice40” initiative the Biden administration had created. It required 40% of the benefits from certain environmental programs go to hard-hit communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the government reviews new facilities now, experts say officials are likely to ignore how any pollution they create may exacerbate what communities already experience. Trump’s actions will likely halt funds from the Biden administration’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, for climate programs and environmental justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In making the decision this week, Trump eliminated federal \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-illegal-discrimination-and-restoring-merit-based-opportunity/\">policy dating back to the Clinton era\u003c/a>, which had established a government priority of addressing environmental health problems for low-income and minority groups. He also withdrew \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/trump-paris-agreement-climate-change-788907bb89fe307a964be757313cdfb0\">the nation from the Paris\u003c/a> Agreement aimed at combatting climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new administration’s moves combine two goals: clawing back what Trump officials say are onerous environmental policies that constrain development and fighting \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/trump-executive-orders-dei-7ef0bf4ce1d465f6b61f3fcfde544593\">diversity, equity and inclusion\u003c/a>, according to Joe Luppino-Esposito, federal policy chief with the free-market law firm Pacific Legal Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve had this discussion at the Supreme Court and otherwise for many years, past discrimination is not an excuse for future discrimination,” he said, adding that Trump’s executive orders allow the law to be enforced “without a specific racial tinge to it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many experts say Biden accomplished more than any previous administration in this area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An EPA-funded study found, for example, that Black people at all income levels are more likely to breathe pollution that causes heart and lung problems. Under Biden, regulators wrote public health rules, tighter air pollution standards and proposed mandates for harmful lead pipes. The EPA issued the largest-ever fine under the federal Clean Air Act and \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/epa-enforcement-inspections-environmental-justice-75c7997b101632d4666d879772261fd8\">said it slashed more than 225 million pounds of pollution\u003c/a> in overburdened communities. Federal grants went to communities to clean up Superfund sites or buy low-emissions school buses. The EPA set up an office to facilitate its substantial environmental justice work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What I’m grappling right now with is both the grief of these losses and the fact that we were on an upward swing, if you will, just weeks ago,” said Jade Begay, an Indigenous rights and climate organizer in New Mexico.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, government support for grassroots environmental justice efforts rose and fell depending on who occupied the White House. Scrappy, local groups found ways, sometimes with help from foundations, to get their work done regardless. The Biden administration spent time, attention and resources on the issue, making it higher profile — and a bigger target, according to Christophe Courchesne, a law professor and interim director of the Environmental Law Center at the Vermont Law and Graduate School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental justice got swept up into “this pitched battle over diversity, equity and inclusion,” Courchesne said. “This developed over time into a target of conservative activism.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Daniel Gall, an EPA spokesman, said the agency under Trump would work for clean air, land and water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“EPA is working to diligently implement President Trump’s executive orders,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The policy changes diverge from the last time Trump was president. Scott Pruitt, who headed the EPA for part of Trump’s first term, once called environmental justice conversations “critical to improving environmental and public health outcomes.” Trump’s new orders are more sweeping; moves that Rena Payan, chief program officer at the Oakland, California nonprofit Justice Outside, called “rolling back decades of progress in addressing environmental discrimination.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration is not only ditching long-standing policies, it is directing agencies to eliminate jobs dedicated to environmental justice and diversity, equity and inclusion issues, \u003ca href=\"https://www.opm.gov/media/0gpnja24/opm-memo-guidance-regarding-rifs-of-deia-offices-1-24-2025.pdf\">according to a recent memo.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They are not limited to the public sphere. The new administration is also looking to remove diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the private sector — a step that goes further than some anticipated, according to Julius Redd, an environmental attorney at Beveridge & Diamond P.C.