Topic List: Environmental Issues

A wetlands restoration project in the Delta has provoked the ire amongst residents about its potential intrusion in the existing community and ecosystem. The Knightsen Wetlands Restoration Project, approved to begin construction next year, has raised concerns from residents close to the planned project that include what they say are no local public benefit, no flood control enhancement, and no public access. Residents have also expressed concerns about a lack of an environmental impact review, which residents say could identify potential public safety and health issues.

The Sutter County Resource Conservation District was recently awarded over $2 million in grant funding for the design of a habitat restoration project along the Feather River. In order to restore side channel habitats for juvenile salmonids, this planning project will facilitate designs, environmental permits, revegetation and invasive plant removal within a 1.5 mile stretch of the Feather River in Sutter County.  Mike Johnson, president of the Sutter County Resource Conservation District, said that upon completion, this project will help improve 231 acres of floodplain and riparian habitat.

At the Salton Sea’s western edge, near Salton City, the efforts of the Salton Sea Management Program are starting to show promise. But as the western side of the lake begins to stabilize, a different story is unfolding at Bombay Beach on the eastern shore. At the Clubhouse Site of the SSMP’s Vegetation Enhancement Project just outside of Salton City, grass bales laid out across acres of exposed lakebed have begun to serve their intended purpose. Vegetation is now sprouting between them and slowly covering the dusty landscape. This success has fueled optimism among SSMP officials, who believe they are seeing the kind of progress needed to combat the dust storms and environmental degradation that have plagued the area for years.

Related article:

• Desert Review: Salton Sea Conservancy Act: A new chapter for environmental restoration

… In the last 10 years, [David] Herasimtschuk has photographed forests across the Pacific Northwest, documenting the inhabitants of these last remaining old-growth ecosystems. From salamanders and salmon to bears and mountain lions, his images illustrate not only the beauty of the forests and their creatures but the symbiotic relationships which are vital to the forests’ health and the planet’s welfare. … Currently, a large amount of my work focuses on the connections between forests, rivers and fish. In the Pacific Northwest, the relationship between salmon and forests embodies a sense of connection that seems almost mystical. Delivering a pulse of nutrients, returning adult salmon nourish some of the largest trees in the world, and in return, these ancient forests provide a foundation for the complexity of conditions that salmon and other fish rely on. 

It’s an odd, disturbing feeling – watching populations of native fish species collapse and then disappear. Sometimes it happens quickly, other times it’s a series of slowstep change events. The end result is the same though – smaller populations, extinctions, less biodiversity. We put up a little fight, and occasionally have moderate success. But by and large, the overall trend is down, the pace of change quickening, and it is relentless. We’ve watched it over our careers, and maybe some of you have too. Either as biologists or water professionals, or perhaps as long-time readers of this blog. This summer has been no different. It has been an avalanche of stories, all with variations on this theme.

Related articles:

• San Luis Obispo Tribune: Does Lopez Dam harm steelhead trout? Activists sue SLO County to protect endangered fish
• NPR: Too hot for trout: Why some anglers are rethinking their approach to fly fishing
• The Cool Down: Officials discover ‘one of the rarest fish in America’ thriving in secret creek for first time in a decade: ‘It has the will to survive’
   

Arizona’s Santa Cruz River is currently imperiled. Stretching for 180 miles through major cities like Tucson and into the Sonoran desert, the Santa Cruz River is in danger of drying up because of human factors like climate change and irresponsible wastewater disposal. Yet even though sewage is not the stuff of romance and legend, the same gross stuff that has helped imperil the Santa Cruz River may help save it. Wastewater is filled with human feces, garbage and other gross gunk that carries dangerous disease, and is piped away from our civilization for that reason. Yet according to a recent study in the journal Restoration Ecology, effluent — or sewage that has been dumped into a body of water, like a river or ocean — can be used to help the environment, at least if used strategically.

