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"content": "\u003cp>On a swath of federal desert land about an hour’s drive east of Palm Springs, construction workers drive row after row of big metal posts into the desert floor. These posts will soon be topped by thousands of solar panels. When construction is finished, the solar power project at Victory Pass will have a footprint of about 3,000 acres — that’s three times the size of Golden Gate Park. And when it’s connected to California’s energy grid, the facility will generate enough power for more than 130,000 homes, according to Raisa Lee, project developer for San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.clearwayenergygroup.com/\">Clearway Energy\u003c/a>, which is building the project.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11922377,news_11898992,science_995050\"]The green energy boom is accelerating in the deserts of California. It’s a boom that’s been encouraged by the Biden administration, which has streamlined renewable energy development within \u003ca href=\"https://www.blm.gov/programs/planning-and-nepa/plans-in-development/california/desert-renewable-energy-conservation-plan\">nearly 11 million acres of federal desert land\u003c/a> in seven California counties. Many of those projects are industrial-scale solar facilities built by companies like Clearway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as the state’s deserts play a growing part in helping to create the green energy revolution, a backlash is also growing among those who argue that desert wilderness is being sacrificed for renewable power goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>John Woody, vice president at Clearway Energy, says these huge desert solar projects are necessary if California is going to meet its goal of ending dependence on fossil fuels and fighting climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California needs to add about 6 gigawatts a year of these renewable energy and storage projects to meet their clean energy goals, 90% by 2035 and 100% by 2045,” said Woody in a recent interview at the company’s Daggett project in San Bernardino County. When it opens late next year, the energy plant will be the largest solar power and battery storage facility in the state, and buyers for power are already lined up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11935145\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1912-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11935145 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1912-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"posts in the ground in the desert are part of the construction process for solar energy farms\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1912-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1912-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1912-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1912-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1912-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1912-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1912-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">As part of the construction of industrial-scale solar, desert land is graded and thousands of posts are driven into the ground at Victory Pass. The posts will be topped with solar panel modules moved by motors to track the movement of the sun. Renewable energy companies are attracted to the desert for both the abundance of sunshine and available land. \u003ccite>(Saul Gonzalez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Still, Woody argues the company’s work is about more than profit: “We’re just doing our small part to help California meet those goals,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some environmentalists disagree that such large-scale construction in the desert is necessary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are ways to do this without bulldozing old-growth desert with millennia-old plants, endemic populations of rare organisms, and endangered and threatened species,” said Chris Clarke, associate director of the California Desert Program at the National Parks Conservation Association and the co-host of \u003ca href=\"https://90milesfromneedles.com/\">a podcast about threats to the desert\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like other environmentalists, Clarke worries about the habitat of endangered animal life, like the desert tortoise, as thousands of acres of desert land are turned into solar power farms. He argues that as California goes all in on solar, the projects should be built on rooftops in coastal cities and suburbs, where most of the power generated will end up anyway, and not hundreds of miles away in the state’s deserts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11935154\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/IMG_4735-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11935154 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/IMG_4735-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a woman and a man dressed warmly smile for a portrait in the desert against a blue sky\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/IMG_4735-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/IMG_4735-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/IMG_4735-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/IMG_4735-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/IMG_4735-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/IMG_4735-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/IMG_4735-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Environmentalists Chris Clarke and Alicia Pike are hosts of a podcast, ’90 Miles From Needles,’ that explores dangers to the California desert. They argue that industrial-scale solar projects, which cover thousands of acres, pose a growing threat to the habitat of desert flora and fauna, like the desert tortoise. \u003ccite>(Saul Gonzalez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The threat to the desert right now is similar to the threats that other places in North America faced in the 19th century, where people were starting to notice what was there and starting to figure out how they could profit off it,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, more desert land continues to be prepped for the installation of solar panels, joining solar power facilities that have already been built. Back at Clearway’s Victory Pass solar site, project manager John Moon pointed to the distant desert landscape and all the other solar projects in the area, with names like Desert Sunlight, Desert Harvest and Maverick One. As ground is broken on more projects, the debate will continue over how to balance the goals of creating a renewable energy revolution and protecting the state’s desert lands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11935155\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1935-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11935155 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1935-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"solar panels are seen in the desert in front of a mountain range\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1935-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1935-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1935-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1935-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1935-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1935-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1935-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Outside the desert community of Daggett in San Bernardino County, San Francisco-based Clearway Energy is building an enormous solar power facility. Clearway is constructing such renewable energy projects on both private and public lands and says the potential for desert solar power is enormous. \u003ccite>(Saul Gonzalez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Clearway’s John Woody argues that extraordinary efforts are being taken by both private companies and the government to protect the desert’s ecosystems as solar facilities are built. He also says California’s green power goals are so enormous, it’s impossible to make an “either/or” choice between urban rooftop solar versus desert solar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no silver bullet. You can’t do one or the other,” said Woody. “You need to sort of do all of the above.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On a swath of federal desert land about an hour’s drive east of Palm Springs, construction workers drive row after row of big metal posts into the desert floor. These posts will soon be topped by thousands of solar panels. When construction is finished, the solar power project at Victory Pass will have a footprint of about 3,000 acres — that’s three times the size of Golden Gate Park. And when it’s connected to California’s energy grid, the facility will generate enough power for more than 130,000 homes, according to Raisa Lee, project developer for San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.clearwayenergygroup.com/\">Clearway Energy\u003c/a>, which is building the project.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The green energy boom is accelerating in the deserts of California. It’s a boom that’s been encouraged by the Biden administration, which has streamlined renewable energy development within \u003ca href=\"https://www.blm.gov/programs/planning-and-nepa/plans-in-development/california/desert-renewable-energy-conservation-plan\">nearly 11 million acres of federal desert land\u003c/a> in seven California counties. Many of those projects are industrial-scale solar facilities built by companies like Clearway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as the state’s deserts play a growing part in helping to create the green energy revolution, a backlash is also growing among those who argue that desert wilderness is being sacrificed for renewable power goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>John Woody, vice president at Clearway Energy, says these huge desert solar projects are necessary if California is going to meet its goal of ending dependence on fossil fuels and fighting climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California needs to add about 6 gigawatts a year of these renewable energy and storage projects to meet their clean energy goals, 90% by 2035 and 100% by 2045,” said Woody in a recent interview at the company’s Daggett project in San Bernardino County. When it opens late next year, the energy plant will be the largest solar power and battery storage facility in the state, and buyers for power are already lined up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11935145\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1912-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11935145 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1912-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"posts in the ground in the desert are part of the construction process for solar energy farms\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1912-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1912-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1912-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1912-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1912-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1912-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1912-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">As part of the construction of industrial-scale solar, desert land is graded and thousands of posts are driven into the ground at Victory Pass. The posts will be topped with solar panel modules moved by motors to track the movement of the sun. Renewable energy companies are attracted to the desert for both the abundance of sunshine and available land. \u003ccite>(Saul Gonzalez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Still, Woody argues the company’s work is about more than profit: “We’re just doing our small part to help California meet those goals,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some environmentalists disagree that such large-scale construction in the desert is necessary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are ways to do this without bulldozing old-growth desert with millennia-old plants, endemic populations of rare organisms, and endangered and threatened species,” said Chris Clarke, associate director of the California Desert Program at the National Parks Conservation Association and the co-host of \u003ca href=\"https://90milesfromneedles.com/\">a podcast about threats to the desert\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like other environmentalists, Clarke worries about the habitat of endangered animal life, like the desert tortoise, as thousands of acres of desert land are turned into solar power farms. He argues that as California goes all in on solar, the projects should be built on rooftops in coastal cities and suburbs, where most of the power generated will end up anyway, and not hundreds of miles away in the state’s deserts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11935154\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/IMG_4735-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11935154 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/IMG_4735-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a woman and a man dressed warmly smile for a portrait in the desert against a blue sky\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/IMG_4735-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/IMG_4735-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/IMG_4735-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/IMG_4735-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/IMG_4735-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/IMG_4735-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/IMG_4735-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Environmentalists Chris Clarke and Alicia Pike are hosts of a podcast, ’90 Miles From Needles,’ that explores dangers to the California desert. They argue that industrial-scale solar projects, which cover thousands of acres, pose a growing threat to the habitat of desert flora and fauna, like the desert tortoise. \u003ccite>(Saul Gonzalez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The threat to the desert right now is similar to the threats that other places in North America faced in the 19th century, where people were starting to notice what was there and starting to figure out how they could profit off it,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, more desert land continues to be prepped for the installation of solar panels, joining solar power facilities that have already been built. Back at Clearway’s Victory Pass solar site, project manager John Moon pointed to the distant desert landscape and all the other solar projects in the area, with names like Desert Sunlight, Desert Harvest and Maverick One. As ground is broken on more projects, the debate will continue over how to balance the goals of creating a renewable energy revolution and protecting the state’s desert lands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11935155\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1935-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11935155 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1935-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"solar panels are seen in the desert in front of a mountain range\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1935-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1935-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1935-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1935-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1935-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1935-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/DSCF1935-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Outside the desert community of Daggett in San Bernardino County, San Francisco-based Clearway Energy is building an enormous solar power facility. Clearway is constructing such renewable energy projects on both private and public lands and says the potential for desert solar power is enormous. \u003ccite>(Saul Gonzalez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Clearway’s John Woody argues that extraordinary efforts are being taken by both private companies and the government to protect the desert’s ecosystems as solar facilities are built. He also says California’s green power goals are so enormous, it’s impossible to make an “either/or” choice between urban rooftop solar versus desert solar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no silver bullet. You can’t do one or the other,” said Woody. “You need to sort of do all of the above.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "how-californias-drought-is-changing-the-politics-of-the-nations-largest-notoriously-thirsty-farming-district",
"title": "How California's Drought Is Changing the Politics of the Nation's Largest, Notoriously Thirsty Farming District",
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"headTitle": "How California’s Drought Is Changing the Politics of the Nation’s Largest, Notoriously Thirsty Farming District | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Late in the afternoon on Nov. 14, a historic email landed in the inboxes of hundreds of California farmers whose land lies within the \u003ca href=\"https://wwd.ca.gov/\">Westlands Water District\u003c/a>, the largest agricultural irrigation agency in the country — and one of the most controversial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For decades, Westlands has led the fight against environmental rules that restrict the flow of water from California’s rivers to its farmers. It \u003ca href=\"https://www.farmprogress.com/westlands-water-district-files-lawsuit-biological-opinion\">sued the government\u003c/a>, lobbied friendly politicians and took on critics wherever it found them, even in Congress. “Where’s the outrage, that government decisions have created zero water supplies for communities in the San Joaquin Valley?” Westlands General Manager Tom Birmingham admonished a congressional committee in 2016.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Tim Quinn, visiting fellow, Water in the West program, Stanford University\"]‘I spent much of my career in the San Joaquin Valley watching [these groups] fight with each other. I wasn’t really convinced that they were ready for the kind of collaboration that I thought was necessary. And turns out, by God, they were.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.watereducation.org/western-water/he-steps-aside-tim-quinn-talks-about-adversarialists-collaboration-and-hope-solving\">Tim Quinn\u003c/a>, former executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, says the leaders of Westlands “were pretty entrenched in adversarial decision-making. It was us versus them, and we were going to win and they were going to lose.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The email, however, revealed that the old guard at Westlands had been swept aside in voting for board seats at the farmer-run organization. The winning candidates, part of a self-described Change Coalition, are demanding that the district spend less time fighting legal and political battles and more time figuring out ways to live with less water. Birmingham, an imperious figure who has run Westlands for more than 20 years, later announced he’ll retire at the end of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vote is a sign that even in the most conservative parts of California’s Central Valley, the biggest single source of America’s fresh produce, attitudes are shifting. Farmers are coming to terms with the fact that their operations will have to change — and, in many areas, shrink — to survive chronic drought, depleted aquifers and climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A legacy of political power\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://waterwise.ag/about-us\">Sarah Woolf\u003c/a>, one of the new guard, is an unlikely rebel. She grew up in a farming family just outside the boundary of Westlands Water District, then married into another one — the Woolfs, who run one of the biggest farming operations in the district. She became an expert on water policy, and runs her own consulting business, Water Wise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than anyone else, she catalyzed the movement for change at Westlands. “I just didn’t feel that it was appropriate to go along to get along,” she says. “We weren’t making positive strides.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To understand what she wanted to change, you have to go back in time to the 1950s and 1960s. The farmers who’d been growing food on the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley needed water. There are no big rivers on this side of the valley; growers relied instead on deep wells drilled into aquifers. But that underground reservoir wouldn’t last long, and everyone knew it.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11933826,news_11931467\"]The farmers and their backers got the federal government to build a new dam and canal that connected their land to the system of dams and aqueducts known as the Central Valley Project. \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B7V-xrvgro\">President Kennedy himself showed up\u003c/a> for the groundbreaking. The new canal delivered water from dams hundreds of miles to the north, like Shasta and Trinity. Westlands Water District was formed to distribute that water to 600,000 acres of land. \u003ca href=\"https://mark-arax.com/the-dreamt-land/\">Mark Arax\u003c/a>, a writer who has chronicled the rise of Central Valley agriculture, calls it an act of “pure political power.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had a fair amount of clout, legislatively,” Woolf says. “We were a very rich district; we had politically active landowners. We hired very talented lobbyists.” The 700 or so farms within Westlands are mostly large, high-tech operations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1992, though, Westlands met the limits of its power. Over its protests, Congress enacted the \u003ca href=\"https://www.watereducation.org/aquapedia/central-valley-project-improvement-act\">Central Valley Project Improvement Act\u003c/a>. This law limited deliveries of water to farmers when this could threaten the survival of wildlife, such as fish in the \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/Water-Basics/The-Delta\">Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta\u003c/a> — the sprawling network of waterways that empties into the San Francisco Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11934738\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11934738 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01c.-WestlandsWater.jpg\" alt=\"A middle-aged white woman with shoulder-length blonde hair, a long-sleeved blouse, and a white puffer vest stands in the shade in a field between two rows of trees. She smiles at the camera.\" width=\"2500\" height=\"1273\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01c.-WestlandsWater.jpg 2500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01c.-WestlandsWater-800x407.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01c.-WestlandsWater-1020x519.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01c.-WestlandsWater-160x81.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01c.-WestlandsWater-1536x782.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01c.-WestlandsWater-2048x1043.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01c.-WestlandsWater-1920x978.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Farmer and Water Wise business owner Sarah Woolf has been a catalyst for change. \u003ccite>(Dan Charles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This law, together with rulings from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, cut the flow of water to Westlands dramatically during years of drought. Some years, the \u003ca href=\"https://wwd.ca.gov/district-water-supply/\">growers got no water at all\u003c/a>. They were shocked and furious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The district’s approach was to fight it. Tooth and nail,” Woolf says. “They hired the best attorneys. They hired the best lobbyists.” Their approach, she says, was simple: “We will fight this and we will win because we are right.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet Woolf grew increasingly convinced that this battle was futile. Farmers were up against too many other powerful interests. She decided that cooperation was the only solution and urged Westlands to stop pushing legislation “that was only beneficial to us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2012, after she was appointed to a vacant seat on the Westlands board, she tried unsuccessfully to get Westlands to sit down with other groups, including environmentalists, to explore possible compromises. She ended up butting heads with Tom Birmingham, partly over policies and partly over Birmingham’s personal style. “He’s an authoritarian, even a dictator,” Woolf says with a laugh. “It’s his show.” Birmingham declined to be interviewed for this story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2018, \u003ca href=\"https://gvwire.com/2018/09/06/woolf-resigns-from-westlands-board-whats-next-for-water-district/\">Woolf resigned from the Westlands board with a public letter of protest\u003c/a>. She wrote that her efforts to “direct our district in a more collaborative and progressive direction” had met stubborn resistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then, other farmers started reaching out to her. They were increasingly worried. Drought was becoming more frequent. In four of the past nine years, Westlands has received no water at all from the Central Valley Project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Westlands farmers had stayed in business by pumping enormous amounts of groundwater from shrinking aquifers. But a new California law, the \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/programs/groundwater-management/sgma-groundwater-management\">Sustainable Groundwater Management Act\u003c/a>, will severely restrict their ability to do this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think this farming community is really struggling at this point,” says \u003ca href=\"https://www.redrockranchinc.com/ourteam\">Justin Diener\u003c/a>, whose family grows vegetables and almonds near Five Points. “There are a lot of people who are kind of looking at the walls, wondering what they are going to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I sat down with many of [the growers], gave them the history of what I had seen, and they started attending meetings,” Woolf says. “They started being challenged by the general manager when they would ask questions. And then they got riled up and upset. And we made it clear, if you want to make a change, you have to get on the board and do something.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, dissident farmers named themselves The Change Coalition for Westlands Landowners, and settled on four candidates to run for the board. Diener was one of them. Woolf worked behind the scenes, but chose not to run herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Storing water underground\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There’s a range of views within the Change Coalition about what exactly they’d like to accomplish. Justin Diener wants a realistic plan to survive. With climate change, droughts are persisting longer. The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is melting faster. Future floods may be more intense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the most recent decade is a guide to the future, he says, the district can only expect to receive enough water to grow crops on about 300,000 acres in an average year. That’s half the original area of Westlands Water District, and 40% less than what’s available to grow crops today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s worse, the water comes in bursts. In 2017, when rain drenched California, Westlands actually turned away potential water deliveries because no growers wanted it. Other years, the district gets no water at all, except for what it can buy on the open market at exorbitant prices. That’s been especially tough on growers with almond trees that require water every year just to stay alive. Growers now are ripping out some of those parched orchards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s urgently needed, according to Diener and other growers, is the infrastructure to store water underground when it’s abundant, so that it’s available when the rains stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11934742\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11934742 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01a.-Westlands-Water.jpg\" alt=\"A seemingly endless row of upprooted almond trees by the side of a dry irrigation channel.\" width=\"2500\" height=\"1266\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01a.-Westlands-Water.jpg 2500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01a.-Westlands-Water-800x405.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01a.-Westlands-Water-1020x517.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01a.-Westlands-Water-160x81.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01a.-Westlands-Water-1536x778.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01a.-Westlands-Water-2048x1037.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01a.-Westlands-Water-1920x972.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Almond growers in Westlands Water District have been tearing out their older almond orchards because water is scarce. \u003ccite>(Dan Charles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sarah Woolf has an example. On some Woolf family land just southeast of the city of Huron, a line of trees alongside the fields marks the course of a dry creek bed. When it rains, that creek bed fills with runoff from foothills to the west. Occasionally, every half-dozen years or so, it floods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The creek’s natural course is blocked by a giant canal, part of the Central Valley Project, so floodwater spills across a floodplain. Because built-up silt prevents it from percolating into the earth, much of it simply evaporates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Woolfs and other neighboring landowners have now \u003ca href=\"https://blogs.edf.org/growingreturns/2022/04/04/farmland-repurposing-project-benefits-groundwater-recharge-flood-management-community-resilience/\">built a system to capture and store that water\u003c/a>. When the next flood comes, they’ll divert that water to a field where it will soak into the ground, all the way down to the aquifer. Farmers — and the nearby city of Huron — will be able to pump that water from their wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Westlands should be doing much more of this, Woolf says. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/10/05/1037370430/water-is-scarce-in-california-but-farmers-have-found-ways-to-store-it-undergroun\">Other water agencies in the San Joaquin Valley certainly are.\u003c/a> But Westlands has lagged behind. “That’s a lack of vision, and a lack of focus on things that we can control,” says \u003ca href=\"https://es.ucmerced.edu/seminars/jonReiter\">Jon Reiter\u003c/a>, a farmer and consultant who works with Westlands growers. Instead, Westlands focused “on things that we can’t control,” like decisions by courts and Congress, he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Replenishing the aquifers during periodic storms won’t bring back the old days, of course. It can ease the pain during drought, but it also means that growers can’t expand their fields when water is plentiful. They’ll have to restrain themselves, keeping land fallow, allowing that water to soak into the ground so it’s there when they truly need it.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Talking with adversaries\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Sarah Woolf, meanwhile, wants Westlands to be a better neighbor. “What we do is important; growing food is important, it’s something to be proud of,” she says. “But if we’re just fighting with people, I’m not very proud of that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fighting, she says, blocks discussions — and, potentially, compromises — between farmers and other groups with their own claims on California’s water. This shift in approach is already underway at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.mwdoc.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/San-Joaquin-Valley-Water-Collaborative-Action-Program-Prospectus.pdf\">San Joaquin Valley Water Collaborative Action Program (PDF)\u003c/a>, formed in 2020. It brings together farmers, advocates for safe drinking water in marginalized communities, local governments, water agencies and environmentalists. Westlands is not participating, but Sarah Woolf and Jon Reiter are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I spent much of my career in the San Joaquin Valley watching [these groups] fight with each other,” says Tim Quinn, now a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s \u003ca href=\"https://waterinthewest.stanford.edu/\">Water in the West \u003c/a>program, who helped launch the group. “I wasn’t really convinced that they were ready for the kind of collaboration that I thought was necessary. And turns out, by God, they were.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11934736\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11934736\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/Mayor-Ray-Leon-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A Latino man with greying hair looks past the camera and out a window while seated indoors.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/Mayor-Ray-Leon-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/Mayor-Ray-Leon-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/Mayor-Ray-Leon-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/Mayor-Ray-Leon-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/Mayor-Ray-Leon-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/Mayor-Ray-Leon-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/Mayor-Ray-Leon-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rey León, activist mayor of the small farmworker town of Huron. \u003ccite>(Dan Charles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A few weeks ago, the group released its goals, which include safe drinking water for communities that don’t have it now, better management of water for agriculture, and coordinated shifts in the use of land, including converting some previously irrigated farmland into habitat for wildlife. “That’s the future,” says Quinn. “You can’t make progress in 21st-century California without adopting a collaborative approach.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Westlands, collaboration of this sort might mean working with \u003ca href=\"https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/online/riding-around-with-mayor-rey-leon/\">Rey León\u003c/a>, mayor of the mostly Latino town of Huron, in the heart of the Westlands Water District. He’s launched efforts to plant trees, reuse wastewater, share electric cars and build bike lanes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s had very little contact with Westlands and has never met Tom Birmingham. Most of the landowners of Westlands don’t live nearby, on the land that they farm, but in Fresno, 30 or more miles away. Yet the fate of Huron’s residents has long been linked to decisions that those landowners make about water and farming. Farmworkers no longer crowd the town at harvest time, since many growers switched from vegetables that require hand labor. Instead they are growing almonds that are harvested by machine. If there’s another shift, this time from agriculture to, say, solar farms, León wants local residents to get access to those jobs. “We have to be innovative, and develop new models of collaboration, because they haven’t existed in the past,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Change wins\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In October, a month before the Westlands board election, the candidates who were running as the Change Coalition laid out their priorities in a letter to Westlands landowners. They proposed storing more water underground, relying less on “legal and political solutions” to the district’s water problems. They also advocated developing a long-term plan for the district’s land that includes other uses, such as solar farms and wildlife habitat, and improving relationships with “moderate environmental groups, disadvantaged communities, and safe drinking water advocates.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Change Coalition candidates won all four seats up for grabs. Together with two allies already on the nine-member board, it gives them a majority. A week after the election results were announced, \u003ca href=\"https://wwd.ca.gov/wwd-media/press-release-11-23-2022/\">Tom Birmingham announced he’d be stepping down\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dan Errotabere, a retiring member of the board who supported Birmingham, is skeptical that the new board members really will do anything different, or better, than their predecessors. He says he examined the Change Coalition’s program and “there’s nothing that we’re not doing. We are doing all those things. I think they’ll recognize that, when they get on the board, and they see all the fine details.