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Community groups and at least one San Francisco supervisor called the 11-month delay “unacceptable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Navy found the sample in an area known as Parcel C, adjacent to a hill covered in condo buildings where hundreds of families live, and nearby a public park with a view of the shipyard. The Navy had previously cleared that area for redevelopment two decades ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials with the Navy told the supervisors that the sample posed “no health risk” to the public and said it was a hundredth of the radiation a person might receive during an X-ray.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Danielle Janda, base closure manager for the Navy at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, said the agency needed extra time to retest the sample and conduct a third-party audit of the laboratory where the test was conducted. She called the sample with a low level of plutonium an “outlier,” and said the Navy plans to improve communication by working with agencies and attending more local meetings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In this instance, we valued accuracy over timeliness,” Janda said. “It’s obvious that we lost trust in the community and are going to work with the community to get that trust back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anthony Megliola, director of the U.S. Navy’s Base Realignment and Closure Program, acknowledged the delay created “concern and frustration” among regulators and the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1979637\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1979637\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1278\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Apartment buildings in the Bayview sit behind the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco on March 8, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I take responsibility for this,” Megliola said. “We recognize this approach did not meet the community’s expectations for timely communication, and the long gap undermined trust.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shamman Walton, District 10 supervisor, said he appreciates the apology, but said this is “not the first time the Navy has lost the public’s trust.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I do appreciate you for coming, for owning up to the mistake, but again, apologies and admissions do not protect our community,” Walton said. “This should not happen, and we want to make sure that this does not happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Susan Philip, health officer for the San Francisco Department of Public Health, said federal rules require the Navy to notify state and local agencies and the public when a situation may pose a threat to the public. Even though the Navy found the sample posed no immediate public health issues, she said, her “greater concern, of course, is the delay in notifying the regulators, who are the ones who are to make that determination about safety.”[aside postID=science_1999023 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/004_KQED_BayviewBloodTesting_02252022_qed-1020x680.jpg']Michael Montgomery, director of the EPA’s Superfund and Emergency Management Division, said the Navy should have come to the agency earlier because its staff could have helped with testing and communicating with the public. He said the Navy is supposed to present these sorts of findings within two weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unfortunately, the lack of transparency created a much bigger concern than it would have if we’d have been engaged early on and been able to do the risk communication,” Montgomery said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within 45 days, Montgomery said his agency will conduct an independent review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Supervisor Walton asked whether there were consequences for the Navy’s delayed reporting, Montgomery said there are generally penalties that could apply. Still, he can’t discuss them in this case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>District 10 resident Falaofuta Satele told Navy officials during the hearing that she “doesn’t trust” them and feels like officials are trying to “cover up” their findings by not providing direct answers to the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not frustrated, we’re alert,” Satele said. “We are not stupid, and please have some courtesy when you say transparent, please disclose with integrity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1979624\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1979624\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS53937_003_KQED_BayviewBloodTesting_02252022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS53937_003_KQED_BayviewBloodTesting_02252022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS53937_003_KQED_BayviewBloodTesting_02252022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS53937_003_KQED_BayviewBloodTesting_02252022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS53937_003_KQED_BayviewBloodTesting_02252022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS53937_003_KQED_BayviewBloodTesting_02252022-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS53937_003_KQED_BayviewBloodTesting_02252022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A view of the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard from the Lennar at the Shipyard housing development on Feb. 25, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Joyce Armstrong, vice chair of the Hunters Point Shipyard Citizens Advisory Committee, said it doesn’t matter how low the sample reading was; the community is dissatisfied with how the Navy handled the findings. She called for an independent investigation and said the Navy’s lack of transparency is a “pattern.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It appears to us that this is a cover-up,” Armstrong said. “I don’t care how low [the levels are], we still want to know.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 866-acre Hunters Point site was home to a shipyard from 1945 to 1974 and the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory from 1948 to 1960. By decontaminating ships after atomic bomb tests and other activities, the Navy contaminated shipyard soil and groundwater — as well as surface water and sediment in the San Francisco Bay — with radioactive chemicals, heavy metals and petroleum fuels. The base was declared one of the nation’s most contaminated sites in 1989.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in 2022, the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury issued a report\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1980324/sf-supervisors-unhappy-with-citys-lack-of-action-to-protect-bayview-hunters-point-residents-from-toxic-sea-level-rise\"> alerting the public that groundwater rise\u003c/a> — a result of sea levels rising in response to global emissions melting ice caps and expanding oceans — could have significant effects on the site in the coming decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new finding raises fresh questions about the city’s plans to build thousands of homes amid an exceedingly complex and ongoing cleanup effort. When finished, the 693-acre Candlestick Point-Hunters Point Shipyard project — which the Superfund site is part of — could have more than 10,000 housing units. The development would include two new waterfront neighborhoods with housing and retail, along with over 340 acres of parks and open space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The U.S. Navy apologized to city leaders on Monday for waiting almost a year before disclosing that the agency found radioactive plutonium at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The U.S. Navy apologized to city leaders during a San Francisco Board of Supervisors hearing on Monday for waiting \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1999023/navy-took-11-months-to-alert-sf-to-airborne-plutonium-at-hunters-point-shipyard-site\">11 months\u003c/a> before disclosing to residents that the agency had detected airborne radioactive material at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Navy alerted San Francisco health officials in October that it had discovered elevated levels of plutonium-239 in November of last year. The material is highly radioactive and used to create nuclear weapons. Breathing in tiny particles of the substance is dangerous over time and can cause health issues like lung cancer. Community groups and at least one San Francisco supervisor called the 11-month delay “unacceptable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Navy found the sample in an area known as Parcel C, adjacent to a hill covered in condo buildings where hundreds of families live, and nearby a public park with a view of the shipyard. The Navy had previously cleared that area for redevelopment two decades ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials with the Navy told the supervisors that the sample posed “no health risk” to the public and said it was a hundredth of the radiation a person might receive during an X-ray.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Danielle Janda, base closure manager for the Navy at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, said the agency needed extra time to retest the sample and conduct a third-party audit of the laboratory where the test was conducted. She called the sample with a low level of plutonium an “outlier,” and said the Navy plans to improve communication by working with agencies and attending more local meetings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In this instance, we valued accuracy over timeliness,” Janda said. “It’s obvious that we lost trust in the community and are going to work with the community to get that trust back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anthony Megliola, director of the U.S. Navy’s Base Realignment and Closure Program, acknowledged the delay created “concern and frustration” among regulators and the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1979637\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1979637\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1278\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Apartment buildings in the Bayview sit behind the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco on March 8, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I take responsibility for this,” Megliola said. “We recognize this approach did not meet the community’s expectations for timely communication, and the long gap undermined trust.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shamman Walton, District 10 supervisor, said he appreciates the apology, but said this is “not the first time the Navy has lost the public’s trust.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I do appreciate you for coming, for owning up to the mistake, but again, apologies and admissions do not protect our community,” Walton said. “This should not happen, and we want to make sure that this does not happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Susan Philip, health officer for the San Francisco Department of Public Health, said federal rules require the Navy to notify state and local agencies and the public when a situation may pose a threat to the public. Even though the Navy found the sample posed no immediate public health issues, she said, her “greater concern, of course, is the delay in notifying the regulators, who are the ones who are to make that determination about safety.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Michael Montgomery, director of the EPA’s Superfund and Emergency Management Division, said the Navy should have come to the agency earlier because its staff could have helped with testing and communicating with the public. He said the Navy is supposed to present these sorts of findings within two weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unfortunately, the lack of transparency created a much bigger concern than it would have if we’d have been engaged early on and been able to do the risk communication,” Montgomery said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within 45 days, Montgomery said his agency will conduct an independent review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Supervisor Walton asked whether there were consequences for the Navy’s delayed reporting, Montgomery said there are generally penalties that could apply. Still, he can’t discuss them in this case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>District 10 resident Falaofuta Satele told Navy officials during the hearing that she “doesn’t trust” them and feels like officials are trying to “cover up” their findings by not providing direct answers to the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not frustrated, we’re alert,” Satele said. “We are not stupid, and please have some courtesy when you say transparent, please disclose with integrity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1979624\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1979624\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS53937_003_KQED_BayviewBloodTesting_02252022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS53937_003_KQED_BayviewBloodTesting_02252022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS53937_003_KQED_BayviewBloodTesting_02252022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS53937_003_KQED_BayviewBloodTesting_02252022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS53937_003_KQED_BayviewBloodTesting_02252022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS53937_003_KQED_BayviewBloodTesting_02252022-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS53937_003_KQED_BayviewBloodTesting_02252022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A view of the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard from the Lennar at the Shipyard housing development on Feb. 25, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Joyce Armstrong, vice chair of the Hunters Point Shipyard Citizens Advisory Committee, said it doesn’t matter how low the sample reading was; the community is dissatisfied with how the Navy handled the findings. She called for an independent investigation and said the Navy’s lack of transparency is a “pattern.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It appears to us that this is a cover-up,” Armstrong said. “I don’t care how low [the levels are], we still want to know.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 866-acre Hunters Point site was home to a shipyard from 1945 to 1974 and the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory from 1948 to 1960. By decontaminating ships after atomic bomb tests and other activities, the Navy contaminated shipyard soil and groundwater — as well as surface water and sediment in the San Francisco Bay — with radioactive chemicals, heavy metals and petroleum fuels. The base was declared one of the nation’s most contaminated sites in 1989.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in 2022, the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury issued a report\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1980324/sf-supervisors-unhappy-with-citys-lack-of-action-to-protect-bayview-hunters-point-residents-from-toxic-sea-level-rise\"> alerting the public that groundwater rise\u003c/a> — a result of sea levels rising in response to global emissions melting ice caps and expanding oceans — could have significant effects on the site in the coming decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new finding raises fresh questions about the city’s plans to build thousands of homes amid an exceedingly complex and ongoing cleanup effort. When finished, the 693-acre Candlestick Point-Hunters Point Shipyard project — which the Superfund site is part of — could have more than 10,000 housing units. The development would include two new waterfront neighborhoods with housing and retail, along with over 340 acres of parks and open space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "scientists-trace-heavy-metals-spread-by-januarys-huge-battery-fire-near-monterey",
"title": "Scientists Trace Heavy Metals Spread by January’s Huge Battery Fire Near Monterey",
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"headTitle": "Scientists Trace Heavy Metals Spread by January’s Huge Battery Fire Near Monterey | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>After a thermal runaway set the world’s largest battery storage facility \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12022725/massive-fire-monterey-county-battery-plant-spews-toxic-smoke-forces-evacuations\">on fire last winter\u003c/a> near Monterey, Ivano Aiello and his colleagues at San José State University had some detective work to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire, which broke out at the Vistra Energy Storage Facility in Moss Landing on Jan. 16, burned for days, producing \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12023562/after-huge-monterey-county-battery-fire-locals-describe-headaches-nausea-and-a-taste-of-metal\">a plume of black smoke\u003c/a> that was visible for miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was obvious debris related to the fire pretty much all over the place, so it was evidence that something came out from the smoke plume,” said Aiello, a professor and chair at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To understand exactly what the fire spread, Aiello and his colleagues began to investigate. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-25972-8\">Their results\u003c/a>, published in the journal \u003cem>Scientific Reports\u003c/em>, were released Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the fire broke out, they had already been collecting soil samples \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12026477/after-toxic-monterey-battery-fire-scientists-keep-watch-over-sensitive-ecosystem\">from nearby Elkhorn Slough\u003c/a>, a sanctuary for endangered wildlife, so they had baseline data for comparison. After the fire, they tested for nickel, manganese and cobalt — the primary elements used in lithium-ion batteries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999458\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999458\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-20-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-20-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-20-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-20-BL_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-20-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Charlie Endris (left), a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) spatial analyst, and Ivano Aiello (left), a professor and department chair at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, test the soil for metal levels in Elkhorn Slough near the Moss Landing Power Plant in Moss Landing, California, on Feb. 12, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Using a powerful electron microscope, they saw tiny beads of those metals in the soil. “That was pretty much a smoking gun,” Aiello said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Concentrations \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12024233/monterey-county-battery-fire-linked-surge-heavy-metals-nature-reserves-soil\">of the metals\u003c/a> were between 10 and 1,000 times greater than they had been before the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They also found that the correlation of nickel to cobalt followed a strict 2:1 ratio — the same proportion used in manufacturing the batteries at the Vistra facility.[aside postID=news_12023562 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/MossLandingGetty-1020x680.jpg']“Now we are using that fingerprint to trace how those metals are moving through the environment,” Aiello said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://elkhornslough.org/files/publications/EMBER-Preliminary-Biota-Report-November-2025.pdf\">Preliminary test results\u003c/a> from another \u003ca href=\"https://mlml.sjsu.edu/estuary-monitoring-of-battery-emissions-and-residues/\">team of San José State scientists\u003c/a> give some indication that the metals, which can be toxic above certain concentrations, have entered the food chain in the nearby estuary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the concern is not only for the local wildlife, which includes the southern sea otter, a threatened species still struggling back from the brink of extinction. Many agricultural fields are also close to the Moss Landing battery plant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, there’s another piece of detective work still to be done. Aiello and his colleagues calculated that the heavy metals they found in the soil amounted to less than 2% of the metals contained in the burned batteries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Where is the other 98%?” Aiello said. “Some of it might have gone straight to the ocean, but some of it might have traveled elsewhere because those particles are very, very tiny.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999456\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999456\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-14-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-14-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-14-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-14-BL_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-14-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Moss Landing Power Plant, the site of a battery fire on Jan. 16, in Moss Landing, California, on Feb. 12, 2025, seen from across the Elkhorn Slough. The power plant is a natural gas-fired power station with a large battery storage facility directly next to the Elkhorn Slough, a coastal wetland on California’s central coast, home to marine life, including sea otters and birds. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Vistra Corporation, which operates the Moss Landing battery plant, said in a statement that a \u003ca href=\"https://www.readymontereycounty.org/home/showpublisheddocument/143458/638990015667570000\">different study\u003c/a> conducted in October showed heavy metals found in soil near the battery plant were mostly within approved levels, and not necessarily related to the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The safety of our employees, the environment, and the surrounding community remains our top priority,” said Jenny Lyon, a spokesperson for Vistra. “We will continue to work closely with local officials and community partners in the Moss Landing community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aiello hopes that as electric energy becomes more common, his work will help create a different approach to how we go about setting up battery storage facilities: “Maybe we can think better when we locate some of those storage facilities, which have the potential to contaminate soils and also the food.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "A new study from San José State University shows that last winter’s massive battery plant fire in Moss Landing spread a layer of toxic metals across the region. ",