Where others might see only catastrophe, Don Hankins scans fire-singed landscapes for signs of renewal. Hankins, a renowned Miwkoʔ (Plains Miwok) cultural fire practitioner and scholar, has kept an eye on the Park Fire’s footprint as it sweeps through more than 429,000 acres across four Northern California counties. It started late last month and became one of the largest fires in state history in a matter of days, fueled by dry grasslands. … Yet Hankins says he is seeing some signs of a landscape resilient to fire in areas where he and his team of researchers at California State University, Chico have been able to bring back to the land “good fire” that reduces the potential for destructive wildfires, maintains ecological diversity and holds cultural and spiritual significance for many Indigenous tribes. It is a practice known as cultural burning.

California communities and waterways near scorched hillsides are vulnerable to serious disasters, long after wildfire flames die out. Downpours can wash away millions of tons of soil and rock each year from California slopes, according to a study published this week, led by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey and California Geological Survey. Researchers found this postfire erosion has dramatically accelerated across Northern California over the past four decades. Burn scars are especially at risk of debris flows, fast-moving slurries of mud and rock that can destroy homes and wipe out roads. But even smaller trickles can unload soil into waterways and clog up lakes. The researchers reported that across the state, 57% of the material flushed from postfire locations was upstream of reservoirs. The cycle could amplify in the future, as the potential for California blazes continues to climb due to climate change.

Related article:

• The New York Times: Silicon Valley wants to fight fires with fire

The California Department of Water Resources and the city of Stockton are letting people know the water color change is on purpose and not to be alarmed. A dye, which according to scientists is harmless to people, boats and the environment, will be used to test the water as scientists examine harmful algal blooms at the lake. McLeod Lake’s water may turn pink or purple during the testing, according to the city of Stockton. The lake was selected by the state as one of the study sites because of the impact of those harmful algal blooms in the area, particularly during drought years.

Regional water regulators have approved Berkeley’s plans to measure radiation levels in Cesar Chavez Park using a drone. The San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board rejected Berkeley’s initial proposal for radiation testing in May, citing concerns that its methodology was too lenient. Regulators wrote that the proposed tests, which called for an inspector to walk around with a detector, could miss a “significant portion” of the park.  The water board, working in consultation with the California Department of Public Health, signed off on Berkeley’s revised work plan on Aug. 13. The city has until Nov. 11 to complete the testing and submit a completion report that includes a three-dimensional map of the site.  The radiation testing follows revelations in January that the now-defunct Stauffer Chemical Company may have dumped radioactive industrial waste in the landfill between 1960 and 1971. 

The forces behind the relentless land movement plaguing Rancho Palos Verdes appear to be more complicated, and possibly more widespread, than originally thought — forcing the city to once again rethink how it can limit some of the mounting damage. Officials confirmed a very deep and active landslide plane — previously considered dormant — during exploratory drilling this summer, a discovery that has upended emergency efforts aimed at stabilizing the Portuguese Bend area. … City officials last week voted to move ahead with a pilot plan to drill vertical wells into the deeper landslide, with the aim of pumping out groundwater — known to be the impetus for the land movement — while continuing to study the extent and characteristics of the deeper slip plane.

Artificial intelligence technology is guzzling water and energy in California and around the globe, yet most tech companies have not been forthcoming about the actual environmental costs of their applications, my colleague Melody Petersen reports. That’s a huge problem, as their energy and water consumption will undoubtedly strain supplies and drive up demand for climate-warming oil, gas and coal — all while leaving users in the dark about their true contributions. By some estimates, ChatGPT uses about 16 ounces of water for as little as 10 queries, while AI-generated answers from Google use up to 8.9 watt-hours of electricity per request, Petersen reported. But when she pressed for details, both companies clammed up.

Related article:

• Reuters: Meta Platforms strikes geothermal energy deal to power US data centers

Yosemite National Park is famous for towering waterfalls, giant sequoia trees and massive granite cliffs. But at an out-of-the-way spot near the park’s western boundary few visitors ever see, a landmark of a different type is taking shape. Workers are making progress this summer on an ambitious plan to turn a 400-acre property that was used for generations as a cattle pasture back into a healthy Sierra Nevada meadow. The project at Ackerson Meadow, the largest wetlands restoration in Yosemite’s history, involves filling in massive amounts of erosion — including a 3-mile long gully that is 14 feet deep and 100 feet wide — with hundreds of truckloads of dirt and mulch, along with planting 425,000 native plants and more than 700 pounds of wildflower seeds.

