When the Delta Stewardship Council amended its Delta Plan and established a goal of restoring 60,000 to 80,000 acres of wetland above a 2007 baseline by 2050, it raised some fundamental questions: How much of that goal has already been met, and where? A recent study, presented at the Delta Plan Interagency Implementation Committee Restoration Subcommittee’s first-ever Delta Restoration Forum in February, provides some answers.
The amendments to Chapter Four of the Delta Plan, which focuses on protecting, restoring, and enhancing the Delta ecosystem, synthesized 14 existing agency reports and other documents in establishing the 2050 targets, which are deemed necessary to achieve the larger goal of restoring a functioning ecosystem by the end of this century. However, “there wasn’t an up-to-date accounting of how much restoration had been completed,” says the Delta Stewardship Council’s Dylan Chapple, who presented the findings of the draft ecosystem restoration progress report at the forum. “Our work is the first time that those numbers are being compiled across different projects and programs and then using it to assess how far along we are towards those policy goals.”
This latest report defines “restoration” as projects that result in a net gain of habitat. “It has to have quantifiable acreage,” says Chapple. Invasive species control, preservation and conservation projects, and the like are not included.
According to the findings of Chapple’s team, tidal wetlands have seen by far the most restoration gains, with roughly 9,650 acres completed or in progress since 2007, and an additional 4,737 acres planned, out of a 32,500-acre target. Riparian and floodplain restoration has the furthest to go, with just 1,677 acres of the 16,300-acre target met, and an additional 856 acres planned.
“There will certainly be challenges with the achievement of these targets,” says Chapple, citing land-use conflicts as one of the reasons restoration in the Delta has been slower than in the lower Estuary. Elevation is another big issue, “especially with our tidal wetland restoration goals. There’s a finite amount of land that is at appropriate intertidal elevation to create tidal wetland habitat.”
Nevertheless, says Chapple, the pace of restoration in the Delta has accelerated in the last five years. “It’s a really exciting time to be working on restoration in the Delta, because a lot of large-scale projects that have in some cases been planned since the late ‘90s are finally reaching completion through the hard work of hundreds of people over the years who have given their blood, sweat, and tears to making these really challenging projects happen,” he says, pointing to Dutch Slough as an example. However, he also notes that climate change and sea-level rise mean there is no time to waste.
Another finding of the study points to potential challenges going forward. The largest single driver of restoration has been mitigation required by Biological Opinions for Delta smelt and salmon under the 2010 Fish Restoration Program Agreement between the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Department of Water Resources, which called for the restoration of 8,000 acres of intertidal and subtotal habitat. “This this has been effective in the near term, but looking ahead, it’s unclear what more mitigation will be required,” says Chapple.
Chapple believes that events such as the Delta Restoration Forum will be critical to achieving the Delta Plan’s targets. The forum brought together more than 100 scientists, planners, and stakeholders to discuss programs, projects, and funding opportunities. “I can’t overstate the importance of bringing people together for these complex projects because communication and coordination are so key, and there are so many great people that are really dedicated to this process.” Chapple says the Interagency Implementation Committee hopes to hold similar forums about twice a year. “A lot of what we see as the next steps from this review effort is just providing the space to strategize around the longer-term achievement of these goals.”
Cariad Hayes Thronson covers legal and political issues for Estuary News. She has served on the staffs of several national publications, including The American Lawyer. She is a long-time contributor to Estuary News, and some years ago served as its assistant editor. She lives in San Mateo with her husband and two children.
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Hothouse Earth
By Ariel Rubissow Okamoto
Photo by Megan Nguyen
Nothing could be stranger than sitting in the dark with thousands of suits and heels, watching a parade of promises to decarbonize from companies and countries large and small, reeling from the beauties of big screen rainforests and indigenous necklaces, and getting all choked up.
It was day two of the September 2018 Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco when I felt it.
At first I wondered if I was simply starstruck. Most of us labor away trying to fix one small corner of the planet or another without seeing the likes of Harrison Ford, Al Gore, Michael Bloomberg, Van Jones, Jerry Brown – or the ministers or mayors of dozens of cities and countries – in person, on stage and at times angry enough to spit. And between these luminaries a steady stream of CEOs, corporate sustainability officers, and pension fund managers promising percentages of renewables and profits in their portfolios dedicated to the climate cause by 2020-2050.
I tried to give every speaker my full attention: the young man of Vuntut Gwichin heritage from the edge of the Yukon’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge who pleaded with us not to enter his sacred lands with our drills and dependencies; all the women – swathed in bright patterns and head-scarfs – who kept punching their hearts. “My uncle in Uganda would take 129 years to emit the same amount of carbon as an American would in one year,” said Oxfam’s Winnie Byanyima.
“Our janitors are shutting off the lights you leave on,” said Aida Cardenas, speaking about the frontline workers she trains, mostly immigrants, who are excited to be part of climate change solutions in their new country.
The men on the stage, strutting about in feathers and pinstripes, spoke of hopes and dreams, money and power. “The notion that you can either do good or do well is a myth we have to collectively bust,” said New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy whose state is investing heavily in offshore wind farms.
