Enviro Updates – An environmental newsfeed for Sonoma County

Demand for contract grazers rising in North Bay ahead of ‘concerning’ fire season

May 6, 2026

Natalie Hanson, PRESS DEMOCRAT

The North Bay’s seasonal transition from hillsides cloaked in emerald green grass to the telltale tawny of the dry season has been extended by welcome spring rains. But not for long.

And that means peak fire season is on its way.

To reduce fire risk on much of that vast open acreage, property owners and land managers in the region are increasingly turning to contracted grazing operators, whose herds of sheep and goats munch down the grass and underbrush that can feed wildland blazes. The hungry herbivores help reduce invasive weeds and crop native grasses, and are a lower-carbon alternative to human-powered mowing.

The business, while not new, has boomed in the years following Northern California’s bout of catastrophic wildfires, including in Sonoma County, where the 2017 firestorm, 2019 Kincade Fire and 2020 Walbridge and Glass fires burned several hundred thousand acres combined, overlapping in places.

Ownership of that sprawling landscape is highly fragmented, complicating management for wildfire purposes. But contract grazers and their supporters say putting hooves on the ground in timely and strategic ways can help curb risk in an era of destructive wildfires stoked by climate change.

Agriculture/Food Systemfire prevention, goats, grazing, sheep, vegetation management

The ocean off California keeps breaking heat records

May 5, 2026

Hayley Smith, TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

An extreme marine heat wave is simmering the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, and experts are warning that it could affect coastal weather and ecosystems for months.

The ocean heat wave started forming at the end of last year but has worsened in recent weeks, according to readings from the Scripps Pier in La Jolla, which has broken more than 25 daily temperature records this year. The surface water temperature on Wednesday was 68.5 degrees — 7.7 degrees above average for the date. The sea bottom was 67.6 degrees, the hottest April 15 in about 100 years of records.

The heat wave is deep, persistent and widespread, spanning from roughly San Francisco to the Mexican border. Those are “pretty significant indicators that this has both staying power and will have consequences for weeks or months or even seasons to come for Southern California,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California’s Agriculture and Natural Resources.

There are several factors driving the staggering heat, including a unyielding ridge of high pressure straddling Southern California and weaker-than-normal coastal winds, which typically drive upwelling along the coast. Upwelling is when cold, deep ocean water rises to the surface.

But human-caused climate change is undoubtedly pushing the temperatures to new records, Swain said, noting that it takes many times more energy to heat ocean water than it does to heat air. “From an ocean warmth perspective, we are now entering a pretty dramatic period” for this part of the world, he said.

Climate Change & Energy, Sonoma CoastEl Niño, kelp forest, marine heat wave

Op-Ed: Prioritize California’s needs before oil industry wish list

April 30, 2026

Ryan Cummings and Neale Mahoney, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Instead of industry handouts, the state should expand import infrastructure to protect California households from the refinery outages that regularly disrupt the state’s fuel supply. At the Benicia site, this would mean turning the refinery into a terminal where importers could bring in and store fuel for distribution to local gas stations.

Since the start of the conflict with Iran, gasoline prices in California and across the country have increased by more than $1 a gallon, straining already tight family budgets. In the spirit of never letting a crisis go to waste, the California oil industry has been using this moment to try to jam through its wish list, lobbying for more drilling permits, suspension of taxes, the elimination of environmental programs and subsidies for refineries.

While the industry claims these measures would bring meaningful relief at the pump, the truth is that caving to the oil industry’s campaign would have limited benefits for California families.

Take oil production first. More drilling in California would not insulate the state from price spikes, because the price of oil is determined on the global market. The U.S. is a net oil exporter, yet that status offered no protection from the price spike that followed the conflict with Iran.

In oil-drenched Texas, pump prices are up $1.20 a gallon since the start of the conflict, only a few cents off California’s $1.23 increase. California’s oil production is a negligible share of global supply, meaning more drilling would allow producers to sell more into a high-priced global market, but California consumers would see little if any effect on prices at the pump.