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Quinn calls the Westlands transition a “sea change.” Mark Arax, the author, says it’s a historic step for the leaders of Westlands to accept the fact that water is scarce, and that their farms will have to shrink. “I don’t think that’s window dressing,” he says. “I think it’s a real change, and if that’s acknowledged, that’s a big story. Westlands, this behemoth, has cut itself in half.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This story was produced in collaboration with the \u003ca href=\"https://thefern.org\">Food and Environment Reporting Network\u003c/a>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "How California's Drought Is Changing the Politics of the Nation's Largest, Notoriously Thirsty Farming District | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Late in the afternoon on Nov. 14, a historic email landed in the inboxes of hundreds of California farmers whose land lies within the \u003ca href=\"https://wwd.ca.gov/\">Westlands Water District\u003c/a>, the largest agricultural irrigation agency in the country — and one of the most controversial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For decades, Westlands has led the fight against environmental rules that restrict the flow of water from California’s rivers to its farmers. It \u003ca href=\"https://www.farmprogress.com/westlands-water-district-files-lawsuit-biological-opinion\">sued the government\u003c/a>, lobbied friendly politicians and took on critics wherever it found them, even in Congress. “Where’s the outrage, that government decisions have created zero water supplies for communities in the San Joaquin Valley?” Westlands General Manager Tom Birmingham admonished a congressional committee in 2016.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘I spent much of my career in the San Joaquin Valley watching [these groups] fight with each other. I wasn’t really convinced that they were ready for the kind of collaboration that I thought was necessary. And turns out, by God, they were.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.watereducation.org/western-water/he-steps-aside-tim-quinn-talks-about-adversarialists-collaboration-and-hope-solving\">Tim Quinn\u003c/a>, former executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, says the leaders of Westlands “were pretty entrenched in adversarial decision-making. It was us versus them, and we were going to win and they were going to lose.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The email, however, revealed that the old guard at Westlands had been swept aside in voting for board seats at the farmer-run organization. The winning candidates, part of a self-described Change Coalition, are demanding that the district spend less time fighting legal and political battles and more time figuring out ways to live with less water. Birmingham, an imperious figure who has run Westlands for more than 20 years, later announced he’ll retire at the end of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vote is a sign that even in the most conservative parts of California’s Central Valley, the biggest single source of America’s fresh produce, attitudes are shifting. Farmers are coming to terms with the fact that their operations will have to change — and, in many areas, shrink — to survive chronic drought, depleted aquifers and climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A legacy of political power\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://waterwise.ag/about-us\">Sarah Woolf\u003c/a>, one of the new guard, is an unlikely rebel. She grew up in a farming family just outside the boundary of Westlands Water District, then married into another one — the Woolfs, who run one of the biggest farming operations in the district. She became an expert on water policy, and runs her own consulting business, Water Wise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than anyone else, she catalyzed the movement for change at Westlands. “I just didn’t feel that it was appropriate to go along to get along,” she says. “We weren’t making positive strides.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To understand what she wanted to change, you have to go back in time to the 1950s and 1960s. The farmers who’d been growing food on the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley needed water. There are no big rivers on this side of the valley; growers relied instead on deep wells drilled into aquifers. But that underground reservoir wouldn’t last long, and everyone knew it.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The farmers and their backers got the federal government to build a new dam and canal that connected their land to the system of dams and aqueducts known as the Central Valley Project. \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B7V-xrvgro\">President Kennedy himself showed up\u003c/a> for the groundbreaking. The new canal delivered water from dams hundreds of miles to the north, like Shasta and Trinity. Westlands Water District was formed to distribute that water to 600,000 acres of land. \u003ca href=\"https://mark-arax.com/the-dreamt-land/\">Mark Arax\u003c/a>, a writer who has chronicled the rise of Central Valley agriculture, calls it an act of “pure political power.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had a fair amount of clout, legislatively,” Woolf says. “We were a very rich district; we had politically active landowners. We hired very talented lobbyists.” The 700 or so farms within Westlands are mostly large, high-tech operations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1992, though, Westlands met the limits of its power. Over its protests, Congress enacted the \u003ca href=\"https://www.watereducation.org/aquapedia/central-valley-project-improvement-act\">Central Valley Project Improvement Act\u003c/a>. This law limited deliveries of water to farmers when this could threaten the survival of wildlife, such as fish in the \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/Water-Basics/The-Delta\">Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta\u003c/a> — the sprawling network of waterways that empties into the San Francisco Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11934738\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11934738 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01c.-WestlandsWater.jpg\" alt=\"A middle-aged white woman with shoulder-length blonde hair, a long-sleeved blouse, and a white puffer vest stands in the shade in a field between two rows of trees. She smiles at the camera.\" width=\"2500\" height=\"1273\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01c.-WestlandsWater.jpg 2500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01c.-WestlandsWater-800x407.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01c.-WestlandsWater-1020x519.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01c.-WestlandsWater-160x81.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01c.-WestlandsWater-1536x782.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01c.-WestlandsWater-2048x1043.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01c.-WestlandsWater-1920x978.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Farmer and Water Wise business owner Sarah Woolf has been a catalyst for change. \u003ccite>(Dan Charles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This law, together with rulings from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, cut the flow of water to Westlands dramatically during years of drought. Some years, the \u003ca href=\"https://wwd.ca.gov/district-water-supply/\">growers got no water at all\u003c/a>. They were shocked and furious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The district’s approach was to fight it. Tooth and nail,” Woolf says. “They hired the best attorneys. They hired the best lobbyists.” Their approach, she says, was simple: “We will fight this and we will win because we are right.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet Woolf grew increasingly convinced that this battle was futile. Farmers were up against too many other powerful interests. She decided that cooperation was the only solution and urged Westlands to stop pushing legislation “that was only beneficial to us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2012, after she was appointed to a vacant seat on the Westlands board, she tried unsuccessfully to get Westlands to sit down with other groups, including environmentalists, to explore possible compromises. She ended up butting heads with Tom Birmingham, partly over policies and partly over Birmingham’s personal style. “He’s an authoritarian, even a dictator,” Woolf says with a laugh. “It’s his show.” Birmingham declined to be interviewed for this story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2018, \u003ca href=\"https://gvwire.com/2018/09/06/woolf-resigns-from-westlands-board-whats-next-for-water-district/\">Woolf resigned from the Westlands board with a public letter of protest\u003c/a>. She wrote that her efforts to “direct our district in a more collaborative and progressive direction” had met stubborn resistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then, other farmers started reaching out to her. They were increasingly worried. Drought was becoming more frequent. In four of the past nine years, Westlands has received no water at all from the Central Valley Project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Westlands farmers had stayed in business by pumping enormous amounts of groundwater from shrinking aquifers. But a new California law, the \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/programs/groundwater-management/sgma-groundwater-management\">Sustainable Groundwater Management Act\u003c/a>, will severely restrict their ability to do this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think this farming community is really struggling at this point,” says \u003ca href=\"https://www.redrockranchinc.com/ourteam\">Justin Diener\u003c/a>, whose family grows vegetables and almonds near Five Points. “There are a lot of people who are kind of looking at the walls, wondering what they are going to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I sat down with many of [the growers], gave them the history of what I had seen, and they started attending meetings,” Woolf says. “They started being challenged by the general manager when they would ask questions. And then they got riled up and upset. And we made it clear, if you want to make a change, you have to get on the board and do something.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, dissident farmers named themselves The Change Coalition for Westlands Landowners, and settled on four candidates to run for the board. Diener was one of them. Woolf worked behind the scenes, but chose not to run herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Storing water underground\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There’s a range of views within the Change Coalition about what exactly they’d like to accomplish. Justin Diener wants a realistic plan to survive. With climate change, droughts are persisting longer. The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is melting faster. Future floods may be more intense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the most recent decade is a guide to the future, he says, the district can only expect to receive enough water to grow crops on about 300,000 acres in an average year. That’s half the original area of Westlands Water District, and 40% less than what’s available to grow crops today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s worse, the water comes in bursts. In 2017, when rain drenched California, Westlands actually turned away potential water deliveries because no growers wanted it. Other years, the district gets no water at all, except for what it can buy on the open market at exorbitant prices. That’s been especially tough on growers with almond trees that require water every year just to stay alive. Growers now are ripping out some of those parched orchards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s urgently needed, according to Diener and other growers, is the infrastructure to store water underground when it’s abundant, so that it’s available when the rains stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11934742\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11934742 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01a.-Westlands-Water.jpg\" alt=\"A seemingly endless row of upprooted almond trees by the side of a dry irrigation channel.\" width=\"2500\" height=\"1266\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01a.-Westlands-Water.jpg 2500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01a.-Westlands-Water-800x405.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01a.-Westlands-Water-1020x517.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01a.-Westlands-Water-160x81.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01a.-Westlands-Water-1536x778.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01a.-Westlands-Water-2048x1037.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/01a.-Westlands-Water-1920x972.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Almond growers in Westlands Water District have been tearing out their older almond orchards because water is scarce. \u003ccite>(Dan Charles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sarah Woolf has an example. On some Woolf family land just southeast of the city of Huron, a line of trees alongside the fields marks the course of a dry creek bed. When it rains, that creek bed fills with runoff from foothills to the west. Occasionally, every half-dozen years or so, it floods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The creek’s natural course is blocked by a giant canal, part of the Central Valley Project, so floodwater spills across a floodplain. Because built-up silt prevents it from percolating into the earth, much of it simply evaporates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Woolfs and other neighboring landowners have now \u003ca href=\"https://blogs.edf.org/growingreturns/2022/04/04/farmland-repurposing-project-benefits-groundwater-recharge-flood-management-community-resilience/\">built a system to capture and store that water\u003c/a>. When the next flood comes, they’ll divert that water to a field where it will soak into the ground, all the way down to the aquifer. Farmers — and the nearby city of Huron — will be able to pump that water from their wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Westlands should be doing much more of this, Woolf says. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/10/05/1037370430/water-is-scarce-in-california-but-farmers-have-found-ways-to-store-it-undergroun\">Other water agencies in the San Joaquin Valley certainly are.\u003c/a> But Westlands has lagged behind. “That’s a lack of vision, and a lack of focus on things that we can control,” says \u003ca href=\"https://es.ucmerced.edu/seminars/jonReiter\">Jon Reiter\u003c/a>, a farmer and consultant who works with Westlands growers. Instead, Westlands focused “on things that we can’t control,” like decisions by courts and Congress, he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Replenishing the aquifers during periodic storms won’t bring back the old days, of course. It can ease the pain during drought, but it also means that growers can’t expand their fields when water is plentiful. They’ll have to restrain themselves, keeping land fallow, allowing that water to soak into the ground so it’s there when they truly need it.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Talking with adversaries\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Sarah Woolf, meanwhile, wants Westlands to be a better neighbor. “What we do is important; growing food is important, it’s something to be proud of,” she says. “But if we’re just fighting with people, I’m not very proud of that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fighting, she says, blocks discussions — and, potentially, compromises — between farmers and other groups with their own claims on California’s water. This shift in approach is already underway at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.mwdoc.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/San-Joaquin-Valley-Water-Collaborative-Action-Program-Prospectus.pdf\">San Joaquin Valley Water Collaborative Action Program (PDF)\u003c/a>, formed in 2020. It brings together farmers, advocates for safe drinking water in marginalized communities, local governments, water agencies and environmentalists. Westlands is not participating, but Sarah Woolf and Jon Reiter are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I spent much of my career in the San Joaquin Valley watching [these groups] fight with each other,” says Tim Quinn, now a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s \u003ca href=\"https://waterinthewest.stanford.edu/\">Water in the West \u003c/a>program, who helped launch the group. “I wasn’t really convinced that they were ready for the kind of collaboration that I thought was necessary. And turns out, by God, they were.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11934736\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11934736\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/Mayor-Ray-Leon-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A Latino man with greying hair looks past the camera and out a window while seated indoors.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/Mayor-Ray-Leon-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/Mayor-Ray-Leon-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/Mayor-Ray-Leon-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/Mayor-Ray-Leon-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/Mayor-Ray-Leon-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/Mayor-Ray-Leon-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/Mayor-Ray-Leon-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rey León, activist mayor of the small farmworker town of Huron. \u003ccite>(Dan Charles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A few weeks ago, the group released its goals, which include safe drinking water for communities that don’t have it now, better management of water for agriculture, and coordinated shifts in the use of land, including converting some previously irrigated farmland into habitat for wildlife. “That’s the future,” says Quinn. “You can’t make progress in 21st-century California without adopting a collaborative approach.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Westlands, collaboration of this sort might mean working with \u003ca href=\"https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/online/riding-around-with-mayor-rey-leon/\">Rey León\u003c/a>, mayor of the mostly Latino town of Huron, in the heart of the Westlands Water District. He’s launched efforts to plant trees, reuse wastewater, share electric cars and build bike lanes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s had very little contact with Westlands and has never met Tom Birmingham. Most of the landowners of Westlands don’t live nearby, on the land that they farm, but in Fresno, 30 or more miles away. Yet the fate of Huron’s residents has long been linked to decisions that those landowners make about water and farming. Farmworkers no longer crowd the town at harvest time, since many growers switched from vegetables that require hand labor. Instead they are growing almonds that are harvested by machine. If there’s another shift, this time from agriculture to, say, solar farms, León wants local residents to get access to those jobs. “We have to be innovative, and develop new models of collaboration, because they haven’t existed in the past,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Change wins\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In October, a month before the Westlands board election, the candidates who were running as the Change Coalition laid out their priorities in a letter to Westlands landowners. They proposed storing more water underground, relying less on “legal and political solutions” to the district’s water problems. They also advocated developing a long-term plan for the district’s land that includes other uses, such as solar farms and wildlife habitat, and improving relationships with “moderate environmental groups, disadvantaged communities, and safe drinking water advocates.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Change Coalition candidates won all four seats up for grabs. Together with two allies already on the nine-member board, it gives them a majority. A week after the election results were announced, \u003ca href=\"https://wwd.ca.gov/wwd-media/press-release-11-23-2022/\">Tom Birmingham announced he’d be stepping down\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dan Errotabere, a retiring member of the board who supported Birmingham, is skeptical that the new board members really will do anything different, or better, than their predecessors. He says he examined the Change Coalition’s program and “there’s nothing that we’re not doing. We are doing all those things. I think they’ll recognize that, when they get on the board, and they see all the fine details.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Quinn calls the Westlands transition a “sea change.” Mark Arax, the author, says it’s a historic step for the leaders of Westlands to accept the fact that water is scarce, and that their farms will have to shrink. “I don’t think that’s window dressing,” he says. “I think it’s a real change, and if that’s acknowledged, that’s a big story. Westlands, this behemoth, has cut itself in half.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This story was produced in collaboration with the \u003ca href=\"https://thefern.org\">Food and Environment Reporting Network\u003c/a>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The new class of California lawmakers being sworn in today is being asked to tackle a problem stymieing the world: how to rein in the price of gasoline, which soared to record highs here this fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s little agreement on how — or whether — policymakers can actually drive down the cost of fuel. Many experts are skeptical of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to do so by imposing a windfall penalty on oil profits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom first called for a windfall profit tax in September, as gas prices spiked and oil company profits also soared. Last week, he officially called a special session of the Legislature, asking lawmakers to return to work before their January session and consider what he’s now calling a profit penalty, not a tax. He also wants lawmakers to help craft legislation to give state regulators more power to review and evaluate oil company profits and pricing, along with more oversight of the refinery process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11931113\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS31296_GettyImages-968048630-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11931113\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS31296_GettyImages-968048630-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Gov. Gavin Newsom in a suit and tie speaks into a microphone\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS31296_GettyImages-968048630-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS31296_GettyImages-968048630-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS31296_GettyImages-968048630-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS31296_GettyImages-968048630-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS31296_GettyImages-968048630-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Newsom, seen here in the gubernatorial debate at KQED headquarters in San Francisco, has said the proposal will help bring down gas prices. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Those proposals, he says, will ease pain at the pump for consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re ripping you off. They’re ripping every one of us off,” Newsom said at KQED’s gubernatorial debate in late October. “And we’re going after these companies and we’re getting serious about the stress and pain Californians are facing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Oil money has become toxic’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Oil companies saw the writing on the wall long before the governor’s call for action. They pumped more than $8 million into legislative races this cycle, in an apparent effort to elect more oil-friendly lawmakers. Much of that money was used not to back traditionally sympathetic Republicans, but to prop up Democrats they see as more moderate and more open to industry concerns than their progressive Democratic opponents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doug Morrow, who does opposition research on behalf of progressive Democrats, said he’s seen oil companies become more and more active in Democratic politics since the state passed its first landmark climate change law in 2006.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As California’s become a bluer and bluer state and there are more and more Dem-versus-Dem general races, the business community … and specifically the oil industry, has focused more and more on electing moderate Democrats to the Democratic majority,” he said, noting that in many California districts, Republicans simply cannot win.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Those seats are no longer in their game plan. So they go into Dem-versus-Dem seats and try to find the most moderate candidate to represent or protect their interests as possible,” Morrow said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11933938\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1437346799.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11933938\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1437346799-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"a gas station with a man pumping gas and gas prices are all over $6 per gallon\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1437346799-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1437346799-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1437346799-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1437346799.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A gas station in Los Angeles shows the high price of gas in November 2022. ExxonMobil Corp. posted a quarterly profit of nearly $20 billion, the highest quarterly profit in company history amid a surge in oil prices during the quarter. \u003ccite>(Mario Tama/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But Big Oil isn’t giving that money directly to candidates, as many within the Democratic Party have pledged not to take fossil fuel donations; instead, the industry, through political action committees, pumps millions of dollars into TV ads, mailers and other campaign expenses. Those are considered independent expenditures, and PACs are legally prohibited from coordinating with a candidate’s campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether their multi-million dollar bet will pay off remains to be seen. Take the biggest spender this cycle: “The Coalition to Restore California’s Middle Class, Including Energy Companies Who Produce Gas, Oil, Jobs and Pay Taxes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Funded by Valero, Chevron, Marathon Petroleum and Phillips 66, that PAC directly spent $5 million in eight races this fall, and lost in just two of them — not a bad record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even when a PAC’s candidates win, there’s no guarantee they will do oil’s bidding in Sacramento. Take the costliest race of this cycle — a Senate contest in Sacramento between two Democrats, where the Coalition poured $1.6 million into backing Angelique Ashby, who ultimately won.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ashby, however, signed the “no fossil fuel” pledge, denounced the spending on her behalf, and promised to work with Newsom on his windfall profit proposal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/AshbyForSenate/status/1580322643680452608\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mike Young is political and organizing director at California Environmental Voters, which supported Ashby’s Democratic opponent, Dave Jones. Young said that Ashby’s comments show the politics have shifted in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Oil] money has become toxic, as it should be,” he said. “And even their candidates are trying to be very careful about what they say or what they do and how connected they are to it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Young believes that oil companies are coming into the windfall debate and new legislative session back on their heels, given the new class of lawmakers that remains solidly Democratic. His group endorsed 13 legislative candidates and lost just three of those races.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oil companies did not respond to repeated requests for comment about their campaign spending — but at a California Energy Commission hearing last week examining high gas prices, Western States Petroleum Association CEO Catherine Reheis-Boyd acknowledged the enormous power the Legislature and other state leaders have over the industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11930321,news_11911207,forum_2010101888462\"]\u003cbr>\n“Through public policy, the governor, the legislators, the regulatory agencies, have the most opportunity to make changes that can positively impact Californians,” she said, going on to argue that the state’s strict regulatory environment and ambitious climate change goals are the reason for soaring gas prices — not profit gouging by oil companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The facts are, policy decisions [that] have been made and [that] continue to be made have a direct impact on the cost of fuel for California families and businesses,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reheis-Boyd warned that Newsom’s proposed windfall tax, or penalty on oil companies, would only worsen those costs: “You cannot tax your way out of this problem. The only result of a windfall profits tax will [be to] make the problem worse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Concerns about gouging\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s not only the oil industry throwing shade at Newsom’s idea. While many politicians are rallying behind Newsom’s proposed reprimand of oil companies, economists are dubious that a windfall penalty will actually reduce the price of gas at the pump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s gas prices are currently about $1.50 per gallon higher than the national average, \u003ca href=\"https://gasprices.aaa.com/\">according to AAA.\u003c/a> That cost difference is due to the state’s relatively high gas tax, environmental fees, and a special fuel blend that the state has used for decades to reduce air pollution. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That means when refineries are down for maintenance, as some have been in recent months, it’s challenging to import gas that meets state standards. So when supply is squeezed, prices jump faster and farther here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California also lacks pipelines to import fuel due to environmental regulations, and the vast majority of the state’s gasoline is produced by just five companies: Chevron, Marathon, PBF Energy, Phillips 66 and Valero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But politicians are concerned that more is at play, and that these companies are gouging their fuel prices as they report record profits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether that’s true or not, many economists say a windfall penalty is not the way to rein in what drivers pay for fuel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Addressing members of the CEC, UC Berkeley energy economist Severin Borenstein said “the windfall profit tax would not lower gas prices. It would simply claw back some of the profits from those high prices.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Erich Muehlegger, professor of economics at University of California, Davis, says windfall profit taxes fail to address the underlying drivers of high gas prices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In fact, a windfall profit tax might actually make it more likely in the future to see similar events like what triggered the windfall profit tax in the first place,” Muehlegger said in an interview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11933948\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1245162773.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11933948\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1245162773-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"oil pumps in a field\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1245162773-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1245162773-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1245162773-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1245162773.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oil wells are seen at an oil facility by Highway 5 near Bakersfield. \u003ccite>(Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The argument goes that a windfall tax will reduce incentives for the industry to invest in capacity, further strangling supply and making gas \u003cem>more\u003c/em> expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. had a federal windfall tax in the 1980s, and studies showed that it reduced oil production nationally, and led the U.S. to import more oil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Should the state pass a windfall tax, it’s unclear how it would work. The government would have to define what an “excessive” profit may be and decide how to distribute the money collected through the tax, as well as who should receive those funds.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A mixed bag for the climate\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Newsom and other elected officials are trying to rein in high gas prices while at the same time attempting to wean Californians off fossil fuels. And the impact any windfall tax may have on the environment is a mixed bag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A short-lived tax would have little impact on emissions, Muehlegger says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A permanent tax, in the short-term, could increase emissions, leading to less refining within the state, and the use of more fossil fuels to transport imported oil. Over the long-term, emissions could decrease as higher gas prices may encourage less driving or higher adoption of alternatives like public transit, electric vehicles or e-bikes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paasha Mahdavi, associate professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, agrees passing a windfall tax is not the best way to reduce emissions or win politically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You bear a huge political cost for doing so because you’ve raised the price of something that is very, very visible to everybody,” Mahdavi said. “And you’ve angered a very broad constituency.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The way to deal with high gas prices and emissions, he said, is to incentivize people to use clean energy sources. “We want policies that last, that create winners, not policies that anger losers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The new class of California lawmakers being sworn in today is being asked to tackle a problem stymieing the world: how to rein in the price of gasoline, which soared to record highs here this fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s little agreement on how — or whether — policymakers can actually drive down the cost of fuel. Many experts are skeptical of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to do so by imposing a windfall penalty on oil profits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom first called for a windfall profit tax in September, as gas prices spiked and oil company profits also soared. Last week, he officially called a special session of the Legislature, asking lawmakers to return to work before their January session and consider what he’s now calling a profit penalty, not a tax. He also wants lawmakers to help craft legislation to give state regulators more power to review and evaluate oil company profits and pricing, along with more oversight of the refinery process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11931113\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS31296_GettyImages-968048630-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11931113\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS31296_GettyImages-968048630-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Gov. Gavin Newsom in a suit and tie speaks into a microphone\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS31296_GettyImages-968048630-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS31296_GettyImages-968048630-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS31296_GettyImages-968048630-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS31296_GettyImages-968048630-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS31296_GettyImages-968048630-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Newsom, seen here in the gubernatorial debate at KQED headquarters in San Francisco, has said the proposal will help bring down gas prices. