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Even on chilly January days in years past, it was possible to see and hear more than 100 kinds of birds at the Vierra Wetlands in the San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge. But last winter, dozens of species like the snowy egret, northern shoveler and the strikingly colorful wood duck did not appear. 

The seasonal wetlands, which are part of a larger pit stop for migratory birds on the Pacific Flyway, were nearly bone dry — and not because of a drought. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service simply didn’t have enough employees dedicated to opening the levees that flood the wetlands.

It’s a reality playing across many of the national wildlife refuges in the country, including the 35 in California. Labor shortages at the federal government’s various land management agencies — which have intensified in President Donald Trump’s second term — have left departments with less capacity to manage the refuges. 

What’s left at Vierra Wetlands are dried up cattails and bulrushes standing on a landscape that was once teeming with waterfowl, shorebirds, beavers and other wildlife. And while the wetlands occupy only about 50 acres of the 7,500-acre refuge, the dearth of staffing means there is no on-site refuge manager to readily ensure the land is well-maintained and safe for visitors, organize educational programs for the public, approve permits or monitor habitats for the refuge’s myriad of species.

“For an agency that already cut the fat … it’s not even at the bone now,” said Desirée Sorenson-Groves, the president of the National Wildlife Refuge Association, an advocacy organization. “It’s just lopping off limbs.”

‘Humans have to take care of the wetlands’

Eric Hopson had hoped the federal wildlife agency would hire his replacement shortly after he left his post in Central California. 

The 64-year-old retired in April 2024 after 30 years of service — 23 of which were devoted to stewarding the San Joaquin River refuge, west of Modesto. 

Unlike coastal counties where state and regional parks are abundant, the refuge serves as a rare open space in the Northern San Joaquin Valley. It also functions as part of California’s vast network of public lands, which overall provide food and sanctuary for countless animals and plants, and protect sensitive habitats and clean drinking water from urban development.

Besides interacting with the public like birders and families, Hopson’s favorite part of the job was managing the refuge’s habitats. This entailed diverting runoff water in coordination with adjacent farms, or from Hospital Creek and Ingram Creek. The process mimicked the terrain’s natural water cycles by “flooding up” the wetland basin in time for fall migration during September or October. When spring arrived, Hopson would draw down the water or, in most cases, let the water recede on its own.

“Our rivers and wetlands are very altered,” said Hopson. “For that reason, they don’t take care of themselves anymore. So for better or worse, we humans have to take care of the wetlands.” 

His threadbare staff included just him and one other equipment worker who drove tractors to clear trails, installed pipes for water control and generally served as a jack-of-all-trades. 

But a year after his colleague retired, Hopson decided he should take his leave too. 

“My time was up,” he said.

The department didn’t immediately hire a successor, which wasn’t so unusual given it was already understaffed. But seven months later, Trump won reelection. 

‘Legs cut out from under them’

By the time Hopson retired, the country’s wildlife refuge system had already been plagued by a decadeslong staffing shortage that persisted through the Obama and Biden administrations. From 2010 to 2025, national wildlife refuges lost 30% of their staff, according to the National Wildlife Refuge Association. More than half of refuges have zero staff on site — a statistic San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge became a part of when Hopson left.

“It’s crucial that we have people in those roles to support those ecosystems,” said Matthew Hutchinson, an assistant professor at UC Merced’s life and environmental sciences department, referring to refuge managers.

“The planning they have to do to make sure the water is in the right place, at the right time, at the right depth and for the right amount of time is really crucial to the success of these ecosystems. … There is a lot of care for the landscape that goes into this work.”

At the start of Trump’s second term, he issued an executive order creating the Department of Government Efficiency within the White House. He tapped tech billionaire Elon Musk to lead a sweeping campaign that they professed would eliminate government waste and fraud. Before it shut down in July, DOGE careened through various federal agencies with little to no oversight, slashing staff, rescinding grants and rolling back initiatives that promoted diversity.

Though some federal workers have been reinstated, one recent estimate citing federal data found that DOGE gutted about 350,000 federal jobs. Between 2024 to the end of May 2025, staff at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service dropped from 9,957 to 8,179, or 18%, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit advocacy group for endangered species. Policy watchdog groups reported that DOGE hit California the hardest second to Colorado in total public land agencies’ job losses, cutting 14% of staff throughout nine agencies.

“The second Trump administration and DOGE accelerated any preexisting challenges through their hiring freezes, their massive workforce reductions and all the restructuring across many federal agencies,” said Mary Lunetta, a national conservation strategist at the Sierra Club.

“It left fewer people to maintain everything from mountain trails and campgrounds, to doing critical scientific research and restoration of habitats, issuing permits and fighting invasive species.” 

A poll released Thursday by the conservation advocacy group Power in Nature found that nearly 70% of California voters surveyed, from both sides of the aisle, want their congressmember to support a bill prohibiting further cuts to park and public lands staff.

Hopson doesn’t blame Trump for the department’s workforce shortage, but the situation “just keeps getting worse and worse.” DOGE “got rid of all the temporary and up-and-coming young staff” that did not have protective job status, he said.