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"title": "Scientists Trace Heavy Metals Spread by January’s Huge Battery Fire Near Monterey | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After a thermal runaway set the world’s largest battery storage facility \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12022725/massive-fire-monterey-county-battery-plant-spews-toxic-smoke-forces-evacuations\">on fire last winter\u003c/a> near Monterey, Ivano Aiello and his colleagues at San José State University had some detective work to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire, which broke out at the Vistra Energy Storage Facility in Moss Landing on Jan. 16, burned for days, producing \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12023562/after-huge-monterey-county-battery-fire-locals-describe-headaches-nausea-and-a-taste-of-metal\">a plume of black smoke\u003c/a> that was visible for miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was obvious debris related to the fire pretty much all over the place, so it was evidence that something came out from the smoke plume,” said Aiello, a professor and chair at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To understand exactly what the fire spread, Aiello and his colleagues began to investigate. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-25972-8\">Their results\u003c/a>, published in the journal \u003cem>Scientific Reports\u003c/em>, were released Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the fire broke out, they had already been collecting soil samples \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12026477/after-toxic-monterey-battery-fire-scientists-keep-watch-over-sensitive-ecosystem\">from nearby Elkhorn Slough\u003c/a>, a sanctuary for endangered wildlife, so they had baseline data for comparison. After the fire, they tested for nickel, manganese and cobalt — the primary elements used in lithium-ion batteries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999458\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999458\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-20-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-20-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-20-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-20-BL_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-20-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Charlie Endris (left), a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) spatial analyst, and Ivano Aiello (left), a professor and department chair at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, test the soil for metal levels in Elkhorn Slough near the Moss Landing Power Plant in Moss Landing, California, on Feb. 12, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Using a powerful electron microscope, they saw tiny beads of those metals in the soil. “That was pretty much a smoking gun,” Aiello said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Concentrations \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12024233/monterey-county-battery-fire-linked-surge-heavy-metals-nature-reserves-soil\">of the metals\u003c/a> were between 10 and 1,000 times greater than they had been before the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They also found that the correlation of nickel to cobalt followed a strict 2:1 ratio — the same proportion used in manufacturing the batteries at the Vistra facility.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Now we are using that fingerprint to trace how those metals are moving through the environment,” Aiello said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://elkhornslough.org/files/publications/EMBER-Preliminary-Biota-Report-November-2025.pdf\">Preliminary test results\u003c/a> from another \u003ca href=\"https://mlml.sjsu.edu/estuary-monitoring-of-battery-emissions-and-residues/\">team of San José State scientists\u003c/a> give some indication that the metals, which can be toxic above certain concentrations, have entered the food chain in the nearby estuary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the concern is not only for the local wildlife, which includes the southern sea otter, a threatened species still struggling back from the brink of extinction. Many agricultural fields are also close to the Moss Landing battery plant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, there’s another piece of detective work still to be done. Aiello and his colleagues calculated that the heavy metals they found in the soil amounted to less than 2% of the metals contained in the burned batteries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Where is the other 98%?” Aiello said. “Some of it might have gone straight to the ocean, but some of it might have traveled elsewhere because those particles are very, very tiny.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999456\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999456\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-14-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-14-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-14-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-14-BL_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/250212-ElkhornSlough-14-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Moss Landing Power Plant, the site of a battery fire on Jan. 16, in Moss Landing, California, on Feb. 12, 2025, seen from across the Elkhorn Slough. The power plant is a natural gas-fired power station with a large battery storage facility directly next to the Elkhorn Slough, a coastal wetland on California’s central coast, home to marine life, including sea otters and birds. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Vistra Corporation, which operates the Moss Landing battery plant, said in a statement that a \u003ca href=\"https://www.readymontereycounty.org/home/showpublisheddocument/143458/638990015667570000\">different study\u003c/a> conducted in October showed heavy metals found in soil near the battery plant were mostly within approved levels, and not necessarily related to the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The safety of our employees, the environment, and the surrounding community remains our top priority,” said Jenny Lyon, a spokesperson for Vistra. “We will continue to work closely with local officials and community partners in the Moss Landing community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aiello hopes that as electric energy becomes more common, his work will help create a different approach to how we go about setting up battery storage facilities: “Maybe we can think better when we locate some of those storage facilities, which have the potential to contaminate soils and also the food.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "california-adopts-tougher-methane-rule-for-landfills-to-curb-planetary-warming",
"title": "California Adopts Tougher Methane Rule for Landfills to Curb Planetary Warming",
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"headTitle": "California Adopts Tougher Methane Rule for Landfills to Curb Planetary Warming | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Your trash, or the place where it ends up, is also one of the most serious contributors to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/global-warming\">global warming\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After livestock, landfills are the second-largest source of methane emissions in California, responsible for more than 20% of the state’s output. That’s why the California Air Resources Board took action on Thursday to monitor and capture the landfill’s gases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is generated from the breakdown of waste. Even though it’s a short-lived climate pollutant compared to long-lasting carbon dioxide, it severely exacerbates human-caused climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/landfill-methane-regulation\">new rules\u003c/a> will eventually require landfill operators to take action when a \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/californias-methane-satellite-helps-stop-10-large-leaks\">satellite\u003c/a> or airplane detects a methane leak, improve routine leak monitoring and reporting and mandate stronger action on recurring issues. The protections will add to a suite of regulations the state passed in 2010, which made California the first state to develop stricter standards than the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is another example of California’s leadership in reducing emissions and harmful climate-warming pollutants across all sources. With these updates, California will be able to more efficiently and effectively monitor methane sources to detect and remedy leaks quickly,” CARB Chair \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/about/leadership/lauren-sanchez\">Lauren Sanchez said \u003c/a>in a press release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board reported that the state’s methane satellite, which passes by four to five times a week, has helped stop 10 large leaks since May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999362\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999362\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The landfill at 850 Singleton Road in San José, California, on Sept. 6, 2023. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We believe that many operators would be interested in adopting these technologies to reduce the need for costly labor, especially as the number of mature technologies increases over time,” said air resources engineer Quinn Langfitt, who introduced the regulator’s proposal at a public hearing on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes, which will impact 188 landfills in the state, are part of meeting the state’s goal to reduce methane emissions by 40% below 2013 levels by 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials said the new rules could reduce landfill emissions by 427,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. They would create $34 million in social benefits and cost landfills around $12 million, with the largest bearing the brunt of the price tag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A recent report backed up the agency’s findings: By 2050, landfill emissions could be reduced by more than half and up to 64% by the end of the century, according to \u003ca href=\"https://industriouslabs.org/archive/press-release-common-sense-standards-can-deliver-cleaner-air-cut-california-landfill-methane\">a March analysis\u003c/a> by Industrious Labs. The group noted that California landfills emit 7.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent of methane annually, which has “the same climate impact as driving 1.7 million cars for one year.”[aside postID=news_12061054 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/CHSugarCrockettGetty.jpg']But even though the board passed the new rules, they won’t go into effect immediately; staff will need to address a slew of clarifying questions raised by the public and board members during the hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CARB board member Diane Takvorian supported the rule but pushed for a public-facing dashboard to show when and where emissions plumes are detected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are asking for basic information,” Takvorian said, noting that technology is moving fast and that people need information now, not in years. She and others recommended an 18-month technology review after the rule goes into effect. They also suggested that the state and landfills share any data with the public as soon as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we have the data, we should share it,” board member Hector De La Torre said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>John Kennedy, senior policy advocate for the Rural County Representatives of California, said he is “supportive of efforts to reduce emissions.” His group represents more than two-thirds of the landfills to which the standards would apply. Kennedy wants to ensure that the implementation is feasible for local governments “while protecting the communities that are close to those landfills.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson from Waste Management, which does business as WM, representing facilities across the state, thanked staff for the updated plan, but said he hopes they will work with the industry on site-specific conditions, which of the new rules are “necessary and useful to diagnose conditions,” and a framework for using alternative monitoring technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1947347\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1925px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1947347\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/GettyImages-2154411-e1568322782842.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1925\" height=\"1258\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A worker watches as aluminum cans are emptied into a bailer at the Norcal Waste recycling facility on July 11, 2003, in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Multiple residents from the Los Angeles community of Val Verde attended the meeting. They said they have suffered because of widespread noxious odors and hazardous gas emissions from the \u003ca href=\"https://calepa.ca.gov/chiquita-canyon-response/\">Chiquita Canyon Landfill\u003c/a> in recent years. Brandi Howse, who spoke during public comment, said she has lived about 1,000 feet from the landfill for 27 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Howse said she has experienced clouds of methane and other gases at her home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You become dizzy, disoriented, nauseous, you get headaches, burning sinuses and bloody noses,” Howse said. “We are left to be concerned with long-term effects. I know that myself and my neighbors to my left and my right have all had cancer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Community members from the Kern County community of Avenal approached the podium to say that the landfill in their community is causing health concerns like cancer and people are leaving the town because of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The smell is really bad,” said Leticia Luna, who moved to Avenal 15 years ago. “People are leaving our community because their homes are not safe, and when they leave, they find it difficult to sell because we live very close to the landfill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While many groups applauded the new rule, \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-williams-36820528b/\">Jane Williams\u003c/a>, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics, said it is a “real first step,” and that CARB needs even stronger rules to prevent fires and large emission leaks at landfills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Your trash, or the place where it ends up, is also one of the most serious contributors to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/global-warming\">global warming\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After livestock, landfills are the second-largest source of methane emissions in California, responsible for more than 20% of the state’s output. That’s why the California Air Resources Board took action on Thursday to monitor and capture the landfill’s gases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is generated from the breakdown of waste. Even though it’s a short-lived climate pollutant compared to long-lasting carbon dioxide, it severely exacerbates human-caused climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/landfill-methane-regulation\">new rules\u003c/a> will eventually require landfill operators to take action when a \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/californias-methane-satellite-helps-stop-10-large-leaks\">satellite\u003c/a> or airplane detects a methane leak, improve routine leak monitoring and reporting and mandate stronger action on recurring issues. The protections will add to a suite of regulations the state passed in 2010, which made California the first state to develop stricter standards than the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is another example of California’s leadership in reducing emissions and harmful climate-warming pollutants across all sources. With these updates, California will be able to more efficiently and effectively monitor methane sources to detect and remedy leaks quickly,” CARB Chair \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/about/leadership/lauren-sanchez\">Lauren Sanchez said \u003c/a>in a press release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board reported that the state’s methane satellite, which passes by four to five times a week, has helped stop 10 large leaks since May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999362\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999362\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The landfill at 850 Singleton Road in San José, California, on Sept. 6, 2023. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We believe that many operators would be interested in adopting these technologies to reduce the need for costly labor, especially as the number of mature technologies increases over time,” said air resources engineer Quinn Langfitt, who introduced the regulator’s proposal at a public hearing on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes, which will impact 188 landfills in the state, are part of meeting the state’s goal to reduce methane emissions by 40% below 2013 levels by 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials said the new rules could reduce landfill emissions by 427,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. They would create $34 million in social benefits and cost landfills around $12 million, with the largest bearing the brunt of the price tag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A recent report backed up the agency’s findings: By 2050, landfill emissions could be reduced by more than half and up to 64% by the end of the century, according to \u003ca href=\"https://industriouslabs.org/archive/press-release-common-sense-standards-can-deliver-cleaner-air-cut-california-landfill-methane\">a March analysis\u003c/a> by Industrious Labs. The group noted that California landfills emit 7.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent of methane annually, which has “the same climate impact as driving 1.7 million cars for one year.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But even though the board passed the new rules, they won’t go into effect immediately; staff will need to address a slew of clarifying questions raised by the public and board members during the hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CARB board member Diane Takvorian supported the rule but pushed for a public-facing dashboard to show when and where emissions plumes are detected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are asking for basic information,” Takvorian said, noting that technology is moving fast and that people need information now, not in years. She and others recommended an 18-month technology review after the rule goes into effect. They also suggested that the state and landfills share any data with the public as soon as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we have the data, we should share it,” board member Hector De La Torre said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>John Kennedy, senior policy advocate for the Rural County Representatives of California, said he is “supportive of efforts to reduce emissions.” His group represents more than two-thirds of the landfills to which the standards would apply. Kennedy wants to ensure that the implementation is feasible for local governments “while protecting the communities that are close to those landfills.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson from Waste Management, which does business as WM, representing facilities across the state, thanked staff for the updated plan, but said he hopes they will work with the industry on site-specific conditions, which of the new rules are “necessary and useful to diagnose conditions,” and a framework for using alternative monitoring technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1947347\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1925px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1947347\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/GettyImages-2154411-e1568322782842.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1925\" height=\"1258\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A worker watches as aluminum cans are emptied into a bailer at the Norcal Waste recycling facility on July 11, 2003, in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Multiple residents from the Los Angeles community of Val Verde attended the meeting. They said they have suffered because of widespread noxious odors and hazardous gas emissions from the \u003ca href=\"https://calepa.ca.gov/chiquita-canyon-response/\">Chiquita Canyon Landfill\u003c/a> in recent years. Brandi Howse, who spoke during public comment, said she has lived about 1,000 feet from the landfill for 27 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Howse said she has experienced clouds of methane and other gases at her home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You become dizzy, disoriented, nauseous, you get headaches, burning sinuses and bloody noses,” Howse said. “We are left to be concerned with long-term effects. I know that myself and my neighbors to my left and my right have all had cancer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Community members from the Kern County community of Avenal approached the podium to say that the landfill in their community is causing health concerns like cancer and people are leaving the town because of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The smell is really bad,” said Leticia Luna, who moved to Avenal 15 years ago. “People are leaving our community because their homes are not safe, and when they leave, they find it difficult to sell because we live very close to the landfill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While many groups applauded the new rule, \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-williams-36820528b/\">Jane Williams\u003c/a>, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics, said it is a “real first step,” and that CARB needs even stronger rules to prevent fires and large emission leaks at landfills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The Trump administration on Thursday released its plan to open up federal waters off the coast of California \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1941182/california-and-offshore-drilling-like-oil-and-water\">to oil drilling\u003c/a>, taking a momentous step that state leaders and environmentalists had long expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Interior Department’s proposal, which sets up a direct confrontation with Sacramento on energy and climate change, would also allow drilling in federal waters off the coast of Alaska and the Southeastern U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would rip up a ban on new offshore drilling in most of these places that President Joe Biden signed a few weeks before he left office. President Trump signed an executive order repealing that ban on his first day in office, and last month, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled Biden had \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-ban-offshore-drilling-vast-areas-was-illegal-court-rules-2025-10-03/\">overstepped his authority\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Administration officials argued that the move to open federal waters to new oil and gas leases will help restore energy security and protect American jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By moving forward with the development of a robust, forward-thinking leasing plan, we are ensuring that America’s offshore industry stays strong, our workers stay employed, and our nation remains energy dominant for decades to come,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a press release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999368\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1680px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999368\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/OffshoreDrilling.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1680\" height=\"1230\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/OffshoreDrilling.jpg 1680w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/OffshoreDrilling-160x117.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/OffshoreDrilling-768x562.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/OffshoreDrilling-1536x1125.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1680px) 100vw, 1680px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Bureau of Ocean Energy Management map details where the agency wants to allow new oil and gas drilling. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Bureau of Ocean Energy Management)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom previously said the plan would be “dead on arrival” and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1999192/california-moves-to-fill-the-void-left-by-the-federal-government-on-the-world-stage\">promised attendees at an international climate conference\u003c/a> last week that California would immediately sue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Thursday, his office quickly blasted the proposal as “idiotic,” “reckless” and said that it “endangers our coastal economy and communities and hurts the well-being of Californians.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companies have drilled very little oil \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12035274/the-future-of-oil-drilling-off-californias-coast-could-be-at-stake-in-a-hearing-today\">off the coast of California\u003c/a> since the 1969 Union Oil platform blowout spilled 4.2 million barrels of crude into the waters 6 miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, catalyzing an environmental movement.