The white sturgeon, the largest freshwater fish in North America, may be protected as a threatened species, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said Friday. The department said it is seeking comments on a petition to safeguard the fish under the California Endangered Species Act. White sturgeon, which can live as long as 100 years, spawn in the large rivers of the Central Valley and mostly reside in the Delta and San Francisco Bay, the department said. They also sometimes range along the coast and enter bays and rivers, it said.

Related news release and article:

• California Department of Fish and Wildlife: CDFW seeks public comment related to white sturgeon
• CalCoastNews.com: Group sues San Luis Obispo County over endangered steelhead trout

California is making moves to keep control of its water — and protect the state’s endangered species from a potential second Trump administration. With federal and state officials in the midst of renegotiating how they manage a 400-mile system of reservoirs, pumps and canals that moves water out of the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta to deliver it to taps and farms across the state, California water officials are taking steps to adopt guidelines from the state’s own wildlife officials rather than federal ones.

Though populations have been stocked throughout the American West and into Canada, the California golden trout’s native range is limited to less than a 600 square mile area high within the headwaters of the Kern River watershed in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains. This includes a substantial portion of the South Fork of the Kern River and its tributaries, and an upper portion of Golden Trout Creek and its tributaries. Over the years the fish have lost access to large portions of their native waters, but much of what remains connected are encompassed within the Golden Trout Wilderness, a protected backcountry portion of the Kern Plateau spanning the Sequoia and Inyo National Forests.

The Central Valley of California historically contained a diverse tapestry of freshwater habitats, from the salty marshes of the lower estuary to the ice-cold mountain streams of the Sierras. Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) developed a remarkable array of strategies to take advantage of these varied habitats, but as habitats have been altered and fragmented, so too has the diversity of Chinook populations. In particular, the Chinook that relied on coldwater habitats to survive in rivers through the summer – such as spring-run Chinook – have lost access to much of their historic range due to dams, and consequently have experienced precipitous declines. As the diversity of Chinook populations diminishes, so does the species’ resilience and adaptability. But all hope is not lost – the findings of a recent study examining the genetics of Chinook in a very modified river in the Sacramento Basin (Hugentobler et al. 2024) suggest that the diversity of these salmon may be more persistent than previously thought.

On Wednesday, Big Basin will take a significant step toward recovery, as the California Department of Parks and Recreation holds its first public meeting to unveil three options for rebuilding the facilities at the 18,000-acre park in the Santa Cruz Mountains. … Environmental groups who helped establish and enlarge Big Basin over the years say things generally are moving in the right direction. … “Everything from the pavement that prevents water to getting from the roots of the old-growth trees, to the buildings and fuel tanks and flammable material that goes along with it puts the resources at risk,” said Sam Hodder, president of Save the Redwoods League, an environmental group in San Francisco. “Letting visitors enjoy a more healthy forest ecosystem, not burdened with a lot of infrastructure will create a better experience and a more healthy redwood forest.”

Related article:

• SFGate: ‘Still blazing galore’: Wildfire torches 95% of historic Northern California wilderness

As part of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Hatchery Program’s mission to support fish conservation, angling opportunities and California’s economy, CDFW stocked 1.53 million inland Chinook and Kokanee salmon fingerlings into reservoirs in 17 counties this spring. Over 992,000 inland Chinook salmon were planted across 13 reservoirs in northern and central California ranging from Trinity Lake in Trinity County to Pine Flat Reservoir in Fresno County. Another 538,000 Kokanee salmon were stocked in 13 reservoirs that include Shasta Reservoir to the north and Shaver Lake in Fresno County to the south. These stocked inland salmon support popular sport fisheries and occupy a unique ecological niche, thriving in the deep, cold-water environments these reservoirs offer. They are different from anadromous salmon because they do not migrate to the ocean, and instead rear in the reservoirs where released.

