California Legislators Consider Cracking Down on How Utilities Spend Customers' Money
When Rivers Caught Fire: A Brief History of Earth Day
California Requires Solar Panels on New Homes. Should Wildfire Victims Get a Break?
Eucalyptus: How California's Most Hated Tree Took Root
Major Richmond Refinery Accidents Settled as Part of Chevron Deal
California's Beloved Abalone Sea Snails Are Struggling. Here's Why
Chevron Agrees to Pay More Than $13 Million in Fines for California Oil Spills
California Fails to Meet Climate Change Mandates and Greenhouse Emission Goals, Study Finds
California Weakens Plan for Mandatory Cutbacks in Urban Water Use
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Instead, utilities must pay for those activities with money from private investors who have bought stock shares.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Consumer groups say utilities are finding ways around those rules. They accuse them of using money from customers to fund trade groups that lobby legislators and for TV ads disguised as public service announcements, including some recent ads by PG&E.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A legislative bill, SB 938, would expand the definitions of prohibited advertising and political influence to include things like regulators’ decisions on rate-setting and franchises for electrical and gas corporations. It would also allow regulators to fine utilities that break the rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s always fun to be able to give away other people’s money and use other people’s money to try to advance their own interests,” said state Sen. Dave Min, a Democrat who authored the bill. “But for a regulated industry like (investor-owned utilities), I would submit that that’s not good policy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB938\">The bill\u003c/a> faces fierce opposition from utilities and some labor unions that fear it would prohibit union members who work for utilities from lobbying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"related coverage\" tag=\"utilities\"]The bill had a public hearing last week in a committee, but it failed to pass after multiple Democrats, who hold large majorities in both legislative chambers, did not vote. The committee is scheduled to hear the bill again Monday. If it fails a second time, it likely won’t pass this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Min said he has accepted amendments to address lawmakers’ concerns, including allowing a grace period for utilities to correct errors and requiring that any money collected from fines be put into the state’s general fund. Still, he said it was “50-50” whether the bill would survive Monday’s vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E opposes the bill because it said it would take away the power of state regulators to examine utility companies’ costs and decide whether it is “just or reasonable” for customers to pay for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plus, PG&E lobbyist Brandon Ebeck said it’s appropriate for customers to pay for the company’s membership fees that go to various industry associations because they benefit customers. He noted that those groups coordinate emergency response and wildfire training. When the war in Ukraine started, the Edison Electric Institute — a national association representing investor-owned utilities — sought to find surplus equipment to be sent to Ukraine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of benefits to customers,” Ebeck said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Consumer groups argue that the current rules for utilities “incentivizes them to see what they can get away with,” said Matt Vespa, an attorney with the advocacy group Earthjustice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those groups and Min point to as much as $6 million in TV ads PG&E paid to tout its plan to bury power lines to reduce wildfire risk, which some consumer groups opposed because it \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/pge-rates-california-wildfires-99be6963a57b1f4812a056be93cec50f\">increased customers’ bills\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ads first aired in 2022 and feature CEO Patti Poppe in a company-branded hard hat who said the company is “transforming your hometown utility from the ground up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The utility recorded the expenses for those ads as coming from a customer-funded account dedicated to reducing wildfire risk, as first reported by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article287598875.html\">\u003cem>Sacramento Bee\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. PG&E spokesperson Lynsey Paulo said the company has not yet asked regulators to review that expense. The California Public Utilities Commission will decide whether customer funds can pay for the ads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paulo noted state regulators allow utilities to use money from customers to pay for safety communications on television.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our customers have told us they want to know how we are investing to improve safety and reliability,” Paulo said. “We also use digital and email communications, but some customers do not have internet or email access, so we use methods including television spots to communicate with all of our customers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some consumer groups said the ads have crossed the line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Only at PG&E would [Poppe’s] attempts at brand rehabilitation be considered a ‘safety message,’” said Mark Toney, executive director of the Utility Reform Network. “This blatant misuse of ratepayer funds is exactly why we need SB 938 and its clear rules and required disclosures for advertising costs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"A new state bill aims to step up enforcement of rules that prohibit investor-owned utilities from using customer money to pay for things like advertising and lobbying.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1713818626,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":23,"wordCount":862},"headData":{"title":"California Legislators Consider Cracking Down on How Utilities Spend Customers' Money | KQED","description":"A new state bill aims to step up enforcement of rules that prohibit investor-owned utilities from using customer money to pay for things like advertising and lobbying.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"California Legislators Consider Cracking Down on How Utilities Spend Customers' Money","datePublished":"2024-04-22T21:00:16.000Z","dateModified":"2024-04-22T20:43:46.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"sticky":false,"nprByline":"Adam Beam\u003cbr>Associated Press","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11983675/california-legislators-consider-cracking-down-on-how-utilities-spend-customers-money","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A crackdown on how some of the nation’s largest utilities spend customers’ money faces a do-or-die vote Monday in the California Legislature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians already pay some of the \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/pge-rates-california-wildfires-99be6963a57b1f4812a056be93cec50f\">highest electricity rates\u003c/a> in the country, in part because of the expensive work required to maintain and upgrade electrical equipment to reduce the risk of wildfires in a state with long, dry summers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As rates continue to climb, utilities like Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric have faced increasing scrutiny from consumer groups over how they spend the money they collect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Utilities aren’t allowed to use money from customers to pay for things like advertising or lobbying. Instead, utilities must pay for those activities with money from private investors who have bought stock shares.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Consumer groups say utilities are finding ways around those rules. They accuse them of using money from customers to fund trade groups that lobby legislators and for TV ads disguised as public service announcements, including some recent ads by PG&E.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A legislative bill, SB 938, would expand the definitions of prohibited advertising and political influence to include things like regulators’ decisions on rate-setting and franchises for electrical and gas corporations. It would also allow regulators to fine utilities that break the rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s always fun to be able to give away other people’s money and use other people’s money to try to advance their own interests,” said state Sen. Dave Min, a Democrat who authored the bill. “But for a regulated industry like (investor-owned utilities), I would submit that that’s not good policy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB938\">The bill\u003c/a> faces fierce opposition from utilities and some labor unions that fear it would prohibit union members who work for utilities from lobbying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"label":"related coverage ","tag":"utilities"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The bill had a public hearing last week in a committee, but it failed to pass after multiple Democrats, who hold large majorities in both legislative chambers, did not vote. The committee is scheduled to hear the bill again Monday. If it fails a second time, it likely won’t pass this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Min said he has accepted amendments to address lawmakers’ concerns, including allowing a grace period for utilities to correct errors and requiring that any money collected from fines be put into the state’s general fund. Still, he said it was “50-50” whether the bill would survive Monday’s vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E opposes the bill because it said it would take away the power of state regulators to examine utility companies’ costs and decide whether it is “just or reasonable” for customers to pay for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plus, PG&E lobbyist Brandon Ebeck said it’s appropriate for customers to pay for the company’s membership fees that go to various industry associations because they benefit customers. He noted that those groups coordinate emergency response and wildfire training. When the war in Ukraine started, the Edison Electric Institute — a national association representing investor-owned utilities — sought to find surplus equipment to be sent to Ukraine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of benefits to customers,” Ebeck said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Consumer groups argue that the current rules for utilities “incentivizes them to see what they can get away with,” said Matt Vespa, an attorney with the advocacy group Earthjustice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those groups and Min point to as much as $6 million in TV ads PG&E paid to tout its plan to bury power lines to reduce wildfire risk, which some consumer groups opposed because it \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/pge-rates-california-wildfires-99be6963a57b1f4812a056be93cec50f\">increased customers’ bills\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ads first aired in 2022 and feature CEO Patti Poppe in a company-branded hard hat who said the company is “transforming your hometown utility from the ground up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The utility recorded the expenses for those ads as coming from a customer-funded account dedicated to reducing wildfire risk, as first reported by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article287598875.html\">\u003cem>Sacramento Bee\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. PG&E spokesperson Lynsey Paulo said the company has not yet asked regulators to review that expense. The California Public Utilities Commission will decide whether customer funds can pay for the ads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paulo noted state regulators allow utilities to use money from customers to pay for safety communications on television.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our customers have told us they want to know how we are investing to improve safety and reliability,” Paulo said. “We also use digital and email communications, but some customers do not have internet or email access, so we use methods including television spots to communicate with all of our customers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some consumer groups said the ads have crossed the line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Only at PG&E would [Poppe’s] attempts at brand rehabilitation be considered a ‘safety message,’” said Mark Toney, executive director of the Utility Reform Network. “This blatant misuse of ratepayer funds is exactly why we need SB 938 and its clear rules and required disclosures for advertising costs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11983675/california-legislators-consider-cracking-down-on-how-utilities-spend-customers-money","authors":["byline_news_11983675"],"categories":["news_19906","news_8","news_356"],"tags":["news_1066","news_1092","news_140","news_23900"],"featImg":"news_11983694","label":"news"},"news_11813529":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11813529","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11813529","score":null,"sort":[1713803437000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"when-rivers-caught-fire-a-brief-history-of-earth-day","title":"When Rivers Caught Fire: A Brief History of Earth Day","publishDate":1713803437,"format":"standard","headTitle":"When Rivers Caught Fire: A Brief History of Earth Day | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>To start, a quick quiz:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1. Which labor group helped fund and organize the first Earth Day celebration?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>2. Which president made the following statement?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“Restoring nature to its natural state is a cause beyond party and beyond factions … It is a cause of particular concern to young Americans, because they, more than we, will wreak the grim consequences of our failure to act on programs which are needed now if we are to prevent disaster later.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keep reading for the answers!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, on the 54nd anniversary of Earth Day, our planet needs all the love it can get. From the increasingly severe impacts of climate change to rapid deforestation and species extinction, there is broad scientific consensus that we’re up against a mounting number of potentially catastrophic challenges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Former Sen. Gaylord Nelson, D-Wisconsin\"]‘If the people really understood that in the lifetime of their children, they’re going to have destroyed the quality of the air and the water all over the world and perhaps made the globe unlivable in a half century, they’d do something about it. But this is not well understood.’[/pullquote]The evidence notwithstanding, many of America’s strongest environmental protections have long been under attack, and took a particularly harsh beating over the past four years of the Trump administration, when efforts to dismantle regulations went into extreme overdrive — much of which President Biden is now trying to undo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For what it’s worth, though, the environmental outlook in the late 1960s wasn’t too rosy either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After decades of largely unregulated industrial and economic growth in the wake of World War II, the U.S. had managed to majorly muck up its air and water resources. Toxic effluent from factories frequently spilled into streams and rivers. Open spaces were used as dumping grounds. DDT and other synthetic chemicals contaminated natural habitats and water supplies. And air pollution from factories and belching cars left many industrial areas shrouded in thick blankets of smog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a handful of the environmental catastrophes that happened within less than three years:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>November 1966\u003c/strong>: In New York City, 168 people die of respiratory-related illnesses over a three-day period due primarily to horrendously poor air quality.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>March 1967\u003c/strong>: Interior Department Secretary Stewart L. Udall announces the first official list of endangered wildlife species. Among the 78 species is the bald eagle, America’s national bird.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>January 1969\u003c/strong>: A blowout at an offshore oil rig near Santa Barbara caused as much as \u003ca href=\"http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/about/media/45-years-after-santa-barbara-oil-spill-looking-historic-disaster-through-technology.html\">4.2 million gallons of crude oil to spill\u003c/a> into the Santa Barbara Channel and onto nearby beaches. It lasts for 10 straight days, becoming (at that point) the largest oil spill in American history. Today, it ranks only third, overtaken by the 1989 Exxon Valdez and 2010 Deepwater Horizon spills).\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>June 1969\u003c/strong>: A particularly fetid industrial stretch of the Cuyahoga River running through Cleveland bursts into flames (seriously) when oil-soaked debris in the water is ignited by sparks from a passing train.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/nlHiaZFvcXA\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A movement begins\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>As urban unrest and the anti-war movement ignited across the nation, environmental activism had yet to gain a strong foothold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If the people really understood that in the lifetime of their children, they’re going to have destroyed the quality of the air and the water all over the world and perhaps made the globe unlivable in a half century, they’d do something about it. But this is not well understood.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a quote from Sen. Gaylord Nelson, a Democrat from Wisconsin, who spearheaded a national day of awareness in the aftermath of these environmental disasters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force the issue onto the national political agenda.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In late 1969, Nelson formed a bipartisan congressional steering committee and enlisted Denis Hayes, a 25-year-old Harvard Law School dropout, to coordinate the initiative. Influenced by anti-war campus activism, Hayes sought to organize environmental teach-ins throughout the country to occur simultaneously on April 22, 1970.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With a limited budget and no email or internet access, Hayes and a small group of organizers mailed out thousands of appeals, recruiting an army of young volunteers to organize local events in communities and campuses across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Nov. 30, 1969, the New York Times reported:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rising concern about the ‘environmental crisis’ is sweeping the nation’s campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The big launch\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Interviewed in the recent PBS documentary “\u003ca href=\"http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/earthdays/player/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Earth Days\u003c/a>,” Hayes recalled the sentiment:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Lord knows what we thought we were doing. It was wild and exciting and out of control and the sort of thing that lets you know you’ve really got something big happening … What we were trying to do was create a brand-new public consciousness that would cause the rules of the game to change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the end, an estimated 20 million people participated in that first Earth Day, a name coined by advertising guru \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2015/04/22/401540530/julian-koenig-well-known-adman-named-earth-day\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Julian Koenig\u003c/a> (father of Sarah Koenig of “Serial” podcast fame).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/topics/earthday.pdf\">Read the New York Times article from April 22, 1970.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/WbwC281uzUs?list=PL3480E41AA956A42B\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a huge high adrenaline effort that in the end genuinely changed things,” Hayes said. “Before [that], there were people that opposed freeways, people that opposed clear-cutting, or people worried about pesticides, [but] they didn’t think of themselves as having anything in common. After Earth Day they were all part of an environmental movement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hayes’ assertions were affirmed by several national polls showing a rapid rise in the public’s concern about air and water resources. In the \u003ca href=\"https://books.google.com/books?id=Xaw_LEGXnLgC&pg=PA152&lpg=PA152&dq=gallup+poll+1970+air+and+water&source=bl&ots=2VWCAqHwG0&sig=cHedWfHfSGwQged_dPXyHtrbjSg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GEs1VfCRCJe3ogS7yoHIAQ&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=gallup%20poll%201970%20air%20and%20water&f=false\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gallup Opinion Index\u003c/a>, the percentage of respondents who considered air and water pollution a top national problem rose from 17% in 1969 to 53% by 1970.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Earth Day the following year, an independent group launched an anti-litter public service announcement, known as the “Crying Indian,” which featured a white actor in a headdress, rowing a birch bark canoe and shedding a tear when he sees garbage strewn everywhere. Despite the ad’s culturally questionable premise, it proved enormously popular and is still considered one of the most successful public service announcements in history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/9Dmtkxm9yQY\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Unexpected alliances\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>That brings us back to the first question of the quiz. The group most supportive of the first Earth Day organizing effort — financially and otherwise — was none other than the United Auto Workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/wp-content/uploads/sites/26/2012/05/UAW.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1888 alignright\" style=\"border: 0px none;\" title=\"UAW\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/wp-content/uploads/sites/26/2012/05/UAW-300x387.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"232\" height=\"300\">\u003c/a>A labor union not generally thought of for championing environmental causes, the UAW donated funds for the event and turned out volunteers across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UAW President Walter Reuther pledged his union’s full support for Earth Day and for subsequent air quality legislation that the auto industry staunchly opposed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What good is a dollar an hour more in wages if your neighborhood is burning down?” he said. “What good is another week’s vacation if the lake you used to go to is polluted and you can’t swim in it and the kids can’t play in it?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sensing a political shift, General Motors president Edward Cole soon thereafter promised “pollution-free” cars by 1980. (That didn’t pan out so well.)\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Golden era of environmental regulation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Remember the mystery quote?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was said by President Richard Nixon during his 1970 State of the Union address.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes, that Nixon, the conservative Republican most commonly remembered for prolonging America’s involvement in Vietnam and resigning in disgrace over the Watergate scandal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Nixon also oversaw the most sweeping environmental regulations in the nation’s history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even before the first Earth Day, Congress passed the \u003ca href=\"http://ceq.hss.doe.gov/\">National Environmental Policy Act\u003c/a>, which among other things, required environmental impact statements for major new building projects and developments. Nixon signed it into law on Jan. 1, 1970.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmentalism had never been one of Nixon’s major political priorities, but his administration — like the UAW — recognized the shifting political tide, as public outcry and media attention to environmental issues increased. It also didn’t hurt that at the time both the House and Senate were controlled by Democrats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"related coverage\" tag=\"earth-day\"]Within months, Nixon approved the creation of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.epa.gov/\">Environmental Protection Agency \u003c/a>(EPA) and the \u003ca href=\"http://www.noaa.gov/\">National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration \u003c/a>(NOAA). Later that year, he signed an extension of the Clean Air Act, requiring the newly formed EPA to create and enforce air regulations, which among other things led to the installation of catalytic converters on all cars sold in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the end of 1972, Nixon signed the Clean Water Act, Pesticide Control Act (which banned DDT) and Marine Mammal Protection Act. A year later, he also signed the Endangered Species Act and the Safe Water Drinking Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of these bills were approved with bipartisan support in Congress, in some instances nearly unanimously.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a televised speech in 1972, Nixon said:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are taking these actions not in some distant future, but now, because we know that it is now or never.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental conditions in the United States began to slowly improve. Which is not to say there wasn’t strong political opposition and major lingering problems, But for a time — stretching through the Ford and Carter administrations — the pursuit of environmentalism maintained a strong bipartisan support. In the last year of his presidency, Carter even installed solar panels on the roof of the White House to promote renewable energy initiatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>End of the green honeymoon\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The economic slowdown in the late 1970s swept in a tide of political change. In 1981, a year into his first term as president, Ronald Reagan appointed two aggressive defenders of industry to head the EPA and the Department of the Interior. As part of the “Reagan Revolution,” the administration moved rapidly to slash federal budgets, cutting the EPA’s funding by nearly half. Environmental enforcement was weakened considerably, as large swaths of public land were opened up for mining, drilling, grazing and other private uses. In a famous symbolic act, the solar panels on the White House roof were dismantled during his second term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To be fair, a number of significant environmental policies were advanced during Reagan’s administration, including the Superfund program to clean up hazardous waste sites, creation of wilderness areas and the \u003ca href=\"http://www.epa.gov/ozone/intpol/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Montreal Protocol\u003c/a>, an international agreement to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of substances responsible for its depletion, an effort that has been largely successful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the anti-regulatory sentiment established during Reagan’s presidency took root. Efforts to strengthen the nation’s environmental protection laws grew increasingly partisan, a trend that continues today. The stream of regulatory measures approved by Nixon four decades ago would have scant chance of passing today’s Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Throughout his populist presidential campaign, President Trump repeatedly took aim at environmental regulations, promising to roll them back and attacking them as elitist, job-killing measures that showed just how out of touch politicians were with the true concerns of ordinary Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Benefit of tangible problems\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Organizers of the first Earth Day had a key advantage: They were tackling visible, tangible problems impacting people’s daily lives. Rivers and lakes were too polluted for kids to swim in; parks were strewn with trash; people were getting sick from foul air. The evidence was indisputable, and it made it a whole lot easier to draw clear connections between quality of life and the urgent need for strong environmental protections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In contrast, many of today’s major environmental dangers, like climate change, which threaten to be even more catastrophic, remain pretty abstract to many Americans. Unless you’ve been a victim of some disaster directly related to climate change — say, your house has been destroyed because of wildfires or sea-level rise — it’s harder to connect the dots. And that makes it far more challenging to convey the sense of urgency necessary to mobilize the masses and pressure lawmakers to act. The abundance of scientific evidence showing that burning fossil fuels is the key driver of climate change, and the persistent warnings by scientists and activists of impending disaster if we continue along this course, have clearly not proven effective enough to push the kind of sweeping environmental policies enacted in the 1970s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The United States, one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters, refused to join the Kyoto Protocol, a 2005 international treaty approved by 180 nations requiring rapid cuts in emissions, and in 2010, Congress failed to pass comprehensive national climate change legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. did, however, under the Obama administration, sign on to a \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/world/europe/climate-change-accord-paris.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">landmark international climate accord in Paris in 2015\u003c/a>, in which it committed to dramatically reducing its carbon emissions over the next decade. And although President Trump succeeded in briefly \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/11/04/trump-makes-it-official-us-will-withdraw-paris-climate-accord/\">withdrawing\u003c/a> from the agreement, the U.S. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/02/19/969387323/u-s-officially-rejoins-paris-agreement-on-climate-change\">officially rejoined it\u003c/a> in February under the Biden administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new administration \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/02/02/963014373/how-fast-will-biden-need-to-move-on-climate-really-really-fast\">has consistently pledged\u003c/a> to make climate change one of its top priorities. And on this Earth Day, Biden \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/04/22/988051091/biden-makes-new-pledge-for-u-s-greenhouse-gas-emissions-a-50-cut\">opened a global summit\u003c/a> on climate change by announcing that the U.S. would aim to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half — from 2005 levels — by the end of the decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that portends fierce political battles ahead, and it’s very much unclear if the will exists among federal and state lawmakers to take meaningful action to meet that goal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of which begs the ominous question: What degree of disaster is necessary to spur a new era of sweeping environmental change in America?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"How the first Earth Day, in 1970, led to some of America's most sweeping environmental reforms. ","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1713811275,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":55,"wordCount":2384},"headData":{"title":"When Rivers Caught Fire: A Brief History of Earth Day | KQED","description":"How the first Earth Day, in 1970, led to some of America's most sweeping environmental reforms. ","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"When Rivers Caught Fire: A Brief History of Earth Day","datePublished":"2024-04-22T16:30:37.000Z","dateModified":"2024-04-22T18:41:15.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"sticky":false,"excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11813529/when-rivers-caught-fire-a-brief-history-of-earth-day","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>To start, a quick quiz:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1. Which labor group helped fund and organize the first Earth Day celebration?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>2. Which president made the following statement?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“Restoring nature to its natural state is a cause beyond party and beyond factions … It is a cause of particular concern to young Americans, because they, more than we, will wreak the grim consequences of our failure to act on programs which are needed now if we are to prevent disaster later.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keep reading for the answers!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, on the 54nd anniversary of Earth Day, our planet needs all the love it can get. From the increasingly severe impacts of climate change to rapid deforestation and species extinction, there is broad scientific consensus that we’re up against a mounting number of potentially catastrophic challenges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘If the people really understood that in the lifetime of their children, they’re going to have destroyed the quality of the air and the water all over the world and perhaps made the globe unlivable in a half century, they’d do something about it. But this is not well understood.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"align":"right","size":"medium","citation":"Former Sen. Gaylord Nelson, D-Wisconsin","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The evidence notwithstanding, many of America’s strongest environmental protections have long been under attack, and took a particularly harsh beating over the past four years of the Trump administration, when efforts to dismantle regulations went into extreme overdrive — much of which President Biden is now trying to undo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For what it’s worth, though, the environmental outlook in the late 1960s wasn’t too rosy either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After decades of largely unregulated industrial and economic growth in the wake of World War II, the U.S. had managed to majorly muck up its air and water resources. Toxic effluent from factories frequently spilled into streams and rivers. Open spaces were used as dumping grounds. DDT and other synthetic chemicals contaminated natural habitats and water supplies. And air pollution from factories and belching cars left many industrial areas shrouded in thick blankets of smog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a handful of the environmental catastrophes that happened within less than three years:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>November 1966\u003c/strong>: In New York City, 168 people die of respiratory-related illnesses over a three-day period due primarily to horrendously poor air quality.