[aside postID=news_12063468 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/SealBeachOilRigGetty.jpg']Newsom’s press release included a photo of a bird covered in crude oil, with a caption that said, “If Trump gets his way, coming to a beach near you soon!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Numerous California lawmakers, including Sen. Alex Padilla and Rep. Jared Huffman, hastily convened a press call to push back on the plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Padilla called it “another outrageous announcement” from an “out of control administration.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rep. Jimmy Panetta compared the proposal to Trump’s controversial renovation of the White House. “The California coastline is not the East Wing of the White House,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Democratic lawmakers are supporting legislation that would prohibit new oil and gas leases off the West Coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The public will have a 60-day window to comment on the plan when it appears in the Federal Register on Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The Trump administration on Thursday released its plan to open up federal waters off the coast of California \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1941182/california-and-offshore-drilling-like-oil-and-water\">to oil drilling\u003c/a>, taking a momentous step that state leaders and environmentalists had long expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Interior Department’s proposal, which sets up a direct confrontation with Sacramento on energy and climate change, would also allow drilling in federal waters off the coast of Alaska and the Southeastern U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would rip up a ban on new offshore drilling in most of these places that President Joe Biden signed a few weeks before he left office. President Trump signed an executive order repealing that ban on his first day in office, and last month, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled Biden had \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-ban-offshore-drilling-vast-areas-was-illegal-court-rules-2025-10-03/\">overstepped his authority\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Administration officials argued that the move to open federal waters to new oil and gas leases will help restore energy security and protect American jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By moving forward with the development of a robust, forward-thinking leasing plan, we are ensuring that America’s offshore industry stays strong, our workers stay employed, and our nation remains energy dominant for decades to come,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a press release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999368\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1680px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999368\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/OffshoreDrilling.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1680\" height=\"1230\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/OffshoreDrilling.jpg 1680w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/OffshoreDrilling-160x117.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/OffshoreDrilling-768x562.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/OffshoreDrilling-1536x1125.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1680px) 100vw, 1680px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Bureau of Ocean Energy Management map details where the agency wants to allow new oil and gas drilling. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Bureau of Ocean Energy Management)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom previously said the plan would be “dead on arrival” and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1999192/california-moves-to-fill-the-void-left-by-the-federal-government-on-the-world-stage\">promised attendees at an international climate conference\u003c/a> last week that California would immediately sue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Thursday, his office quickly blasted the proposal as “idiotic,” “reckless” and said that it “endangers our coastal economy and communities and hurts the well-being of Californians.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companies have drilled very little oil \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12035274/the-future-of-oil-drilling-off-californias-coast-could-be-at-stake-in-a-hearing-today\">off the coast of California\u003c/a> since the 1969 Union Oil platform blowout spilled 4.2 million barrels of crude into the waters 6 miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, catalyzing an environmental movement.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Newsom’s press release included a photo of a bird covered in crude oil, with a caption that said, “If Trump gets his way, coming to a beach near you soon!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Numerous California lawmakers, including Sen. Alex Padilla and Rep. Jared Huffman, hastily convened a press call to push back on the plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Padilla called it “another outrageous announcement” from an “out of control administration.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rep. Jimmy Panetta compared the proposal to Trump’s controversial renovation of the White House. “The California coastline is not the East Wing of the White House,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Democratic lawmakers are supporting legislation that would prohibit new oil and gas leases off the West Coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The public will have a 60-day window to comment on the plan when it appears in the Federal Register on Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Hundreds of California and Bay Area Hazardous Sites Could Face Future Flooding",
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"content": "\u003cp>Power plants. Sewage treatment facilities. Fossil fuel ports. Radioactively contaminated sites. These are just a few of the 249 \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1979092/how-rising-sea-levels-could-push-up-a-toxic-soup-into-bay-area-neighborhoods\">hazardous sites\u003c/a> across the Bay Area that could flood as seas rise in the coming decades in the worst-case scenario, according to a new report published Thursday in the journal Nature Communications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers project that 5,500 hazardous sites across the nation could be at risk of coastal flooding by the end of the century. Around two-thirds of these facilities are at risk of coastal flooding within the next 25 years, during 100-year flood events. “Historically underserved communities” are more likely to live near hazardous sites prone to flooding, the scientists wrote in a preview of the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers from Climate Central, UCLA, UC Berkeley and Nanjing University collaborated on the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The motivation for the study is that sea level rise is rising quickly, often more than projected, and is anticipated to more than double by 2050 worldwide,” said \u003ca href=\"https://publichealth.berkeley.edu/people/rachel-morello-frosch\">Rachel Morello-Frosch\u003c/a>, a professor of environmental science, policy and management at UC Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seven states account for almost 80% of the hazardous sites at-risk by the end of the century. California is among them with 471 locations. That’s if human-caused climate change continues unchecked. State scientists predict more than a foot of bay rise by 2050 and over 6 feet by the end of the century in the \u003ca href=\"https://opc.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/California-Sea-Level-Rise-Guidance-2024-508.pdf\">worst-case scenario\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The list includes facilities that pose a risk to public health and communities: contaminated sites, former defense sites, businesses that handle sewage, toxic waste, oil and gas wells and other pollutants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1970668\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1970668\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/10/RS45431_GettyImages-1134096431-qut-1.jpg\" alt=\"An aerial view of a very large container ship docked at a port.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1249\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/10/RS45431_GettyImages-1134096431-qut-1.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/10/RS45431_GettyImages-1134096431-qut-1-800x520.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/10/RS45431_GettyImages-1134096431-qut-1-1020x664.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/10/RS45431_GettyImages-1134096431-qut-1-160x104.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/10/RS45431_GettyImages-1134096431-qut-1-768x500.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/10/RS45431_GettyImages-1134096431-qut-1-1536x999.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An aerial view of container ships docked at the Port of Oakland on March 6, 2019. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We could avoid some of this flooding if we were to stabilize and then reduce our greenhouse gas emissions,” said \u003ca href=\"https://ph.ucla.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/lara-cushing\">Lara Cushing\u003c/a>, associate professor of environmental health sciences at UCLA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But sea level rise won’t just mean water lapping over shorelines. As the bay rises, it will push groundwater up inland. The researchers noted that there could be more or fewer potential problem sites, as the study did not account for groundwater rise or the increasing intensity of storms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Previous research examining rising groundwater found that more than 5,000 toxic sites may be \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1983106/map-more-than-5000-toxic-sites-along-sf-bay-are-threatened-by-rising-groundwater-new-study-finds\">impacted along San Francisco Bay\u003c/a> alone. A KQED analysis from 2022 found that in the Bay Area community of West Oakland, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1980255/a-lesson-in-discrimination-a-toxic-sea-level-rise-crisis-threatens-west-oakland\">more than 100 sites\u003c/a> are at risk from both rising seas and groundwater.[aside postID=news_12027540 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/BayFarmShoreline_001_qed-1020x680.jpg']The new count includes some of the region’s most contaminated sites, like the defunct \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1999023/navy-took-11-months-to-alert-sf-to-airborne-plutonium-at-hunters-point-shipyard-site\">Hunters Point Naval Shipyard\u003c/a>. The U.S. Navy polluted the shipyard soil and groundwater with radioactive chemicals, heavy metals and petroleum fuels when it decontaminated ships, fouling the surface water and sediment in the San Francisco Bay, too. The Environmental Protection Agency declared it one of the nation’s most contaminated sites in 1989.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research team found that neighborhoods most at risk have a higher “proportion of renters, households living in poverty, residents who identify as Hispanic, linguistically isolated households, households without vehicles, seniors, and non-voters than neighborhoods without at-risk facilities,” the scientists wrote in a press release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cushing said there could be as many as 300 fewer places at risk across the country if leaders and companies globally aggressively reduce emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If people come into contact with floodwaters tainted by hazardous materials — sewage from wastewater treatment plants, heavy metals from refineries, or oils from fossil fuel facilities — the health impacts to people ramp up, said \u003ca href=\"https://sph.umd.edu/people/sacoby-wilson\">Sacoby Wilson\u003c/a>, a professor of global, environmental, and occupational health at the University of Maryland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the aftermath of a flood, the “\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1979092/how-rising-sea-levels-could-push-up-a-toxic-soup-into-bay-area-neighborhoods\">toxic soup\u003c/a>” people may encounter could exacerbate health conditions. Wilson said exposure, depending on the chemical or sewage, during a flooding event near a hazardous site could lead to fevers, rashes, E. coli-related illness, and other symptoms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have compounding vulnerability when it comes to their socioeconomic status and in some cases, the role of racism that led to that disproportionate burden,” Wilson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal lawmakers \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1997954/lawmakers-push-to-map-groundwater-before-it-swamps-americas-infrastructure\">introduced legislation\u003c/a> in July that, if passed, would \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/4144/all-actions\">set aside $5 million\u003c/a> over the next year for the United States Geological Survey to study and map groundwater rise nationally through 2100. The agency would also need to identify priority areas that are at increased risk of flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Power plants. Sewage treatment facilities. Fossil fuel ports. Radioactively contaminated sites. These are just a few of the 249 \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1979092/how-rising-sea-levels-could-push-up-a-toxic-soup-into-bay-area-neighborhoods\">hazardous sites\u003c/a> across the Bay Area that could flood as seas rise in the coming decades in the worst-case scenario, according to a new report published Thursday in the journal Nature Communications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers project that 5,500 hazardous sites across the nation could be at risk of coastal flooding by the end of the century. Around two-thirds of these facilities are at risk of coastal flooding within the next 25 years, during 100-year flood events. “Historically underserved communities” are more likely to live near hazardous sites prone to flooding, the scientists wrote in a preview of the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers from Climate Central, UCLA, UC Berkeley and Nanjing University collaborated on the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The motivation for the study is that sea level rise is rising quickly, often more than projected, and is anticipated to more than double by 2050 worldwide,” said \u003ca href=\"https://publichealth.berkeley.edu/people/rachel-morello-frosch\">Rachel Morello-Frosch\u003c/a>, a professor of environmental science, policy and management at UC Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seven states account for almost 80% of the hazardous sites at-risk by the end of the century. California is among them with 471 locations. That’s if human-caused climate change continues unchecked. State scientists predict more than a foot of bay rise by 2050 and over 6 feet by the end of the century in the \u003ca href=\"https://opc.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/California-Sea-Level-Rise-Guidance-2024-508.pdf\">worst-case scenario\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The list includes facilities that pose a risk to public health and communities: contaminated sites, former defense sites, businesses that handle sewage, toxic waste, oil and gas wells and other pollutants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1970668\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1970668\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/10/RS45431_GettyImages-1134096431-qut-1.jpg\" alt=\"An aerial view of a very large container ship docked at a port.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1249\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/10/RS45431_GettyImages-1134096431-qut-1.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/10/RS45431_GettyImages-1134096431-qut-1-800x520.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/10/RS45431_GettyImages-1134096431-qut-1-1020x664.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/10/RS45431_GettyImages-1134096431-qut-1-160x104.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/10/RS45431_GettyImages-1134096431-qut-1-768x500.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/10/RS45431_GettyImages-1134096431-qut-1-1536x999.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An aerial view of container ships docked at the Port of Oakland on March 6, 2019. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We could avoid some of this flooding if we were to stabilize and then reduce our greenhouse gas emissions,” said \u003ca href=\"https://ph.ucla.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/lara-cushing\">Lara Cushing\u003c/a>, associate professor of environmental health sciences at UCLA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But sea level rise won’t just mean water lapping over shorelines. As the bay rises, it will push groundwater up inland. The researchers noted that there could be more or fewer potential problem sites, as the study did not account for groundwater rise or the increasing intensity of storms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Previous research examining rising groundwater found that more than 5,000 toxic sites may be \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1983106/map-more-than-5000-toxic-sites-along-sf-bay-are-threatened-by-rising-groundwater-new-study-finds\">impacted along San Francisco Bay\u003c/a> alone. A KQED analysis from 2022 found that in the Bay Area community of West Oakland, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1980255/a-lesson-in-discrimination-a-toxic-sea-level-rise-crisis-threatens-west-oakland\">more than 100 sites\u003c/a> are at risk from both rising seas and groundwater.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The new count includes some of the region’s most contaminated sites, like the defunct \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1999023/navy-took-11-months-to-alert-sf-to-airborne-plutonium-at-hunters-point-shipyard-site\">Hunters Point Naval Shipyard\u003c/a>. The U.S. Navy polluted the shipyard soil and groundwater with radioactive chemicals, heavy metals and petroleum fuels when it decontaminated ships, fouling the surface water and sediment in the San Francisco Bay, too. The Environmental Protection Agency declared it one of the nation’s most contaminated sites in 1989.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research team found that neighborhoods most at risk have a higher “proportion of renters, households living in poverty, residents who identify as Hispanic, linguistically isolated households, households without vehicles, seniors, and non-voters than neighborhoods without at-risk facilities,” the scientists wrote in a press release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cushing said there could be as many as 300 fewer places at risk across the country if leaders and companies globally aggressively reduce emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If people come into contact with floodwaters tainted by hazardous materials — sewage from wastewater treatment plants, heavy metals from refineries, or oils from fossil fuel facilities — the health impacts to people ramp up, said \u003ca href=\"https://sph.umd.edu/people/sacoby-wilson\">Sacoby Wilson\u003c/a>, a professor of global, environmental, and occupational health at the University of Maryland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the aftermath of a flood, the “\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1979092/how-rising-sea-levels-could-push-up-a-toxic-soup-into-bay-area-neighborhoods\">toxic soup\u003c/a>” people may encounter could exacerbate health conditions. Wilson said exposure, depending on the chemical or sewage, during a flooding event near a hazardous site could lead to fevers, rashes, E. coli-related illness, and other symptoms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have compounding vulnerability when it comes to their socioeconomic status and in some cases, the role of racism that led to that disproportionate burden,” Wilson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal lawmakers \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1997954/lawmakers-push-to-map-groundwater-before-it-swamps-americas-infrastructure\">introduced legislation\u003c/a> in July that, if passed, would \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/4144/all-actions\">set aside $5 million\u003c/a> over the next year for the United States Geological Survey to study and map groundwater rise nationally through 2100. The agency would also need to identify priority areas that are at increased risk of flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "navy-took-11-months-to-alert-sf-to-airborne-plutonium-at-hunters-point-shipyard-site",
"title": "Navy Took 11 Months to Alert SF to Airborne Plutonium at Hunters Point Shipyard Site",
