Campaigns to save majestic coastal redwood groves have been waged for more than a century, starting with the campaign that created Big Basin State Park in 1902. In 1978, the Sierra Club even dubbed its…
Posts published by “Will Parrish”
California’s enormous and elaborate water infrastructure — dams, reservoirs, power plants, pumping plants, canals, aqueducts, gates, tunnels, and other machinations plumbed together across more than six hundred miles — is divided into numerous management regimes.…
On the edge of the Yolly Bolly Wilderness, about 15 miles north of the dusty cattle and marijuana town of Covelo, 81-year-old Richard Wilson sits across from me in a ranch house his father constructed…
California timberland owners sprayed 359,147 pounds of pesticides and herbicides on unwanted trees and shrubs in a recent four-year period — 2005 to 2008 — according to data compiled from the California Department of Pesticide…
For years, wine industry leaders have opposed regulation on the grounds that it is burdensome and of questionable value. California agribusiness representatives have consistently maintained that they can manage their properties in an environmentally responsible manner without the need for government oversight. In the case of the wine industry, the leading edge of this effort is a marketing and certification initiative called “fish friendly farming” which has certified 100,000 acres of vineyards, including a majority of those that suckle at the banks of the Russian River.
Roughly 1,000 rural Sonoma County residents overflowed classrooms and small meeting chambers at five informational sessions convened by the State Water Resources Control Board. It would be hard to exaggerate many attendees' outrage. At one meeting, two men got in a fistfight over whether to be “respectful” to the state and federal officials on hand.
Last month, the California State Water Resources Control Board enacted “emergency drought regulations” in parts of four Russian River tributaries