Memorial Day Weekend Links: May 27-30
Cool cats, evictions at sea, and 8 other stories to consider in your quest to understand the Golden State
Greetings from What is California? HQ, where Memorial Day Weekend unofficially whisks us into summer. And let me just say—after a twin taste of 100-degree days in Sacramento this week, I am not ready for summer. (Not that summer cares.) I don’t want to be whisked there! Enough whisking, already. Whatever. Do you have anything planned for the long weekend?
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ICYMI
The podcast is on hiatus until later this summer, but you can catch up on the first two seasons below (or wherever you get podcasts!):
On with the Weekend Links!
Meanwhile, I hope you'll consider checking out some of these nifty California stories if/when you are so inclined:
20 California native plants that will actually look gorgeous this summer - Jeanette Marantos, LA Times
Let’s start with the good news, because we’re going to need it: You can replace your lawn literally right now with a variety of robust, drought-tolerant plants native to the state. This article offers a great starter guide to trees, shrubs, flowers and grasses that offer sustainable beauty in your yard. Remember to do a little bit of homework on this, because what’s native to San Diego County won’t necessarily be native to Yuba County, etc., and then you’ll be back to regularly watering an incompatible plant. But virtually anything native will be better than a lawn, and it’s pretty hard to screw up salvias and buckwheat once they’re established. And how about this baja spurge (above)?! I’m not typically a big euphorbia person, but I might grab a couple of these the first chance I get. Happy planting!
‘Everyone loses’: Sacramento Valley struggles to survive unprecedented water cuts - Rachel Becker, CalMatters
The best thing you’ll read this week brings us to the parched farms and waterways of the Sacramento Valley, where deliveries of federally regulated water from Lake Shasta to local irrigation districts haven’t just been reduced—they’ve been altogether halted. As Becker reports, the implications for everyone and everything are nothing less than stunning: “All relying on the lake’s supplies will make sacrifices,” Becker writes. “Many are struggling to keep their cattle and crops. Refuges for wildlife also will have to cope with less water from Lake Shasta, endangering migratory birds. And the eggs of endangered salmon that depend on cold water released from Shasta Dam are expected to die by the millions.” Ooof. It’s a painful read, but it helps to know what’s coming for all of us if we don’t reduce usage.
California cuts grass watering down as drought dries West - Kathleen Ronayne, Associated Press
Did someone say “reduce usage”? Here’s your look at other new cutbacks levied this week by the State Water Resources Board, which starting June 10 will ban the watering of ornamental lawns at commercial properties, homeowners associations, colleges, hospitals, and other facilities. Lawns at private residences and parks are still good to go, and you should still water your trees. The article makes no mention of golf courses, but our very high-level policy prescription at What is California? HQ is to let the fairways go dormant, adapt the “greens” to yellows, and use hot pink golf balls for visibility on the links. Or just get the apocalypse over with and make everything a sandtrap.
California Man Captures Stunning Wildlife Photos in His Backyard - Matt Growcoot, PetaPixel
Roy Toft is a photographer, wildlife biologist, and photo tour organizer who has engineered a system for snapping amazing shots of the wild critters coming and going through his 28-acre property in Ramona (in San Diego County). In an interview, Toft describes his process for capturing amazingly lit and up-close images of his visitors, which I could seriously look at all day. Amazing stuff. Check out the raccoons! And don’t miss Toft on Instagram, too. (H/T California Sun)
The lion king of Los Angeles - Ruxandra Guidi, High Country News
Meanwhile, in L.A., another wildlife biologist named Miguel Ordeñana is known for discovering one of the most famous big cats in all of California: The mountain lion known as P-22, which Ordeñana identified in 2012 roaming in its adopted home of Griffith Park. Like P-22, this article gracefully covers a lot of ground, from Ordeñana’s early striving to diversify the ranks of wildlife biology to the movement working to make the urban landscape of Los Angeles more hospitable to the mountain lions and other wildlife inevitably drawn to it. (One of the women featured in this story even has a tattoo of P-22 under the Hollywood sign.)