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"content": "\u003cp>San Francisco officials and advocates are raising alarms that the U.S. Navy failed to alert the public to high levels of airborne radioactive material detected almost a year ago at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11927434/sf-supervisors-challenge-mayor-breed-and-the-navy-to-bolster-protections-at-bayview-hunters-point\">Hunters Point Naval Shipyard\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a notice warning community groups in neighborhoods around the defunct base, the Navy notified the San Francisco Department of Public Health only this month about elevated levels of plutonium-239 found last November. Community groups and at least one San Francisco supervisor called the 11-month delay “unacceptable” and are demanding answers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plutonium-239 is a highly radioactive material used to create nuclear weapons and reactors. Breathing in tiny particles is dangerous and over time can cause issues including lung cancer, cellular damage and radiation sickness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Navy found the sample in an area known as Parcel C, adjacent to a hill covered in condo buildings where hundreds of families live and a public park in view of the shipyard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Navy had previously cleared that area for redevelopment two decades ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Susan Philip, San Francisco health officer, wrote to the Navy requesting all documentation related to the incident, all actions taken by the Navy and a year’s worth of air monitoring data for independent review by the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Department of Public Health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1993509\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1993509\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/20231207-Bayview-Presser-020-JY.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/20231207-Bayview-Presser-020-JY.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/20231207-Bayview-Presser-020-JY-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/20231207-Bayview-Presser-020-JY-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/20231207-Bayview-Presser-020-JY-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/20231207-Bayview-Presser-020-JY-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/20231207-Bayview-Presser-020-JY-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Signs are posted at the Hunters Point Shipyard in San Francisco on Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023. Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice members and Bayview citizens held a press conference to announce their lawsuit against the U.S. Navy and the Environmental Protection Agency after the Navy said it detected a piece of radioactive metal during routine testing. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We share your deep concerns regarding the 11-month delay in communication from the Navy,” Philip wrote in the notice to community members. “We demand nothing short of full transparency and prompt communication from our federal partners and regulatory agencies to ensure your safety.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 866-acre Hunters Point site was home to a shipyard from 1945 to 1974 and the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory from 1948 to 1960.[aside postID=news_12060929 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251022-INDIABASINSHORELINEPARK-06-BL-KQED.jpg']By decontaminating ships after atomic bomb tests and other activities, the Navy contaminated shipyard soil and groundwater — as well as surface water and sediment in the San Francisco Bay — with radioactive chemicals, heavy metals and petroleum fuels. The base was declared one of the nation’s most contaminated sites in 1989.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Navy did not respond to KQED’s request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>U.S. Environmental Protection Agency press officials, meanwhile, wrote in an email that the “one-time detection of plutonium” was analyzed twice by the Navy but was only found in one of the tests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Navy provided a summary to the EPA on Oct. 23 of this year. Officials wrote that the agency has requested all data used by the Navy so “our agency can verify the finding ourselves” and “determine what risk there is to the public.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thursday’s announcement is just the latest in a decades-long effort to clean up the contaminated site. In 2023, the Navy \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1985646/radioactive-object-found-at-san-franciscos-hunters-point-naval-shipyard-raises-new-concerns\">unearthed two radioactive objects\u003c/a> there. Early last year, the Navy, for the first time, acknowledged what Bay Area climate scientists and residents had asked the agency to investigate for years: In just over a decade, potentially \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1991758/u-s-navy-acknowledges-rising-toxic-groundwater-threat-at-sf-superfund-site\">toxic groundwater could surface\u003c/a> there, partly due to human-caused climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in 2022, the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury issued a report\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1980324/sf-supervisors-unhappy-with-citys-lack-of-action-to-protect-bayview-hunters-point-residents-from-toxic-sea-level-rise\"> alerting the public that groundwater rise\u003c/a> — a result of sea levels rising in response to global emissions melting ice caps and expanding oceans — could have significant effects on the site in the coming decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1979637\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1979637\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1278\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Apartment buildings in the Bayview sit behind the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco on March 8, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The new finding raises fresh questions about the city’s plans to build thousands of homes amid an exceedingly complex and ongoing cleanup effort. When finished, the 693-acre Candlestick Point-Hunters Point Shipyard project — which the Superfund site is part of — could have more than 10,000 housing units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The development would include two new waterfront neighborhoods with housing and retail, along with over 340 acres of parks and open space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lifelong Bayview-Hunters Point residents, like Arieann Harrison, said their concerns were affirmed by the Navy’s latest findings of radioactive material. Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai tested Harrison as part of a larger study through her Hunters Point Biomonitoring Foundation to determine whether the Navy exposed Bayview-Hunters Point residents to contamination.[aside postID=news_11920960 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/028_KQED_BayviewBloodTesting_02252022-1536x1024-1-1020x680.jpeg']Harrison said \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1979614/for-these-black-bayview-hunters-point-residents-reparations-include-safeguarding-against-rising-toxic-contamination\">her results included plutonium\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel very validated,” Harrison said. “Now that those naysayers know that this is really a real thing, hopefully they’ll be at the front lines of being more tuned in to what’s actually happening in the community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She would like the city and federal agencies to review the Navy’s findings independently and, if necessary, sue the Navy for failing to promptly alert the public to the contamination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have to safeguard our children, families and friends that are trying to carve out a life for themselves,” Harrison said. “We need to know that they are actually being held accountable for the residents that are here and even the new people that have moved here under the guise of being this fabulous new section of the community that’s going to be redeveloped.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supervisor Shamann Walton, whose district encompasses the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, said the “lack of transparency” on the Navy’s part is “very problematic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1979681\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1979681\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS54624_012_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A sliver of greenish blue baywater in the foreground. Giant silver metal cranes sit upon a rock levee. Behind the cranes is an apartment laden hill. The mostly white apartments appear to be multiple stories.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1278\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS54624_012_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS54624_012_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS54624_012_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS54624_012_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS54624_012_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS54624_012_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Apartment buildings in the Bayview District are seen through gantry cranes from San Francisco Bay on March 8, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LeBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s definitely unacceptable that they took this long,” Walton said. “It’s not the first time that the Navy has done something that is unacceptable and demonstrates their lack of concern for the residents in the Bayview, and it’s something that cannot continue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Walton said he plans to hold a formal hearing on the new findings and that the board will move forward in the near future with an independent review of how \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1980324/sf-supervisors-unhappy-with-citys-lack-of-action-to-protect-bayview-hunters-point-residents-from-toxic-sea-level-rise\">groundwater rise could affect toxic contamination\u003c/a> at the Superfund site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want the Navy to be transparent when anything is found,” Walton said. “It is important that we are able to let the community know and inform them because that’s the only way we can figure out how to keep people safe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "San Francisco officials and advocates are demanding answers after the U.S. Navy failed to alert the public to high levels of airborne radioactive material found last November.",
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"title": "Navy Took 11 Months to Alert SF to Airborne Plutonium at Hunters Point Shipyard Site | KQED",
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"headline": "Navy Took 11 Months to Alert SF to Airborne Plutonium at Hunters Point Shipyard Site",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>San Francisco officials and advocates are raising alarms that the U.S. Navy failed to alert the public to high levels of airborne radioactive material detected almost a year ago at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11927434/sf-supervisors-challenge-mayor-breed-and-the-navy-to-bolster-protections-at-bayview-hunters-point\">Hunters Point Naval Shipyard\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a notice warning community groups in neighborhoods around the defunct base, the Navy notified the San Francisco Department of Public Health only this month about elevated levels of plutonium-239 found last November. Community groups and at least one San Francisco supervisor called the 11-month delay “unacceptable” and are demanding answers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plutonium-239 is a highly radioactive material used to create nuclear weapons and reactors. Breathing in tiny particles is dangerous and over time can cause issues including lung cancer, cellular damage and radiation sickness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Navy found the sample in an area known as Parcel C, adjacent to a hill covered in condo buildings where hundreds of families live and a public park in view of the shipyard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Navy had previously cleared that area for redevelopment two decades ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Susan Philip, San Francisco health officer, wrote to the Navy requesting all documentation related to the incident, all actions taken by the Navy and a year’s worth of air monitoring data for independent review by the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Department of Public Health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1993509\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1993509\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/20231207-Bayview-Presser-020-JY.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/20231207-Bayview-Presser-020-JY.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/20231207-Bayview-Presser-020-JY-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/20231207-Bayview-Presser-020-JY-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/20231207-Bayview-Presser-020-JY-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/20231207-Bayview-Presser-020-JY-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/20231207-Bayview-Presser-020-JY-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Signs are posted at the Hunters Point Shipyard in San Francisco on Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023. Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice members and Bayview citizens held a press conference to announce their lawsuit against the U.S. Navy and the Environmental Protection Agency after the Navy said it detected a piece of radioactive metal during routine testing. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We share your deep concerns regarding the 11-month delay in communication from the Navy,” Philip wrote in the notice to community members. “We demand nothing short of full transparency and prompt communication from our federal partners and regulatory agencies to ensure your safety.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 866-acre Hunters Point site was home to a shipyard from 1945 to 1974 and the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory from 1948 to 1960.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>By decontaminating ships after atomic bomb tests and other activities, the Navy contaminated shipyard soil and groundwater — as well as surface water and sediment in the San Francisco Bay — with radioactive chemicals, heavy metals and petroleum fuels. The base was declared one of the nation’s most contaminated sites in 1989.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Navy did not respond to KQED’s request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>U.S. Environmental Protection Agency press officials, meanwhile, wrote in an email that the “one-time detection of plutonium” was analyzed twice by the Navy but was only found in one of the tests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Navy provided a summary to the EPA on Oct. 23 of this year. Officials wrote that the agency has requested all data used by the Navy so “our agency can verify the finding ourselves” and “determine what risk there is to the public.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thursday’s announcement is just the latest in a decades-long effort to clean up the contaminated site. In 2023, the Navy \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1985646/radioactive-object-found-at-san-franciscos-hunters-point-naval-shipyard-raises-new-concerns\">unearthed two radioactive objects\u003c/a> there. Early last year, the Navy, for the first time, acknowledged what Bay Area climate scientists and residents had asked the agency to investigate for years: In just over a decade, potentially \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1991758/u-s-navy-acknowledges-rising-toxic-groundwater-threat-at-sf-superfund-site\">toxic groundwater could surface\u003c/a> there, partly due to human-caused climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in 2022, the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury issued a report\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1980324/sf-supervisors-unhappy-with-citys-lack-of-action-to-protect-bayview-hunters-point-residents-from-toxic-sea-level-rise\"> alerting the public that groundwater rise\u003c/a> — a result of sea levels rising in response to global emissions melting ice caps and expanding oceans — could have significant effects on the site in the coming decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1979637\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1979637\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1278\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/06/RS54632_019_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Apartment buildings in the Bayview sit behind the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco on March 8, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The new finding raises fresh questions about the city’s plans to build thousands of homes amid an exceedingly complex and ongoing cleanup effort. When finished, the 693-acre Candlestick Point-Hunters Point Shipyard project — which the Superfund site is part of — could have more than 10,000 housing units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The development would include two new waterfront neighborhoods with housing and retail, along with over 340 acres of parks and open space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lifelong Bayview-Hunters Point residents, like Arieann Harrison, said their concerns were affirmed by the Navy’s latest findings of radioactive material. Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai tested Harrison as part of a larger study through her Hunters Point Biomonitoring Foundation to determine whether the Navy exposed Bayview-Hunters Point residents to contamination.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Harrison said \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1979614/for-these-black-bayview-hunters-point-residents-reparations-include-safeguarding-against-rising-toxic-contamination\">her results included plutonium\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel very validated,” Harrison said. “Now that those naysayers know that this is really a real thing, hopefully they’ll be at the front lines of being more tuned in to what’s actually happening in the community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She would like the city and federal agencies to review the Navy’s findings independently and, if necessary, sue the Navy for failing to promptly alert the public to the contamination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have to safeguard our children, families and friends that are trying to carve out a life for themselves,” Harrison said. “We need to know that they are actually being held accountable for the residents that are here and even the new people that have moved here under the guise of being this fabulous new section of the community that’s going to be redeveloped.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supervisor Shamann Walton, whose district encompasses the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, said the “lack of transparency” on the Navy’s part is “very problematic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1979681\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1979681\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS54624_012_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A sliver of greenish blue baywater in the foreground. Giant silver metal cranes sit upon a rock levee. Behind the cranes is an apartment laden hill. The mostly white apartments appear to be multiple stories.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1278\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS54624_012_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS54624_012_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS54624_012_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS54624_012_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS54624_012_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS54624_012_KQED_BaykeeperBayviewHuntersPoint_03082022-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Apartment buildings in the Bayview District are seen through gantry cranes from San Francisco Bay on March 8, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LeBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s definitely unacceptable that they took this long,” Walton said. “It’s not the first time that the Navy has done something that is unacceptable and demonstrates their lack of concern for the residents in the Bayview, and it’s something that cannot continue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Walton said he plans to hold a formal hearing on the new findings and that the board will move forward in the near future with an independent review of how \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1980324/sf-supervisors-unhappy-with-citys-lack-of-action-to-protect-bayview-hunters-point-residents-from-toxic-sea-level-rise\">groundwater rise could affect toxic contamination\u003c/a> at the Superfund site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want the Navy to be transparent when anything is found,” Walton said. “It is important that we are able to let the community know and inform them because that’s the only way we can figure out how to keep people safe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Srivathsan Ramanujam loves looking up at the sky from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/sunnyvale\">Sunnyvale\u003c/a> Baylands Park and watching plane after plane soar overhead. The protected \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1998966/rising-tides-drive-a-bay-area-push-to-bring-back-vanished-marshlands\">wetland\u003c/a>, which spans more than 100 acres, served as his most beloved childhood playground. As a kid, he enjoyed spotting red-tailed hawks soaring overhead and shorebirds skittering along the multicolored salt ponds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I used to come out here and even eat the local pickleweed, which I insisted tastes like French fries,” Ramanujam said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, the 17-year-old is a self-proclaimed outdoors and aviation nerd. His passion began during the pandemic, when Ramanujam’s dad bought him his first drone with a high-definition camera to keep him occupied and to get him outside. After learning how to fly it in his backyard, he eventually purchased a second drone and began exploring the nearby marshes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just so addictive,” Ramanujam said. “Wetlands are the first thing you see when you land in the Bay Area. The beautiful colors, red, pink, green.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s worried that rising sea levels, driven by human-caused climate change, could swallow the baylands he loves so dearly. Climate scientists predict that melting ice caps and expanding ocean waters could cause the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1997729/oysters-snails-and-a-wall-that-protects-against-climate-change-one-tile-at-a-time\">seas to rise\u003c/a> anywhere between a foot by 2050 and more than six feet by the end of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead of drowning in fear, Ramanujam channeled his love for the bay into mapping more than 1,000 acres of wetlands across the South Bay. More than 80% of the Bay Area’s tidal wetlands were destroyed in the 19th and 20th centuries, and he wants to help decision-makers better understand what’s left.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998766\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998766\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-14-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-14-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-14-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-14-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-14-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Srivathsan Ramanujam holds his drone at Sunnyvale Baylands Park in Sunnyvale on Oct. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On weekends and after school, Ramanujam sends his drones soaring over the marsh, allowing him to create high-definition maps, photos and videos that track elevation, erosion and plant health. He would like to show how the area has changed over time and identify the marshland areas most vulnerable to future flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many evenings, the Archbishop Mitty High School senior can be found at his computer, sorting through data and layering thousands of images to create maps that he publishes on his website and in videos on his YouTube channel. He convinced a few of his friends to help present his work to the City of Fremont’s Environmental Sustainability Commission back in June and to the Bay Conservation Development Commission in July.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He is also partnering with researchers from San Jose State to map how coastal erosion is affecting underserved communities in the Monterey Bay region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998762\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998762\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-04-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-04-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-04-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-04-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-04-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Srivathsan Ramanujam flies his drone at Sunnyvale Baylands Park in Sunnyvale on Oct. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I hope these maps encourage youth to come into this field and try to save their backyard,” Ramanujam said. “I want the next generation to be able to enjoy it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ramanujam presented his latest findings at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfestuary.org/state-of-the-estuary-conference/\">State of the San Francisco Estuary Conference\u003c/a> this week. He wants to encourage leaders to accelerate efforts to restore the Bay Area’s historic waterfront to “its original glory.” He believes his maps will help researchers as data becomes harder to find due to recent federal cuts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liv Juvera, an environmental planner with the San Francisco Estuary Partnership, said she was excited to receive Ramanujam’s request to present a research poster at the conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had not heard directly from a high schooler before who was so eager to present,” Juvera said. “Him being so tenacious and eager to invest in conservation and restoration of the estuary through his work is singular.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998763\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998763\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-05-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-05-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-05-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-05-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-05-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Srivathsan Ramanujam flies his drone at Sunnyvale Baylands Park in Sunnyvale on Oct. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Juvera said he could help planners better understand how to meet the regional goal of eventually restoring 100,000 acres of tidal marsh. Today, the Bay Area has met over half its goal. Ramanujam’s research can provide “tangential” insight into how to make communities “more resilient to sea level rise and by proxy flood risk reduction,” Juvera said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Ramanujam was the only high schooler who presented a poster at the conference, she said other young people shared ideas, panels, sessions and research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She hopes more young people will work to protect and restore San Francisco Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The more youth that get engaged in taking care of the estuary, the better,” Juvera said. “It’s exciting to see people who still want to do good.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Srivathsan Ramanujam loves looking up at the sky from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/sunnyvale\">Sunnyvale\u003c/a> Baylands Park and watching plane after plane soar overhead. The protected \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1998966/rising-tides-drive-a-bay-area-push-to-bring-back-vanished-marshlands\">wetland\u003c/a>, which spans more than 100 acres, served as his most beloved childhood playground. As a kid, he enjoyed spotting red-tailed hawks soaring overhead and shorebirds skittering along the multicolored salt ponds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I used to come out here and even eat the local pickleweed, which I insisted tastes like French fries,” Ramanujam said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, the 17-year-old is a self-proclaimed outdoors and aviation nerd. His passion began during the pandemic, when Ramanujam’s dad bought him his first drone with a high-definition camera to keep him occupied and to get him outside. After learning how to fly it in his backyard, he eventually purchased a second drone and began exploring the nearby marshes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just so addictive,” Ramanujam said. “Wetlands are the first thing you see when you land in the Bay Area. The beautiful colors, red, pink, green.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s worried that rising sea levels, driven by human-caused climate change, could swallow the baylands he loves so dearly. Climate scientists predict that melting ice caps and expanding ocean waters could cause the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1997729/oysters-snails-and-a-wall-that-protects-against-climate-change-one-tile-at-a-time\">seas to rise\u003c/a> anywhere between a foot by 2050 and more than six feet by the end of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead of drowning in fear, Ramanujam channeled his love for the bay into mapping more than 1,000 acres of wetlands across the South Bay. More than 80% of the Bay Area’s tidal wetlands were destroyed in the 19th and 20th centuries, and he wants to help decision-makers better understand what’s left.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998766\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998766\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-14-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-14-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-14-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-14-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-14-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Srivathsan Ramanujam holds his drone at Sunnyvale Baylands Park in Sunnyvale on Oct. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On weekends and after school, Ramanujam sends his drones soaring over the marsh, allowing him to create high-definition maps, photos and videos that track elevation, erosion and plant health. He would like to show how the area has changed over time and identify the marshland areas most vulnerable to future flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many evenings, the Archbishop Mitty High School senior can be found at his computer, sorting through data and layering thousands of images to create maps that he publishes on his website and in videos on his YouTube channel. He convinced a few of his friends to help present his work to the City of Fremont’s Environmental Sustainability Commission back in June and to the Bay Conservation Development Commission in July.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He is also partnering with researchers from San Jose State to map how coastal erosion is affecting underserved communities in the Monterey Bay region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998762\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998762\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-04-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-04-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-04-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-04-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-04-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Srivathsan Ramanujam flies his drone at Sunnyvale Baylands Park in Sunnyvale on Oct. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I hope these maps encourage youth to come into this field and try to save their backyard,” Ramanujam said. “I want the next generation to be able to enjoy it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ramanujam presented his latest findings at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfestuary.org/state-of-the-estuary-conference/\">State of the San Francisco Estuary Conference\u003c/a> this week. He wants to encourage leaders to accelerate efforts to restore the Bay Area’s historic waterfront to “its original glory.” He believes his maps will help researchers as data becomes harder to find due to recent federal cuts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liv Juvera, an environmental planner with the San Francisco Estuary Partnership, said she was excited to receive Ramanujam’s request to present a research poster at the conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had not heard directly from a high schooler before who was so eager to present,” Juvera said. “Him being so tenacious and eager to invest in conservation and restoration of the estuary through his work is singular.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998763\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998763\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-05-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-05-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-05-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-05-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251008-DRONEMARSH-05-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Srivathsan Ramanujam flies his drone at Sunnyvale Baylands Park in Sunnyvale on Oct. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Juvera said he could help planners better understand how to meet the regional goal of eventually restoring 100,000 acres of tidal marsh. Today, the Bay Area has met over half its goal. Ramanujam’s research can provide “tangential” insight into how to make communities “more resilient to sea level rise and by proxy flood risk reduction,” Juvera said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Ramanujam was the only high schooler who presented a poster at the conference, she said other young people shared ideas, panels, sessions and research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She hopes more young people will work to protect and restore San Francisco Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The more youth that get engaged in taking care of the estuary, the better,” Juvera said. “It’s exciting to see people who still want to do good.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "rising-tides-drive-a-bay-area-push-to-bring-back-vanished-marshlands",
"title": "Rising Tides Drive a Bay Area Push to Bring Back Vanished Marshlands",
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"content": "\u003cp>The Bay Area is more than halfway toward its goal of restoring 100,000 acres of tidal wetlands, which are a natural buffer to floodwaters from future \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1985322/bay-area-housing-project-raises-concerns-about-sea-level-rise\">sea level rise\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Wetlands Regional Monitoring Program published data in September showing that restored tidal marshes \u003ca href=\"https://abag.ca.gov/news/bay-area-wetland-growth-defies-global-trend\">nearly quadrupled\u003c/a> from 2000 to 2020. On Tuesday, at the State of the San Francisco Estuary Conference, scientists announced that several thousand acres would be added through 2024. The Bay Area now boasts 57,800 acres of restored tidal marsh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s really tremendous progress, especially compared to other areas of the country or other areas globally where we’re seeing wetland loss,” said \u003ca href=\"http://sfei.org/users/april-robinson\">April Robinson\u003c/a>, a senior scientist with the San Francisco Estuary Institute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Historically, more than 190,000 acres of tidal wetlands — marshes that flood during high tides — existed across the Bay Area. But as people developed the region in the 19th and 20th centuries, more than 80% of the marshes were destroyed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area voters approved \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfbayrestore.org/overview\">Measure AA\u003c/a> in 2016, establishing a $12-per-year parcel tax meant to generate around $500 million over two decades. The tax is meant to fund habitat restoration, such as rebuilding wetlands. Robinson credited that measure, in part, with the region’s success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998752\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1998752 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00025_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00025_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00025_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00025_TV-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00025_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A new wetland restoration site is located at Point Pinole Regional Park in Pinole on Oct. 9, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Bay water could rise by 1 foot by 2050 and more than 6 feet by the end of the century. The growing number of wetlands along the bay’s rim is just one factor in how well prepared the region is for rising seas as a result of human-caused climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a worry that we will start to lose marshes to sea level rise,” Robinson said. “Because marshes have that capacity to deal with sea level rise, the more that we can get those restoration projects established before sea level rise rates increase, the better shape we’ll be in to have our marshes persist.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists from multiple organizations are evaluating the health of the region’s remaining wetlands, like the \u003ca href=\"http://ebparks.org/about-us/whats-new/news/park-districts-dotson-family-marsh-restoration-public-access-project\">Dotson Family Marsh\u003c/a> on the edge of the city of Richmond.[aside postID=science_1998802 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-3-KQED.jpg']The East Bay Regional Park District spent $14 million in public and private funds to restore the 150-acre marsh, which sits inside the Point Pinole Regional Shoreline, back in 2017.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, \u003ca href=\"http://sfei.org/users/sarah-pearce\">Sarah Pearce\u003c/a>, a geomorphologist and a wetland scientist at the San Francisco Estuary Institute, led her team tromping through the mud at the marsh on a research trip. They examined the birds flying overhead, the algae growing below, the tides and a variety of plant life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pearce’s team scored the marsh 66 out of 100, which she said is a “fair condition” and expected for a young marsh. The tide flows in and out of the area well, which boosted the score. As seas rise, tidal wetlands can migrate upland, so long as they have the space to do so. For now, the marsh can grow upland but will eventually hit a railway, homes and businesses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s really important when we think ahead because with sea level rise, the marshes need someplace to go,” Pearce said. “I’m convinced that as it ages, it will keep growing and increasing in complexity and get better and better.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are other worries, including whether enough \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11686939/how-dredging-the-bay-is-helping-restore-delta-wetlands\">sediment\u003c/a> is left in the bay to rebuild marshes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998758\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998758\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00391_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00391_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00391_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00391_TV-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00391_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Christina Toms, ecological engineer with the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, uses a dropper to examine the water at a new wetland restoration site at Point Pinole Regional Park in Pinole on Oct. 9, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Pearce said most of the Bay Area’s marshes are in fair condition, but the Whittell Marsh, located just a few miles north, is in much better condition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-toms/\">Christina Toms\u003c/a>, an ecological engineer with the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, considers the marsh on the north-eastern edge of Point Pinole Regional Shoreline a “benchmark” for how “wetlands historically throughout the estuary used to function.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bricks and sea glass strewn across the beach remind visitors that the park was used for dynamite manufacturing for nearly 80 years. But the marsh remains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998755\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1998755 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00311_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00311_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00311_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00311_TV-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00311_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Christina Toms (left), ecological engineer with the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, and Aviva Rossi (right), co-lead scientist of Wetlands Regional Monitoring Program, chat at a new wetland restoration site at Point Pinole Regional Park in Pinole on Oct. 9, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Within a thousand feet of the water’s edge, visitors can find mudflats, beach, tidal marsh and rolling grasslands. Toms said it’s what the Bay Area’s wetlands looked like before people developed the region and destroyed many of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Here we’re connected to uplands, we’re connected to this beach, and all the pieces work together,” Toms said. “This marsh can help inspire designers and planners to think about how they can create systems that are similar to this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Toms wants to restore as much Bay Area marsh habitat as possible for wildlife and people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want my kid to be able to go anywhere in the San Francisco Bay Area and see a thriving tidal marsh, hear a Ridgway’s rail calling from a channel, and see shorebirds foraging along a coarse beach,” Toms said. “That’s my dream.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The region has restored nearly 58,000 acres of tidal wetlands, bringing new life to the Bay’s edge and fresh hope for flood protection.",
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"title": "Rising Tides Drive a Bay Area Push to Bring Back Vanished Marshlands | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The Bay Area is more than halfway toward its goal of restoring 100,000 acres of tidal wetlands, which are a natural buffer to floodwaters from future \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1985322/bay-area-housing-project-raises-concerns-about-sea-level-rise\">sea level rise\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Wetlands Regional Monitoring Program published data in September showing that restored tidal marshes \u003ca href=\"https://abag.ca.gov/news/bay-area-wetland-growth-defies-global-trend\">nearly quadrupled\u003c/a> from 2000 to 2020. On Tuesday, at the State of the San Francisco Estuary Conference, scientists announced that several thousand acres would be added through 2024. The Bay Area now boasts 57,800 acres of restored tidal marsh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s really tremendous progress, especially compared to other areas of the country or other areas globally where we’re seeing wetland loss,” said \u003ca href=\"http://sfei.org/users/april-robinson\">April Robinson\u003c/a>, a senior scientist with the San Francisco Estuary Institute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Historically, more than 190,000 acres of tidal wetlands — marshes that flood during high tides — existed across the Bay Area. But as people developed the region in the 19th and 20th centuries, more than 80% of the marshes were destroyed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area voters approved \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfbayrestore.org/overview\">Measure AA\u003c/a> in 2016, establishing a $12-per-year parcel tax meant to generate around $500 million over two decades. The tax is meant to fund habitat restoration, such as rebuilding wetlands. Robinson credited that measure, in part, with the region’s success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998752\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1998752 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00025_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00025_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00025_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00025_TV-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00025_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A new wetland restoration site is located at Point Pinole Regional Park in Pinole on Oct. 9, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Bay water could rise by 1 foot by 2050 and more than 6 feet by the end of the century. The growing number of wetlands along the bay’s rim is just one factor in how well prepared the region is for rising seas as a result of human-caused climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a worry that we will start to lose marshes to sea level rise,” Robinson said. “Because marshes have that capacity to deal with sea level rise, the more that we can get those restoration projects established before sea level rise rates increase, the better shape we’ll be in to have our marshes persist.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists from multiple organizations are evaluating the health of the region’s remaining wetlands, like the \u003ca href=\"http://ebparks.org/about-us/whats-new/news/park-districts-dotson-family-marsh-restoration-public-access-project\">Dotson Family Marsh\u003c/a> on the edge of the city of Richmond.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The East Bay Regional Park District spent $14 million in public and private funds to restore the 150-acre marsh, which sits inside the Point Pinole Regional Shoreline, back in 2017.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, \u003ca href=\"http://sfei.org/users/sarah-pearce\">Sarah Pearce\u003c/a>, a geomorphologist and a wetland scientist at the San Francisco Estuary Institute, led her team tromping through the mud at the marsh on a research trip. They examined the birds flying overhead, the algae growing below, the tides and a variety of plant life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pearce’s team scored the marsh 66 out of 100, which she said is a “fair condition” and expected for a young marsh. The tide flows in and out of the area well, which boosted the score. As seas rise, tidal wetlands can migrate upland, so long as they have the space to do so. For now, the marsh can grow upland but will eventually hit a railway, homes and businesses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s really important when we think ahead because with sea level rise, the marshes need someplace to go,” Pearce said. “I’m convinced that as it ages, it will keep growing and increasing in complexity and get better and better.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are other worries, including whether enough \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11686939/how-dredging-the-bay-is-helping-restore-delta-wetlands\">sediment\u003c/a> is left in the bay to rebuild marshes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998758\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998758\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00391_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00391_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00391_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00391_TV-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00391_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Christina Toms, ecological engineer with the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, uses a dropper to examine the water at a new wetland restoration site at Point Pinole Regional Park in Pinole on Oct. 9, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Pearce said most of the Bay Area’s marshes are in fair condition, but the Whittell Marsh, located just a few miles north, is in much better condition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-toms/\">Christina Toms\u003c/a>, an ecological engineer with the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, considers the marsh on the north-eastern edge of Point Pinole Regional Shoreline a “benchmark” for how “wetlands historically throughout the estuary used to function.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bricks and sea glass strewn across the beach remind visitors that the park was used for dynamite manufacturing for nearly 80 years. But the marsh remains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998755\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1998755 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00311_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00311_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00311_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00311_TV-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/251009-WETLANDWIN_00311_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Christina Toms (left), ecological engineer with the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, and Aviva Rossi (right), co-lead scientist of Wetlands Regional Monitoring Program, chat at a new wetland restoration site at Point Pinole Regional Park in Pinole on Oct. 9, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Within a thousand feet of the water’s edge, visitors can find mudflats, beach, tidal marsh and rolling grasslands. Toms said it’s what the Bay Area’s wetlands looked like before people developed the region and destroyed many of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Here we’re connected to uplands, we’re connected to this beach, and all the pieces work together,” Toms said. “This marsh can help inspire designers and planners to think about how they can create systems that are similar to this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Toms wants to restore as much Bay Area marsh habitat as possible for wildlife and people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want my kid to be able to go anywhere in the San Francisco Bay Area and see a thriving tidal marsh, hear a Ridgway’s rail calling from a channel, and see shorebirds foraging along a coarse beach,” Toms said. “That’s my dream.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "california-otters-could-face-new-threats-if-trump-weakens-law-for-endangered-animals",
"title": "California Sea Otters Could Face New Threats if Trump Weakens Law for Endangered Animals",