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>March 1967\u003c/strong>: Interior Department Secretary Stewart L. Udall announces the first official list of endangered wildlife species. Among the 78 species is the bald eagle, America’s national bird.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>January 1969\u003c/strong>: A blowout at an offshore oil rig near Santa Barbara caused as much as \u003ca href=\"http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/about/media/45-years-after-santa-barbara-oil-spill-looking-historic-disaster-through-technology.html\">4.2 million gallons of crude oil to spill\u003c/a> into the Santa Barbara Channel and onto nearby beaches. It lasts for 10 straight days, becoming (at that point) the largest oil spill in American history. Today, it ranks only third, overtaken by the 1989 Exxon Valdez and 2010 Deepwater Horizon spills).\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>June 1969\u003c/strong>: A particularly fetid industrial stretch of the Cuyahoga River running through Cleveland bursts into flames (seriously) when oil-soaked debris in the water is ignited by sparks from a passing train.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/nlHiaZFvcXA'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/nlHiaZFvcXA'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003ch2>A movement begins\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>As urban unrest and the anti-war movement ignited across the nation, environmental activism had yet to gain a strong foothold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If the people really understood that in the lifetime of their children, they’re going to have destroyed the quality of the air and the water all over the world and perhaps made the globe unlivable in a half century, they’d do something about it. But this is not well understood.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a quote from Sen. Gaylord Nelson, a Democrat from Wisconsin, who spearheaded a national day of awareness in the aftermath of these environmental disasters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force the issue onto the national political agenda.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In late 1969, Nelson formed a bipartisan congressional steering committee and enlisted Denis Hayes, a 25-year-old Harvard Law School dropout, to coordinate the initiative. Influenced by anti-war campus activism, Hayes sought to organize environmental teach-ins throughout the country to occur simultaneously on April 22, 1970.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With a limited budget and no email or internet access, Hayes and a small group of organizers mailed out thousands of appeals, recruiting an army of young volunteers to organize local events in communities and campuses across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Nov. 30, 1969, the New York Times reported:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rising concern about the ‘environmental crisis’ is sweeping the nation’s campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The big launch\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Interviewed in the recent PBS documentary “\u003ca href=\"http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/earthdays/player/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Earth Days\u003c/a>,” Hayes recalled the sentiment:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Lord knows what we thought we were doing. It was wild and exciting and out of control and the sort of thing that lets you know you’ve really got something big happening … What we were trying to do was create a brand-new public consciousness that would cause the rules of the game to change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the end, an estimated 20 million people participated in that first Earth Day, a name coined by advertising guru \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2015/04/22/401540530/julian-koenig-well-known-adman-named-earth-day\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Julian Koenig\u003c/a> (father of Sarah Koenig of “Serial” podcast fame).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/topics/earthday.pdf\">Read the New York Times article from April 22, 1970.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/WbwC281uzUs'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/WbwC281uzUs'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>“It was a huge high adrenaline effort that in the end genuinely changed things,” Hayes said. “Before [that], there were people that opposed freeways, people that opposed clear-cutting, or people worried about pesticides, [but] they didn’t think of themselves as having anything in common. After Earth Day they were all part of an environmental movement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hayes’ assertions were affirmed by several national polls showing a rapid rise in the public’s concern about air and water resources. In the \u003ca href=\"https://books.google.com/books?id=Xaw_LEGXnLgC&pg=PA152&lpg=PA152&dq=gallup+poll+1970+air+and+water&source=bl&ots=2VWCAqHwG0&sig=cHedWfHfSGwQged_dPXyHtrbjSg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GEs1VfCRCJe3ogS7yoHIAQ&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=gallup%20poll%201970%20air%20and%20water&f=false\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gallup Opinion Index\u003c/a>, the percentage of respondents who considered air and water pollution a top national problem rose from 17% in 1969 to 53% by 1970.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Earth Day the following year, an independent group launched an anti-litter public service announcement, known as the “Crying Indian,” which featured a white actor in a headdress, rowing a birch bark canoe and shedding a tear when he sees garbage strewn everywhere. Despite the ad’s culturally questionable premise, it proved enormously popular and is still considered one of the most successful public service announcements in history.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/9Dmtkxm9yQY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/9Dmtkxm9yQY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003ch2>Unexpected alliances\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>That brings us back to the first question of the quiz. The group most supportive of the first Earth Day organizing effort — financially and otherwise — was none other than the United Auto Workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/wp-content/uploads/sites/26/2012/05/UAW.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1888 alignright\" style=\"border: 0px none;\" title=\"UAW\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/wp-content/uploads/sites/26/2012/05/UAW-300x387.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"232\" height=\"300\">\u003c/a>A labor union not generally thought of for championing environmental causes, the UAW donated funds for the event and turned out volunteers across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UAW President Walter Reuther pledged his union’s full support for Earth Day and for subsequent air quality legislation that the auto industry staunchly opposed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What good is a dollar an hour more in wages if your neighborhood is burning down?” he said. “What good is another week’s vacation if the lake you used to go to is polluted and you can’t swim in it and the kids can’t play in it?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sensing a political shift, General Motors president Edward Cole soon thereafter promised “pollution-free” cars by 1980. (That didn’t pan out so well.)\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Golden era of environmental regulation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Remember the mystery quote?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was said by President Richard Nixon during his 1970 State of the Union address.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes, that Nixon, the conservative Republican most commonly remembered for prolonging America’s involvement in Vietnam and resigning in disgrace over the Watergate scandal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Nixon also oversaw the most sweeping environmental regulations in the nation’s history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even before the first Earth Day, Congress passed the \u003ca href=\"http://ceq.hss.doe.gov/\">National Environmental Policy Act\u003c/a>, which among other things, required environmental impact statements for major new building projects and developments. Nixon signed it into law on Jan. 1, 1970.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmentalism had never been one of Nixon’s major political priorities, but his administration — like the UAW — recognized the shifting political tide, as public outcry and media attention to environmental issues increased. It also didn’t hurt that at the time both the House and Senate were controlled by Democrats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"label":"related coverage ","tag":"earth-day"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Within months, Nixon approved the creation of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.epa.gov/\">Environmental Protection Agency \u003c/a>(EPA) and the \u003ca href=\"http://www.noaa.gov/\">National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration \u003c/a>(NOAA). Later that year, he signed an extension of the Clean Air Act, requiring the newly formed EPA to create and enforce air regulations, which among other things led to the installation of catalytic converters on all cars sold in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the end of 1972, Nixon signed the Clean Water Act, Pesticide Control Act (which banned DDT) and Marine Mammal Protection Act. A year later, he also signed the Endangered Species Act and the Safe Water Drinking Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of these bills were approved with bipartisan support in Congress, in some instances nearly unanimously.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a televised speech in 1972, Nixon said:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are taking these actions not in some distant future, but now, because we know that it is now or never.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental conditions in the United States began to slowly improve. Which is not to say there wasn’t strong political opposition and major lingering problems, But for a time — stretching through the Ford and Carter administrations — the pursuit of environmentalism maintained a strong bipartisan support. In the last year of his presidency, Carter even installed solar panels on the roof of the White House to promote renewable energy initiatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>End of the green honeymoon\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The economic slowdown in the late 1970s swept in a tide of political change. In 1981, a year into his first term as president, Ronald Reagan appointed two aggressive defenders of industry to head the EPA and the Department of the Interior. As part of the “Reagan Revolution,” the administration moved rapidly to slash federal budgets, cutting the EPA’s funding by nearly half. Environmental enforcement was weakened considerably, as large swaths of public land were opened up for mining, drilling, grazing and other private uses. In a famous symbolic act, the solar panels on the White House roof were dismantled during his second term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To be fair, a number of significant environmental policies were advanced during Reagan’s administration, including the Superfund program to clean up hazardous waste sites, creation of wilderness areas and the \u003ca href=\"http://www.epa.gov/ozone/intpol/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Montreal Protocol\u003c/a>, an international agreement to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of substances responsible for its depletion, an effort that has been largely successful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the anti-regulatory sentiment established during Reagan’s presidency took root. Efforts to strengthen the nation’s environmental protection laws grew increasingly partisan, a trend that continues today. The stream of regulatory measures approved by Nixon four decades ago would have scant chance of passing today’s Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Throughout his populist presidential campaign, President Trump repeatedly took aim at environmental regulations, promising to roll them back and attacking them as elitist, job-killing measures that showed just how out of touch politicians were with the true concerns of ordinary Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Benefit of tangible problems\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Organizers of the first Earth Day had a key advantage: They were tackling visible, tangible problems impacting people’s daily lives. Rivers and lakes were too polluted for kids to swim in; parks were strewn with trash; people were getting sick from foul air. The evidence was indisputable, and it made it a whole lot easier to draw clear connections between quality of life and the urgent need for strong environmental protections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In contrast, many of today’s major environmental dangers, like climate change, which threaten to be even more catastrophic, remain pretty abstract to many Americans. Unless you’ve been a victim of some disaster directly related to climate change — say, your house has been destroyed because of wildfires or sea-level rise — it’s harder to connect the dots. And that makes it far more challenging to convey the sense of urgency necessary to mobilize the masses and pressure lawmakers to act. The abundance of scientific evidence showing that burning fossil fuels is the key driver of climate change, and the persistent warnings by scientists and activists of impending disaster if we continue along this course, have clearly not proven effective enough to push the kind of sweeping environmental policies enacted in the 1970s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The United States, one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters, refused to join the Kyoto Protocol, a 2005 international treaty approved by 180 nations requiring rapid cuts in emissions, and in 2010, Congress failed to pass comprehensive national climate change legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. did, however, under the Obama administration, sign on to a \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/world/europe/climate-change-accord-paris.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">landmark international climate accord in Paris in 2015\u003c/a>, in which it committed to dramatically reducing its carbon emissions over the next decade. And although President Trump succeeded in briefly \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/11/04/trump-makes-it-official-us-will-withdraw-paris-climate-accord/\">withdrawing\u003c/a> from the agreement, the U.S. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/02/19/969387323/u-s-officially-rejoins-paris-agreement-on-climate-change\">officially rejoined it\u003c/a> in February under the Biden administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new administration \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/02/02/963014373/how-fast-will-biden-need-to-move-on-climate-really-really-fast\">has consistently pledged\u003c/a> to make climate change one of its top priorities. And on this Earth Day, Biden \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/04/22/988051091/biden-makes-new-pledge-for-u-s-greenhouse-gas-emissions-a-50-cut\">opened a global summit\u003c/a> on climate change by announcing that the U.S. would aim to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half — from 2005 levels — by the end of the decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that portends fierce political battles ahead, and it’s very much unclear if the will exists among federal and state lawmakers to take meaningful action to meet that goal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of which begs the ominous question: What degree of disaster is necessary to spur a new era of sweeping environmental change in America?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11813529/when-rivers-caught-fire-a-brief-history-of-earth-day","authors":["1263"],"categories":["news_19906","news_8","news_356"],"tags":["news_255","news_21074","news_19367","news_2920"],"featImg":"news_11813537","label":"news"},"news_11982884":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11982884","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11982884","score":null,"sort":[1713034843000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"california-requires-solar-panels-on-new-homes-should-wildfire-victims-get-a-break","title":"California Requires Solar Panels on New Homes. Should Wildfire Victims Get a Break?","publishDate":1713034843,"format":"standard","headTitle":"California Requires Solar Panels on New Homes. Should Wildfire Victims Get a Break? | KQED","labelTerm":{"term":18481,"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>Hundreds of homes in Joe Patterson’s Northern California Assembly district burned to the ground in the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2021/08/california-wildfires-caldor-fire-lake-tahoe/\">Caldor Fire\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the three years since that devastating summer, many of those rebuilding homeowners have ended up on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars, thanks to state laws that require solar panels on new homes — even on those that didn’t have them before they burned down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Trust me when I say this: $25,000 to build solar onto a house where people do not have solar is 100% an impediment to rebuilding,” \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/legislators/joe-patterson-133512\">Patterson, a Republican from Rocklin\u003c/a>, told the Assembly Natural Resources Committee earlier this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patterson’s \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/bills/ca_202320240ab2787?slug=CA_202320240AB2787\">Assembly Bill 2787\u003c/a>, which passed the committee unanimously, would give some of those poorly-insured, low- and middle-income homeowners rebuilding after a natural disaster a break from the state’s solar-panel building requirement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill would exempt homeowners at or below the median income for their county from the state’s building codes that require new solar on homes if they’re damaged or destroyed in a natural disaster. The legislation, which would expire in 2028, also would limit the benefit to those who don’t have an insurance plan that would cover the costs of the upgrade to new solar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill now moves to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, where it faces an uncertain future. Last year, that committee killed a similar bill by Republican Assemblymember \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/legislators/jim-patterson-119\">Jim Patterson\u003c/a> of Fresno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joe Patterson, no relation, told CalMatters he expects his bill, which is coauthored by the Fresno Republican, to make it through the committee this time since it doesn’t contain funding for a study like last year’s bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Assemblymember Joe Patterson (R-Rocklin)\"]‘$25,000 to build solar onto a house where people do not have solar is 100% an impediment to rebuilding.’[/pullquote]It’s another matter whether Gov. Gavin Newsom will sign it if the bill is also approved in the Senate and reaches his desk. In 2022, Newsom vetoed a similar bill, citing the need for solar power to reduce greenhouse gases that are a contributing factor for wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/climate-change/2024/01/california-solar-demand-plummets/\">Solar power\u003c/a> is a critical part of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/news/2021-03/california-releases-report-charting-path-100-percent-clean-electricity\">state’s ambitious goal\u003c/a> to achieve 90% carbon-free electricity by 2035 and 100% by 2045. Large-scale and rooftop solar is projected to prove more than half of the grid’s power by 2045.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Extending this exemption would nullify these positive outcomes and instead would increase homeowner energy costs at a time when many homeowners are facing rising electric rates and bills,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/AB-1078-VETO.pdf?emrc=bded57\">Newsom wrote in his veto message (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asked about this latest bill, Newsom’s press office responded that the governor doesn’t typically comment on pending legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joe Patterson said he hopes Newsom would support this bill, given that it’s more narrow than the one he vetoed in 2022, and because some Caldor Fire victims with poor insurance say they never received \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-01/wildfire-survivors-decry-lack-of-fema-aid\">federal disaster relief cash to help them rebuild\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11982889\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11982889\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/102523-Paradise-Rebuild-AP-CM-02-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"881\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/102523-Paradise-Rebuild-AP-CM-02-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/102523-Paradise-Rebuild-AP-CM-02-copy-800x449.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/102523-Paradise-Rebuild-AP-CM-02-copy-1020x573.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/102523-Paradise-Rebuild-AP-CM-02-copy-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/102523-Paradise-Rebuild-AP-CM-02-copy-1536x863.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The sun sets over Valley Ridge Drive in Paradise, Butte County, on Oct. 26, 2023. Empty lots, homes under construction and residences built after the Camp Fire line the street. \u003ccite>(Noah Berger/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the insurance crisis in California’s wildfire country has only gotten worse since.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the devastating wildfire seasons of 2017 and 2018, private insurance companies have been dropping policies for hundreds of thousands of Californians, forcing many to join the state’s home insurer of last resort known as FAIR plan or risk going uninsured.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just last month, State Farm announced it wasn’t renewing \u003ca href=\"https://www.ktvu.com/news/state-filing-shows-california-zip-codes-where-state-farm-plans-to-drop-policy-holders\">72,000 California home and apartment policies\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/hearings/257724?t=1381&f=e9a00eed954ce559cf08ecd40c56158e\">testimony before the Natural Resources Committee\u003c/a>, Patterson said his district has seen skyrocketing numbers of constituents on the FAIR Plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"science_1991404,science_1985611\"]“In 2019, we had roughly 8,100 households covered by the FAIR Plan in my district,” Joe Patterson told the committee. “Now, in 2023, we have 41,000 people covered by the FAIR Plan.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the FAIR plan, at most, will only pay 10% of the costs to upgrade a destroyed home to the most current building codes including mandatory solar panels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And that 10% coverage really won’t go very far, especially to cover a solar system that costs about $25,000,” Patterson told the committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"cm-leg-card cm-leg-card-padding\">\n\u003cp>As Patterson testified, sitting beside him was El Dorado County Supervisor George Turnboo. His district includes Grizzly Flats, which was torched in the Caldor Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The costly burden on the Caldor Fire survivors trying to rebuild their lives is not worth the minimal benefit solar technology provides them in a very high snow and forest region,” Turnboo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their arguments resonated with the 11 members of the Natural Resources Committee, including eight Democrats, who voted to pass the bill over objections from the solar industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We understand the very sympathetic plight that some of these folks are in,” said Kim Stone, a lobbyist for \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/people/926\">the California Solar and Storage Association\u003c/a>. “But we don’t exempt them from other building code upgrade requirements.”\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"A California Republican’s bill would exempt low- and middle-income wildfire victims from solar panels requirements on rebuilt homes that didn’t have them when they burned down.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1713036969,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":25,"wordCount":904},"headData":{"title":"California Requires Solar Panels on New Homes. Should Wildfire Victims Get a Break? | KQED","description":"A California Republican’s bill would exempt low- and middle-income wildfire victims from solar panels requirements on rebuilt homes that didn’t have them when they burned down.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"California Requires Solar Panels on New Homes. Should Wildfire Victims Get a Break?","datePublished":"2024-04-13T19:00:43.000Z","dateModified":"2024-04-13T19:36:09.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"sticky":false,"nprByline":"\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/author/ryan-sabalow/\">Ryan Sabalow\u003c/a>","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11982884/california-requires-solar-panels-on-new-homes-should-wildfire-victims-get-a-break","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Hundreds of homes in Joe Patterson’s Northern California Assembly district burned to the ground in the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2021/08/california-wildfires-caldor-fire-lake-tahoe/\">Caldor Fire\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the three years since that devastating summer, many of those rebuilding homeowners have ended up on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars, thanks to state laws that require solar panels on new homes — even on those that didn’t have them before they burned down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Trust me when I say this: $25,000 to build solar onto a house where people do not have solar is 100% an impediment to rebuilding,” \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/legislators/joe-patterson-133512\">Patterson, a Republican from Rocklin\u003c/a>, told the Assembly Natural Resources Committee earlier this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patterson’s \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/bills/ca_202320240ab2787?slug=CA_202320240AB2787\">Assembly Bill 2787\u003c/a>, which passed the committee unanimously, would give some of those poorly-insured, low- and middle-income homeowners rebuilding after a natural disaster a break from the state’s solar-panel building requirement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill would exempt homeowners at or below the median income for their county from the state’s building codes that require new solar on homes if they’re damaged or destroyed in a natural disaster. The legislation, which would expire in 2028, also would limit the benefit to those who don’t have an insurance plan that would cover the costs of the upgrade to new solar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill now moves to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, where it faces an uncertain future. Last year, that committee killed a similar bill by Republican Assemblymember \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/legislators/jim-patterson-119\">Jim Patterson\u003c/a> of Fresno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joe Patterson, no relation, told CalMatters he expects his bill, which is coauthored by the Fresno Republican, to make it through the committee this time since it doesn’t contain funding for a study like last year’s bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘$25,000 to build solar onto a house where people do not have solar is 100% an impediment to rebuilding.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"align":"right","size":"medium","citation":"Assemblymember Joe Patterson (R-Rocklin)","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>It’s another matter whether Gov. Gavin Newsom will sign it if the bill is also approved in the Senate and reaches his desk. In 2022, Newsom vetoed a similar bill, citing the need for solar power to reduce greenhouse gases that are a contributing factor for wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/climate-change/2024/01/california-solar-demand-plummets/\">Solar power\u003c/a> is a critical part of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/news/2021-03/california-releases-report-charting-path-100-percent-clean-electricity\">state’s ambitious goal\u003c/a> to achieve 90% carbon-free electricity by 2035 and 100% by 2045. Large-scale and rooftop solar is projected to prove more than half of the grid’s power by 2045.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Extending this exemption would nullify these positive outcomes and instead would increase homeowner energy costs at a time when many homeowners are facing rising electric rates and bills,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/AB-1078-VETO.pdf?emrc=bded57\">Newsom wrote in his veto message (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asked about this latest bill, Newsom’s press office responded that the governor doesn’t typically comment on pending legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joe Patterson said he hopes Newsom would support this bill, given that it’s more narrow than the one he vetoed in 2022, and because some Caldor Fire victims with poor insurance say they never received \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-01/wildfire-survivors-decry-lack-of-fema-aid\">federal disaster relief cash to help them rebuild\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11982889\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11982889\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/102523-Paradise-Rebuild-AP-CM-02-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"881\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/102523-Paradise-Rebuild-AP-CM-02-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/102523-Paradise-Rebuild-AP-CM-02-copy-800x449.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/102523-Paradise-Rebuild-AP-CM-02-copy-1020x573.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/102523-Paradise-Rebuild-AP-CM-02-copy-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/102523-Paradise-Rebuild-AP-CM-02-copy-1536x863.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The sun sets over Valley Ridge Drive in Paradise, Butte County, on Oct. 26, 2023. Empty lots, homes under construction and residences built after the Camp Fire line the street. \u003ccite>(Noah Berger/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the insurance crisis in California’s wildfire country has only gotten worse since.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the devastating wildfire seasons of 2017 and 2018, private insurance companies have been dropping policies for hundreds of thousands of Californians, forcing many to join the state’s home insurer of last resort known as FAIR plan or risk going uninsured.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just last month, State Farm announced it wasn’t renewing \u003ca href=\"https://www.ktvu.com/news/state-filing-shows-california-zip-codes-where-state-farm-plans-to-drop-policy-holders\">72,000 California home and apartment policies\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/hearings/257724?t=1381&f=e9a00eed954ce559cf08ecd40c56158e\">testimony before the Natural Resources Committee\u003c/a>, Patterson said his district has seen skyrocketing numbers of constituents on the FAIR Plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"label":"Related Stories ","postid":"science_1991404,science_1985611"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“In 2019, we had roughly 8,100 households covered by the FAIR Plan in my district,” Joe Patterson told the committee. “Now, in 2023, we have 41,000 people covered by the FAIR Plan.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the FAIR plan, at most, will only pay 10% of the costs to upgrade a destroyed home to the most current building codes including mandatory solar panels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And that 10% coverage really won’t go very far, especially to cover a solar system that costs about $25,000,” Patterson told the committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"cm-leg-card cm-leg-card-padding\">\n\u003cp>As Patterson testified, sitting beside him was El Dorado County Supervisor George Turnboo. His district includes Grizzly Flats, which was torched in the Caldor Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The costly burden on the Caldor Fire survivors trying to rebuild their lives is not worth the minimal benefit solar technology provides them in a very high snow and forest region,” Turnboo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their arguments resonated with the 11 members of the Natural Resources Committee, including eight Democrats, who voted to pass the bill over objections from the solar industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We understand the very sympathetic plight that some of these folks are in,” said Kim Stone, a lobbyist for \u003ca href=\"https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/people/926\">the California Solar and Storage Association\u003c/a>. “But we don’t exempt them from other building code upgrade requirements.”\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11982884/california-requires-solar-panels-on-new-homes-should-wildfire-victims-get-a-break","authors":["byline_news_11982884"],"categories":["news_31795","news_1758","news_19906","news_6266","news_8","news_356"],"tags":["news_19204","news_18545","news_1775","news_3187","news_1857","news_4463"],"affiliates":["news_18481"],"featImg":"news_11982891","label":"news_18481"},"news_11644927":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11644927","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11644927","score":null,"sort":[1712829645000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"eucalyptus-how-californias-most-hated-tree-took-root-2","title":"Eucalyptus: How California's Most Hated Tree Took Root","publishDate":1712829645,"format":"audio","headTitle":"Eucalyptus: How California’s Most Hated Tree Took Root | KQED","labelTerm":{},"content":"\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a> \u003cem>This article was first published in February 1, 2018, and was updated on April 11, 2024. