Sacramento County Sustainability Digest

California farmers face challenges posed by multiple types of fruit flies. Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed spending just over $22 million to combat the spread of these flies.

New rules took effect Jan. 1 permanently protecting the most fragile deep sea corals off Southern California. Simultaneously, more than 4,500 square miles of ocean waters are now reopened to fishing after more than 20 years of closures.

Raging storms brought major damage to California’s coastline last winter. But in Half Moon Bay, a different kind of coastal upheaval is gaining momentum—one that could decide the fate of billions of dollars of property and affect hundreds of public beaches.

Here are 50 ways to improve your life in 2024.

There are concerns about the transition to zero emissions vehicles on Black Californians and how the state will equip low-income neighborhoods with the infrastructure needed when California bans the sale of all gas-powered vehicles in 2035.

Visitors can see the critically endangered Lord How Island stick insect, on display for the first time in North America, in a special habitat at the zoo’s Wildlife Explorers Basecamp.

A dark-sky movement to save birds from window strikes is sweeping the San Francisco Bay Area. Several cities have passed or are drafting laws restricting light pollution while making windows easier for birds to see.

Novelist Jonathan Franzen looks at how trap-neuter-release policies in feral cat colonies have troubling consequences for city residents, local wildlife and even the felines themselves.

Genesis B. doesn’t have air conditioning. That used to be the norm in Long Beach, California, where the 17-year-old was born and raised.

The California Strategic Growth Council approved over $116 million in Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation Program grants to permanently protect 50,500 acres of croplands and rangelands, as well as lands utilized by Indigenous tribes for the cultivation of traditional resources.

Suppliers now have detailed steps to create a new source of drinking water. But it’s not really “toilet-to-tap.” Due to the cost, it’ll likely be only large suppliers.

Water fights have shaped California since its infancy as a state, when its abundance seemed limitless. Now, Californians are being forced to confront limitations, and the state that prides itself on creating the future is now reckoning with its past.

It takes about 90 days for organic waste to become compost at the Yolo County Central Landfill, yielding a fine, dark brown heap of compost. 
But many residents aren’t recycling their organics at all.

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.

Eighteen California children are suing the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming it violated their constitutional rights by failing to protect them from the effects of climate change—the latest in a series of similar cases filed on behalf of children.

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 pilot program in the Sacramento City Unified School District could help California’s emerging electric vehicle industry by preparing students for EV technician roles upon graduation.

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.

A new law expanding California’s atmospheric river research program goes into effect next year. It connects flood and reservoir control operations with new technologies and strategies that can help operators accurately predict the arrival of these storms.

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.

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.

A newly updated “plant hardiness zone map” from the Department of Agriculture has many of the nation’s gardeners rushing online, Googling what new plants they can grow in their mostly warming regions.

From the outside, it’s unremarkable: A metallic building alongside a quiet road on the outskirts of Tracy. But on its opening day, people from all over the country traveled to see it.

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.