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anne Rolfes, director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, which helps communities in the heart of the petrochemical industry, echoed other advocates and said the Biden administration did some great things but didn’t do nearly enough to enforce the law, allowing polluters too much free reign in heavily industrialized Louisiana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now it’ll get worse, and an already industry-friendly state is likely to let polluters build even more quickly. “We just have to buckle up and get ready,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That change feels disheartening to Ash LaMont, national campaigns director for Honor The Earth, a nonprofit focused on raising awareness and support for environmental issues in Native American communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve been spending a lot of time really figuring out what is our next step, what are the things that we can do that will last, despite the administration, and what are the very apparent needs of our community members,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump’s decision to cut off support will hurt, but many of these local organizations will return to operating without federal support, said Peggy Shepard, co-founder and executive director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice in New York.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocacy will shift to the state and local level. That might work in some places, but it’ll be an uphill battle in Republican-controlled states like Louisiana and Texas, where there’s little receptivity to that advocacy, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were finally beginning to get support at the EPA and at the White House,” she said, “and this is a big step back for the communities who are front line to some of these issues.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Trump Orders More Central Valley Water Deliveries — Claiming It Would Help LA Fires",
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"content": "\u003cp>President Donald Trump signed \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/emergency-measures-to-provide-water-resources-in-california-and-improve-disaster-response-in-certain-areas/\">a sweeping executive order\u003c/a> on Sunday that told federal agencies to “immediately take action” to deliver more Central Valley water and eliminate rules that stand in the way, including endangered species protections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the new order, Trump cited the Los Angeles fires, even though the actions he is ordering — delivering more water from the federal \u003ca href=\"https://www.usbr.gov/mp/cvp/about-cvp.html\">Central Valley Project\u003c/a> — would primarily serve farms. About 75% of Central Valley Project water \u003ca href=\"https://www.watereducation.org/aquapedia/central-valley-project#:~:text=The%20CVP%20features%20a%20combined,supplies%20several%20cities%2C%20including%20Fresno.\">is used for agriculture\u003c/a>, while much of the rest goes to cities and towns in the San Joaquin Valley, including Sacramento and Fresno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In particular, the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Commerce shall immediately take actions to override existing activities that unduly burden efforts to maximize water deliveries,” Trump’s order reads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At stake are the rules that guide two massive Delta water systems: the federal Central Valley Project and a state-operated system, the State Water Project. These networks of reservoirs, pumps and canals deliver water to millions of acres of farmland and 30 million people. They draw water from rivers that flow into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay, which imperils Chinook salmon, smelt and sturgeon that are protected by the federal Endangered Species Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump ordered federal agencies to “expedite action related to any exemption under the Endangered Species Act…for the long-term operation” of the water delivery systems. In addition, he directed the federal Bureau of Reclamation to “take all available measures to ensure that State agencies — including the California Department of Water Resources — do not interfere.” He entitled a section, “Overriding Disastrous California Policies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental groups are likely to sue if federal agencies override the Endangered Species Act when setting rules that control how much water is delivered via the Central Valley Project or State Water Project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Do not be fooled by Trump’s lies: none of the policies in this executive order will move even a single drop of extra water to communities devastated by these wildfires. This administration is presenting us with a false choice,” U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat who is the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement on Sunday. “Fishers, farmers, treasured species, and every water user all depend on our water resources – we do not have to pick winners or losers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several community watchdog and environmental groups, including Restore the Delta and San Francisco Baykeeper, warned that Trump’s actions “will have devastating consequences for California’s water future, public health, and environmental protections, threatening a federal takeover of California’s right to manage its land and waters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Noting that the actions would benefit farmers, San Francisco Baykeeper Science Director Jon Rosenfield called the administration “a lawless regime that uses extortion to enrich their political supporters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The powerful \u003ca href=\"https://wwd.ca.gov/about-westlands/\">Westlands Water District\u003c/a>, representing farmers in parts of Kings and Fresno counties, said Sunday that they welcome Trump’s order. “The challenges that he highlights are real, and his leadership in addressing the barriers to water delivery are welcomed,” the district said in a statement. “It’s clear that what we’ve been doing for the past few decades has not been working; not for the people, for agriculture, or for the fish.