Related opinion:

• San Jose Spotlight: Opinion: Valley Water is working to improve fish habitat

There is widespread concern about the effect of introduced species on native species. The San Francisco Estuary (SFE) is a highly invaded system (Cohen and Carlton 1995), with a mix of native and introduced species that didn’t evolve together. Humans introduced non-native species in a variety of ways, ranging from recreation to ship ballast water to aquarium and pond releases (Hanak et al. 2013). … However, not all non-native species disrupt an ecosystem. Many introduced fishes do not have clear negative impacts on populations of native species, and some may provide benefits to humanity in the form of recreation opportunities, ecosystem services, or as indicator species (Moyle et al. 1986, Bork 2018, Grossman 2016). In this blog, we’ll review the complex roles of non-native fishes within our novel estuary and propose a systematic framework evaluating the “invasiveness” of these introduced species.  

… A series of 11 images envisions a sustainable future for Los Angeles — as dreamed up by artificial intelligence. One image shows a downtown streetscape, shaded by overhead walkways teeming with vegetation. Another adds solar panels to the hillsides beneath the Hollywood sign. Several contemplate vibrant futures for the L.A. River, tearing out concrete flood-control straitjackets along its banks and reviving the waterway with abundant plants and wildlife, as well as walking paths.

More than native plants are being planted where reservoirs created by the Klamath River dams once stood. As part of the years-long restoration, crews are planting thousands of live trees. And they’re also using dead trees, which are referred to as “large wood” in river restoration jargon by the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, which is overseeing the removal of the dams and restoration. Dead trees are being placed in tributaries to the Klamath. … Helicopters placed about 60 large wood trees in the Spencer Creek area south of Keno in the footprint of the John C. Boyle Dam on Monday and in the Beaver Creek tributary below the former Copco 1 Dam on Tuesday. Placing of the large wood trees at other tributaries to the Iron Gate Dam and areas exposed by the now free-flowing river is expected to be completed this week.

… As an environmental sociologist, I study the interplay among human interests, institutions, cultural meanings, and society’s relationship with nonhuman nature. I have been studying various aspects of the Delta Smelt case for years, drawing on a wide array of evidence, from archival documents to expert interviews to field observations. My research on the controversy focuses on the species’ portrayal in the media, its political mobilization, and public interest in the topic. In a peer-reviewed article recently published in the American Journal of Cultural Sociology, I show that the dynamics and character of the Delta Smelt controversy are better explained by national partisan divisions than as a regional struggle for access to water.

USGS scientists across the nation are working to understand, predict and prevent impacts from harmful algal blooms to people and wildlife. Algae. If you’ve ever visited a pond, cleaned a fish tank, or eaten sushi, you’ve likely encountered some of these water-living, plant-like organisms. Algae come in many shapes and sizes and play important roles in ecosystems. For one, they make energy from sunlight through photosynthesis, which leads to them being the base of the food web in marine and freshwater communities. … However, unfortunately, an algal bloom can also become a runaway train. When an algal bloom “runs away” from ecological checks and balances, it can create negative consequences and if it does, it’s called a harmful algal bloom. For instance, algal blooms can cause water bodies to become anoxic, meaning they have little-to-no oxygen. That’s a problem for fish and invertebrates, like shrimp, that rely on dissolved oxygen in the water…

Toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” that leach from landfills into groundwater are among the major pollution sources in the US, and remain a problem for which officials have yet to find an effective solution. Now new research has identified another route in which PFAS may escape landfills and threaten the environment at even higher levels: the air. PFAS gas that emits from landfill waste ends up highly concentrated in the facilities’ gas treatment systems, but the systems are not designed to manage or destroy the chemicals, and much of them probably end up in the environment.