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Depending on whom you ask, eucalyptus trees are either an icon in California or a fire-prone scourge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious heard from two hikers wanting to know about the past and future of California’s eucalyptus trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How did all of this eucalyptus get to the Bay Area?” asked Christian Wagner, a tech worker who lives in Pleasanton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I know that they’re invasive, so what do we do about that? Are they worth keeping around? Or do we need to get rid of them and replace them with something else?” wondered Julie Bergen, an occupational therapist from Alameda.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reaching heights of more than 100 feet, the main kind of eucalyptus you’re likely to see here is Tasmanian blue gum, eucalyptus globulus. They feature sickle-shaped leaves hanging from high branches, and deciduous bark that is forever peeling from their shaggy trunks. Some people experience the smell of eucalyptus as medicinal; others say the trees just smell like California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11647124\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11647124 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"The trees are deciduous, shedding their bark every year.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The trees are deciduous, shedding their bark every year. \u003ccite>(Samantha Shanahan/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>So how did eucalyptus trees get here?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“They came here as envelopes of seeds on boats coming to California in the 1850s,” explains Jared Farmer, author of \u003ca href=\"https://jaredfarmer.net/books/trees-in-paradise/\">“Trees In Paradise: A California History.”\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the Gold Rush, Australians were among the throngs flocking to a place where wood was in short supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was the era of wood power,” Farmer says. “Wood was used for almost everything. For energy, of course, but also for building every city, for moving things around, all the things where today we use concrete and plastic and steel.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Besides the practical need to plant more trees, settlers who were used to dense forests also felt that the lack of trees in California’s grassy, marshy, scrubby landscape made it feel incomplete. So within a few years, nurseries in San Francisco were selling young eucalyptus grown from seed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trees grew remarkably quickly here, even in poor soil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In an average rainfall year here in California, these trees probably put on 4 to 6 feet in height and maybe, in their early growth years, a half-inch to an inch in diameter,” says Joe McBride, a UC Berkeley professor emeritus of landscape architecture and environmental planning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond the drive to change the landscape and provide firewood, Californians also planted eucalyptus (mainly blue gum) to serve as windbreaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11647125\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11647125 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Eucalyptus trees grow fast, sometimes putting on four to six feet in height in a single year.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eucalyptus trees grow fast, sometimes putting on 4 to 6 feet in height in a single year. \u003ccite>(Samantha Shanahan/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In fact, that was the original purpose of what’s now the largest, densest stand of blue gum eucalyptus in the world, on campus at Berkeley, says McBride. It was planted around 140 years ago to provide a windbreak for an old cinder running track — to keep its fine ashen gravel from blowing into athletes’ faces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trees’ success in California owed to a lack of enemies here. Because they were grown from seed, they hadn’t brought along any of the pests or pathogens they contend with back in Australia.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An early 20th century boom\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Within a few decades of its arrival, many Californians grew disenchanted with eucalyptus. Blue gum proved terrible for woodworking — the wood often split and cracked, making it a poor choice for railroad ties. The trees also proved thirsty enough to drain nearby wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you go back to California farm journals of the 1870s, ’80s, ’90s, there’s just report after report of disappointment, like ‘these trees are no good,’ ” says Farmer, the historian.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But things changed in the early 20th century when U.S. Forest Service officials grew concerned about a looming timber famine. They feared forests in the eastern United States had been overexploited and wouldn’t grow back, and predicted the supply of hardwood would dwindle over the next 15 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11647127\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11647127 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"The bark sheds often, peeling in large strips.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The bark sheds often, peeling in large strips. \u003ccite>(Samantha Shanahan/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Investors saw an opportunity: California had a tree capable of growing to full size within that time frame. If hardwood was about to be scarce, they reasoned, such trees could be in high demand and yield sizable returns within a few short years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These people, Farmer says, were not reading blue gum’s lousy reviews in old farm reports. “And even if they did read them, maybe they wouldn’t care because they just wanted to make a buck; they were just flipping land.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This played out as a speculative frenzy — a bubble. Boosters began selling plantations dense with eucalyptus — hundreds of trees per acre. Farmer writes in his book that claims were made like: “Forests Grown While You Wait,” and “Absolute Security and Absolute Certainty.” In just a few years, millions of blue gums were planted from Southern California up to Mendocino.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The anticipated timber famine never came to pass. Forests further east proved more resilient than expected, and the need was offset by concrete, steel and imports, like mahogany. Ultimately, the thousands of acres of eucalyptus planted around California were not even worth cutting down. Much of what you see today is a century-old abandoned crop.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What’s fire got to do with it?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Eucalyptus trees have lovers and haters in California. A big part of the debate over whether the trees should be allowed to persist here traces back to the East Bay firestorm of 1991, which left 25 people dead and thousands homeless. Vast swaths of eucalyptus burned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People at the time, I don’t think, associated that with a planted plantation; it was just a eucalyptus forest,” says CalPoly botanist Jenn Yost. “And then when the fire came through — I mean that fire came through so fast and so hot and so many people lost their homes that it was a natural reaction to hate blue gums at that point.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many experts say that eucalyptus trees worsen the fire threat for a few reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>The bark they shed dries out quickly and creates fuel.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Once a fire starts, that bark easily catches the wind and can be blown miles away, spreading the fire quickly.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Eucalyptus trees are really oily. The oil is actually what gives off that intense fragrance they’re known for. But in a fire, that oil also makes them flammable.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>But Eucalyptus trees have supporters too, who argue other plants in their place would also burn. A few years ago, federal funding to cut down trees in the East Bay hills was \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyside.com/2016/09/19/fema-pulls-funding-for-tree-clearing-in-berkeley-hills/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">rescinded\u003c/a>, after \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyside.com/2015/07/18/in-berkeley-protesters-strip-naked-to-try-to-save-trees/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">protesters\u003c/a> got naked and hugged the eucalyptus trees on campus at Cal. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But after a nearly decade-long legal battle, a court gave UC Berkeley the go-ahead to cut. Still, it’s a drop in the bucket when you think about how many of these trees we have in California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11647123\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-11647123\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-1020x1530.jpg\" alt=\"To some, the scent of eucalyptus trees is simply the scent of California.\" width=\"640\" height=\"960\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-1920x2880.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-1180x1770.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-960x1440.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-240x360.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-375x563.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-520x780.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">To some, the scent of eucalyptus trees is simply the scent of California. \u003ccite>(Samantha Shanahan/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Are they here to stay?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Blue gums can’t reproduce on their own just anywhere in California; Yost says they need year-round moisture. They’re able to regenerate in places like California’s coastal fog belt, but elsewhere “there are some plantations that don’t reproduce at all. When you go there, the trees are all in their rows, there’s few saplings anywhere to be seen, and those trees are just getting older.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not all non-native plants capable of reproducing on their own do it enough to have an ecological impact, Yost says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As soon as it starts outcompeting native species or fundamentally changing the environment so that native species can’t grow there, we would consider that an invasive species,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blue gum is \u003ca href=\"http://www.cal-ipc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Cal-IPC_News_Summer2014-6.pdf#page=10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">classified\u003c/a> as a “moderate” invasive, putting it a \u003ca href=\"http://www.cal-ipc.org/plants/inventory/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tier\u003c/a> below such uncharismatic weeds as yellow star-thistle and medusahead. McBride, the retired Berkeley professor, says “although there’s been marginal expansion of some eucalyptus stands, it’s really not well adapted for long-distance dispersal. It hasn’t really spread very much on its own.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousbug]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With an estimated 40,000 acres of unharvested eucalyptus planted across the state, the trees aren’t easy to get rid of. Slicing down a large blue gum near a building can require a crane, at an expense of thousands of dollars. And keeping them from resprouting can also be its own chore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Long term, as the climate changes over the coming decades, it’s possible the aging eucalyptus groves that don’t get enough water to reproduce will begin to die.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then again, if the state becomes \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/02/12/new-study-global-warming-will-bring-megadroughts-to-the-west/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">hotter and drier\u003c/a>, it may become the type of place where some Australian species are able to thrive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do you see any koala bears?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I wish.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>[sound of bark crunching underfoot]\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Should we tell people where we are?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, so we are at the Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve. Which has gotta be pretty close to the geographic center of San Francisco, would you imagine, right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think that’s fair. And we are surrounded by a ton of what look to be ancient eucalyptus trees.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> If you’re not familiar with eucalyptus trees, they’re very tall. How tall would you say those are?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We’ve seen some today over a hundred feet, for sure.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Definitely. And they have this weird bark, where the underpart of the tree is really smooth but their bark on the outside flakes off.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It’s deciduous, but it leaves this tan, almost naked-looking trunk behind.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And these would not be good climbing trees.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Yeah, most of the branches, like, what’s the lowest branch on that one? It’s like 30 feet up, how are you gonna climb that?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One thing I think a lot of people remark about eucalyptus trees in the smell.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>(inhale, exhale)\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some people hate it. But a couple people I talked to for this story—they say these trees just smell like California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Which is pretty weird for a tree from Australia! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Theme music\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I’m Olivia Allen-Price, and this is Bay Curious, where we answer your questions about the Bay Area. On this episode, science writer Daniel Potter and I take a closer look at Eucalyptus Trees.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They have lovers—and haters.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And there are giant stands of them throughout our region. This story first ran in 2018, but your questions about eucalyptus trees have kept on coming! So we thought it was time to freshen up this episode with some new information. We’ll get to it right after this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Sponsor Message\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alright! Let’s get to this week’s question, shall we? Or should I say \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">QUESTIONS\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> because we heard from two different listeners on this one…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christian Wagner:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> How did all of this eucalyptus get to the Bay Area?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That’s Christian Wagner. He’s noticed lots of eucalyptus trees as he’s out and about because he likes hiking.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> –as does Julie Bergen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Bergen:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And I know that they’re invasive, so what do we do about that? Are they worth keeping around? Or do we need to get rid of them and replace them with something else?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Christian and Julie both wonder about eucalyptus’ past—and its future here. Some people argue the trees are bad for \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">native\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> plant life—and a fire hazard—and need to go. So. Science writer Daniel Potter!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Howdy.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Where do we begin unraveling this one?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> In a forest. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Albany Hill outdoor ambi\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Let’s start with one on Albany Hill in the East Bay. You can see it from I-80, near the racetrack. That’s where I talked to this guy…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My name is Jared Farmer, I’m a professor of history at Stony Brook University, and the author of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Trees In Paradise: A California History\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That book includes a solid hundred pages on eucalyptus trees in California, so I asked Farmer how they got here:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They came here as envelopes of seeds on boats in the 1850s.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He says the Gold Rush drew people from all over—including from Australia. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sea shanty music …“In South Australia I was born, heed away all the way”\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And they were coming to a place where wood was in short supply. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What we think of today as like say native California, Indigenous California, or pre-contact California was far more woody than wooded. Actually it was far more land that was chaparral and savanna and wetland and marshland than timberland…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> People settling here wanted to plant trees. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you’re used to trees, the California landscape might feel… incomplete without them. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And then there were the practical concerns, since Californians were quickly downing what trees \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">were \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This was course just the era of wood power—wood was used for almost everything. For energy of course but also for building every city, for moving things around, all the things today we use concrete and plastic and steel.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So by the 1850s you could buy young eucalyptus in nurseries in San Francisco. It was grown here from seed, which meant it didn’t bring along any of the usual bugs or pathogens it faces back home. The lack of pests made it easy for these trees to grow really tall, really fast.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>(Berkeley outdoor ambi)\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I would say in an average rainfall year here in California, these trees probably put on four to six feet in height.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is Joe McBride, professor emeritus of landscape architecture and environmental planning at UC Berkeley. I met him in a towering stand of ancient eucalyptus on campus.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These trees are now over 200 feet tall, and the largest ones are approaching six feet in diameter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Near the present-day Life Sciences building there used to be a cinder running track—picture fine ashen gravel. A hundred and forty years ago \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at a fabled track meet with Stanford … supposedly the wind was so bad it blew cinder in everyone’s faces and the Stanford coach took his team home—track meet \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">over\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> As a result of that, the campus planted this grove of eucalyptus trees as a windbreak, to prevent the wind from blowing the cinders into other athletes eyes in the future. This is the largest, densest stand of blue gum eucalyptus in the world.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tell us what that is— blue gum eucalyptus…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> So, the genus eucalyptus includes hundreds of species—some more like shrubs than giant trees. A lot were tried out here, but the main one today is Tasmanian blue gum, eucalyptus globulus. Side note: apparently even botanists can’t always tell what species they’re looking at without climbing way up to check out the fruit… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So for a time these trees were planted on purpose – but many people came to hate them. What changed?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> If you go back to California farm journals of the 1870s, 80s, 90s, there’s report after report of disappointment, like these trees are no good.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That’s Jared Farmer, the historian again. It turns out while our blue gum gets tall real fast, it’s not ideal for woodworking—it splits and cracks and doesn’t hold up if you’re making railroad ties. It also sucks up a lot of water, which is handy if you’re trying to drain swampland, but less handy if your well is nearby. People were kinda over it. Until!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the turn of the 20\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">th\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> century, we were faced with a crisis in terms of hardwood forest that had been cut over in the eastern United States.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1907, the U.S. Forest Service predicted a looming hardwood famine. People thought there was only about a 15-year supply before we ran out of usable forest. That gave eucalyptus boosters an idea: plant now, and fast-growing blue gums could be big enough to harvest once the famine hits.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here in the Bay Area, for $100 you could buy an acre of land… planting those trees on 6 by 6 spacing, about 1,200 trees per acre. So they sold lots of these on a speculative basis.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This became a frenzy—a bubble. Companies suckered investors with claims like \u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003ci>“\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Forests Grown While You Wait” and “Absolute Security and Absolute Certainty.” Within a few years, thousands of acres were bought up and planted with eucalyptus, from Southern California up to Mendocino.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Wait, didn’t we just say blue gum was terrible for woodworking? Why was everyone still planting it?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> In his book, Farmer gives a few reasons: blue gum was familiar, seeds were everywhere, it could grow in lousy soil—plus a blend of historical ignorance and artful deception.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> In part because these people were not reading farm reports from the 1870s and 1880s, and even if they did read them maybe they wouldn’t care because they just wanted to make a buck, they were just flipping land.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fears of a hardwood famine ultimately proved overblown. Concrete and steel became cheaper, forests further east recovered, and people started making furniture from imported wood like mahogany instead. California’s eucalyptus trees weren’t even worth cutting down—so there they stand. They’re like century-old abandoned crops. Farmer describes their presence here as a beautiful mistake. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That brings us to the second half of this week’s question from Julie and Christian:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Bergen: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I know that they’re invasive, so what do we do about that?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christian Wagner: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To what extent is it sort of here to stay?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I took this question to Jenn Yost, a botanist at CalPoly. While some people see California’s eucalyptus trees as a heinous invasive species and want them gone, Yost was careful to delineate between \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">non-native\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">—which these trees definitely are—and \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">invasive\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jenn Yost:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Just because something reproduces a little bit, sometimes it doesn’t do it enough where it has an ecological impact. And as soon as it starts outcompeting native species or fundamentally changing the environment so that native species can’t grow there, we would consider that an invasive species.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While many kinds of eucalyptus have been tried out in California, only \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">two\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are good enough at reproducing here to be considered \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">invasive\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: the red gum and the blue gum. And those don’t seem able to reproduce just \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">anywhere\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. In some drier parts of the state, the old plantations aren’t spreading.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jenn Yost:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> You see blue gums being weedy and really reproducing on their own in areas that have summer moisture, and that’s usually in the form of fog. Or you see them being weedy in places with year-round water, like irrigation ditches or places with seeps.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Blue gum is classified as a “moderate invasive.” Compared to other, faster-moving weeds, it’s not California’s most-wanted ravaging the countryside. Yost attributes a lot of the current resentment to the historic 1991 fire in the East Bay hills, where tons of eucalyptus burned.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jenn Yost:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> People at the time I don’t think associated that with a planted plantation; it was just a eucalyptus forest. And then when the fire came through—I mean that fire came through so fast and so hot and so many people lost their homes that it was a natural reaction to hate blue gums at that point.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival tape: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pushed by 30 mile per hour winds, fire swept down the Oakland Berkeley hills destroying everything in its path.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The East Bay Hills fire was hugely devastating… 25 people died and thousands were left homeless. Many experts say that eucalyptus trees worsen the fire threat for a few reasons… The bark they shed dries out quickly and creates fuel…a lot of fuel. Once a fire starts, that bark easily catches the wind and can be blown miles away, spreading the fire quickly. Also: Eucalyptus trees are really oily. The oil is actually what gives off that intense fragrance they’re known for. But in a fire, that oil also makes them flammable.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Other folks argue different plants in their place would also burn. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is an entrenched debate! A few years ago there was federal fire-prevention funding to cut down trees in those same hills, and people protested. Folks got naked and hugged the blue gums on campus at Berkeley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> But after a nearly decade-long legal battle, a court gave UC Berkeley the go-ahead to cut down dozens of acres of Eucalyptus last year. Still, it’s a drop in the bucket when you think about how many of these trees we have in California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yost estimates there’s something like 40 thousand acres of unharvested crops in the state. It’s not hard to extrapolate upwards of ten million trees statewide. Cutting each one down takes time and money.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So really the question of whether eucalyptus is going away comes down to who’s backyard it’s in. Can they afford to cut the trees down? Is the political will there to do it? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So that’s where things are. What did our question askers think? Christian and Julie.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Bergen:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That was absolutely fascinating. I did not know that the history was even that rich.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Christian Wagner: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I have to say I love the idea that a lot of what we see was a get-rich-quick scheme. Because that is just a theme that happens so often in America and in California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So often to our detriment. Science Writer Daniel Potter, thanks for stomping around so many forests for us this week. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Happy to do it!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A note: A few of the sources quoted in his story have changed jobs since they were first interviewed in 2018.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you’ve ever wondered what all goes into making a Bay Curious story sound the way it does … join producer Katrina Schwartz and I TONIGHT, April 11 for our talk: Elevating Audio Stories with Sound for the PRX Podcast Garage. We’ll be talking through how we use music, sound effects, archival material, narration and more to bring the Bay Curious podcast to life. Join us in person at KQED’s Headquarters, or on the livestream. Tickets are free if you use the code “baycurious.” Grab yours at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/podcast\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">kqed.org/podcastgarage\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bay Curious is made by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia-Allen Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christian Wagner:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at KQED. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Depending on whom you ask, eucalyptus trees are either an icon in California or a fire-prone scourge.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1712783726,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":true,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":118,"wordCount":4111},"headData":{"title":"Eucalyptus: How California's Most Hated Tree Took Root | KQED","description":"Depending on whom you ask, eucalyptus trees are either an icon in California or a fire-prone scourge.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Eucalyptus: How California's Most Hated Tree Took Root","datePublished":"2024-04-11T10:00:45.000Z","dateModified":"2024-04-10T21:15:26.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"source":"Bay Curious","audioUrl":"https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/chrt.fm/track/G6C7C3/traffic.megaphone.fm/KQINC6716621061.mp3?updated=1712782612","sticky":false,"nprByline":"\u003cstrong>Daniel Potter\u003c/strong>","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11644927/eucalyptus-how-californias-most-hated-tree-took-root-2","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a> \u003cem>This article was first published in February 1, 2018, and was updated on April 11, 2024. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Depending on whom you ask, eucalyptus trees are either an icon in California or a fire-prone scourge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious heard from two hikers wanting to know about the past and future of California’s eucalyptus trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How did all of this eucalyptus get to the Bay Area?” asked Christian Wagner, a tech worker who lives in Pleasanton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I know that they’re invasive, so what do we do about that? Are they worth keeping around? Or do we need to get rid of them and replace them with something else?” wondered Julie Bergen, an occupational therapist from Alameda.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reaching heights of more than 100 feet, the main kind of eucalyptus you’re likely to see here is Tasmanian blue gum, eucalyptus globulus. They feature sickle-shaped leaves hanging from high branches, and deciduous bark that is forever peeling from their shaggy trunks. Some people experience the smell of eucalyptus as medicinal; others say the trees just smell like California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11647124\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11647124 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"The trees are deciduous, shedding their bark every year.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The trees are deciduous, shedding their bark every year. \u003ccite>(Samantha Shanahan/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>So how did eucalyptus trees get here?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“They came here as envelopes of seeds on boats coming to California in the 1850s,” explains Jared Farmer, author of \u003ca href=\"https://jaredfarmer.net/books/trees-in-paradise/\">“Trees In Paradise: A California History.”\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the Gold Rush, Australians were among the throngs flocking to a place where wood was in short supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was the era of wood power,” Farmer says. “Wood was used for almost everything. For energy, of course, but also for building every city, for moving things around, all the things where today we use concrete and plastic and steel.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Besides the practical need to plant more trees, settlers who were used to dense forests also felt that the lack of trees in California’s grassy, marshy, scrubby landscape made it feel incomplete. So within a few years, nurseries in San Francisco were selling young eucalyptus grown from seed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trees grew remarkably quickly here, even in poor soil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In an average rainfall year here in California, these trees probably put on 4 to 6 feet in height and maybe, in their early growth years, a half-inch to an inch in diameter,” says Joe McBride, a UC Berkeley professor emeritus of landscape architecture and environmental planning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond the drive to change the landscape and provide firewood, Californians also planted eucalyptus (mainly blue gum) to serve as windbreaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11647125\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11647125 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Eucalyptus trees grow fast, sometimes putting on four to six feet in height in a single year.