“These young biologists, these young refuge managers … the younger staff that are the hope for the future and they had their legs cut out from under them.”

‘Back to what it was’

The refuge receives support from staff at the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge Complex office in Merced County, said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is about an hour drive away. 

It’s not enough to provide the same level of oversight and service as before, said people who use the refuge. In addition to the manual flooding, Hopson prepared special-use permits. These included ones that, for years, allowed the Stanislaus Audubon Society access to count heron rookeries, survey nests and take the public along trails that aren’t typically open, said Sal Salerno of Modesto, the birding group’s president.

With Hopson’s departure though, “this year we haven’t done it,” said Salerno. “We just can’t do any of those activities. It’s very frustrating to want to volunteer and help count the birds.” 

A partial view of the Vierra wetlands in the San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge in Vernalis. Credit: Lynn La / CalMatters

The federal wildlife service did not comment on why the Vierra Wetlands appeared unflooded last winter. After CalMatters’ inquiry, the department said it plans to flood the wetlands this fall and that “the seasonal wetlands continue to provide habitat for upland-dependent migratory birds and resident wildlife.”

(Upland is a term to describe areas that lie beyond wetlands or rivers, or above the elevation where flooding occurs.)

Experts agreed any amount of water would be an improvement. But restoring a wetland that has been parched for an extended period of time can be complex. Flood a basin too much and it could lead to mosquito issues or water-loving plants outcompeting other plants that are more critical to the ecosystem. Plants that grew over the dry period also may not be beneficial or nutritious for the returning waterfowl to eat. 

“There are a lot of moving pieces and just because you throw water into it doesn’t mean that it’s going to bring it back to what it was,” said John Veon, a Ph.D candidate in ecology at UC Davis. “It’s not impossible to bring it back 100%, but you do have to sit and think about the challenges.”

In the meantime, people can still visit the refuge and walk its trails — it receives roughly 11,000 visits each year, according to the wildlife department — and birds seeking food, rest or a mate can find them within reach at Sacramento or Merced national wildlife refuges.

But when the days get colder and the birds in Alaska, Canada and the Arctic begin their long flight down this fall to the Central Valley and beyond, they may find Vierra Wetlands filled with water once again. Until then, the basin remains dry. Hopson, who now lives in New York, visited the refuge a few times when he was back in California. He said the landscape is “sobering,” but empathizes with the public lands workers who are still left standing.

 “They’re just overwhelmed,” said Hopson. “They’re heroes who are basically trying to … keep the ship from sinking.” 

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Cabrillo College’s Watsonville Center has seen enrollment jump 71% and course pass rates climb from 70% to 84% since fall 2022, a surge that Watsonville Center Dean Eduardo Cervantes credits to dual-enrollment growth, pandemic-recovery outreach and new programs tailored to local students’ interests.

“Made in Santa Cruz: Why Art Matters” is a new video series, published every other Sunday, exploring the artists who shape Santa Cruz County’s creative landscape. Each episode offers a peek into an artist’s practice, the places and experiences that inform their work, and the ways creativity helps us see our community differently. Today’s artist is Watsonville painter and art educator Rhia Hurt.

We just finished our first summer membership campaign at Lookout Santa Cruz, which helped provide approximately 125 backpacks filled with school supplies to local students as part of United Way Santa Cruz County’s annual Stuff the Bus school supply drive.

Lookout’s Double Giveback campaign, which ran from July 13 through Aug. 3, encouraged community members to support both independent local journalism and local students. Lookout donated 10% of new membership proceeds during the campaign to help provide school supplies to children across Santa Cruz County.

The 125 backpacks supported through Lookout’s campaign were part of a much larger community effort. On Aug. 1, over 400 volunteers gathered at Kaiser Permanente Arena for United Way’s Stuff the Bus packing event, filling an estimated 2,800 backpacks with school supplies for students from transitional kindergarten through high school.

As of Aug. 7, the Santa Cruz County Office of Education had already distributed 2,219 of those backpacks, with additional distribution days and direct pickup appointments continuing in the days ahead.

Bringing local journalism and community giving together

At Lookout, we believe being a local news organization means more than reporting on the community. It means being part of it.

That’s what inspired the Double Giveback campaign with United Way Santa Cruz County. For several weeks, our membership campaign centered on a simple idea: supporting local journalism while helping a local student start the school year with the supplies they need.

For many families, the cost of getting ready for a new school year can be a significant financial burden. Backpacks, notebooks, pencils, binders and other classroom essentials can quickly add up.

Stuff the Bus helps ease that burden by providing school supplies to students experiencing hardship, including children facing homelessness, housing insecurity and other challenges.

United Way’s goal this year was to provide 2,500 backpacks to students throughout the county. The Aug. 1 packing event surpassed that goal, with an estimated 2,800 backpacks prepared for distribution.

The scale of the effort reflects what can happen when local organizations, businesses, volunteers and community members come together around a shared need.

