Less than a minute later, another temblor the same size hit a mile away. Then a third struck just before 1 a.m., and over the next two days dozens of smaller quakes followed.

Anytime there’s a swarm of earthquakes in their community locals can’t help but think about the steam billowing from a dozen geothermal power plants that have sprung up along the Salton Sea’s southeastern shore over the past four decades.

They wonder, could decades of drilling thousands of feet into the Earth’s crust and pumping out boiling brine to make renewable energy be causing some of these quakes? And could drilling and testing in the area by companies rushing to extract lithium needed for electric vehicle batteries be increasing the risk?

Those were among the concerns raised by some 50 residents who attended a community meeting May 15 at a Niland elementary school, where they asked a team of researchers about new lithium extraction and geothermal projects underway in the area.

“They always ask about seismicity and earthquakes, and how much of that is natural and how much might be due to geothermal power production,” noted Michael McKibben, a geology research professor from UC Riverside who helped lead that presentation.

Turns out, for a variety of reasons we’ll get to soon, that’s a tough question to answer in this region.

But seismologists say one thing is clear: Anytime we drill thousands of feet into the ground, and monkey around with pressure in the Earth’s crust, there’s a potential for triggering earthquakes.

And a series of even small quakes can trigger temblors on nearby fault lines. That’s why seismologists watch closely when swarms happen in this area, since the Salton Sea marks the end of the southern stretch of the San Andreas Fault. Scientists believe that particular stretch of the mighty San Andreas, which hasn’t ruptured since 1680, is capable of generating a magnitude 8 quake that could devastate California.

“We know someday it’s going to pop,” said William Ellsworth, a geophysics professor at Stanford University.

That’s got some people worried about whether energy projects at the Salton Sea could be putting the region — and much of Southern California — at greater risk for a major earthquake.

“I am definitely concerned about this,” said Jeremy Merrill, who lives in east San Diego County and received email notifications about the recent swarm.

“We are currently predicted to have a major quake in Southern California within the next few decades. And if this accelerates it, that is a huge risk.”

A decade-old study out of UC Santa Cruz found a correlation between geothermal production and spikes in seismic activity around the Salton Sea. But Andrew Barbour, who studies induced quakes as a geophysicist with the U.S Geological Survey, doesn’t believe there’s scientific consensus on whether swarms have accelerated in the years since companies started to tap the geothermal field.

The most comprehensive look at data related to that question is due out this summer, when McKibben’s team releases a long-awaited report on the area’s geothermal field that will compare more than four decades of seismic activity with local geothermal power production.

In the meantime, experts say there are a few things companies and regulators can do to minimize the risks of induced earthquakes, help researchers get a better grasp of those risks, and help prepare the community if temblors happen.

But since there’s no way to eliminate the risk altogether, scientists say this is one more example of the dilemmas we face as we try to quickly curb climate change without creating a new set of hazards.

“These are tough choices we have to make as a society,” said Michael Manga, a planetary sciences professor at UC Berkeley who’s studied this region.

“We need power, so we’re getting geothermal power and the potential for lithium to make batteries. And I guess we’re trading that off with the possibility of having induced earthquakes.”

Risk baked in

The same conditions that make the southern end of the Salton Sea ripe for lithium extraction also make it prime for seismic activity.

Multiple fault lines, including the San Andreas, run through the area. Those faults allow magma that’s usually trapped a couple dozen miles beneath the Earth’s surface, in the thick mantle layer, flow up to the crust. Once there, the magma heats an aquifer of mineral-rich water that sits 4,000 to 12,000 feet underground to more than 500 degrees.

Berkshire Hathaway, under its spinoff company CalEnergy, was the first to tap that geothermal brine when it opened a power plant in the area in 1982. Through wells drilled more than a mile deep, super-heated geothermal brine travels under high pressure to a low-pressure tank at the surface. The change in pressure turns some of the fluid into vapor, which drives a turbine that makes electricity.

CalEnergy added nine more geothermal plants in the area over the next 18 years. Then, in 2012, San Diego-based EnergySource added one more, bringing to 11 the number of geothermal plants operating on the southeastern edge of the Salton Sea.

For decades, after those plants captured steam from the brine, they’ve sent all the lithium-rich liquid back into the earth. But recently, as demand for lithium has surged, researchers have scrambled to come up with the most efficient way to extract lithium from that brine before sending everything else back underground.

That lithium boom attracted a third player to the Salton Sea. Australian company Controlled Thermal Resources drilled another well last year and plans to eventually drill as many as 60 to produce geothermal power and capture lithium and other valuable minerals from the brine.

For those companies, Ellsworth said smaller earthquakes are actually good for business because they help keep the geothermal field active. But building infrastructure also is very expensive, which means a lot of money would be on the line if any seismic activities were to trigger a big enough quake to damage power plants. So UC Berkeley scientist Manga said he hopes investors are pressuring companies for solid due diligence, which includes finding out as much as possible about the seismic hazards.

None of the companies operating geothermal plants in the area answered questions about their calculations or potential steps to minimize risks.

Controlled Thermal Resources was the only company to offer any response, with a written statement pointing out how the region is already prone to seismic activity. The company also noted that any well operations are subject to strict permitting and reporting requirements. And, the statement said, “It is important to note that no earthquakes have been attributed to geothermal production in the 40 years of operations in the Salton Sea geothermal area.”

Experts say that is accurate in a strict sense. But they also said there’s no way to know if that’s simply due to unique challenges at play in this seismically active area.

Gauging the level of risk

When people raise concerns posed by geothermal activities at the Salton Sea, they often cite the well-documented introduction of quakes in once-quiet places like Texas and Oklahoma due to oil fracking.

Any such connection is much tougher to suss out when it comes to local geothermal activity for two simple reasons, according to federal geophysicist Barbour: There’s simply too much natural seismic activity already underway in the Imperial Valley and not enough specific, long-term data to sort out the differences.

But when it comes to inducing quakes, fracking also is believed to carry a greater risk than geothermal operations due to key distinctions in the different processes.

With fracking, companies use deep wells to shoot highly pressurized water, sand and chemicals to split open and widen cracks in underground rock formations, releasing gas or crude oil trapped within those formations. Since that increases pressure underground, Barbour said, it’s easy to see why those processes have been linked to spikes in seismic activity.

Geothermal operations, on the other hand, are only replacing fluids they previously extracted. So companies like to say they’re “stabilizing” the Salton Sea’s geothermal field when they inject material.

However, half a dozen scientists interviewed for this story said all geothermal power operations can induce earthquakes.