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eucalyptus trees grow fast, sometimes putting on 4 to 6 feet in height in a single year. \u003ccite>(Samantha Shanahan/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In fact, that was the original purpose of what’s now the largest, densest stand of blue gum eucalyptus in the world, on campus at Berkeley, says McBride. It was planted around 140 years ago to provide a windbreak for an old cinder running track — to keep its fine ashen gravel from blowing into athletes’ faces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trees’ success in California owed to a lack of enemies here. Because they were grown from seed, they hadn’t brought along any of the pests or pathogens they contend with back in Australia.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An early 20th century boom\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Within a few decades of its arrival, many Californians grew disenchanted with eucalyptus. Blue gum proved terrible for woodworking — the wood often split and cracked, making it a poor choice for railroad ties. The trees also proved thirsty enough to drain nearby wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you go back to California farm journals of the 1870s, ’80s, ’90s, there’s just report after report of disappointment, like ‘these trees are no good,’ ” says Farmer, the historian.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But things changed in the early 20th century when U.S. Forest Service officials grew concerned about a looming timber famine. They feared forests in the eastern United States had been overexploited and wouldn’t grow back, and predicted the supply of hardwood would dwindle over the next 15 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11647127\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11647127 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"The bark sheds often, peeling in large strips.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The bark sheds often, peeling in large strips. \u003ccite>(Samantha Shanahan/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Investors saw an opportunity: California had a tree capable of growing to full size within that time frame. If hardwood was about to be scarce, they reasoned, such trees could be in high demand and yield sizable returns within a few short years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These people, Farmer says, were not reading blue gum’s lousy reviews in old farm reports. “And even if they did read them, maybe they wouldn’t care because they just wanted to make a buck; they were just flipping land.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This played out as a speculative frenzy — a bubble. Boosters began selling plantations dense with eucalyptus — hundreds of trees per acre. Farmer writes in his book that claims were made like: “Forests Grown While You Wait,” and “Absolute Security and Absolute Certainty.” In just a few years, millions of blue gums were planted from Southern California up to Mendocino.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The anticipated timber famine never came to pass. Forests further east proved more resilient than expected, and the need was offset by concrete, steel and imports, like mahogany. Ultimately, the thousands of acres of eucalyptus planted around California were not even worth cutting down. Much of what you see today is a century-old abandoned crop.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What’s fire got to do with it?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Eucalyptus trees have lovers and haters in California. A big part of the debate over whether the trees should be allowed to persist here traces back to the East Bay firestorm of 1991, which left 25 people dead and thousands homeless. Vast swaths of eucalyptus burned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People at the time, I don’t think, associated that with a planted plantation; it was just a eucalyptus forest,” says CalPoly botanist Jenn Yost. “And then when the fire came through — I mean that fire came through so fast and so hot and so many people lost their homes that it was a natural reaction to hate blue gums at that point.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many experts say that eucalyptus trees worsen the fire threat for a few reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>The bark they shed dries out quickly and creates fuel.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Once a fire starts, that bark easily catches the wind and can be blown miles away, spreading the fire quickly.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Eucalyptus trees are really oily. The oil is actually what gives off that intense fragrance they’re known for. But in a fire, that oil also makes them flammable.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>But Eucalyptus trees have supporters too, who argue other plants in their place would also burn. A few years ago, federal funding to cut down trees in the East Bay hills was \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyside.com/2016/09/19/fema-pulls-funding-for-tree-clearing-in-berkeley-hills/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">rescinded\u003c/a>, after \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyside.com/2015/07/18/in-berkeley-protesters-strip-naked-to-try-to-save-trees/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">protesters\u003c/a> got naked and hugged the eucalyptus trees on campus at Cal. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But after a nearly decade-long legal battle, a court gave UC Berkeley the go-ahead to cut. Still, it’s a drop in the bucket when you think about how many of these trees we have in California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11647123\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-11647123\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-1020x1530.jpg\" alt=\"To some, the scent of eucalyptus trees is simply the scent of California.\" width=\"640\" height=\"960\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-1920x2880.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-1180x1770.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-960x1440.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-240x360.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-375x563.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-520x780.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">To some, the scent of eucalyptus trees is simply the scent of California. \u003ccite>(Samantha Shanahan/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Are they here to stay?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Blue gums can’t reproduce on their own just anywhere in California; Yost says they need year-round moisture. They’re able to regenerate in places like California’s coastal fog belt, but elsewhere “there are some plantations that don’t reproduce at all. When you go there, the trees are all in their rows, there’s few saplings anywhere to be seen, and those trees are just getting older.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not all non-native plants capable of reproducing on their own do it enough to have an ecological impact, Yost says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As soon as it starts outcompeting native species or fundamentally changing the environment so that native species can’t grow there, we would consider that an invasive species,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blue gum is \u003ca href=\"http://www.cal-ipc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Cal-IPC_News_Summer2014-6.pdf#page=10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">classified\u003c/a> as a “moderate” invasive, putting it a \u003ca href=\"http://www.cal-ipc.org/plants/inventory/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tier\u003c/a> below such uncharismatic weeds as yellow star-thistle and medusahead. McBride, the retired Berkeley professor, says “although there’s been marginal expansion of some eucalyptus stands, it’s really not well adapted for long-distance dispersal. It hasn’t really spread very much on its own.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" />\n What do you wonder about the Bay Area, its culture or people that you want KQED to investigate?\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Ask Bay Curious.\u003c/a>\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With an estimated 40,000 acres of unharvested eucalyptus planted across the state, the trees aren’t easy to get rid of. Slicing down a large blue gum near a building can require a crane, at an expense of thousands of dollars. And keeping them from resprouting can also be its own chore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Long term, as the climate changes over the coming decades, it’s possible the aging eucalyptus groves that don’t get enough water to reproduce will begin to die.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then again, if the state becomes \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/02/12/new-study-global-warming-will-bring-megadroughts-to-the-west/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">hotter and drier\u003c/a>, it may become the type of place where some Australian species are able to thrive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"baycuriousquestion","attributes":{"named":{"label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do you see any koala bears?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I wish.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>[sound of bark crunching underfoot]\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Should we tell people where we are?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, so we are at the Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve. Which has gotta be pretty close to the geographic center of San Francisco, would you imagine, right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think that’s fair. And we are surrounded by a ton of what look to be ancient eucalyptus trees.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> If you’re not familiar with eucalyptus trees, they’re very tall. How tall would you say those are?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We’ve seen some today over a hundred feet, for sure.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Definitely. And they have this weird bark, where the underpart of the tree is really smooth but their bark on the outside flakes off.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It’s deciduous, but it leaves this tan, almost naked-looking trunk behind.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And these would not be good climbing trees.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Yeah, most of the branches, like, what’s the lowest branch on that one? It’s like 30 feet up, how are you gonna climb that?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One thing I think a lot of people remark about eucalyptus trees in the smell.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>(inhale, exhale)\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some people hate it. But a couple people I talked to for this story—they say these trees just smell like California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Which is pretty weird for a tree from Australia! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Theme music\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I’m Olivia Allen-Price, and this is Bay Curious, where we answer your questions about the Bay Area. On this episode, science writer Daniel Potter and I take a closer look at Eucalyptus Trees.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They have lovers—and haters.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And there are giant stands of them throughout our region. This story first ran in 2018, but your questions about eucalyptus trees have kept on coming! So we thought it was time to freshen up this episode with some new information. We’ll get to it right after this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Sponsor Message\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alright! Let’s get to this week’s question, shall we? Or should I say \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">QUESTIONS\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> because we heard from two different listeners on this one…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christian Wagner:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> How did all of this eucalyptus get to the Bay Area?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That’s Christian Wagner. He’s noticed lots of eucalyptus trees as he’s out and about because he likes hiking.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> –as does Julie Bergen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Bergen:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And I know that they’re invasive, so what do we do about that? Are they worth keeping around? Or do we need to get rid of them and replace them with something else?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Christian and Julie both wonder about eucalyptus’ past—and its future here. Some people argue the trees are bad for \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">native\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> plant life—and a fire hazard—and need to go. So. Science writer Daniel Potter!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Howdy.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Where do we begin unraveling this one?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> In a forest. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Albany Hill outdoor ambi\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Let’s start with one on Albany Hill in the East Bay. You can see it from I-80, near the racetrack. That’s where I talked to this guy…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My name is Jared Farmer, I’m a professor of history at Stony Brook University, and the author of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Trees In Paradise: A California History\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That book includes a solid hundred pages on eucalyptus trees in California, so I asked Farmer how they got here:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They came here as envelopes of seeds on boats in the 1850s.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He says the Gold Rush drew people from all over—including from Australia. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sea shanty music …“In South Australia I was born, heed away all the way”\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And they were coming to a place where wood was in short supply. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What we think of today as like say native California, Indigenous California, or pre-contact California was far more woody than wooded. Actually it was far more land that was chaparral and savanna and wetland and marshland than timberland…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> People settling here wanted to plant trees. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you’re used to trees, the California landscape might feel… incomplete without them. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And then there were the practical concerns, since Californians were quickly downing what trees \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">were \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This was course just the era of wood power—wood was used for almost everything. For energy of course but also for building every city, for moving things around, all the things today we use concrete and plastic and steel.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So by the 1850s you could buy young eucalyptus in nurseries in San Francisco. It was grown here from seed, which meant it didn’t bring along any of the usual bugs or pathogens it faces back home. The lack of pests made it easy for these trees to grow really tall, really fast.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>(Berkeley outdoor ambi)\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I would say in an average rainfall year here in California, these trees probably put on four to six feet in height.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is Joe McBride, professor emeritus of landscape architecture and environmental planning at UC Berkeley. I met him in a towering stand of ancient eucalyptus on campus.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These trees are now over 200 feet tall, and the largest ones are approaching six feet in diameter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Near the present-day Life Sciences building there used to be a cinder running track—picture fine ashen gravel. A hundred and forty years ago \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at a fabled track meet with Stanford … supposedly the wind was so bad it blew cinder in everyone’s faces and the Stanford coach took his team home—track meet \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">over\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> As a result of that, the campus planted this grove of eucalyptus trees as a windbreak, to prevent the wind from blowing the cinders into other athletes eyes in the future. This is the largest, densest stand of blue gum eucalyptus in the world.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tell us what that is— blue gum eucalyptus…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> So, the genus eucalyptus includes hundreds of species—some more like shrubs than giant trees. A lot were tried out here, but the main one today is Tasmanian blue gum, eucalyptus globulus. Side note: apparently even botanists can’t always tell what species they’re looking at without climbing way up to check out the fruit… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So for a time these trees were planted on purpose – but many people came to hate them. What changed?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> If you go back to California farm journals of the 1870s, 80s, 90s, there’s report after report of disappointment, like these trees are no good.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That’s Jared Farmer, the historian again. It turns out while our blue gum gets tall real fast, it’s not ideal for woodworking—it splits and cracks and doesn’t hold up if you’re making railroad ties. It also sucks up a lot of water, which is handy if you’re trying to drain swampland, but less handy if your well is nearby. People were kinda over it. Until!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the turn of the 20\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">th\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> century, we were faced with a crisis in terms of hardwood forest that had been cut over in the eastern United States.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1907, the U.S. Forest Service predicted a looming hardwood famine. People thought there was only about a 15-year supply before we ran out of usable forest. That gave eucalyptus boosters an idea: plant now, and fast-growing blue gums could be big enough to harvest once the famine hits.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here in the Bay Area, for $100 you could buy an acre of land… planting those trees on 6 by 6 spacing, about 1,200 trees per acre. So they sold lots of these on a speculative basis.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This became a frenzy—a bubble. Companies suckered investors with claims like \u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003ci>“\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Forests Grown While You Wait” and “Absolute Security and Absolute Certainty.” Within a few years, thousands of acres were bought up and planted with eucalyptus, from Southern California up to Mendocino.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Wait, didn’t we just say blue gum was terrible for woodworking? Why was everyone still planting it?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> In his book, Farmer gives a few reasons: blue gum was familiar, seeds were everywhere, it could grow in lousy soil—plus a blend of historical ignorance and artful deception.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> In part because these people were not reading farm reports from the 1870s and 1880s, and even if they did read them maybe they wouldn’t care because they just wanted to make a buck, they were just flipping land.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fears of a hardwood famine ultimately proved overblown. Concrete and steel became cheaper, forests further east recovered, and people started making furniture from imported wood like mahogany instead. California’s eucalyptus trees weren’t even worth cutting down—so there they stand. They’re like century-old abandoned crops. Farmer describes their presence here as a beautiful mistake. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That brings us to the second half of this week’s question from Julie and Christian:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Bergen: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I know that they’re invasive, so what do we do about that?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christian Wagner: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To what extent is it sort of here to stay?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I took this question to Jenn Yost, a botanist at CalPoly. While some people see California’s eucalyptus trees as a heinous invasive species and want them gone, Yost was careful to delineate between \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">non-native\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">—which these trees definitely are—and \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">invasive\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jenn Yost:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Just because something reproduces a little bit, sometimes it doesn’t do it enough where it has an ecological impact. And as soon as it starts outcompeting native species or fundamentally changing the environment so that native species can’t grow there, we would consider that an invasive species.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While many kinds of eucalyptus have been tried out in California, only \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">two\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are good enough at reproducing here to be considered \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">invasive\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: the red gum and the blue gum. And those don’t seem able to reproduce just \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">anywhere\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. In some drier parts of the state, the old plantations aren’t spreading.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jenn Yost:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> You see blue gums being weedy and really reproducing on their own in areas that have summer moisture, and that’s usually in the form of fog. Or you see them being weedy in places with year-round water, like irrigation ditches or places with seeps.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Blue gum is classified as a “moderate invasive.” Compared to other, faster-moving weeds, it’s not California’s most-wanted ravaging the countryside. Yost attributes a lot of the current resentment to the historic 1991 fire in the East Bay hills, where tons of eucalyptus burned.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jenn Yost:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> People at the time I don’t think associated that with a planted plantation; it was just a eucalyptus forest. And then when the fire came through—I mean that fire came through so fast and so hot and so many people lost their homes that it was a natural reaction to hate blue gums at that point.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival tape: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pushed by 30 mile per hour winds, fire swept down the Oakland Berkeley hills destroying everything in its path.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The East Bay Hills fire was hugely devastating… 25 people died and thousands were left homeless. Many experts say that eucalyptus trees worsen the fire threat for a few reasons… The bark they shed dries out quickly and creates fuel…a lot of fuel. Once a fire starts, that bark easily catches the wind and can be blown miles away, spreading the fire quickly. Also: Eucalyptus trees are really oily. The oil is actually what gives off that intense fragrance they’re known for. But in a fire, that oil also makes them flammable.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Other folks argue different plants in their place would also burn. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is an entrenched debate! A few years ago there was federal fire-prevention funding to cut down trees in those same hills, and people protested. Folks got naked and hugged the blue gums on campus at Berkeley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> But after a nearly decade-long legal battle, a court gave UC Berkeley the go-ahead to cut down dozens of acres of Eucalyptus last year. Still, it’s a drop in the bucket when you think about how many of these trees we have in California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yost estimates there’s something like 40 thousand acres of unharvested crops in the state. It’s not hard to extrapolate upwards of ten million trees statewide. Cutting each one down takes time and money.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So really the question of whether eucalyptus is going away comes down to who’s backyard it’s in. Can they afford to cut the trees down? Is the political will there to do it? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So that’s where things are. What did our question askers think? Christian and Julie.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Bergen:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That was absolutely fascinating. I did not know that the history was even that rich.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Christian Wagner: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I have to say I love the idea that a lot of what we see was a get-rich-quick scheme. Because that is just a theme that happens so often in America and in California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So often to our detriment. Science Writer Daniel Potter, thanks for stomping around so many forests for us this week. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Happy to do it!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A note: A few of the sources quoted in his story have changed jobs since they were first interviewed in 2018.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you’ve ever wondered what all goes into making a Bay Curious story sound the way it does … join producer Katrina Schwartz and I TONIGHT, April 11 for our talk: Elevating Audio Stories with Sound for the PRX Podcast Garage. We’ll be talking through how we use music, sound effects, archival material, narration and more to bring the Bay Curious podcast to life. Join us in person at KQED’s Headquarters, or on the livestream. Tickets are free if you use the code “baycurious.” Grab yours at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/podcast\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">kqed.org/podcastgarage\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bay Curious is made by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia-Allen Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christian Wagner:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at KQED. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11644927/eucalyptus-how-californias-most-hated-tree-took-root-2","authors":["byline_news_11644927"],"programs":["news_33523","news_6944"],"series":["news_17986"],"categories":["news_19906","news_33520","news_356"],"tags":["news_20023"],"featImg":"news_11647129","label":"source_news_11644927"},"news_11981762":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11981762","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11981762","score":null,"sort":[1712228432000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"major-richmond-refinery-accidents-settled-as-part-of-chevron-deal","title":"Major Richmond Refinery Accidents Settled as Part of Chevron Deal","publishDate":1712228432,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Major Richmond Refinery Accidents Settled as Part of Chevron Deal | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>An agreement local air regulators made with Chevron earlier this year includes the settling of dozens of violations tied to some of the largest accidents at the company’s Richmond refinery over the last five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area Air Quality Management District \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11975650/bay-air-district-hails-decisive-victory-in-battle-to-cut-refinery-pollution\">announced in February that it had reached deals with Chevron and the Martinez Refining Company\u003c/a>, ending a legal war over a rule intended to reduce a harmful form of pollution emitted by the energy companies’ local refineries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the agreement, Chevron is also paying $20 million to settle 678 separate violations related to its Richmond refinery. That marks the highest penalty agreement the energy giant has ever made with the air district, according to Philip Fine, the agency’s executive officer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This a new era of enforcement and holding facilities accountable,” Fine told the Richmond City Council on Feb. 27. “They need to feel these penalties in order to incentivize them to stay in compliance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The deal resolves all of the air district’s open enforcement actions with Chevron that took place between 2019 and June 30, 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11975650]“We believe this resolution will allow us to turn our full focus on the future safe and reliable operation of our facility,” Chevron said in a statement sent by company spokesperson Caitlin Powell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Air district officials told KQED 105 of the violations Chevron settled are tied to eight major incidents at the refinery over the last five years. They include several cases in which refinery components malfunctioned, leading to flaring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/plans-and-climate/emission-tracking-and-monitoring/flare-minimization-plans\">Flaring operations\u003c/a> take place when refineries send gasses to their flares to reduce pressure inside the facilities during malfunctions as well as start-up and shutdown operations. Oil industry officials have emphasized that the practice is a way to prevent more serious and possibly dangerous accidents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the flaring operations involved in the settlement released significant amounts of toxic gas into the air above the Richmond area. In several of these incidents, nearby residents could see black smoke and fire bursting into the sky, with some calling the air district to complain. Those cases garnered a significant amount of news coverage and social media posts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regulators say 71 of the violations are connected to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11894150/chevron-refinery-malfunction-during-storm-shut-down-processing-units-causing-fire-and-toxic-flaring\">several days of pollution releases from the Richmond refinery that began Oct. 24, 2021\u003c/a>, when one of the Bay Area’s strongest storms in recent years brought significant rain to the region. The refinery sustained a series of malfunctions that led to three days of flaring and significant concerns by Richmond area residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two weeks after the releases started, the City Council asked Chevron executives to explain what happened in a public hearing. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11895438/richmond-to-chevron-listen-to-our-residents-concerns-about-your-problems\">Residents who showed up to the virtual meeting left upset\u003c/a>. They complained that company representatives did not have an explanation for what caused the major refinery malfunction. One of them, Randy Joseph, told the council and the company that he learned nothing from the hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11895438]Reached two and a half years later, on the heels of the deal that essentially closes the book on that accident, Joseph said his dissatisfaction with Chevron has not subsided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Chevron always has the answers,” Joseph said in an interview. “They just refuse to share with us. They know they’re polluting. They also know they can come and say nothing and get away with it,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few months after the October 2021 incident, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11901875/chevron-richmond-refinery-roof-leak-october-2021-flaring-incident\">KQED reported that problems started when an atmospheric river storm poured rain through a leaky roof into a key part of the refinery\u003c/a>, triggering significant power and steam loss. That, in turn, knocked half a dozen petroleum processing units offline, caused a small fire, and resulted in several days in which the refinery flared off toxic gases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They never came back to City Council. They never came back and explained. They never came back to apologize,” said Joseph, who is a community organizer with the group Reimagine Richmond and said he only learned of the cause of that accident from KQED’s reporting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label='Related Coverage' tag='chevron']Chevron says it informs the public and the air district about its releases. The company points out that residents can check real-time air quality data through \u003ca href=\"https://richmondairmonitoring.org/\">the refinery’s fenceline monitoring system\u003c/a>. The causes of many flaring events are posted several months later on \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/about-air-quality/research-and-data/flare-data/flare-causal-reports\">the air district’s website\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Chevron Richmond also will be implementing various improvements to our flare monitoring and sampling systems and setting up ways to discuss flaring events and other air quality issues directly with our community,” the company said through its representative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 71 violations for the October 2021 incident involve times in which Chevron broke public nuisance, permit condition, visible emission and flare monitoring regulations, according to Kristine Roselius, an air district spokesperson. But the settlement essentially obscures the fine amount for each penalty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We accounted for the seriousness of these violations in determining an appropriate overall penalty amount for all the covered violations, but there is no allocation of specific dollar amounts to each individual violation, Roselius said in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the last decade, the oil industry \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11960699/oil-industry-sets-back-efforts-to-increase-fines-against-polluting-california-refineries-yet-again\">has successfully killed or delayed legislative attempts to increase penalties on refineries\u003c/a> that violate air quality laws in California. The most recent bill, proposed by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), would increase the ceiling of many of those penalties to $30,000 per violation. That bill, \u003ca href=\"https://legiscan.com/CA/bill/AB1465/2023\">AB 1465\u003c/a>, is on hold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Air district officials say 13 of Chevron’s violations settled in the recent deal were tied to an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11860389/chevron-says-flawed-electrical-diagram-triggered-major-flaring-incident\">incident on Nov. 2, 2020,\u003c/a> when an incorrectly labeled electrical diagram caused a power outage leading to the flaring of more than 100,000 pounds of sulfur dioxide and other chemicals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency says 11 other violations were connected to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.cchealth.org/home/showpublisheddocument/28612/638337601986530000\">malfunction at the Richmond refinery on March 9, 2023,\u003c/a> when a hydrogen-producing plant tripped offline thanks to an electrical equipment malfunction. On the same day, a fire broke out thanks to a pump seal leak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, Chevron’s Richmond refinery has flared more than the Bay Area’s other refineries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company argues that its “flaring performance has been steadily improving over the past few years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To supplement these efforts, we will be formalizing an operator training program related to flare reduction and conducting a comprehensive assessment of previous flaring events to identify if any additional corrective actions are warranted,” the company said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"An agreement air regulators made with Chevron earlier this year includes settling dozens of violations tied to some of the largest accidents at the company’s Richmond refinery over the last five years.