Download: Estuary News, October 2013 PDF
It wasn’t so long ago that the San Francisco Estuary Project was airing public service announcements that explained the nature of an estuary. The Project had its origins in the Clean Water Act, and its purview is one of the America’s 28 “estuaries of national significance.” In 1987, the Project began assembling a series of ground-breaking status and trends reports on key environmental and management issues troubling San Francisco Bay and the Delta – linking them into one estuary for the first time. Building on this foundation, it developed a grand vision for improving the health of this estuary: the Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP).
“The first time we took a serious look at the estuary in a comprehensive way was the CCMP. All successive efforts have built on that foundation,” says western water consultant Barry Nelson. Nelson was one of more than a hundred stakeholders from diverse interests, ranging from business and environmental groups to government agencies, invited to pull up a chair at the negotiating table. The resulting 300-page CCMP aimed to restore the ecological functions of an estuary that drains almost forty percent of the state, while at the same time sustaining its use by humans and wildlife.
Within the CCMP process, stakeholders winnowed their ideas down to 145 specific actions tackling pollution, dredging, land use, water use, wetlands, fish and wildlife issues, among others. “Before the CCMP, there was very little coordination among agencies working on water quality and those working on water quantity, for example. But that’s essential in a complex system,” says Nelson.
Fish biologist Bruce Herbold, formerly with the US EPA, agrees: “Taking the various pieces of the Estuary Project and making it into the CCMP was the start of the CALFED program, and CALFED was the start of everything else, of integrated management and science.”
“The CCMP provided a structure for allowing people to do what they care about—a kind of church of the estuary,” says Will Travis, former director of the San Francisco Bay Conserva- tion and Development Commission (BCDC).
This special issue of ESTUARY News magazine celebrates the CCMP’s 20th anniversary. Like the black skimmer (Rynchops niger) that frequents San Francisco Bay, it barely breaks the surface of the myriad activities that have either grown out of the CCMP, or contributed to its implementation. A mere 24 pages cannot do justice to twenty years of progress, whether it was planting root balls of eelgrass in the mudflats or warning the public about the dangers of eating too much Bay-caught white croaker. Even just the snapshot review done by the Partnership for this special issue suggests that almost 600 projects, undertaken by diverse partners, have implemented the CCMP in some way or another in the last 20 years.
Among the greatest achievements of the CCMP has been the trust its framers placed in a strong foundation of good science. From the plan’s very inception, they recognized that the CCMP needed an independent science entity, one that could rise above the fray of specific agency mandates and integrate the focus areas of the CCMP. “Some entity had to be established that could tell the truth about how effective CCMP implementation was at any given time,” says Rainer Hoenicke, former director of the resulting entity, the San Francisco Estuary Institute. “I really think we became an honest broker among parties with different interests to inform management decisions—a true bridge organization.” Today, the Institute is known for the relevance and credibility of its data, and the information it has provided to managers now goes far beyond its original scope – an across-the-board CCMP success story.
Perhaps the toughest job for CCMP partners over the past two decades has been continuing their collaborations. The new focus on landscape-scale restoration, which transcends many of the original CCMP program areas, requires building more bridges than ever across jurisdictions.
“In this region, we’ve recognized that working together cooperatively, we can actually get more done,” says BCDC Deputy Director Steve Goldbeck. “But there is a lot of cost with being collaborative. You can’t go to endless meetings with every stakeholder every time. We have to find ways that are expeditious but still collaborative.”
Many of the more obvious results of the CCMP over the last two decades are described in the pages that follow: cleaner water, nearly 50,000 acres of wetlands in some stage of restoration, thousands of volunteers involved in hands-on stewardship, whole rivers returned to their floodplains. Much of the progress comes thanks to the investment of taxpayers in state water bonds.
Save the Bay recently estimated it would cost $1.4 billion dollars to do all the habitat restoration and associated flood management now on the drawing boards. Yet doing this work will also save billions of dollars in the future. The upward creep of sea level, brought about by global warming, will alter the Estuary’s shorelines and riverbanks forever.
“The implications for Silicon Valley are profound,” says Barry Nelson. Projections suggest that storm surges, augmented by sea level rise, could soon flood dozens of corporate campuses in the South Bay, as well as Bay Area airports and freeways. Climate change also threatens California’s water supply and pushes the boundaries of wildlife habitats. “In this context, it is very difficult to separate environmental issues from business issues today,” says Nelson.
That is why many of the CCMP’s first framers are now searching for new funds to tackle these problems. One potential new funding source could be tax revenue specifically set aside for wetland restoration, flood protection, water quality improvements and public access. Indeed the fledgling, multi-agency San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority is championing a parcel tax measure in all nine Bay Area counties for the 2014 general election (not more than $10 per parcel).
The proceeds, $150 million over ten years, would help the region finish wetland restoration projects and protect the region from climate change impacts, among other things. “There are a lot of properties already in public ownership, ready to go,” says Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia, who serves on the Authority.
“We need a mix of federal, state and local dollars, and the restoration authority would be a fantastic way to apply local and regional funds to this mix,” says Amy Hutzel of the California State Coastal Conservancy.
Gioia says the proposed tax measure has polled well: “Bay Area residents realize an investment of that amount in the health of the Bay is worth it.”
What’s also been worth it has been the journey to where we are today. “The greatest strength of the San Francisco Estuary Partnership over the years has been the dedicated, long-term commit- ment of its partners in setting the goals of the CCMP and seeing them acted upon,” says director Judy Kelly. “Even though every action was not necessarily done under the banner of the CCMP, it’s the spirit of the CCMP that everyone has kept in mind. It’s one of the reasons we changed the word Project to Partner- ship in our name.”
By Ariel Rubissow Okamoto
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.”
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.