More than 5,200 toxic sites buried along the shore of San Francisco Bay could be impacted by rising groundwater levels over the next century, posing potentially severe risks to human and environmental health, according to a recently released study.
That’s more than 10 times as many potentially at-risk Bay Area sites as had been identified in previous reports. A disproportionate number are located in lower-income communities of color, including in low-lying areas of San Francisco, Richmond, West Oakland and East Palo Alto.
Unlike much lower tallies from the federal and state agencies that oversee these sites, Hill’s study includes 1,480 open sites, which are in the process of being cleaned up or have not yet been cleaned up, as well as an additional 3,817 closed sites where some level of cleanup work may have been conducted, but that may still contain residual contaminants and be vulnerable to rising groundwater.
“It’s like a graveyard,” said Kristina Hill, director of UC Berkeley’s Institute of Urban and Regional Development, who co-authored the study. “Everything we’ve done in the past is coming up with that groundwater to haunt us in the present.” The two state agencies in charge of enforcing cleanup of the sites, Hill said, need “to flip a switch” to the default goal of removing or neutralizing contaminants.“It’s a solvable problem. But it requires us to dig up the graves,” she said, emphasizing the need to consider rising groundwater levels in future climate adaptation plans.“The idea is not to run away from these places,” she added. “The idea is to make them safe and healthy again.”Cleanup of toxic sites can range from digging up contaminants and trucking debris to contained locations, treating toxics directly on-site, or capping the pollutants in the ground with materials like cement to prevent them from leaking. That third option, Hill said, is likely not a good long-term solution because groundwater rise will generally circumvent barriers over time.Read More
Rising seas and hammering waves could radically transform California beaches by the end of the century, with 25% to 70% of the state’s beaches eroding completely, according to a USGS study that that incorporates historic rates of coastal erosion and projections for sea level rise and future wave heights. “What people don’t realize is it’s now: We’re losing our beaches now,” said Donne Brownsey, chair of the California Coastal Commission, the agency in charge of securing public access to coastal areas. The Coastal Commission encourages cities to avoid what’s called “armoring” — building seawalls or using rip-rap to protect seaside homes and infrastructure, because such hard structures cause beaches to erode more quickly. “The community needs to be aware — if you choose this option it’s going to accelerate the erosion of your beach,” Brownsey said.Unfortunately, 14% of the entire coast, and 38% of Southern California’s, has already been armored.Alternatives to armoring include natural options like restoring sand dunes and the more expensive choice called managed retreat, or moving infrastructure out of harm’s way. As an example, Caltrans just finished construction on a $26 million project to move Highway 1 by Bodega Bay’s Gleason Beach 400 feet inland and away from eroding cliffs.“With many locations in California, the whole point is being there for the beach,” said Amy Hutzel, executive officer of California State Coastal Conservancy, an agency that funds projects to combat sea level rise. Hutzel noted that because one-fourth of the coast is managed by the state park system, the state has the authority to make similar changes on a large part of the coast. “We don’t want to save the parking lot at the very expense of the place people want to visit.”Critics say Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to cut $6 billion (out of $54 billion) from climate spending in the state budget, which includes reducing the allocation for coastal resilience this year by $561 million compared with what was spent in 2021 and 2022, could make the state’s climate goals harder to achieve. Communities within San Francisco Bay alone will need $110 billion to protect against sea level rise, according to a recent economic study by the Bay Conservation and Development Commission.“I don’t think that we are acting quickly enough,” said Mandy Sackett, California policy coordinator of Surfrider Foundation, which works to preserve beaches. Read More