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1712189495,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":27,"wordCount":1101},"headData":{"title":"Major Richmond Refinery Accidents Settled as Part of Chevron Deal | KQED","description":"An agreement air regulators made with Chevron earlier this year includes settling dozens of violations tied to some of the largest accidents at the company’s Richmond refinery over the last five years.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Major Richmond Refinery Accidents Settled as Part of Chevron Deal","datePublished":"2024-04-04T11:00:32.000Z","dateModified":"2024-04-04T00:11:35.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"sticky":false,"excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11981762/major-richmond-refinery-accidents-settled-as-part-of-chevron-deal","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>An agreement local air regulators made with Chevron earlier this year includes the settling of dozens of violations tied to some of the largest accidents at the company’s Richmond refinery over the last five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area Air Quality Management District \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11975650/bay-air-district-hails-decisive-victory-in-battle-to-cut-refinery-pollution\">announced in February that it had reached deals with Chevron and the Martinez Refining Company\u003c/a>, ending a legal war over a rule intended to reduce a harmful form of pollution emitted by the energy companies’ local refineries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the agreement, Chevron is also paying $20 million to settle 678 separate violations related to its Richmond refinery. That marks the highest penalty agreement the energy giant has ever made with the air district, according to Philip Fine, the agency’s executive officer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This a new era of enforcement and holding facilities accountable,” Fine told the Richmond City Council on Feb. 27. “They need to feel these penalties in order to incentivize them to stay in compliance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The deal resolves all of the air district’s open enforcement actions with Chevron that took place between 2019 and June 30, 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"news_11975650","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“We believe this resolution will allow us to turn our full focus on the future safe and reliable operation of our facility,” Chevron said in a statement sent by company spokesperson Caitlin Powell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Air district officials told KQED 105 of the violations Chevron settled are tied to eight major incidents at the refinery over the last five years. They include several cases in which refinery components malfunctioned, leading to flaring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/plans-and-climate/emission-tracking-and-monitoring/flare-minimization-plans\">Flaring operations\u003c/a> take place when refineries send gasses to their flares to reduce pressure inside the facilities during malfunctions as well as start-up and shutdown operations. Oil industry officials have emphasized that the practice is a way to prevent more serious and possibly dangerous accidents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the flaring operations involved in the settlement released significant amounts of toxic gas into the air above the Richmond area. In several of these incidents, nearby residents could see black smoke and fire bursting into the sky, with some calling the air district to complain. Those cases garnered a significant amount of news coverage and social media posts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regulators say 71 of the violations are connected to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11894150/chevron-refinery-malfunction-during-storm-shut-down-processing-units-causing-fire-and-toxic-flaring\">several days of pollution releases from the Richmond refinery that began Oct. 24, 2021\u003c/a>, when one of the Bay Area’s strongest storms in recent years brought significant rain to the region. The refinery sustained a series of malfunctions that led to three days of flaring and significant concerns by Richmond area residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two weeks after the releases started, the City Council asked Chevron executives to explain what happened in a public hearing. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11895438/richmond-to-chevron-listen-to-our-residents-concerns-about-your-problems\">Residents who showed up to the virtual meeting left upset\u003c/a>. They complained that company representatives did not have an explanation for what caused the major refinery malfunction. One of them, Randy Joseph, told the council and the company that he learned nothing from the hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"news_11895438","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Reached two and a half years later, on the heels of the deal that essentially closes the book on that accident, Joseph said his dissatisfaction with Chevron has not subsided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Chevron always has the answers,” Joseph said in an interview. “They just refuse to share with us. They know they’re polluting. They also know they can come and say nothing and get away with it,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few months after the October 2021 incident, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11901875/chevron-richmond-refinery-roof-leak-october-2021-flaring-incident\">KQED reported that problems started when an atmospheric river storm poured rain through a leaky roof into a key part of the refinery\u003c/a>, triggering significant power and steam loss. That, in turn, knocked half a dozen petroleum processing units offline, caused a small fire, and resulted in several days in which the refinery flared off toxic gases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They never came back to City Council. They never came back and explained. They never came back to apologize,” said Joseph, who is a community organizer with the group Reimagine Richmond and said he only learned of the cause of that accident from KQED’s reporting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"label":"Related Coverage ","tag":"chevron"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Chevron says it informs the public and the air district about its releases. The company points out that residents can check real-time air quality data through \u003ca href=\"https://richmondairmonitoring.org/\">the refinery’s fenceline monitoring system\u003c/a>. The causes of many flaring events are posted several months later on \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/about-air-quality/research-and-data/flare-data/flare-causal-reports\">the air district’s website\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Chevron Richmond also will be implementing various improvements to our flare monitoring and sampling systems and setting up ways to discuss flaring events and other air quality issues directly with our community,” the company said through its representative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 71 violations for the October 2021 incident involve times in which Chevron broke public nuisance, permit condition, visible emission and flare monitoring regulations, according to Kristine Roselius, an air district spokesperson. But the settlement essentially obscures the fine amount for each penalty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We accounted for the seriousness of these violations in determining an appropriate overall penalty amount for all the covered violations, but there is no allocation of specific dollar amounts to each individual violation, Roselius said in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the last decade, the oil industry \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11960699/oil-industry-sets-back-efforts-to-increase-fines-against-polluting-california-refineries-yet-again\">has successfully killed or delayed legislative attempts to increase penalties on refineries\u003c/a> that violate air quality laws in California. The most recent bill, proposed by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), would increase the ceiling of many of those penalties to $30,000 per violation. That bill, \u003ca href=\"https://legiscan.com/CA/bill/AB1465/2023\">AB 1465\u003c/a>, is on hold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Air district officials say 13 of Chevron’s violations settled in the recent deal were tied to an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11860389/chevron-says-flawed-electrical-diagram-triggered-major-flaring-incident\">incident on Nov. 2, 2020,\u003c/a> when an incorrectly labeled electrical diagram caused a power outage leading to the flaring of more than 100,000 pounds of sulfur dioxide and other chemicals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency says 11 other violations were connected to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.cchealth.org/home/showpublisheddocument/28612/638337601986530000\">malfunction at the Richmond refinery on March 9, 2023,\u003c/a> when a hydrogen-producing plant tripped offline thanks to an electrical equipment malfunction. On the same day, a fire broke out thanks to a pump seal leak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, Chevron’s Richmond refinery has flared more than the Bay Area’s other refineries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company argues that its “flaring performance has been steadily improving over the past few years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To supplement these efforts, we will be formalizing an operator training program related to flare reduction and conducting a comprehensive assessment of previous flaring events to identify if any additional corrective actions are warranted,” the company said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11981762/major-richmond-refinery-accidents-settled-as-part-of-chevron-deal","authors":["258"],"categories":["news_19906","news_457","news_8","news_356"],"tags":["news_20628","news_424","news_20023","news_27626","news_18543","news_3111","news_21107","news_579"],"featImg":"news_11981785","label":"news"},"news_11981665":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11981665","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11981665","score":null,"sort":[1712224818000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"climate-change-induced-heatwaves-are-devastating-californias-kelp-and-abalone","title":"California's Beloved Abalone Sea Snails Are Struggling. Here's Why","publishDate":1712224818,"format":"standard","headTitle":"California’s Beloved Abalone Sea Snails Are Struggling. Here’s Why | KQED","labelTerm":{},"content":"\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The beaches of Northern California can be treasure troves for keen-eyed visitors. Surrounded by grass-covered cliffs and dramatic rocky outcrops, walkers can often find seashells, driftwood and other riches on the cool, wet sand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Bay Curious listener Lorraine Page moved to Pescadero about 30 years ago, she spent a lot of time hunting for such treasures at the beach. A family doctor by day, beachcombing was her way to unwind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While she came across all sorts of treasures, she was looking for one thing in particular: abalone shells. For her, finding one of those beautiful, iridescent mollusks signified a day well spent on a Northern California beach. \u003ca href=\"https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/animals-a-to-z/abalone\">Abalone are mollusks, essentially sea snails\u003c/a> that can grow up to 10 inches in diameter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If she was especially lucky, Page might even find what are called \u003ci>pearls\u003c/i> attached to the outside of an abalone shell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The abalone makes this pearl to try to protect the shell,” she said. “And it’s beautiful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the abalone perceives a threat, like a parasite, it surrounds it with nacre, also known as mother-of-pearl, to wall off the intruder. Over eight to 10 years, a beautiful iridescent pearl forms on the abalone shell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Page found \u003ca href=\"https://www.purepearls.com/pages/pearl-types-abalone-pearls\">one of these rare wild beauties\u003c/a>, she brought it to a jeweler in Pescadero, who turned it into one-of-a-kind necklaces or earrings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But over time, Page stopped finding them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It used to be consistent. At certain beaches in Pescadero, you’d find abalone shells,” she said. “And now I just can’t. They’re not around anymore.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She hasn’t found a whole abalone shell in over 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Abalone’s long history\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976838\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976838\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Doug Jung holds a red abalone shell, or a trophy as they are called, at his home in Santa Rosa on Feb. 20, 2024. A friend gave the shell to him after his house burned down and he lost all of his belongings in the Tubbs Fire. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Abalone has lived off of California’s coastline for \u003ca href=\"https://caseagrant.ucsd.edu/news/abalone-the-story-of-a-treasured-mollusk-on-the-california-coast\">at least 70 million years\u003c/a>. The ancient mollusk has always held deep meaning for Northern Californians, going back to the very first humans who lived here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When humans came to California, they started using abalone right away — initially for food, but soon thereafter also for tools,” said Ann Vileisis, an environmental historian and author of the book \u003ca href=\"https://osupress.oregonstate.edu/index.php/book/abalone\">\u003ci>Abalone: The Remarkable History and Uncertain Future of California’s Iconic Shellfish\u003c/i>.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indigenous people also used abalone shells for decoration and ceremonial purposes. During ceremonial dances, people wore beautifully elaborate regalia with abalone shells prominently displayed. They not only looked beautiful, Vileisis said, but they also added an incredible clacking sound, which helped to bring the dance to life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when European settlers arrived on the West Coast, they started treating abalone like a commodity to be traded and sold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the late 18th century, Spanish settlers traded abalone shells for sea otter fur as part of the Pacific fur trade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, in the mid-to-late-19th century, Chinese and Japanese immigrants — who were familiar with abalone, being from the other side of the Pacific Ocean — began shipping dried abalone and shells back to China and Japan, where they were used in soups and congees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That was actually probably among the first California global trades,” Vileisis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was also a time of extreme racism and xenophobia in the U.S. In 1882, Congress passed the \u003ca href=\"https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/chinese-exclusion-act#:~:text=The%20Chinese%20Exclusion%20Act%20was,Arthur.\">Chinese Exclusion Act\u003c/a>, which barred Chinese immigrants from entering the U.S. And in1913, the California legislature passed a ban on exporting abalone, allegedly due to concerns over overfishing, though today it is largely seen as a racist law meant to target the growing prosperity of Chinese and Japanese fishermen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But abalone fishing didn’t stop. And in fact, over time, more and more Americans developed a culinary appreciation for California’s iconic sea snail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is absolutely the best thing you can ever eat,” said Doug Jung, a Santa Rosa resident and former abalone diver. “There was nothing I’d rather eat than abalone. I mean, it was just so good.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976836\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976836\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Man in checked shirt and sun hat stands in front of a truck with a boat loaded in the back.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Doug Jung stands next to his boat in front of his home in Santa Rosa on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jung’s favorite way to cook abalone is to tenderize it with a wooden mallet, cover it with flour, then throw it in a wok and deep fry it for about six minutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s crunchy on the outside, and you can cut it with a fork easily,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond feasting on abalone, diving for it became a way of life for Jung. He learned when he was in high school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the adventure,” he said. “Every time you go out, when you come back, you say, ‘Cheated death one more time.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Abalone diving is one of the most dangerous kinds of sport fishing. It’s illegal to use scuba gear to dive for abalone due to concerns of overfishing. So, while holding their breath, divers have to dive down to the ocean floor or navigate rocky outcrops, scrape off the abalone without harming them, and then swim back up to the surface. And if that weren’t enough, they also must avoid getting tangled in kelp and encounters with other sea creatures. An octopus almost drowned Jung one time, he said. But despite the risks, for Jung, diving for abalone was totally worth it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was my passion,” he said. “More than anything else, abalone diving was my absolute passion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976837\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976837\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photos of Doug Jung with friends and family during and after abalone dives hang on the wall of his home in Santa Rosa on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Where are all the abalone?\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Just like Lorraine Page, our question-asker, Jung has also noticed the decline in abalone. In fact, he’s not even allowed to dive for them anymore because they are now considered critically endangered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around 2014, a big climate change-driven marine heatwave hit the coast of Northern California. The increased water temperature impacted sea life in all kinds of ways, most notably killing much of the local kelp forest. And since kelp is a staple food source for many sea animals, other oceanic species, like abalone, also died off in large numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, the Northern California sea star population was hit hard by a disease called \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/im/swan/ssws.htm\">wasting syndrome\u003c/a>. The warmer marine temperatures made the sea stars more susceptible to the disease and also allowed the disease to proliferate more quickly. Sea stars are predators of sea urchins, so when the sea stars started to decline, purple urchins thrived. And purple urchins devour kelp. The booming urchin population ultimately ate through more than 95% of Northern California’s coastal kelp, causing a near-total kelp forest collapse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without the kelp, millions of red abalone — Northern California’s native species — died of starvation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I go out there and dive, it makes me cry because the only thing I see is urchin barrens,” Jung said. “This is a horror for us who understood the beauty of what we lost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Hope for another abalone species\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Red abalone isn’t the only type of abalone facing potential extinction in California. In fact, all west coast abalone species are \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucdavis.edu/climate/news/all-west-coast-abalone-added-endangered-iucns-red-list\">listed\u003c/a> as critically endangered or endangered \u003ca href=\"https://www.iucnredlist.org/\">on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Enter the UC Davis Bodega Marine Lab white abalone captive breeding program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976835\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976835\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alyssa Frederick, director of the White Abalone Captive Breeding Program, poses for a portrait at the UC Davis-Bodega Marine Laboratory in Bodega Bay on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The program started over a decade ago when scientists realized that white abalone populations had gotten so low they couldn’t reproduce in the wild anymore. Native to Southern California, the white abalone lives in deep water, but in the 1960s–1970s, as soon as diving technology allowed for deeper water fishing, humans overfished them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists have been working to breed white abalone in captivity under controlled conditions in order to release them into the wild and hopefully jump-start reproduction in the wild again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The spawns — where they induce breeding between male and female abalone — are exciting events that only happen once a year. I visited the lab just days after the most recent one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976831\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976831\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alyssa Frederick, director of the White Abalone Captive Breeding Program, points to a group of white abalone in a lab at the UC Davis-Bodega Marine Laboratory in Bodega Bay on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We had 6.7 million eggs last week,” said Alyssa Frederick, director of the lab’s white abalone captive breeding program. “It was the largest spawn we’ve had in the program since 2019. I was really excited.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A ton of planning and coordination goes into a spawn, Frederick said. The abalone basically sits in buckets of chemicals, mostly hydrogen peroxide, which causes a cascade of hormones in their bodies that tell them it’s time to spawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Abalone are broadcast spawners, meaning they release their eggs and sperm into the water column and form larvae from there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was literally pacing my living room like someone waiting in a maternity ward for someone to give birth,” Frederick said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, the program releases about 5,000 abalone into the wild per year. In order to save the species, models show they need to be releasing twice that amount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We still are an order of magnitude below what’s required to save the species,” Frederick said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976832\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976832\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alyssa Frederick, director of the White Abalone Captive Breeding Program, holds a white abalone at the UC Davis-Bodega Marine Laboratory in Bodega Bay on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>‘Double whammy’ for red abalone\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The white abalone captive breeding program holds promise for the future of that species. As for red abalone, the situation is more complicated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In white abalone, you have lots of nice habitat,” said Laura Rogers-Bennett, a senior environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “You have kelp, you just don’t have white abalone. But red abalone has the double whammy of [needing] kelp \u003ci>and\u003c/i> red abalone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s part of the reason there is no captive breeding program for red abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981674\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981674\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Abalone in a kelp forest near Mendocino, California, surrounded by dark red algae. \u003ccite>(Lt. John Crofts, NOAA Corps., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But there are some programs in place to try to save the kelp and, ultimately, the abalone. For example, since sea urchins are such a scourge on the kelp, state Fish and Wildlife officials have allowed commercial and recreational divers to harvest them in select areas. With fewer sea urchins, Rogers-Bennett said, the kelp might recover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the program is still too small to have much impact, Rogers-Bennett said. There are just too many sea urchins. As a lifelong diver and ocean creature enthusiast, she said the work can be discouraging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To go back to a spot and see a particular rock that I visited at least once a year for 20 years, and to know that that spot is where there used to be tons of red abalone and to see it just covered with urchin and no algae at all, it’s heartbreaking,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While there’s certainly no lack of enthusiasm, she said her program needs more financial support if it has a chance of saving the abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Obviously, in red abalone, we have the passion,” she said. “I think there’s a chance that we can create some of these pockets of kelp forest and have them come back in these kelp oases. And that will be the start of restoration areas for the whole coast.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as human-caused climate change continues to change ecosystems, there’s no telling when the next marine heatwave might hit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Sounds of ocean waves and seagulls]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> When Lorraine Page moved to Pescadero in the ’90s, she spent a lot of time at the beach. It was her way to unwind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lorraine Page: \u003c/b>I’m a family doctor on the coast. So I’m busy. But on, on weekends and such, that would be an outlet for me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>She would comb the beach and explore the tide pools for hours, looking for one thing in particular: abalone shells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Magical beach music begins]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Abalone are mollusks… basically big sea snails, up to 10 inches wide, that live off our northern California coastline. You might recognize their shells, which are iridescent… somehow every color of the rainbow all at once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lorraine sought them out because sometimes, if she was lucky, on those abalone shells she would find an abalone \u003ci>pearl.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lorraine Page: \u003c/b>They’re these beautiful little pearls that show up in the shell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>When Lorraine found one, she’d bring it to a jeweler in Pescadero who would polish it up and turn it into a one-of-a-kind necklace or earrings. But over time, Lorraine has stopped finding them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lorraine Page: \u003c/b>It used to be consistent that certain beaches in Pescadero, you’d find abalone shells, and I just can’t. They’re not around anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>She says she hasn’t found a whole abalone shell in more than 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lorraine Page: \u003c/b>That’s just my simple question is, do we know why there’s not as many abalone?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Bay Curious theme music starts] \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I’m Olivia Allen Price and you’re listening to Bay Curious. On today’s episode: what happened to all the abalone? And can we bring them back?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Theme\u003c/i> \u003ci>music ends]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Where did all the abalone go? We sent reporter Dana Cronin to find out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin:\u003c/b> Before I get to answering Lorraine’s question, I think we could all use a little history lesson. Because, oh man, do abalone have a long history here in Northern California?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Vileisis: \u003c/b>Abalone have lived on the California coast for actually 70 million years, at the very least.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Ann Vileisis is an environmental historian who’s authored a whole book on abalone. She says the ancient mollusk has always held deep meaning for us Northern Californians… going back to the \u003ci>very first \u003c/i>humans who lived here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Vileisis: \u003c/b>When humans came to California, they started using abalone right away, initially for food, but soon thereafter also for tools\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Indigenous people also used abalone shells for decoration and ceremonial purposes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Sounds of a Pomo Indian dance performance featuring clacking abalone shells]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>During ceremonial dances, for example… abalone shells were a part of the regalia. They not only looked beautiful — they also added this incredible clacking sound… bringing the dance to life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when European settlers arrived on the West Coast, they started treating abalone like a commodity… to be traded and sold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the late 18th century, Spanish settlers traded abalone shells for sea otter fur as part of the Pacific fur trade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, in the mid-to-late-1800s, Chinese and Japanese immigrants — who were very familiar with abalone being from the other side of the Pacific Ocean — began shipping dried abalone and shells back to China and Japan, where they were used in soups and congees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Vileisis: \u003c/b>That was actually probably one of the, you know, among the first California global trades was in abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>This was also a time of extreme racism and xenophobia in the U.S., around when Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese immigrants from entering the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1913, the California legislature passed a ban on exporting abalone, which they \u003ci>said\u003c/i> was due to concerns of overfishing. In reality, the ban was part of the larger anti-immigrant sentiment of the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music fades out]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But abalone fishing didn’t stop. And in fact, over time, more and more Americans realized how delicious these sea snails are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>It is absolutely the best thing you can ever eat. There was nothing I’d rather eat than abalone. I mean, it was just so good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>This is Doug Jung. He lives in Santa Rosa and has been abalone diving up and down the Northern California coast since he was in high school — over 50 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says abalone is naturally buttery and salty… and there’s something about its texture that is totally unique and delicious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>We just pound it with a wooden mallet until it’s soft. And then we throw it in a wok for six minutes and deep fry it and it comes out. It doesn’t suck up all the oil. You have it covered with flour and things. So it’s crunchy on the outside. You can cut it with a fork easily.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Like, imagine the most tender, melt-in-your-mouth scallop you’ve ever had.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But beyond just eating it… over the years, abalone diving became a way of life for Doug. It was addicting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>It’s the adventure. Every time you go out, you know when you come back, you say ‘Cheated death one more time.