On the one hand, Ellsworth said removing fluids from the geothermal field should reduce pressure and therefore reduce stress on earthquake faults. But Barbour pointed out some fluid gets lost during the engineering process, which means companies are injecting a lower volume of fluid than they extracted. He said studies have found any reduction in geothermal fluids can cause underground rocks to contract and impact stress on nearby faults.

In 2006, Basel, Switzerland experienced a series of quakes, up to magnitude 3.6, shortly after a geothermal plant finished drilling on top of a fault there. Residents protested and the plant was quickly shut down.

There’s at least one example of a geothermal company operating near the Salton Sea allowing an injection well site to become over pressurized to the point that fluids broke through the crust and made it back to the surface. The incident happened in April 2021, according to emailed responses from the California Department of Conservation. The state agency didn’t respond to repeated requests about which operator owned the well, but said that well and others in the area were shut down until extensive safety tests were conducted.

Records of that violation, and any others by area operators, don’t appear to be posted publicly. The Department of Conservation said violation notices would take some time to compile and weren’t available at press time.

Along with changes to underground pressure, geothermal companies also are injecting cooled fluids back into the earth, with the temperature often dropping from more than 500 degrees to closer to 100 degrees. The USGS lists such temperature changes as a “significant factor” in why Northern California’s Geysers Geothermal Field, which experienced its own swarm in April, regularly triggers small quakes that rattle residents in the nearby town of Cobb.

While plants there operate a bit differently than the plants at the Salton Sea, with additional wastewater injected into the Northern California geothermal field to restore depleted fluids, researchers said both extract hot materials and inject cooled materials. One notable difference, Ellsworth pointed out, is that the Geysers facility isn’t near any major fault lines.

In 2013, researchers from UC Santa Cruz released a study showing quake patterns near the Salton Sea mirroring patterns in geothermal energy production. Lead author Emily Brodsky said she hasn’t been tracking data from the region since then, deferring to other experts for comment on this story.

Several seismologists said that while they didn’t dispute the correlation in Brodsky’s study, there was some controversy over an observation tacked onto the end of the paper that suggested quake swarms near the geothermal field could trigger a bigger quake along the San Andreas fault.

The end of the San Andreas fault is about a dozen miles from where geothermal production takes place, Barbour pointed out. That may not seem far. But he said the southern shore would likely need to see quakes significantly larger than what’s on record to date, with peaks in the magnitude 5 range, to set off the San Andreas fault.

Minimizing the risks

While there’s no way to eliminate the risk of geothermal operations triggering earthquakes, scientists said there are a few things companies and regulators can do to help.

One is to ensure that no one is drilling wells or injecting cooled material directly over a local fault line, Barbour said.

Others suggested implementing a “traffic light” system for geothermal plants that’s similar to what fracking operators must use, where they get alerts if they’re injecting materials and raising pressures too quickly.

All scientists interviewed for this story said they’d like to see more frequent, comprehensive and and transparent data collection.

Right now, companies have to report monthly production and injection rates to the state, with those reports available on the the Department of Conservation’s website. But that data is posted a couple months late. To be able to draw a clean line between geothermal operations and particular earthquakes, scientists said companies would need to report that data daily and regulators would need to quickly make it available to the public.

As a condition of their permits, geothermal companies also have to install seismic monitors at their sites and include earthquake data in annual reports submitted to state and Imperial County regulators. But the state doesn’t have, let alone post, electronic copies of those annual reports, the conservation department said. Hard copies weren’t available by press time.

Those monitors also are not connected to state or federal earthquakes systems, which track quakes in real time. Public systems have gotten better at determining the size, and location of quakes since they were first installed in the Salton Sea area 91 years ago, Barbour said. But they’re still some distance away from injection well sites on geothermal company land. So Barbour said researchers would be able to get a better handle on what’s happening if companies were required to share detailed quake data from their on-site monitoring stations.

One other step Ellsworth suggested is for the Salton Sea region to establish a fund similar to one set up for residents near the Geysers geothermal plants. There, he said companies pay into a fund locals can tap into if an earthquake in the region causes property damage.

None of the companies responded to a request asking if they’d be willing to consider such a move.

Weighing the risks vs. benefits here is tough, Merrill said.

“The benefit of increased electric vehicle production is great for the environment, but a major quake has the potential to cause massive damage to critical infrastructure,” he said. “I’d probably err on the side of protecting the people who live here in the region as a priority until alternative means of lithium extraction can be developed.”

So far, thanks to recent jolts of public and private funds, the seismic shift underway to turn the Salton Sea into Lithium Valley shows no signs of slowing down.

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano rumbled to life again this week, belching out towering clouds of ash that forced 11 villages to cancel school sessions.

The residents weren’t the only ones keeping a close eye on the towering peak. Every time there is a sigh, tic or heave in Popocatepetl, there are dozens of scientists, a network of sensors and cameras, and a roomful of powerful equipment watching its every move.

The 17,797-foot (5,426-meter) volcano, known affectionately as “El Popo,” has been spewing toxic fumes, ash and lumps of incandescent rock persistently for almost 30 years, since it awakened from a long slumber in 1994.

The volcano is 45 miles (72 kilometers) southeast of Mexico City, but looms much closer to the eastern fringes of the metropolitan area of 22 million people. The city also faces threats from earthquakes and sinking soil, but the volcano is the most visible potential danger — and the most closely watched. A severe eruption could cut off air traffic, or smother the city in clouds of choking ash.

Ringed around its summit are six cameras, a thermal imaging device and 12 seismological monitoring stations that operate 24 hours a day, all reporting back to an equipment-filled command center in Mexico City.

A total of 13 scientists from a multidisciplinary team take turns staffing the command center around the clock. Being able to warn of an impending ash cloud is key, because people can take precautions. Unlike earthquakes, warning times can be longer for the volcano and in general the peak is more predictable.

On a recent day, researcher Paulino Alonso made the rounds, checking the readings at the command center run by Mexico’s National Disaster Prevention Center, known by its initials as Cenapred. It is a complex task that involves seismographs that measure the volcano’s internal trembling, which could indicate hot rock and gas moving up the vents in the peak.

Monitoring gases in nearby springs and at the peak — and wind patterns that help determine where the ash could be blown — also play a role.

The forces inside are so great that they can temporarily deform the peak, so cameras and sensors must monitor the very shape of the volcano.

How do you explain all of this to 25 million non-experts living within a 62-mile (100-kilometer) radius who have grown so used to living near the volcano?

Authorities came up with the simple idea of a volcano “stoplight” with three colors: green for safety, yellow for alert and red for danger.

For most of the years since the stoplight was introduced, it has been stuck at some stage of “yellow.” The mountain sometimes quiets down, but not for long. It seldom shoots up molten lava: instead it’s more the “explosive” type, showering out hot rocks that tumble down its flanks and emitting bursts of gas and ash.