A community that shows up

Thank you to everyone who made the campaign possible – our new and existing members, matching donors, sponsors, United Way Santa Cruz County, the volunteers who showed up to Stuff the Bus and everyone who contributed to making sure local students have what they need to start the school year ready to learn.

We’re proud to have contributed backpacks and attention to this countywide effort, and grateful to be part of a community that continues to show up for its students.

The post Lookout + Stuff the Bus: Giving back to Santa Cruz County students appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

A UC Santa Cruz student has been identified as the victim killed early Thursday when a vehicle carrying two people crashed into the ocean off of West Cliff Drive at Steamer Lane. 

UCSC officials confirmed that university police were called to the scene to support the incident. University spokesperson Scott Hernandez-Jason said the Santa Cruz Police Department is investigating.

“We were heartbroken to learn that the victim was a UC Santa Cruz student,” he said in a statement. “Our deepest condolences go out to the student’s family and friends during this difficult time. We are providing support resources to those affected by this tragedy.”

UCSC hasn’t released the name of the victim, and the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office did not return Lookout’s request for comment by publication time. 

At around 12:50 a.m. Thursday, Santa Cruz Regional 911 received a call and units from several agencies responded, including all five units from the Santa Cruz Fire Department, SCPD and a battalion chief from the Scotts Valley Fire Department. 

The rescue crews found one victim who escaped from the car and said another victim was still inside. Four rescue swimmers extracted the second victim, the UCSC student, who was transported to a medical facility and passed away. The first victim who had escaped sustained minor injuries. 

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The post UC Santa Cruz student died in Thursday crash off West Cliff Drive appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

This post is updated throughout the day to reflect the latest incidents. It was last updated at 6:31 a.m..

Here’s what’s happening on the roads this morning…

▼︎ new incidents

Road incidents as of 6:30 a.m. on August 14

• A traffic crash happened at Sr129 and Lakeview Rd in Watsonville / Pajaro at 5:37 a.m. today. A car went off the road and landed on its roof in a ditch about 5 feet from the road. The westbound lane was blocked by fire crews. It’s not known how badly anyone was hurt, but emergency medical services were on the way.
   
• Defective traffic signals were reported at the intersection of Crg12 and Railroad Ave. in Watsonville / Pajaro at 2:18 a.m. today. Multiple agencies were contacted about repairs, but liability issues have delayed fixing the problem. There is no estimated time for when it will be resolved.
   
• A traffic hazard was reported in the westbound lane at 21426 Bear Creek Rd in San Lorenzo Valley today. CAL FIRE was on the way to the scene.
   
• There is one-way traffic on Highway 9 at Cascade Avenue in San Lorenzo Valley because of ongoing work. This closure will last until August 31 at 7:01 a.m.
   
• Alternating lanes are closed on Highway 9 at Riverdale Park in San Lorenzo Valley because of bridge work. The closure is expected to last until 6:59 a.m. on April 30, 2027.
   

Disclosure: Traffic incidents are partially generated by artificial intelligence. We are constantly working to improve the accuracy and quality of our AI-generated content. However, there may still be errors or inaccuracies. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us.

The post Friday morning traffic: Crash blocks SR129 westbound lane; signals out at CRG12/Railroad appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

Social media is buzzing with neighborhood coyote sightings, but local wildlife experts say it’s just business as usual. Here’s a quick, expert-backed guide on how to coexist with our four-legged neighbors this summer and beyond.

Summer theater might be winding down, but the curtain isn’t closing anytime soon. Santa Cruz County’s stages are packed with comedies, dramas, musicals, opera, holiday favorites and a few surprises, giving audiences more reasons than ever to head to the theater.

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for its newsletters.

Lawmakers on Thursday killed a controversial plan that could have allowed grizzly bears to one day return to California.

The Assembly Appropriations Committee spiked Inglewood Democratic Sen. Laura Richardson’s Senate Bill 1305. The measure would have tasked the California Department of Fish and Wildlife with creating a “roadmap that evaluates whether, and under what conditions, reintroduction of the grizzly bear is feasible and advisable.” 

As is typical with the Legislature’s appropriations committees, lawmakers didn’t discuss the bill, nor did they take public testimony before the committee’s chairperson, Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, announced the decision.

Grizzlies once lived across most of California. As many as 10,000 might have roamed before the Gold Rush. They were so prevalent that when California settlers tried to form their own nation, they called it the Bear Flag Republic. A grizzly bear is memorialized on California’s flag. 

Settlers systematically exterminated the animals. They were gone by the 1920s, leaving the smaller black bear as California’s only surviving native bear species.

Two Native American tribes consponsored the bill, and several animal welfare and environmental groups supported it. They argued that bringing the second largest land predator back to America’s most populated state would right an ecological wrong and help restore California’s degraded ecosystem.

Opponents included ranchers, hunting associations and rural communities. They argued California is far too populated with people to sustain another apex predator. Rural communities are already overwhelmed with conflicts with mountain lions, black bears and wolves that attack livestock and wander into their towns, opponents said.