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump’s order said, “It is in the Nation’s interest to ensure that California has what it needs to prevent and fight these fires and others in the future. Therefore, it is the policy of the United States to provide Southern California with necessary water resources, notwithstanding actively harmful State or local policies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The environmental groups said Trump’s directives “conflate fire prevention needs with water operations in California all based on the myth that water operations for environmental protections had any impact on water infrastructure used in the Los Angeles fires.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some Los Angeles fire hydrants ran out of water fighting the fires, but city fire and utility officials say\u003ca href=\"https://www.ladwpnews.com/pacific-palisades-fire-correcting-misinformation-about-ladwps-water-system/\"> it was caused by a sudden surge in demand and limited capacity of city pipelines\u003c/a>, not lack of water supply. In addition, the city’s water comes mostly from the Owens Valley, the Colorado River and groundwater, not the Delta or the Central Valley, and Southern California cities say they have ample supply after two wet winters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The premise of this executive order is false,” said Newsom spokesperson Tara Gallegos. “Attempts to connect water management in Northern California to local wildfire fighting in Los Angeles have zero factual basis. California continues to pump as much water as it did under the Trump administration’s policies, and water operations to move water south through the Delta have absolutely nothing to do with the local fire response in Los Angeles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State water \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-drought-monitor/\">reservoirs in Southern California\u003c/a> are at above-average levels. “There is \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/water/2025/01/california-rain-drought-north-south/\">no shortage of water in Southern California\u003c/a>, which is why the Governor has\u003ca href=\"https://x.com/GavinNewsom/status/1877823208273178995\"> called for an investigation into the local response\u003c/a>,” Gallegos said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rosenfield said the State Water Project ensures, even in the worst of droughts, that communities have a minimum share of water designated for purposes of “human health and safety,” which includes firefighting needs. “They always deliver that human health and safety water, always — it’s never interrupted,” Rosenfield said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Central Valley Project provides about 5 million acres feet of water to farms, enough to irrigate about a third of the agricultural land in California, according to the Bureau of Reclamation. It also delivers about 600,000 acre-feet for municipal and industrial use in the San Joaquin Valley and some Bay Area cities, enough to supply about 1 million households with water each year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump called on the Bureau of Reclamation to operate the Central Valley Project with rules that his first administration implemented in 2020. Reverting to those rules could override rules signed into law in December by Biden administration officials and endorsed by Gov. Gavin Newsom administration officials. The Biden rules would reduce Central Valley Project farm deliveries, but the State Water Project — which serves Southern California cities as well as San Joaquin Valley farms — would receive \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/water/2025/01/trump-california-water-delta-rules/\">more water\u003c/a> compared to Trump’s 2020 rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Directors of the state’s water and resources agencies could not be reached for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ryan Endean, a public information officer with the California Department of Water Resources, said in a statement last week that his agency stands by its new Delta water management rules. Under those rules, Endean said, “farms and cities have the potential to gain additional water supply, while endangered species are protected. To abandon these new frameworks would harm California water users and protection of native fish species.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts say the Bay-Delta ecosystem is collapsing, and salmon populations have declined so severely that commercial and recreational salmon fishing have been banned in California for two straight years — \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/water/2024/10/salmon-fishing-california/\">with a third year expected, too\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The order follows a series of remarks in recent weeks by the President that reflect a profound misunderstanding of California’s water supply, weaving between inaccurate and fantastical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Pacific Palisades on Friday, while visiting with local leaders in the aftermath of the region’s wildfires, Trump said, “We have to have that water … You’re talking about unlimited water coming down from the Pacific Northwest, even coming up from parts of Canada, and it pours down naturally … you’ll never run out, you’ll never have shortages and you won’t have things like this, and when you do you’ll have a lot of water to put it out.” Water does not flow into California from Canada, and the Pacific Northwest does not feed into Central Valley rivers. Instead, the water comes largely from Sierra Nevada snowmelt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The order also includes provisions to expedite aid to victims of the Southern California wildfires and Hurricane Helene in North Carolina.