For example, Mexico’s earthquake early alert system is also based at the command center. Because the city’s soil is so soft — it was built on a former lake bed — a quake hundreds of miles away on the Pacific coast can cause huge destruction in the capital, as happened in 1985 and 2017.

A system of seismic monitors along the coast sends messages that race faster than the quake’s shock waves. Once the sirens start blaring, it can give Mexico City residents up to half a minute to get to safety, usually on the streets outside.

MONTREAL — In the agonies of the virus that upended most of the world, millions of people from Bogota to Berlin saw what life could be like on two wheels instead of four.

Even as commuting to the office and going to school plunged at the height of COVID lockdowns, outdoor recreation, and cycling in particular, surged in country after country as people looked to escape isolation in a relatively safe way. In response, cities worldwide have developed bikeways with new urgency since 2020.

The question is whether people stick with their new cycling habit in these closer-to-normal times.

On Friday, Bike to Work Day in the U.S., the automatic counters that record each passing cyclist in many cities will get the latest numbers.

So far the evidence is incomplete and varies by place. But the numbers suggest that if they build it, people will come.

Case studies led by global urban planning researchers Ralph Buehler of Virginia Tech and John Bucher of Rutgers University track what more than a dozen cities have done in recent decades, and specifically during the pandemic, to improve pedal-powered commutes and recreation.

Already a world leader in bicycle friendliness, Montreal did more than any other North American city studied to expand safe cycling in the pandemic. London, Paris and Brussels did the most in Europe. But many more cities worldwide also seized opportunity in the crisis.

“A big paradigm shift in thinking is going on,” Buehler said in an interview. “In transport planning and policy and engineering, we have promoted driving for nearly 100 years. We have made driving fast, we’ve made it convenient.

“Now all of these cities and places are taking some of the space back. And giving it to bikes.”

Some steps have phased out as the virus has faded, like many of the temporary “pop-up” bike lanes that appeared as if overnight. But many have stuck, thanks to an increase in lanes with permanent barriers against traffic, central arteries where cars can’t go, and other concessions to a pent-up demand to get around without gas.

Environmental concerns have also been a motivation for many people to ditch cars for bikes, a choice that researchers say has clear benefits in reducing the carbon emissions that drive global warming and in curbing pollution broadly.

Here are snapshots of what some of the most ambitious pro-cycling cities on three continents have done for cycling before and during the pandemic. The findings are drawn principally from the MIT-published book “Cycling through the COVID-19 Pandemic to a More Sustainable Transport Future,” by Buehler, chair of urban affairs at Virginia Tech, and Pucher, professor emeritus at Rutgers’ School of Planning and Public Policy:

WASHINGTON

In 2001, the U.S. capital offered cyclists a meager 3 miles (5 kilometers) of bicycle lanes, unprotected. By 2019, the network topped 100 miles, and bicycling as a share of all travel in the city increased fivefold. In 2020 and 2021, the city picked up the pace even more, building nearly 20 miles (32 km) of protected lanes, much safer than merely marked lanes on streets shared with cars.

MONTREAL

An innovator in urban biking since the late 1980s, Montreal was the first large North American city to develop an extensive network of physically separated on-street bicycle lanes, the book says. It was also first to introduce a large-scale bike-sharing system, with its BIXI bikes in 2009.

In the five years before the pandemic, Montreal’s cycling network grew by 34%, topping 1,000 km (600 miles). Almost a third of that is made up of off-street paths and much of the rest is safely separated on shared roads.

The city’s pro-biking mayor, Valérie Plante, easily won reelection in 2021 on a platform of green initiatives. Underway is a major expansion of a new express bikeway network, Réseau Express Vélo or REV, that would double the city’s already sweeping cycling network in four years.

AUSTIN, Texas

Considered the most pro-cycling large city in the U.S. South, Austin doubled its network of protected on-street bike lanes to around 60 miles (97 km) in the first two years of COVID. From 2010 to 2019, the city had tripled its network of conventional on-street bicycle lanes, to nearly 300 miles (480 km).

BOGOTA, Colombia

Bogota is a breakout success. By some measures, over 9% of trips in the capital are by bicycle, putting it in the top tier globally and a model that other cities in Latin America are trying to emulate.

That’s according to a study published before the onset of COVID-19 by Bogota civil engineers Daniel Rosas-Satizábal and Alvaro Rodriguez-Valencia. They attribute a “remarkable increase in bike ridership” to mayoral leadership, advocacy groups and a “latent bicycle culture” that emerged when officials put money into making streets safer.

When the pandemic broke out, Mayor Claudia Lopez turned traffic lanes over to bicycles, among other steps, adding 85 km (53 miles) to the city’s network of bike paths.

WESTERN EUROPE

Paris saw cycling spike 60% in 2020-2021. Seen a quarter century ago as bicycle-unfriendly, the city has since taken striking measures to get people on wheels, even subsidizing one third of the cost for people to buy 85,000 electric bikes or cargo bikes from 2009 to 2022. Cars were banned or relegated to single lanes on certain roads along the Seine River through the center of Paris.

London more than doubled its protected bike lanes when the virus bore in, bringing the total to 260 km (160 miles) in a year. This, after tripling their length in the decade before. Bucher and Buehler say the pandemic brought about the most rapid transformation of the streetscape in Greater London in decades, resulting in a sharp rise in both walking and cycling.

Back in 1998, 10% of trips in Berlin were by bicycle — a share many cities can only dream about even now. By 2018, that had grown to 18%. That’s in part because of Berlin’s configuration as a city of many neighborhood centers, with more people living close to where they work and shop. Early in the pandemic, city officials expedited a plan creating more bicycle lanes to meet demand.

In Brussels, cycling jumped 22% in 2020, then declined in 2021 but was still 14% higher than in 2019. That suggests that some people who took up biking when COVID arrived gave it up but more stayed with it. The city plowed 74% more money into cycling in 2020-21.

Brussels seems committed to making things more difficult for cars in the core. It plans to eliminate 65,000 parking spaces for cars by 2030, and is reconfiguring central streets to reserve the most direct routes for cyclists and public transit.

NEW YORK

The city built over 60 miles (100 km) of protected bike lanes from 2019 to 2022, usually connecting them to protected intersections, and a larger number of regular bike lanes. Docking stations for CitiBike bike-sharing exceeded 1,500 in mid-2022, up from 860 in 2019.

During COVID’s peak in 2020, over 80 miles (130 km) of mostly neighborhood streets were closed to motor vehicles altogether during certain hours; that’s since been pulled back to 20 miles (32 km).