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Those proposals, he says, will ease pain at the pump for consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re ripping you off. They’re ripping every one of us off,” Newsom said at KQED’s gubernatorial debate in late October. “And we’re going after these companies and we’re getting serious about the stress and pain Californians are facing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Oil money has become toxic’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Oil companies saw the writing on the wall long before the governor’s call for action. They pumped more than $8 million into legislative races this cycle, in an apparent effort to elect more oil-friendly lawmakers. Much of that money was used not to back traditionally sympathetic Republicans, but to prop up Democrats they see as more moderate and more open to industry concerns than their progressive Democratic opponents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doug Morrow, who does opposition research on behalf of progressive Democrats, said he’s seen oil companies become more and more active in Democratic politics since the state passed its first landmark climate change law in 2006.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As California’s become a bluer and bluer state and there are more and more Dem-versus-Dem general races, the business community … and specifically the oil industry, has focused more and more on electing moderate Democrats to the Democratic majority,” he said, noting that in many California districts, Republicans simply cannot win.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Those seats are no longer in their game plan. So they go into Dem-versus-Dem seats and try to find the most moderate candidate to represent or protect their interests as possible,” Morrow said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11933938\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1437346799.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11933938\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1437346799-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"a gas station with a man pumping gas and gas prices are all over $6 per gallon\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1437346799-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1437346799-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1437346799-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1437346799.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A gas station in Los Angeles shows the high price of gas in November 2022. ExxonMobil Corp. posted a quarterly profit of nearly $20 billion, the highest quarterly profit in company history amid a surge in oil prices during the quarter. \u003ccite>(Mario Tama/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But Big Oil isn’t giving that money directly to candidates, as many within the Democratic Party have pledged not to take fossil fuel donations; instead, the industry, through political action committees, pumps millions of dollars into TV ads, mailers and other campaign expenses. Those are considered independent expenditures, and PACs are legally prohibited from coordinating with a candidate’s campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether their multi-million dollar bet will pay off remains to be seen. Take the biggest spender this cycle: “The Coalition to Restore California’s Middle Class, Including Energy Companies Who Produce Gas, Oil, Jobs and Pay Taxes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Funded by Valero, Chevron, Marathon Petroleum and Phillips 66, that PAC directly spent $5 million in eight races this fall, and lost in just two of them — not a bad record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even when a PAC’s candidates win, there’s no guarantee they will do oil’s bidding in Sacramento. Take the costliest race of this cycle — a Senate contest in Sacramento between two Democrats, where the Coalition poured $1.6 million into backing Angelique Ashby, who ultimately won.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ashby, however, signed the “no fossil fuel” pledge, denounced the spending on her behalf, and promised to work with Newsom on his windfall profit proposal.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>Mike Young is political and organizing director at California Environmental Voters, which supported Ashby’s Democratic opponent, Dave Jones. Young said that Ashby’s comments show the politics have shifted in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Oil] money has become toxic, as it should be,” he said. “And even their candidates are trying to be very careful about what they say or what they do and how connected they are to it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Young believes that oil companies are coming into the windfall debate and new legislative session back on their heels, given the new class of lawmakers that remains solidly Democratic. His group endorsed 13 legislative candidates and lost just three of those races.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oil companies did not respond to repeated requests for comment about their campaign spending — but at a California Energy Commission hearing last week examining high gas prices, Western States Petroleum Association CEO Catherine Reheis-Boyd acknowledged the enormous power the Legislature and other state leaders have over the industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cbr>\n“Through public policy, the governor, the legislators, the regulatory agencies, have the most opportunity to make changes that can positively impact Californians,” she said, going on to argue that the state’s strict regulatory environment and ambitious climate change goals are the reason for soaring gas prices — not profit gouging by oil companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The facts are, policy decisions [that] have been made and [that] continue to be made have a direct impact on the cost of fuel for California families and businesses,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reheis-Boyd warned that Newsom’s proposed windfall tax, or penalty on oil companies, would only worsen those costs: “You cannot tax your way out of this problem. The only result of a windfall profits tax will [be to] make the problem worse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Concerns about gouging\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s not only the oil industry throwing shade at Newsom’s idea. While many politicians are rallying behind Newsom’s proposed reprimand of oil companies, economists are dubious that a windfall penalty will actually reduce the price of gas at the pump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s gas prices are currently about $1.50 per gallon higher than the national average, \u003ca href=\"https://gasprices.aaa.com/\">according to AAA.\u003c/a> That cost difference is due to the state’s relatively high gas tax, environmental fees, and a special fuel blend that the state has used for decades to reduce air pollution. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That means when refineries are down for maintenance, as some have been in recent months, it’s challenging to import gas that meets state standards. So when supply is squeezed, prices jump faster and farther here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California also lacks pipelines to import fuel due to environmental regulations, and the vast majority of the state’s gasoline is produced by just five companies: Chevron, Marathon, PBF Energy, Phillips 66 and Valero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But politicians are concerned that more is at play, and that these companies are gouging their fuel prices as they report record profits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether that’s true or not, many economists say a windfall penalty is not the way to rein in what drivers pay for fuel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Addressing members of the CEC, UC Berkeley energy economist Severin Borenstein said “the windfall profit tax would not lower gas prices. It would simply claw back some of the profits from those high prices.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Erich Muehlegger, professor of economics at University of California, Davis, says windfall profit taxes fail to address the underlying drivers of high gas prices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In fact, a windfall profit tax might actually make it more likely in the future to see similar events like what triggered the windfall profit tax in the first place,” Muehlegger said in an interview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11933948\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1245162773.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11933948\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1245162773-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"oil pumps in a field\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1245162773-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1245162773-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1245162773-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-1245162773.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oil wells are seen at an oil facility by Highway 5 near Bakersfield. \u003ccite>(Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The argument goes that a windfall tax will reduce incentives for the industry to invest in capacity, further strangling supply and making gas \u003cem>more\u003c/em> expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. had a federal windfall tax in the 1980s, and studies showed that it reduced oil production nationally, and led the U.S. to import more oil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Should the state pass a windfall tax, it’s unclear how it would work. The government would have to define what an “excessive” profit may be and decide how to distribute the money collected through the tax, as well as who should receive those funds.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A mixed bag for the climate\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Newsom and other elected officials are trying to rein in high gas prices while at the same time attempting to wean Californians off fossil fuels. And the impact any windfall tax may have on the environment is a mixed bag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A short-lived tax would have little impact on emissions, Muehlegger says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A permanent tax, in the short-term, could increase emissions, leading to less refining within the state, and the use of more fossil fuels to transport imported oil. Over the long-term, emissions could decrease as higher gas prices may encourage less driving or higher adoption of alternatives like public transit, electric vehicles or e-bikes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paasha Mahdavi, associate professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, agrees passing a windfall tax is not the best way to reduce emissions or win politically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You bear a huge political cost for doing so because you’ve raised the price of something that is very, very visible to everybody,” Mahdavi said. “And you’ve angered a very broad constituency.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The way to deal with high gas prices and emissions, he said, is to incentivize people to use clean energy sources. “We want policies that last, that create winners, not policies that anger losers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "California Cities Will Receive Only Tiny Fraction of Requested State Water Supplies in 2023",
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"content": "\u003cp>California water agencies that serve 27 million people will get just 5% of what they requested from the state to start 2023, water officials announced Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The news of limited water comes as California concludes its driest three-year stretch on record and as water managers brace for a \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-droughts-weather-climate-and-environment-6f591a7e40f39a0d804706b507fd4022\">fourth year\u003c/a> with below-average precipitation. But if the winter is wetter than expected, the state could boost how much supply it plans to give out — as it did last year when allocations started at 0% and ended the winter at 5%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Absent an end to the drought, water-saving measures are poised to continue, including calls for people to \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-colorado-river-droughts-business-889078912d1428e91477c254228a92b1\">rip up decorative grass\u003c/a>, limit outdoor watering, take shorter showers and run dishwashers only when full. Much of California is in extreme or exceptional drought, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?CA\">U.S. Drought Monitor.\u003c/a>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Michael McNutt, spokesman, Las Virgenes Municipal Water District\"]‘We’re all just sort of holding our breath to see what mother nature does.’[/pullquote]A \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-storms-san-francisco-weather-reno-c7d4f730189ab760a40e255711de68a5\">storm\u003c/a> currently bringing snow and rain to the northern end of the state has been welcome news, but people shouldn’t get too optimistic, warned Michael Anderson, the state climatologist. Last year two major storms in October and December were followed by months of bone-dry weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Don’t get too carried away by any one storm,” Anderson told reporters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much of California’s water supply comes from snow that falls in the mountains during the winter and enters the watershed as it melts through spring. Some of it is stored in reservoirs for later use, while some is sent south through massive pumping systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The system is known as the State Water Project, and it provides water to two-thirds of the state’s people and 1,172 square miles of farmland. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which services Los Angeles and much of Southern California, relies on the state for about one-third of its water supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Southern California’s supply is further threatened by the ongoing crisis afflicting the \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/arizona-california-colorado-river-1736e64e6c30db3a10c9d2dedd948930\">Colorado River\u003c/a>, another major source for the heavily populated region. The district is working on a massive water recycling plant to eventually supplement supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Metropolitan is doing everything we can to alleviate the immediate crisis and make investments to provide more tools than emergency conservation alone,” Adel Hagekhalil, the district’s general manager, said in a statement. “But now we need the public’s help. We can get through this by working together.”[aside label='Related Articles' tag='drought']Some districts with limited water supplies may get additional water if the 5% isn’t enough to cover critical health and safety needs, said Molly White, water operations manager for the State Water Project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given the uncertainty about how long the drought will last, the state wants to keep water in Lake Oroville, its largest reservoir. Right now, it’s about half as full as it usually is at this time of year. So officials plan to tap excess water from winter storms to provide the 5% supply and take some water out of the San Luis Reservoir in Merced County, White said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re all just sort of holding our breath to see what mother nature does,” said Michael McNutt, spokesman for Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which serves some wealthy suburbs of Los Angeles and relies almost exclusively on state supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district may completely ban outdoor watering if dry conditions persist, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal government also controls some water supply in California, much of which goes to farmers in the vast Central Valley who grow fruits, nuts and vegetables. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation doesn’t issue its first water allocations until February but on Monday warned farmers and cities to prepare for limited supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If drought conditions extend into 2023, Reclamation will find it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to meet all the competing needs of the Central Valley Project without beginning the implementation of additional and more severe water conservation actions,” the bureau said in a news release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California water agencies that serve 27 million people will get just 5% of what they requested from the state to start 2023, water officials announced Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The news of limited water comes as California concludes its driest three-year stretch on record and as water managers brace for a \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-droughts-weather-climate-and-environment-6f591a7e40f39a0d804706b507fd4022\">fourth year\u003c/a> with below-average precipitation. But if the winter is wetter than expected, the state could boost how much supply it plans to give out — as it did last year when allocations started at 0% and ended the winter at 5%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Absent an end to the drought, water-saving measures are poised to continue, including calls for people to \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-colorado-river-droughts-business-889078912d1428e91477c254228a92b1\">rip up decorative grass\u003c/a>, limit outdoor watering, take shorter showers and run dishwashers only when full. Much of California is in extreme or exceptional drought, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?CA\">U.S. Drought Monitor.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-storms-san-francisco-weather-reno-c7d4f730189ab760a40e255711de68a5\">storm\u003c/a> currently bringing snow and rain to the northern end of the state has been welcome news, but people shouldn’t get too optimistic, warned Michael Anderson, the state climatologist. Last year two major storms in October and December were followed by months of bone-dry weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Don’t get too carried away by any one storm,” Anderson told reporters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much of California’s water supply comes from snow that falls in the mountains during the winter and enters the watershed as it melts through spring. Some of it is stored in reservoirs for later use, while some is sent south through massive pumping systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The system is known as the State Water Project, and it provides water to two-thirds of the state’s people and 1,172 square miles of farmland. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which services Los Angeles and much of Southern California, relies on the state for about one-third of its water supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Southern California’s supply is further threatened by the ongoing crisis afflicting the \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/arizona-california-colorado-river-1736e64e6c30db3a10c9d2dedd948930\">Colorado River\u003c/a>, another major source for the heavily populated region. The district is working on a massive water recycling plant to eventually supplement supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Metropolitan is doing everything we can to alleviate the immediate crisis and make investments to provide more tools than emergency conservation alone,” Adel Hagekhalil, the district’s general manager, said in a statement. “But now we need the public’s help. We can get through this by working together.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Some districts with limited water supplies may get additional water if the 5% isn’t enough to cover critical health and safety needs, said Molly White, water operations manager for the State Water Project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given the uncertainty about how long the drought will last, the state wants to keep water in Lake Oroville, its largest reservoir. Right now, it’s about half as full as it usually is at this time of year. So officials plan to tap excess water from winter storms to provide the 5% supply and take some water out of the San Luis Reservoir in Merced County, White said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re all just sort of holding our breath to see what mother nature does,” said Michael McNutt, spokesman for Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which serves some wealthy suburbs of Los Angeles and relies almost exclusively on state supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district may completely ban outdoor watering if dry conditions persist, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal government also controls some water supply in California, much of which goes to farmers in the vast Central Valley who grow fruits, nuts and vegetables. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation doesn’t issue its first water allocations until February but on Monday warned farmers and cities to prepare for limited supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If drought conditions extend into 2023, Reclamation will find it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to meet all the competing needs of the Central Valley Project without beginning the implementation of additional and more severe water conservation actions,” the bureau said in a news release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "legit-winter-storm-to-hit-the-bay-area-thursday-bringing-heavy-rain-and-frigid-weather",
"title": "'Legit Winter Storm' Hits the Bay Area, Delivering Heavy Rain and Frigid Weather",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 6 p.m. Friday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area’s first real winter storm of the year touched down early Thursday morning and is expected to continue into the afternoon, in what forecasters say will be \u003ca href=\"https://www.weather.gov/wrh/wxtable\">a “powerhouse” system\u003c/a> delivering heavy rain and frigid weather across the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s going to be a legit winter storm, and everybody should prepare for it as such,” said meteorologist Brian Garcia of the National Weather Service’s San Francisco Bay Area office, who advised people to stay indoors, if possible. “Watch out for falling branches, falling trees. … With the wind, we could see some localized power outages.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/NWSBayArea/status/1597949820202803200\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Weather conditions will likely “deteriorate” through the early morning on Thursday, Garcia said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Intermittent downpours could bring as much as 3 inches of rain to coastal areas in Sonoma County and around Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County, and could cause flooding on highways and areas with limited drainage, like Marin City.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Brian Garcia, meteorologist, NWS\"]‘It’s going to be a legit winter storm, and everybody should prepare for it as such.’[/pullquote]Most parts of the Bay Area will receive up to 1.5 inches of rain on Thursday, paired with 30–45 mph wind gusts and temperatures dropping into the 40s, before clearing up by Friday. A second but weaker system is expected to bring more rain Friday night through Sunday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is really kind of the first typical winter storm that we’ve had for the season,” said Garcia. “We’ve had a couple other fronts roll through and bring us a little bit of rain. But this one kind of brings it all with the wind, the rain and the cold temperatures following.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coldest weather is forecast for early Friday morning after the storm has passed, with temperatures expected to dip into the mid-30s to low-40s throughout most of the Bay Area, before rising into the mid-to-high 40s by Saturday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amid the imminent cold, wet conditions, local officials and service providers are scrambling to temporarily expand access to warming centers and other shelters for the thousands of unsheltered people living throughout the Bay Area who remain uniquely vulnerable to harsh weather conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, with \u003ca href=\"https://sfgov.org/scorecards/safety-net/homeless-population\">an unhoused population of nearly 8,000\u003c/a>, finding shelter in the rain and the expected 40-degree lows on Thursday and Friday nights will prove crucial, with \u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/\">various temporary shelters and warming centers\u003c/a> available for those exposed to the elements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our \u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/the-homelessness-response-system/outreach/homeless-outreach-team/\">Homeless Outreach Team\u003c/a> is expanding our work today through the weekend,” said Emily Cohen, spokesperson for the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. “We’ll be conducting wellness checks throughout the city, handing out emergency blankets, checking for symptoms of hypothermia, talking to folks and inviting them into shelter or directing them to the nearest warming centers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cohen adds that San Francisco public libraries will be open during the day and that the city will be expanding its shelter capacity at three sites — \u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/\">Sanctuary, MSC South and Next Door Shelter\u003c/a> — where people will be able to self-refer and request a shelter bed to stay overnight. People can also go to locations of the \u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/\">Interfaith Winter Shelter\u003c/a>, a roving shelter that goes to different faith congregations throughout the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan data-pm-slice='1 1 [\"paragraph-wrapper\",null,\"paragraph\",{\"id\":\"p40-0\"}]'>“We certainly do not have shelter beds for every person experiencing homelessness in our community,” said Cohen, regarding capacity at the shelters. “We estimate that we have over 7,700 people experiencing homelessness in our community on any given night. But on any given day, we tend to have enough vacancies within the system to make offers of shelter to people living outside. The outreach team is equipped daily with shelter beds, and they go out and offer them to folks living outdoors. And if folks accept those offers, we will facilitate their immediate placement.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Santa Clara County — home to \u003ca href=\"https://news.sccgov.org/news-release/county-santa-clara-and-city-san-jose-release-preliminary-results-2022-point-time\">more than 10,000 unhoused residents \u003c/a>— temperatures in some places are expected to drop to the low 30s on Thursday night, spurring officials to convert libraries and various other community facilities into \u003ca href=\"https://emergencymanagement.sccgov.org/residents/cold-weather-safety?utm_campaign=preparescc-vanity-redirect&utm_medium=redirect&utm_source=vanity&mc_cid=0a9622393a&mc_eid=a80b3fa145\">warming centers for the most vulnerable residents\u003c/a>, with free transportation also available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The county on Monday also opened a temporary overnight shelter program in Mountain View — at Los Altos United Methodist Church — for women and families that is scheduled to operate daily from 3 p.m. to 9 a.m. through March.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People need a place to go, particularly when it’s cold and wet outside,” said Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, who proposed the shelter years ago. “It’s as simple as that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farther north, in Santa Rosa, where some 1,650 residents are experiencing homelessness, city officials on Tuesday night opened\u003ca href=\"https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/sonoma-county-homelessness-advocates-call-for-beefed-up-winter-response-as/\"> a temporary warming center\u003c/a> — at Catholic Charities’ new downtown Caritas Center — which is expected to remain open until at least Thursday morning. In Marin County, Marin Health and Human Services is opening the shelter from 3 p.m. Friday to 10 a.m. Saturday at 3240 Kerner Blvd. in San Rafael. People are encouraged to sign in by 8 p.m. Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Sonoma County, a freeze warning was issued Wednesday as overnight temperatures are expected to drop to as low as the upper 20s and lower 30s through Monday, which could result in snow and black ice, according to county officials. The county advised unhoused residents to \u003ca href=\"https://socoemergency.org/emergency/extreme-cold/\">locate the nearest shelter\u003c/a>, all of which operate on a first-come, first-served basis, with many offering wraparound services. The city of Sonoma will be extending its temporary shelter at the Sonoma Veterans Memorial Building for Friday evening through Saturday morning. The veterans building is located at 126 First St. W. and will be open from 7 p.m. Friday to 9 a.m. Saturday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Vallejo, an overnight winter warming shelter that had opened on Thursday evening has been extended through Friday evening at the Norman C. King Recreation Center at 545 Magazine St. from 8 p.m. Friday until 7 a.m. Saturday. People looking to get out of the cold are encouraged to bring their own sleeping bags or blankets. Space is limited, so entrants are also asked to only bring one small bag of personal items.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The storm is also forecast to dump a heavy layer of snow on the Tahoe region and much of the Sierra, with wind gusts reaching 100 mph on ridges and mountaintops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for much of the Sierra that starts at 10 p.m. Wednesday and stretches into Friday, with the heaviest snowfall expected at Tahoe on Thursday, when as much as 3 inches an hour could produce whiteout conditions on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Travel will be very difficult with hazardous conditions,” the NWS said Wednesday. “Strong winds could cause damage to trees and lead to power outages.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between 10 and 20 inches of snow is forecast around Lake Tahoe, with 1 to 2 feet at elevations above 7,000 feet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>See lists of warming centers and emergency shelters in:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.achch.org/uploads/7/2/5/4/72547769/alameda_county_winter_shelters__resources_03242021.pdf\">Alameda County (PDF)\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.contracosta.ca.gov/2269/Emergency-Alerts-Resources\">Contra Costa County\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://emergency.marincounty.org/\">Marin County\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/\">San Francisco\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://emergencymanagement.sccgov.org/residents/cold-weather-safety\">Santa Clara County\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://socoemergency.org/emergency/extreme-cold/\">Sonoma County\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story includes reporting from KQED’s Matthew Green, Ezra David Romero and The Associated Press.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 6 p.m. Friday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area’s first real winter storm of the year touched down early Thursday morning and is expected to continue into the afternoon, in what forecasters say will be \u003ca href=\"https://www.weather.gov/wrh/wxtable\">a “powerhouse” system\u003c/a> delivering heavy rain and frigid weather across the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s going to be a legit winter storm, and everybody should prepare for it as such,” said meteorologist Brian Garcia of the National Weather Service’s San Francisco Bay Area office, who advised people to stay indoors, if possible. “Watch out for falling branches, falling trees. … With the wind, we could see some localized power outages.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>Weather conditions will likely “deteriorate” through the early morning on Thursday, Garcia said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Intermittent downpours could bring as much as 3 inches of rain to coastal areas in Sonoma County and around Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County, and could cause flooding on highways and areas with limited drainage, like Marin City.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Most parts of the Bay Area will receive up to 1.5 inches of rain on Thursday, paired with 30–45 mph wind gusts and temperatures dropping into the 40s, before clearing up by Friday. A second but weaker system is expected to bring more rain Friday night through Sunday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is really kind of the first typical winter storm that we’ve had for the season,” said Garcia. “We’ve had a couple other fronts roll through and bring us a little bit of rain. But this one kind of brings it all with the wind, the rain and the cold temperatures following.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coldest weather is forecast for early Friday morning after the storm has passed, with temperatures expected to dip into the mid-30s to low-40s throughout most of the Bay Area, before rising into the mid-to-high 40s by Saturday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amid the imminent cold, wet conditions, local officials and service providers are scrambling to temporarily expand access to warming centers and other shelters for the thousands of unsheltered people living throughout the Bay Area who remain uniquely vulnerable to harsh weather conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, with \u003ca href=\"https://sfgov.org/scorecards/safety-net/homeless-population\">an unhoused population of nearly 8,000\u003c/a>, finding shelter in the rain and the expected 40-degree lows on Thursday and Friday nights will prove crucial, with \u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/\">various temporary shelters and warming centers\u003c/a> available for those exposed to the elements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our \u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/the-homelessness-response-system/outreach/homeless-outreach-team/\">Homeless Outreach Team\u003c/a> is expanding our work today through the weekend,” said Emily Cohen, spokesperson for the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. “We’ll be conducting wellness checks throughout the city, handing out emergency blankets, checking for symptoms of hypothermia, talking to folks and inviting them into shelter or directing them to the nearest warming centers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cohen adds that San Francisco public libraries will be open during the day and that the city will be expanding its shelter capacity at three sites — \u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/\">Sanctuary, MSC South and Next Door Shelter\u003c/a> — where people will be able to self-refer and request a shelter bed to stay overnight. People can also go to locations of the \u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/\">Interfaith Winter Shelter\u003c/a>, a roving shelter that goes to different faith congregations throughout the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan data-pm-slice='1 1 [\"paragraph-wrapper\",null,\"paragraph\",{\"id\":\"p40-0\"}]'>“We certainly do not have shelter beds for every person experiencing homelessness in our community,” said Cohen, regarding capacity at the shelters. “We estimate that we have over 7,700 people experiencing homelessness in our community on any given night. But on any given day, we tend to have enough vacancies within the system to make offers of shelter to people living outside. The outreach team is equipped daily with shelter beds, and they go out and offer them to folks living outdoors. And if folks accept those offers, we will facilitate their immediate placement.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Santa Clara County — home to \u003ca href=\"https://news.sccgov.org/news-release/county-santa-clara-and-city-san-jose-release-preliminary-results-2022-point-time\">more than 10,000 unhoused residents \u003c/a>— temperatures in some places are expected to drop to the low 30s on Thursday night, spurring officials to convert libraries and various other community facilities into \u003ca href=\"https://emergencymanagement.sccgov.org/residents/cold-weather-safety?utm_campaign=preparescc-vanity-redirect&utm_medium=redirect&utm_source=vanity&mc_cid=0a9622393a&mc_eid=a80b3fa145\">warming centers for the most vulnerable residents\u003c/a>, with free transportation also available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The county on Monday also opened a temporary overnight shelter program in Mountain View — at Los Altos United Methodist Church — for women and families that is scheduled to operate daily from 3 p.m. to 9 a.m. through March.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People need a place to go, particularly when it’s cold and wet outside,” said Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, who proposed the shelter years ago. “It’s as simple as that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farther north, in Santa Rosa, where some 1,650 residents are experiencing homelessness, city officials on Tuesday night opened\u003ca href=\"https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/sonoma-county-homelessness-advocates-call-for-beefed-up-winter-response-as/\"> a temporary warming center\u003c/a> — at Catholic Charities’ new downtown Caritas Center — which is expected to remain open until at least Thursday morning. In Marin County, Marin Health and Human Services is opening the shelter from 3 p.m. Friday to 10 a.m. Saturday at 3240 Kerner Blvd. in San Rafael. People are encouraged to sign in by 8 p.m. Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Sonoma County, a freeze warning was issued Wednesday as overnight temperatures are expected to drop to as low as the upper 20s and lower 30s through Monday, which could result in snow and black ice, according to county officials. The county advised unhoused residents to \u003ca href=\"https://socoemergency.org/emergency/extreme-cold/\">locate the nearest shelter\u003c/a>, all of which operate on a first-come, first-served basis, with many offering wraparound services. The city of Sonoma will be extending its temporary shelter at the Sonoma Veterans Memorial Building for Friday evening through Saturday morning. The veterans building is located at 126 First St. W. and will be open from 7 p.m. Friday to 9 a.m. Saturday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Vallejo, an overnight winter warming shelter that had opened on Thursday evening has been extended through Friday evening at the Norman C. King Recreation Center at 545 Magazine St. from 8 p.m. Friday until 7 a.m. Saturday. People looking to get out of the cold are encouraged to bring their own sleeping bags or blankets. Space is limited, so entrants are also asked to only bring one small bag of personal items.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The storm is also forecast to dump a heavy layer of snow on the Tahoe region and much of the Sierra, with wind gusts reaching 100 mph on ridges and mountaintops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for much of the Sierra that starts at 10 p.m. Wednesday and stretches into Friday, with the heaviest snowfall expected at Tahoe on Thursday, when as much as 3 inches an hour could produce whiteout conditions on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Travel will be very difficult with hazardous conditions,” the NWS said Wednesday. “Strong winds could cause damage to trees and lead to power outages.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between 10 and 20 inches of snow is forecast around Lake Tahoe, with 1 to 2 feet at elevations above 7,000 feet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>See lists of warming centers and emergency shelters in:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.achch.org/uploads/7/2/5/4/72547769/alameda_county_winter_shelters__resources_03242021.pdf\">Alameda County (PDF)\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.contracosta.ca.gov/2269/Emergency-Alerts-Resources\">Contra Costa County\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://emergency.marincounty.org/\">Marin County\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/\">San Francisco\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://emergencymanagement.sccgov.org/residents/cold-weather-safety\">Santa Clara County\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://socoemergency.org/emergency/extreme-cold/\">Sonoma County\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story includes reporting from KQED’s Matthew Green, Ezra David Romero and The Associated Press.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "The Burn Scars of the Sierra Foothills Tell a Story — and Offer Lessons",
