Santa Cruz County Environment Digest

The California Department of Water Resources has found that the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains is at just 25% of normal levels for this time of year. This could potentially impact water supply and wildfire protection.

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.

For more than 16 years, Watsonville’s Nature Center operated out of a small trailer at Ramsay Park—the only free, bilingual environmental conservation center in the Monterey Bay region.

Sarah Grimes investigates reports of dead marine mammals up and down the coast. So when she began finding the decapitated bodies of harbor seal pups just a few miles north of Fort Bragg in 2016, she was on the case. Grimes wasn’t able to pin down the culprit until last year, with the help of a UCSC student.

The Hoopa Valley Tribe announced it is acquiring about 10,000 acres of land in Northern California for $14.1 million. As part of this, the tribe will remove dams along the Klamath River and restore salmon runs.

The California Department of Water Resources has approved building a tunnel between the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The approval could signal a new wave of legal challenges to the long-running and controversial project.

The land trust Sempervirens Fund has tapped Rachel Dann for its newly established director of government relations position. “Rachel is a highly esteemed political strategist, renowned for her extensive connections with regional policymakers,” said Executive Director Sarah Barth.

Farmland is being rezoned for industrial use, and massive warehouses are being built on spec near communities like Buttonwillow and Shafter, so goods coming through the Southern California ports can be shipped quickly throughout the western United States.

Salmon populations in the Scott and Shasta rivers have crashed, so state officials are about to restrict irrigation again. And the controversial rules may even become permanent.

Seasonal counts are showing there are, as expected, fewer butterflies overwintering in Pacific Grove than last year, but not the record lows of 2018-20.

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.

Birds are affected by the mass use of fireworks on New Year’s Eve up to a distance of 10 km away, reports an international team of researchers.

Judson Jones, a meteorologist and reporter for The New York Times, gave a Q&A about California’s year of intense weather. This included the state’s largest snowpack in 40 years and a “pretty astonishing” amount of precipitation.

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.

The California Department of Water Resources released an environmental impact report for a tunnel that the state would like to build through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The report identifies potential impacts to farmland, tribal remains and endangered species of fish.

Conservationists intend to shoot all of the deer on Santa Catalina Island by helicopter. Some people are opposed, either for not wanting to eliminate the deer or for missing out on future chances to hunt them.

Staff at the state’s air regulatory agency have been restricted from communicating with Jim Duffy, a scientist who retired from the agency in 2022. Duffy had criticized gas lobbyists and an agency director.

A recently published, multiyear study about the recovery of redwood trees in Big Basin Redwoods State Park after the CZU Lightning Complex fires shows that carbon reserves and ancient, dormant buds within redwood trees allow the plants to recover quickly after a catastrophic fire.

California energy regulators are considering requiring homeowners to replace broken air-conditioning systems with heat pumps or HVAC systems that are more energy efficient. The change would go into effect in 2026.

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.

Two miles of public beach were closed in Laguna Beach following a spill of 94,500 gallons of sewage. Orange County is testing water to determine when the beach will be safe to reopen.

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.

More than three years after a wildfire devastated Big Basin Redwoods State Park, the massive redwood trees continue to recover. But some wildlife species, particularly salmon, steelhead and some types of birds, could take many years to bounce back.

Unlike a year ago, water storage is above average. Whether the year is wet or dry, though, remains uncertain despite El Niño conditions.

More than 4,000 state scientists have worked under an expired contract for three years. Average wages in 2020 were $83,586, 27% less than state engineers’ pay. The state filed an unfair labor practice charge to stop the strike.

Millions of people across the state struggle to pay electric bills as California regulators decide on proposed rate increases. PG&E wants a rate hike to bolster the safety and reliability of its services.

A 2021 fire has helped bring wolves back to Southern California for the first time since the 19th century. A rancher is worried about how to keep wolves, which are federally protected, from harming cattle.

A shrubby Palmer oak tree in Riverside County is around 13,000 years old, making it California’s oldest tree and one of the longest-lived organisms on earth. Some people are concerned that a proposed development could threaten the tree.