Bruce H. Wolfe, for 15 years the Executive Officer of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, suffered a fatal heart attack on February 25 while out on a run at Hilton Head, South Carolina. Doing what he loved, one inevitably notes; but family, friends, and long-time colleagues in the water world would have preferred to have him around much longer. Wolfe was an aficionado of the sport of orienteering, a kind of racing with map and compass that requires both speed and accurate navigation. Maintaining precision under time pressure: that could be a pretty good metaphor also for the professional life of this gifted man. Raised in Piedmont, Wolfe attended Phillips Academy in Massachusetts, where he ran,...Read More
By Aleta George “In day-to-day life we look at the world in a three-dimensional view,” Liam O’Donoghue, host and producer of the award-winning podcast East Bay Yesterday, says, “but when you know history, you can look at it through four dimensions because you can see into the past using your imagination.” On a recent boat tour of the East Bay shoreline led by O’Donoghue, Captain Andy threaded his vessel Pacific Pearl through the Berkeley pier as if it were a time portal. “History makes me feel more emotionally connected to myself and where I live,” says Jozefina Logu, one of the women at the bow. At one point the tour stopped at the Brothers Islands to view the lighthouse-turned-bed-and-breakfast and...Read More
The timing was no accident; he’d delayed his departure from the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) to see the project through after helping to launch it ten years earlier. But even from the very beginning of his career, McEwan had been committed to doing all he could for declining species in and around the Delta. That “calling,” as he put it, began with 25 years at the California Department of Fish and Game (now Fish and Wildlife) supporting Pacific salmon and steelhead trout—including protecting valuable freshwater habitat upstream of the Delta and helping to get the coho salmon listed under the California Endangered Species Act. In 2007, McEwan jumped to DWR and was soon leading an effort to restore...Read More
“We’ve overtaxed the system,” he says. Baxter officially retired from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife last August, but still works two or three days a week as a “reemployed annuitant”—a big change from supervising a staff of 14 studying the threatened longfin smelt and other native fish. The reduced schedule gives him more time to fish, in California and on British Columbia’s Skeena River, and tend his orchids and carnivorous plants. Chicago-born Baxter grew up in Pacifica with San Pedro Creek in his back yard; watching fish from the creek bank sparked a lifelong interest that led him to a bachelor’s degree from Humboldt State University’s fisheries program and a master’s thesis on salmon spawning behavior. An early...Read More
The zone of interaction between the critters in the oozes and the water column above—where specks of sediment, nutrients, and fish food cycle through clam siphons into the Estuary—is the particular specialty of this US Geological Survey scientist. “I’m most proud of the research I’ve done establishing a solid connection between bivalve grazing and phytoplankton growth,” she says. When USGS first hired Thompson, who retired in October 2019, most women in the Menlo Park office were secretaries. She’s since trained dozens of female and minority scientists, and also received the Survey’s first ever diversity award. “I learned a lot from hiring a bunch of kids who weren’t like me,” says Thompson, who describes herself as “middleclass white bread.” As a...Read More
Following her February 2020 retirement from managing the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which she led for nearly a decade, Morkill is taking the helm at the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation, a nonprofit that stewards one of the largest freshwater wetlands complexes on the northern California coast. Morkill believes that San Francisco Bay provides unusual potential for restoring habitat for wildlife in a highly urban environment. “That’s what makes it so special,” she says, citing the Bay Area’s history of environmental activism, the broad coalition of groups that support wetland restoration for both its ecological and economic benefits, and a citizenry that recognizes the value of a healthy ecosystem and is willing to provide funding to achieve...Read More
Bob Fujimura spent his entire career with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. From 1987 until his retirement in late 2018, Fujimura served in a variety of roles at the department—but he is likely best known for heading up its long-term monitoring of native fishes in the Bay and Delta. Beginning in the mid-2000s, he oversaw annual smelt surveys with far-reaching implications for management and conservation, including the Spring Kodiak Trawl, which determines the relative abundance and distribution of spawning Delta smelt; the Smelt Larva Survey, which provides near real-time distribution data for longfin smelt larvae; and the 20mm Survey, which tracks post-larval juvenile Delta smelt throughout their historical spring range. “My goal was to provide good science throughout...Read More