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"content": "\u003cp>Blodgett Forest Research Station sits about 30 miles west of the southern tip of Lake Tahoe, amid commercial timber and U.S. Forest Service lands. A place for foresters and scientists to experiment with the care and management of forested lands, Blodgett is a prime study site because it’s representative of much of the forested Sierra — all the old growth trees were effectively logged out in the late 1800 and early 1900s. Mostly second growth exists now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers have practiced varying harvesting, thinning and prescribed burning techniques in study plots here since the 1930s, when the land was gifted to the University of California by a private timber company. One focus area of study is how to manage forest lands to be resilient to wildfire. Some of this is “really cutting edge stuff,” says research scientist Brandon Collins.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"alignright\">\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 20px;font-weight: bold\">Blodgett: No Stranger to Fire\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: medium;font-weight: normal\">\u003cspan style=\"font-size: medium;font-weight: normal\">Prior to the Gold Rush, the Blodgett area was a typical mixed-conifer forest, with white fir, Douglas fir, ponderosa pine, sugar pine, incense cedar and California black oak, a hardwood. Here, as throughout the Sierra Nevada, Native people regularly set fire to the land to enhance deer and game habitat and for other benefits.\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\n\u003cp>Before the 1849 Gold Rush, fire moved through the forest around every 10- to 12 years, sometimes as frequently as every two years. Starting in the 1890s, parts of the Blodgett forest were logged by oxen teams, later replaced with steam equipment. Almost all of Blodgett, as well as almost all of the Sierra, was logged during the last century. Loggers especially prized pine trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What sprouts now from the forest floor is primarily second growth cedars and firs — trees that tolerate shade and crowding but are particularly vulnerable to fire and drought. The property was gifted to the University of California by a private timber company almost 90 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>For the past 90 years, all fires on Blodgett have been intentionally set — carefully managed by people trained to bring them under control quickly if needed. That changed in September, when \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11926715/pge-says-its-under-investigation-for-starting-mosquito-fire-in-sierra-nevada\">the Mosquito Fire, which started near a PG&E line on Sept. 6\u003c/a>, burned rapidly and crossed the northern boundary of Blodgett on the morning of Sept. 9. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blodgett staff had already been evacuated from the area for safety. The fire was considered fully contained on Blodgett by Sept. 11. It burned around 100 acres of the 3,000-acre property. All told, the Mosquito Fire burned 77,000 thousand acres in Placer and El Dorado counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the fire damaged control plots for some long-term studies, it opened other opportunities for research. It also underlined the importance of preparing California’s forests for fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Save trees from fire by lighting fires?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Brandon Collins stands in front of what was recently a hillside of young trees, now burnt to blackened crisps by a wildfire. When these trees were alive, the trunks were barely the diameter of an arm or a calf. They now look like a crowd of knobby, emaciated skeletons. They are of no economic value and, unless replanted, risk becoming a field of brush rather than regrowing as a forest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think about, if we go back in time, what could we have done differently to change the outcome?” asks Rob York, co-director of Berkeley Forests, which manages the study site. This area was clear-cut a few decades ago and left alone ever since. “It’s tricky, right? They’re vulnerable because they’re short trees. It doesn’t take a lot of fire intensity to cause a high-severity fire.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11933125\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60398_002_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11933125\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60398_002_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"a white woman stands on a deck showing a fire map in a forest\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60398_002_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60398_002_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60398_002_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60398_002_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60398_002_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ariel Roughton, research forest manager at Berkeley Forests, displays a map of the Mosquito Fire at the Blodgett headquarters. Each solid color is the progress of the fire within a single day. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Land managers at Blodgett could have thinned it with chain saws or a masticator (which is like a wood chipper on a tractor). Both of these options are tremendously expensive, up to $2,000 an acre, with no monetary return — placing them out of reach for almost all land managers, especially those managing for a commercial timber harvest to turn a profit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Industrial timber managers sometimes \u003ca href=\"https://cal-ipc.org/docs/bmps/dd9jwo1ml8vttq9527zjhek99qr/BMPHerbicide.pdf\">spray herbicide (PDF)\u003c/a> to kill competing vegetation in young stands of trees, again at a price. But the practice is \u003ca href=\"https://www.stopclearcuttingca.org/resources/clearcutting-and-toxic-chemicals/\">unpopular among neighboring communities\u003c/a> and can \u003ca href=\"https://www.hcn.org/issues/46.19/timberland-herbicide-spraying-sickens-a-community\">sicken exposed people\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Theoretically, some of the thinned material could be harvested as biomass and incinerated in a cogeneration facility, with profits from energy generation defraying the cost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But in this area and much of the Sierras,” says Ariel Roughton, research forest manager at Berkeley Forests, “that is not a viable option because the infrastructure doesn’t exist. […] There’s not really a lot of good answers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11925321,news_11926715,news_11887536\"]Research on increasing forest resilience could not be more timely, with many acres of industrial timberland in the state looking similar — young trees growing back after a clear cut — and with the state’s wildfire problem accelerating in an era of climate change, drought and fire suppression. Over the coming years, the economic calculus of what makes financial sense for a timber company might change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I could go back in time, I would go back two years ago and do a prescribed fire here,” says York, who is piloting this approach currently at Blodgett. “But it is hard to pull off a prescribed fire in this kind of [young forest] structure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just the day prior to this interview, he conducted a prescribed burn in a forest that looked similar to this stand of trees pre-wildfire. Doing such a fire kills off and consumes some of the trees that could make for a future profit, but it can also inoculate the stand against being entirely destroyed by future fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody’s talking about putting [prescribed] fire in 30-year-old stands. It’s taboo, by the way, for classic forestry,” says Collins. “You’d be burning some of your crop and there are lots of risks and difficulties with doing fire. But maybe if fire loss increases, it’ll start to look more viable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is kind of leading a way to a new frontier in forest management.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A few hundred feet away, over a dirt road, a patch of forest looks quite different from this walking graveyard of small, skinny trees. The Mosquito Fire reached it, too, but then quieted down and became a “surface fire,” burning along the ground instead of torching the crowns of the trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last spring they did a prescribed fire there. Roughton relays what happened when the Mosquito Fire passed from the untreated forest area to the location with the recent prescribed fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11933126\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60402_010_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11933126\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60402_010_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"three white people in conversation in a forest with skinny, burned trees\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60402_010_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60402_010_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60402_010_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60402_010_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60402_010_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brandon Collins, lead scientist at Berkeley Forests, speaks about the impacts of the Mosquito Fire and treatment effectiveness at the UC Berkeley Blodgett Forest Research Station. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The [wildfire] came up in this direction and the intensity changed, right? It was high, high-intensity here. And then over on this side,” she said, indicating the other side of the road, “we did see the fire effects change. It still killed some of these trees along the edge, but it did then drop to the ground.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to saving trees, the calmer fire behavior allowed firefighters to lay lines of containment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But up the road, around a large bend, is a patch of forest that had been diligently treated with beneficial fires. When the Mosquito Fire, running uphill, slammed into it, many trees, even large older ones, still died. Viewed from the road, the trees are mostly dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is actually kind of a sad location for me,” says York, “because I had done the two prescribed fires here in the past, but yet we still see dead trees up in the canopy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11933128\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60406_015_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11933128\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60406_015_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"a white man in a yellow jacket and blue ball cap walks in a forest\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60406_015_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60406_015_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60406_015_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60406_015_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60406_015_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rob York is experimenting with techniques to make young tree stands more resilient to wildfire. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Here, the researchers suspect the landscape had something to do with it. The fire had been making a long run uphill and crested like a powerful wave pounding ashore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fortunately, York says, deeper into the treated area, “we do start to see green trees. We saw the wildfire behaving like a low-severity fire caused by the prescribed fire we did.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>When wildfire is good fire\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For the most part, the Mosquito Fire burned in a moderate, and even mild, way on Blodgett. In a low-intensity fire, stumps may be blackened but remain intact. In a moderate-intensity fire, stumps will be burned deep enough to form charcoal. In a high-severity fire, the stumps are gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were really fortunate that it didn’t burn more of the property,” said Roughton. “It was, I think, a combination of our forest management, the weather helped us tremendously and then obviously the suppression folks who were out there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11933131\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60414_016_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11933131\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60414_016_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"swales in a pile in a burned area of forest\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60414_016_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60414_016_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60414_016_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60414_016_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60414_016_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">On the far left, some trees are still green thanks in part to a recent prescribed fire. In the foreground, swales wait to be deployed to reduce erosion in an area badly burned by the Mosquito Fire. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>However, most of the acres that did burn don’t necessarily look too bad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the things that gets mischaracterized,” says Collins, “is the idea that a wildfire burns and it’s all catastrophe, it’s all destroyed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In reality, he said, these forests are adapted to low- and moderate-severity fires. Even some patches of high-severity fire can be a benefit.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Test-driving new treatments\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>About a mile away, smoke is still rising like morning mist from a field, in a patch of forest. York burned it just the day before. It had looked similar to the high-density young forest seen at the start of the day, the one that burned up like a matchstick in the Mosquito Fire. Now, it’s opened up. You could walk through the stand without snagging your jacket on sticks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We let the fire kill all these small trees,” says York. “We just did it very cheaply and with an ecological process.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11933132\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60456_069_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11933132\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60456_069_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"smoke can be seen from a prescribed burn in a forest\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60456_069_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60456_069_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60456_069_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60456_069_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60456_069_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A prescribed fire continues to smoke from several days prior at the UC Berkeley Blodgett Forest Research Station. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>York will be studying how this stand responds to the fire and whether the expected timber harvest to come from it is much reduced, which he says is still an open question. Heat can kill some parts of the tree’s crown and reduce growth. Yet, the additional space between trees may encourage bigger growth. This stand is also now less likely to be entirely lost in a future fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have some [forestry] friends who really focus on timber as their objective,” says York. “I think they would like this outcome primarily for that reason. We let the fire kill all these small trees. And that was a pretty cheap way to do it.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "While California's largest blaze of 2022 damaged tree plots at the Blodgett Forest Research Station — becoming the first unintentional burn at the study site in 90 years — it unexpectedly presented new opportunities for forest fire research. Here's what scientists have learned.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Blodgett Forest Research Station sits about 30 miles west of the southern tip of Lake Tahoe, amid commercial timber and U.S. Forest Service lands. A place for foresters and scientists to experiment with the care and management of forested lands, Blodgett is a prime study site because it’s representative of much of the forested Sierra — all the old growth trees were effectively logged out in the late 1800 and early 1900s. Mostly second growth exists now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers have practiced varying harvesting, thinning and prescribed burning techniques in study plots here since the 1930s, when the land was gifted to the University of California by a private timber company. One focus area of study is how to manage forest lands to be resilient to wildfire. Some of this is “really cutting edge stuff,” says research scientist Brandon Collins.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"alignright\">\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 20px;font-weight: bold\">Blodgett: No Stranger to Fire\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: medium;font-weight: normal\">\u003cspan style=\"font-size: medium;font-weight: normal\">Prior to the Gold Rush, the Blodgett area was a typical mixed-conifer forest, with white fir, Douglas fir, ponderosa pine, sugar pine, incense cedar and California black oak, a hardwood. Here, as throughout the Sierra Nevada, Native people regularly set fire to the land to enhance deer and game habitat and for other benefits.\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\n\u003cp>Before the 1849 Gold Rush, fire moved through the forest around every 10- to 12 years, sometimes as frequently as every two years. Starting in the 1890s, parts of the Blodgett forest were logged by oxen teams, later replaced with steam equipment. Almost all of Blodgett, as well as almost all of the Sierra, was logged during the last century. Loggers especially prized pine trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What sprouts now from the forest floor is primarily second growth cedars and firs — trees that tolerate shade and crowding but are particularly vulnerable to fire and drought. The property was gifted to the University of California by a private timber company almost 90 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>For the past 90 years, all fires on Blodgett have been intentionally set — carefully managed by people trained to bring them under control quickly if needed. That changed in September, when \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11926715/pge-says-its-under-investigation-for-starting-mosquito-fire-in-sierra-nevada\">the Mosquito Fire, which started near a PG&E line on Sept. 6\u003c/a>, burned rapidly and crossed the northern boundary of Blodgett on the morning of Sept. 9. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blodgett staff had already been evacuated from the area for safety. The fire was considered fully contained on Blodgett by Sept. 11. It burned around 100 acres of the 3,000-acre property. All told, the Mosquito Fire burned 77,000 thousand acres in Placer and El Dorado counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the fire damaged control plots for some long-term studies, it opened other opportunities for research. It also underlined the importance of preparing California’s forests for fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Save trees from fire by lighting fires?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Brandon Collins stands in front of what was recently a hillside of young trees, now burnt to blackened crisps by a wildfire. When these trees were alive, the trunks were barely the diameter of an arm or a calf. They now look like a crowd of knobby, emaciated skeletons. They are of no economic value and, unless replanted, risk becoming a field of brush rather than regrowing as a forest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think about, if we go back in time, what could we have done differently to change the outcome?” asks Rob York, co-director of Berkeley Forests, which manages the study site. This area was clear-cut a few decades ago and left alone ever since. “It’s tricky, right? They’re vulnerable because they’re short trees. It doesn’t take a lot of fire intensity to cause a high-severity fire.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11933125\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60398_002_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11933125\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60398_002_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"a white woman stands on a deck showing a fire map in a forest\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60398_002_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60398_002_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60398_002_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60398_002_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60398_002_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ariel Roughton, research forest manager at Berkeley Forests, displays a map of the Mosquito Fire at the Blodgett headquarters. Each solid color is the progress of the fire within a single day. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Land managers at Blodgett could have thinned it with chain saws or a masticator (which is like a wood chipper on a tractor). Both of these options are tremendously expensive, up to $2,000 an acre, with no monetary return — placing them out of reach for almost all land managers, especially those managing for a commercial timber harvest to turn a profit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Industrial timber managers sometimes \u003ca href=\"https://cal-ipc.org/docs/bmps/dd9jwo1ml8vttq9527zjhek99qr/BMPHerbicide.pdf\">spray herbicide (PDF)\u003c/a> to kill competing vegetation in young stands of trees, again at a price. But the practice is \u003ca href=\"https://www.stopclearcuttingca.org/resources/clearcutting-and-toxic-chemicals/\">unpopular among neighboring communities\u003c/a> and can \u003ca href=\"https://www.hcn.org/issues/46.19/timberland-herbicide-spraying-sickens-a-community\">sicken exposed people\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Theoretically, some of the thinned material could be harvested as biomass and incinerated in a cogeneration facility, with profits from energy generation defraying the cost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But in this area and much of the Sierras,” says Ariel Roughton, research forest manager at Berkeley Forests, “that is not a viable option because the infrastructure doesn’t exist. […] There’s not really a lot of good answers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Research on increasing forest resilience could not be more timely, with many acres of industrial timberland in the state looking similar — young trees growing back after a clear cut — and with the state’s wildfire problem accelerating in an era of climate change, drought and fire suppression. Over the coming years, the economic calculus of what makes financial sense for a timber company might change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I could go back in time, I would go back two years ago and do a prescribed fire here,” says York, who is piloting this approach currently at Blodgett. “But it is hard to pull off a prescribed fire in this kind of [young forest] structure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just the day prior to this interview, he conducted a prescribed burn in a forest that looked similar to this stand of trees pre-wildfire. Doing such a fire kills off and consumes some of the trees that could make for a future profit, but it can also inoculate the stand against being entirely destroyed by future fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody’s talking about putting [prescribed] fire in 30-year-old stands. It’s taboo, by the way, for classic forestry,” says Collins. “You’d be burning some of your crop and there are lots of risks and difficulties with doing fire. But maybe if fire loss increases, it’ll start to look more viable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is kind of leading a way to a new frontier in forest management.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A few hundred feet away, over a dirt road, a patch of forest looks quite different from this walking graveyard of small, skinny trees. The Mosquito Fire reached it, too, but then quieted down and became a “surface fire,” burning along the ground instead of torching the crowns of the trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last spring they did a prescribed fire there. Roughton relays what happened when the Mosquito Fire passed from the untreated forest area to the location with the recent prescribed fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11933126\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60402_010_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11933126\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60402_010_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"three white people in conversation in a forest with skinny, burned trees\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60402_010_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60402_010_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60402_010_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60402_010_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60402_010_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brandon Collins, lead scientist at Berkeley Forests, speaks about the impacts of the Mosquito Fire and treatment effectiveness at the UC Berkeley Blodgett Forest Research Station. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The [wildfire] came up in this direction and the intensity changed, right? It was high, high-intensity here. And then over on this side,” she said, indicating the other side of the road, “we did see the fire effects change. It still killed some of these trees along the edge, but it did then drop to the ground.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to saving trees, the calmer fire behavior allowed firefighters to lay lines of containment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But up the road, around a large bend, is a patch of forest that had been diligently treated with beneficial fires. When the Mosquito Fire, running uphill, slammed into it, many trees, even large older ones, still died. Viewed from the road, the trees are mostly dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is actually kind of a sad location for me,” says York, “because I had done the two prescribed fires here in the past, but yet we still see dead trees up in the canopy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11933128\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60406_015_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11933128\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60406_015_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"a white man in a yellow jacket and blue ball cap walks in a forest\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60406_015_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60406_015_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60406_015_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60406_015_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60406_015_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rob York is experimenting with techniques to make young tree stands more resilient to wildfire. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Here, the researchers suspect the landscape had something to do with it. The fire had been making a long run uphill and crested like a powerful wave pounding ashore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fortunately, York says, deeper into the treated area, “we do start to see green trees. We saw the wildfire behaving like a low-severity fire caused by the prescribed fire we did.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>When wildfire is good fire\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For the most part, the Mosquito Fire burned in a moderate, and even mild, way on Blodgett. In a low-intensity fire, stumps may be blackened but remain intact. In a moderate-intensity fire, stumps will be burned deep enough to form charcoal. In a high-severity fire, the stumps are gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were really fortunate that it didn’t burn more of the property,” said Roughton. “It was, I think, a combination of our forest management, the weather helped us tremendously and then obviously the suppression folks who were out there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11933131\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60414_016_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11933131\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60414_016_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"swales in a pile in a burned area of forest\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60414_016_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60414_016_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60414_016_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60414_016_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60414_016_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">On the far left, some trees are still green thanks in part to a recent prescribed fire. In the foreground, swales wait to be deployed to reduce erosion in an area badly burned by the Mosquito Fire. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>However, most of the acres that did burn don’t necessarily look too bad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the things that gets mischaracterized,” says Collins, “is the idea that a wildfire burns and it’s all catastrophe, it’s all destroyed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In reality, he said, these forests are adapted to low- and moderate-severity fires. Even some patches of high-severity fire can be a benefit.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Test-driving new treatments\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>About a mile away, smoke is still rising like morning mist from a field, in a patch of forest. York burned it just the day before. It had looked similar to the high-density young forest seen at the start of the day, the one that burned up like a matchstick in the Mosquito Fire. Now, it’s opened up. You could walk through the stand without snagging your jacket on sticks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We let the fire kill all these small trees,” says York. “We just did it very cheaply and with an ecological process.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11933132\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60456_069_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11933132\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60456_069_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"smoke can be seen from a prescribed burn in a forest\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60456_069_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60456_069_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60456_069_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60456_069_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS60456_069_KQED_BlodgettForestResearch_10282022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A prescribed fire continues to smoke from several days prior at the UC Berkeley Blodgett Forest Research Station. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>York will be studying how this stand responds to the fire and whether the expected timber harvest to come from it is much reduced, which he says is still an open question. Heat can kill some parts of the tree’s crown and reduce growth. Yet, the additional space between trees may encourage bigger growth. This stand is also now less likely to be entirely lost in a future fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have some [forestry] friends who really focus on timber as their objective,” says York. “I think they would like this outcome primarily for that reason. We let the fire kill all these small trees. And that was a pretty cheap way to do it.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Consider Making Less Food and Composting Leftovers This Thanksgiving, Experts Say",