MINNEAPOLIS

From 2000 to 2017, Minneapolis bikeways more than doubled in length, cycling tripled and the share of cyclists who suffered severe injury or death plunged by nearly 80%, a not uncommon development in cities that aggressively expanded their networks. In the pandemic’s first month, the city announced it would quickly add 15 miles (24 km) of bike routes, closing many roads to traffic except for neighborhood residents.

Along with Montreal, Quebec City and select other cities in northern climes, Minneapolis is also big on bicycling through brutal winters. Researchers place Minneapolis with Denver and Chicago as mid-America standouts in advancing safer cycling.

Both Lake Oroville and Lake Shasta reported near-full capacity Monday with plenty of snow in the northern mountains anticipated to melt.

Shasta Lake reached 1,063 feet elevation on May 1 with four feet of capacity remaining and Lake Oroville reached 890 feet on May 13 with 10 feet left of capacity — each holding steady since.

Lake Oroville is at 96% capacity and is expected to be filled into the spring.

Oroville last reached capacity in 2017 and in the last 30 years reached capacity in 2017, 2012, 2011, 2006, 2005, 2003, 1998, 1996 and 1993, according to an email from DWR Information Officer Jason Ince.

Shasta Recreation Company General Manager Shyann Almazan said all boat ramps are open at Shasta Lake including Antler’s Boat Ramp, Bailey Cove, Centimudi, Hirz Bay, Jones Valley and Packers Valley.

All campgrounds are open at the lake including disperse areas — campgrounds located on the shoreline with restrooms and trash service.

Almazan said a popular choice is Gregory Beach Disperse Area, visible on the left side of Interstate 5 southbound.

“The lake is so full right now that there’s not very much shoreline and the trees,” Almazan said. “As the summer goes on, the lake is going to go down so there will be more shoreline as the lake falls.”

At Lake Oroville, the Spillway Boat Ramp and Day Use Area is open 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. with all vehicles and trailers to be inspected by the California Highway Patrol.

Boat Ramps that are open 24 hours and do not entail CHP inspections at  include Bidwell Canyon, Loafer Point, Loafer Creek, Lime Saddle and Enterprise. All of the car top boat launches are open except for Dark Canyon, according to the State Parks website.

The dead male grizzly weighing about 530 pounds was reported around 9 a.m. May 1 by several drivers on Highway 14 near the eastern entrance to Yellowstone. The carcass had been left where it fell, about 30 yards from the road and close to a picnic area on the Shoshone River.

The bear had been shot at least four times, said an affidavit filed in Park County Circuit Court by game warden Travis Crane.

The following day, a man called the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to turn himself in. He reportedly told Crane that he had been confident before shooting that the animal was a black bear and realized his error only when he was able to inspect the carcass.

The hunter is a 65-year-old man from the community of Wapiti, between Yellowstone and Cody. He is scheduled to be arraigned Friday, May 19, in Cody Circuit Court.

Killing a grizzly bear in Wyoming is a misdemeanor. Besides the jail time and fine, the charge carries a penalty of up to $25,000 in restitution to the state and six years’ suspension of hunting privileges.

Grizzlies in the Yellowstone region of southern Montana, eastern Idaho and northwestern Wyoming are a federally protected species. They can be legally killed only in clear-cut cases of defending humans or livestock.

Hunters are told to immediately report any killing of a grizzly.

Black bears are typically smaller and darker than grizzly bears and lack the other species’ characteristically humped back.

Grizzly-human encounters have increased as the Yellowstone region’s grizzly population has grown to as many as 1,000 animals since the 1970s.

As many as 50,000 grizzlies once roamed the western U.S. Still, they are considered a conservation success story with rebounding numbers in Yellowstone and other pockets in the lower 48 states.

California’s last known grizzly was seen in Sequoia National Park in 1924. Recent petitions to reintroduce the species to the state have been rejected by government agencies.

The sensitive plover population up and down the coast has been declining with the encroachment of development and invasion of non-native plant species limiting its ability to nest.

Balboa Peninsula, specifically the coastal dune habitat between B and G streets, is one of the largest and most important of seven protected plover habitats in Orange County. In all, there are 55 protected plover grounds along the West Coast.

The area on the peninsula was designated as critical habitat for the plover by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2012 and, in turn, dedicated as an avian conservation area.

Typically, plovers winter on the peninsula from July through March. At last count, there were about 50 to 60 of the little shorebirds in that area. But that population study by a Cal State Fullerton graduate student was in 2019; there’s been no more monitoring since the pandemic. In 2014, there were as many as 125 plovers, but the last successful nest observed on the peninsula was in 2009.

Starting in 2011, the city’s protection for the birds consisted of a Nantucket-style slated wooden fencing that encircled two sand dunes areas on Balboa Beach between the two streets. Residents who live along the stretch south of the Balboa Pier objected to the fencing, which was becoming weathered, calling it an “eyesore.”

Some of the fencing that was falling down has been removed in recent years.

“We’re working on a conservation plan for the entire area to address protection of the snowy plover and the dune habitat,” Seimone Jurjis, Newport Beach’s director of community development, said of efforts since 2017 to address both residential and environmental concerns.

That has included interacting with the Coastal Commission and getting required permits.

But earlier this year, Newport Beach withdrew its permit application to have more time to develop its overall protection program with input from residents who live near the beach and from environmental groups, such as the Sea & Sage Audubon Society, the Sierra Club and the Endangered Habitats League.

But the Coastal Commission is now “understandably concerned,”  Andrew Willis, its Southern California enforcement supervisor, said, because there is presently no fencing and the city has withdrawn its application.

“We’ve asked that some fencing be immediately installed,” Willis said.

Dru Fanticola, a resident who lives across from the plover habitat, said he first spoke to the Coastal Commission about the fencing in 2017. The original fencing seemed to go up without a plan, he said.

“It sat out there and deteriorated. I picked up trash and debris from the beach that got caught in it,” he said. “Some of the parts had fallen over. It was an eyesore.”

“I don’t think the fences were erected for the sake of the plovers,” he added. “I think was put up to stop city vehicles from driving through the dunes.”

Instead of just putting back up a fence, the city has been working on the new management plan that could be a model for other environmentally sensitive areas along the peninsula, once approved by the Coastal Commission, Jurjis said.

The plan – as it stands presently – would focus on education, preventing unleashed dogs in the area, and protecting, maintaining and enhancing the habitat between B and G streets. It would also include a monitoring program for the birds and placing visual indicators east of the critical habitat along the beach toward the Wedge to prompt people to avoid transversing the sand in that area of dunes. The E Street concrete walkway to the beach would be removed as part of a larger restoration effort.

“Our biggest challenge is some residents don’t like it and we’re trying to get their input,” Jurjis said.