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"headTitle": "California Sea Otters Could Face New Threats if Trump Weakens Law for Endangered Animals | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Gena Bentall paddled her kayak deep into \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/elkhorn-slough\">Elkhorn Slough\u003c/a> on the lookout for the flip of a tail or the bob of a head. About a mile in, sea \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12052889/healthy-otters-lead-to-a-happy-ecosystem-in-monterey-countys-elkhorn-slough\">otters\u003c/a> bobbed in the water everywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some dove under the water while munching on crab parts. Others floated on their backs, pups sprawled on their bellies. At 2 miles in, she spotted a raft of about 15 sea otters clustered together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every time I watch a mom with a pup, my heart flutters a little bit,” said Bentall, director and senior scientist with the nonprofit Sea Otter Savvy. “They are so devoted and so caring with their pups that it gets me in the feels every single time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around a hundred southern sea otters make their home in Elkhorn Slough, a 7-mile-long tidal marsh and estuary on Monterey Bay, which is also home to a diverse array of birds, plants, fish, and other marine mammals. Some call it one of the state’s last great coastal wetlands, which conservationists have fought to preserve for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve seen ecosystems restored as they recovered,” Bentall said. “They’re bringing with them a wave of biodiversity, recovery, resilience and restoration that goes way beyond just the restoration of their numbers. It’s all linked together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bentall and other wildlife enthusiasts are concerned that those preservation efforts could be threatened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998531\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998531\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-5-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-5-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-5-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-5-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-5-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gena Bentall, a sea otter biologist with more than two decades of field experience from Russia’s Commander Islands to California’s coast, surveys the water from her kayak in the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve near Moss Landing, California, on Sept. 16, 2025. Bentall is the founder of Sea Otter Savvy, an organization that educates the public on reducing human disturbance in otter habitats. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In April, the Trump administration proposed limiting the \u003ca href=\"https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/04/17/2025-06746/rescinding-the-definition-of-harm-under-the-endangered-species-act\">Endangered Species Act’s power\u003c/a> to preserve habitats. Ecologists argue that the move could have severe consequences for a wide range of ecosystems and species, including the southern sea otter, which is listed as \u003ca href=\"https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp/species/8560\">threatened under federal law\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed altering the text of the Endangered Species Act to redefine the word “harm” as it pertains to endangered species, a term that has been interpreted to include ecosystem protections. The law would likely still forbid any action that hurts or kills an endangered animal, but could no longer extend protections to the habitats where they live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of the change claim environmentalists have abused the law to limit real estate development, farming, logging and other business activities.[aside postID=news_12059734 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/MontereyBayAquariumOttersGetty.jpg']What this would mean for Elkhorn Slough, the only estuary along the West Coast where sea otters have significantly colonized, won’t be known until after the final rule is released.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, wildlife advocates and scientists argue that protecting species and their environments go hand in hand. While the sea otters have helped stabilize marshland and promote eelgrass growth, ultimately mitigating some of the worst effects of human-caused climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, April Ridlon, director of science for the U.S. Ocean Conservation Program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, said otters rely on the living ecosystem for their survival.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they don’t have anything to eat, we can pick up, feed and nurture otters, and release them as much as we want, but if the ecosystems they’re going back to are degraded they’re not going to fare well,” Ridlon said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal wildlife officials published a proposal in the Federal Register that said they are “undertaking this change to adhere to the single, best meaning” of the Endangered Species Act. A federal spokesperson told KQED they would not “speculate” on how sea otters would be affected.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Hundreds of thousands of comments\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Over 350,000 responses flooded in during the public comment period that ended in May. Of the thousands of comments from Californians, the majority opposed the rule change. Some groups labeled it an act of “insanity,” while others argued that maintaining the current definition is “vital protection for endangered species.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a dozen museums, aquariums and wildlife groups sent a joint letter to the federal government strongly \u003ca href=\"https://www.aquariumconservation.org/protectimls\">urging the withdrawal\u003c/a> of the proposed rule. They note that “habitat destruction is the greatest driver of species extinction” and removing harm from the definition “runs contrary to the intent of the” act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998532\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998532\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kayakers paddle through Elkhorn Slough as a sea otter floats nearby. Conservationists warn that proposed rollbacks to Endangered Species Act protections could threaten the species’ recovery. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Comments from supporters argued, on the other hand, that scaling back enforcement would address a “longstanding obstacle that has blocked countless necessary projects.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least 40 supporters — including major farm organizations and water agencies — wrote a letter\u003ca href=\"https://www.familyfarmalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/FINAL-Coalition-Comment-Letter-ESA-Harm-Rule-051925.pdf\"> arguing regulators’ interpretation of the act is too broad\u003c/a> and has resulted in the slowing, halting, or blocking of “activities that are critical to sustain the economic livelihoods of private landowners, farmers, ranchers, water users,” and rural communities. They wrote that projects are often tied up in expensive lawsuits, excessive permitting, even in areas where endangered species may no longer live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ian Lyle, director of federal relations for the Association of California Water Agencies, argues the change would pave the way for developing water infrastructure — everything from desalination to new storage to water recycling — in a way that “balances the needs of species with the needs of California and communities in the face of climate resilience needs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kari Fisher, senior director and counsel of the California Farm Bureau Federation, which represents hundreds of farmers, told KQED that farmers care about wildlife, and if there’s a concern about a species, that would still be addressed. But said the change could pave the way for growers and species to coexist, “as well as economic prosperity for farmers and ranchers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘The poster child for top predators’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Fur traders hunted sea otters almost to extinction during the 18th and 19th centuries, and in California, their numbers dwindled to around 50.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, there are more than 3,000 sea otters in California, and they’re “all descendants of those incredible tough survivors that managed to evade the fur trade,” Bentall said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998529\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1998529 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-2-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-2-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-2-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-2-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-2-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Two sea otters swim in the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve near Moss Landing, California, as an electric-powered catamaran wildlife tour passes in the background on Sept. 16, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The resurgence of the furry animals is a testament to the restoration efforts of wildlife officials, environmental protections, and organizations like the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which rehabilitate sea otters and release them into Elkhorn Slough and other conservation areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sea otters still face risks, such as white sharks that bite and kill them, mistaking them for seals. Bentall said the prevalence of sharks along the California coast is one reason the species has had trouble extending its home range.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other issue is the \u003ca href=\"http://nsf.gov/news/collapse-northern-california-kelp-forests-will-be\">loss of around 95%\u003c/a> of Northern California’s kelp forests, where sea otters historically found refuge and foraged for crabs, abalone, snails and other food. Human-caused climate change, warming the Pacific Ocean, has led to \u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/science/1973217/in-central-california-sea-otters-feast-on-purple-urchins-and-thats-good-for-kelp\">urchin outbreaks\u003c/a> and declining sea star populations.[aside postID=news_12058007 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/Hope-and-Bounce2.jpg']Kelp along the Central Coast has fared better. A 2021 study by researchers from UC Santa Cruz and the Monterey Bay Aquarium found that \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2012493118\">the presence of sea otters in Monterey Bay\u003c/a> slowed the decline of kelp, resulting in areas of lush kelp forests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Elkhorn Slough, with the highest concentration of sea otters in the state, has proven a haven for otters. \u003ca href=\"https://biology.sonoma.edu/faculty-staff/brent-b-hughes\">Brent Hughes\u003c/a>, a biologist at Sonoma State University, who studies sea otter habitats, found that the furry creatures are restabilizing marshlands by consuming an overabundance of crabs that have eaten away at their banks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re kind of like the poster child for top predators and conservation,” Hughes said. “There are now generations of sea otters at Elkhorn Slough that have never even seen a kelp forest. All they know are these salt marshes and seagrass beds.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By removing swarms of crabs, both native and invasive, sea otters opened the door for eelgrass to flourish, creating a lush bed that can better sequester carbon in its root systems and soil — much like the trees of a redwood forest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not just the sea otter numbers coming back, it’s whole ecosystems,” Bentall said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘It’s mind-boggling’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Even if the federal government decides to more narrowly interpret its conservation law, other protections remain in place for species like sea otters. The Marine Mammal Protection Act — also, \u003ca href=\"https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/republicans-weaken-50-year-law-protecting-whales-seals-126425918\">under threat by Republican lawmakers\u003c/a> — protects not only sea otters but also all marine mammals from harassment. Meanwhile, Elkhorn Slough is part of the NOAA Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and the National Estuarine Research Reserve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Ridlon, with the Monterey Bay Aquarium, said it won’t just be sea otters and their habitat at risk. There are \u003ca href=\"https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp0/reports/ad-hoc-species-report?kingdom=V&kingdom=I&status=E&status=T&status=EmE&status=EmT&status=EXPE&status=EXPN&status=SAE&status=SAT&mapstatus=3&fcrithab=on&fstatus=on&fspecrule=on&finvpop=on&fgroup=on&header=Listed+Animals\">more than 1,500 threatened and endangered species \u003c/a>on the federal Endangered Species List.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998535\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998535\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-28-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-28-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-28-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-28-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-28-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sea otters swim in Elkhorn Slough as an electric-powered catamaran wildlife tour passes in the background on Sept. 16, 2025. The estuary is one of California’s largest tidal waterways and a refuge for the threatened species. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s mind-boggling when you think about how many species and the recovery of how many populations could actually be affected by a change like this,” Ridlon said. “It’s huge.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For sea otters, whose populations are rebounding, Ridlon said scaling back regulations “feels like pulling the rug out from under one of the essential protections that has allowed us to make that progress.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Bentall’s way back to the docks, two sea otters popped up a few feet from her kayak, fighting over a shellfish. Bentall said they’re oblivious to the federal tug-of-war over protections that just might have the power to alter their home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Elkhorn Slough’s capacity to hold sea otters is nearly full, Bentall said she would like to see the otter population spread along the entire California coastline to recover its historical range. She dreams of seeing sea otters where she grew up in Laguna Beach, in Orange County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’d love to see sea otters back in my hometown down in Southern California someday and sit on the beach and look out and watch a raft of sea otters,” Bentall said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Advocates say Southern sea otters are thriving in California’s Elkhorn Slough, but could face new risks if a proposed law change weakens the Endangered Species Act.",
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"title": "California Sea Otters Could Face New Threats if Trump Weakens Law for Endangered Animals | KQED",
"description": "Advocates say Southern sea otters are thriving in California’s Elkhorn Slough, but could face new risks if a proposed law change weakens the Endangered Species Act.",
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"headline": "California Sea Otters Could Face New Threats if Trump Weakens Law for Endangered Animals",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Gena Bentall paddled her kayak deep into \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/elkhorn-slough\">Elkhorn Slough\u003c/a> on the lookout for the flip of a tail or the bob of a head. About a mile in, sea \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12052889/healthy-otters-lead-to-a-happy-ecosystem-in-monterey-countys-elkhorn-slough\">otters\u003c/a> bobbed in the water everywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some dove under the water while munching on crab parts. Others floated on their backs, pups sprawled on their bellies. At 2 miles in, she spotted a raft of about 15 sea otters clustered together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every time I watch a mom with a pup, my heart flutters a little bit,” said Bentall, director and senior scientist with the nonprofit Sea Otter Savvy. “They are so devoted and so caring with their pups that it gets me in the feels every single time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around a hundred southern sea otters make their home in Elkhorn Slough, a 7-mile-long tidal marsh and estuary on Monterey Bay, which is also home to a diverse array of birds, plants, fish, and other marine mammals. Some call it one of the state’s last great coastal wetlands, which conservationists have fought to preserve for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve seen ecosystems restored as they recovered,” Bentall said. “They’re bringing with them a wave of biodiversity, recovery, resilience and restoration that goes way beyond just the restoration of their numbers. It’s all linked together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bentall and other wildlife enthusiasts are concerned that those preservation efforts could be threatened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998531\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998531\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-5-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-5-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-5-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-5-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-5-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gena Bentall, a sea otter biologist with more than two decades of field experience from Russia’s Commander Islands to California’s coast, surveys the water from her kayak in the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve near Moss Landing, California, on Sept. 16, 2025. Bentall is the founder of Sea Otter Savvy, an organization that educates the public on reducing human disturbance in otter habitats. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In April, the Trump administration proposed limiting the \u003ca href=\"https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/04/17/2025-06746/rescinding-the-definition-of-harm-under-the-endangered-species-act\">Endangered Species Act’s power\u003c/a> to preserve habitats. Ecologists argue that the move could have severe consequences for a wide range of ecosystems and species, including the southern sea otter, which is listed as \u003ca href=\"https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp/species/8560\">threatened under federal law\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed altering the text of the Endangered Species Act to redefine the word “harm” as it pertains to endangered species, a term that has been interpreted to include ecosystem protections. The law would likely still forbid any action that hurts or kills an endangered animal, but could no longer extend protections to the habitats where they live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of the change claim environmentalists have abused the law to limit real estate development, farming, logging and other business activities.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>What this would mean for Elkhorn Slough, the only estuary along the West Coast where sea otters have significantly colonized, won’t be known until after the final rule is released.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, wildlife advocates and scientists argue that protecting species and their environments go hand in hand. While the sea otters have helped stabilize marshland and promote eelgrass growth, ultimately mitigating some of the worst effects of human-caused climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, April Ridlon, director of science for the U.S. Ocean Conservation Program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, said otters rely on the living ecosystem for their survival.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they don’t have anything to eat, we can pick up, feed and nurture otters, and release them as much as we want, but if the ecosystems they’re going back to are degraded they’re not going to fare well,” Ridlon said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal wildlife officials published a proposal in the Federal Register that said they are “undertaking this change to adhere to the single, best meaning” of the Endangered Species Act. A federal spokesperson told KQED they would not “speculate” on how sea otters would be affected.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Hundreds of thousands of comments\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Over 350,000 responses flooded in during the public comment period that ended in May. Of the thousands of comments from Californians, the majority opposed the rule change. Some groups labeled it an act of “insanity,” while others argued that maintaining the current definition is “vital protection for endangered species.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a dozen museums, aquariums and wildlife groups sent a joint letter to the federal government strongly \u003ca href=\"https://www.aquariumconservation.org/protectimls\">urging the withdrawal\u003c/a> of the proposed rule. They note that “habitat destruction is the greatest driver of species extinction” and removing harm from the definition “runs contrary to the intent of the” act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998532\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998532\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kayakers paddle through Elkhorn Slough as a sea otter floats nearby. Conservationists warn that proposed rollbacks to Endangered Species Act protections could threaten the species’ recovery. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Comments from supporters argued, on the other hand, that scaling back enforcement would address a “longstanding obstacle that has blocked countless necessary projects.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least 40 supporters — including major farm organizations and water agencies — wrote a letter\u003ca href=\"https://www.familyfarmalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/FINAL-Coalition-Comment-Letter-ESA-Harm-Rule-051925.pdf\"> arguing regulators’ interpretation of the act is too broad\u003c/a> and has resulted in the slowing, halting, or blocking of “activities that are critical to sustain the economic livelihoods of private landowners, farmers, ranchers, water users,” and rural communities. They wrote that projects are often tied up in expensive lawsuits, excessive permitting, even in areas where endangered species may no longer live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ian Lyle, director of federal relations for the Association of California Water Agencies, argues the change would pave the way for developing water infrastructure — everything from desalination to new storage to water recycling — in a way that “balances the needs of species with the needs of California and communities in the face of climate resilience needs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kari Fisher, senior director and counsel of the California Farm Bureau Federation, which represents hundreds of farmers, told KQED that farmers care about wildlife, and if there’s a concern about a species, that would still be addressed. But said the change could pave the way for growers and species to coexist, “as well as economic prosperity for farmers and ranchers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘The poster child for top predators’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Fur traders hunted sea otters almost to extinction during the 18th and 19th centuries, and in California, their numbers dwindled to around 50.