The measure set aside no funding for the study, but it allowed for a future Legislature or an outside group to do so.

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The post California lawmakers kill grizzly bear reintroduction bill appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

The Timber fire tearing through Big Sur continued to grow on Thursday, as state parks have been closed and hundreds have been forced to leave zones under evacuation orders.

The fire, first reported on Sunday morning, had spread to 4,245 acres as of 1:31 p.m. Thursday. Containment has reached 7%, up from 5% Wednesday, as a thick marine layer provides cooler, moister conditions.

A California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection incident management team, a specialized group of emergency personnel that provides leadership and coordination during complicated incidents, has assumed control of the fire. Local fire crews are joining the fight as well, with the Central Fire District of Santa Cruz County sending a team that includes a battalion chief, fire captain and three firefighters.

Five zones were under evacuation orders, and another five were under evacuation warnings. Monterey County spokesperson Nicholas Pasculli said that within the zones under evacuation orders, 503 people were evacuated, according to Cal Fire. Of those evacuated, about 225 were people who would be sleeping in the zones.

A map showing areas of Big Sur under evacuation orders and warnings amid the Timber fire. Credit: Cal Fire

Numerous state parks within the Big Sur area are closed. Those include Point Sur State Historic Park, Andrew Molera State Park, Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park and Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. A section of Highway 1 between Point Sur and Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park is closed as well, aside from local residents and employees. Pasculli told Lookout that the Henry Miller Memorial Library is also closed, as well as private campgrounds within the area.

Pasculli added that no county-specific recreational events are canceled at this time, including Monterey Car Week, which is running through Sunday. However, Car Week’s finale, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, considered the most prestigious car show in the world, will be rerouted, but is still occurring.

National Weather Service meteorologist Roger Gass told Lookout that winds are likely to stay mild into the weekend, and the marine layer is poised to stick around through the weekend as well. That means favorable firefighting conditions could hold in the coming days.

“The marine layer deepened overnight to around 2,200 feet. We’re forecasting it to deepen even more to about 2,500 feet tonight and continue through the weekend,” he said. “You may struggle to see clearing outside of the Santa Clara Valley.”

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The post Timber fire update: Big Sur blaze grows to 4,245 acres; now 7% contained appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

Following the resignation of a longtime district board member, Santa Cruz City Schools is asking the public for interested candidates to fill the open seat.

With the weekend nearly here, check out things to do around Santa Cruz County, with a recommendation from Lily Belli and a specially curated list from Lookout’s BOLO events calendar.

One person has died following an incident in which a vehicle drove off a cliff on West Cliff Drive near Steamer Lane, Santa Cruz authorities said.

Santa Cruz Regional 911 received a call around 12:50 a.m. Wednesday, and units from multiple agencies responded, including all five units from the Santa Cruz Fire Department (four engines and a ladder truck, plus a battalion chief), three units from the Central Fire District of Santa Cruz County, a battalion chief from the Scotts Valley Fire Department and units from the Santa Cruz Police Department, according to a news release.

Crews found one victim who had escaped from the vehicle and received a report that another victim was still inside. Four rescue swimmers from SCFD went into the water to search for the victim.

They located and extracted the second victim, and the swimmers confirmed no other victims were in the car.

The first victim who escaped the vehicle sustained minor injuries. The second victim was transported to a nearby medical facility, but later passed away there, according to the release.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information is available.

Have news that should be in Lookout Briefs? Send your news releases, including contact information, to news@lookoutlocal.com.

MORE LOCAL COVERAGE

The post One dead after vehicle drives off West Cliff Drive near Steamer Lane appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

Here’s what’s happening on Santa Cruz County roads this morning…

▼︎ new incidents

Road incidents as of 6 a.m. on August 13

• A crash happened at Highway 1 south and Springfield Road in Moss Landing involving a gray Subaru and another sedan. Emergency medical services were on their way. The incident was reported today.

Disclosure: Traffic incidents are partially generated by artificial intelligence. We are constantly working to improve the accuracy and quality of our AI-generated content. However, there may still be errors or inaccuracies. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us.

The post Thursday morning traffic: Crash on Highway 1 north of Moss Landing appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

A newly proposed housing development at the intersection of Seabright Avenue and Soquel Avenue in Santa Cruz envisions six stories of housing and 5,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space — and neither remaining mayoral candidate is a fan.

The proposal would demolish the existing buildings on the site, which is home to Ace Hardware and The Bagelry, among other businesses. The Santa Cruz Roller Palladium would border the project to the south and the Horsnyder’s Pharmacy to the east.

The project, headed by local development firm Workbench, includes two potential designs — a fully affordable housing development and a living facility for older adults — as it is still in the pre-application stage. The first, referred to as “Bright Plaza” in the current project plans, and includes 281 units of fully affordable housing and 5,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space. The second is a 173-unit senior living facility that also includes 5,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space.

However, to longtime local politico and Santa Cruz mayoral candidate Ryan Coonerty, it doesn’t matter which version moves forward. In a Facebook post, Coonerty did not mince words when expressing his dislike of the design.