Fanticola, who has lived in the area for seven years and has attended about 15 of the community meetings, said he likes the informational elements proposed, such as stenciling on the boardwalk to let beachgoers know they are in plover territory. But, he said he doesn’t like the idea of removing the designated walkway through the sand or the inclusion of low-level fencing.

“My idea would be to start with stenciling, find out how many people walk through the dunes, and have some phases before we go to Z with concertina wire,” he said. “Why not scale back and do it cautiously.”

Robb Hamilton, a bird biologist from Long Beach, has also weighed in at the community meetings. He sees the issue as bigger than just the presently designated plover habitat and said the city’s new plan could be an opportunity to do more.

“The city has a local coastal plan that describes the coastal dunes as an environmentally sensitive area,” he said. “They’ve never treated the dunes like (they are a) special habitat. Since it’s a beach, they treat it like a playground.

“They should be treating all the dunes as environmentally sensitive habitat.”

Would you vote for a bond to help California pay for water recycling, Salton Sea restoration, statewide parks programs, urban greening and other climate-related efforts?

The question will likely be on the 2024 ballot. And Gov. Gavin Newsom is counting on voters saying yes to avoid axing more than $1 billion in projects that he no longer plans to fund through the state budget.

That was the big climate news Friday, as Newsom presented a revised version of the 2023-24 budget that accounts for a deficit that’s expected to be $9.3 billion larger than when the governor presented his first budget proposal in January.

The Legislative Analyst’s Office weighed in on the bond proposal Monday, saying it’s a “reasonable response to weakening fiscal conditions.” But the office also gave a word of caution, adding that “the merits of the individual projects proposed warrant scrutiny, especially given that with higher interest rates, the related debt servicing costs will be higher into the future.”

The California Native Plant Society said that while they agree a climate bond is needed, it won’t cover everything necessary to hit a goal known as 30×30, to conserve 30% of the state’s land and coastal waters by 2030. The organization also asked state leaders to restore funding for vegetation mapping and monitoring, to support the state’s response to wildfire.

The revised budget still includes $48 billion for climate projects over a five-year period, including:

• $20.5 billion to help accelerate the transition to clean transportation
• $2.7 billion for wildfire and forest resilience programs
• $1.4 billion for “nature-based” climate solutions, such as trees and healthy soil
• $444 million for projects the will help residents cope with extreme heat
• $1.6 billion for community resilience programs
• $734 million for coastal resilience programs
• $8.5 billion for water projects, including projects aimed at droughts and floods
• $1 billion for climate smart agriculture projects
• $7 billion for clean energy projects

There are important environment-related funds in other parts of the budget, too. There is $5.1 billion budgeted for environmental protection projects, including sustainable groundwater and pest control management. And Tony Briscoe with the Los Angeles Times has a story on how the revised budget includes $67 million “to clean thousands of lead-contaminated parkways in front of homes, schools and parks near the former Exide battery smelter in southeast Los Angeles County.”

I wrote in my story Friday about the irony of how some of the uncertainty both the California and federal governments are now facing around their finances is related to what Newsom deemed climate change-induced “extreme weather events.” Tax filing deadlines were pushed to October for most Californians, after a series of unusual storms pounded the state this winter and early spring. That means governments are operating based on revenue projections, rather than hard numbers. Grist has a story on how the climate crisis is impacting the federal debt ceiling crisis.

Advocates say such impacts illustrate how funding for climate and environment projects is a bit like paying for preventative health care. It seems expensive up front, but it’s far less expensive than the consequences of doing nothing. Looks like we’ll find out in 2024 if a majority of California voters are convinced.

— By Brooke Staggs, environment reporter

 ENERGIZE

Floating a wind farm: Long Beach officials have announced plans for the largest floating offshore wind facility in a U.S. seaport, with turbines as tall as the Eiffel Tower. Construction on “Pier Wind” could start as soon as 2027, Donna Littlejohn reports. …READ MORE…

• Background: Here’s a story I did last fall on the potential, the challenges for Southern California and the growing push for offshore wind.

More money could mean pricier power: Will California’s proposal to create income-based tiers for electric bills “be the fairest and best way to help people adopt clean electric vehicles and heating, or an unjust and unworkable scheme that could discourage rooftop solar and energy efficiency?” Canary Media’s Jeff St. John dug in on both sides of the controversial, first-in-the-nation proposal. …READ MORE…

TRANSPORT

EV jobs take off: Given California’s massive push to electrify transportation, LAist’s Erin Stone looked at how the change already is transforming California’s job market. She’s got a smart look at how new community college training programs are popping up, how car-industry veterans are making the switch, how women are jumping at the chance and more.  …READ MORE…

Get a roundup of the best climate and environment news delivered to your inbox each week by signing up for The Compost.

 REGULATE

Not so slick: When a pipeline burst off the coast of Huntington Beach in fall 2021, a federal regulator says Amplify Energy ignored 83 alarms indicating the offshore pipeline had leaked and failed to notify authorities or shut down the pipeline until 17 hours later. The company just got slapped with a proposed $3.4 million fine. …READ MORE…

• Reaction: Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley called the fine a “drop in the bucket,” noting Amplify just reported “a net income of $352.8 million in the first quarter of 2023.” Foley said the fine should be “at least 10 times that amount.”

 PROTECT

Citrus disease on the rise: “Fortunately, it’s not spreading as fast as we thought it might when it first appeared, but it’s still spreading, which is a negative.” Sarah Hofmann looked at the good news and the bad news when it comes to citrus greening disease in Southern California, along with what residents can do to help. …READ MORE…

All isn’t well with these wells: The Center for Biological Diversity is suing the state of California over more than a dozen new oil and gas wells regulators approved for Long Beach late last year. Kristy Hutchings reports that the nonprofit group is arguing regulators didn’t do a full assesSment of the impact the new wells will have on the environment and public health. …READ MORE…

Tracking the traffickers: The New Yorkers’s Tad Friend has a fascinating story about how a Los Angeles-based conservation N.G.O. infiltrates wildlife-trafficking rings to bring them down. These transnational smuggling networks, by some estimates, bring in more than a hundred billion dollars a year selling everything from rhino horns to shark fins to Queen Alexandra’s birdwing butterflies. …READ MORE…

Fueling our fires: A new study makes the case that more than a third of forest fires in the West since 1986 can be “linked to carbon pollution from 88 of the world’s largest oil, gas, and coal companies.” Grist has the tale on what that might mean for trying to hold those fossil fuel companies liable for disasters in court. …READ MORE…

 CELEBRATE

Whale lovers unite!: The first blue whale of the season has been spotted off Southern California, a bit earlier than in recent years. Erika Ritchie has the tale (pun intended) on what researchers say about local populations, risks and some good news for whales this season. …READ MORE…

Long Beach teen has a dream: Hamid Torabzadeh of Long Beach is featured in the latest episode of Grist’s Temperature Check podcast, discussing how growing with air pollution from the nearby ports led to him studying to be a “new type of doctor” focused on climate health. …LISTEN HERE…

Tooting our own horn: Winners of the California Journalism Awards are being rolled out on Twitter, and our reporters took home several top-three finishes for climate and environment-related work in 2022. Here’s a roundup of recognition so far.