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, there are more than 3,000 sea otters in California, and they’re “all descendants of those incredible tough survivors that managed to evade the fur trade,” Bentall said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998529\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1998529 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-2-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-2-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-2-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-2-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-2-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Two sea otters swim in the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve near Moss Landing, California, as an electric-powered catamaran wildlife tour passes in the background on Sept. 16, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The resurgence of the furry animals is a testament to the restoration efforts of wildlife officials, environmental protections, and organizations like the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which rehabilitate sea otters and release them into Elkhorn Slough and other conservation areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sea otters still face risks, such as white sharks that bite and kill them, mistaking them for seals. Bentall said the prevalence of sharks along the California coast is one reason the species has had trouble extending its home range.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other issue is the \u003ca href=\"http://nsf.gov/news/collapse-northern-california-kelp-forests-will-be\">loss of around 95%\u003c/a> of Northern California’s kelp forests, where sea otters historically found refuge and foraged for crabs, abalone, snails and other food. Human-caused climate change, warming the Pacific Ocean, has led to \u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/science/1973217/in-central-california-sea-otters-feast-on-purple-urchins-and-thats-good-for-kelp\">urchin outbreaks\u003c/a> and declining sea star populations.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Kelp along the Central Coast has fared better. A 2021 study by researchers from UC Santa Cruz and the Monterey Bay Aquarium found that \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2012493118\">the presence of sea otters in Monterey Bay\u003c/a> slowed the decline of kelp, resulting in areas of lush kelp forests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Elkhorn Slough, with the highest concentration of sea otters in the state, has proven a haven for otters. \u003ca href=\"https://biology.sonoma.edu/faculty-staff/brent-b-hughes\">Brent Hughes\u003c/a>, a biologist at Sonoma State University, who studies sea otter habitats, found that the furry creatures are restabilizing marshlands by consuming an overabundance of crabs that have eaten away at their banks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re kind of like the poster child for top predators and conservation,” Hughes said. “There are now generations of sea otters at Elkhorn Slough that have never even seen a kelp forest. All they know are these salt marshes and seagrass beds.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By removing swarms of crabs, both native and invasive, sea otters opened the door for eelgrass to flourish, creating a lush bed that can better sequester carbon in its root systems and soil — much like the trees of a redwood forest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not just the sea otter numbers coming back, it’s whole ecosystems,” Bentall said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘It’s mind-boggling’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Even if the federal government decides to more narrowly interpret its conservation law, other protections remain in place for species like sea otters. The Marine Mammal Protection Act — also, \u003ca href=\"https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/republicans-weaken-50-year-law-protecting-whales-seals-126425918\">under threat by Republican lawmakers\u003c/a> — protects not only sea otters but also all marine mammals from harassment. Meanwhile, Elkhorn Slough is part of the NOAA Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and the National Estuarine Research Reserve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Ridlon, with the Monterey Bay Aquarium, said it won’t just be sea otters and their habitat at risk. There are \u003ca href=\"https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp0/reports/ad-hoc-species-report?kingdom=V&kingdom=I&status=E&status=T&status=EmE&status=EmT&status=EXPE&status=EXPN&status=SAE&status=SAT&mapstatus=3&fcrithab=on&fstatus=on&fspecrule=on&finvpop=on&fgroup=on&header=Listed+Animals\">more than 1,500 threatened and endangered species \u003c/a>on the federal Endangered Species List.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998535\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998535\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-28-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-28-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-28-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-28-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-28-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sea otters swim in Elkhorn Slough as an electric-powered catamaran wildlife tour passes in the background on Sept. 16, 2025. The estuary is one of California’s largest tidal waterways and a refuge for the threatened species. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s mind-boggling when you think about how many species and the recovery of how many populations could actually be affected by a change like this,” Ridlon said. “It’s huge.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For sea otters, whose populations are rebounding, Ridlon said scaling back regulations “feels like pulling the rug out from under one of the essential protections that has allowed us to make that progress.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Bentall’s way back to the docks, two sea otters popped up a few feet from her kayak, fighting over a shellfish. Bentall said they’re oblivious to the federal tug-of-war over protections that just might have the power to alter their home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Elkhorn Slough’s capacity to hold sea otters is nearly full, Bentall said she would like to see the otter population spread along the entire California coastline to recover its historical range. She dreams of seeing sea otters where she grew up in Laguna Beach, in Orange County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’d love to see sea otters back in my hometown down in Southern California someday and sit on the beach and look out and watch a raft of sea otters,” Bentall said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "will-newsom-sign-californias-biggest-step-toward-saving-fire-prone-neighborhoods",
"title": "Will Newsom Sign California’s ‘Biggest Step’ Toward Saving Fire-Prone Neighborhoods?",
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"headTitle": "Will Newsom Sign California’s ‘Biggest Step’ Toward Saving Fire-Prone Neighborhoods? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>In a year marked by the costliest \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a> fires on record, state lawmakers sent a large package of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/wildfires\">wildfire\u003c/a> bills to the governor’s desk. One measure in particular promises outsized impacts for protecting neighborhoods — and it’s largely flown under the radar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVersionsCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB326&cversion=20250SB32698AMD\">Senate Bill 326\u003c/a>, sponsored by State Sen. Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park), would accelerate fire mitigation efforts, particularly in these older, at-risk neighborhoods, by mandating the removal of flammable trees and bushes for certain homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re seeing more extreme weather conditions and we’re seeing wildfires spread at a speed that we’ve never seen before,” Becker said. “That’s why we need this bill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While “not a panacea,” said Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program and senior research scholar at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, “it’s the biggest step we can take this year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The thorniest problem in the state’s effort to guard against wildfire devastation is how to protect the millions of homes that already exist in fire-prone areas, Wara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1996121\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1996121\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo.jpg\" alt=\"A before and after picture of a small, one-story, nicely kept home, and the remains of it after it was burned down.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"990\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-800x396.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-1020x505.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-160x79.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-768x380.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-1536x760.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-1920x950.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A family home in Altadena, California, before and after the Eaton Fire ravaged the community in January. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the Moreno family)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“What we need to do is change how flammable people’s gardens are in places where there’s high risk,” he said. “That’s important if we want to have affordable insurance, affordable electricity. It’s important if we don’t want to lose communities like we did in Altadena.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While newer homes are built to relatively high fire safety standards, the vast \u003ca href=\"https://www.infoplease.com/us/census/california/housing-statistics\">majority\u003c/a> of California’s housing stock — built before the 1990s — was not designed with fire resilience in mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new regulations mandate a Zone 0 space, or an ember-resistant zone extending five feet around a house, where there is non-burnable material like river rocks instead of plants or mulch. It’s controversial, in part because it would dramatically alter the appearance of many neighborhoods. Homeowners are understandably reluctant to tear out beloved, beautiful plants.[aside postID=news_12059123 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194137909-1020x696.jpg']However, fire prevention advocates see this as the simplest, most affordable way to quickly improve fire resilience in vulnerable neighborhoods. Tearing out a bush, for instance, costs far less — and is much quicker — than retrofits like replacing a roof. And the \u003ca href=\"https://34c031f8-c9fd-4018-8c5a-4159cdff6b0d-cdn-endpoint.azureedge.net/-/media/bof-website/projects-and-programs/defensible-space-zones-0-1-2/previous-public-workshops-and-materials/2025/sept-22/august-zone-0-rule-plead.pdf?rev=86f548de3486423c995bb2394aaaa4c1&hash=F8723E42A201545B808CBC0B68FF937B\">current draft regulations\u003c/a> do not call for removing permanent features like a wooden deck or fence within 5 feet of the home. Supporters argue that the absence of coordinated fire-resilience planning wastes state resources. While California develops long-term plans for resources like water, it lacks a comparable approach for wildfire prevention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill moves up the timeline for Zone 0 requirements in high-risk areas, implementing some of the requirements as early as Jan. 1, 2026. If enacted, the legislation would also require Cal Fire to create a strategic, regularly updated plan for better assessing fire danger in the state and planning how to prevent destruction before a disaster hits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If vetoed, Zone 0 requirements — the details of which are still being \u003ca href=\"https://bof.fire.ca.gov/projects-and-programs/defensible-space-zones-0-1-and-2\">hammered out\u003c/a> by the state Board of Forestry — would apply to new construction after Jan.1. Three years from now, at the end of 2028, it would apply to all homes in high-risk zones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If SB 326 is signed, it would also apply to rental properties and houses for sale as of Jan.1. Wara said the rationale is to take a measured approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1994257\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1994257\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A home destroyed by the Boyles Fire in Clearlake on Sept. 9, 2024, after the wildfire swept through the area on Sept. 8, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It doesn’t say everybody has to do this right away, because that would be too much,” Wara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the bill authors believe, people who have rentals and are making money from their house in a high-risk area should contribute to reducing risk in the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Also, if you’re selling your house, you’ve got to do this,” Wara said, “because it’s a time when there’s cash available and where you might be more open to making changes in your backyard that will create safety.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has 1.3 million homes in high or very high severity areas, and retrofitting those homes would cost tens of billions of dollars, said Matt Weiner, CEO of Megafire Action, a nonprofit advancing policy to avoid catastrophic wildfire.[aside postID=news_12056655 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/Middlebrook-2-1020x765.jpg']For right now, Zone 0 is “the most important tool that we can move quickly on to guard against ember-driven fires like we saw in Palisades and Altadena,” Weiner said. The bill also provides funding to counties working to implement Zone 0.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Up to 90% of homes destroyed in a wildfire burn down from embers finding their way inside the structure and burning it down from the inside. Relatively few homes burn down from coming into contact with a flaming front.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/08/28/california-communities-can-reduce-wildfire-damage-by-half-heres-how/\">Researchers from UC Berkeley estimate\u003c/a> that 50% fewer homes would burn down in the extreme kind of conditions seen in the L.A. fires if neighborhoods hardened homes and had defensible space. Just complying with Zone 0 alone would reduce structure loss by an estimated 17%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With California spending billions on firefighting and homeowners bearing soaring insurance costs, advocates have argued that it’s time to move beyond the traditional “business as usual” approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Frankly, we knew we needed to do this back in 2017 and 2018,” Wara said. Those years saw terrible losses in Wine Country fires and the fire that destroyed the town of Paradise. “There was legislation [passed in 2020] that would have required it; it was supposed to take effect in 2023,” Wara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976871\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1976871\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Governor Gavin Newsom speaks at a podium in a cloud of wildfire smoke.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Gavin Newsom discusses California’s wildfires, before signing a $15 billion climate package, during a ceremony at Sequoia National Park near Three Rivers, on Sept. 23, 2021. \u003ccite>(Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But the state’s Board of Forestry missed the deadline, struggling to balance the concerns of homeowners with the desires of the insurance industry. In February, following the Los Angeles firestorm, Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/02/06/governor-newsom-signs-executive-order-to-further-prepare-for-future-urban-firestorms-stepping-up-already-nation-leading-strategies/\">ordered the rules\u003c/a> to be completed by the end of this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill will also require Cal Fire and the State Fire Marshal to develop and use models to assess where risk is highest and how risk changes as safety projects are completed. The key, Weiner said, is to have cohesion between wildfire prevention work being done on the landscape level, the neighborhood level and the parcel level, by communities, utilities and homeowners. Currently, there is little to no coordination, which advocates have said risks wasting money and effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proposals to require comprehensive fire planning have been introduced before, but have never made it to the governor’s desk. The heart- and record-breaking devastation from January’s fires in Los Angeles helped give it added urgency this year, advocates said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You want “somebody looking at the entire picture and helping inform the highest impact work to be done,” Weiner said. The state is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to prepare for fires. “You want somebody to assess that holistically.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill’s technical nature may have hidden it from public attention — despite its potential to save homes and lives, Weiner said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1994224\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1994224\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Firefighter Nolan Graham sprays water around a scorched garage as the Boyles fire burns in Clearlake on Sept. 8, 2024. \u003ccite>(Noah Berger/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I think one of the reasons [this proposal] doesn’t get enough attention is because whenever you start talking ‘tech,’ people think about it as a sideshow, nice to have but not a fundamental need,” Weiner said. “And nobody gets excited about creating the enabling conditions for future work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If signed, the bill would increase the responsibility and work demands placed on Cal Fire and the State Fire Marshal. It would also impose some accountability in the form of requiring annual reports that would give a comprehensive overview of how they could strategically lessen wildfire risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those reports would aid lawmakers in overseeing their work. When it passed its \u003ca href=\"http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB326\">final vote\u003c/a> in September, no representatives voted against it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED reached out to Cal Fire to discuss SB 326. An agency spokesperson said they do not comment on pending legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics have claimed that the state’s fire agency has been more motivated by responding to and fighting fires than working to prevent them, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1979560/cal-fire-fumbles-key-responsibilities-to-prevent-catastrophic-wildfires-despite-historic-budget\">and has fumbled key \u003c/a>responsibilities for management and mitigation, despite a historic budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1979588\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1979588\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a blue uniform stands at a podium in front of a bulldozer.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cal Fire Chief Joe Tyler speaks in Santa Rosa for Wildfire Preparedness Week, May 5, 2022. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Cal Fire)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire Chief Joe Tyler has, however, spoken extensively about the need for the agency to be able to both prevent and fight fires, and is making progress in their preparedness goals. Becker aided Cal Fire in getting their budget doubled to 4 billion dollars this year as chair of the state’s budget subcommittee for natural resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need better, more targeted prevention action to reduce the risk of losing entire communities like what happened in January,” the lawmaker said. “This is about getting every dollar we spend on wildfire prevention exactly where it needs to be as fast as possible … and making sure every dollar truly reduces wildfire risk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For homeowners, wildfires costs have exploded. Recent analysis by Wara and colleagues indicates that the average state homeowner is paying $266 more per month in insurance and electricity costs than they were in 2020, largely because of wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://ibhs.org/ibhs-news-releases/ibhs-releases-updated-wildfire-prepared-home-standard/\">insurance industry\u003c/a> has also openly supported the bill. Industry scientists said in a report this summer that Zone 0 was critical in preventing home ignitions. In a September letter to Newsom urging his signature on SB 326, the state’s top insurance regulator, Ricardo Lara, said: “With millions of homes in the Wildland Urban Interface, the early adoption of mitigation is critical to wildfire safety and insurability.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Will Newsom Sign California’s ‘Biggest Step’ Toward Saving Fire-Prone Neighborhoods? | KQED",
"description": "A little-known bill will accelerate fire mitigation efforts by clearing space around housing across the state.",