“To be clear, I hate it. If elected mayor, I will fight it with every means at my disposal,” he wrote. He added that he believes the project is too tall, and does not provide enough parking. He also said that there’s no setback from the sidewalk.

“But this project also means the end of vibrant neighborhood businesses and Santa Cruz gems, like The Bagelry, Akira, Ace and more,” he wrote. “It is exactly what we don’t need or want in Santa Cruz.”

This rendering was included with the pre-application for the project at 1214 Soquel Ave., but isn’t necessarily the actual proposed design for the project. A proposed design will be submitted with the formal application. Credit: City of Santa Cruz

Ami Chen Mills, Coonerty’s opponent in the November mayoral election, told Lookout that she thinks Coonerty’s post felt “a little bit like a political stunt.” Still, she said that although she supports affordable housing and thinks the city needs more, she also opposes the project, largely because of the uncertain future of popular or useful businesses on the parcel. She said, however, that some new buildings, trees, and pedestrian infrastructure could be a good idea on the Soquel corridor. She would like to see the affected businesses preserved or even included in the development, should there be one.

“In this case, I have several people on my team who live in the Seabright area and who frequent all those businesses,” she said. “We are reaching out to residents in the Seabright area to start having meetings to talk about how they can have input right away.”

Both candidates have shared mixed feelings on development throughout the city. Coonerty previously said there are some projects he likes more than others, particularly those that aim to activate neglected areas, such as the RiverRow apartments on Front Street. He also believes that the city should preserve cultural and historical places, such as The Catalyst, itself the site of a potential development.

Chen Mills previously said she wants to see more nuance in the housing conversations, adding that YIMBY (yes in my backyard) is too single-issue-oriented, while NIMBY (not in my backyard) perspectives can come off as unkind when opposing developments. She also said she would favor affordable units over market-rate units.

Coonerty told Lookout that he believes “the community needs more input, not less,” and does not support a ministerial overlay district that would remove public hearings in front of elected officials, which the city is exploring. 

“Neighbors know best what the pain points are in a particular place, and to the extent that you have really predatory development, it’s important that we push back using any means at our disposal,” he said. “Legal, regulatory and otherwise.”

Chen Mills said Santa Cruz is likely experiencing development fatigue given the pressure from the state to build, and particularly the major jump from the previous Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) cycle. In that 2015-2023 cycle, the city was on the hook for just 747 new units. Now, it needs to plan for more than 3,700.

“I think that the council is responding to some of this pushback and they’re reaching out to the community,” she said. She encouraged people to fill out the city’s design guidelines survey, and get organized sooner rather than later. “People need to get involved. Rather than just getting upset, people need to get engaged.”

Chen Mills added that she wants to find and build on parcels in the city that will have less impact on nearby houses, and to steer as clear from displacement and gentrification as possible. She also supports a cap on building heights at six to eight stories.

Coonerty told Lookout that although it’s true that the state has taken away a lot of local control over its building, he believes that there are still tools the city can use to assert the control it does have. Generally, Coonerty supports three-story development with adequate parking and setbacks from neighborhoods.

Santa Cruz mayoral candidates Ami Chen Mills (left) and Ryan Coonerty. Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz

“We need to leverage all those things for developments that don’t meet the basic criteria for design, scale and setback in our community,” he said. “I think we need to be much more aggressive in looking at all of our leverage points.”

Coonerty said he’s frustrated that housing built on UC Santa Cruz’s campus doesn’t count toward the RHNA total, and that there is little room for flexibility despite local strides to build housing.

“If you’re a good character, if you’re a good actor, we should have more control over the size, quality and design of the housing that’s being built,” he said. “I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

While she doesn’t see lawsuits against the state as being successful, and would rather not take that route, Chen Mills said she wants to leverage state relationships to find a balance.

“As mayor, I would be organizing our constituents to be speaking to [state Sen.] John [Laird] and [Assemblymember] Gail [Pellerin] and to the state,” she said. “But what I hear about Sacramento is that [having local control] is a dead issue. So that means we need to be lobbying from the city level for that local control to come back.”

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The post Santa Cruz mayoral candidates oppose 6-story housing project at Seabright and Soquel; wish to regain some local control over building appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

After nearly five decades of baking bagels in Santa Cruz County, Bagelry founder John Hamstra has retired and handed the business to former employee Sidney Grant and his wife, Tal Cameron. The new owners say they intend to keep the local institution unchanged, from its menu and affordable prices to its longtime staff.

This opinion piece was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for its newsletters.

The Altadena and Palisades fires that swept through Southern California last year were just the latest in an escalating series of wildfires that have scorched the state.

The damage has been far-reaching: Californians have lost homes, community and — in some tragic cases — their lives. Wildfires are also raising insurance premiums and threatening the state’s giant sequoias and the headwater regions that provide most of California’s water supply. 

