Santa Cruz County Sustainability Digest

In a striking setback to reduce California’s air pollution but a win for trucking companies, state regulators have walked away from their ambitious plan to phase out diesel trucks less than a week before President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.

Following the collapse of a 150 foot section of the Santa Cruz Wharf, questions about contributing factors are raised. Who or what is to blame? Read on to learn more.

Learn about the bill introduced by Rep. Jimmy Panetta which would initiate the process to designate the communities neighboring the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary as a National Heritage Area, and what that would entail.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decree that by 2035 all new cars sold in California must be powered by batteries or other zero-emission systems has received a double dose of legal and political support.

The Biden administration is awarding Inflation Reduction Act money to help clean the air before President-elect Trump takes over.

Learn more about federal plans to extend protection to 289 acres across multiple sites in Santa Cruz for overwintering monarch butterflies.

Trump’s promise to “end” the offshore wind industry could threaten CA’s renewable energy goals, potentially cutting off federal funding.

Sixty years ago, I was a reporter for the Klamath Falls (Oregon) Herald and News and with my family lived in a small house on the Link River, which flows out of Upper Klamath Lake, draining a large portion of the Cascade mountain range.

Low counts of spawning salmon could mean another year without fishing. Experts say the outlook still has time to turn around.

Growers support a federal and state proposal for operating California’s massive systems that send river water south. But it could harm more salmon and other endangered fish.

Most of us operate on the calendar year — the 12 months that begin on January 1 and end on December 31.

Capturing and storing carbon underground is a big part of California’s efforts to tackle climate change but community members and environmentalists say it prolongs the life of fossil fuels.

How to apply rebate as part of the recent $80 million state program to electrify homes.

A summary of the September 26 virtual meeting about the City of Santa Cruz West Cliff Five Year Roadmap.

The California state goal to conserve 30% of its land and coastal waters has advanced, with conserved lands reaching 25% and coastal waters 16%.

Legislators and Gov. Newsom are working behind the scenes to draft energy legislation before the end-of-the-month deadline.

Public chargers must be built at an unprecedented pace to meet the target in less than 7 years, and then doubled to 2 million in 2035. The high cost — $120,000 or more for one fast charger— is just one obstacle.

Researchers at UC Santa Cruz won a prestigious award for their paper outlining new techniques to greatly reduce power consumption by AI models.

The Santa Cruz County Climate Action Plan will be the focus of a public meeting scheduled for July 31.

Harnessing clean energy is a venture of unprecedented scope in California, bringing big changes to Humboldt and the Central Coast, and requiring 26 ports along the coast.

Legal rights to use water — particularly those obtained prior to 1914 — lie at the heart of California’s perpetual wrangling over the allocation of increasingly limited water supplies.

The Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau announced the 2024 Farmer of the Year is Janet Webb, president of Big Creek Lumber.

Tens of thousands of California homeowners, especially those who live in areas at risk of wildfires, have lost their insurance or have to pay more to keep coverage. One after another, major companies have pulled out of the state, many citing the cost of claims.

Aiming to store more water and protect the public, legislators are negotiating with the governor to restore $50 million to help repair 42 aging dams throughout the state.

The two-day CalMatters Ideas Festival wrapped on June 6 with more than a dozen events examining critical policy issues impacting the lives of millions of Californians.

These community projects can give renters and low-income homeowners a chance to go solar, but the PUC’s action is unlikely to give them the option.

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, flew more 6,000 miles to Rome this month to deliver a brief speech on climate change at a Vatican-sponsored conference.

It’s been almost a half-century since I first heard the term “peripheral canal” uttered by William Gianelli, who was then-Gov. Ronald Reagan’s top water official. The project, in one form or another, had already been kicking around for decades.

Santa Cruz County's first cleanup day held on May 11 had 431 volunteers from 30 organizations collecting 1,548 pounds of litter.

Repairs to roads damaged in recent storms, including the slow-moving slide on Mountain Charlie Road, depend on state and federal funding and could take years to complete.

A bill to rein in a proposed monthly fee on California electric bills would let California’s largest for-profit utility companies charge customers $24 per month — with fees as low as $6 for lower-income customers — as a kind of membership fee for the power grid.

The Downtown Streets Program is growing to 8 teams in the County with the start of a new 6 month pilot program in Boulder Creek on the Highway 9 commercial corridor.