• For their three-part series on sand erosion on Southern California beaches, Laylan Connelly and Tony Saavedra took second place for coverage of the environment in the largest circulation category.
• For his story on how hazardous materials dumped off the Palos Verdes Peninsula went directly into the ocean, Michael Hixon took second place for environmental coverage category in the second-largest circulation category.
• For my story on how cows are leaving Southern California and why that’s not good for climate change, I took home third place for agriculture reporting in the largest circulation category.

 EXPLORE

Trail opens in former oil field: Over the weekend, Fullerton celebrated the opening of the first two miles of new trails planned through the 72-acre Robert Ward Nature Preserve, in a former oil field on the eastern edge of the 510-acre West Coyote Hills. Heather McRea and Mindy Schauer wrote about how community groups and local politicians teamed up to preserve the area as surrounding land is turned into a housing development. The new trail features wide dirt paths with interpretive signs and benches along the way. The trail starts near the intersection of North Euclid Street and West Laguna Road in Fullerton.

 PITCH IN

Consider cloth napkins: For this week’s tip on how Southern Californians can help the environment… Do you use paper napkins or paper towels with each meal? Switching to reusable cloth napkins is a simple way to lower your carbon footprint, both on the front end, to produce single-use products, and on the backend, to keep those materials out of landfills. To up the sustainability factor, consider making your own napkins from material on hand or seaching for eco-friendly options, using them multiple times unless things get really messy and then hanging them to dry.

Thanks for reading, Composters! Don’t forget to sign up to get The Compost delivered to your inbox and to share this newsletter with others.

This spring’s raging rivers are regifting them.

“There it is!” said Kevin Bell of Sacramento, swirling a pan in the cold waters of Moore Creek, as glitter suddenly illuminated the inky black sand. A half bucket of material yielded 12 showy specks — nearly a tenth of a gram of gold, worth about $7 — about double the typical haul in previous years.

Prospectors call it “flood gold” — fine-sized flakes carried by alluvial waters and then deposited as flow recedes.

This winter’s hard and heavy storms caused strong bursts of erosion, with rain pounding rocks near the lode sources and rinsing gold downstream. Fierce springtime flows are churning up river bottoms, causing gold to be dredged from deep pockets and dense clays, where the biggest nuggets may hide. Rivers are shifting gravel bars from one place to another. They’ve ripped out undergrowth, offering easier access. During the drought, nothing moved.

“What happened this winter was magnificent,” said Kevin Hoagland, director of the Gold Prospectors Association of America, which has over 50 claims on 6,000 acres for membership use only.

“It takes a very significant event to move gold,” he said. “But this wasn’t a singular event. It was a succession of significant events.”

The news is swelling the ranks of amateur prospectors, in step with the skyrocketing price of gold, which hit a near-record of more than $2,000 an ounce this week, up from $1,700 last November.

“People from all over the world are coming in. There are languages I can’t even understand,” said Albert Fausel of Placerville Hardware, founded in 1854 and the longest-running hardware store west of the Mississippi.

“They’re buying pans, crevice tools, ‘snuffer bottles,’ metal detectors, all the bare necessities,” he said. “I just sold a pair of gloves to a guy who wanted to keep his hands warm.”

Within persistent cool springtime conditions, many of California’s most storied rivers — such as the Yuba, American, Cosumnes, Tuolumne, Merced and Klamath — are still flowing too fast for safe panning.

So prospectors are exploring smaller creeks and scanning riverbanks with metal detectors.

“People don’t understand how powerful water is. They’ll put their foot in it and just get sucked in,” said Bell, 61, a skilled prospector with a slow stride and a voice as rough as 40-grit sandpaper. “You need to think safety all the time.”

Bell parked his truck at the end of a long dirt road, near an old stagecoach stop. Wearing hip waders, and carrying a shovel and bucket, he trudged through a forest of cedar, pines, oaks and blackberry tangles, then climbed down into Moore Creek.

As cold and clear as chilled gin, the creek originates in drainages outside Yosemite National Park and tumbles down into the North Fork of the Merced River. The region is underlain by quartz veins, rich in ore.

Gold mining began here in 1849 when James Savage, led by Native Americans of the area, discovered gold near the present-day towns of Big Oak Flat and Groveland, according to the Southern Tuolumne County Historical Society.

Thousands of miners converged on these pine-covered western foothills of the Sierra in search of wealth, helping create a state. By the 1870s, supplies of easily exploitable gold were largely exhausted. Improved technologies led to a second smaller commercial boom in the early 1900s, then a third in the 1950s. Then it ceased.

Now the area prospers largely from the tourist trade.

A retired manager for a municipal utility, Bell is motivated less by hopes of striking it rich than by being outdoors among friends.  To be sure, he’s done well: On a nearby claim in 2012, he discovered 2.5 grams of gold in a single pan, including a stunning 3/4-gram nugget. But he doesn’t sell the gold he finds; rather, he’s built a collection of memories, each vial representing an adventure in a cherished place.

Prospectors’ eyes are trained to look for opportunity: Eddies, abrupt shifts in direction caused by downed trees, and slack water “drop-out zones,” where gold, 19 times heavier than water, will fall as flow slows.

“It’s all about letting nature talk to you, and understanding the nuances,” said Hoagland.

“Just one tiny change — little pieces of sticks that have been pushed by water, that are all pointing the same direction — those are things that we are constantly looking for,” he said. “Because that tells us the flow pattern, and where there was energy at one particular time. You ask: Where did this water slow down? How are the gravels laid out?”

Bell focused on an eroded bank, blasted by water. Water levels had surged up into grass and fallen, then were deflected by a log.

“It’s a natural chokepoint for water,” he said, shoveling mud into his bucket and then into a blue pan. “Now gold has a place to hide.”

He bent down, filled the pan with water and swirled the muddy mix. He sorted out the larger pebbles and washed the lighter dirt over the rim.

He lowered his face to the pan. Yellow flecks glimmered in the sunlight. Arizona gold has a bronze hue; Alaskan gold trends silver. California gold is typically buttery yellow and flat, due to water pounding.

“See how the gold is shining in the light?” he marveled. “It has an aura that doesn’t change.”

“It’s about the quest,” he said. All winter, while he watched and waited, “I knew this area would be rich. And it was.”