Climate Change & EnergyBenicia refinery, oil & gas industry, oil drilling

The Sonoma County women raising sheep for wool, despite economic struggles

April 25, 2026

Natalie Hanson, NORTH BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL

For longtime shepherds, keeping up the traditional work of raising sheep for quality wool has been rewarding — but may not be sustainable for future generations.

Joann Slissman has made a living raising sheep on her farm in Occidental since 1986, taking pride in producing high-quality wool since her days as a beginner spinner. To her, the Sonoma County environment is ideal for good wool: “There’s no reason to ship it from England or Scotland … because we can raise sheep out here.”

But at 83, she’s growing concerned about the ability to keep going, and who will take over the job in the future. The work of fiber production has become more costly, while continuing to be physically taxing, in California.

Slissman said she’s long enjoyed raising different breeds of sheep in the North Bay’s moderate temperatures. She started raising Romney sheep, from English marshlands, which are doing well in Occidental’s climate alongside her horses, if they wear special coats to protect their fleece.

Agriculture/Food Systemlamb, sheep, wool

State forestry board new rules for California’s new ‘Zone Zero’ fire-safety proposal

April 23, 2026

Noah Haggerty, LOS ANGELES TIMES

CalFire Defensible Space webpage

After years of heated debates among fire officials, scientists and local advocates, California’s Board of Forestry and Fire Protection released new proposed landscaping rules for fire-prone areas Friday that outline what residents can and can’t do within the first 5 feet of their homes.

Many of these proposed rules — designed to reduce the risk of a home burning down amid a wildfire — have wide support (or at least acceptance); however, the most contentious by far has been whether the state would allow healthy plants in the zone.

Many fire officials and safety advocates have essentially argued anything that can burn, will burn and have supported removing virtually anything capable of combustion from this zone within 5 feet of houses, dubbed “Zone Zero.” They point to the string of devastating urban wildfires in recent years as reason to move quickly.

Forests, Land UseCalifornia Board of Forestry, fire safety vegetation rules, Safety Zone, wildfires, Zone Zero

Reckoning with plastics recycling

April 23, 2026

Marisa Endicott, PRESS DEMOCRAT

“They’re always coming up with some new solution that is still based on plastic waste recycling, and plastic recycling fundamentally doesn’t work,” Dell said.

At an 85,000-square-foot solid waste plant in south Santa Rosa, a tractor loader scooped up the blue bin contents from hundreds of Sonoma and Marin County curbside garbage customers. The mix of recyclables was then funneled through a maze of conveyor belts, chutes and optical sorters.

Paper traveled up along a fish ladder to be baled, while heavier materials continued down the line, where a separator diverted aluminum in one direction and a magnet pulled steel cans off the line and flung them into a cage. People posted along the way served as a “last line of defense,” as Recology Sonoma Marin‘s Senior General Manager Logan Harvey put it, making sure the discarded containers, cardboard and paper products were headed for the right place.

The whirring high-tech machinery is part of a $35 million upgrade completed two years ago at Recology Sonoma Marin’s Materials Recovery Facility. The Standish Avenue plant, the main destination for blue bin materials across Recology’s service area in the region, now takes in and processes roughly 350 tons of recycling a day — 40 to 50 tons per hour — from 13 communities in Sonoma and Marin counties.

Sustainable Livingplastic recycling, plastics, Recology Sonoma Marin

Trump administration offers plan to stop dam removal on California river

April 21, 2026

Kurtis Alexander, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

The Trump administration injected a surprising twist into the fight over Northern California’s Eel River on Tuesday, offering up a potential plan to stop the removal of two dams in the basin — though how serious the plan is remains to be seen.

In a social media post, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said she had been in touch with a Southern California water agency that was interested in buying the Scott Dam in Lake County and Cape Horn Dam in Mendocino County and continuing their operation.

Such a move would run counter to longtime plans by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., the owner of the dams, to remove the facilities as part of the retirement of the century-old Potter Valley hydroelectric project.

WaterEel River, endangered species, PG&E, Potter Valley Project, Russian River