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Cheated death one more time because abalone diving is one of the more dangerous sport fishing activities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because it was illegal to use scuba gear to dive for abalone due to concerns of overfishing. So divers have to dive down to the ocean floor or navigate rocky outcrops — where abalone suction themselves — scrape them off without harming them… and then swim to the surface \u003ci>all in one breath\u003c/i>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music fades out]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not to mention avoiding getting tangled in kelp… or encountering other sea critters. Doug tells me about a time he had a run-in with an octopus:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>He only had two tentacles on me … but with those two tentacles — and I was in my prime in my 30s — I barely got off those two tentacles before coming up. And, I’m thinking if you had three on, I’d be dead\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Doug says, despite the risks, diving for abalone was totally worth it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>I feel very, very fortunate to be able to experience this because this was my passion. More than anything else, more than inventing new technology, more than going fishing, more than hiking. Going up from the into the Sierras. Abalone diving was my absolute passion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>But just like Lorraine, Doug has also noticed the decline in abalone. In fact, he’s not even allowed to dive for abalone anymore, because abalone are now considered critically endangered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To understand how we got here, we need to rewind the clock about 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Around 2014, there was a big marine heatwave, driven no doubt by climate change. That heat wave impacted Northern California’s coastline in all kinds of ways. Most notably, killing much of the kelp forest off our coast here. Kelp is the main food source for many ocean species — including, you guessed it, abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The marine heat wave also introduced a disease called wasting syndrome… which wiped out much of the sea star population. Like in any ecosystem, when one species is impacted, other species along the food chain are impacted, too. Sea stars prey on sea urchins. So when the sea stars started to decline, purple urchins were without a predator… and they \u003ci>thrived. \u003c/i>So much so that they ate through more than 95 percent of our coastal kelp… causing a near-total kelp forest collapse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music out]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s the root issue here. Because without the kelp, millions of red abalone — the kind that’s native to Northern California — have died due to starvation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>It’s dead. When I go out there and dive up. It makes me cry because the only thing I see is urchin barrens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>While Doug used to dive down and see this lush kelp forest, teeming with fish and snails and sea stars… now, with the kelp mostly gone, it’s almost like a desert landscape, with urchins covering the ocean floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>This is a horror for us. For us who understood the beauty of what we lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>So that’s the sad answer to Lorraine’s question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But now, you might be wondering: is there hope for the future of abalone?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Rushing mechanical background sound fade in]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>To answer that question, we’re going to take a tour of the UC Davis Bodega Marine Lab, a facility in Bodega Bay that \u003ci>breeds \u003c/i>abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>When we’re doing spawning, what we do is we’ll take an animal out and we’ll check its gonads.\u003ci> \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>This is Alyssa Frederick. She directs the white abalone \u003ci>captive breeding program\u003c/i> here at the lab.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She holds up a five-year-old female abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>So they have two eyes on stocks and then they also have their like antenna. That’s curled up underneath. One’s curled up underneath, and one’s right here. Yeah. Pretty cute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>We’re in a lab holding room full of tanks housing abalone of all ages and sizes. This little lady, in particular, looks like a giant, oval-shaped snail with a big shell that sits flat across her back. Her two eyes are like tentacles, feeling their way around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The spawns — where they induce breeding between the male and female abalone — are a really big deal. They only happen once a year, and I’m visiting just days after the most recent one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>We had 6.7 million eggs last week. It was the largest spawn we’ve had in the program since 2019. I was really excited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>A lot of planning and coordination goes into a spawn. The abalone basically sit in buckets of chemicals, namely hydrogen peroxide, which causes a cascade of hormones in their bodies that tell them it’s time to spawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alyssa says they set the mood — so to speak — in other ways too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>We had the lights off for most of it. We did it in the evening, which, like abalone, are more active in the evening. So my line of thinking is that why not stack the odds in our favor and do it then?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Abalone are broadcast spawners, meaning they release their eggs and sperm into the water column and form larvae from there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alyssa says it’s an intense process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick:\u003c/b> I mean, the joke, like, I was literally pacing my living room like someone waiting in a maternity ward for someone to give birth\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music fade out]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>On the day I’m visiting, the little baby abalone are starting to settle, which means they have to flip themselves over and find a place to settle on the bottom of the tank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We watch them through a microscope:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>Wee! Aww. So cute. Dancing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Now it’s important to note that these are \u003ci>white \u003c/i>abalone. Remember the ones we’ve mostly been talking about so far are red abalone… which are native to \u003ci>Northern\u003c/i> California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>White abalone were more common down in southern California. However, in the ‘60s and ‘70s, as soon as diving technology allowed us to fish deeper water species, we overfished them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>So we overfished, over 99% of what was out in the wild. It was pretty significant. Like, pretty much all of them.\u003ci> \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>White abalone was the first marine invertebrate species to be listed on the Endangered Species Act. There were so few left they weren’t able to reproduce in the wild anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So scientists decided to bring some into captivity, have them reproduce in safe, controlled conditions, and then release them into the wild. They release them when they’re about a year old by placing them in these small cages on the ocean floor and opening up the door.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal is to create enough of them out in the wild that they start reproducing on their own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right now, they’re releasing about five thousand abalone into the wild per year. In order to save the species, models show they need to be releasing twice that amount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>Right now we still are an order of magnitude below what’s required to save the species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>But, she says, they’re also an order of magnitude \u003ci>above\u003c/i> where they started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So there’s some hope for white abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for our red abalone here in Northern California… the situation is more complicated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett: \u003c/b>I think the red abalone problem is more difficult.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>This is Laura Rogers-Bennett, a senior environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. She also works at the Bodega Marine Lab and specializes in \u003ci>red\u003c/i> abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says while white abalone struggle in numbers, they at least have a healthy kelp forest to return to down south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett:\u003c/b> Red abalone has the double whammy of you need kelp. And you need red abalone\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Without kelp, red abalone don’t have a home to return to. And that makes captive breeding — and reintroduction — a lot harder. That’s part of the reason there is no captive breeding program for red abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They are doing some things, though, to try to bring back the kelp and, ultimately, the abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, they’ve identified a few areas off the coast where they allow divers to go out and harvest sea urchins to try to get the kelp to grow back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett: \u003c/b>So far they haven’t been that successful in terms of bringing back the kelp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>There are also captive breeding programs for sea stars, which aim to reintroduce them back into the ecosystem to keep the urchin at bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s definitely an uphill battle. As someone who has done this work for a long time, Laura says it’s emotionally draining.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett: \u003c/b>To go back to a spot and see a particular rock, that I visited, at least once a year for 20 years. And to know that that spot is where there’s tons used to be tons of red abalone and to see it just covered with urchin and no algae at all. It’s heartbreaking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>But she’s committed to trying. Trying to get the kelp forest to grow back, trying to recoup the abalone we’ve lost over the last decade. And she hopes the findings from the captive breeding program will help along the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett: \u003c/b>Obviously, in red abalone, we have the passion. I think there’s a chance that we can create some of these pockets of kelp forest. Have them come back in these kelp oases. And, that will be the start of restoration areas for the whole coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>If that happens, we could look forward to a future where Lorraine Page, our question-asker, can beach comb again for abalone pearls. And Doug can revive his long lost hobby; diving down, wrestling octopi along the way, in search of his favorite sea snail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music fades out along with the sound of crashing waves]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> That story was reported by KQED’s Dana Cronin. Big thanks to Lorraine Page for asking the question.\u003cb>\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>The North Coast Journal provided the sound of abalone clacking during ceremonial dances for our use in this episode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’ve ever wondered what all goes into making a Bay Curious story sound the way it does … join producer Katrina Schwartz and I on April 11 for \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/1000/apr-11-600pm-elevating-audio-stories-with-sound-ft-bay-curious\">our talk at the PRX Podcast Garage\u003c/a>. We’re calling it \u003cb>Elevating Audio Stories with Sound\u003c/b> and it’s all about how we make this show with a small but mighty team. We’ll be talking through how we use music, sound effects, archival material, narration and more to bring the Bay Curious podcast to life. Join us in person at KQED’s Headquarters or on the livestream. Tickets are free if you use the code “baycurious” that’s all one word. Grab yours at \u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/podcastgarage\">kqed.org/podcastgarage\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week!\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Northern California beachcombers in places like Pescadero and Mendocino find abalone shells much less often than they used to. Climate change is threatening the red abalone population.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1712184048,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":true,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":167,"wordCount":5012},"headData":{"title":"California's Beloved Abalone Sea Snails Are Struggling. Here's Why | KQED","description":"Northern California beachcombers in places like Pescadero and Mendocino find abalone shells much less often than they used to. Climate change is threatening the red abalone population.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"California's Beloved Abalone Sea Snails Are Struggling. Here's Why","datePublished":"2024-04-04T10:00:18.000Z","dateModified":"2024-04-03T22:40:48.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"source":"Bay Curious","sourceUrl":"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/baycurious/","audioUrl":"https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/chrt.fm/track/G6C7C3/traffic.megaphone.fm/KQINC4462577464.mp3?updated=1712176893","sticky":false,"excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11981665/climate-change-induced-heatwaves-are-devastating-californias-kelp-and-abalone","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The beaches of Northern California can be treasure troves for keen-eyed visitors. Surrounded by grass-covered cliffs and dramatic rocky outcrops, walkers can often find seashells, driftwood and other riches on the cool, wet sand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Bay Curious listener Lorraine Page moved to Pescadero about 30 years ago, she spent a lot of time hunting for such treasures at the beach. A family doctor by day, beachcombing was her way to unwind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While she came across all sorts of treasures, she was looking for one thing in particular: abalone shells. For her, finding one of those beautiful, iridescent mollusks signified a day well spent on a Northern California beach. \u003ca href=\"https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/animals-a-to-z/abalone\">Abalone are mollusks, essentially sea snails\u003c/a> that can grow up to 10 inches in diameter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If she was especially lucky, Page might even find what are called \u003ci>pearls\u003c/i> attached to the outside of an abalone shell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The abalone makes this pearl to try to protect the shell,” she said. “And it’s beautiful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the abalone perceives a threat, like a parasite, it surrounds it with nacre, also known as mother-of-pearl, to wall off the intruder. Over eight to 10 years, a beautiful iridescent pearl forms on the abalone shell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Page found \u003ca href=\"https://www.purepearls.com/pages/pearl-types-abalone-pearls\">one of these rare wild beauties\u003c/a>, she brought it to a jeweler in Pescadero, who turned it into one-of-a-kind necklaces or earrings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But over time, Page stopped finding them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It used to be consistent. At certain beaches in Pescadero, you’d find abalone shells,” she said. “And now I just can’t. They’re not around anymore.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She hasn’t found a whole abalone shell in over 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Abalone’s long history\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976838\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976838\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Doug Jung holds a red abalone shell, or a trophy as they are called, at his home in Santa Rosa on Feb. 20, 2024. A friend gave the shell to him after his house burned down and he lost all of his belongings in the Tubbs Fire. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Abalone has lived off of California’s coastline for \u003ca href=\"https://caseagrant.ucsd.edu/news/abalone-the-story-of-a-treasured-mollusk-on-the-california-coast\">at least 70 million years\u003c/a>. The ancient mollusk has always held deep meaning for Northern Californians, going back to the very first humans who lived here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When humans came to California, they started using abalone right away — initially for food, but soon thereafter also for tools,” said Ann Vileisis, an environmental historian and author of the book \u003ca href=\"https://osupress.oregonstate.edu/index.php/book/abalone\">\u003ci>Abalone: The Remarkable History and Uncertain Future of California’s Iconic Shellfish\u003c/i>.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indigenous people also used abalone shells for decoration and ceremonial purposes. During ceremonial dances, people wore beautifully elaborate regalia with abalone shells prominently displayed. They not only looked beautiful, Vileisis said, but they also added an incredible clacking sound, which helped to bring the dance to life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when European settlers arrived on the West Coast, they started treating abalone like a commodity to be traded and sold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the late 18th century, Spanish settlers traded abalone shells for sea otter fur as part of the Pacific fur trade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, in the mid-to-late-19th century, Chinese and Japanese immigrants — who were familiar with abalone, being from the other side of the Pacific Ocean — began shipping dried abalone and shells back to China and Japan, where they were used in soups and congees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That was actually probably among the first California global trades,” Vileisis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was also a time of extreme racism and xenophobia in the U.S. In 1882, Congress passed the \u003ca href=\"https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/chinese-exclusion-act#:~:text=The%20Chinese%20Exclusion%20Act%20was,Arthur.\">Chinese Exclusion Act\u003c/a>, which barred Chinese immigrants from entering the U.S. And in1913, the California legislature passed a ban on exporting abalone, allegedly due to concerns over overfishing, though today it is largely seen as a racist law meant to target the growing prosperity of Chinese and Japanese fishermen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But abalone fishing didn’t stop. And in fact, over time, more and more Americans developed a culinary appreciation for California’s iconic sea snail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is absolutely the best thing you can ever eat,” said Doug Jung, a Santa Rosa resident and former abalone diver. “There was nothing I’d rather eat than abalone. I mean, it was just so good.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976836\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976836\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Man in checked shirt and sun hat stands in front of a truck with a boat loaded in the back.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Doug Jung stands next to his boat in front of his home in Santa Rosa on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jung’s favorite way to cook abalone is to tenderize it with a wooden mallet, cover it with flour, then throw it in a wok and deep fry it for about six minutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s crunchy on the outside, and you can cut it with a fork easily,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond feasting on abalone, diving for it became a way of life for Jung. He learned when he was in high school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the adventure,” he said. “Every time you go out, when you come back, you say, ‘Cheated death one more time.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Abalone diving is one of the most dangerous kinds of sport fishing. It’s illegal to use scuba gear to dive for abalone due to concerns of overfishing. So, while holding their breath, divers have to dive down to the ocean floor or navigate rocky outcrops, scrape off the abalone without harming them, and then swim back up to the surface. And if that weren’t enough, they also must avoid getting tangled in kelp and encounters with other sea creatures. An octopus almost drowned Jung one time, he said. But despite the risks, for Jung, diving for abalone was totally worth it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was my passion,” he said. “More than anything else, abalone diving was my absolute passion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976837\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976837\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photos of Doug Jung with friends and family during and after abalone dives hang on the wall of his home in Santa Rosa on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Where are all the abalone?\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Just like Lorraine Page, our question-asker, Jung has also noticed the decline in abalone. In fact, he’s not even allowed to dive for them anymore because they are now considered critically endangered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around 2014, a big climate change-driven marine heatwave hit the coast of Northern California. The increased water temperature impacted sea life in all kinds of ways, most notably killing much of the local kelp forest. And since kelp is a staple food source for many sea animals, other oceanic species, like abalone, also died off in large numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, the Northern California sea star population was hit hard by a disease called \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/im/swan/ssws.htm\">wasting syndrome\u003c/a>. The warmer marine temperatures made the sea stars more susceptible to the disease and also allowed the disease to proliferate more quickly. Sea stars are predators of sea urchins, so when the sea stars started to decline, purple urchins thrived. And purple urchins devour kelp. The booming urchin population ultimately ate through more than 95% of Northern California’s coastal kelp, causing a near-total kelp forest collapse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without the kelp, millions of red abalone — Northern California’s native species — died of starvation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I go out there and dive, it makes me cry because the only thing I see is urchin barrens,” Jung said. “This is a horror for us who understood the beauty of what we lost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Hope for another abalone species\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Red abalone isn’t the only type of abalone facing potential extinction in California. In fact, all west coast abalone species are \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucdavis.edu/climate/news/all-west-coast-abalone-added-endangered-iucns-red-list\">listed\u003c/a> as critically endangered or endangered \u003ca href=\"https://www.iucnredlist.org/\">on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Enter the UC Davis Bodega Marine Lab white abalone captive breeding program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976835\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976835\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alyssa Frederick, director of the White Abalone Captive Breeding Program, poses for a portrait at the UC Davis-Bodega Marine Laboratory in Bodega Bay on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The program started over a decade ago when scientists realized that white abalone populations had gotten so low they couldn’t reproduce in the wild anymore. Native to Southern California, the white abalone lives in deep water, but in the 1960s–1970s, as soon as diving technology allowed for deeper water fishing, humans overfished them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists have been working to breed white abalone in captivity under controlled conditions in order to release them into the wild and hopefully jump-start reproduction in the wild again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The spawns — where they induce breeding between male and female abalone — are exciting events that only happen once a year. I visited the lab just days after the most recent one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976831\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976831\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alyssa Frederick, director of the White Abalone Captive Breeding Program, points to a group of white abalone in a lab at the UC Davis-Bodega Marine Laboratory in Bodega Bay on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We had 6.7 million eggs last week,” said Alyssa Frederick, director of the lab’s white abalone captive breeding program. “It was the largest spawn we’ve had in the program since 2019. I was really excited.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A ton of planning and coordination goes into a spawn, Frederick said. The abalone basically sits in buckets of chemicals, mostly hydrogen peroxide, which causes a cascade of hormones in their bodies that tell them it’s time to spawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Abalone are broadcast spawners, meaning they release their eggs and sperm into the water column and form larvae from there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was literally pacing my living room like someone waiting in a maternity ward for someone to give birth,” Frederick said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, the program releases about 5,000 abalone into the wild per year. In order to save the species, models show they need to be releasing twice that amount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We still are an order of magnitude below what’s required to save the species,” Frederick said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976832\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976832\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alyssa Frederick, director of the White Abalone Captive Breeding Program, holds a white abalone at the UC Davis-Bodega Marine Laboratory in Bodega Bay on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>‘Double whammy’ for red abalone\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The white abalone captive breeding program holds promise for the future of that species. As for red abalone, the situation is more complicated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In white abalone, you have lots of nice habitat,” said Laura Rogers-Bennett, a senior environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “You have kelp, you just don’t have white abalone. But red abalone has the double whammy of [needing] kelp \u003ci>and\u003c/i> red abalone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s part of the reason there is no captive breeding program for red abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981674\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981674\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Abalone in a kelp forest near Mendocino, California, surrounded by dark red algae. \u003ccite>(Lt. John Crofts, NOAA Corps., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But there are some programs in place to try to save the kelp and, ultimately, the abalone. For example, since sea urchins are such a scourge on the kelp, state Fish and Wildlife officials have allowed commercial and recreational divers to harvest them in select areas. With fewer sea urchins, Rogers-Bennett said, the kelp might recover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the program is still too small to have much impact, Rogers-Bennett said. There are just too many sea urchins. As a lifelong diver and ocean creature enthusiast, she said the work can be discouraging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To go back to a spot and see a particular rock that I visited at least once a year for 20 years, and to know that that spot is where there used to be tons of red abalone and to see it just covered with urchin and no algae at all, it’s heartbreaking,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While there’s certainly no lack of enthusiasm, she said her program needs more financial support if it has a chance of saving the abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Obviously, in red abalone, we have the passion,” she said. “I think there’s a chance that we can create some of these pockets of kelp forest and have them come back in these kelp oases. And that will be the start of restoration areas for the whole coast.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as human-caused climate change continues to change ecosystems, there’s no telling when the next marine heatwave might hit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"baycuriousquestion","attributes":{"named":{"label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Sounds of ocean waves and seagulls]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> When Lorraine Page moved to Pescadero in the ’90s, she spent a lot of time at the beach. It was her way to unwind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lorraine Page: \u003c/b>I’m a family doctor on the coast. So I’m busy. But on, on weekends and such, that would be an outlet for me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>She would comb the beach and explore the tide pools for hours, looking for one thing in particular: abalone shells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Magical beach music begins]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Abalone are mollusks… basically big sea snails, up to 10 inches wide, that live off our northern California coastline. You might recognize their shells, which are iridescent… somehow every color of the rainbow all at once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lorraine sought them out because sometimes, if she was lucky, on those abalone shells she would find an abalone \u003ci>pearl.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lorraine Page: \u003c/b>They’re these beautiful little pearls that show up in the shell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>When Lorraine found one, she’d bring it to a jeweler in Pescadero who would polish it up and turn it into a one-of-a-kind necklace or earrings. But over time, Lorraine has stopped finding them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lorraine Page: \u003c/b>It used to be consistent that certain beaches in Pescadero, you’d find abalone shells, and I just can’t. They’re not around anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>She says she hasn’t found a whole abalone shell in more than 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lorraine Page: \u003c/b>That’s just my simple question is, do we know why there’s not as many abalone?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Bay Curious theme music starts] \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I’m Olivia Allen Price and you’re listening to Bay Curious. On today’s episode: what happened to all the abalone? And can we bring them back?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Theme\u003c/i> \u003ci>music ends]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Where did all the abalone go? We sent reporter Dana Cronin to find out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin:\u003c/b> Before I get to answering Lorraine’s question, I think we could all use a little history lesson. Because, oh man, do abalone have a long history here in Northern California?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Vileisis: \u003c/b>Abalone have lived on the California coast for actually 70 million years, at the very least.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Ann Vileisis is an environmental historian who’s authored a whole book on abalone. She says the ancient mollusk has always held deep meaning for us Northern Californians… going back to the \u003ci>very first \u003c/i>humans who lived here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Vileisis: \u003c/b>When humans came to California, they started using abalone right away, initially for food, but soon thereafter also for tools\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Indigenous people also used abalone shells for decoration and ceremonial purposes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Sounds of a Pomo Indian dance performance featuring clacking abalone shells]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>During ceremonial dances, for example… abalone shells were a part of the regalia. They not only looked beautiful — they also added this incredible clacking sound… bringing the dance to life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when European settlers arrived on the West Coast, they started treating abalone like a commodity… to be traded and sold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the late 18th century, Spanish settlers traded abalone shells for sea otter fur as part of the Pacific fur trade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, in the mid-to-late-1800s, Chinese and Japanese immigrants — who were very familiar with abalone being from the other side of the Pacific Ocean — began shipping dried abalone and shells back to China and Japan, where they were used in soups and congees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Vileisis: \u003c/b>That was actually probably one of the, you know, among the first California global trades was in abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>This was also a time of extreme racism and xenophobia in the U.S., around when Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese immigrants from entering the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1913, the California legislature passed a ban on exporting abalone, which they \u003ci>said\u003c/i> was due to concerns of overfishing. In reality, the ban was part of the larger anti-immigrant sentiment of the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music fades out]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But abalone fishing didn’t stop. And in fact, over time, more and more Americans realized how delicious these sea snails are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>It is absolutely the best thing you can ever eat. There was nothing I’d rather eat than abalone. I mean, it was just so good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>This is Doug Jung. He lives in Santa Rosa and has been abalone diving up and down the Northern California coast since he was in high school — over 50 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says abalone is naturally buttery and salty… and there’s something about its texture that is totally unique and delicious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>We just pound it with a wooden mallet until it’s soft. And then we throw it in a wok for six minutes and deep fry it and it comes out. It doesn’t suck up all the oil. You have it covered with flour and things. So it’s crunchy on the outside. You can cut it with a fork easily.