“Climate change isn’t just about risks, it’s about opportunities,” said Blackrock sustainable investment manager Brian Deese.
But it wasn’t all these fine speeches that started the butterflies. Halfway through the second day of testimonials, it was a slight white-haired woman wrapped in an azure pashmina that pricked my tears. One minute she was on the silver screen with Alec Baldwin and the next she taking a seat on stage. She talked about trees. How trees can solve 30% of our carbon reduction problem. How we have to stop whacking them back in the Amazon and start planting them everywhere else. I couldn’t help thinking of Dr. Seuss and his truffala trees. Jane Goodall, over 80, is as fierce as my Lorax. Or my daughter’s Avatar.
Analyzing my take home feeling from the event I realized it wasn’t the usual fear – killer storms, tidal waves, no food for my kids to eat on a half-baked planet – nor a newfound sense of hope – I’ve always thought nature will get along just fine without us. What I felt was relief. People were actually doing something. Doing a lot. And there was so much more we could do.
As we all pumped fists in the dark, as the presentations went on and on and on because so many people and businesses and countries wanted to STEP UP, I realized how swayed I had let myself be by the doomsday news mill.
“We must be like the river, “ said a boy from Bangladesh named Risalat Khan, who had noticed our Sierra watersheds from the plane. “We must cut through the mountain of obstacles. Let’s be the river!”
Or as Harrison Ford less poetically put it: “Let’s turn off our phones and roll up our sleeves and kick this monster’s ass.”
4th California Climate Change Assessment Blues
by Isaac Pearlman
Since California’s last state-led climate change assessment in 2012, the Golden State has experienced a litany of natural disasters. This includes four years of severe drought from 2012 to 2016, an almost non-existent Sierra Nevada snowpack in 2014-2015 costing $2.1 billion in economic losses, widespread Bay Area flooding from winter 2017 storms, and extremely large and damaging wildfires culminating with this year’s Mendocino Complex fire achieving the dubious distinction of the largest in state history. California’s most recent climate assessment, released August 27th, predicts that for the state and the Bay Area, we can expect even more in the future.
The California state government first began assessing climate impacts formally in 2006, due to an executive order by Governor Schwarzenegger. California’s latest iteration and its fourth overall, includes a dizzying array of 44 technical reports; three topical studies on climate justice, tribal and indigenous communities, and the coast and ocean; as well as nine region-specific analyses.
The results are alarming for our state’s future: an estimated four to five feet of sea level rise and loss of one to two-thirds of Southern California beaches by 2100, a 50 percent increase in wildfires over 25,000 acres, stronger and longer heat waves, and infrastructure like airports, wastewater treatment plants, rail and roadways increasingly likely to suffer flooding.
For the first time, California’s latest assessment dives into climate consequences on a regional level. Academics representing nine California regions spearheaded research and summarized the best available science on the variable heat, rain, flooding and extreme event consequences for their areas. For example, the highest local rate of sea level rise in the state is at the rapidly subsiding Humboldt Bay. In San Diego county, the most biodiverse in all of California, preserving its many fragile and endangered species is an urgent priority. Francesca Hopkins from UC Riverside found that the highest rate of childhood asthma in the state isn’t an urban smog-filled city but in the Imperial Valley, where toxic dust from Salton Sea disaster chokes communities – and will only become worse as higher temperatures and less water due to climate change dry and brittle the area.
According to the Bay Area Regional Report, since 1950 the Bay Area has already increased in temperature by 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit and local sea level is eight inches higher than it was one hundred years ago. Future climate will render the Bay Area less suitable for our evergreen redwood and fir forests, and more favorable for tolerant chaparral shrub land. The region’s seven million people and $750 billion economy (almost one-third of California’s total) is predicted to be increasingly beset by more “boom and bust” irregular wet and very dry years, punctuated by increasingly intense and damaging storms.
Unsurprisingly, according to the report the Bay Area’s intensifying housing and equity problems have a multiplier affect with climate change. As Bay Area housing spreads further north, south, and inland the result is higher transportation and energy needs for those with the fewest resources available to afford them; and acute disparity in climate vulnerability across Bay Area communities and populations.
“All Californians will likely endure more illness and be at greater risk of early death because of climate change,” bluntly states the statewide summary brochure for California’s climate assessment. “[However] vulnerable populations that already experience the greatest adverse health impacts will be disproportionately affected.”
“We’re much better at being reactive to a disaster than planning ahead,” said UC Berkeley professor and contributing author David Ackerly at a California Adaptation Forum panel in Sacramento on August 27th. “And it is vulnerable communities that suffer from those disasters. How much human suffering has to happen before it triggers the next round of activity?”
The assessment’s data is publicly available online at “Cal-adapt,” where Californians can explore projected impacts for their neighborhoods, towns, and regions.
The results are alarming for our state’s future: an estimated four to five feet of sea level rise and loss of one to two-thirds of Southern California beaches by 2100, a 50 percent increase in wildfires over 25,000 acres, stronger and longer heat waves, and infrastructure like airports, wastewater treatment plants, rail and roadways increasingly likely to suffer flooding.