[env-trinity] UCD Blog: New environmentalism needed for California water

Thu Dec 11 09:32:36 PST 2014

<http://californiawaterblog.com/2014/12/09/new-environmentalism-needed-for-c
alifornia-water-2/> New environmentalism needed for California water

Posted on
<http://californiawaterblog.com/2014/12/09/new-environmentalism-needed-for-c
alifornia-water-2/> December 9, 2014 by
<http://californiawaterblog.com/author/californiawaterblog/> UC Davis Center
for Watershed Sciences 

 <http://californiawaterblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/lariver.jpg>
http://californiawaterblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/lariver.jpg?w=640&h=2
46

The city of Los Angeles' revitalization of the Los Angeles River exemplifies
"new environmentalism, which reconciles human activities to better support
and expand habitat for native species. Images show the river today (left),
looking north above 1st Street downtown, and an illustration of the same
view with public access and habitat for fish and wildlife. Source:
<http://www.lariver.org/beforeandafter.htm> Los Angeles River Revitalization
Master Plan 

By Jay Lund

California needs a new environmentalism to set a more effective and
sustainable green bar for the nation and even the world.

For decades, we have taken a "just say no" approach to stop, prevent or
blunt human encroachments onto the natural world - often rightly so. Early
environmentalism needed lines in the sand against rampant development and
reckless industrialization and achieved widespread success. Our air and
water is now cleaner even with population and economic growth. Industry, for
the most part, is now accountable for its wastes.

Yet, despite these important gains, the classical environmentalism of "no"
will ultimately fail. We must shift to "how better?"

Despite decades of earnest efforts and expenditures, human influence on the
natural environment continues to grow, albeit at a slower rate. Native
species continue to become endangered. Tens of thousands of inadequately
tested chemicals still remain in use. Carbon exhausts keep accumulating and
warming the planet. Our imprint on nature is subtler but more pervasive and
difficult to stymie than we had ever imagined.

In the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta,
<http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/other/708EHR_appendixD.pdf>  more than 90
percent of plants and animals don't belong there naturally. They have
profoundly changed food webs and habitats, mostly to the detriment of native
species. Invasive non-native species have been introduced for fishing or
escaped from ship ballast water, anglers' bait buckets or home aquariums.
Such environmental changes are not subject to review, and answer to no
court.

Classical environmentalism is mostly about stopping new harmful human
influences, not reversing the harmful effects of past changes or shaping a
more environmentally friendly future. Environmentalism has not substantially
reversed the widespread urban and agricultural destruction of wetlands or
freed rivers from the concrete and rock that straightened their course.

A new environmentalism is needed that can redirect and reconcile human
activities to better support and even expand habitat for native species.
Rather than insist on blocking human use to protect nature - a largely
quixotic quest now - environmental reconciliation works in and with
unavoidably human habitats.

<https://californiawaterblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/lariver_poster.jpg>
Source: City of Los Angeles

 <http://www.lariver.org/Media/LARiverPoster/index.htm> Source: City of Los
Angeles

A vivid example of this integration is the
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd7u5T_tDhQ&w=560&h=315%5d> planned
rejuvenation of the Los Angeles River. Deadly floods in the 1930s led the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to straighten and pave nearly all 52 miles of
the river channel in concrete. In recent years, however, a grassroots
campaign to transform the giant, trash-strewn storm drain into something
resembling a river has gained political traction. Illustrations in the
city's  <http://www.lariver.org/Projects/MasterPlan/index.htm> river
revitalization plan show a natural and human-made hybrid. Flood protection
would be maintained, but tons of concrete would be replaced with terraced
tree-lined banks and wetlands that link bikeways, parks and neighborhoods.
The goal is not so much to restore the river but to reintroduce nature to
residents of a harshly unnatural environment.

More recently, in the Sacramento Valley, a consortium of private landowners,
conservation groups, government agencies and researchers with the UC Davis
Center for Watershed Sciences is working to help struggling salmon
populations in mutually beneficial ways.
<http://californiawaterblog.com/2014/12/02/reconciling-fish-and-fowl-with-fl
oods-and-farming-2/> The group is investigating how the Yolo Bypass, long
used for flood control and farming, could also be managed as a seasonal
wetland for fish and water birds.
<http://news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=10493> Recent studies
indicate the floodway would make a productive salmon nursery at relatively
little cost to farmers. Test fish planted on inundated rice fields grew
phenomenally faster and fatter than those left to mature in the Sacramento
River, earning them the name "floodplain fatties."

 <http://californiawaterblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/knaggsteam1.jpg>
knaggsteam

Scientists flooded and stocked thousands of baby salmon on a rice field in
the Yolo Bypass in February 2013. Historically, river flooding gave salmon
access to much of the Sacramento Valley. Photo by Carson Jeffres

Environmentalism with the more positive and proactive direction of
reconciliation has potential to create new habitat for native species,
rather than maintaining unsustainable remnants on hospice at great expense.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/01/opinion/how-to-mend-the-conservation-divi
de.html?_r=0> New environmentalism is about diverse interests working
together to create more promising environmental solutions. In contrast, the
politics and finance of classical environmentalism often require casting
others as villains. Some environmental assaults demand a call to arms. But
the public has grown weary of confrontation and standoff, such as the
decades of stalemate over the Delta. The resulting inaction has cost both
the environment and the economy. Earthquakes, floods, and sea level rise
will act to transform parts of the Delta into open water - risking water
supplies for millions of acres of farmland and millions of Southern
Californians. So far, governing institutions have been unable to lead in
responding to inevitable environmental change.

Classical environmental thinking pervades environmental regulation often to
the point of impeding environmental progress. Regulatory agencies cannot
agree on environmentally beneficial changes unless proposals are almost
entirely without negative environmental impacts, often perpetuating an
environmentally inferior status quo.

As most ecologists and even politicians now recognize, nature and human
activities cannot be kept strictly apart. They must largely be reconciled
and even integrated. To be sure, some habitat should remain off-limits. But
classical environmentalism alone can only lead to increasingly expensive
environmental decline and public derision.

To succeed, environmentalism must move from the era of "no" to an era of
"how better."

Jay R. Lund is director of  the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. This
commentary originally appeared in The Sacramento Bee on June 30, 2013.

Further reading

Boxall, B. Oct. 25, 2013. "
<http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-salmon-yolo-floodplain-
20131025-story.html#axzz2iy3nj100> Can the Yolo Bypass floodplain be managed
to nurture salmon?" Los Angeles Times

Leslie, J. Dec. 6, 2014. "
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/opinion/sunday/los-angeles-city-of-water.
html> Los Angeles, City of Water". The New York Times

Marris, E. 2011.
<https://www.sciencenews.org/article/book-review-rambunctious-garden-saving-
nature-post-wild-world-emma-marris> Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a
Post-Wild World. Bloomsbury, New York

Marris, E. and Aplet, G. Oct. 31, 2014. "
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/01/opinion/how-to-mend-the-conservation-divi
de.html?_r=0> How to mend the conservation divide." The New York Times 

Moyle, P. and W. A. Bennett. 2008. "
<http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/other/708EHR_appendixD.pdf> The future of
the Delta ecosystem and its fish." Technical Appendix D, Comparing Futures
for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. San Francisco: Public Policy Institute
of California

Suddeth, R. Dec. 2, 2014. "
<http://californiawaterblog.com/2014/12/02/reconciling-fish-and-fowl-with-fl
oods-and-farming-2/> Reconciling fish and fowl with floods and farming".
California WaterBlog

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