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He ordered federal agencies to provide a plan that “expedites options for housing relief to survivors displaced by wildfires in California.” Also, “within 5 days from the date of this order,” he ordered federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, to “expedite the bulk removal of contaminated and general debris” in order “to accelerate the rebuilding of areas devastated” by the wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>County officials and the Army Corps of Engineers officials have warned homeowners in the fire zones that \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-25/authorities-warn-of-dangers-of-sifting-through-debris-at-fire-ravaged-properties\">sifting through debris and removing it could be harmful\u003c/a> without guidelines and precautions from the EPA for handling hazardous waste.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>President Donald Trump signed \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/emergency-measures-to-provide-water-resources-in-california-and-improve-disaster-response-in-certain-areas/\">a sweeping executive order\u003c/a> on Sunday that told federal agencies to “immediately take action” to deliver more Central Valley water and eliminate rules that stand in the way, including endangered species protections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the new order, Trump cited the Los Angeles fires, even though the actions he is ordering — delivering more water from the federal \u003ca href=\"https://www.usbr.gov/mp/cvp/about-cvp.html\">Central Valley Project\u003c/a> — would primarily serve farms. About 75% of Central Valley Project water \u003ca href=\"https://www.watereducation.org/aquapedia/central-valley-project#:~:text=The%20CVP%20features%20a%20combined,supplies%20several%20cities%2C%20including%20Fresno.\">is used for agriculture\u003c/a>, while much of the rest goes to cities and towns in the San Joaquin Valley, including Sacramento and Fresno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In particular, the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Commerce shall immediately take actions to override existing activities that unduly burden efforts to maximize water deliveries,” Trump’s order reads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At stake are the rules that guide two massive Delta water systems: the federal Central Valley Project and a state-operated system, the State Water Project. These networks of reservoirs, pumps and canals deliver water to millions of acres of farmland and 30 million people. They draw water from rivers that flow into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay, which imperils Chinook salmon, smelt and sturgeon that are protected by the federal Endangered Species Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump ordered federal agencies to “expedite action related to any exemption under the Endangered Species Act…for the long-term operation” of the water delivery systems. In addition, he directed the federal Bureau of Reclamation to “take all available measures to ensure that State agencies — including the California Department of Water Resources — do not interfere.” He entitled a section, “Overriding Disastrous California Policies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental groups are likely to sue if federal agencies override the Endangered Species Act when setting rules that control how much water is delivered via the Central Valley Project or State Water Project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Do not be fooled by Trump’s lies: none of the policies in this executive order will move even a single drop of extra water to communities devastated by these wildfires. This administration is presenting us with a false choice,” U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat who is the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement on Sunday. “Fishers, farmers, treasured species, and every water user all depend on our water resources – we do not have to pick winners or losers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several community watchdog and environmental groups, including Restore the Delta and San Francisco Baykeeper, warned that Trump’s actions “will have devastating consequences for California’s water future, public health, and environmental protections, threatening a federal takeover of California’s right to manage its land and waters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Noting that the actions would benefit farmers, San Francisco Baykeeper Science Director Jon Rosenfield called the administration “a lawless regime that uses extortion to enrich their political supporters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The powerful \u003ca href=\"https://wwd.ca.gov/about-westlands/\">Westlands Water District\u003c/a>, representing farmers in parts of Kings and Fresno counties, said Sunday that they welcome Trump’s order. “The challenges that he highlights are real, and his leadership in addressing the barriers to water delivery are welcomed,” the district said in a statement. “It’s clear that what we’ve been doing for the past few decades has not been working; not for the people, for agriculture, or for the fish.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump’s order said, “It is in the Nation’s interest to ensure that California has what it needs to prevent and fight these fires and others in the future. Therefore, it is the policy of the United States to provide Southern California with necessary water resources, notwithstanding actively harmful State or local policies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The environmental groups said Trump’s directives “conflate fire prevention needs with water operations in California all based on the myth that water operations for environmental protections had any impact on water infrastructure used in the Los Angeles fires.