Nevada County Environment Digest

The CPUC is considering a rule that would gut the payments that solar panels on apartment buildings receive, and many housing groups are blazing mad about it.

A long-awaited, controversial report weighs updates to standards that state officials say have failed to protect fish and wildlife. But environmentalists, Native tribes and others already are furious about how long this has taken—and the state is years away from taking action.

Outbreaks have wreaked havoc on the state’s river ecosystems for years. But this year was different. Faster, colder river waters led to fewer outbreaks of the harmful algae.

Joined by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the filing of a lawsuit against five of the largest oil and gas companies in the world — Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and BP — and the American Petroleum Institute (API) for allegedly engaging in a decades-long campaign of deception and creating statewide climate change-related harms in California.

An international team found that the amount of near-surface permafrost could drop by 93% compared to the preindustrial period of 1850 to 1900. Permafrost may exist only in the eastern Siberian uplands, Canadian High Arctic Archipelago and northernmost Greenland—as it did in the mid-Pliocene Warm Period.

The irrigation bill, which aims to force businesses and institutions to remove their lawns, now goes to the governor.

Hydrogen fueling stations will get 15 percent of funds in a state program — even though Californians own only about 12,000 hydrogen cars. The funds come from fees paid by drivers.

There’s an official state bird, mineral, tree, fish, insect, lichen, fabric, sport, dance, soil and even dinosaur.

About 5,300 companies would file annual emissions reports. The aim is to hold corporations accountable for the role they play in climate change.

California wildfires every year emit as much carbon as almost 2 million cars, posing a threat to efforts to battle climate change.

Satellite data from across California’s landscapes reveal an increase in nitrogen dioxide levels in remote forest areas, and wildfire and soil emissions are likely the reasons why, according to a paper from UC Davis published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

A federal appeals court reversed the decision of a lower court that would have allowed exploratory drilling in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains. The drilling threatened to harm an endangered fish and a dwindling population of bi-state sage grouse.

The Governor’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force launched the beta version of a first-of-its-kind Interagency Treatment Dashboard that displays the size and location of state and federal forest and landscape resilience projects in California.

The Biden administration is one step away from designating the first national marine sanctuary nominated by a tribe. Tribal members of the Chumash, who have lobbied for the creation of this Central Coast preserve for more than a decade, would be involved in managing it.

In a new study published Aug. 17 in the journal Science, fossil records at La Brea Tar Pits indicate that the disappearance of California’s sabertooth cats, dire wolves and other large mammals nearly 13,000 years ago was linked to rising temperatures and fire activity spurred by people.

With only 12,000 hydrogen cars on the road, and just two models for sale, California lawmakers are debating how much state money should support them.

This acquisition of open space and important wildlife habitat joins BYLT’s 25,000+ acres of land permanently protected in the Bear and Yuba River watersheds.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) has awarded the County of Nevada Office of Emergency Services (OES) with $3,914,536 to implement Phase II of the Woodpecker Ravine Shaded Fuel Break.

To Keep Tahoe Blue, the League to Save Lake Tahoe teamed up with ECO-CLEAN Solutions and the Tahoe Keys Marina to introduce an aquatic robot that glides across the surface, removing water-borne debris and aquatic weeds.

Frustration runs deep among medical cannabis patients and advocates who say the commercial market created by Proposition 64 in 2016 isn’t meeting their needs.

Clean Up the Lake, known for its 72-mile cleanup project around the shores of Lake Tahoe, has opened its Environmental Dive Center at Lake Tahoe.

The total number of climate change court cases has more than doubled since 2017 and is growing worldwide. These findings, published by the UN Environment Programme and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, show that climate litigation is becoming an integral part of securing climate action and justice.

The Department of the Interior announced the distribution of $24,881,884 to the state of California today as part of the $295,582,830 granted this year from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) to all 50 states, U.S. territories and the District of Columbia.

The California Department of Conservation released a draft list of orphan wells it proposes to be permanently sealed as part of the first wave of such projects that will be supported by state and federal funding.

Rise Ben Mossman has been found guilty of 13 environmental crimes in British Columbia. It’s unclear how his September sentencing will influence the Nevada County Board of Supervisors, which is expected to hold hearings on plans by Mossman’s company to reopen the Idaho-Maryland mine.

With a record number of participants this year, the 18th annual Tahoe Bike Challenge got more people than ever out of their cars to help improve Lake Tahoe's environment and communities.

Public interest groups filed amicus letters with the California Supreme Court seeking review of a decision by the First District Court of Appeal that would allow Boeing to demolish radioactive structures at Santa Susana Field Lab and dispose of the resulting debris in unequipped landfills and metal recycling centers without any state oversight.

Raising Shasta Dam to increase its capacity would provide 634,000 more acre-feet of water per year, legislators say. But that assumes there will always be enough precipitation, and the move risks flooding sacred Native American lands and harming local habitats.

Nevada County was added to the Presidential FEMA Individual Assistance Declaration for the February 2023 Winter Storms, which makes new resources available to residents and businesses that experienced damages or hardships due to this year’s winter storms.

The League to Save Lake Tahoe and USDA Forest Service’s Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit are working both independently and collaboratively to stop the scenes of July 5th, which saw thousands of pounds of litter from one Lake Tahoe beach following the July 4th holiday, from happening again.

After 14 years, the Grass Valley Family Resource Center, located next door to the Grass Valley Charter School, has closed its doors. Full services will continue at locations in Penn Valley on the Ready Springs campus and San Juan Ridge on the Oak Tree campus.

The environmental costs of ending water diversions from Mono Lake to Los Angeles would be mixed: It might help a shore bird habitat but would require changes that increase carbon emissions.