California is beginning to bury its power lines to prevent wildfire - Lisa M. Krieger, Mercury News
Come for the beautifully written lede, stay for the deep dive on the needs, nuances, and challenges facing PG&E as it begins the long process of undergrounding distribution lines around the state. The official goal is noble: To reduce the risk of fire and outages caused by extreme weather hitting the above-ground network. The cost is decidedly obscene: Currently it sits at $3.5 million per mile, although the utility expects that with rapidly improving technology and techniques, that cost will come down to $2.5 million per mile before long. Still—we’re talking about 10,000 miles of lines. It’s about time, even though some critics say it’s all a ruse for PG&E to pass higher utility costs along to customers rather than safely maintain the lines it already has. The utility says it’s either that, or folks can expect an indefinite future of precautionary outages in high winds, storms, and other dangerous circumstances. The shoe-hanging lobby weighed in as well, worried that without above-ground wires they’d have nowhere to hang old pairs of shoes. The birds weren’t happy, either, demanding new lines for flocks to perch on. Etc. etc.
The town at the center of California’s climate refugee crisis - Dani Anguiano, The Guardian
Speaking of extreme weather, what kinds of living conditions can we expect in a state besieged by climate change in the decade(s) ahead? A particularly dystopian environment has developed in Chico, the Northern California city that became a magnet for folks fleeing the Camp Fire in 2018. While some have returned to the rebuilding city of Paradise, and yet others have found shelter in the new (and often expensive) home communities popping up around Chico, many others have fallen through the cracks into homelessness and economic ruin. Anguiano’s lede says it all: “After Julia Cheek lost all of her belongings in the Camp fire, she longed for a safe place to lay her head at night. When she finally received a check from the California utility that had caused the fire, Cheek used it to buy the only home she could afford: a 2010 Nissan Xterra.”RELATED: Motherboard reporter Aaron Gordon traveled to Paradise and found a boomtown where folks are eager to live despite its history—and even a possible future—as the site of apocalyptic wildfire: “Paradise used to have significantly cheaper homes than Chico, a city of about 100,000 people about a 15-minute drive down the canyon from Paradise, not to mention Sacramento (about an hour away) or the Bay Area (two to three hours). But, in the last two years, the gap has steadily narrowed to the point where there isn’t much price difference between Paradise and Chico anymore for the same house square footage, although Paradise lots still tend to be larger.
After the blaze: Climate change creates challenging conditions for California wineries - Scott Thomas Anderson, Comstock’s magazine
In this fascinating piece, we learn how some California winemakers are adapting and experimenting to withstand drought, extreme heat, and wildfires whose smoke alone can taint and destroy entire vineyards’ worth of wine grapes. As with any plant, modestly cultivating the right grapes in the right areas—as opposed to vast quantities of market-friendly grapes in need of increasingly scarce water—can make all the difference for wineries fighting to keep their businesses alive. Of course, this will eventually change what defines California wine. In Lodi, for example, you might not want to bank on a pinot noir or sauvignon blanc. “It’s about crop control,” one winemaker tells Anderson. “I don’t need 20,000 acres. I’m good working with (4,000) or 5,000 acres. With less crop, you don’t need a gigantic canopy. So, it’s that — and having way harsher pruning. That controls where the plant pushes out. That’s key.”
Why these Bay Area restaurants list every worker’s name on the menu - Elena Kadvany, SF Chronicle
In an industry notorious for abuse, underpayment, exploitation, harassment and all-around abuse of staff, some restaurants are leaning in—way in—to recognizing the folks who make their dining rooms and kitchens run. From crediting sous chefs for the creations of certain dishes to spotlighting dishwashers and prep cooks above the owners on the website, the trend has helped boost morale and keep high-performing teams intact under the insane stress of Covid-era hospitality.
And finally…
A Turf War on the Water - Katie Bernstein and Clara Mokri, The New Yorker
Here’s a little Memorial Day viewing for you: A short documentary about the community of folks inhabiting a sort of shaggy self-exile in Richardson Bay just off Sausalito. After a half-century of houseboaters live-and-let-living in the bay, the land-based powers that be have undertaken a crackdown to clear those “anchored out” in the waters of wealthy Marin County. The stakes—and the emotions—are high for both sides, and this film does a great job showing the ways the wrenching California housing crisis is hardly limited to dry land.
Thanks for reading, and have a safe, happy Memorial Day!
-Stu