In Southern California, the disease has hit Orange and Los Angeles counties the hardest, but infections have also been found in Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties. 

The higher number of cases in Orange and Los Angeles counties may result, in part, from the presence of ports, where insects may arrive with shipments, said David Morgan, environmental program manager for the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Other factors include the higher density of people and backyard citrus trees and the climate.

Portions of all five counties are under quarantine and the boundaries are expanded as new infections are found outside those areas. Citrus plants can’t be moved off properties inside quarantine areas, though washed fruit without stems and leaves can be shared in small amounts within the quarantine area.

Roughly half of Orange County and smaller regions of the other four are under quarantine, a California Department of Agriculture map shows.

Huanglongbing, or citrus greening disease, is caused by a bacterium transmitted between citrus trees by a tiny insect called the Asian citrus psyllid. Symptoms of the disease include yellow-mottled leaves, stunted growth and fruit production, and deformed, bitter fruit. Most infected trees die within a few years.

The disease was discovered in the U.S. in Florida in 2005, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Since then, it has reduced the state’s citrus production by 75%.

Asian citrus psyllids were found in California in 2008. Four years later, the disease was found on a tree in Hacienda Heights in Los Angeles County.

The disease’s spread in California has not risen to levels seen in Florida, and so far there have been no infections in commercial groves, according to the California Department of Agriculture’s Citrus Pest and Disease Prevention Division — only in residential citrus trees. 

The infection numbers are increasing, though.

As of Monday, May 8, there were 5,007 confirmed cases of the disease statewide, department data shows.

In 2022, 1,342 infections were confirmed across California — hundreds more than in any previous year — and 825 infections have been confirmed in approximately the first third of 2023.

“Fortunately, it’s not spreading as fast as we thought it might when it first appeared, but it’s still spreading, which is a negative,” Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner spokesperson Ken Pellman said.

“We were very lucky that we’d seen what had happened over in Florida, and we were able to start a really good control strategy in California before it got away form us,” said Morgan, who is based in Riverside and runs three biological control facilities, in Riverside, at Cal Poly Pomona and in Arvin.

Florida had additional factors helping spread the disease, including hurricanes that “blow insects everywhere” and the presence of a landscaping plant that carries the disease, Morgan said.

Victoria Hornbaker, director of the department’s Citrus Pest and Disease Prevention Division, also credits the community with helping slow the disease.

“If we weren’t getting the cooperation that we are from residents — we really do get overwhelming cooperation from residents — we wouldn’t be in such a good spot as we are today,” Hornbaker said.

Greening is worst in Orange County

Of the 5,007 Huanglongbing cases in the state, about 69% of them, 3,457, have been in Orange County.

Jose Arriaga, Orange County agricultural commissioner/sealer of weights and measures, said in an email that the office assists the California Department of Food and Agriculture with maintaining regulations inside quarantine boundaries, which currently include about 470 square miles of the county.

Arriaga wrote that the office’s efforts include taking part in monthly outreach events, providing translation services for the public and industry, and offering guidance to nurseries and growers on the regulations.

Los Angeles County has had 1,106 infected citrus plants.

Pellman said that, for three years after the first LA County infection was discovered in 2012, “things were blissfully quiet — and then it started popping up everywhere.”

The disease has maintained a “steady march” since then, Pellman said.

Of the remaining infections, San Bernardino County has had 246; Riverside County 168; and San Diego County has logged 30.

At the state’s Mount Rubidoux Field Station in Riverside, Morgan and other researchers work to control the number of Asian citrus psyllids in California. 

They do that by raising and releasing tamarixia radiata, a type of wasp that attacks Asian citrus psyllids.

“What we really have here is a wasp factory,” Morgan said. 

People don’t notice the tiny insects, over 28 million of which have now been released, Morgan said.

“They’re about the size of a period on the end of a sentence,” he said.

The wasps, he said, lay their eggs in or on the Asian citrus psyllids. When the eggs develop, they eat the psyllid.

The process was initially developed by UC Riverside, which first released the wasps in 2011 — before the first confirmed case of the disease in California. Later, the project was transferred to state officials.

“We do the research, we do the groundwork, we prove the concept works, and then we do what’s called a technology transfer,” said Georgios Vidalakis, a UCR professor and UC extension specialist in plant pathology who also directs the Citrus Clonal Protection Program.

In order to raise the wasps, they must also raise Asian citrus psyllids, and plants to host them.

The field station grows curry leaf plants rather than citrus trees, which Morgan said are related to citrus but grow more quickly and don’t carry the disease. The plant is used in South Asian cuisine. 

The psyllids are placed on a curry leaf plant in a cage, and left to mature and lay eggs, which hatch into nymphs. Wasps are then added to the enclosure and lay eggs on the nymphs. The new wasps are then collected, and strategically released in urban areas to seek out the Asian citrus psyllid.

“We’re reaching a point where the number of diseased plants is getting difficult to handle,” Morgan said.

Scientists battling the disease

At UCR, research into citrus greening disease continues.

Scientists are working on all three elements involved: the bacterium, the insect and the citrus tree, Vidalakis said.

“If we manage to disrupt any of those three elements, then what we call the ‘disease triangle’ doesn’t come together,” Vidalakis said.

A collaboration between UCR and UC Davis is using computer modeling to simulate the disease’s bacterium, which Vidalakis said cannot be cultured in a lab.

“We can train computers to think they’re the bacteria,” he said, and researchers can then see how the bacteria reacts to different conditions.

In another case, scientists are crossing citrus species in hopes of producing hybrids more tolerant to disease, which Vidalakis said appears to be working, though the fruit produced by the current hybrids is “more of a lemon type.”

Several years ago, Hailing Jin, a UCR professor, discovered an antimicrobial peptide — a molecule involved in the plant’s immune response — in Australian finger limes that kills the Huanglongbing bacterium.

Jin said that the peptide can both make trees resistant to infections, like a vaccine, as well as control the disease in trees that are already positive for the disease.

The peptide is also more resistant to California’s heat than antibiotic treatments currently in use, which Jin said can lose their activity within hours due to high temperatures.

“It would be nice to use an eco-friendly method or natural product,” Jin said.

“People have been eating the peptide from the finger lime fruit for years.”

The peptide is currently being developed for commercial use by Invaio Sciences, which Jin said UCR agreed to give exclusive license to.

Residents’ cooperation is helping

As research continues, experts ask that everyone continue doing their part to prevent the disease from spreading. 

“We ask this with all our heart, and all the scientific information we have,” Vidalakis said.

He asks that people avoid moving citrus plants around the state, and don’t bring plants into California from another state, which is prohibited for citrus plants.

Residents with citrus plants may share the fruit in small quantities, once it’s washed and free of any other plant material, inside quarantine areas.