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some Los Angeles fire hydrants ran out of water fighting the fires, but city fire and utility officials say\u003ca href=\"https://www.ladwpnews.com/pacific-palisades-fire-correcting-misinformation-about-ladwps-water-system/\"> it was caused by a sudden surge in demand and limited capacity of city pipelines\u003c/a>, not lack of water supply. In addition, the city’s water comes mostly from the Owens Valley, the Colorado River and groundwater, not the Delta or the Central Valley, and Southern California cities say they have ample supply after two wet winters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The premise of this executive order is false,” said Newsom spokesperson Tara Gallegos. “Attempts to connect water management in Northern California to local wildfire fighting in Los Angeles have zero factual basis. California continues to pump as much water as it did under the Trump administration’s policies, and water operations to move water south through the Delta have absolutely nothing to do with the local fire response in Los Angeles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State water \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-drought-monitor/\">reservoirs in Southern California\u003c/a> are at above-average levels. “There is \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/water/2025/01/california-rain-drought-north-south/\">no shortage of water in Southern California\u003c/a>, which is why the Governor has\u003ca href=\"https://x.com/GavinNewsom/status/1877823208273178995\"> called for an investigation into the local response\u003c/a>,” Gallegos said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rosenfield said the State Water Project ensures, even in the worst of droughts, that communities have a minimum share of water designated for purposes of “human health and safety,” which includes firefighting needs. “They always deliver that human health and safety water, always — it’s never interrupted,” Rosenfield said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Central Valley Project provides about 5 million acres feet of water to farms, enough to irrigate about a third of the agricultural land in California, according to the Bureau of Reclamation. It also delivers about 600,000 acre-feet for municipal and industrial use in the San Joaquin Valley and some Bay Area cities, enough to supply about 1 million households with water each year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump called on the Bureau of Reclamation to operate the Central Valley Project with rules that his first administration implemented in 2020. Reverting to those rules could override rules signed into law in December by Biden administration officials and endorsed by Gov. Gavin Newsom administration officials. The Biden rules would reduce Central Valley Project farm deliveries, but the State Water Project — which serves Southern California cities as well as San Joaquin Valley farms — would receive \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/water/2025/01/trump-california-water-delta-rules/\">more water\u003c/a> compared to Trump’s 2020 rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Directors of the state’s water and resources agencies could not be reached for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ryan Endean, a public information officer with the California Department of Water Resources, said in a statement last week that his agency stands by its new Delta water management rules. Under those rules, Endean said, “farms and cities have the potential to gain additional water supply, while endangered species are protected. To abandon these new frameworks would harm California water users and protection of native fish species.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts say the Bay-Delta ecosystem is collapsing, and salmon populations have declined so severely that commercial and recreational salmon fishing have been banned in California for two straight years — \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/water/2024/10/salmon-fishing-california/\">with a third year expected, too\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The order follows a series of remarks in recent weeks by the President that reflect a profound misunderstanding of California’s water supply, weaving between inaccurate and fantastical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Pacific Palisades on Friday, while visiting with local leaders in the aftermath of the region’s wildfires, Trump said, “We have to have that water … You’re talking about unlimited water coming down from the Pacific Northwest, even coming up from parts of Canada, and it pours down naturally … you’ll never run out, you’ll never have shortages and you won’t have things like this, and when you do you’ll have a lot of water to put it out.” Water does not flow into California from Canada, and the Pacific Northwest does not feed into Central Valley rivers. Instead, the water comes largely from Sierra Nevada snowmelt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The order also includes provisions to expedite aid to victims of the Southern California wildfires and Hurricane Helene in North Carolina.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He ordered federal agencies to provide a plan that “expedites options for housing relief to survivors displaced by wildfires in California.” Also, “within 5 days from the date of this order,” he ordered federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, to “expedite the bulk removal of contaminated and general debris” in order “to accelerate the rebuilding of areas devastated” by the wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Rain on the way to parched Southern California on Saturday will aid firefighters mopping up multiple wildfires. But heavy downpours on charred hillsides could bring the threat of new troubles like \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-toxic-ash-health-fa845b7573ba463bf2e61ea3042c66a2\">toxic ash runoff\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles County crews spent much of the week removing vegetation, shoring up slopes and reinforcing roads in devastated areas of the Palisades and Eaton fires, which reduced entire neighborhoods to rubble and ash after breaking out during powerful winds Jan. 7.