This year threatens to be another above-average fire season. As we’ve seen in recent years, fires can emerge quickly — even after wet winters. And if it feels like wildfires are increasing in size and scale, that’s because they are: The area of land burned in severe wildfires in the Sierra Nevada has tripled since 1990, while annual wildfire damages have more than quadrupled during that same period. 

Californians are understandably weary of this cycle. Decades of fire suppression have allowed vegetation to build up, increasing the risk of damages from high-severity wildfires. And now, a changing climate is intensifying the conditions that drive severe wildfire. 

The good news is that the state is engaged in an unprecedented multi-agency effort to reduce severe wildfire hazard on 1 million acres of wildlands each year. It’s an ambitious target, guided by a state-led task force, and one that meets the scale of the problem.

In a new report, the Public Policy Institute of California analyzed data from the task force that’s coordinating and tracking these efforts. We found the progress toward the goal accelerated between 2021 through 2024, with an average of 591,000 acres undergoing work to reduce wildfire hazard each year.  

The task force’s recently released five-year action plan doubles down on the need to prioritize the most at-risk landscapes with a call to “treat the worst first.” Our analysis shows that they’re doing just that: 83% of the forest and wildland areas treated — through thinning, prescribed burns or other methods — were in areas with high severe wildfire potential, in areas where communities and wildlands overlap, or both. 

One of the task force’s biggest wins was how it’s helped accelerate the return of beneficial fire to California’s landscapes. For a millennia, Native peoples used low-intensity fire to manage the landscape. Beneficial fire nearly doubled from 2021 to 2024, rising from about 100,000 to 200,000 acres per year.

This increase in cultural and prescribed burns represents an economical and environmentally sound way to restore forests and woodlands to health.

However, we are in a moment when federal agencies are reconsidering commitments to reduce wildfire hazard. Shifting federal policies and cuts at the Forest Service and its federal partners — which manage more than half of California’s forests — are introducing uncertainty about California’s ability to limit severe wildfire. 

In addition, the state’s annual budget for wildfire mitigation work could drop by hundreds of millions as key funding sources dry up. State officials recently voted to change a program that charges polluters for their emissions, resulting in $200 million less for wildfire mitigation each year.

Without dedicated funding, this crucially important work — which touches on public health, housing, water supply and more — will not occur at the scale the state needs.

Bradley Franklin (left) and Kyle Greenspan. Credit: Via CalMatters

In our report, we identified ways the task force can further enhance its efforts to protect landscapes and communities. For instance, it should refine its tracking of how long these treatments last and build the capacity of small and under-resourced partners to both conduct and report wildfire reduction efforts on private lands, which may not be captured right now.

Most importantly, this effort relies on a robust state and federal partnership that is already yielding results. Preserving this collaboration must be a priority.

Risks are rising, but the task force is making real progress. Now is not the time to lose momentum.

Bradley Franklin is a research fellow at the PPIC Water Policy Center. He is an agricultural and environmental economist who focuses on ways to inform the design and implementation of public policy in natural resource management.

Kyle Greenspan is a research associate with the PPIC Water Policy Center, where he focuses on topics ranging from groundwater to carbon sequestration.

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The post California is making progress on fire prevention. Federal retreat, shaky funding put it at risk appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for its newsletters.

In the final few weeks of his last legislative session as California governor, Gavin Newsom is asking lawmakers to help reduce how much profit-making utility companies must pay out after wildfires. 

His administration has for weeks floated to lawmakers a wide-ranging but still-vague package of bills to address the spiraling costs of wildfires that has made a slew of different interests unhappy. 

Insurance companies have launched an ad campaign against what they call a potential “utility bailout,” that would leave them unable to recover from the power companies the costs of paying homeowners’ insurance claims. Attorneys representing fire survivors and other plaintiffs that sue utilities don’t want to see their fees reduced.

Wildfire survivors worry the governor’s proposal would prevent them from being made financially whole for suffering trauma. Local government leaders are demanding that they continue to be paid the full cost to rebuild incinerated infrastructure. 

On the other side are the politically influential utilities, who have drawn fury for their equipment sparking several of the state’s most devastating wildfires. 

The state’s three investor-owned utilities – Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric – aren’t in imminent financial danger, and last year saw profits rise. But fire costs have contributed to Californians paying the second-highest electricity rates in the country, and lawmakers and Newsom’s office worry that if it becomes harder for utilities to borrow money those bills will continue to climb. The utilities together provide power for about three-quarters of the state.

Newsom and the lawmakers say utilities are held responsible for too much after a wildfire and that bad actors like hedge funds are taking advantage to get a cut. If another devastating wildfire triggers damages too high for a utility to pay, the potentially resulting bankruptcy would make it even harder for victims to collect.

“The status quo doesn’t work,” Newsom said at a news conference last week when asked whether his proposal is in the best interests of fire survivors. “And we’re trying to balance all of those needs in a very familiar process that will unfold over the course of the next few months.”

CalMatters asked the governor’s office whether the timeline Newsom mentioned was correct, considering the legislative session ends in three weeks. A spokesperson said the governor meant “the next couple of months of the legislative session,” and did not respond to whether Newsom will call a special session to address the issue.

