Environment Watch

Wetlands used to cover a huge swath of Southern California’s coast, serving as a sanctuary for wildlife and plants. But today one is hard pressed to find many wetlands left in this urbanized section of the state, where homes, marinas and ports long ago replaced native habitat. While wide, sandy beaches and rocky tide pools are part of the Southern California landscape, quieter wetlands with estuaries, marshes and sand dunes are harder to find. » read more | add to cart

Restoration of Alameda Creek in the East Bay reached a milestone this spring when what appeared to be hundreds of steelhead trout hatched in a tributary to the creek. If the young fish are indeed steelhead — experts should know soon — they would mark the first natural reproduction of steelhead in the creek since the 1960s. » read more | add to cart

A key document in the evolving methodology for evaluating development’s impact on climate change has been released by the California Air Pollution Control Officers Association.  

Called “CEQA & Climate Change – Evaluating and Addressing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Projects Subject to the California Environmental Quality Act,” the white paper is lengthy (more than 140 pages), detailed and highly technical. » read more | add to cart

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is one of the biggest ecological train wrecks in the nation, the focal point of a tectonic smash-up between human needs and natural dynamics. In consequence, it also has become perhaps the most-studied and squabbled-over body of water in the West. The latest contributions to that voluminous body of work are the final report of a governor-appointed “Blue Ribbon Task Force,” and a federal court ruling. » read more

Green building strategies are being embraced by a growing number of local and state governments. In some cases, the trend is being driven by a desire to reduce water and electrical use in areas where those critical resources are in limited supply or costly to import. Some elected officials also seem motivated, however, by frustration over the Bush administration's foot-dragging in response to scientific warnings about global warming, and are determined to take steps on their own to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Cities and counties cannot regulate tailpipe emissions or, for the most part, coal-burning power plants. They can, however, regulate land use and building design, and that's where they are focusing.

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Environmental groups and land trusts have completed four major land acquisitions in four different parts of the state. To varying degrees, the acquisitions were intended to prevent development and preserve or enhance natural resources. The acquisitions occured in Sonoma, Placer, Tehama and San Diego counties. » read more | add to cart

Spurred by a land use plan intended to remove Pacific Lumber Company from bankruptcy, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors is moving toward adopting policies that would limit residential development on land zoned for timber production. » read more | add to cart

Only weeks after one round of relatively noncontroversial updates to the California Environmental Quality Act Guidelines officially took effect, the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research has been charged with a far more ambitious task: amending the Guidelines to account for global warming. » read more | add to cart

The Salton Sea sits likes a time bomb in the desert, serving up a brew of bad smells, turgid waters and the potential to increase air pollution in an area where thousands of homes are planned. But under a proposal making its way through the Legislature, some of the sea’s lurking hazards may be stopped. Instead, the Salton Sea may be shrunk to a third of its current 240,000 acres and revived as a recreational lake for sport fish and migrating birds. All it will take is billions of dollars and at least 75 years of maintenance. » read more | add to cart

Californians are relatively thrifty when it comes to electricity consumption, using less on a per-capita basis than residents of any other state. The average Californian consumed 7,032 kilowatt-hours of power in 2005, according to the California Energy Commission. That’s not much more than half the U.S. average of 12,347 kilowatt-hours. » read more | add to cart