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Like, imagine the most tender, melt-in-your-mouth scallop you’ve ever had.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But beyond just eating it… over the years, abalone diving became a way of life for Doug. It was addicting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>It’s the adventure. Every time you go out, you know when you come back, you say ‘Cheated death one more time.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Cheated death one more time because abalone diving is one of the more dangerous sport fishing activities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because it was illegal to use scuba gear to dive for abalone due to concerns of overfishing. So divers have to dive down to the ocean floor or navigate rocky outcrops — where abalone suction themselves — scrape them off without harming them… and then swim to the surface \u003ci>all in one breath\u003c/i>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music fades out]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not to mention avoiding getting tangled in kelp… or encountering other sea critters. Doug tells me about a time he had a run-in with an octopus:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>He only had two tentacles on me … but with those two tentacles — and I was in my prime in my 30s — I barely got off those two tentacles before coming up. And, I’m thinking if you had three on, I’d be dead\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Doug says, despite the risks, diving for abalone was totally worth it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>I feel very, very fortunate to be able to experience this because this was my passion. More than anything else, more than inventing new technology, more than going fishing, more than hiking. Going up from the into the Sierras. Abalone diving was my absolute passion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>But just like Lorraine, Doug has also noticed the decline in abalone. In fact, he’s not even allowed to dive for abalone anymore, because abalone are now considered critically endangered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To understand how we got here, we need to rewind the clock about 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Around 2014, there was a big marine heatwave, driven no doubt by climate change. That heat wave impacted Northern California’s coastline in all kinds of ways. Most notably, killing much of the kelp forest off our coast here. Kelp is the main food source for many ocean species — including, you guessed it, abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The marine heat wave also introduced a disease called wasting syndrome… which wiped out much of the sea star population. Like in any ecosystem, when one species is impacted, other species along the food chain are impacted, too. Sea stars prey on sea urchins. So when the sea stars started to decline, purple urchins were without a predator… and they \u003ci>thrived. \u003c/i>So much so that they ate through more than 95 percent of our coastal kelp… causing a near-total kelp forest collapse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music out]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s the root issue here. Because without the kelp, millions of red abalone — the kind that’s native to Northern California — have died due to starvation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>It’s dead. When I go out there and dive up. It makes me cry because the only thing I see is urchin barrens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>While Doug used to dive down and see this lush kelp forest, teeming with fish and snails and sea stars… now, with the kelp mostly gone, it’s almost like a desert landscape, with urchins covering the ocean floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>This is a horror for us. For us who understood the beauty of what we lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>So that’s the sad answer to Lorraine’s question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But now, you might be wondering: is there hope for the future of abalone?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Rushing mechanical background sound fade in]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>To answer that question, we’re going to take a tour of the UC Davis Bodega Marine Lab, a facility in Bodega Bay that \u003ci>breeds \u003c/i>abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>When we’re doing spawning, what we do is we’ll take an animal out and we’ll check its gonads.\u003ci> \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>This is Alyssa Frederick. She directs the white abalone \u003ci>captive breeding program\u003c/i> here at the lab.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She holds up a five-year-old female abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>So they have two eyes on stocks and then they also have their like antenna. That’s curled up underneath. One’s curled up underneath, and one’s right here. Yeah. Pretty cute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>We’re in a lab holding room full of tanks housing abalone of all ages and sizes. This little lady, in particular, looks like a giant, oval-shaped snail with a big shell that sits flat across her back. Her two eyes are like tentacles, feeling their way around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The spawns — where they induce breeding between the male and female abalone — are a really big deal. They only happen once a year, and I’m visiting just days after the most recent one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>We had 6.7 million eggs last week. It was the largest spawn we’ve had in the program since 2019. I was really excited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>A lot of planning and coordination goes into a spawn. The abalone basically sit in buckets of chemicals, namely hydrogen peroxide, which causes a cascade of hormones in their bodies that tell them it’s time to spawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alyssa says they set the mood — so to speak — in other ways too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>We had the lights off for most of it. We did it in the evening, which, like abalone, are more active in the evening. So my line of thinking is that why not stack the odds in our favor and do it then?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Abalone are broadcast spawners, meaning they release their eggs and sperm into the water column and form larvae from there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alyssa says it’s an intense process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick:\u003c/b> I mean, the joke, like, I was literally pacing my living room like someone waiting in a maternity ward for someone to give birth\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music fade out]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>On the day I’m visiting, the little baby abalone are starting to settle, which means they have to flip themselves over and find a place to settle on the bottom of the tank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We watch them through a microscope:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>Wee! Aww. So cute. Dancing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Now it’s important to note that these are \u003ci>white \u003c/i>abalone. Remember the ones we’ve mostly been talking about so far are red abalone… which are native to \u003ci>Northern\u003c/i> California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>White abalone were more common down in southern California. However, in the ‘60s and ‘70s, as soon as diving technology allowed us to fish deeper water species, we overfished them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>So we overfished, over 99% of what was out in the wild. It was pretty significant. Like, pretty much all of them.\u003ci> \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>White abalone was the first marine invertebrate species to be listed on the Endangered Species Act. There were so few left they weren’t able to reproduce in the wild anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So scientists decided to bring some into captivity, have them reproduce in safe, controlled conditions, and then release them into the wild. They release them when they’re about a year old by placing them in these small cages on the ocean floor and opening up the door.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal is to create enough of them out in the wild that they start reproducing on their own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right now, they’re releasing about five thousand abalone into the wild per year. In order to save the species, models show they need to be releasing twice that amount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>Right now we still are an order of magnitude below what’s required to save the species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>But, she says, they’re also an order of magnitude \u003ci>above\u003c/i> where they started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So there’s some hope for white abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for our red abalone here in Northern California… the situation is more complicated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett: \u003c/b>I think the red abalone problem is more difficult.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>This is Laura Rogers-Bennett, a senior environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. She also works at the Bodega Marine Lab and specializes in \u003ci>red\u003c/i> abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says while white abalone struggle in numbers, they at least have a healthy kelp forest to return to down south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett:\u003c/b> Red abalone has the double whammy of you need kelp. And you need red abalone\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Without kelp, red abalone don’t have a home to return to. And that makes captive breeding — and reintroduction — a lot harder. That’s part of the reason there is no captive breeding program for red abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They are doing some things, though, to try to bring back the kelp and, ultimately, the abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, they’ve identified a few areas off the coast where they allow divers to go out and harvest sea urchins to try to get the kelp to grow back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett: \u003c/b>So far they haven’t been that successful in terms of bringing back the kelp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>There are also captive breeding programs for sea stars, which aim to reintroduce them back into the ecosystem to keep the urchin at bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s definitely an uphill battle. As someone who has done this work for a long time, Laura says it’s emotionally draining.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett: \u003c/b>To go back to a spot and see a particular rock, that I visited, at least once a year for 20 years. And to know that that spot is where there’s tons used to be tons of red abalone and to see it just covered with urchin and no algae at all. It’s heartbreaking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>But she’s committed to trying. Trying to get the kelp forest to grow back, trying to recoup the abalone we’ve lost over the last decade. And she hopes the findings from the captive breeding program will help along the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett: \u003c/b>Obviously, in red abalone, we have the passion. I think there’s a chance that we can create some of these pockets of kelp forest. Have them come back in these kelp oases. And, that will be the start of restoration areas for the whole coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>If that happens, we could look forward to a future where Lorraine Page, our question-asker, can beach comb again for abalone pearls. And Doug can revive his long lost hobby; diving down, wrestling octopi along the way, in search of his favorite sea snail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music fades out along with the sound of crashing waves]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> That story was reported by KQED’s Dana Cronin. Big thanks to Lorraine Page for asking the question.\u003cb>\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>The North Coast Journal provided the sound of abalone clacking during ceremonial dances for our use in this episode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’ve ever wondered what all goes into making a Bay Curious story sound the way it does … join producer Katrina Schwartz and I on April 11 for \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/1000/apr-11-600pm-elevating-audio-stories-with-sound-ft-bay-curious\">our talk at the PRX Podcast Garage\u003c/a>. We’re calling it \u003cb>Elevating Audio Stories with Sound\u003c/b> and it’s all about how we make this show with a small but mighty team. We’ll be talking through how we use music, sound effects, archival material, narration and more to bring the Bay Curious podcast to life. Join us in person at KQED’s Headquarters or on the livestream. Tickets are free if you use the code “baycurious” that’s all one word. Grab yours at \u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/podcastgarage\">kqed.org/podcastgarage\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week!\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11981665/climate-change-induced-heatwaves-are-devastating-californias-kelp-and-abalone","authors":["11362"],"programs":["news_33523"],"series":["news_17986"],"categories":["news_31795","news_19906","news_8","news_356"],"tags":["news_33947","news_18008","news_33948"],"featImg":"news_11980414","label":"source_news_11981665"},"news_11980281":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11980281","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11980281","score":null,"sort":[1711044003000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"chevron-agrees-to-pay-more-than-13-million-in-fines-for-california-oil-spills","title":"Chevron Agrees to Pay More Than $13 Million in Fines for California Oil Spills","publishDate":1711044003,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Chevron Agrees to Pay More Than $13 Million in Fines for California Oil Spills | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>Chevron has agreed to pay more than $13 million in fines for dozens of past oil spills in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California-based energy giant agreed to pay a $5.6 million fine associated with a \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/general-news-small-business-8e31e63134114c6a9c59a8fb6fc543a6\">2019 oil spill\u003c/a> in Kern County, first \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11760192/chevron-well-has-leaked-a-quarter-million-gallons-of-oil-in-central-valley-since-may\">reported by KQED\u003c/a> and was California’s biggest uncontrolled release of crude petroleum in decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron has already paid to clean up that spill, while this latest payment will go to the state Department of Conservation to plug orphaned wells and for state efforts to respond to future oil spills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department said it was the largest fine ever assessed in its history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Chuck Bonham, director, Department of Fish and Wildlife\"]‘This settlement is a testament to our firm stance that we will hold businesses strictly liable for oil spills that enter our waterways and pollute our environment.’[/pullquote]“This agreement is a significant demonstration of California’s commitment to transition away from fossil fuels while holding oil companies accountable when they don’t comply with the state’s regulations and environmental protections,” department Director David Shabazian said in a news release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 2019 oil spill dumped at least 800,000 gallons of oil and water into a canyon in Kern County, the home of the state’s oil industry. Oil and water flowed from the ground for months near Chevron wells near the Kern County town of McKittrick, and the release was so big Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2019/07/24/today-governor-gavin-newsom-to-hold-media-availability-following-visit-of-kern-county-oil-seepage-site/\">visited the clean-up site\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron also agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine for more than 70 smaller spills between 2018 and 2023 that state officials say killed or injured more than 60 animals. These incidents accounted for more than 446,000 gallons of oil spilled, killing or injuring at least 63 animals and impacting at least 6 acres of salt brush and grassland habitat, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department said it was the largest administrative fine in its history. Most of the money will go to projects to acquire and preserve habitat. A portion of the money will also go to the Oiled Wildlife Care Network at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and to help respond to future oil spills.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11760192,news_11762422,news_11769850\"]“This settlement is a testament to our firm stance that we will hold businesses strictly liable for oil spills that enter our waterways and pollute our environment,” Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Chuck Bonham said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement Wednesday night, Chevron said the settlements demonstrate the company’s commitment to addressing problems and preventing similar incidents in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We always strive to meet or exceed our environmental obligations. When we do not achieve that goal, we take responsibility and appropriate action,” a spokesperson for the company said. “We are pleased to put this matter behind us in a way that benefits our community so we can continue to focus on providing the affordable, reliable, and ever-cleaner energy California needs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story includes reporting by The Associated Press and KQED’s Ted Goldberg.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"The California-based energy giant agreed to pay the California Department of Conservation a $5.6 million fine associated with a 2019 oil spill in Kern County.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1711056512,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":13,"wordCount":548},"headData":{"title":"Chevron Agrees to Pay More Than $13 Million in Fines for California Oil Spills | KQED","description":"The California-based energy giant agreed to pay the California Department of Conservation a $5.6 million fine associated with a 2019 oil spill in Kern County.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Chevron Agrees to Pay More Than $13 Million in Fines for California Oil Spills","datePublished":"2024-03-21T18:00:03.000Z","dateModified":"2024-03-21T21:28:32.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"sticky":false,"excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11980281/chevron-agrees-to-pay-more-than-13-million-in-fines-for-california-oil-spills","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Chevron has agreed to pay more than $13 million in fines for dozens of past oil spills in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California-based energy giant agreed to pay a $5.6 million fine associated with a \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/general-news-small-business-8e31e63134114c6a9c59a8fb6fc543a6\">2019 oil spill\u003c/a> in Kern County, first \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11760192/chevron-well-has-leaked-a-quarter-million-gallons-of-oil-in-central-valley-since-may\">reported by KQED\u003c/a> and was California’s biggest uncontrolled release of crude petroleum in decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron has already paid to clean up that spill, while this latest payment will go to the state Department of Conservation to plug orphaned wells and for state efforts to respond to future oil spills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department said it was the largest fine ever assessed in its history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘This settlement is a testament to our firm stance that we will hold businesses strictly liable for oil spills that enter our waterways and pollute our environment.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"align":"right","size":"medium","citation":"Chuck Bonham, director, Department of Fish and Wildlife","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“This agreement is a significant demonstration of California’s commitment to transition away from fossil fuels while holding oil companies accountable when they don’t comply with the state’s regulations and environmental protections,” department Director David Shabazian said in a news release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 2019 oil spill dumped at least 800,000 gallons of oil and water into a canyon in Kern County, the home of the state’s oil industry. Oil and water flowed from the ground for months near Chevron wells near the Kern County town of McKittrick, and the release was so big Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2019/07/24/today-governor-gavin-newsom-to-hold-media-availability-following-visit-of-kern-county-oil-seepage-site/\">visited the clean-up site\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron also agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine for more than 70 smaller spills between 2018 and 2023 that state officials say killed or injured more than 60 animals. These incidents accounted for more than 446,000 gallons of oil spilled, killing or injuring at least 63 animals and impacting at least 6 acres of salt brush and grassland habitat, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department said it was the largest administrative fine in its history. Most of the money will go to projects to acquire and preserve habitat. A portion of the money will also go to the Oiled Wildlife Care Network at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and to help respond to future oil spills.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"label":"Related Stories ","postid":"news_11760192,news_11762422,news_11769850"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“This settlement is a testament to our firm stance that we will hold businesses strictly liable for oil spills that enter our waterways and pollute our environment,” Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Chuck Bonham said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement Wednesday night, Chevron said the settlements demonstrate the company’s commitment to addressing problems and preventing similar incidents in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We always strive to meet or exceed our environmental obligations. When we do not achieve that goal, we take responsibility and appropriate action,” a spokesperson for the company said. “We are pleased to put this matter behind us in a way that benefits our community so we can continue to focus on providing the affordable, reliable, and ever-cleaner energy California needs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story includes reporting by The Associated Press and KQED’s Ted Goldberg.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11980281/chevron-agrees-to-pay-more-than-13-million-in-fines-for-california-oil-spills","authors":["237"],"categories":["news_31795","news_19906","news_457","news_6188","news_8"],"tags":["news_424","news_20023","news_21390","news_17663"],"featImg":"news_11980282","label":"news"},"news_11979516":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11979516","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11979516","score":null,"sort":[1710513012000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"california-fails-to-meet-climate-change-mandates-and-greenhouse-emission-goals-study-finds","title":"California Fails to Meet Climate Change Mandates and Greenhouse Emission Goals, Study Finds","publishDate":1710513012,"format":"standard","headTitle":"California Fails to Meet Climate Change Mandates and Greenhouse Emission Goals, Study Finds | KQED","labelTerm":{"term":18481,"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>California will fail to meet its ambitious mandates for combating climate change unless it almost triples its rate of reducing greenhouse gases through 2030, according to a new analysis released on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After dropping during the pandemic, California’s emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other climate-warming gases increased 3.4% in 2021, when the economy rebounded. The increase puts California further away from reaching its target mandated under state law: \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB32\">emitting 40% less in 2030 than in 1990\u003c/a> — a feat that will become more expensive and more difficult as time passes, the report’s authors told CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fact that they need to increase the speed of reduction at about three times faster than they’re actually doing — that does not bode well,” said Stafford Nichols, a researcher at \u003ca href=\"https://beaconecon.com/\">Beacon Economics\u003c/a>, a Los Angeles-based economics research firm, and a co-author of the annual California Green Innovation Index released on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Stafford Nichols, researcher, Beacon Economics\"]‘The fact that they need to increase the speed of reduction at about three times faster than they’re actually doing — that does not bode well.’[/pullquote]“As we get closer to that 2030 goal, the fact that we’re further off just means that we have to decrease faster each year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state is even further away from meeting a more aggressive goal set by the Air Resources Board in \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/12/california-plan-climate-change/\">the state’s new climate blueprint\u003c/a>. Under that plan, greenhouse gases must be cut 48% below 1990 levels by 2030. Gov. Gavin Newsom had urged the board to adopt the more difficult goal, calling \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2022-12/2022-sp.pdf\">the new scoping plan (PDF)\u003c/a> the “most ambitious set of climate goals of any jurisdiction in the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>David Clegern, an air board spokesperson, said in an emailed statement to CalMatters that state officials are confident that California will hit its targets, including its \u003ca href=\"https://opr.ca.gov/climate/carbon-neutrality.html\">goal of carbon neutrality by 2045.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clegern said the state is in the midst of updating its climate programs and strengthening regulations, which, he said, “takes time” because they have to “translate into projects and action in the real world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is more important than ever to transition existing facilities and build clean energy infrastructure,” Clegern said. “This decade is critical for implementation of the state’s plans and policies.” He added, “As we have stated for more than 10 years, California’s climate plans will continue to adjust to what remains a developing threat.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Greenhouse gases are spewed by an array of sources, mostly from vehicles, industries and power plants that burn fossil fuels, but also from livestock, landfills and other sources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report, compiled by Beacon Economics and environmental nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://www.next10.org/about\">Next 10\u003c/a>, analyzed state data and concluded that through 2030, California would have to cut all greenhouse gases by 4.4% every year, beginning back in 2022. (Only preliminary data is available for 2022.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To put that challenge in perspective, the state has only achieved annual cuts of more than 4% twice over the last two decades, both during major recessions, in 2009 and 2020, according to Stephanie Leonard, director of research for Next 10. And from 2016 through 2021, the annual average reduction has been just 1.6%, according to the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Massive amounts of emissions — more than 100 million metric tons a year — will have to be eliminated for California to meet the mandate. The state couldn’t spew more than about 258 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions in 2030, compared to 2021’s 381 million, according to the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liane Randolph, chair of the California Air Resources Board, told the state Legislature’s \u003ca href=\"https://climatechangepolicies.legislature.ca.gov/\">joint committee on climate change policies\u003c/a> on Monday that there is little room for error in the years ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The challenge is that we need all of our programs to be effective and reduce emissions as laid out in the scoping plan,” Randolph said. “We need each program to perform as well as or better than identified in the scoping plan in order to achieve our goals.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Power plants and cement are major emitters\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California has already made substantial progress in cleaning up cars and trucks. It has the world’s strictest emissions controls on vehicles, including a regulation that phases out new sales of gasoline-powered cars by 2035. Last year, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2024/02/california-electric-cars-industry-slowdown/\">electric vehicle sales were up 29%\u003c/a>, though they slowed at year’s end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But electricity generation was responsible for some of the biggest increases in emissions between 2020 and 2021, a 6.7% increase for imported electric power and 3.9% for in-state power, the report found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"science_1991836,news_1991828,news_11972105,news_11970742,news_11971382\"]That’s because California’s drought resulted in less hydroelectric power and more reliance on natural gas to avoid power shortages, according to Leonard. In 2020, the state \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2020/08/california-2020-rolling-blackouts-explainer/\">faced its first non-wildfire rolling blackouts\u003c/a> in nearly two decades after record-breaking heat. Last year, the state \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2023/08/southern-california-natural-gas-plants-remain-open/#:~:text=California%20officials%20agreed%20today%20to,grid%20and%20avoid%20rolling%20blackouts.\">extended operations at three natural gas plants\u003c/a> along the Southern California coast to shore up California’s straining power grid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Natural gas plants are the \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2023-12/ghg_inventory_scopingplan_sum_2000-21.pdf\">largest source (PDF)\u003c/a> of greenhouse gases among California’s in-state producers of electricity. \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/sb100\">California has a law mandating\u003c/a> zero-carbon, all-renewable electricity by 2045, but it has \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/sb100\">a long way to go\u003c/a>: About \u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/state/print.php?sid=CA#:~:text=California%20Quick%20Facts&text=In%202022%2C%20renewable%20resources%2C%20including,supplied%20almost%20all%20the%20rest.\">42% of power generated in the state\u003c/a> came from natural gas in 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report also highlighted cement facilities, saying California has some of the planet’s most polluting cement plants. As more housing is built and more cement is produced, the authors recommended “urgent action” to cut those emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s seven cement plants emit about \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2023-10/SB596%20Community%20Meeting%20Slides%20Final.pdf#page=11\">7.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases per year (PDF)\u003c/a>, according to the air board, which has a working group to decarbonize the industry. Some factories are turning to low-carbon fuels, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/06/california-cement-carbon-climate/\">including the burning of tires\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carbon capture and storage technology may also be used at cement plants because they are so difficult to decarbonize. These facilities capture emissions from industrial plants and inject them underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California’s cement plants are an example of the challenge. Our cement is more carbon-intensive because we have older plants,” said Clegern of the air board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfires were another large emitter of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases in 2021.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Danny Cullenward, economist and vice chair, Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee\"]‘Too often the fact of California’s historical accomplishments is cited as evidence that state policy is on track, when often the pace of change going forward falls well short …’[/pullquote]On an optimistic note, the report acknowledged that California has some of the lowest per-capita emissions in the U.S., and is the third-most carbon-efficient state, following New York and Massachusetts. However, many of the easiest and least costly steps have already been implemented. So, finding room for future reductions will be more challenging in the coming years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The state has shown that it is possible to grow the economy while lowering emissions,” the California Green Innovation Index said. “It will take more action, time and resources to further decarbonize the economy, but the last couple decades offer hope.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new analysis is the most recent example of an outside entity warning that California’s climate goals face major hurdles. The state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office said last year that California \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4656\">lacked a “clear strategy” for meeting its 2030 \u003c/a>targets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, last month, the state’s advisory committee for its controversial cap and trade market \u003ca href=\"https://calepa.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2024/02/2023-ANNUAL-REPORT-OF-THE-IEMAC-final.pdf\">noted (PDF)\u003c/a> that the state was not on track to meet 2030 targets. Cap and trade is the state’s market that allows companies to buy and trade credits for reducing greenhouse gases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Too often the fact of California’s historical accomplishments is cited as evidence that state policy is on track, when often the pace of change going forward falls well short of what is required to meet the state’s next climate targets,” Danny Cullenward, an economist and vice chair of the Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee told CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unfortunately,” he said, “the state is not on track for its 2030 climate target.