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the region will likely get around an inch of precipitation over several days, but “the threat is high enough to prepare for the worst-case scenario” of localized cloudbursts causing mud and debris to flow down hills, the National Weather Service said on social media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So the problem would be if one of those showers happens to park itself over a burn area,” weather service meteorologist Carol Smith said Saturday. “That could be enough to create debris flows.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rain was expected to begin late Saturday, increase throughout the weekend and possibly last into early Tuesday, Smith said. Flood watches were issued for some burn areas. Snow was likely in the mountains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-fires-los-angeles-winds-red-flag-warnings-5e599783ebd34a446e5b6690e0ecc777\">issued an executive order this week\u003c/a> to expedite cleanup efforts and mitigate the environmental impacts of fire-related pollutants. L.A. County supervisors also approved an emergency motion to install flood-control infrastructure and expedite and remove sediment in fire-impacted areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire crews filled sandbags for communities while county workers installed barriers and cleared drainage pipes and basins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials cautioned that ash in recent burn zones was \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-fires-children-schools-toxic-ash-3295ce74c5b4d41d7db6a08428ddd2e8\">a toxic mix\u003c/a> of incinerated cars, electronics, batteries, building materials, paints, furniture and other household items. It contains pesticides, asbestos, plastics and lead. Residents were urged to wear protective gear while cleaning up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Concerns about post-fire debris flows have been especially high since 2018, when the town of Montecito up the coast from L.A. was \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/ec4b52c64e954c5c91ad5d9dcb29ca98\">ravaged by mudslides\u003c/a> after a downpour hit mountain slopes burned bare by a huge blaze. Twenty-three people died, and hundreds of homes were damaged.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_12023695,news_12021661,news_12024151\"]While the impending wet weather ended weeks of dangerous gusts and reduced humidity, several wildfires were still burning Saturday across Southern California. Those included the Palisades and Eaton fires, which \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-victim-zhao-altadena-a59f2cf70d1b0f6736b4819031b3727c\">killed at least 28 people\u003c/a> and destroyed more than 14,000 structures. Containment of the Palisades Fire reached 81%, and the Eaton Fire was at 95% containment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In northern Los Angeles County, firefighters made significant progress against the Hughes Fire, which prompted evacuations for tens of thousands of people when it erupted Wednesday in mountains near Lake Castaic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in San Diego County, there was still little containment of the Border 2 Fire churning through a remote area of the Otay Mountain Wilderness near the U.S.-Mexico border.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rain was expected to snap a near-record streak of dry weather for Southern California. Much of the region has received less than 5% of the average rainfall for this point in the water year, which began Oct. 1, the \u003cem>Los Angeles Times\u003c/em> reported Saturday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of Southern California is now either in “extreme drought” or “severe drought,” according to the \u003ca href=\"https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?West\">U.S. Drought Monitor\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"order": 9
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"order": 15
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"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 18
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"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
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"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
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"masters-of-scale": {
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"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
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"meta": {
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"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
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"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
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"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 11
},
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"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
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},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
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"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
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},
"perspectives": {
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"order": 14
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"planet-money": {
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"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
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},
"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 5
},
"link": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
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"source": "Possible"
},
"link": "/radio/program/possible",
"subscribe": {
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/730YpdUSNlMyPQwNnyjp4k"
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},
"pri-the-world": {
"id": "pri-the-world",
"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
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"requestOutcomesReducer": {
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