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"content": "\u003cp>Environmentalists urge people to think twice about how much food they make and how to deal with leftovers this Thanksgiving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New York City, reportedly the world’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.1504315112\">most wasteful city\u003c/a>, last year produced 5% more trash the week after Thanksgiving than during a typical week, according to the\u003ca href=\"https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-officials-environmentalists-urge-locals-to-compost-thanksgiving-leftovers\"> city’s Department of Sanitation\u003c/a>.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Robert Daguillard, EPA spokesperson\"]‘Preventing food from going to waste is one of the easiest and most powerful actions you can take to save money and lower your climate change footprint by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and conserving natural resources.’[/pullquote] \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By composting leftovers, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/recycle/composting-home#whatcom\">process\u003c/a> that converts organic materials into nutrient-rich soil, people can help reduce the amount of trash being dumped into landfills, environmentalists say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over 70 billion pounds of food waste reaches our landfills every year, contributing to methane emissions and wasting energy and resources across the food supply chain,” said Andrew Wheeler, then the Environmental Protection Agency’s administrator, in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-encourages-americans-avoid-food-waste-over-holidays\">statement\u003c/a> the day before Thanksgiving in 2020. “This holiday season, we must all do our part to help people and the environment by preparing only what we need, cutting down our food waste, and sharing or donating what we can to feed others.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some U.S. cities have set up \u003ca href=\"https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dsny/site/services/food-scraps-and-yard-waste-page/overview-residents-organics\">curbside composting\u003c/a> that allows residents to leave food waste in labeled bins for pickup. Those who do not live in neighborhoods with this service can bring food scraps to a compost drop-off location or community garden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New York City’s Department of Sanitation is conducting a \u003ca href=\"https://downtownny.com/compost/\">pilot program\u003c/a> of \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2AR3Bzesjw\">“smart bin” composting\u003c/a> for easy food-scrap drop-offs. People can open these bins, scattered throughout Lower Manhattan, via an app and drop off organic waste, which will then be taken to local and regional composting facilities.[aside tag=\"compost, food\" label=\"More Related Stories\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts also \u003ca href=\"https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-officials-environmentalists-urge-locals-to-compost-thanksgiving-leftovers\">advise\u003c/a> Americans to freeze extra food to eat later, donate excess nonperishable food to local charities and consider making less food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Food composting has increased slightly over the past decade but has not become a prevalent way to manage food waste. From 2010 to 2018, the U.S. saw a \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials#Recycling/Composting\">23% increase \u003c/a>in the amount of municipal solid waste composted. But \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials#:~:text=In%202018%2C%20the%20rate%20of,2018%20(2.6%20million%20tons).\">only 4.1% \u003c/a>of wasted food and other organic solid waste was composted in 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Food \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-encourages-americans-avoid-food-waste-over-holidays\">contributes\u003c/a> more to landfills than any other material, making up 24% of city solid waste. Landfills are the nation’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/07/13/1012218119/epa-struggles-to-track-methane-from-landfills-heres-why-it-matters-for-the-clima\">largest source of methane\u003c/a>, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming and gets emitted when organic waste such as food decomposes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Preventing food from going to waste is one of the easiest and most powerful actions you can take to save money and lower your climate change footprint by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and conserving natural resources,” EPA spokesperson Robert Daguillard said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Consider+making+less+food+and+composting+leftovers+this+Thanksgiving%2C+experts+say&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Environmentalists urge people to think twice about how much food they make and how to deal with leftovers this Thanksgiving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New York City, reportedly the world’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.1504315112\">most wasteful city\u003c/a>, last year produced 5% more trash the week after Thanksgiving than during a typical week, according to the\u003ca href=\"https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-officials-environmentalists-urge-locals-to-compost-thanksgiving-leftovers\"> city’s Department of Sanitation\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Preventing food from going to waste is one of the easiest and most powerful actions you can take to save money and lower your climate change footprint by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and conserving natural resources.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By composting leftovers, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/recycle/composting-home#whatcom\">process\u003c/a> that converts organic materials into nutrient-rich soil, people can help reduce the amount of trash being dumped into landfills, environmentalists say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over 70 billion pounds of food waste reaches our landfills every year, contributing to methane emissions and wasting energy and resources across the food supply chain,” said Andrew Wheeler, then the Environmental Protection Agency’s administrator, in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-encourages-americans-avoid-food-waste-over-holidays\">statement\u003c/a> the day before Thanksgiving in 2020. “This holiday season, we must all do our part to help people and the environment by preparing only what we need, cutting down our food waste, and sharing or donating what we can to feed others.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some U.S. cities have set up \u003ca href=\"https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dsny/site/services/food-scraps-and-yard-waste-page/overview-residents-organics\">curbside composting\u003c/a> that allows residents to leave food waste in labeled bins for pickup. Those who do not live in neighborhoods with this service can bring food scraps to a compost drop-off location or community garden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New York City’s Department of Sanitation is conducting a \u003ca href=\"https://downtownny.com/compost/\">pilot program\u003c/a> of \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2AR3Bzesjw\">“smart bin” composting\u003c/a> for easy food-scrap drop-offs. People can open these bins, scattered throughout Lower Manhattan, via an app and drop off organic waste, which will then be taken to local and regional composting facilities.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts also \u003ca href=\"https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-officials-environmentalists-urge-locals-to-compost-thanksgiving-leftovers\">advise\u003c/a> Americans to freeze extra food to eat later, donate excess nonperishable food to local charities and consider making less food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Food composting has increased slightly over the past decade but has not become a prevalent way to manage food waste. From 2010 to 2018, the U.S. saw a \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials#Recycling/Composting\">23% increase \u003c/a>in the amount of municipal solid waste composted. But \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials#:~:text=In%202018%2C%20the%20rate%20of,2018%20(2.6%20million%20tons).\">only 4.1% \u003c/a>of wasted food and other organic solid waste was composted in 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Food \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-encourages-americans-avoid-food-waste-over-holidays\">contributes\u003c/a> more to landfills than any other material, making up 24% of city solid waste. Landfills are the nation’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/07/13/1012218119/epa-struggles-to-track-methane-from-landfills-heres-why-it-matters-for-the-clima\">largest source of methane\u003c/a>, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming and gets emitted when organic waste such as food decomposes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Preventing food from going to waste is one of the easiest and most powerful actions you can take to save money and lower your climate change footprint by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and conserving natural resources,” EPA spokesperson Robert Daguillard said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Consider+making+less+food+and+composting+leftovers+this+Thanksgiving%2C+experts+say&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Why California's Eco-Friendly, Tax-the-Rich Electorate Killed Prop. 30",
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"content": "\u003cp>Voting down Proposition 30 might seem a little off-brand for the California electorate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These are the voters, after all, who showed no qualms just a decade ago about \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/la-xpm-2012-nov-08-la-me-jerry-brown-20121109-story.html\">hiking income taxes on top earners\u003c/a> and who also \u003ca href=\"https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_63,_Tax_Increase_on_Income_Above_%241_Million_for_Mental_Health_Services_Initiative_(2004)\">hit up millionaires in 2004\u003c/a> to pay for mental health services. These are the California majorities who, as recently as June (PDF), told pollsters that \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/crosstabs-likely-voters-0722.pdf\">they were either considering purchasing or had already purchased an electric car\u003c/a>. Most named air pollution, wildfires and climate change as areas of major personal concern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And yet the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-voter-guide-2022/propositions/prop-30-income-tax-electric-cars/\">ballot measure\u003c/a> that would have increased taxes on about 43,000 multimillionaires (on income above $2 million a year) to fund electric-car rebates and to combat wildfires has suffered an unambiguous defeat. In the statewide vote count as of late Wednesday, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-election-results/#5f96571e-ac80-453f-be3a-1b2c8f977df5\">59% rejected the proposal\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first glance, the fate of Proposition 30 may be the most compelling head-scratcher of the 2022 California election. But for the campaigns on both sides of the highly contested measure, and for many independent political observers to boot, there’s an obvious answer to this electoral mystery — and its name is Gov. Gavin Newsom.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Mary Creasman, CEO, California Environmental Voters\"]‘Where’s the money going to come from? If the governor has some exciting, innovative new stuff that he can pull out of his pocket and say, ‘Here’s how we’re gonna pay for it,’ we are all in.’[/pullquote]“You can’t remove the governor from it,” said Matt Rodriguez, campaign manager for No on 30. “He’s a credible messenger on the opposition side, simply because I think a lot of people and a lot of Democrats take their cues from him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom’s decision to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2022/09/california-propositions-newsom/\">come out swinging against Proposition 30\u003c/a> in mid-September caught many political observers by surprise. That’s both because his position seemed at odds with his reputation as a climate advocate in general and as a booster of electric cars specifically, and because his opposition was so fervent. Of the seven measures on the state ballot this year, the governor only lent his likeness and directed his own campaign resources to two — the overwhelmingly successful Proposition 1 to codify abortion rights in the California Constitution, and Proposition 30, a riskier political gambit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was a coup for the anti-Proposition 30 forces. Comparing polls taken before and after the governor cut his first No on 30 ad, public support wilted — especially among his supporters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The drop among those who approve of Newsom was three times greater than those who were disapproving,” said Dean Bonner, associate survey director at the Public Policy Institute of California. The No campaign found a similar shift in its \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/M-14394-No-on-Prop-30-09-12-22.jpg\">private polling\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mary Creasman, CEO of California Environmental Voters and a member of the campaign supporting Proposition 30, also said Newsom’s role “100%” contributed to the measure’s demise, though she also blamed the No campaign for what she said were “lies” about what the ballot measure would actually do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proposition 30 “had a record number of billionaires against it, it had complete falsehoods thrown at it, and it had the most popular Democratic leader in the state against it,” she said. “And we still got 40% of the vote.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11932083\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11932083\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1244567253.jpg\" alt=\"Governor Gavin Newsom greets voters at a Prop 1 rally\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1244567253.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1244567253-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1244567253-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1244567253-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Newsom at a rally endorsing ballot Prop. 1 at Long Beach City College on Nov. 6, 2022. Newsom’s opposition was a key factor in voters’ rejection of Prop. 30. \u003ccite>(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Specifically, Creasman said the suggestion, made by Newsom and in many No on 30 ads, that Proposition 30 would have specifically benefited Lyft was false. In fact, though the measure could have helped the rideshare company meet some of the state’s vehicle electrification mandates, it would have done so by subsidizing zero-emission vehicles and expanding charging infrastructure in general, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-ballot-measures-prop-30-key-numbers/#8f9fce7f-c7fd-4f1c-b2ce-aff54c57df33\">not by providing money to Lyft directly\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lyft, however, provided roughly 94% of the funding, nearly $48 million, for the Yes on Proposition 30 campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Creasman said she was especially puzzled by the governor’s position, given his support for a state policy to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/08/electric-cars-california-to-phase-out-gas-cars/\">phase out the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035\u003c/a>. The governor and Legislature have committed $10 billion to zero-emission programs and subsidies over the next five years. But Creasman argued that making the mandated transition will require more, and more reliable, public funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The failure of Proposition 30 puts the ball in the governor’s court, she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Where’s the money going to come from?” said Creasman. “If the governor has some exciting, innovative new stuff that he can pull out of his pocket and say, ‘Here’s how we’re gonna pay for it,’ we are all in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Not a referendum on climate\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Both Creasman and Rodriguez cautioned against drawing any sweeping conclusions about California voters’ policy preferences from the outcome of this single contentious proposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Will voters “still be progressive on tax policy? I think possibly,” said Rodriguez. “Will they still be very progressive on climate? I think absolutely. I don’t think any of that is gone. I just think that voters weren’t fooled.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>David Vogel, author of “California Greenin’: How the Golden State Became an Environmental Leader” and a UC Berkeley professor emeritus, agreed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t see it as a referendum at all on climate change or the environment,” he said of Proposition 30. He pointed to the governor’s opposition, the neutrality of some high-profile environmental organizations including the Sierra Club and the allegations of self-dealing by Lyft as top reasons for voter skepticism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sierraclub.org/california/2022-endorsements\">The Sierra Club’s decision not to endorse\u003c/a> was motivated by concerns that some of the money that the measure would have directed toward wildfire mitigation could have funded clear-cutting forests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that was only one of many dueling endorsements and non-endorsements in the Proposition 30 campaign that may have confused voters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In opposing the measure, Newsom joined traditional allies in the state’s two largest teachers’ unions, which \u003ca href=\"https://www.cta.org/our-advocacy/election-2022/no-on-proposition-30\">warned that Proposition 30 could reduce state funding\u003c/a> to public schools. But he broke with many\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Democrats and was on the same side\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>as stranger political bedfellows, including the California Republican Party, the state Chamber of Commerce and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Paul Mitchell, analyst, Political Data\"]‘Confusion is the best friend of the No side. You don’t have to even win the argument, you just have to muddy the waters.’[/pullquote]On the Yes side, the Democratic Party, many environmentalists and trade unions joined Lyft, even though they battled the corporate giant just two years ago over its successful referendum to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/2020/11/after-gig-companies-prop-22-win-labor-groups-vow-challenges/\">exempt the company’s drivers from a state labor law\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The utter strangeness of those coalitions likely contributed to the defeat of Proposition 30, too, said Paul Mitchell, with Political Data, an election-analysis firm that works with Democrats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think it was so much the governor’s messaging, but it was confusing to voters. It was like, ‘Wait, this is an environmental thing? It’s a Lyft thing? The governor isn’t for it?’” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mitchell pointed to the trend in California politics that \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/california-election-2020/2019/10/ballot-california-polling-trend-slump-fact-check-myth-data/\">ballot measures frequently lose support as Election Day nears\u003c/a>. That’s often because undecided and puzzled voters are driven by a “first, do no harm” principle and, erring on the side of the status quo, vote no.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Confusion is the best friend of the No side,” said Mitchell. “You don’t have to even win the argument, you just have to muddy the waters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "In one of the highest-profile California election results, Prop. 30 failed despite the state's commitment to climate action and its history of taxing the wealthy. But the ballot measure also was complicated and divided Democrats, a recipe for failure.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Voting down Proposition 30 might seem a little off-brand for the California electorate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These are the voters, after all, who showed no qualms just a decade ago about \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/la-xpm-2012-nov-08-la-me-jerry-brown-20121109-story.html\">hiking income taxes on top earners\u003c/a> and who also \u003ca href=\"https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_63,_Tax_Increase_on_Income_Above_%241_Million_for_Mental_Health_Services_Initiative_(2004)\">hit up millionaires in 2004\u003c/a> to pay for mental health services. These are the California majorities who, as recently as June (PDF), told pollsters that \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/crosstabs-likely-voters-0722.pdf\">they were either considering purchasing or had already purchased an electric car\u003c/a>. Most named air pollution, wildfires and climate change as areas of major personal concern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And yet the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-voter-guide-2022/propositions/prop-30-income-tax-electric-cars/\">ballot measure\u003c/a> that would have increased taxes on about 43,000 multimillionaires (on income above $2 million a year) to fund electric-car rebates and to combat wildfires has suffered an unambiguous defeat. In the statewide vote count as of late Wednesday, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-election-results/#5f96571e-ac80-453f-be3a-1b2c8f977df5\">59% rejected the proposal\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first glance, the fate of Proposition 30 may be the most compelling head-scratcher of the 2022 California election. But for the campaigns on both sides of the highly contested measure, and for many independent political observers to boot, there’s an obvious answer to this electoral mystery — and its name is Gov. Gavin Newsom.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“You can’t remove the governor from it,” said Matt Rodriguez, campaign manager for No on 30. “He’s a credible messenger on the opposition side, simply because I think a lot of people and a lot of Democrats take their cues from him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom’s decision to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2022/09/california-propositions-newsom/\">come out swinging against Proposition 30\u003c/a> in mid-September caught many political observers by surprise. That’s both because his position seemed at odds with his reputation as a climate advocate in general and as a booster of electric cars specifically, and because his opposition was so fervent. Of the seven measures on the state ballot this year, the governor only lent his likeness and directed his own campaign resources to two — the overwhelmingly successful Proposition 1 to codify abortion rights in the California Constitution, and Proposition 30, a riskier political gambit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was a coup for the anti-Proposition 30 forces. Comparing polls taken before and after the governor cut his first No on 30 ad, public support wilted — especially among his supporters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The drop among those who approve of Newsom was three times greater than those who were disapproving,” said Dean Bonner, associate survey director at the Public Policy Institute of California. The No campaign found a similar shift in its \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/M-14394-No-on-Prop-30-09-12-22.jpg\">private polling\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mary Creasman, CEO of California Environmental Voters and a member of the campaign supporting Proposition 30, also said Newsom’s role “100%” contributed to the measure’s demise, though she also blamed the No campaign for what she said were “lies” about what the ballot measure would actually do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proposition 30 “had a record number of billionaires against it, it had complete falsehoods thrown at it, and it had the most popular Democratic leader in the state against it,” she said. “And we still got 40% of the vote.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11932083\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11932083\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1244567253.jpg\" alt=\"Governor Gavin Newsom greets voters at a Prop 1 rally\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1244567253.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1244567253-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1244567253-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1244567253-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Newsom at a rally endorsing ballot Prop. 1 at Long Beach City College on Nov. 6, 2022. Newsom’s opposition was a key factor in voters’ rejection of Prop. 30. \u003ccite>(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Specifically, Creasman said the suggestion, made by Newsom and in many No on 30 ads, that Proposition 30 would have specifically benefited Lyft was false. In fact, though the measure could have helped the rideshare company meet some of the state’s vehicle electrification mandates, it would have done so by subsidizing zero-emission vehicles and expanding charging infrastructure in general, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-ballot-measures-prop-30-key-numbers/#8f9fce7f-c7fd-4f1c-b2ce-aff54c57df33\">not by providing money to Lyft directly\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lyft, however, provided roughly 94% of the funding, nearly $48 million, for the Yes on Proposition 30 campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Creasman said she was especially puzzled by the governor’s position, given his support for a state policy to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/08/electric-cars-california-to-phase-out-gas-cars/\">phase out the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035\u003c/a>. The governor and Legislature have committed $10 billion to zero-emission programs and subsidies over the next five years. But Creasman argued that making the mandated transition will require more, and more reliable, public funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The failure of Proposition 30 puts the ball in the governor’s court, she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Where’s the money going to come from?” said Creasman. “If the governor has some exciting, innovative new stuff that he can pull out of his pocket and say, ‘Here’s how we’re gonna pay for it,’ we are all in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Not a referendum on climate\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Both Creasman and Rodriguez cautioned against drawing any sweeping conclusions about California voters’ policy preferences from the outcome of this single contentious proposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Will voters “still be progressive on tax policy? I think possibly,” said Rodriguez. “Will they still be very progressive on climate? I think absolutely. I don’t think any of that is gone. I just think that voters weren’t fooled.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>David Vogel, author of “California Greenin’: How the Golden State Became an Environmental Leader” and a UC Berkeley professor emeritus, agreed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t see it as a referendum at all on climate change or the environment,” he said of Proposition 30. He pointed to the governor’s opposition, the neutrality of some high-profile environmental organizations including the Sierra Club and the allegations of self-dealing by Lyft as top reasons for voter skepticism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sierraclub.org/california/2022-endorsements\">The Sierra Club’s decision not to endorse\u003c/a> was motivated by concerns that some of the money that the measure would have directed toward wildfire mitigation could have funded clear-cutting forests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that was only one of many dueling endorsements and non-endorsements in the Proposition 30 campaign that may have confused voters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In opposing the measure, Newsom joined traditional allies in the state’s two largest teachers’ unions, which \u003ca href=\"https://www.cta.org/our-advocacy/election-2022/no-on-proposition-30\">warned that Proposition 30 could reduce state funding\u003c/a> to public schools. But he broke with many\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Democrats and was on the same side\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>as stranger political bedfellows, including the California Republican Party, the state Chamber of Commerce and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>On the Yes side, the Democratic Party, many environmentalists and trade unions joined Lyft, even though they battled the corporate giant just two years ago over its successful referendum to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/2020/11/after-gig-companies-prop-22-win-labor-groups-vow-challenges/\">exempt the company’s drivers from a state labor law\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The utter strangeness of those coalitions likely contributed to the defeat of Proposition 30, too, said Paul Mitchell, with Political Data, an election-analysis firm that works with Democrats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think it was so much the governor’s messaging, but it was confusing to voters. It was like, ‘Wait, this is an environmental thing? It’s a Lyft thing? The governor isn’t for it?’” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mitchell pointed to the trend in California politics that \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/california-election-2020/2019/10/ballot-california-polling-trend-slump-fact-check-myth-data/\">ballot measures frequently lose support as Election Day nears\u003c/a>. That’s often because undecided and puzzled voters are driven by a “first, do no harm” principle and, erring on the side of the status quo, vote no.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Confusion is the best friend of the No side,” said Mitchell. “You don’t have to even win the argument, you just have to muddy the waters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/11.10.22%20PFAS%20Complaint.Final_.pdf\">lawsuit filed Thursday (PDF)\u003c/a> by the state of California accuses 3M, Dupont and 16 smaller companies of covering up the harm caused to the environment and the public from chemicals manufactured by the firms that have over decades found their way into waterways and human bloodstreams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the lawsuit against the manufacturers of compounds that have been used in consumer goods and industry since the 1940s. The chemicals are found in \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/environment-and-nature-e8ff4a597c0a93e2e47e8c1339401335\">firefighting foams\u003c/a>, nonstick frying pans, cleaning sprays, water-repellent sports gear, stain-resistant rugs, cosmetics and countless other products.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bonta said these \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/business-environment-and-nature-environment-pollution-99866ff7b0bf7e110fcbf056ba2c5c09\">so-called forever chemicals\u003c/a> are so strong that they do not degrade or do so only slowly \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/science-michigan-animals-fish-wildlife-bc8f77b2935ba127c85a27eb6d07a30a\">in the environment\u003c/a> and remain in a person’s bloodstream indefinitely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n\u003cp lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">We’re suing \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/3M?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@3M\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/DuPont_News?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@DuPont_News\u003c/a> for deceiving the public about the safety of toxic “forever-chemicals”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without drastic action, we’ll be dealing with the damage wrought by PFAS for generations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We won’t let its manufacturers off the hook. \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/gS68Zda8Gx\">https://t.co/gS68Zda8Gx\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/hFCi5Z5E4T\">pic.twitter.com/hFCi5Z5E4T\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Rob Bonta (@AGRobBonta) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/AGRobBonta/status/1590791795566604288?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 10, 2022\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript async src=\"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\">\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The companies knew for decades that the chemicals are “toxic and harmful to human health and the environment, yet they continued to produce them for mass use and concealed their harms from the public,” Bonta said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the court action comes following a multiyear investigation that found the companies marketed products containing PFAS, short for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, despite knowing they cause cancer, developmental defects, reduced bone density and other health problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“PFAS are as ubiquitous in California as they are harmful,” said Bonta at a news conference in San Francisco on Thursday. “As a result of a decades-long campaign of deception, PFAS are in our waters, our clothing, our houses and even our bodies. The damage caused by 3M, DuPont and other manufacturers of PFAS is nothing short of staggering, and without drastic action, California will be dealing with the harms of these toxic chemicals for generations. Today’s lawsuit is the result of a years-long investigation that found that the manufacturers of PFAS knowingly violated state consumer protection and environmental laws. We won’t let them off the hook for the pernicious damage done to our state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Minnesota-based 3M said in a statement after the court filing that it “acted responsibly in connection with products containing PFAS and will defend its record of environmental stewardship.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11931968\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11931968\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1241732286.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1241732286.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1241732286-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1241732286-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1241732286-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A picture taken on June 15, 2021, shows the 3M factory in Zwijndrecht near the Belgian port city of Antwerp. 3M on July 6, 2022, agreed to pay out the equivalent of $582 million to resolve a fight over years of toxic discharges around its Zwijndrecht plant. 3M and the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders announced the out-of-court settlement in a joint statement, saying it resolved ‘ongoing disagreements’ related to the production of PFAS at the plant. \u003ccite>(David Pintens/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dupont, based in Delaware, said the company as it now exists should not have been named in the lawsuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In 2019, DuPont de Nemours was established as a new multi-industrial specialty products company. DuPont de Nemours has never manufactured PFOA, PFOS or firefighting foam. While we don’t comment on pending litigation, we believe these complaints are without merit, and the latest example of DuPont de Nemours being improperly named in litigation,” the statement said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit, filed in Alameda County, is the first statewide legal action over \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/europe-health-donald-trump-ap-top-news-fish-e9c5fa42a1244de48e3edea7a1bb14eb\">PFAS contamination\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It alleges violations of state consumer protection and environmental statutes and invokes a federal law that establishes a path to recoup the costs of cleaning up hazardous substances in soil and water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bonta estimated penalties and cleanup costs sought by the lawsuit would reach hundreds of millions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>U.S. manufacturers have voluntarily phased out compounds such as PFAS, but there are a limited number of ongoing uses and the chemicals remain in the environment because they do not degrade over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal Environmental Protection Agency in June invited states and territories to apply for $1 billion under the new bipartisan infrastructure law to address PFAS and other contaminants in drinking water. Money can be used for technical assistance, water quality testing, contractor training and installation of centralized treatment, officials said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA warned then that the chemicals are more dangerous than previously thought and pose health risks even at levels so low they cannot currently be detected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "California accuses 3M, Dupont and 16 smaller companies of covering up the harm done by chemicals found in firefighting foams, nonstick frying pans, cleaning sprays, rugs, cosmetics and other products.