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"headline": "Will Newsom Sign California’s ‘Biggest Step’ Toward Saving Fire-Prone Neighborhoods?",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In a year marked by the costliest \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a> fires on record, state lawmakers sent a large package of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/wildfires\">wildfire\u003c/a> bills to the governor’s desk. One measure in particular promises outsized impacts for protecting neighborhoods — and it’s largely flown under the radar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVersionsCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB326&cversion=20250SB32698AMD\">Senate Bill 326\u003c/a>, sponsored by State Sen. Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park), would accelerate fire mitigation efforts, particularly in these older, at-risk neighborhoods, by mandating the removal of flammable trees and bushes for certain homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re seeing more extreme weather conditions and we’re seeing wildfires spread at a speed that we’ve never seen before,” Becker said. “That’s why we need this bill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While “not a panacea,” said Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program and senior research scholar at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, “it’s the biggest step we can take this year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The thorniest problem in the state’s effort to guard against wildfire devastation is how to protect the millions of homes that already exist in fire-prone areas, Wara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1996121\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1996121\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo.jpg\" alt=\"A before and after picture of a small, one-story, nicely kept home, and the remains of it after it was burned down.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"990\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-800x396.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-1020x505.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-160x79.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-768x380.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-1536x760.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-1920x950.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A family home in Altadena, California, before and after the Eaton Fire ravaged the community in January. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the Moreno family)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“What we need to do is change how flammable people’s gardens are in places where there’s high risk,” he said. “That’s important if we want to have affordable insurance, affordable electricity. It’s important if we don’t want to lose communities like we did in Altadena.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While newer homes are built to relatively high fire safety standards, the vast \u003ca href=\"https://www.infoplease.com/us/census/california/housing-statistics\">majority\u003c/a> of California’s housing stock — built before the 1990s — was not designed with fire resilience in mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new regulations mandate a Zone 0 space, or an ember-resistant zone extending five feet around a house, where there is non-burnable material like river rocks instead of plants or mulch. It’s controversial, in part because it would dramatically alter the appearance of many neighborhoods. Homeowners are understandably reluctant to tear out beloved, beautiful plants.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>However, fire prevention advocates see this as the simplest, most affordable way to quickly improve fire resilience in vulnerable neighborhoods. Tearing out a bush, for instance, costs far less — and is much quicker — than retrofits like replacing a roof. And the \u003ca href=\"https://34c031f8-c9fd-4018-8c5a-4159cdff6b0d-cdn-endpoint.azureedge.net/-/media/bof-website/projects-and-programs/defensible-space-zones-0-1-2/previous-public-workshops-and-materials/2025/sept-22/august-zone-0-rule-plead.pdf?rev=86f548de3486423c995bb2394aaaa4c1&hash=F8723E42A201545B808CBC0B68FF937B\">current draft regulations\u003c/a> do not call for removing permanent features like a wooden deck or fence within 5 feet of the home. Supporters argue that the absence of coordinated fire-resilience planning wastes state resources. While California develops long-term plans for resources like water, it lacks a comparable approach for wildfire prevention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill moves up the timeline for Zone 0 requirements in high-risk areas, implementing some of the requirements as early as Jan. 1, 2026. If enacted, the legislation would also require Cal Fire to create a strategic, regularly updated plan for better assessing fire danger in the state and planning how to prevent destruction before a disaster hits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If vetoed, Zone 0 requirements — the details of which are still being \u003ca href=\"https://bof.fire.ca.gov/projects-and-programs/defensible-space-zones-0-1-and-2\">hammered out\u003c/a> by the state Board of Forestry — would apply to new construction after Jan.1. Three years from now, at the end of 2028, it would apply to all homes in high-risk zones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If SB 326 is signed, it would also apply to rental properties and houses for sale as of Jan.1. Wara said the rationale is to take a measured approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1994257\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1994257\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A home destroyed by the Boyles Fire in Clearlake on Sept. 9, 2024, after the wildfire swept through the area on Sept. 8, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It doesn’t say everybody has to do this right away, because that would be too much,” Wara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the bill authors believe, people who have rentals and are making money from their house in a high-risk area should contribute to reducing risk in the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Also, if you’re selling your house, you’ve got to do this,” Wara said, “because it’s a time when there’s cash available and where you might be more open to making changes in your backyard that will create safety.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has 1.3 million homes in high or very high severity areas, and retrofitting those homes would cost tens of billions of dollars, said Matt Weiner, CEO of Megafire Action, a nonprofit advancing policy to avoid catastrophic wildfire.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>For right now, Zone 0 is “the most important tool that we can move quickly on to guard against ember-driven fires like we saw in Palisades and Altadena,” Weiner said. The bill also provides funding to counties working to implement Zone 0.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Up to 90% of homes destroyed in a wildfire burn down from embers finding their way inside the structure and burning it down from the inside. Relatively few homes burn down from coming into contact with a flaming front.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/08/28/california-communities-can-reduce-wildfire-damage-by-half-heres-how/\">Researchers from UC Berkeley estimate\u003c/a> that 50% fewer homes would burn down in the extreme kind of conditions seen in the L.A. fires if neighborhoods hardened homes and had defensible space. Just complying with Zone 0 alone would reduce structure loss by an estimated 17%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With California spending billions on firefighting and homeowners bearing soaring insurance costs, advocates have argued that it’s time to move beyond the traditional “business as usual” approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Frankly, we knew we needed to do this back in 2017 and 2018,” Wara said. Those years saw terrible losses in Wine Country fires and the fire that destroyed the town of Paradise. “There was legislation [passed in 2020] that would have required it; it was supposed to take effect in 2023,” Wara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976871\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1976871\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Governor Gavin Newsom speaks at a podium in a cloud of wildfire smoke.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Gavin Newsom discusses California’s wildfires, before signing a $15 billion climate package, during a ceremony at Sequoia National Park near Three Rivers, on Sept. 23, 2021. \u003ccite>(Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But the state’s Board of Forestry missed the deadline, struggling to balance the concerns of homeowners with the desires of the insurance industry. In February, following the Los Angeles firestorm, Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/02/06/governor-newsom-signs-executive-order-to-further-prepare-for-future-urban-firestorms-stepping-up-already-nation-leading-strategies/\">ordered the rules\u003c/a> to be completed by the end of this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill will also require Cal Fire and the State Fire Marshal to develop and use models to assess where risk is highest and how risk changes as safety projects are completed. The key, Weiner said, is to have cohesion between wildfire prevention work being done on the landscape level, the neighborhood level and the parcel level, by communities, utilities and homeowners. Currently, there is little to no coordination, which advocates have said risks wasting money and effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proposals to require comprehensive fire planning have been introduced before, but have never made it to the governor’s desk. The heart- and record-breaking devastation from January’s fires in Los Angeles helped give it added urgency this year, advocates said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You want “somebody looking at the entire picture and helping inform the highest impact work to be done,” Weiner said. The state is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to prepare for fires. “You want somebody to assess that holistically.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill’s technical nature may have hidden it from public attention — despite its potential to save homes and lives, Weiner said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1994224\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1994224\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Firefighter Nolan Graham sprays water around a scorched garage as the Boyles fire burns in Clearlake on Sept. 8, 2024. \u003ccite>(Noah Berger/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I think one of the reasons [this proposal] doesn’t get enough attention is because whenever you start talking ‘tech,’ people think about it as a sideshow, nice to have but not a fundamental need,” Weiner said. “And nobody gets excited about creating the enabling conditions for future work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If signed, the bill would increase the responsibility and work demands placed on Cal Fire and the State Fire Marshal. It would also impose some accountability in the form of requiring annual reports that would give a comprehensive overview of how they could strategically lessen wildfire risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those reports would aid lawmakers in overseeing their work. When it passed its \u003ca href=\"http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB326\">final vote\u003c/a> in September, no representatives voted against it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED reached out to Cal Fire to discuss SB 326. An agency spokesperson said they do not comment on pending legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics have claimed that the state’s fire agency has been more motivated by responding to and fighting fires than working to prevent them, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1979560/cal-fire-fumbles-key-responsibilities-to-prevent-catastrophic-wildfires-despite-historic-budget\">and has fumbled key \u003c/a>responsibilities for management and mitigation, despite a historic budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1979588\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1979588\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a blue uniform stands at a podium in front of a bulldozer.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cal Fire Chief Joe Tyler speaks in Santa Rosa for Wildfire Preparedness Week, May 5, 2022. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Cal Fire)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire Chief Joe Tyler has, however, spoken extensively about the need for the agency to be able to both prevent and fight fires, and is making progress in their preparedness goals. Becker aided Cal Fire in getting their budget doubled to 4 billion dollars this year as chair of the state’s budget subcommittee for natural resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need better, more targeted prevention action to reduce the risk of losing entire communities like what happened in January,” the lawmaker said. “This is about getting every dollar we spend on wildfire prevention exactly where it needs to be as fast as possible … and making sure every dollar truly reduces wildfire risk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For homeowners, wildfires costs have exploded. Recent analysis by Wara and colleagues indicates that the average state homeowner is paying $266 more per month in insurance and electricity costs than they were in 2020, largely because of wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://ibhs.org/ibhs-news-releases/ibhs-releases-updated-wildfire-prepared-home-standard/\">insurance industry\u003c/a> has also openly supported the bill. Industry scientists said in a report this summer that Zone 0 was critical in preventing home ignitions. In a September letter to Newsom urging his signature on SB 326, the state’s top insurance regulator, Ricardo Lara, said: “With millions of homes in the Wildland Urban Interface, the early adoption of mitigation is critical to wildfire safety and insurability.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>When \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/caltrain\">Caltrain\u003c/a> rolled out its electrified fleet last year, the new, more eco-friendly trains also came with the ability to recapture energy as they slow down and return it to the grid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, the agency will start to be compensated for that power, following policy changes from local providers Peninsula Clean Energy and San José Clean Energy announced Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Caltrain’s regenerative braking is performing better than officials originally anticipated, returning 23% of the power used by its new electric trains. As a result, the commuter rail line revised down its estimated annual power cost from $19.5 million to $16.5 million. Caltrain’s service runs on 100% renewable energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is no legal requirement for the transit agency to be reimbursed for the energy generated by its trains; until now, Caltrain was providing that power back to the grid free of charge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s exciting and will bring down costs for Caltrain, compensate the system for the energy it’s giving back to the grid,” said San José Mayor Matt Mahan, who spoke to KQED after a press conference at the city’s Diridon Station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State lawmakers are considering legislation that would make this a standard model for any public agency, allowing them to be compensated for all the power they return to the grid. AB 1372, a two-year bill by Assemblymember Diane Papan, D-San Mateo, would also identify regenerative braking from electric trains as a renewable electrical generation facility.[aside postID=news_12058994 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/NobelPrizePhysicsGetty1.jpg']Papan introduced the bill in February to fill what she called a “gap in the system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Caltrain was sending clean, renewable energy back to the grid, but it wasn’t getting credit for it,” Papan said. “If this were a rooftop solar situation, we would certainly be getting the credit for what we sent back to grid.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill did not pass this legislative session, but it will be considered next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Peninsula Clean Energy and San José Clean Energy voluntarily changed their policies to allow for a net billing tariff to compensate the transit agency for energy returned to the grid. “I’m delighted about it because it really does give Caltrain the credit that it deserves,” Papan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahan said that this model points to a more innovative future that extends to people’s homes, “where we have a connected grid with electric vehicles and devices on the grid that can charge two ways.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He recently installed two batteries at his house, which are capable of storing power and putting it back on the grid. “But the market and the financing structure still is not mature enough,” he said. “That’s a policy innovation that we need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/caltrain\">Caltrain\u003c/a> rolled out its electrified fleet last year, the new, more eco-friendly trains also came with the ability to recapture energy as they slow down and return it to the grid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, the agency will start to be compensated for that power, following policy changes from local providers Peninsula Clean Energy and San José Clean Energy announced Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Caltrain’s regenerative braking is performing better than officials originally anticipated, returning 23% of the power used by its new electric trains. As a result, the commuter rail line revised down its estimated annual power cost from $19.5 million to $16.5 million. Caltrain’s service runs on 100% renewable energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is no legal requirement for the transit agency to be reimbursed for the energy generated by its trains; until now, Caltrain was providing that power back to the grid free of charge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s exciting and will bring down costs for Caltrain, compensate the system for the energy it’s giving back to the grid,” said San José Mayor Matt Mahan, who spoke to KQED after a press conference at the city’s Diridon Station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State lawmakers are considering legislation that would make this a standard model for any public agency, allowing them to be compensated for all the power they return to the grid. AB 1372, a two-year bill by Assemblymember Diane Papan, D-San Mateo, would also identify regenerative braking from electric trains as a renewable electrical generation facility.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Papan introduced the bill in February to fill what she called a “gap in the system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Caltrain was sending clean, renewable energy back to the grid, but it wasn’t getting credit for it,” Papan said. “If this were a rooftop solar situation, we would certainly be getting the credit for what we sent back to grid.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill did not pass this legislative session, but it will be considered next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Peninsula Clean Energy and San José Clean Energy voluntarily changed their policies to allow for a net billing tariff to compensate the transit agency for energy returned to the grid. “I’m delighted about it because it really does give Caltrain the credit that it deserves,” Papan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahan said that this model points to a more innovative future that extends to people’s homes, “where we have a connected grid with electric vehicles and devices on the grid that can charge two ways.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He recently installed two batteries at his house, which are capable of storing power and putting it back on the grid. “But the market and the financing structure still is not mature enough,” he said. “That’s a policy innovation that we need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Many of the world’s largest and most devastating \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/earthquake\">earthquakes\u003c/a> strike beneath the ocean, where the lack of sensors makes quick warnings difficult. Most monitoring stations are on land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we have a big earthquake under the water, like that Kamchatka earthquake [this summer], our sensors that tell us an earthquake just happened are really quite far away,” said \u003ca href=\"https://seismo.sites.ucsc.edu/emily-brodsky/\">Emily Brodsky\u003c/a>, a geophysicist at UC Santa Cruz. “And so we’re sort of looking through this very fuzzy pair of glasses at the earthquake and making our best guess on what it’s gonna mean in terms of tsunamis or anything else.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adx6858\">research published Thursday\u003c/a> suggests fiber optic cables on the ocean floor could serve as earthquake sensors, Brodsky said. She \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aeb1414\">co-authored a commentary\u003c/a> accompanying the paper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With 70% of the planet covered by water, using telecommunications infrastructure as seismometers could fill major blind spots in earthquake detection in a relatively affordable and scientifically robust way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While this is not the first paper describing the technique, it pushes the technology to new limits, focusing on how faults rupture underwater. That’s important because researchers could see that the fault was rupturing super fast, casting new light on the physics of earthquakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To use fiber optic cables this way, researchers partner with a company running the cables — in this case, \u003ca href=\"https://www.verofiber.com/\">Vero Fiber Networks\u003c/a> — and attach a box containing a laser and a computer. The laser sends pulses into the fiber that echo all along its length.[aside postID=news_12057001 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250922-BERKELEY-EARTHQUAKE-KQED-1.jpg']If the cable stretches due to earthquake movements, the light echoes change. The changes can be converted into measurements, giving a fine-grained view of the event. Even in California, which is relatively well-covered by seismometers, stations are spaced several miles apart. Fiber optic sensing allows measurements down to the scale of feet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With this higher resolution, earthquake early warning alerts, like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1994754/emergency-alert-phone-earthquake-test-2024-myshake\">Californians receive through MyShake\u003c/a>, could improve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Traditionally, it’s very, very hard to see for big earthquakes, how long is the fault that’s rupturing, in what direction is it going?” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/james-w-atterholt\">James Atterholt\u003c/a>, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and author on the research paper. “And this technology shows that with modifications, with advancements, that this could be done in real time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some experts are skeptical that predicting earthquakes is possible. Others, including Brodsky, are cautiously optimistic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just to be clear, no, we do not know how to predict earthquakes. But we do want to study whether or not they’re predictable,” she said. “We are in a totally different place than we were 15 years ago.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists now have better hypotheses for how prediction could work, Brodsky said, but “to a large extent, we’re instrumentally limited and we need the investment. And it’s kind of that simple.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"order": 1
},
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"id": "code-switch-life-kit",
"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"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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"meta": {
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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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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"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.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"order": 9
},
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"id": "freakonomics-radio",
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"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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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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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510051/podcast.xml"
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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",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"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.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"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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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
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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. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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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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"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": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"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"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"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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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "On Our Watch from NPR and KQED",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1567098962",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510360/podcast.xml"
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
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"source": "pbs"
},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Perspectives_Tile_Final.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Perspectives",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
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"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432309616/perspectives",
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},
"planet-money": {
"id": "planet-money",
"title": "Planet Money",
"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/sections/money/",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510289/podcast.xml"
}
},
"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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