Southern sea otters once lived across California, including Humboldt Bay. Now, only about 3,000 live along the coast of the state.The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducted a feasibility assessment in 2022 about reintroducing the animal along the coast and found an effort to bring the species further north to be legal, with a positive socioeconomic and biological impact. The USFWS will host a meeting Sunday in Arcata to collect public input on the issue. “Sea otters have this beautiful, thick pelt, and that’s why they were just totally wiped out,” said Emily Jeffers, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, an organization that formally submitted a petition in January asking the UFSWS to move ahead with reintroduction. She said the current population of southern sea otters in California came from a group of around 50, found near Monterey Bay after European settlers decimated populations in the 1700s and 1800s.While reintroduction efforts in the 1960s and 1970s were successful in Washington, the southern sea otter didn’t take in Northern California or Oregon.Jennifer Kalt, director of Humboldt Baykeeper, said in Humboldt County, there have been some reports of visiting sea otters, but none have made a home along the North Coast of California. She said that Russian trappers who enslaved Indigenous people from what is now Alaska decimated the population locally.Jeffers said sea otters are keystone species — they eat sea urchins and keep the population in check. Otters could play a part in the restoration of local kelp forests because urchins have been eating a lot of kelp.“The kelp ecosystem is so out of balance now — we know the importance of the kelp forest for abalone, but also for all kinds of juvenile fish,” said Kalt.The abalone, which has great historic significance for people across the coast, has been hit hard, with the Northern California recreational red abalone fishery being closed since 2017.Read More
Eureka can expect new transitional housing to be built by the end of fall this year.Miles Slattery, Eureka city manager, said that an agreement was recently finalized with Montebello-based company Built on Site Systems Podz.The prefabricated units will be put together on the Crowley site off Hilfiker Lane. Lara Ohanesian, project manager at BOSS Podz, said the units in Eureka will be two rooms, 8.5 by 17 feet buildings. Ohanesian said the company is also providing the bathrooms, which are dorm style. There will be 33 residential units, one unit with showers and one unit with a kitchen. 10% will be ADA accessible, and Slattery said they have yet to determine if people can bring their dogs.A volunteer work day will assemble the pods sometime in August or September, to be determined once units are delivered.The Betty Kwan Chinn Homeless Foundation will operate the community. Slattery said the idea is for the units to be the next step from the Blue Angel Village. People will graduate toward these units, which are considered transitional housing. This prepares people for the jump to permanent housing, he said.The project is funded with 1.6 million from a Newsom encampment grant. Read More
A shocking Supreme Court decision scaling back protections for the majority of the nation’s wetlands has unfurled a hazy regulatory landscape, even as it is set to both open up major development opportunities and threaten public lands across the country.“It is clear from the opinion that isolated ephemeral waters are out,” said Larry Liebesman, a permitting expert and senior adviser at the firm Dawson & Associates, referencing dry streambeds that flow after receiving rain. But, he added, it is “far from clear” whether that also extends to intermittent waters that flow into a regulated water body, or just how to determine whether a wetland is “connected enough to be considered ‘adjoining.'”Intermittent and ephemeral waters that do not run all year are also in peril after Sackett. That will affect Western lands where waters often run dry for much of the year but play a vital role in their ecosystems.The National Parks Conservation Association said the ruling would have sprawling implications for the U.S. National Park System, where two-thirds of waters are already threatened by upstream pollution.The Army Corps of Engineers has placed a pause on key wetlands determinations pending the release of guidance explaining the impact of the Sackett ruling.The landscape has changed dramatically for any entity seeking a permit. Section 404 of the Clean Water Act governs the discharge of dredged or fill material into U.S. waters, with only three states currently overseeing their own programs and the rest subject to federal oversight.“The practical implications of the decision are that federal Clean Water Act permits will no longer be required in many, if not most, situations where they previously were required,” offered Ben Cowan, an environmental partner at Locke Lord’s Houston office. “This will remove one obstacle to project development and, as importantly, will provide much greater clarity as to whether or not a project will require a permit.”Legal experts agree that EPA and the Army Corps will also need to go back to the drawing board and revise their rule, although the ultimate outcome is unclear.Cowan said the agencies could try to push their jurisdiction around what constitutes a “continuous surface connection.” But for now, wetlands protection will largely fall to the states, which do not tend to have robust programs in place for overseeing those areas.“The question is to what extent these states may enact laws and policies to cover formerly regulated waters,” said Liebesman.