Working with the 37 wastewater treatment plants that discharge into the Bay, as well as with the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, Williams helped establish a science-based regional permit for nutrients from the plants. The forward-thinking permit includes nature-based solutions like using wastewater to nurture horizontal levees or create wetlands, buffering the Bay shore from crashing waves as the sea rises. “We have a very enlightened Water Board,” Williams says, “because of that, instead of fighting, the wastewater community is interested in collaborating.” Giving water agencies options lets them choose solutions that work best for them, combining the greatest efficacy with the lowest cost and the fewest unintended consequences. “It’s important to make sure water regulations are...Read More
“People are coming to the table and realizing we need to be anticipating and forecasting how to adapt,” he says. Prior to joining the Science Program, Hoenicke served for nearly a decade as deputy and executive director of the San Francisco Estuary Institute, where he managed two Boards of Directors and reorganized the Institute’s program areas. “I felt challenged to do something different,” he says of the move, “since the Delta is much more controversial territory.” In Hoenicke’s eyes, the capstone to his career came in October 2018. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation increased its science allocation for California, and it and the Council were able to use pre-existing proposal submittal and evaluation infrastructure developed by the California Department of...Read More
By Audrey Mei Yi Brown Five people of color, four of whom who were women, took center stage in a full amphitheater for a 2019 State of the Estuary conference panel discussing how to achieve more equitable outcomes in both human and estuary health. Mishal Durrani, an undergraduate researcher at UC Berkeley, observed from the audience. “As a woman of color from an underrepresented community, it was powerful to see a panel with so many women of color represented.” As multi-racial as it was multidisciplinary, the diversity on the stage was striking. From community frontlines to the university to the EPA, each panelist brought expertise in equity work from a different field. Despite the diversity in their fields, it quickly...Read More
Green Matrix Erica Spotswood, an applied ecologist at the San Francisco Estuary Institute, has spent years studying biodiversity and its importance to ecosystems. “We have lost sight of something that is very simple but is not obvious to us now, which is that we need the same things biodiversity needs,” she said at the conference. She and other SFEI scientists are making the case for increasing biodiversity in cities, and have published a toolkit for how to do so in a recent publication, “Making Nature’s City.” At the same conference, C.N.E. Corbin, a Ph.D. candidate in environmental science at UC Berkeley, said that many cities were built to reflect the idea that cities and nature should not mix. “Historically and...Read More
By Joe Eaton Environmental issues were important to Michael Montgomery as a young man. Montgomery’s career path led to 33 years with the United States Environmental Protection Agency, where he gained a wealth of experience in navigating complex regulatory landscapes to protect water resources, and ultimately to the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, where he is now executive officer. “The Bay Area has a strong tradition of coming up with collaborative solutions,” he says. That’s how he intends to address the range of issues the Regional Board handles. As for the evolving roles of federal and state regulators, Montgomery sees a mixed picture. “There’s always going to be a relationship between the state and U.S. EPA,” he...Read More
This August the California Sun’s Jeff Schechtman interviewed ESTUARY magazine’s editor in chief Ariel Rubissow Okamoto, also a long-time Bay Area science writer, about her personal opinions on the resiliency of the largest estuary on the West Coast, the challenges facing the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta, and the potential impacts of climate change and sea level rise on the San Francisco Bay. Listen to the 20-minute podcast here. Mentions: Nutrients, Toxics, Giant Marsh, Adaptation Atlas, Resilience, Sea Level Rise impacts, BCDC Art, Oro Loma Horizontal Levee, UC Berkeley, Regional Planning, Franks Tract, Central Delta Corridor, North Delta Arc, State of the Estuary, climate-smart infrastructure and more. Links to Topics Referenced Climate Smart Infrastructure for California- Paying it Forward Report Adapting to...Read More