As he mulls a presidential run, Newsom has political incentive to push through a deal. Opponents from the right are eager to paint California as unaffordable and lurching through disasters; further rate hikes or the specter of a utility bankruptcy wouldn’t help. But backing the utilities also comes with risks: Anger at the companies remains fresh after Edison was last week found by Cal Fire and the Los Angeles County Fire Department to be responsible for the January 2025 Eaton fire that killed 19 people in Altadena. 

The chair of a key Assembly committee, Democratic Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, is generally on board with Newsom’s proposals, but lawmakers in the Senate appear less certain. Fire survivors are urging them to slow down and commit to a more public debate.

“You cannot be ‘there are some bad actors’ and therefore we will have a secret bill,” said Joy Chen, who leads a group of Los Angeles wildfire survivors. “Then your bill is the bad actor.”

A familiar fight

It’s a redux of a bitter fight that has bookended Newsom’s time as governor. 

He stepped into his role in the wake of devastating wildfires that tore through Northern California in 2017 and 2018, several of which PG&E was found to have been responsible for. 

The utility was in a bind: Under California law it was strictly liable for fires that were getting more severe, partly due to climate change, and regulators were no longer letting the companies pass damages onto customers in cases where they were found careless.

Facing mounting suits from victims and insurance companies, the company in 2019 declared bankruptcy. Newsom quickly signed legislation to help buffer utilities from those claims, drawing accusations of a bailout. The state created a $21 billion wildfire fund, paid for half by utility shareholders and half by customers through a $2.50 surcharge on their monthly electricity bills, to pay victims’ claims, provided the utilities follow stricter safety regulations. 

The remaining structure of a building burned from the Eaton fire in Altadena. Jan. 8, 2025. Credit: Ted Soqui for CalMatters

Then in January 2025, during an intense windstorm, electricity arcing from a century-old out-of-service Edison tower in Southern California’s Eaton Canyon set dry brush ablaze. The resulting Eaton Fire, burning at the same time as the deadly Palisades fire, claimed 19 lives and nearly 9,500 homes and other buildings. UCLA estimated losses at between $24 billion and 45 billion.

The state wildfire fund is expected to be drained once the costs of insurance claims, Edison’s multimillion-dollar voluntary settlements with survivors and numerous unsettled lawsuits are tallied. (Lawmakers extended the fund last year to address future fires, adding to electricity customers’ surcharges through 2045.) Profiteering hedge funds have sought to take advantage by buying up insurance claims. 

Newsom’s goal is twofold: Limit who can make claims to the fund and limit how much they can get. In private briefings last week and a document outlining his package released Tuesday, his office said he would combine the cost reductions with bills to boost home hardening, help homeowners get off the state’s insurer-of-last-resort and re-enter the home insurance market, tie utility executive pay to safety and require shareholders to pay down customers’ rates for two summers. 

Details of the package remain scant. The outline released Tuesday did not include proposed legislative language.

CalMatters contacted the state’s three major utility companies. San Diego Gas & Electric did not respond. PG&E and Edison referred questions to Nathan Click, spokesperson for the utilities’ campaign, which is called Wildfire Victims First and has been blanketing the state with ads telling Californians to urge their lawmakers to act.

Click, who is also a political spokesperson for Newsom, did not answer specific questions, including whether utilities are meeting directly with lawmakers. Instead, he shared statements from a handful of business groups and a powerful electrical workers’ union urging lawmakers to advocate for the proposed liability reduction.

In addition, the chief executives of PG&E and Edison have said they plan to take action to protect their shareholders if California lawmakers do not pass legislation to limit their fire liability. They did not specify what they planned to do.

Over the past four years PG&E, Edison and SDG&E collectively spent $5.2 million on California political campaigns, sponsored travel for lawmakers and donations to officials’ favored charities, according to CalMatters’ Digital Democracy database. 

PG&E also has the fifth-highest spending on lobbying in the 2025-2026 legislative session and was the top spender from April through June. In the first half of this year, the three utilities reported spending nearly $7 million to influence Newsom’s administration, the Legislature and their regulators at the California Public Utilities Commission.

Limiting damages

Newsom suggests chipping away at utilities’ liabilities by limiting attorneys’ fees, reducing the amount of money local governments can recoup to rebuild burned infrastructure and curbing how much some victims can receive in damages.

His proposal would set up a state-administered “fast pay” program to prioritize wildfire fund payouts for survivors whose loved ones are killed, who are injured or whose properties are destroyed. To participate, claimants would likely need to give up their right to sue the utility — trading an often lengthy wait through litigation to get comprehensive damages in exchange for the relief of a quicker payout. 

For other victims “in harm’s way,” the Tuesday outline suggests allowing up to $150,000 in damages. 

Newsom’s office and Petrie-Norris, who generally supports the idea, said they do not intend to limit emotional distress claims for survivors they deem legitimate but those kinds of damages should be curbed for others. 