Related article: 

• Smart Water Magazine: Groundbreaking PFAS source-tracking research by Carollo Engineers & The Water Research Foundation

… Benefits from restoration projects will take time to become evident, cautioned Barry McCovey, director of the Yurok Tribe’s fisheries department. “From an engineering perspective, when you build a highway or you build a bridge, you do the ribbon-cutting ceremony, and everything’s beautiful and brand new. That’s the best that’s gonna look. Over the years, it’s gonna degrade; it’s just going to get worse and worse. River restoration and dam removal projects are the opposite. When you do the ribbon-cutting ceremony, it’s the worst it’s gonna look cause the heavy equipment just pulled out. It’s muddy, it’s dirty, it doesn’t look like a river yet. But come back in a year. Come back in ten years, come back in twenty years. It just gets better and better and better as the ecosystem fixes itself.” This work is a large-scale example of what the tribes have been doing for thousands of years, McCovey said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday proposed listing the Long Valley speckled dace, a rare minnow native to the eastern Sierra Nevada, as an endangered species.  The decision stems from a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity seeking to protect the subspecies on the brink of extinction due to various environmental threats. … The dace, found only in the Long Valley volcanic caldera and the upper Owens River watershed in eastern California, once thrived in springs and creeks throughout the upper Owens Basin in Mono County. Today, they struggle to survive in just one spring and a small creek east of Mammoth Lakes.

Related articles and news release: 

• Center for Biological Diversity news release: Endangered Species Act protections proposed for rare California fish
• NOAA Fisheries: Climate Change Threatens the Survival and Recovery of Black Abalone
• Fox 5 San Diego: Drought keeps killing off fish by the thousands

Wildfires like the Park Fire are creating new challenges for the already threatened salmon populations in local creeks and rivers. In the Butte, Mill and Deer Creek the Chinook salmon have been suffering, and especially with the Park Fire activities recently, it has made things a lot worse. “And it’s just getting more and more difficult for these fish to survive in the summer,” Allen Harthorn, Executive Director of Friends of Butte Creek, said. Harthorn said persistent heat waves and impacts from large wildfires, especially the Park Fire, are making it difficult for Chinook salmon to survive.

Related articles: 

• San Francisco Chronicle: How are the California wildfires affecting birds?
• Weather Network: Trees don’t like to breathe wildfire smoke either
• Associated Press: Fast-moving Southern California wildfire torches hillside homes, forcing evacuations
• 1A WAMU: Protecting children from climate change, rising temperatures, and wildfires

It’s icky, scummy and floats in the water. It’s cyanobacteria season. Humboldt County’s Environmental Health issued a reminder last week for residents to keep their eyes peeled for algae on rivers and lakes that can produce harmful compounds. Growths of algae generally pick up in late July and August, as water slows down and heats up, situating Humboldt County at the start of the season. “They’re most likely to occur later in the summer when the river flows are low,” said Ben Dolf, a supervising environmental health specialist for Humboldt County. Water warms up to create conditions for algae blooms to be more likely in freshwater, he said, including the harmful kind.

Related article:

• National Geographic: Algal blooms can be toxic for dogs. Here’s how to keep them safe when swimming

California’s spring-run Chinook salmon were already in the midst of a population crash before the Park fire exploded into the state’s fourth-largest wildfire in history. Biologists now worry the fire could push the fish closer to extinction by scorching forests along creeks that provide critical spawning habitat. The wildfire has been burning through the upper Mill and Deer Creek watersheds, threatening forested canyons that provide some of last intact spawning habitat for spring-run Chinook salmon. … The two creeks are considered vital strongholds for federally threatened spring-run Chinook salmon, which have suffered long-term declines because of water diversions, dams that have blocked them from reaching spawning grounds, and increasingly severe droughts worsened by climate change.

Related articles: 

• Nature: ‘Fire clouds’ from super-hot wildfires are on the rise as Earth warms
• USGS: Wildfires are increasing concentrations of mercury in Pacific Northwest headwater streams
• Washington Post: More Americans are moving into flood and fire hot spots
   

… The [Park Fire] … has swept through the Big Chico Creek watershed, a 240-square-mile area in and around the City of Chico. While the city itself has been largely spared, the blaze has devastated a surrounding ecosystem familiar to Emily Schlickman, assistant professor of landscape architecture and environmental design at the University of California, Davis. She and her students had been studying the Big Chico Creek area before it went up in flames, looking at ways to make it more resilient to wildfires—and in turn reduce the risk of a blaze spreading through the city itself. … Schlickman studies how land use planning and landscape management can support adaptation to climate change.

