Nevada County Sustainability Digest

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has conducted the first beaver conservation release in nearly 75 years, working with the Maidu Summit Consortium to release a family of seven beavers into Plumas County.

Officials in Kern County are proposing to build a carbon management facility that would be twice the size of Manhattan. By doing this, they would leverage federal tax credits to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

An estimated 100,000 pizza boxes have been removed from Yosemite’s waste stream. This is because the famed park now serves pizza on trays and puts to-go portions in compostable bags, part of a move to reduce food-related waste.

A Cal Poly Humboldt professor is partnering with USDA researchers to study biochar, which results from heating dry plant-based materials at high temperatures without oxygen. The CO2 in the charcoal then stays in the soil for hundreds of years, rather than in the atmosphere.

Private company Brightline secured a $3 billion grant through the U.S. Department of Transportation toward a 218-mile high-speed rail line from Rancho Cucamonga to Las Vegas. The line would allow people to make the trip to Sin City in a little over two hours.

An Alameda County judge ruled on Nov. 22 that the city of Oakland thwarted a proposed coal export terminal. The judge will rule if the developer who sued is entitled to $159 million in damages or moving forward with the project.

A new study by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has found that approximately 3,400 kilotons of lithium are located below Imperial County in Southern California. This could produce more than $7 billion in lithium carbonate annually, helping power significant numbers of electric vehicles.

The world is heating up at an unprecedented pace, new climate data shows, and leaders gathered for the COP28 conference in Dubai must get us out of “deep trouble,” UN chief António Guterres said.

2023 has broken climate records, accompanied by extreme weather which has left a trail of devastation, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

An analysis by the U.S. Department of Energy found that with expected technology advances, the Salton Sea region’s total lithium resources could produce more than 3,400 kilotons of lithium, enough to support over 375 million batteries for electric vehicles—more than the total number currently on U.S. roads.

Livestock are responsible for half of all methane emissions in California. The White House is giving $21.4 million to California Dairies and $22.8 million to Dairy Farmers of America to help change this.

In preparation for the single-use plastic bottle ban South Lake Tahoe will implement in 2024, Take Care Tahoe has released a new Drink Tahoe Tap Map that lists locations where people can freely fill up reusable water bottles.

Fulcrum Bioenergy, a California-based firm that seeks to turn plastics into jet fuel, has defaulted on $289 million in bond funding and put a major project on hold. This comes as several U.S. Senators wrote to the IRS urging that similar companies not receive federal tax credits.

State and local leaders gathered in Los Angeles to celebrate a new plan that will increase access to the outdoors for all Californians, regardless of who they are or where they live.

Center for Food Safety has filed arguments seeking to revoke the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ approval of nationwide permit 56, which authorizes industrial finfish aquaculture structures in ocean waters around the country. CFS represents a coalition of conservation, tribal, and fishing organizations.

More than 1.5 million acres of forest have been burned or scarred in California. Climbers go high in trees to grab pine cones that could help in reforestation.

Intense rains have California out of a drought less than a year after most of the state faced water shortages. A climatologist is urging wise water usage ahead of California’s next drought.

The Office of Habitat Conservation’s Restoration Center has awarded $27.8 million to bring Central California Coast coho salmon back to California rivers, funding projects by Trout Unlimited, the San Mateo and Gold Ridge Resource Conservation Districts, and the Nature Conservancy.

The USA is likely to see consistent job growth from the transition to net zero, but the gains will be unevenly distributed, shows a new analysis conducted by Imperial College London researchers and published in Nature Climate Change.

A UCLA climate scientist says California’s redwoods might not last in their current groves for another 100 years. An effort is afoot to plant redwoods elsewhere in more potentially hospitable climates, such as the Pacific Northwest.

Researchers tell LAist that half of California’s population of Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep, which are endangered, died last winter due to record weather. Causes of death include avalanches, starvation and getting eaten by mountain lions after moving to lower elevations for food.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law in October, SB 272 by Sen. John Laird, that requires local governments to plan for rising sea levels. It's already factoring into planning in places like Marin County.

The Grass Valley City Council and staff discussed efforts to procure electric vehicle charging stations. According to Tim Kiser, Grass Valley city manager, EV chargers would bring business to shopping districts of Grass Valley.

The Interconnected Disaster Risks Report 2023, published by the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security, warns of six risk tipping points that will bring drastic changes to our socioecological systems if they are not addressed.

In a year marked by wildfire, catastrophic flooding, and deadly weather events, an international team of scientists has updated a report that has been cosigned by over 15,000 scientists representing 163 countries. According to the team, “life on planet Earth is under siege.”

In an effort to reduce the risk of wildfire, Cal Poly Humboldt faculty and students have embarked on a three-year study to investigate tree health.

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.

Animal Place, an animal sanctuary in Nevada County, is offering a program designed for students interested in farmed animals and their care. The program is sponsored by an organization called Leaders for Ethics, Animals and the Planet.

Maintaining certain interactions so that they remain similar to those that have controlled Earth conditions over the past 12,000 years is critical for ensuring human activities do not trigger dramatic changes that likely would decrease the Earth’s ability to support modern civilizations.

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.

Projections for Hawaii’s climate future are raising concerns about fire risk, ecosystems and freshwater supplies for homes and agriculture.

California’s only native sunfish, the Sacramento perch, was once abundant before invasive species decimated it. As the planet heats up and threatens cold-water game fish, the Sacramento perch may be on the cusp of a comeback, thanks to its ability to tolerate warm water.