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/11.10.22%20PFAS%20Complaint.Final_.pdf\">lawsuit filed Thursday (PDF)\u003c/a> by the state of California accuses 3M, Dupont and 16 smaller companies of covering up the harm caused to the environment and the public from chemicals manufactured by the firms that have over decades found their way into waterways and human bloodstreams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the lawsuit against the manufacturers of compounds that have been used in consumer goods and industry since the 1940s. The chemicals are found in \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/environment-and-nature-e8ff4a597c0a93e2e47e8c1339401335\">firefighting foams\u003c/a>, nonstick frying pans, cleaning sprays, water-repellent sports gear, stain-resistant rugs, cosmetics and countless other products.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bonta said these \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/business-environment-and-nature-environment-pollution-99866ff7b0bf7e110fcbf056ba2c5c09\">so-called forever chemicals\u003c/a> are so strong that they do not degrade or do so only slowly \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/science-michigan-animals-fish-wildlife-bc8f77b2935ba127c85a27eb6d07a30a\">in the environment\u003c/a> and remain in a person’s bloodstream indefinitely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n\u003cp lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">We’re suing \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/3M?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@3M\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/DuPont_News?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@DuPont_News\u003c/a> for deceiving the public about the safety of toxic “forever-chemicals”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without drastic action, we’ll be dealing with the damage wrought by PFAS for generations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We won’t let its manufacturers off the hook. \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/gS68Zda8Gx\">https://t.co/gS68Zda8Gx\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/hFCi5Z5E4T\">pic.twitter.com/hFCi5Z5E4T\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Rob Bonta (@AGRobBonta) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/AGRobBonta/status/1590791795566604288?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 10, 2022\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript async src=\"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\">\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The companies knew for decades that the chemicals are “toxic and harmful to human health and the environment, yet they continued to produce them for mass use and concealed their harms from the public,” Bonta said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the court action comes following a multiyear investigation that found the companies marketed products containing PFAS, short for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, despite knowing they cause cancer, developmental defects, reduced bone density and other health problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“PFAS are as ubiquitous in California as they are harmful,” said Bonta at a news conference in San Francisco on Thursday. “As a result of a decades-long campaign of deception, PFAS are in our waters, our clothing, our houses and even our bodies. The damage caused by 3M, DuPont and other manufacturers of PFAS is nothing short of staggering, and without drastic action, California will be dealing with the harms of these toxic chemicals for generations. Today’s lawsuit is the result of a years-long investigation that found that the manufacturers of PFAS knowingly violated state consumer protection and environmental laws. We won’t let them off the hook for the pernicious damage done to our state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Minnesota-based 3M said in a statement after the court filing that it “acted responsibly in connection with products containing PFAS and will defend its record of environmental stewardship.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11931968\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11931968\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1241732286.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1241732286.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1241732286-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1241732286-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1241732286-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A picture taken on June 15, 2021, shows the 3M factory in Zwijndrecht near the Belgian port city of Antwerp. 3M on July 6, 2022, agreed to pay out the equivalent of $582 million to resolve a fight over years of toxic discharges around its Zwijndrecht plant. 3M and the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders announced the out-of-court settlement in a joint statement, saying it resolved ‘ongoing disagreements’ related to the production of PFAS at the plant. \u003ccite>(David Pintens/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dupont, based in Delaware, said the company as it now exists should not have been named in the lawsuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In 2019, DuPont de Nemours was established as a new multi-industrial specialty products company. DuPont de Nemours has never manufactured PFOA, PFOS or firefighting foam. While we don’t comment on pending litigation, we believe these complaints are without merit, and the latest example of DuPont de Nemours being improperly named in litigation,” the statement said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit, filed in Alameda County, is the first statewide legal action over \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/europe-health-donald-trump-ap-top-news-fish-e9c5fa42a1244de48e3edea7a1bb14eb\">PFAS contamination\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It alleges violations of state consumer protection and environmental statutes and invokes a federal law that establishes a path to recoup the costs of cleaning up hazardous substances in soil and water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bonta estimated penalties and cleanup costs sought by the lawsuit would reach hundreds of millions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>U.S. manufacturers have voluntarily phased out compounds such as PFAS, but there are a limited number of ongoing uses and the chemicals remain in the environment because they do not degrade over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal Environmental Protection Agency in June invited states and territories to apply for $1 billion under the new bipartisan infrastructure law to address PFAS and other contaminants in drinking water. Money can be used for technical assistance, water quality testing, contractor training and installation of centralized treatment, officials said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA warned then that the chemicals are more dangerous than previously thought and pose health risks even at levels so low they cannot currently be detected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>California regulators on Thursday \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/-/media/cpuc-website/divisions/energy-division/documents/net-energy-metering-nem/nemrevisit/final-press-release-nem.pdf\">proposed changes to the state's residential solar market (PDF)\u003c/a> designed to encourage more at-home battery systems that can help the electrical grid rely less on fossil fuels in the evenings, especially during heat waves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's the California Public Utilities Commission's \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/science-business-environment-and-nature-california-utilities-1bc5070157e0fb4f0c216f8b1dd1daee\">second attempt at updating the state's incentive program\u003c/a> for home solar systems. An earlier decision, released last December, added new charges for solar customers and lessened the subsidies for installing rooftop panels, which utilities wanted but which solar companies warned would hurt the booming industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Solar panels are on 1.5 million California homes, creating by far the nation's largest home solar market. The state has set \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/climate-technology-pollution-carbon-neutrality-california-air-resources-board-b48aab405c161597e622962beebf9f09\">ambitious goals\u003c/a> for transitioning away from fossil fuels and to renewable energy sources like solar and wind to power homes, businesses and cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under existing rules, solar customers can sell extra energy they aren't using back to their power company for credit on their bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California's three major utilities — Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric — have argued the payment is so generous that solar customers aren't paying their fair share for the overall cost of the electric grid, which they still rely on when their panels aren't generating power. Power rates include other costs like electric transmission and wildfire prevention work.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Kelly Hymes, administrative law judge\"]'These changes will help meet California's climate goals and increase reliability, while promoting affordability across all income levels.'[/pullquote]The new proposal lessens how much money people get for selling their extra solar energy. But it doesn't include a solar-specific fee that utilities wanted. It creates new financial incentives for people to install home storage systems to capture extra solar energy during the day. It also changes electric rates to encourage people to export stored energy to the grid in the late afternoon and early evening, when the grid typically transitions from renewable sources to fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"These changes will help meet California’s climate goals and increase reliability, while promoting affordability across all income levels,\" Administrative Law Judge Kelly Hymes wrote in the decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The five-member public utilities commission has until mid-December to discuss the proposal. If approved, it wouldn’t take effect until at least April 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People who already have solar panels and storage systems would not see a change to their bill credits; the plan would only affect new customers. It also locks in a better rate for people who install in the next five years in an attempt to encourage more homeowners to get into the solar market now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The public utilities commission estimates the average customer with only solar panels would save $100 a month and that people with rooftop solar panels and storage systems would save $136.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The regulators' latest attempt to strike a balance between the utilities and the solar industry brought more criticism than praise. A coalition backed by the utilities said in a statement the decision \"fails to make the meaningful reform necessary\" to ensure costs are fairly spread, while the California Solar and Storage Association said the decision would \"really hurt\" the industry by making home solar panels less affordable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The measure’s defeat marks a win for Newsom, who campaigned against it despite his administration’s moves to ban the sale of most new gas-powered cars next decade. He branded it a taxpayer-funded giveaway to rideshare companies, which, under California regulations, must ensure that nearly all trips booked through their services are zero-emission by 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California voters decisively rejected this poorly crafted and unnecessary tax hike,” the No campaign said in a statement. “The fact is Proposition 30 was a solution to an issue the state is already addressing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental groups who backed Proposition 30 said it was a vital investment in the fight against climate change and bad air quality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://electionresults.sos.ca.gov/returns/ballot-measures\">In early returns\u003c/a>, the measure had garnered just over 40% support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So little was actually discussed about the actual policy and so much was talked about the money,” said Steven Maviglio, spokesperson for the Yes campaign. “I think the early indicators and the polling showed that Californians really wanted some bold climate action, and that’s what Prop. 30 represented. Unfortunately, we had a governor who rallied against all his own programs that would be funded, for whatever reason. Still unclear.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Notably, Newsom’s opposition split him from the California Democratic Party. He instead sided with conservatives, anti-tax and business groups and billionaires who spent millions to defeat it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom argued that Proposition 30 would disrupt the state’s finances and that it was unnecessary in California, which has already committed billions from its record budget surplus to funding electric-vehicle initiatives. He called the measure a corporate tax grab on the part of Lyft, the largest donor to the Yes campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Support among likely voters for the measure started out high and over the summer hovered well above the 50% support it needed to pass, according to polls. But Newsom’s aggressive opposition to it found an audience with voters and chiseled away at that advantage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Newsom’s direction earlier this year, California air regulators adopted a ban on the sale of new cars that run solely on gasoline, starting in 2035. Car companies would have to sell vehicles powered by hydrogen or batteries, or hybrids that run on a gas-battery combo. People could still drive their gas-powered cars or buy used ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom noted his administration has already dedicated $10 billion over the next six years to boost electric transportation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Backers of the measure, including most major environmental groups, argued the state needs a dedicated, robust source of funding to set up infrastructure that can handle more plug-in cars and help Californians of all income levels buy them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, about 18% of new car sales in California have been for fully electric or hybrid cars, according to Newsom’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That will have to double by 2026 to meet new state mandates for car sales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By 2045, the state wants to be “carbon neutral,” which means it wouldn’t put any emissions into the air that it can’t remove. That will require a massive reduction in emissions from vehicles and other sources, as well as the buildup of technologies that can capture carbon as it is emitted, or pull it from the air and store it underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This story includes reporting from The Associated Press.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "california-has-bold-plans-to-address-water-security-and-boost-supply-but-will-they-succeed",
"title": "California Has Bold Plans to Address Water Security and Boost Supply — but Will They Succeed?",
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"headTitle": "California Has Bold Plans to Address Water Security and Boost Supply — but Will They Succeed? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Over and over again, drought launches California into a familiar scramble to provide enough water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cities and towns \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/06/california-water-shortage/\">call for conservation and brace for shortages\u003c/a>. Growers \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/05/sacramento-valley-water-drought/\">fallow fields\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/08/shasta-river-water-standoff/\">ranchers sell cows\u003c/a>. And \u003ca href=\"https://mydrywell.water.ca.gov/report/\">thousands of people\u003c/a> discover that they \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/08/california-groundwater-dry/\">can’t squeeze another drop from their wells\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So where can California get enough water to survive the latest dry stretch — and the next one, and the next?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Can it pump more water from the salty Pacific Ocean? Treat waste flushed down toilets and washed down drains? Capture runoff that flows off streets into storm drains? Tow Antarctic icebergs to Los Angeles?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Newsom administration \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/08/newsom-strategy-california-water-supply/\">unveiled a road map for bolstering the state water supply\u003c/a>. But the plan — which has few details, distant deadlines and scant plans for agriculture — \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-09-04/newsom-water-supply-strategy-falls-short\">has been met with criticism\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every time another drought rolls around, an array of suggestions rise to the surface. We take a look at the strategies that could work — along with the more outlandish ones — and the obstacles they face.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#75652c02-4d28-4b1a-85fc-4d4883f3d991\">Recycle more water\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Turning sewage into water is the Golden State equivalent of turning water into wine, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/documents/direct_potable_reuse/dprframewkseced.pdf\">California has been doing it for decades (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians used about \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/recycled_water/docs/2022/volumetric-infographic-2021.pdf\">732,000 acre-feet of recycled water (PDF)\u003c/a> in 2021. That’s almost two-thirds of the water that the state’s major aqueduct funneled south in dry 2021 — equivalent to the amount used by roughly 2.6 million households.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/documents/direct_potable_reuse/dprframewkseced.pdf\">None of it flows directly from “toilet to tap” (PDF).\u003c/a> But the State Water Resources Control Board is \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/docs/2022/nwri-ep-finalmemoprelimfind.pdf\">developing regulations for direct potable reuse (PDF)\u003c/a> of highly treated wastewater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For now, much of California’s recycled water is used for non-drinking purposes, like irrigating landscapes, golf courses and crops. It also refills underground stores that provide drinking water. Southern California has been \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/documents/direct_potable_reuse/dprframewkseced.pdf\">replenishing local groundwater supplies (PDF)\u003c/a> with recycled wastewater since the 1960s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11929864 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS51691_043_SanJose_WaterPurificationCenter_09232021-qut.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom called for \u003ca href=\"https://resources.ca.gov/-/media/CNRA-Website/Files/Initiatives/Water-Resilience/CA-Water-Supply-Strategy.pdf\">ramping up recycled water use (PDF)\u003c/a> by 2030 by \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/docs/2022/nwri-ep-finalmemoprelimfind.pdf\">roughly 9% (PDF)\u003c/a> from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/recycled_water/docs/2022/volumetric-infographic-2021.pdf\">amount (PDF)\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/docs/2022/nwri-ep-finalmemoprelimfind.pdf\">used in 2021 (PDF)\u003c/a>, rising to 1.8 million acre-feet by 2040. Critics, however, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-09-04/newsom-water-supply-strategy-falls-short\">voiced disappointment with the target’s lack of ambition\u003c/a>, which \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/board_decisions/adopted_orders/resolutions/2009/rs2009_0011_recyclewater.pdf\">falls short (PDF)\u003c/a> of previous \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/docs/2022/nwri-ep-finalmemoprelimfind.pdf\">state goals (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, water suppliers are spending big to \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/docs/2022/nwri-ep-finalmemoprelimfind.pdf\">build out water recycling facilities (PDF)\u003c/a> in \u003ca href=\"https://www.valleywater.org/project-updates/purified-water-project-ensuring-reliable-groundwater-supply\">Northern\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/water/pdf/purewater/2014/fs_purewater.pdf\">Southern (PDF)\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.mwdh2o.com/building-local-supplies/pure-water-southern-california/\">California (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s a catch: As Californians replace their water-guzzling household appliances with more thrifty devices and let the yellow mellow before flushing, the waste stream becomes more concentrated — which could lead \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-0529-2\">to higher treatment costs\u003c/a>, more contaminants and less recycled water overall.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#488fc469-bd9f-4571-8b55-456998d64136\">More desalination\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Desalination is an oft-touted fix for water woes in California, with its ample shoreline. But in practice, \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/desalinating-seawater-sounds-easy-but-there-are-cheaper-and-more-sustainable-ways-to-meet-peoples-water-needs-184919\">environmental concerns and costs\u003c/a> have limited \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2019/09/f66/73355-7.pdf\">the energy-intensive practice \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/docs/2022/nwri-ep-finalmemoprelimfind.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Four ocean water desalination facilities in California produce nearly \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/safedrinkingwaterplan/docs/ExecSumPlan_Report.pdf#page=66\">60,000 acre-feet of drinking water \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/docs/2022/nwri-ep-finalmemoprelimfind.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>. More\u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/ocean/desalination/#existing-facilities\"> provide water for industries or other facilities\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New desalination proposals have been rife with controversy. The California Coastal Commission in 2022\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/05/california-desalination-plant-coastal-commission/\"> rejected a seawater desalination\u003c/a> plant in Huntington Beach, with state analysts warning of high costs, a lack of local demand and risks to marine life. But just months later, the commission pivoted, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/10/desalination-plants-california/\">greenlighting a plant in Orange County’s Dana Point\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11931480\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2121px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11931480\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-610327538.jpg\" alt=\"A tangle of pipes at a desalination plant.\" width=\"2121\" height=\"1414\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-610327538.jpg 2121w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-610327538-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-610327538-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-610327538-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-610327538-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-610327538-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-610327538-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2121px) 100vw, 2121px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Located in San Diego County, at the Encina Power Station, the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant is the largest salt water desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere and provides 50 million gallons of desalinated seawater per day. \u003ccite>(Reed Kaestner/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A lesser-known but rapidly growing strategy is brackish water desalination, which cleans up salty supplies, such as from groundwater, that can then be used for \u003ca href=\"https://www.chinodesalter.org/97/Facilities\">drinking water. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 23 of these plants have the capacity to produce nearly 140,000 acre-feet of water in a year, \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/safedrinkingwaterplan/docs/ExecSumPlan_Report.pdf#page=66\">based on a 2013 analysis (PDF). \u003c/a>They use \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/-/media/DWR-Website/Web-Pages/Programs/California-Water-Plan/Docs/RMS/2016/09_Desalination_July2016.pdf\">less energy \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/safedrinkingwaterplan/docs/ExecSumPlan_Report.pdf#page=66\">(PDF)\u003c/a> than their seawater counterparts.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#cf07019c-d4ca-4f14-bd54-6235cabc9680\">Capture stormwater runoff\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The rainwater and spillover from sprinklers that flows off roads, yards and rooftops — much of it eventually emptying into waterways or the ocean — could help boost California’s water supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s urban areas shed 770,000 to 3.9 million acre-feet of runoff a year that could be captured, according to the Pacific Institute. That’s enough to supply between 2.7 million and 13.7 million households for a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The potential is highest in Southern California, which has lots of pavement that sends rainwater and irrigation runoff into storm drains. Collecting this runoff and feeding it into aquifers — or eventually treating it and sending it to taps — would avoid wasting it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some local agencies have been corralling stormwater to replenish aquifers for years, \u003ca href=\"https://data.ca.gov/dataset/stormwater-projects\">with dozens more projects in the works\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.fresnofloodcontrol.org/\">Fresno Metropolitan Flood Control District\u003c/a>, for instance, captures runoff across 400 square miles in Fresno County. The water is used to \u003ca href=\"https://www.fresnofloodcontrol.org/water-resources/groundwater-recharge/\">fill more than 150 ponds\u003c/a>, where it trickles through the soil to refill groundwater stores. In bone-dry 2021, storm flows \u003ca href=\"https://www.fresnofloodcontrol.org/water-resources/groundwater-recharge/\">accounted for almost all of the district’s groundwater recharge\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Monica has been a leader in treating urban runoff, and plans to upgrade a \u003ca href=\"https://www.smgov.net/Departments/PublicWorks/ContentCivEng.aspx?id=54194\">recycling facility\u003c/a> built near its famous pier more than 20 years ago. The plan is \u003ca href=\"https://www.santamonica.gov/sustainable-water-infrastructure-project-swip\">to treat the collected runoff and stormwater\u003c/a> so it’s clean enough to be injected directly into Santa Monica’s groundwater basin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">Strategies for using stormwater (PDF)\u003c/a> also include installing permeable pavement in yards and communities and building basins that let it drain into the soil instead of flowing into storm drains or streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But barriers remain to capturing more of the flows. These \u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">include high costs and a lack of funding \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>, concerns about impacts to water quality and \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-04/red-tape-ensnares-los-angeles-storm-water-capture-plan\">lengthy planning and approval processes\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#f3d82891-5107-4592-965a-88d126a4dd67\">Transform California agriculture\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.ers.usda.gov/faqs/#Q1\">agriculture is the most productive\u003c/a> in the country. But it also drinks up about \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/Programs/Water-Use-And-Efficiency/Agricultural-Water-Use-Efficiency\">80% of the developed water used in the state\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How much water is used by farms changes with the weather from year to year. But \u003ca href=\"https://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/PI_Water_Use_Trends.pdf\">it remained generally flat \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a> between the 1980s and 2015.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The only real way to reduce water use further in agriculture is to grow less food and farm products, or take more agricultural land out of production,” said Danny Merkley, water resources director with the California Farm Bureau Federation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almonds and pistachios are the \u003ca href=\"https://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/CA-Ag-Water-Use-1.pdf\">fourth most water-intensive crops in California \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>, after rice, alfalfa and irrigated pasture, according to the Pacific Institute. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publications/Specialty_and_Other_Releases/Almond/Forecast/202205almpd.pdf\">Nut acreage \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a> has \u003ca href=\"https://wsm.ucmerced.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/2021-Drought-Impact-Assessment_20210224.pdf\">soared in the past 10 years \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>, but what that means for water is less clear: State data lags and there’s no real-time monitoring of agricultural water use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11931482\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11931482\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS10081_80999037-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Two cyclists ride by an irrigation canal.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS10081_80999037-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS10081_80999037-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS10081_80999037-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS10081_80999037-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS10081_80999037-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS10081_80999037-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS10081_80999037-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The California Aqueduct carries water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to southern California. \u003ccite>(David McNew/ Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>More changes are coming, with \u003ca href=\"https://www.climate.gov/news-features/feed/evaporative-demand-increase-across-lower-48-means-less-water-supplies-drier\">climate change parching crops\u003c/a> and state law calling for \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/08/california-groundwater-dry/\">sustainable groundwater management.\u003c/a> Complying with California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act could require 500,000 to 1 million acres of prime agricultural land to come out of production in the San Joaquin Valley, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/exploring-the-potential-for-water-limited-agriculture-in-the-san-joaquin-valley/\">according to the Public Policy Institute of California\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has \u003ca href=\"https://www.conservation.ca.gov/dlrp/grant-programs/Pages/Multibenefit-Land-Repurposing-Program.aspx\">earmarked $110 million over three years\u003c/a> to repurpose agricultural land and put it toward other uses, such as groundwater recharge and habitat restoration. \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/News/News-Releases/2022/Oct-22/State-Collaborates-with-Farmers-to-Conserve-Water-Provide-Habitat-for-Migratory-Birds\">Other funding is provided to growers who fallow their fields\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Growers also could opt for \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/exploring-the-potential-for-water-limited-agriculture-in-the-san-joaquin-valley/\">crops grown during the rainy season\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/09/california-drought-farmers/\">breed more drought-tolerant varieties\u003c/a>. And \u003ca href=\"https://calag.ucanr.edu/Archive/?article=ca.v066n02p55\">leaving crop residues in fields\u003c/a> and reducing tillage can allow soil to retain more water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More efficient irrigation systems help, too. But the Farm Bureau’s Merkley said making water go further is growing more difficult and smaller growers can struggle to pay for it. Also, an international team of researchers warned that increased efficiency \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aat9314\">must be accompanied by robust monitoring and caps on water extractions\u003c/a>. Otherwise, they wrote, it can backfire by prompting planting of more acreage with more water-intensive crops.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#83001060-ef40-47ba-aa25-0f0dc9762049\">Tear out lawns\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/News/News-Releases/2022/Sep-22/DWR-Takes-Actions-to-Support-Future-Water-Supply-Strategy#:~:text=California%20also%20recently%20took%20additional,and%2042%20gallons%20by%202030.\">About half of water used in cities and towns\u003c/a> is used outdoors for washing cars, hosing down sidewalks and irrigating \u003ca href=\"https://ucanr.edu/sites/UrbanHort/Turfgrass_Management\">roughly 4 million acres of turf\u003c/a>. Turf drinks up the most water in any month, in any part of California, of any plant analyzed in \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/conservation_portal/regs/docs/2022/trees-and-parklands-preface.pdf\">a state report \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tearing out turf and replacing it with more drought-tolerant plants could save between 1 million and 1.5 million acre-feet per year, with \u003ca href=\"https://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/PI_California_Untapped_Urban_Water_Potential_2022-1.pdf\">the largest savings coming from residences \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>, the Pacific Institute estimates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California temporarily banned watering decorative, non-functional turf at businesses and institutions under emergency \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/press_room/press_releases/2022/pr06142022-new-statewide-emergency-conservation-regulation-in-effect.pdf\">regulations adopted in May 2022 \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>, and is reviving rebates for tearing out turf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11931484\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2127px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11931484\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1335769913.jpg\" alt=\"A sprinkler with multiple streams watering green grass.\" width=\"2127\" height=\"1409\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1335769913.jpg 2127w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1335769913-800x530.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1335769913-1020x676.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1335769913-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1335769913-1536x1018.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1335769913-2048x1357.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1335769913-1920x1272.