Vidalakis suggested that anyone looking for a specific kind of citrus tree first check UCR’s Citrus Variety Collection, where it may be available.

Anyone who suspects a tree is infected with the disease can contact the California Department of Food and Agriculture Pest Hotline: 800-491-1899.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct several photo captions. Scientists at the California Department of Food and Agriculture in Riverside are displaying Tamarixia radiata, tiny wasps that kill Asian citrus psyllid insects that spread citrus greening disease. 

The bad news in the budget presented Friday morning by Gov. Gavin Newsom is that, despite lobbying efforts and environmentalists pitching at least two alternative proposals, the $6 billion in cuts to climate spending that Newsom proposed in January are still included. If those multi-year cuts stand it will mean significant hits to funding that previously was pledged to help speed California’s transition to non-polluting cars, clean up the water supply, decarbonize buildings and protect residents against the increasingly dire effects of extreme heat.

The good news is that despite California’s projected budget shortfall jumping from January’s estimate of $22.5 billion to the new estimate of $31.8 billion, the state isn’t planning additional cuts for climate projects. That leaves intact a five-year plan to spend $48 billion on climate.

“We were really expecting there to be another round of massive cuts to the climate budget,” said Jamie Pew, climate fellow with the progressive group NextGen Policy. So, Pew said, the organization is happy with the plan released Friday.

“A budget is a statement of value. This shows that the administration is holding the line on climate spending even in the face of these severe economic headwinds.”

But even that good news is shrouded in a bit of uncertainty. Newsom is proposing to cover the additional deficit, in part, by working with lawmakers to pass a “climate resiliency bond” that could be used in place of state general fund money to pay for some planned projects.

Few details, including the total amount of that proposed bond, were available Friday. Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crawfoot said during a follow-up press conference that state leaders will partner with the legislature to “develop a compelling proposal” for voters that will include “a high level of accountability.” And he said he’s optimistic voters will respond favorably.

“Californians have a really strong track record in supporting such investments, particularly given the accelerating climate impacts,” Crawfoot said.

But if the bond doesn’t pass, that means another $1.1 billion in funding for water recycling, urban greening programs, Salton Sea restoration and other environmental programs still could be on the chopping block.

That possibility raises concerns for Power in Nature, a coalition of more than 100 community, environmental and tribal groups in California. While the coalition said in a statement that members are glad to see a bond under consideration, they’re worried about pinning “important parks, urban greening and restoration programs” on a bond that wouldn’t come up for a vote until at least 2024 and kick in until 2025.

“There are a lot of questions that remain around the bond,” agreed Ryan Schleeter, spokesman for The Climate Center. And while his organization plans to be involved in those discussions, Schleeter said a one-time bond “is far from a silver bullet” when it comes to stable funding for climate projects.

Ironically, Newsom said some of the uncertainty both the California and federal governments are now facing around their finances is related to climate change-induced “extreme weather events.” Tax filing deadlines were pushed to October for most Californians, after a series of unusual storms pounded the state this winter and early spring. That means governments are operating based on revenue projections, rather than hard numbers.

The storms also prompted Newsom in this revised budget to allocate $290 million to pay for flood prevention programs needed as record snowpack melts in the summer. Nearly half of that funding came from money previously set aside for drought prevention, while California Finance Director Joe Stephenshaw said they were able to move funds around to come up with the rest.

Such effects illustrate why California has to maintain as much funding as possible for climate projects, Newsom said.

But the governor’s team also covered another slice of the general fund deficit by shifting $635 million in planned spending to help low-income communities access cleaner transportation over to the state’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Polluters pay into that fund, which supports a wide range of state programs aimed at reducing emissions.

While Chris Chavez with Coalition for Clean Air said they were glad to see that clean transportation funds weren’t simply cut outright, he said it’s important to remember that the shift still means an overall reduction in money available for climate programs, since that money will now be taken out of the GGRF pool. And considering the state recently passed a rule requiring commercial trucking to become emission free in coming years, Chavez said the state needs more funding for incentives and support, not less.

While speaking broadly about a climate bond on Friday, Newsom also teased a planned announcement, next week, to revise state rules on permitting in a way that will let projects related to clean energy, transportation and water storage, among oher things, move forward more quickly and with less paperwork. Asked if he was suggesting changes to the landmark California Environmental Quality Act, Newsom declined to go into detail until next week and said only that it’s past time for more comprehensive permitting reforms.

“We’re never going to advance our transition to clean energy in time to address our climate goals unless we are able to build these damn projects,” he said.

The governor did not consider two alternative budget proposals pitched in recent days that advocates say could have helped the state avoid such drastic cuts to climate funding.

Nearly three dozen environmental, health and consumer organizations sent Newsom a letter Tuesday asking him to close the budget gap, in part, by eliminating subsidies and tax benefits for the oil and gas industry rather than cutting funds for climate projects.

“Subsidizing polluters is antithetical to California’s climate goals, and particularly egregious when the Administration is proposing a $6 billion cut to the $54 billion earmarked in 2022 to protect communities from climate change and grow the clean energy economy,” said Arnold Sowell Jr., executive director of NextGen California, in a prepared statement.

Noting that Big Oil earned record profits last year, the groups identified nearly $8.7 billion in tax credits that benefit California oil companies, including write-offs for research and development and drilling. Cutting subsidies to these companies, they argued, could support ongoing funding for climate investments, so that such projects could advance even during years when there isn’t a budget surplus.

“Each tax break and subsidy we give fossil fuels is a dollar taken away from growing the green alternatives we need so badly,” said Liza Tucker, consumer advocate with Consumer Watchdog.

Last week, Democrats in the state Senate also proposed using corporate tax hikes — but in this case on big companies of all sorts, not just oil and gas companies — as a way to stave off budget cuts to key programs. They specifically called for restoring $2.1 billion that previously had been pledged for clean energy projects, including funding for electric vehicle incentives and charging programs, efforts to reduce emissions from public transit and school buses, residential solar and storage projects and more.

Senate Democrats pitched the budget proposal, which they called Protect our Progress, as simply reversing some of the tax cuts the top 0.2% of corporations received under former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax plan. But Newsom said he doesn’t think it’s the right time to consider a tax hike, with the state still issuing rebates to taxpayers as a result of previous record surplus years.

Newsom also said it’s not a good time to dip into the $37.2 billion in rainy day reserve funds that California has now accumulated to avoid these cuts.

Stephenshaw said the state anticipates annual budget shortfalls of $5 billion to $14 billion over the next several years, so leaving reserve funds in place could prevent future cuts to services.

Newsom and his team plans to spend the next month negotiating with the state legislature over the proposed budget.

The legislature has until June 15 to pass the new budget, which will take effect July 1.