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"A new analysis concludes that unless California almost triples its rate of cutting greenhouse gases, the state won’t meet its 2030 climate change target. Some emissions were rising.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1710530077,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":31,"wordCount":1465},"headData":{"title":"California Fails to Meet Climate Change Mandates and Greenhouse Emission Goals, Study Finds | KQED","description":"A new analysis concludes that unless California almost triples its rate of cutting greenhouse gases, the state won’t meet its 2030 climate change target. Some emissions were rising.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"California Fails to Meet Climate Change Mandates and Greenhouse Emission Goals, Study Finds","datePublished":"2024-03-15T14:30:12.000Z","dateModified":"2024-03-15T19:14:37.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"sticky":false,"nprByline":"\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/author/alejandro-lazo/\">Alejandro Lazo\u003c/a>","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11979516/california-fails-to-meet-climate-change-mandates-and-greenhouse-emission-goals-study-finds","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California will fail to meet its ambitious mandates for combating climate change unless it almost triples its rate of reducing greenhouse gases through 2030, according to a new analysis released on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After dropping during the pandemic, California’s emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other climate-warming gases increased 3.4% in 2021, when the economy rebounded. The increase puts California further away from reaching its target mandated under state law: \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB32\">emitting 40% less in 2030 than in 1990\u003c/a> — a feat that will become more expensive and more difficult as time passes, the report’s authors told CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fact that they need to increase the speed of reduction at about three times faster than they’re actually doing — that does not bode well,” said Stafford Nichols, a researcher at \u003ca href=\"https://beaconecon.com/\">Beacon Economics\u003c/a>, a Los Angeles-based economics research firm, and a co-author of the annual California Green Innovation Index released on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘The fact that they need to increase the speed of reduction at about three times faster than they’re actually doing — that does not bode well.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"align":"right","size":"medium","citation":"Stafford Nichols, researcher, Beacon Economics","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“As we get closer to that 2030 goal, the fact that we’re further off just means that we have to decrease faster each year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state is even further away from meeting a more aggressive goal set by the Air Resources Board in \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/12/california-plan-climate-change/\">the state’s new climate blueprint\u003c/a>. Under that plan, greenhouse gases must be cut 48% below 1990 levels by 2030. Gov. Gavin Newsom had urged the board to adopt the more difficult goal, calling \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2022-12/2022-sp.pdf\">the new scoping plan (PDF)\u003c/a> the “most ambitious set of climate goals of any jurisdiction in the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>David Clegern, an air board spokesperson, said in an emailed statement to CalMatters that state officials are confident that California will hit its targets, including its \u003ca href=\"https://opr.ca.gov/climate/carbon-neutrality.html\">goal of carbon neutrality by 2045.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clegern said the state is in the midst of updating its climate programs and strengthening regulations, which, he said, “takes time” because they have to “translate into projects and action in the real world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is more important than ever to transition existing facilities and build clean energy infrastructure,” Clegern said. “This decade is critical for implementation of the state’s plans and policies.” He added, “As we have stated for more than 10 years, California’s climate plans will continue to adjust to what remains a developing threat.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Greenhouse gases are spewed by an array of sources, mostly from vehicles, industries and power plants that burn fossil fuels, but also from livestock, landfills and other sources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report, compiled by Beacon Economics and environmental nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://www.next10.org/about\">Next 10\u003c/a>, analyzed state data and concluded that through 2030, California would have to cut all greenhouse gases by 4.4% every year, beginning back in 2022. (Only preliminary data is available for 2022.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To put that challenge in perspective, the state has only achieved annual cuts of more than 4% twice over the last two decades, both during major recessions, in 2009 and 2020, according to Stephanie Leonard, director of research for Next 10. And from 2016 through 2021, the annual average reduction has been just 1.6%, according to the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Massive amounts of emissions — more than 100 million metric tons a year — will have to be eliminated for California to meet the mandate. The state couldn’t spew more than about 258 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions in 2030, compared to 2021’s 381 million, according to the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liane Randolph, chair of the California Air Resources Board, told the state Legislature’s \u003ca href=\"https://climatechangepolicies.legislature.ca.gov/\">joint committee on climate change policies\u003c/a> on Monday that there is little room for error in the years ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The challenge is that we need all of our programs to be effective and reduce emissions as laid out in the scoping plan,” Randolph said. “We need each program to perform as well as or better than identified in the scoping plan in order to achieve our goals.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Power plants and cement are major emitters\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California has already made substantial progress in cleaning up cars and trucks. It has the world’s strictest emissions controls on vehicles, including a regulation that phases out new sales of gasoline-powered cars by 2035. Last year, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2024/02/california-electric-cars-industry-slowdown/\">electric vehicle sales were up 29%\u003c/a>, though they slowed at year’s end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But electricity generation was responsible for some of the biggest increases in emissions between 2020 and 2021, a 6.7% increase for imported electric power and 3.9% for in-state power, the report found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"label":"Related Stories ","postid":"science_1991836,news_1991828,news_11972105,news_11970742,news_11971382"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>That’s because California’s drought resulted in less hydroelectric power and more reliance on natural gas to avoid power shortages, according to Leonard. In 2020, the state \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2020/08/california-2020-rolling-blackouts-explainer/\">faced its first non-wildfire rolling blackouts\u003c/a> in nearly two decades after record-breaking heat. Last year, the state \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2023/08/southern-california-natural-gas-plants-remain-open/#:~:text=California%20officials%20agreed%20today%20to,grid%20and%20avoid%20rolling%20blackouts.\">extended operations at three natural gas plants\u003c/a> along the Southern California coast to shore up California’s straining power grid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Natural gas plants are the \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2023-12/ghg_inventory_scopingplan_sum_2000-21.pdf\">largest source (PDF)\u003c/a> of greenhouse gases among California’s in-state producers of electricity. \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/sb100\">California has a law mandating\u003c/a> zero-carbon, all-renewable electricity by 2045, but it has \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/sb100\">a long way to go\u003c/a>: About \u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/state/print.php?sid=CA#:~:text=California%20Quick%20Facts&text=In%202022%2C%20renewable%20resources%2C%20including,supplied%20almost%20all%20the%20rest.\">42% of power generated in the state\u003c/a> came from natural gas in 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report also highlighted cement facilities, saying California has some of the planet’s most polluting cement plants. As more housing is built and more cement is produced, the authors recommended “urgent action” to cut those emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s seven cement plants emit about \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2023-10/SB596%20Community%20Meeting%20Slides%20Final.pdf#page=11\">7.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases per year (PDF)\u003c/a>, according to the air board, which has a working group to decarbonize the industry. Some factories are turning to low-carbon fuels, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/06/california-cement-carbon-climate/\">including the burning of tires\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carbon capture and storage technology may also be used at cement plants because they are so difficult to decarbonize. These facilities capture emissions from industrial plants and inject them underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California’s cement plants are an example of the challenge. Our cement is more carbon-intensive because we have older plants,” said Clegern of the air board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfires were another large emitter of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases in 2021.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘Too often the fact of California’s historical accomplishments is cited as evidence that state policy is on track, when often the pace of change going forward falls well short …’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"align":"right","size":"medium","citation":"Danny Cullenward, economist and vice chair, Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>On an optimistic note, the report acknowledged that California has some of the lowest per-capita emissions in the U.S., and is the third-most carbon-efficient state, following New York and Massachusetts. However, many of the easiest and least costly steps have already been implemented. So, finding room for future reductions will be more challenging in the coming years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The state has shown that it is possible to grow the economy while lowering emissions,” the California Green Innovation Index said. “It will take more action, time and resources to further decarbonize the economy, but the last couple decades offer hope.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new analysis is the most recent example of an outside entity warning that California’s climate goals face major hurdles. The state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office said last year that California \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4656\">lacked a “clear strategy” for meeting its 2030 \u003c/a>targets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, last month, the state’s advisory committee for its controversial cap and trade market \u003ca href=\"https://calepa.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2024/02/2023-ANNUAL-REPORT-OF-THE-IEMAC-final.pdf\">noted (PDF)\u003c/a> that the state was not on track to meet 2030 targets. Cap and trade is the state’s market that allows companies to buy and trade credits for reducing greenhouse gases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Too often the fact of California’s historical accomplishments is cited as evidence that state policy is on track, when often the pace of change going forward falls well short of what is required to meet the state’s next climate targets,” Danny Cullenward, an economist and vice chair of the Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee told CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unfortunately,” he said, “the state is not on track for its 2030 climate target.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11979516/california-fails-to-meet-climate-change-mandates-and-greenhouse-emission-goals-study-finds","authors":["byline_news_11979516"],"categories":["news_19906","news_8","news_356"],"tags":["news_255","news_6402","news_17996","news_3187"],"affiliates":["news_18481"],"featImg":"news_11979518","label":"news_18481"},"news_11979392":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11979392","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11979392","score":null,"sort":[1710376653000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"california-weakens-plan-for-mandatory-cutbacks-in-urban-water-use","title":"California Weakens Plan for Mandatory Cutbacks in Urban Water Use","publishDate":1710376653,"format":"standard","headTitle":"California Weakens Plan for Mandatory Cutbacks in Urban Water Use | KQED","labelTerm":{"term":18481,"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>Facing criticism over their ambitious plan to curb urban water use, California’s regulators on Tuesday weakened the proposed rules — giving water providers more\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>years and flexibility to comply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cities and urban water districts welcome the changes to the state’s draft conservation rules, which they said would have been too costly for ratepayers, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2024/01/california-new-water-conservation-rules-analyst-report/\">estimated at $13.5 billion\u003c/a>, and too difficult to achieve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, environmentalists are dismayed by the revisions, which they said won’t save enough water for weather shortages as climate change squeezes supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Tracy Quinn, CEO and president, Heal the Bay\"]‘It’s really looking like this is a ‘do nothing’ regulation. The updated standards are weak, and the regulation includes semi-truck sized loopholes that make it too easy for water suppliers to shirk their obligation to use water more efficiently.’[/pullquote]“It’s really looking like this is a ‘do nothing’ regulation,” said \u003ca href=\"https://healthebay.org/staff/tracy-quinn/\">Tracy Quinn\u003c/a>, CEO and president of Heal the Bay, a Los Angeles County environmental group. “The updated standards are weak, and the regulation includes semi-truck sized loopholes that make it too easy for water suppliers to shirk their obligation to use water more efficiently.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mandated by a package of laws enacted in 2018, the rules from the State Water Resources Control Board aim to make “\u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/-/media/DWR-Website/Web-Pages/Programs/Water-Use-And-Efficiency/Make-Water-Conservation-A-California-Way-of-Life/Files/PDFs/Final-WCL-Primer.pdf?la=en&hash=B442FD7A34349FA91DA5CDEFC47134EA38ABF209\">water conservation a California way of life (PDF)\u003c/a>” by mandating cuts in water use among more than 400 cities and water agencies that supply the vast majority of Californians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The regulation won’t set mandatory conservation targets for individuals. Instead, it creates water budgets for cities and districts, which would meet them through rebates, new rate structures and other efforts to cut their customers’ use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Legislative Analyst’s Office, in a January report, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2024/01/california-new-water-conservation-rules-analyst-report/\">heavily criticized the original rules,\u003c/a> saying they would set “such stringent standards for outdoor use that suppliers will not have much ‘wiggle room’ in complying.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warning that the costs may outweigh the benefits, the analysts recommended relaxing several of the requirements, such as the residential outdoor standard, and extending deadlines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board’s new revisions delay the start date for enforcing compliance with the water budgets by two years, until 2027 \u003cstrong>— \u003c/strong>largely because the water board is behind schedule in adopting the regulation, its executive director, \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/about_us/board_members/leadership.html\">Eric Oppenheimer\u003c/a>, said. Water suppliers are also granted an extra five years, until 2035, to meet targets ramping down outdoor water use and are given until 2040 for reductions originally planned for 2035.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest version would conserve about 520,000 acre-feet of water a year starting in 2040, according to the water board’s estimates. That’s 170,000 acre-feet less than the previous version,\u003cem> \u003c/em>enough to serve more than half a million households for a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for \u003ca href=\"https://resources.ca.gov/-/media/CNRA-Website/Files/Initiatives/Water-Resilience/CA-Water-Supply-Strategy.pdf\">at least 500,000 acre-feet in annual conservation by 2030 (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the rules are finalized, each water supplier must meet individualized conservation goals, calculated from a complex formula based on standards for indoor and outdoor residential water use and certain commercial landscapes, as well as losses like leaks. Other variables, such as the presence of livestock in a region or the availability of recycled water, can factor into the calculation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The water board said it would vote on the updated plan in July, following public comment, and it would take effect at the beginning of next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Statewide, 63 water suppliers, serving about 9% of the population where household incomes are below the state median, will be required to cut water use by more than 20%. Under the revisions, they could cut use by only 1% per year and still be deemed in compliance, provided they meet other requirements. Another 19 suppliers in wealthier regions facing cuts of 30% or more could cut use by only 2% per year and still comply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Eric Oppenheimer, director, State Water Resources Control Board\"]‘You still have to meet your objective, whatever that may be. But you get more time to get there — in some cases, substantially more time.’[/pullquote]“You still have to meet your objective, whatever that may be. But you get more time to get there — in some cases, substantially more time,” Oppenheimer said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That would mean that if your ultimate compliance target was 30%, you’d have 30 years to get there,” compared to approximately 15 years under the old version, Oppenheimer said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Water suppliers welcomed the extended deadlines because they would have more time to coax customers with rebates and other programs to make lasting changes to irrigated landscapes without harming shade trees and disadvantaged communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes will allow “urban retail water suppliers to thoughtfully and cost-effectively implement programs,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.acwa.com/about/leadership-staff/\">Chelsea Haines\u003c/a> of the Association of California Water Agencies, which represents more than 450 public agencies. “I hope that we see this additional time not as a delay but as an opportunity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11971872,news_11969648,news_11977573\"]The water board does not have an updated cost estimate for the revised rules to compare to the $13.5 billion estimate for the old version. The costs come largely because cities and agencies would offer rebates and rate cuts to those who conserve. The benefits were estimated to reach about $15.6 billion, largely because suppliers and customers will buy less water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmentalists say the delays belie the urgency of preparing for the next inevitable drought and will force more drastic changes to landscapes when emergency conservation measures are needed once again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fact that we aren’t taking steps as quickly as possible to invest in more climate resilient landscapes that will be able to survive those future droughts is unthinkable. Quite frankly, it’s reckless,” Quinn said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://pacinst.org/meet-our-staff-heather-cooley/\">Heather Cooley\u003c/a>, director of research for the Pacific Institute, said conservation is cheaper than developing new supplies through desalination or recycling — a burden that customers would eventually bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By weakening the standard, we’re making water more expensive,” Cooley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Heather Cooley, director of research, Pacific Institute\"]‘By weakening the standard, we’re making water more expensive.’[/pullquote]Under a previous version of the rules, about 18% of suppliers — serving about a quarter of the state’s population — wouldn’t have to reduce their customers’ use to meet the 2035 standards, according to the board’s estimates last September. Now, under the new version, 37% of suppliers — serving 42% of the state’s population — wouldn’t have to change their water use by 2035. And by 2040, 31% could still maintain their status quo, according to water board data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asked if they were concerned about the reduced savings under the latest version, Oppenheimer said flexibility and feasibility are important.\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We think 500,000 acre-feet of saved project savings is a substantial amount,” he said. “More is always better, but that needs to be balanced against providing enough flexibility to the water suppliers and the feasibility of meeting those standards.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"The revised proposal grants water providers an extra five years to reduce outdoor irrigation. Cities and water agencies that have lobbied for the extension are relieved, while critics say Californians will keep wasting water.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1710441920,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":28,"wordCount":1247},"headData":{"title":"California Weakens Plan for Mandatory Cutbacks in Urban Water Use | KQED","description":"The revised proposal grants water providers an extra five years to reduce outdoor irrigation. Cities and water agencies that have lobbied for the extension are relieved, while critics say Californians will keep wasting water.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"California Weakens Plan for Mandatory Cutbacks in Urban Water Use","datePublished":"2024-03-14T00:37:33.000Z","dateModified":"2024-03-14T18:45:20.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"sticky":false,"nprByline":"\u003ca>Rachel Becker\u003c/a>","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11979392/california-weakens-plan-for-mandatory-cutbacks-in-urban-water-use","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Facing criticism over their ambitious plan to curb urban water use, California’s regulators on Tuesday weakened the proposed rules — giving water providers more\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>years and flexibility to comply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cities and urban water districts welcome the changes to the state’s draft conservation rules, which they said would have been too costly for ratepayers, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2024/01/california-new-water-conservation-rules-analyst-report/\">estimated at $13.5 billion\u003c/a>, and too difficult to achieve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, environmentalists are dismayed by the revisions, which they said won’t save enough water for weather shortages as climate change squeezes supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘It’s really looking like this is a ‘do nothing’ regulation. The updated standards are weak, and the regulation includes semi-truck sized loopholes that make it too easy for water suppliers to shirk their obligation to use water more efficiently.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"align":"right","size":"medium","citation":"Tracy Quinn, CEO and president, Heal the Bay","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“It’s really looking like this is a ‘do nothing’ regulation,” said \u003ca href=\"https://healthebay.org/staff/tracy-quinn/\">Tracy Quinn\u003c/a>, CEO and president of Heal the Bay, a Los Angeles County environmental group. “The updated standards are weak, and the regulation includes semi-truck sized loopholes that make it too easy for water suppliers to shirk their obligation to use water more efficiently.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mandated by a package of laws enacted in 2018, the rules from the State Water Resources Control Board aim to make “\u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/-/media/DWR-Website/Web-Pages/Programs/Water-Use-And-Efficiency/Make-Water-Conservation-A-California-Way-of-Life/Files/PDFs/Final-WCL-Primer.pdf?la=en&hash=B442FD7A34349FA91DA5CDEFC47134EA38ABF209\">water conservation a California way of life (PDF)\u003c/a>” by mandating cuts in water use among more than 400 cities and water agencies that supply the vast majority of Californians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The regulation won’t set mandatory conservation targets for individuals. Instead, it creates water budgets for cities and districts, which would meet them through rebates, new rate structures and other efforts to cut their customers’ use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Legislative Analyst’s Office, in a January report, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2024/01/california-new-water-conservation-rules-analyst-report/\">heavily criticized the original rules,\u003c/a> saying they would set “such stringent standards for outdoor use that suppliers will not have much ‘wiggle room’ in complying.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warning that the costs may outweigh the benefits, the analysts recommended relaxing several of the requirements, such as the residential outdoor standard, and extending deadlines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board’s new revisions delay the start date for enforcing compliance with the water budgets by two years, until 2027 \u003cstrong>— \u003c/strong>largely because the water board is behind schedule in adopting the regulation, its executive director, \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/about_us/board_members/leadership.html\">Eric Oppenheimer\u003c/a>, said. Water suppliers are also granted an extra five years, until 2035, to meet targets ramping down outdoor water use and are given until 2040 for reductions originally planned for 2035.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest version would conserve about 520,000 acre-feet of water a year starting in 2040, according to the water board’s estimates. That’s 170,000 acre-feet less than the previous version,\u003cem> \u003c/em>enough to serve more than half a million households for a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for \u003ca href=\"https://resources.ca.gov/-/media/CNRA-Website/Files/Initiatives/Water-Resilience/CA-Water-Supply-Strategy.pdf\">at least 500,000 acre-feet in annual conservation by 2030 (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the rules are finalized, each water supplier must meet individualized conservation goals, calculated from a complex formula based on standards for indoor and outdoor residential water use and certain commercial landscapes, as well as losses like leaks. Other variables, such as the presence of livestock in a region or the availability of recycled water, can factor into the calculation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The water board said it would vote on the updated plan in July, following public comment, and it would take effect at the beginning of next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Statewide, 63 water suppliers, serving about 9% of the population where household incomes are below the state median, will be required to cut water use by more than 20%. Under the revisions, they could cut use by only 1% per year and still be deemed in compliance, provided they meet other requirements. Another 19 suppliers in wealthier regions facing cuts of 30% or more could cut use by only 2% per year and still comply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘You still have to meet your objective, whatever that may be. But you get more time to get there — in some cases, substantially more time.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"align":"right","size":"medium","citation":"Eric Oppenheimer, director, State Water Resources Control Board","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“You still have to meet your objective, whatever that may be. But you get more time to get there — in some cases, substantially more time,” Oppenheimer said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That would mean that if your ultimate compliance target was 30%, you’d have 30 years to get there,” compared to approximately 15 years under the old version, Oppenheimer said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Water suppliers welcomed the extended deadlines because they would have more time to coax customers with rebates and other programs to make lasting changes to irrigated landscapes without harming shade trees and disadvantaged communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes will allow “urban retail water suppliers to thoughtfully and cost-effectively implement programs,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.acwa.com/about/leadership-staff/\">Chelsea Haines\u003c/a> of the Association of California Water Agencies, which represents more than 450 public agencies. “I hope that we see this additional time not as a delay but as an opportunity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"label":"Related Stories ","postid":"news_11971872,news_11969648,news_11977573"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The water board does not have an updated cost estimate for the revised rules to compare to the $13.5 billion estimate for the old version. The costs come largely because cities and agencies would offer rebates and rate cuts to those who conserve. The benefits were estimated to reach about $15.6 billion, largely because suppliers and customers will buy less water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmentalists say the delays belie the urgency of preparing for the next inevitable drought and will force more drastic changes to landscapes when emergency conservation measures are needed once again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fact that we aren’t taking steps as quickly as possible to invest in more climate resilient landscapes that will be able to survive those future droughts is unthinkable. Quite frankly, it’s reckless,” Quinn said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://pacinst.org/meet-our-staff-heather-cooley/\">Heather Cooley\u003c/a>, director of research for the Pacific Institute, said conservation is cheaper than developing new supplies through desalination or recycling — a burden that customers would eventually bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By weakening the standard, we’re making water more expensive,” Cooley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘By weakening the standard, we’re making water more expensive.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"align":"right","size":"medium","citation":"Heather Cooley, director of research, Pacific Institute","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Under a previous version of the rules, about 18% of suppliers — serving about a quarter of the state’s population — wouldn’t have to reduce their customers’ use to meet the 2035 standards, according to the board’s estimates last September. Now, under the new version, 37% of suppliers — serving 42% of the state’s population — wouldn’t have to change their water use by 2035. And by 2040, 31% could still maintain their status quo, according to water board data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asked if they were concerned about the reduced savings under the latest version, Oppenheimer said flexibility and feasibility are important.\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We think 500,000 acre-feet of saved project savings is a substantial amount,” he said. “More is always better, but that needs to be balanced against providing enough flexibility to the water suppliers and the feasibility of meeting those standards.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11979392/california-weakens-plan-for-mandatory-cutbacks-in-urban-water-use","authors":["byline_news_11979392"],"categories":["news_31795","news_19906","news_8","news_356"],"tags":["news_20023","news_17996","news_3187","news_483"],"affiliates":["news_18481"],"featImg":"news_11979393","label":"news_18481"}},"programsReducer":{"possible":{"id":"possible","title":"Possible","info":"Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. 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As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. 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And you join us on the journey to find the answers.\r\n\u003cbr />\r\n\u003cspan class=\"alignleft\">\u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1172473406\">\u003cimg width=\"75px\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/11/DownloadOniTunes_100x100.png\">\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://goo.gl/app/playmusic?ibi=com.google.PlayMusic&isi=691797987&ius=googleplaymusic&link=https://play.google.com/music/m/Ipi2mc5aqfen4nr2daayiziiyuy?t%3DBay_Curious\">\u003cimg width=\"75px\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/11/Google_Play_100x100.png\">\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/div>\r\n\u003c/aside> \r\n\u003ch2>What's your question?\u003c/h2>\r\n\u003cdiv id=\"huxq6\" class=\"curiosity-module\" data-pym-src=\"//modules.wearehearken.com/kqed/curiosity_modules/133\">\u003c/div>\r\n\u003cscript src=\"//assets.wearehearken.com/production/thirdparty/p.m.js\">\u003c/script>\r\n\u003ch2>Bay Curious monthly newsletter\u003c/h2>\r\nWe're launching it soon! \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdEtzbyNbSQkRHCCAkKhoGiAl3Bd0zWxhk0ZseJ1KH_o_ZDjQ/viewform\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up\u003c/a> so you don't miss it when it drops.\r\n","featImg":"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/11/BayCuriousLogoFinal01-e1493662037229.png","headData":{"title":"Bay Curious Archives | KQED News","description":"A podcast exploring the Bay Area one question at a time KQED’s Bay Curious gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. 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