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2127px) 100vw, 2127px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Pacific Institute estimates that tearing out turf and replacing it with more drought-tolerant plants could save between 1 million and 1.5 million acre-feet per year. \u003ccite>(Shawn Waldron/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A statewide turf replacement program that began during the last drought tapped out in June 2020 after putting more than $20.5 million toward helping people replace their lawns. Local water providers \u003ca href=\"https://socalwatersmart.com/en/residential/rebates/available-rebates/turf-replacement-program/\">continued their own multi-million dollar efforts\u003c/a>, however, and the state put \u003ca href=\"https://www.ebudget.ca.gov/2022-23/pdf/Enacted/GovernorsBudget/3000/3860.pdf\">$75 million in funding toward rebates in the state’s 2022-2023 \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a> budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1752-1688.12901\">The Metropolitan Water District\u003c/a> has spent more than $350 million coaxing Southern Californians to convert more than 200 million square feet of turf. And there is a ripple effect, with \u003ca href=\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1752-1688.12901\">some of their neighbors tearing out their lawns\u003c/a>, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there are limits to peer pressure. \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-08-22/kim-kardashian-kevin-hart-california-drought-water-waste\">Celebrities\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Repeat-offenders-among-hundreds-of-East-Bay-17534485.php\">others\u003c/a> continue to be called out for over-watering their yards, and urban water use remains high, with cities and towns, particularly in Southern California, failing to meet Newsom’s goal to cut their water use by 15%.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#6a1996dc-c975-4a14-90b2-d5390efce09f\">Replumb California\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A controversial \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/06/california-water-delta-tunnel/\">plan to replumb the California Delta\u003c/a> — decades in the making — would funnel water from new intakes north of the delta as well as existing south Delta pumps, sending hundreds of thousands more acre-feet of water south instead of allowing it to flow out to the ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the state’s environmental review \u003ca href=\"https://www.deltaconveyanceproject.com/read-the-document\">has raised serious concerns\u003c/a> that the tunnel project could harm \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/07/delta-tunnel-water-report/\">endangered salmon and other species\u003c/a>. And, if eventually approved, it would take decades to complete and cost billions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, California’s existing networks of pipes, aqueducts and canals lose precious supplies to leaks and evaporation. Some strategies have emerged to reduce these losses, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.iid.com/water/library/all-american-canal-lining-project\">lining canals\u003c/a> — \u003ca href=\"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12665-019-8487-6\">which can also impede groundwater recharge\u003c/a> — or \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/first-solar-canal-project-is-a-win-for-water-energy-air-and-climate-in-california-177433\">covering them with solar panels\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In cities and towns, water suppliers \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/docs/rulemaking/isor.pdf\">lose roughly 316,000 acre-feet of water \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a> every year through leaks in their vast mazes of pipes. The state set new standards requiring water providers to meet loss targets starting in 2028, which could save about 88,000 acre-feet a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#4fb7112e-4f1c-4711-a854-ef5d9b0583c6\">Store more water in reservoirs\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cdiv class=\"explainer-card__content\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-cal-explainers-card\">\n\u003cp>Reservoirs aren’t the field of dreams: Even when we build them, the water doesn’t necessarily come. Statewide reservoir \u003ca href=\"https://cww.water.ca.gov/service/document/hydroreport?_=1664980284640\">storage plunged to 69% below average\u003c/a> by the end of September 2022, on the heels of the state’s driest \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/09/california-drought-likely-to-continue/\">three-year stretch on record\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://cwc.ca.gov/Water-Storage/WSIP-Project-Review-Portal\">Proposition 1\u003c/a>, approved in 2014, set aside $2.7 billion to fund water storage projects. The three projects eligible to receive funding, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-05-31/drought-resurrects-plan-for-controversial-reservoir\">which include the controversial Sites reservoir,\u003c/a> would increase storage capacity by more than 1.75 million acre-feet, enough to supply more than 6 million households.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How much they would increase the water supply available each year, however, is unclear. Lengthy droughts deplete reservoir storage, and “the average volume of new water from these facilities is small, and costs are high,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/californias-water-storing-water-november-2018.pdf\">the Public Policy Institute of California \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a> warned in 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11931486\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2190px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11931486\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1182796092.jpg\" alt=\"A view of Shasta Dam, a dam wall with big blue reservoir of Shasta lake behind it and treelined hills in the background.\" width=\"2190\" height=\"1369\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1182796092.jpg 2190w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1182796092-800x500.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1182796092-1020x638.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1182796092-160x100.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1182796092-1536x960.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1182796092-2048x1280.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1182796092-1920x1200.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2190px) 100vw, 2190px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Statewide reservoir storage plunged to 69% below average by the end of Sept. 2022, on the heels of the state’s driest 3-year stretch on record. \u003ccite>(Wenli Li/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Many reservoirs in California do double duty as flood control which means that space for potential floods \u003ca href=\"https://cw3e.ucsd.edu/firo/\">must be maintained even in dry years\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But state, federal and local water managers are working with \u003ca href=\"https://cw3e.ucsd.edu/firo/\">scientists\u003c/a> on strategies to reduce flood risk while reserving more water in California’s reservoirs. Water managers at Lake Mendocino, for instance, are incorporating \u003ca href=\"https://www.drought.gov/regional-activities/forecast-informed-reservoir-operations-firo\">new weather forecasting\u003c/a> tools to \u003ca href=\"https://www.sonomawater.org/firo\">update decades-old guidelines\u003c/a> governing when to hold onto water and when to release it. The strategy increased the lake’s storage by \u003ca href=\"https://resources.ca.gov/-/media/CNRA-Website/Files/Initiatives/Water-Resilience/CA-WRP-Progress-Report.pdf\">nearly 20% in 2020, with most of the water going to agriculture \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#0469ec6c-04dc-4175-8b42-09fb00a29cb2\">Recharge groundwater basins\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California’s underground aquifers can hold vastly more water than its reservoirs — \u003ca href=\"https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/ff075c25b77e4b1d95ce86a82bf0fe96\">between 850 million and 1.3 billion acre-feet\u003c/a> of capacity below ground, compared to \u003ca href=\"https://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=STORSUM\">about 38.1 million acre-feet above\u003c/a> ground, according to the Department of Water Resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local districts have been carefully tending groundwater for decades. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.ocwd.com/gwrs/the-process/process-steps/water-delivery/\">Orange County Water District\u003c/a>, for instance, pumps highly treated water underground to keep seawater at bay and to replenish local drinking-water stores. In the Southern San Joaquin Valley, \u003ca href=\"https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Groundwater-Recharge-for-a-Regional-Water-Bank-Kern-Water-Bank-Kern-County-California.pdf\">water suppliers\u003c/a> funnel \u003ca href=\"https://www.kwb.org/groundwater-sustainability/recharge-recovery/\">surface water into underground storage\u003c/a> at the controversial Kern Water Bank, largely for agricultural irrigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Newsom administration has called for increasing groundwater recharge yearly by at least 500,000 acre-feet. But ongoing challenges remain to widespread groundwater recharge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot more empty aquifers than there are unclaimed sources of water in California,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/clee/about/people/michael-kiparsky/\">Michael Kiparsky\u003c/a>, Water Program Director at the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at UC Berkeley School of Law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not just about the amount of water, Kiparsky said, it’s also about the logistics. California will need to ensure there’s enough capacity \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/blog/how-much-water-is-available-for-groundwater-recharge/\">to quickly move flood flows to the right basins\u003c/a> for recharge during California’s brief rainy season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unless that bottleneck is widened, plans to end the overdraft of depleted aquifers in the San Joaquin Valley are calling for more groundwater recharge than is likely realistic, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/ppic-review-of-groundwater-sustainability-plans-in-the-san-joaquin-valley.pdf\">according to the Public Policy Institute of California (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#b41cece5-574f-4534-a444-19e07691d13f\">Control greenhouse gases\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Climate change is \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4386383/\">worsening droughts\u003c/a> and is expected to fuel even \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0140-y\">more extreme swings from dry to deluge\u003c/a>. The Newsom administration warns that climate change could deplete state water supplies \u003ca href=\"https://resources.ca.gov/-/media/CNRA-Website/Files/Initiatives/Water-Resilience/CA-Water-Supply-Strategy.pdf\">by up to 10% by 2040 \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/ppic-review-of-groundwater-sustainability-plans-in-the-san-joaquin-valley.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Curbing use of fossil fuels globally can blunt some of the severity of future droughts, researchers \u003ca href=\"https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3115/nasa-drought-research-shows-value-of-both-climate-mitigation-and-adaptation/\">reported\u003c/a>. But even California, which prides itself on its green image, will need to pick up the pace to meet state goals for cutting greenhouse gases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11931488\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11931488\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS15682_DSC_0403-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Kids splashing around in an outdoor splash pad.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1152\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS15682_DSC_0403-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS15682_DSC_0403-qut-800x480.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS15682_DSC_0403-qut-1020x612.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS15682_DSC_0403-qut-160x96.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS15682_DSC_0403-qut-1536x922.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Climate change is worsening droughts and is expected to fuel even more extreme swings from dry to deluge. The Newsom administration warns that climate change could deplete state water supplies by up to 10% by 2040. \u003ccite>(Ericka Cruz Guevarra/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Much larger reductions are needed to reach the ambitious 2030 target — an additional 40% reduction below the original 2020 limit,” \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/latest-state-greenhouse-gas-inventory-shows-emissions-continue-drop-below-2020-target\">Air Resources Board Chair Liane Randolph said in July, 2021. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s clean air regulators are ramping up their efforts \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/09/california-climate-change-plan/\">in the state’s updated climate roadmap\u003c/a>. But parts of the plan, including its reliance on technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or capture it from smokestacks, remain contentious.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#2104d2c3-4a7a-4116-b1c9-3eedc45d49c7\">Reform water rights\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California’s water supplies are governed by an arcane and complex rights system based on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/about_us/water_boards_structure/history_water_rights.html\">Gold Rush-era philosophy of “first in time, first in right.”\u003c/a> Generally, those with the oldest claims are the last to be cut back during shortages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental justice advocates and legal experts point out that this system of seniority is plagued with inequalities and based on a history of violence and \u003ca href=\"https://law.stanford.edu/2022/03/16/elc-supports-efforts-by-tribes-and-environmental-justice-advocates-to-reframe-california-water-rights/\">systematic exclusion of Native peoples and people of color\u003c/a>. Legislative analysts also \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/handouts/resources/2009/water_rights_issues_perspectives_031009.pdf\">warned more than a decade ago \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/ppic-review-of-groundwater-sustainability-plans-in-the-san-joaquin-valley.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a> that, in some cases, water rights are “oversubscribed,” meaning they allocate more water than is available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest drought prompted California officials to periodically \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/06/california-delta-water-cutbacks/\">curtail water rights across the state\u003c/a> as supplies dwindled. But \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/08/shasta-river-water-standoff/\">a scuffle in the Shasta Valley\u003c/a>, when some ranchers temporarily refused to comply, revealed that the state’s enforcement muscle is slow to flex and hamstrung by restrictions on penalties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Water law experts have \u003ca href=\"https://www.pcl.org/media/2022/02/Updating-California-Water-Laws-to-Address-with-Drought-and-Climate-Change.pdf\">been pushing for changes \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/ppic-review-of-groundwater-sustainability-plans-in-the-san-joaquin-valley.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>. Recommendations include increasing funding to help Native tribes and other underrepresented groups participate in state water proceedings, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.pcl.org/media/2022/02/Updating-California-Water-Laws-to-Address-with-Drought-and-Climate-Change.pdf\">granting state water regulators more authority \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/ppic-review-of-groundwater-sustainability-plans-in-the-san-joaquin-valley.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a> to act swiftly when people violate curtailment orders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A water board spokesperson said that they are developing pilot projects to collect real-time data about water diversions, and are considering “adopting regulations that would allow for curtailments of water rights in years when there is not a declared drought emergency.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#9801f1c7-3945-4b12-b3b6-cd4302481093\">More cloud seeding and solar panels\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A couple strategies sound like science fiction, but they are already being used and hold some promise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.countyofsb.org/2548/Cloud-Seeding-Precipitation-Enhancement\">Santa Barbara County\u003c/a> has been practicing cloud seeding for decades — releasing \u003ca href=\"https://content.civicplus.com/api/assets/be2de2b5-10fe-433d-9369-eb68ba70b267?scope=all\">tiny particles of silver iodide\u003c/a> into the atmosphere during certain storms to coax water vapor into forming ice crystals and falling to earth. Researchers say it’s difficult \u003ca href=\"https://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2005/techprogram/paper_83339.htm\">to evaluate how well it works\u003c/a>, partly because precipitation is so variable, \u003ca href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283492150_TARGETCONTROL_ANALYSES_FOR_SANTA_BARBARA_COUNTY%27S_OPERATIONAL_WINTER_CLOUD_SEEDING_PROGRAM\">but one analysis\u003c/a> pointed to increased precipitation of 9% to 21% in two target areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Desert Research Institute has led this effort, \u003ca href=\"https://www.dri.edu/cloud-seeding-program/current-cloud-seeding-operations/\">seeding clouds\u003c/a> in California’s San Joaquin Valley, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado and Australia. In Wyoming, its 10-year experiment in mountain regions increased snowpack from winter storms by 5% to 15%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11931493\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2121px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11931493\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1286644133.jpg\" alt=\"Clouds with a small plane flying through.\" width=\"2121\" height=\"1414\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1286644133.jpg 2121w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1286644133-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1286644133-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1286644133-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1286644133-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1286644133-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1286644133-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2121px) 100vw, 2121px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cloud seeding involves releasing tiny particles of silver iodide into the atmosphere during certain storms to coax water vapor into forming ice crystals and falling to earth. \u003ccite>(Artinun Prekmoung/EyeEm via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One Central Valley town has turned \u003ca href=\"https://www.source.co/resources/case-studies/solving-a-century-old-water-quality-issue-by-tapping-the-sky/\">to another unusual strategy\u003c/a>: solar-powered “hydropanels” that \u003ca href=\"https://www.source.co/how-hydropanels-work/\">draw water vapor from the air\u003c/a>. In \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/09/historic-black-town-california/\">Allensworth, a historic Black town\u003c/a>, hydropanels are expected to produce enough water to fill nearly 44,000 bottles over their lifetime — although not enough to replace the town’s contaminated groundwater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These panels have been used \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/05/hydropanels-water-from-air\">around the world in places that lack clean water,\u003c/a> including a Navajo reservation in Arizona, and in Australia, India and Kenya. Actor Robert Downey Jr. even included them when he built his \u003ca href=\"https://thepuristonline.com/2021/04/back-to-the-future-susan-robert-downey-jr-s-sustainable-sanctuary/\">eco-friendly house in Malibu\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#226555b6-6f17-4e6e-90be-2981a0e70002\">Pipe dreams: pipelines to the Midwest and towing icebergs\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Some strategies are as outlandish as they sound. \u003ca href=\"https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/04/21/william-shatner-california-drought-seattle-pipe/26111213/\">Actors\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/A-water-pipeline-to-the-Mississippi-River-16412788.php\">political candidates alike (PDF)\u003c/a> have proposed piping water from wetter places, like the Mississippi River. Some have talked for decades about tapping into the Great Lakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has a long, storied history of moving water — some say stealing — from one place to another within the state. It’s even inspired at least one \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071315/\">movie\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If history has taught us anything,” Idaho state Sen. Brian Donesley, a former Angeleno,\u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-06-21-mn-122-story.html\"> told the Los Angeles Times\u003c/a>, “it is that when Californians get thirsty, they will use cash, the law, raw political power and, if necessary, the point of a gun barrel to satisfy their thirst.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But nowadays there are many legal and logistical roadblocks that would stop California from taking water from Alaska, the Midwest or Canada. For one, other regions would be unlikely to allow it. Diverting large volumes of water from the Great Lakes, for instance, is prohibited without the approval of all eight states in the U.S. and two provinces in Canada under \u003ca href=\"https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2021/05/great-lakes-water-diversions-future-possibilities/\">a compact\u003c/a> signed into law by President George W. Bush.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pipe dreams of pipelines have been floated often enough that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation \u003ca href=\"https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/programs/crbstudy/finalreport/Technical%20Report%20F%20-%20Development%20of%20Options%20and%20Stategies/TR-F_Appendix4_FINAL.pdf\">evaluated them \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/A-water-pipeline-to-the-Mississippi-River-16412788.php\">(PDF)\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/programs/crbstudy/finalreport/Technical%20Report%20F%20-%20Development%20of%20Options%20and%20Stategies/TR-F_Appendix4_FINAL.pdf\">,\u003c/a> reporting that a pipeline to the Mississippi River, for instance, would cost billions, use up a lot of energy to pump the water, require decades of construction and face a quagmire of legal and policy issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even California lawmakers have eyed icier reaches of the world for new water supplies: In 1978, the Legislature passed a resolution \u003ca href=\"https://clerk.assembly.ca.gov/sites/clerk.assembly.ca.gov/files/archive/Statutes/1978/78Vol3.PDF#page=1300\">calling for federal support of a pilot program \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/A-water-pipeline-to-the-Mississippi-River-16412788.php\">(PDF)\u003c/a> to tow icebergs from Antarctica.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Towing icebergs and filling up tankers with freshwater from Alaska drew mentions from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, \u003ca href=\"https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/programs/crbstudy/finalreport/Executive%20Summary/CRBS_Executive_Summary_FINAL.pdf\">as well as this diplomatic verdict \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/A-water-pipeline-to-the-Mississippi-River-16412788.php\">(PDF)\u003c/a>: These ideas “have either significant technical feasibility challenges or significant questions regarding their reliability.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A small iceberg, for instance, would contain only 250 to 850 acre-feet of water and would require new port terminals, pipelines and pumps to transport the melted ice to a reservoir. The process would take “at least 20 years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for tankers, even the \u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=17991\">largest\u003c/a> would hold only about 80 million gallons — barely a drop in the bucket for California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the ideas endure. At a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/08/newsom-strategy-california-water-supply/\">press conference in summer 2022,\u003c/a> Newsom fielded a question about whether pipelines and tankers taking water from faraway places might be the quickest ways to get more water to California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What you’re talking about are break-the-glass scenarios,” Newsom answered. ”And I assure you, we have some more novel ones than the one you even approached and that are more interesting. But that’s for later.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’re still waiting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Amid climate change and demographic pressures, California feels a sense of urgency to create and implement plans to increase water supply in the coming decades.",
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"title": "California Has Bold Plans to Address Water Security and Boost Supply — but Will They Succeed? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Over and over again, drought launches California into a familiar scramble to provide enough water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cities and towns \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/06/california-water-shortage/\">call for conservation and brace for shortages\u003c/a>. Growers \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/05/sacramento-valley-water-drought/\">fallow fields\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/08/shasta-river-water-standoff/\">ranchers sell cows\u003c/a>. And \u003ca href=\"https://mydrywell.water.ca.gov/report/\">thousands of people\u003c/a> discover that they \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/08/california-groundwater-dry/\">can’t squeeze another drop from their wells\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So where can California get enough water to survive the latest dry stretch — and the next one, and the next?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Can it pump more water from the salty Pacific Ocean? Treat waste flushed down toilets and washed down drains? Capture runoff that flows off streets into storm drains? Tow Antarctic icebergs to Los Angeles?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Newsom administration \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/08/newsom-strategy-california-water-supply/\">unveiled a road map for bolstering the state water supply\u003c/a>. But the plan — which has few details, distant deadlines and scant plans for agriculture — \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-09-04/newsom-water-supply-strategy-falls-short\">has been met with criticism\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every time another drought rolls around, an array of suggestions rise to the surface. We take a look at the strategies that could work — along with the more outlandish ones — and the obstacles they face.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#75652c02-4d28-4b1a-85fc-4d4883f3d991\">Recycle more water\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Turning sewage into water is the Golden State equivalent of turning water into wine, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/documents/direct_potable_reuse/dprframewkseced.pdf\">California has been doing it for decades (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians used about \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/recycled_water/docs/2022/volumetric-infographic-2021.pdf\">732,000 acre-feet of recycled water (PDF)\u003c/a> in 2021. That’s almost two-thirds of the water that the state’s major aqueduct funneled south in dry 2021 — equivalent to the amount used by roughly 2.6 million households.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/documents/direct_potable_reuse/dprframewkseced.pdf\">None of it flows directly from “toilet to tap” (PDF).\u003c/a> But the State Water Resources Control Board is \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/docs/2022/nwri-ep-finalmemoprelimfind.pdf\">developing regulations for direct potable reuse (PDF)\u003c/a> of highly treated wastewater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For now, much of California’s recycled water is used for non-drinking purposes, like irrigating landscapes, golf courses and crops. It also refills underground stores that provide drinking water. Southern California has been \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/documents/direct_potable_reuse/dprframewkseced.pdf\">replenishing local groundwater supplies (PDF)\u003c/a> with recycled wastewater since the 1960s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom called for \u003ca href=\"https://resources.ca.gov/-/media/CNRA-Website/Files/Initiatives/Water-Resilience/CA-Water-Supply-Strategy.pdf\">ramping up recycled water use (PDF)\u003c/a> by 2030 by \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/docs/2022/nwri-ep-finalmemoprelimfind.pdf\">roughly 9% (PDF)\u003c/a> from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/recycled_water/docs/2022/volumetric-infographic-2021.pdf\">amount (PDF)\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/docs/2022/nwri-ep-finalmemoprelimfind.pdf\">used in 2021 (PDF)\u003c/a>, rising to 1.8 million acre-feet by 2040. Critics, however, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-09-04/newsom-water-supply-strategy-falls-short\">voiced disappointment with the target’s lack of ambition\u003c/a>, which \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/board_decisions/adopted_orders/resolutions/2009/rs2009_0011_recyclewater.pdf\">falls short (PDF)\u003c/a> of previous \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/docs/2022/nwri-ep-finalmemoprelimfind.pdf\">state goals (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, water suppliers are spending big to \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/docs/2022/nwri-ep-finalmemoprelimfind.pdf\">build out water recycling facilities (PDF)\u003c/a> in \u003ca href=\"https://www.valleywater.org/project-updates/purified-water-project-ensuring-reliable-groundwater-supply\">Northern\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/water/pdf/purewater/2014/fs_purewater.pdf\">Southern (PDF)\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.mwdh2o.com/building-local-supplies/pure-water-southern-california/\">California (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s a catch: As Californians replace their water-guzzling household appliances with more thrifty devices and let the yellow mellow before flushing, the waste stream becomes more concentrated — which could lead \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-0529-2\">to higher treatment costs\u003c/a>, more contaminants and less recycled water overall.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#488fc469-bd9f-4571-8b55-456998d64136\">More desalination\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Desalination is an oft-touted fix for water woes in California, with its ample shoreline. But in practice, \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/desalinating-seawater-sounds-easy-but-there-are-cheaper-and-more-sustainable-ways-to-meet-peoples-water-needs-184919\">environmental concerns and costs\u003c/a> have limited \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2019/09/f66/73355-7.pdf\">the energy-intensive practice \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/docs/2022/nwri-ep-finalmemoprelimfind.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Four ocean water desalination facilities in California produce nearly \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/safedrinkingwaterplan/docs/ExecSumPlan_Report.pdf#page=66\">60,000 acre-feet of drinking water \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/docs/2022/nwri-ep-finalmemoprelimfind.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>. More\u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/ocean/desalination/#existing-facilities\"> provide water for industries or other facilities\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New desalination proposals have been rife with controversy. The California Coastal Commission in 2022\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/05/california-desalination-plant-coastal-commission/\"> rejected a seawater desalination\u003c/a> plant in Huntington Beach, with state analysts warning of high costs, a lack of local demand and risks to marine life. But just months later, the commission pivoted, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/10/desalination-plants-california/\">greenlighting a plant in Orange County’s Dana Point\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11931480\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2121px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11931480\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-610327538.jpg\" alt=\"A tangle of pipes at a desalination plant.\" width=\"2121\" height=\"1414\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-610327538.jpg 2121w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-610327538-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-610327538-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-610327538-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-610327538-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-610327538-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-610327538-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2121px) 100vw, 2121px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Located in San Diego County, at the Encina Power Station, the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant is the largest salt water desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere and provides 50 million gallons of desalinated seawater per day. \u003ccite>(Reed Kaestner/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A lesser-known but rapidly growing strategy is brackish water desalination, which cleans up salty supplies, such as from groundwater, that can then be used for \u003ca href=\"https://www.chinodesalter.org/97/Facilities\">drinking water. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 23 of these plants have the capacity to produce nearly 140,000 acre-feet of water in a year, \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/safedrinkingwaterplan/docs/ExecSumPlan_Report.pdf#page=66\">based on a 2013 analysis (PDF). \u003c/a>They use \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/-/media/DWR-Website/Web-Pages/Programs/California-Water-Plan/Docs/RMS/2016/09_Desalination_July2016.pdf\">less energy \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/safedrinkingwaterplan/docs/ExecSumPlan_Report.pdf#page=66\">(PDF)\u003c/a> than their seawater counterparts.