Related articles:

• Sacramento Bee: Chico planned a burn that could have curbed the Park Fire. Here’s why it didn’t get done
• Bay Area News Group: Park Fire near Chico grows to fourth-largest wildfire in California history
• Washington Post: Increasing wind and heat plus risk of thunderstorms expected in fight against California wildfire
• The New York Times: Fires burning at ‘full tilt’ across the Western U.S. stretch resources

After temporarily prohibiting large-mesh drift gillnet fishing to protect migrating threatened loggerhead sea turtles in waters off the coast of Southern California in May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries announced that they will reopen the area for commercial fishing in August.  The agency says in an announcement set to be released on Thursday that the sea surface temperatures off the West Coast — in an area stretching from Point Conception in Santa Barbara County to the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego County called the Southern California Bight — has returned to normal or below normal, and El Niño conditions are no longer present.   

The United States Fish & Wildlife Service Monday officially listed the longfin smelt as endangered. … In the San Francisco Bay-Delta region, [the longfin smelt] is restricted to the San Francisco Bay estuary and adjacent areas of the Pacific Ocean. The endangered Delta smelt — listed so a number of years ago by the state — is a 3-inch fish found only in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.  … [The Delta smelt] is one of the reasons why large southwest San Joaquin Valley agricultural interest and urban water users in Southern California are pushing for the $20 billion Tunnel project. It is unclear if the latest listing under the federal Endangered Species Act of the longfin Bay-Delta Smelt will impact the tunnel project that would divert water out of the Sacramento River before it reaches the Delta. That said, the water diversion — coupled with this week’s federal order — could ultimately impact how water is managed to protect the Bay-Delta smelt in addition to what is already in place for the Delta smelt.

A crusade to combat the proliferation of poop in Colorado’s backcountry entered a new frontier this week with the creation of a “Clean 14” initiative focusing on the state’s iconic 14,000-foot peaks. A kiosk opened Tuesday at the north trailhead to Mount Elbert, the state’s highest peak at 14,437 feet, where hikers can pick up free bags designed to pack out human waste. Bags used on the trail can be left in a receptacle contained in the kiosk, 4,400 feet below the summit. The Clean 14 effort is a partnership involving the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics and Pact Outdoors, a Gunnison company that produces the pack-out bags.

…. Megafires burn land at higher temperatures across wider areas than standard wildfires, putting watersheds across the United States at greater risk. Sheila Murphy, a research hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey working on the effects of wildfires on water quality, says burned areas fundamentally alter a watershed’s hydrology. As wildfires burn hotter and consume more trees and structures, water quality will continue to worsen, research suggests. When watersheds burn, the threat starts in the forests, continues to water treatment plants, and can expand to communities and households. To meet these risks, it will take a coalition of informed community members, scientists and city officials to work toward solutions to protect clean water supplies.

Related articles:

• The Los Angeles Times: As massive Park Fire marches into history books, firefighters face hurdles to slowing it down
• The New York Times: How did the Park Fire get so big, so fast?
• CU Boulder Today: Wildfires don’t just burn. They can also pollute aquatic ecosystems
• The New York Times: Scenes From the California Park Fire
• Wild Open Spaces: Feds close public lands as Park Fire spreads across California

California has unveiled an ambitious plan to help combat the worsening climate crisis with one of its invaluable assets: its land. Over the next 20 years, the state will work to transform more than half of its 100 million acres into multi-benefit landscapes that can absorb more carbon than they release, officials announced Monday. … The plan also calls for 11.9 million acres of forestland to be managed for biodiversity protection, carbon storage and water supply protection by 2045, and 2.7 million acres of shrublands and chaparral to be managed for carbon storage, resilience and habitat connectivity, among other efforts.

Related articles: 

• Los Angeles Times: Study - Climate change supercharged heat dome and worsened 2021 wildfires
• NBC News: Tall flowers, dead shrubs, ephemeral lake - Death Valley has become a picture of climate whiplash
• AccuWeather: Warmest weather since 2023 to build over Southwest into the new week