“If you were part of a disaster no one’s going to say you can’t make a claim,” Petrie-Norris, an Irvine Democrat who chairs the Assembly utilities committee, said. “If you did not actually experience a disaster, what non-economic damages should you be entitled to?”

Petrie-Norris and Newsom are concerned about billboard attorneys who seek clients to file lawsuits against utilities and the wildfire fund; one study has found attorneys are likely to get 30% to 40% of victims’ payouts. Groups representing survivors and attorneys argue it’s not so clear who should count as a victim. Residents who lost no property and stayed in their homes miles away could still be harmed by smoke inhalation, for example. 

Chen said she was “stunned” after she was briefed by the governor’s office last week and was told that only people who are evacuated and have their house burn down would be eligible for non-economic damages.

“Let’s say someone was out of town, but their house burned down so they didn’t evacuate,” she said. “But they lost everything, so they have to rebuild. So you won’t compensate them for pain and suffering?”  

Newsom also wants to stop investors from buying claims and prioritize small business claimants over corporations, but his office has not explained how to accomplish that. 

The proposed bill package has so incensed some wildfire victims that opponents of the plan have shrugged at arguments that some claimants are taking advantage of the Wildfire Fund. 

“The utilities are finding a lot of creative ways to avoid responsibility. That’s it,” said Graham Knaus, chief executive of the California Association of Counties. “We should not be opening the door for them to escape accountability.”

Shifting costs

Another component of the outline released Tuesday could affect homeowners across the state. Newsom is proposing to limit — or eliminate entirely — insurance companies’ right to recoup money from utilities when a utility-caused fire forces those insurers to pay out homeowners’ claims. 

The process is known as subrogation. The two powerful industries have been at odds over it for years.

Utilities and insurance already clashed in 2018 when utilities unsuccessfully backed a bill to loosen a unique California legal doctrine that holds power providers strictly liable for wildfire damages near their equipment even if they aren’t found responsible for the fire. 

“We’re a well-resourced industry, but not like [the utilities],” Rex Frazier, president of the Personal Insurance Federation of California, recalled. “Their lobbying spend was just crazy.”

Denni Ritter, vice president for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, said eliminating subrogation could impede the progress that has been made due to the regulations California adopted last year to address insurance availability problems. 

“We’re at this precarious time,” Ritter said. Because the state now allows insurance companies to consider catastrophe modeling and reinsurance costs in pricing their premiums, some insurers have resumed writing new policies in California, and the number of policies in the last-resort FAIR Plan is growing at a slower rate, according to the state insurance department.

But if they can’t recover the costs of wildfire claims, Frazier and Ritter said insurance companies will raise premiums, which would affect homeowners even in areas with low fire risk.

“We don’t understand how they’re not embarrassed to suggest that the answer to their problem is to shift their costs over to other people,” Frazier said. “Why should a homeowners insurance customer in a dense urban environment have to pay considerably more?”

Sen. Ben Allen, the Democratic chair of the Senate utilities committee and a candidate for insurance commissioner, said he doesn’t want to make that tradeoff if the package doesn’t include other benefits for consumers or taxpayers. 

Petrie-Norris said it could be worth it. 

“If I can save you $2 on your utility bill and your insurance bill goes up by $1, that seems like a smart thing for us all to do,” she said. But we’ve got to make sure that’s true and whether there are unintended consequences.”

Jeremia Kimelman and Digital Democracy engineer Andrew Chan contributed to this story.

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The post Newsom makes last-minute push to help California utilities facing wildfire bills appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

This post is updated throughout the day to reflect the latest incidents. It was last updated at 6:31 a.m..

Here’s what’s happening on the roads this morning…

▼︎ new incidents

Road incidents as of 6:30 a.m. on August 12

• A traffic collision happened at Salinas Rd and Fruitland Ave. in Watsonville / Pajaro at 6:24 a.m. today. A semi truck (blue big rig) rear-ended another vehicle. Both vehicles were able to move to the side of the road. The person who reported the incident had trouble getting information from the truck driver because of a language barrier. No injuries were reported.
   
• A vehicle went off the road into a ditch about 15 feet from the roadway at SR236 and Acorn Dr in San Lorenzo Valley. The driver left before authorities arrived. No injuries were confirmed at the time of the report. The incident was reported today.
   
• Highway 9 at Cascade Avenue in San Lorenzo Valley has one-way traffic due to ongoing work. This closure will last until 7:01 a.m. on August 31.
   
• Alternating lanes are closed on Highway 9 at Riverdale Park in San Lorenzo Valley because of bridge work. The closure is expected to last until 6:59 a.m. on April 30, 2027.
   

Disclosure: Traffic incidents are partially generated by artificial intelligence. We are constantly working to improve the accuracy and quality of our AI-generated content. However, there may still be errors or inaccuracies. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us.

The post Wednesday morning traffic: Semi rear-ends car in Watsonville; Hwy 9 lane closures appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

In her weekly look at local business, Jessica M. Pasko reports on a proposed six-story mixed-use development in Santa Cruz, Joby Aviation’s latest maneuvers and names, numbers and dates to know.