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#cf07019c-d4ca-4f14-bd54-6235cabc9680\">Capture stormwater runoff\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The rainwater and spillover from sprinklers that flows off roads, yards and rooftops — much of it eventually emptying into waterways or the ocean — could help boost California’s water supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s urban areas shed 770,000 to 3.9 million acre-feet of runoff a year that could be captured, according to the Pacific Institute. That’s enough to supply between 2.7 million and 13.7 million households for a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The potential is highest in Southern California, which has lots of pavement that sends rainwater and irrigation runoff into storm drains. Collecting this runoff and feeding it into aquifers — or eventually treating it and sending it to taps — would avoid wasting it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some local agencies have been corralling stormwater to replenish aquifers for years, \u003ca href=\"https://data.ca.gov/dataset/stormwater-projects\">with dozens more projects in the works\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.fresnofloodcontrol.org/\">Fresno Metropolitan Flood Control District\u003c/a>, for instance, captures runoff across 400 square miles in Fresno County. The water is used to \u003ca href=\"https://www.fresnofloodcontrol.org/water-resources/groundwater-recharge/\">fill more than 150 ponds\u003c/a>, where it trickles through the soil to refill groundwater stores. In bone-dry 2021, storm flows \u003ca href=\"https://www.fresnofloodcontrol.org/water-resources/groundwater-recharge/\">accounted for almost all of the district’s groundwater recharge\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Monica has been a leader in treating urban runoff, and plans to upgrade a \u003ca href=\"https://www.smgov.net/Departments/PublicWorks/ContentCivEng.aspx?id=54194\">recycling facility\u003c/a> built near its famous pier more than 20 years ago. The plan is \u003ca href=\"https://www.santamonica.gov/sustainable-water-infrastructure-project-swip\">to treat the collected runoff and stormwater\u003c/a> so it’s clean enough to be injected directly into Santa Monica’s groundwater basin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">Strategies for using stormwater (PDF)\u003c/a> also include installing permeable pavement in yards and communities and building basins that let it drain into the soil instead of flowing into storm drains or streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But barriers remain to capturing more of the flows. These \u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">include high costs and a lack of funding \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>, concerns about impacts to water quality and \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-04/red-tape-ensnares-los-angeles-storm-water-capture-plan\">lengthy planning and approval processes\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#f3d82891-5107-4592-965a-88d126a4dd67\">Transform California agriculture\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.ers.usda.gov/faqs/#Q1\">agriculture is the most productive\u003c/a> in the country. But it also drinks up about \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/Programs/Water-Use-And-Efficiency/Agricultural-Water-Use-Efficiency\">80% of the developed water used in the state\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How much water is used by farms changes with the weather from year to year. But \u003ca href=\"https://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/PI_Water_Use_Trends.pdf\">it remained generally flat \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a> between the 1980s and 2015.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The only real way to reduce water use further in agriculture is to grow less food and farm products, or take more agricultural land out of production,” said Danny Merkley, water resources director with the California Farm Bureau Federation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almonds and pistachios are the \u003ca href=\"https://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/CA-Ag-Water-Use-1.pdf\">fourth most water-intensive crops in California \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>, after rice, alfalfa and irrigated pasture, according to the Pacific Institute. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publications/Specialty_and_Other_Releases/Almond/Forecast/202205almpd.pdf\">Nut acreage \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a> has \u003ca href=\"https://wsm.ucmerced.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/2021-Drought-Impact-Assessment_20210224.pdf\">soared in the past 10 years \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>, but what that means for water is less clear: State data lags and there’s no real-time monitoring of agricultural water use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11931482\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11931482\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS10081_80999037-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Two cyclists ride by an irrigation canal.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS10081_80999037-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS10081_80999037-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS10081_80999037-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS10081_80999037-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS10081_80999037-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS10081_80999037-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS10081_80999037-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The California Aqueduct carries water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to southern California. \u003ccite>(David McNew/ Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>More changes are coming, with \u003ca href=\"https://www.climate.gov/news-features/feed/evaporative-demand-increase-across-lower-48-means-less-water-supplies-drier\">climate change parching crops\u003c/a> and state law calling for \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/08/california-groundwater-dry/\">sustainable groundwater management.\u003c/a> Complying with California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act could require 500,000 to 1 million acres of prime agricultural land to come out of production in the San Joaquin Valley, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/exploring-the-potential-for-water-limited-agriculture-in-the-san-joaquin-valley/\">according to the Public Policy Institute of California\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has \u003ca href=\"https://www.conservation.ca.gov/dlrp/grant-programs/Pages/Multibenefit-Land-Repurposing-Program.aspx\">earmarked $110 million over three years\u003c/a> to repurpose agricultural land and put it toward other uses, such as groundwater recharge and habitat restoration. \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/News/News-Releases/2022/Oct-22/State-Collaborates-with-Farmers-to-Conserve-Water-Provide-Habitat-for-Migratory-Birds\">Other funding is provided to growers who fallow their fields\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Growers also could opt for \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/exploring-the-potential-for-water-limited-agriculture-in-the-san-joaquin-valley/\">crops grown during the rainy season\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/09/california-drought-farmers/\">breed more drought-tolerant varieties\u003c/a>. And \u003ca href=\"https://calag.ucanr.edu/Archive/?article=ca.v066n02p55\">leaving crop residues in fields\u003c/a> and reducing tillage can allow soil to retain more water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More efficient irrigation systems help, too. But the Farm Bureau’s Merkley said making water go further is growing more difficult and smaller growers can struggle to pay for it. Also, an international team of researchers warned that increased efficiency \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aat9314\">must be accompanied by robust monitoring and caps on water extractions\u003c/a>. Otherwise, they wrote, it can backfire by prompting planting of more acreage with more water-intensive crops.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#83001060-ef40-47ba-aa25-0f0dc9762049\">Tear out lawns\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/News/News-Releases/2022/Sep-22/DWR-Takes-Actions-to-Support-Future-Water-Supply-Strategy#:~:text=California%20also%20recently%20took%20additional,and%2042%20gallons%20by%202030.\">About half of water used in cities and towns\u003c/a> is used outdoors for washing cars, hosing down sidewalks and irrigating \u003ca href=\"https://ucanr.edu/sites/UrbanHort/Turfgrass_Management\">roughly 4 million acres of turf\u003c/a>. Turf drinks up the most water in any month, in any part of California, of any plant analyzed in \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/conservation_portal/regs/docs/2022/trees-and-parklands-preface.pdf\">a state report \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tearing out turf and replacing it with more drought-tolerant plants could save between 1 million and 1.5 million acre-feet per year, with \u003ca href=\"https://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/PI_California_Untapped_Urban_Water_Potential_2022-1.pdf\">the largest savings coming from residences \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>, the Pacific Institute estimates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California temporarily banned watering decorative, non-functional turf at businesses and institutions under emergency \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/press_room/press_releases/2022/pr06142022-new-statewide-emergency-conservation-regulation-in-effect.pdf\">regulations adopted in May 2022 \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>, and is reviving rebates for tearing out turf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11931484\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2127px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11931484\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1335769913.jpg\" alt=\"A sprinkler with multiple streams watering green grass.\" width=\"2127\" height=\"1409\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1335769913.jpg 2127w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1335769913-800x530.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1335769913-1020x676.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1335769913-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1335769913-1536x1018.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1335769913-2048x1357.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1335769913-1920x1272.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2127px) 100vw, 2127px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Pacific Institute estimates that tearing out turf and replacing it with more drought-tolerant plants could save between 1 million and 1.5 million acre-feet per year. \u003ccite>(Shawn Waldron/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A statewide turf replacement program that began during the last drought tapped out in June 2020 after putting more than $20.5 million toward helping people replace their lawns. Local water providers \u003ca href=\"https://socalwatersmart.com/en/residential/rebates/available-rebates/turf-replacement-program/\">continued their own multi-million dollar efforts\u003c/a>, however, and the state put \u003ca href=\"https://www.ebudget.ca.gov/2022-23/pdf/Enacted/GovernorsBudget/3000/3860.pdf\">$75 million in funding toward rebates in the state’s 2022-2023 \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a> budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1752-1688.12901\">The Metropolitan Water District\u003c/a> has spent more than $350 million coaxing Southern Californians to convert more than 200 million square feet of turf. And there is a ripple effect, with \u003ca href=\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1752-1688.12901\">some of their neighbors tearing out their lawns\u003c/a>, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there are limits to peer pressure. \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-08-22/kim-kardashian-kevin-hart-california-drought-water-waste\">Celebrities\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Repeat-offenders-among-hundreds-of-East-Bay-17534485.php\">others\u003c/a> continue to be called out for over-watering their yards, and urban water use remains high, with cities and towns, particularly in Southern California, failing to meet Newsom’s goal to cut their water use by 15%.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#6a1996dc-c975-4a14-90b2-d5390efce09f\">Replumb California\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A controversial \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/06/california-water-delta-tunnel/\">plan to replumb the California Delta\u003c/a> — decades in the making — would funnel water from new intakes north of the delta as well as existing south Delta pumps, sending hundreds of thousands more acre-feet of water south instead of allowing it to flow out to the ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the state’s environmental review \u003ca href=\"https://www.deltaconveyanceproject.com/read-the-document\">has raised serious concerns\u003c/a> that the tunnel project could harm \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/07/delta-tunnel-water-report/\">endangered salmon and other species\u003c/a>. And, if eventually approved, it would take decades to complete and cost billions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, California’s existing networks of pipes, aqueducts and canals lose precious supplies to leaks and evaporation. Some strategies have emerged to reduce these losses, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.iid.com/water/library/all-american-canal-lining-project\">lining canals\u003c/a> — \u003ca href=\"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12665-019-8487-6\">which can also impede groundwater recharge\u003c/a> — or \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/first-solar-canal-project-is-a-win-for-water-energy-air-and-climate-in-california-177433\">covering them with solar panels\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In cities and towns, water suppliers \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/docs/rulemaking/isor.pdf\">lose roughly 316,000 acre-feet of water \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a> every year through leaks in their vast mazes of pipes. The state set new standards requiring water providers to meet loss targets starting in 2028, which could save about 88,000 acre-feet a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#4fb7112e-4f1c-4711-a854-ef5d9b0583c6\">Store more water in reservoirs\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cdiv class=\"explainer-card__content\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-cal-explainers-card\">\n\u003cp>Reservoirs aren’t the field of dreams: Even when we build them, the water doesn’t necessarily come. Statewide reservoir \u003ca href=\"https://cww.water.ca.gov/service/document/hydroreport?_=1664980284640\">storage plunged to 69% below average\u003c/a> by the end of September 2022, on the heels of the state’s driest \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/09/california-drought-likely-to-continue/\">three-year stretch on record\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://cwc.ca.gov/Water-Storage/WSIP-Project-Review-Portal\">Proposition 1\u003c/a>, approved in 2014, set aside $2.7 billion to fund water storage projects. The three projects eligible to receive funding, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-05-31/drought-resurrects-plan-for-controversial-reservoir\">which include the controversial Sites reservoir,\u003c/a> would increase storage capacity by more than 1.75 million acre-feet, enough to supply more than 6 million households.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How much they would increase the water supply available each year, however, is unclear. Lengthy droughts deplete reservoir storage, and “the average volume of new water from these facilities is small, and costs are high,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/californias-water-storing-water-november-2018.pdf\">the Public Policy Institute of California \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a> warned in 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11931486\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2190px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11931486\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1182796092.jpg\" alt=\"A view of Shasta Dam, a dam wall with big blue reservoir of Shasta lake behind it and treelined hills in the background.\" width=\"2190\" height=\"1369\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1182796092.jpg 2190w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1182796092-800x500.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1182796092-1020x638.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1182796092-160x100.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1182796092-1536x960.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1182796092-2048x1280.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1182796092-1920x1200.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2190px) 100vw, 2190px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Statewide reservoir storage plunged to 69% below average by the end of Sept. 2022, on the heels of the state’s driest 3-year stretch on record. \u003ccite>(Wenli Li/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Many reservoirs in California do double duty as flood control which means that space for potential floods \u003ca href=\"https://cw3e.ucsd.edu/firo/\">must be maintained even in dry years\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But state, federal and local water managers are working with \u003ca href=\"https://cw3e.ucsd.edu/firo/\">scientists\u003c/a> on strategies to reduce flood risk while reserving more water in California’s reservoirs. Water managers at Lake Mendocino, for instance, are incorporating \u003ca href=\"https://www.drought.gov/regional-activities/forecast-informed-reservoir-operations-firo\">new weather forecasting\u003c/a> tools to \u003ca href=\"https://www.sonomawater.org/firo\">update decades-old guidelines\u003c/a> governing when to hold onto water and when to release it. The strategy increased the lake’s storage by \u003ca href=\"https://resources.ca.gov/-/media/CNRA-Website/Files/Initiatives/Water-Resilience/CA-WRP-Progress-Report.pdf\">nearly 20% in 2020, with most of the water going to agriculture \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20220220181049/https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/storms/docs/storms_capture_use.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#0469ec6c-04dc-4175-8b42-09fb00a29cb2\">Recharge groundwater basins\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California’s underground aquifers can hold vastly more water than its reservoirs — \u003ca href=\"https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/ff075c25b77e4b1d95ce86a82bf0fe96\">between 850 million and 1.3 billion acre-feet\u003c/a> of capacity below ground, compared to \u003ca href=\"https://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=STORSUM\">about 38.1 million acre-feet above\u003c/a> ground, according to the Department of Water Resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local districts have been carefully tending groundwater for decades. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.ocwd.com/gwrs/the-process/process-steps/water-delivery/\">Orange County Water District\u003c/a>, for instance, pumps highly treated water underground to keep seawater at bay and to replenish local drinking-water stores. In the Southern San Joaquin Valley, \u003ca href=\"https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Groundwater-Recharge-for-a-Regional-Water-Bank-Kern-Water-Bank-Kern-County-California.pdf\">water suppliers\u003c/a> funnel \u003ca href=\"https://www.kwb.org/groundwater-sustainability/recharge-recovery/\">surface water into underground storage\u003c/a> at the controversial Kern Water Bank, largely for agricultural irrigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Newsom administration has called for increasing groundwater recharge yearly by at least 500,000 acre-feet. But ongoing challenges remain to widespread groundwater recharge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot more empty aquifers than there are unclaimed sources of water in California,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/clee/about/people/michael-kiparsky/\">Michael Kiparsky\u003c/a>, Water Program Director at the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at UC Berkeley School of Law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not just about the amount of water, Kiparsky said, it’s also about the logistics. California will need to ensure there’s enough capacity \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/blog/how-much-water-is-available-for-groundwater-recharge/\">to quickly move flood flows to the right basins\u003c/a> for recharge during California’s brief rainy season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unless that bottleneck is widened, plans to end the overdraft of depleted aquifers in the San Joaquin Valley are calling for more groundwater recharge than is likely realistic, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/ppic-review-of-groundwater-sustainability-plans-in-the-san-joaquin-valley.pdf\">according to the Public Policy Institute of California (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#b41cece5-574f-4534-a444-19e07691d13f\">Control greenhouse gases\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Climate change is \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4386383/\">worsening droughts\u003c/a> and is expected to fuel even \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0140-y\">more extreme swings from dry to deluge\u003c/a>. The Newsom administration warns that climate change could deplete state water supplies \u003ca href=\"https://resources.ca.gov/-/media/CNRA-Website/Files/Initiatives/Water-Resilience/CA-Water-Supply-Strategy.pdf\">by up to 10% by 2040 \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/ppic-review-of-groundwater-sustainability-plans-in-the-san-joaquin-valley.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Curbing use of fossil fuels globally can blunt some of the severity of future droughts, researchers \u003ca href=\"https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3115/nasa-drought-research-shows-value-of-both-climate-mitigation-and-adaptation/\">reported\u003c/a>. But even California, which prides itself on its green image, will need to pick up the pace to meet state goals for cutting greenhouse gases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11931488\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11931488\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS15682_DSC_0403-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Kids splashing around in an outdoor splash pad.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1152\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS15682_DSC_0403-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS15682_DSC_0403-qut-800x480.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS15682_DSC_0403-qut-1020x612.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS15682_DSC_0403-qut-160x96.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/RS15682_DSC_0403-qut-1536x922.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Climate change is worsening droughts and is expected to fuel even more extreme swings from dry to deluge. The Newsom administration warns that climate change could deplete state water supplies by up to 10% by 2040. \u003ccite>(Ericka Cruz Guevarra/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Much larger reductions are needed to reach the ambitious 2030 target — an additional 40% reduction below the original 2020 limit,” \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/latest-state-greenhouse-gas-inventory-shows-emissions-continue-drop-below-2020-target\">Air Resources Board Chair Liane Randolph said in July, 2021. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s clean air regulators are ramping up their efforts \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/09/california-climate-change-plan/\">in the state’s updated climate roadmap\u003c/a>. But parts of the plan, including its reliance on technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or capture it from smokestacks, remain contentious.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#2104d2c3-4a7a-4116-b1c9-3eedc45d49c7\">Reform water rights\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California’s water supplies are governed by an arcane and complex rights system based on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/about_us/water_boards_structure/history_water_rights.html\">Gold Rush-era philosophy of “first in time, first in right.”\u003c/a> Generally, those with the oldest claims are the last to be cut back during shortages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental justice advocates and legal experts point out that this system of seniority is plagued with inequalities and based on a history of violence and \u003ca href=\"https://law.stanford.edu/2022/03/16/elc-supports-efforts-by-tribes-and-environmental-justice-advocates-to-reframe-california-water-rights/\">systematic exclusion of Native peoples and people of color\u003c/a>. Legislative analysts also \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/handouts/resources/2009/water_rights_issues_perspectives_031009.pdf\">warned more than a decade ago \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/ppic-review-of-groundwater-sustainability-plans-in-the-san-joaquin-valley.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a> that, in some cases, water rights are “oversubscribed,” meaning they allocate more water than is available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest drought prompted California officials to periodically \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/06/california-delta-water-cutbacks/\">curtail water rights across the state\u003c/a> as supplies dwindled. But \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/08/shasta-river-water-standoff/\">a scuffle in the Shasta Valley\u003c/a>, when some ranchers temporarily refused to comply, revealed that the state’s enforcement muscle is slow to flex and hamstrung by restrictions on penalties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Water law experts have \u003ca href=\"https://www.pcl.org/media/2022/02/Updating-California-Water-Laws-to-Address-with-Drought-and-Climate-Change.pdf\">been pushing for changes \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/ppic-review-of-groundwater-sustainability-plans-in-the-san-joaquin-valley.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a>. Recommendations include increasing funding to help Native tribes and other underrepresented groups participate in state water proceedings, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.pcl.org/media/2022/02/Updating-California-Water-Laws-to-Address-with-Drought-and-Climate-Change.pdf\">granting state water regulators more authority \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/ppic-review-of-groundwater-sustainability-plans-in-the-san-joaquin-valley.pdf\">(PDF)\u003c/a> to act swiftly when people violate curtailment orders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A water board spokesperson said that they are developing pilot projects to collect real-time data about water diversions, and are considering “adopting regulations that would allow for curtailments of water rights in years when there is not a declared drought emergency.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#9801f1c7-3945-4b12-b3b6-cd4302481093\">More cloud seeding and solar panels\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A couple strategies sound like science fiction, but they are already being used and hold some promise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.countyofsb.org/2548/Cloud-Seeding-Precipitation-Enhancement\">Santa Barbara County\u003c/a> has been practicing cloud seeding for decades — releasing \u003ca href=\"https://content.civicplus.com/api/assets/be2de2b5-10fe-433d-9369-eb68ba70b267?scope=all\">tiny particles of silver iodide\u003c/a> into the atmosphere during certain storms to coax water vapor into forming ice crystals and falling to earth. Researchers say it’s difficult \u003ca href=\"https://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2005/techprogram/paper_83339.htm\">to evaluate how well it works\u003c/a>, partly because precipitation is so variable, \u003ca href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283492150_TARGETCONTROL_ANALYSES_FOR_SANTA_BARBARA_COUNTY%27S_OPERATIONAL_WINTER_CLOUD_SEEDING_PROGRAM\">but one analysis\u003c/a> pointed to increased precipitation of 9% to 21% in two target areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Desert Research Institute has led this effort, \u003ca href=\"https://www.dri.edu/cloud-seeding-program/current-cloud-seeding-operations/\">seeding clouds\u003c/a> in California’s San Joaquin Valley, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado and Australia. In Wyoming, its 10-year experiment in mountain regions increased snowpack from winter storms by 5% to 15%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11931493\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2121px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11931493\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1286644133.jpg\" alt=\"Clouds with a small plane flying through.\" width=\"2121\" height=\"1414\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1286644133.jpg 2121w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1286644133-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1286644133-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1286644133-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1286644133-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1286644133-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/GettyImages-1286644133-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2121px) 100vw, 2121px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cloud seeding involves releasing tiny particles of silver iodide into the atmosphere during certain storms to coax water vapor into forming ice crystals and falling to earth. \u003ccite>(Artinun Prekmoung/EyeEm via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One Central Valley town has turned \u003ca href=\"https://www.source.co/resources/case-studies/solving-a-century-old-water-quality-issue-by-tapping-the-sky/\">to another unusual strategy\u003c/a>: solar-powered “hydropanels” that \u003ca href=\"https://www.source.co/how-hydropanels-work/\">draw water vapor from the air\u003c/a>. In \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/09/historic-black-town-california/\">Allensworth, a historic Black town\u003c/a>, hydropanels are expected to produce enough water to fill nearly 44,000 bottles over their lifetime — although not enough to replace the town’s contaminated groundwater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These panels have been used \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/05/hydropanels-water-from-air\">around the world in places that lack clean water,\u003c/a> including a Navajo reservation in Arizona, and in Australia, India and Kenya. Actor Robert Downey Jr. even included them when he built his \u003ca href=\"https://thepuristonline.com/2021/04/back-to-the-future-susan-robert-downey-jr-s-sustainable-sanctuary/\">eco-friendly house in Malibu\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"explainer-card-title\">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-water-solutions/#226555b6-6f17-4e6e-90be-2981a0e70002\">Pipe dreams: pipelines to the Midwest and towing icebergs\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Some strategies are as outlandish as they sound. \u003ca href=\"https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/04/21/william-shatner-california-drought-seattle-pipe/26111213/\">Actors\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/A-water-pipeline-to-the-Mississippi-River-16412788.php\">political candidates alike (PDF)\u003c/a> have proposed piping water from wetter places, like the Mississippi River. Some have talked for decades about tapping into the Great Lakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has a long, storied history of moving water — some say stealing — from one place to another within the state. It’s even inspired at least one \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071315/\">movie\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If history has taught us anything,” Idaho state Sen. Brian Donesley, a former Angeleno,\u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-06-21-mn-122-story.html\"> told the Los Angeles Times\u003c/a>, “it is that when Californians get thirsty, they will use cash, the law, raw political power and, if necessary, the point of a gun barrel to satisfy their thirst.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But nowadays there are many legal and logistical roadblocks that would stop California from taking water from Alaska, the Midwest or Canada. For one, other regions would be unlikely to allow it. Diverting large volumes of water from the Great Lakes, for instance, is prohibited without the approval of all eight states in the U.S. and two provinces in Canada under \u003ca href=\"https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2021/05/great-lakes-water-diversions-future-possibilities/\">a compact\u003c/a> signed into law by President George W. Bush.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pipe dreams of pipelines have been floated often enough that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation \u003ca href=\"https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/programs/crbstudy/finalreport/Technical%20Report%20F%20-%20Development%20of%20Options%20and%20Stategies/TR-F_Appendix4_FINAL.pdf\">evaluated them \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/A-water-pipeline-to-the-Mississippi-River-16412788.php\">(PDF)\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/programs/crbstudy/finalreport/Technical%20Report%20F%20-%20Development%20of%20Options%20and%20Stategies/TR-F_Appendix4_FINAL.pdf\">,\u003c/a> reporting that a pipeline to the Mississippi River, for instance, would cost billions, use up a lot of energy to pump the water, require decades of construction and face a quagmire of legal and policy issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even California lawmakers have eyed icier reaches of the world for new water supplies: In 1978, the Legislature passed a resolution \u003ca href=\"https://clerk.assembly.ca.gov/sites/clerk.assembly.ca.gov/files/archive/Statutes/1978/78Vol3.PDF#page=1300\">calling for federal support of a pilot program \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/A-water-pipeline-to-the-Mississippi-River-16412788.php\">(PDF)\u003c/a> to tow icebergs from Antarctica.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Towing icebergs and filling up tankers with freshwater from Alaska drew mentions from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, \u003ca href=\"https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/programs/crbstudy/finalreport/Executive%20Summary/CRBS_Executive_Summary_FINAL.pdf\">as well as this diplomatic verdict \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/A-water-pipeline-to-the-Mississippi-River-16412788.php\">(PDF)\u003c/a>: These ideas “have either significant technical feasibility challenges or significant questions regarding their reliability.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A small iceberg, for instance, would contain only 250 to 850 acre-feet of water and would require new port terminals, pipelines and pumps to transport the melted ice to a reservoir. The process would take “at least 20 years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for tankers, even the \u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=17991\">largest\u003c/a> would hold only about 80 million gallons — barely a drop in the bucket for California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the ideas endure. At a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/08/newsom-strategy-california-water-supply/\">press conference in summer 2022,\u003c/a> Newsom fielded a question about whether pipelines and tankers taking water from faraway places might be the quickest ways to get more water to California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What you’re talking about are break-the-glass scenarios,” Newsom answered. ”And I assure you, we have some more novel ones than the one you even approached and that are more interesting. But that’s for later.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’re still waiting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"tagline": "Exploring the Bay Area, one question at a time",
"info": "KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.",
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},
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},
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"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
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"order": 8
},
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"order": 1
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"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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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
},
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
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"source": "NPR"
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
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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. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"order": 15
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"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"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. ",
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"order": 18
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"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",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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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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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"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",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
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