Edited by Cariad Hayes Thronson These magazine pages share the opinions of various new leaders in the Estuary management world about climate change. “The biggest challenge is that it is difficult for people, including decision-makers, to plan for uncertain, long-range challenges. We know that in order to make the greatest impact we need to start now,” says BCDC’s Dana Brechwald. Climate change is forcing some regulatory agencies, including the State Water Resources Control Board and BCDC, to fundamentally shift the way they approach their work. And research-focused groups, such as Point Blue and the Delta Stewardship Council’s Science Program, are finding that climate change is creating ever-more complex, multi-faceted questions that urgently need answers.Read More
By Michael Hunter Adamson Malea G., a fourth grader in Mr. Moore’s class at Bayview’s Malcolm X Academy Elementary School, shows me her Tower of Power. It’s a wooden, trapezoidal structure roughly two feet high and decorated with stickers naming personal qualities she’s proud of. I ask her which of these she might turn to when dealing with climate change. “Leadership,” Malea answers after a brief pause. “If there was a flood, someone would need to take charge.” Working in partnership with a program called Y-PLAN, Mr. Moore’s students built towers, made posters, and collaborated on an extensive diorama that offers a vision of a more resilient Bayview and Islais Creek for their families and community.Read More
There may not be a way to give everyone what they want from the Delta. But there are ways to restore ecosystems while preserving local communities. This is true even along State Route 160, which traverses the most populated and most intensively farmed part of the region. The highway follows the Sacramento River into the Delta, twisting and turning around leveed islands between Freeport and Rio Vista. This is the North Delta and it's a spectacular drive...Read More
“For so long in the water space you’ve had these false dichotomies where you are being told you have to choose one or the other,” says Esquivel, who Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Chair of the State Water Resources Control Board in February. “These narratives can fuel themselves, they take root in communities, but they don’t really do much to get to the heart of the policy question.” A native of the Coachella Valley, Esquivel served on the State Board for two years prior to his appointment. He cites literature as a particular passion, and had planned on a career in academia before a college internship in former Senator Barbara Boxer’s Washington, D.C. office turned into a full-time job. “What I...Read More
Fain, Planning Director for the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) since October, was part of a three-person office in the Waterfront and Open Space Division of New York’s Department of City Planning. “We were doing a small study on adaptation options,” she recalls. “In the middle of that, Sandy hit. Suddenly all eyes were on us.” Fain brings that background to a setting unlike New York in many ways. Instead of five boroughs, for example, she’s dealing with a multiplicity of counties, cities, and special districts. But the Bay Area presents new opportunities: “There’s more space for green infrastructure, wetlands, adaptive solutions at a large scale. New York is so constrained; it’s built out to the edge.” She’s involved...Read More
The Bay Area region is beleaguered by traffic, a crippling housing shortage, and growing inequality. MTC plays a role in all these areas. “We have a master coordinator role in being able to knit the region together through land use and transportation planning, and major dollar investments,” says McMillan of the MTC, which distributes billions of public transportation dollars collected annually by local, state and federal governments, although she notes that the agency doesn’t “have land use authority, or our own transit system—that is vested in the cities and counties, and separate transit agencies.” While land use and transportation are squarely within MTC’s purview, for others issues—housing affordability and growing economic inequities—MTC must partner with myriad other agencies across nine...Read More
While Tatayon, who was installed as Chair of the Delta Stewardship Council in January, sees good communication efforts on the part of council scientists and staff, not everyone on the receiving end gets their drift. “What I’m learning from some council members and others is that they don’t understand the connection between the science being done and the policies they want to make.” Tatayon assumes her new position after a career that includes stints at The Nature Conservancy, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Department of Water Resources. It was at DWR as a young staffer in the Department of Planning that Tatayon discovered her interest in environmental protection: “I was assigned to read impassioned letters about saving Mono...Read More
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.