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Organic Agriculture Helps Solve Climate Change

Expert BlogUnited States, CaliforniaLena Brook

As farmers grapple with everything from extreme weather events to heat stress to wildfires, and agriculture becomes less predictable in the face of a changing climate, it is essential for governments to help farmers transition to practices that increase resilience…

Collaborative Junk Science Is the Core of the Delta VA

Expert BlogCaliforniaDoug Obegi

If you wouldn’t trust oil tobacco companies to tell you what’s safe for your health, why would you trust these water agencies to say what’s good for fish and wildlife in the Bay-Delta watershed?

Water Rights, and Wrongs, in California

Expert BlogCaliforniaKate Poole
I’m grateful to the Stanford Environmental Law Clinic, Winnemem Wintu Tribe, Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, Little Manila Rising and Restore the Delta for compiling this clear and compelling history of California water.

Delta Voluntary Agreements Are a “Plan to Fail” in Droughts

Expert BlogCaliforniaDoug Obegi
Rather than planning for droughts and ensuring that minimum water quality objectives are achieved in critically dry years, the proposed voluntary agreement appears to be a “plan to fail” to protect the Delta in future droughts.

Bay-Delta VA: A Sweetheart Deal to Subsidize Agribusiness

Expert BlogCaliforniaDoug Obegi
It’s not surprising, given who was in the room negotiating this backroom deal, that the VAs are a sweetheart deal that would subsidize the mitigation obligations of the state’s largest irrigation districts and industrial agribusinesses, undermining the Public Trust.

Let’s Help More California Farms Become Organic

Expert BlogCaliforniaLena Brook
The California Department of Food and Agriculture, along with the Office of the First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, recently released a roadmap for our state’s new and ambitious Farm to School Program.

Honey, the VAs Shrunk the Delta Flows

Expert BlogCaliforniaDoug Obegi
Since the State Water Resources Control Board began its public process to update the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan in 2008, the amount of water proposed for the Bay-Delta environment has continuously shrunk.

Who (and What) Are Excluded from Backroom Bay-Delta "Deal"

Expert BlogCaliforniaDoug Obegi
The State’s recent announcement of a proposed voluntary agreement for the Bay-Delta watershed is the result of an illegitimate, exclusionary backroom negotiation that fails to protect the health of the estuary, its native fish and wildlife, and the jobs and…

Drought Shows that CA’s Water Rights System Is Bankrupt

Expert BlogCaliforniaDoug Obegi
The only way out of this cycle of destruction—other than praying for rain, which is not a strategy—is to reduce water deliveries and diversions in order to maintain adequate carryover storage in Shasta and upstream reservoirs this year.

Saving California's Salmon Is Now Up to Governor Newsom

Expert BlogCaliforniaKate Poole
Keeping the Trump administration's biological opinions in place would likely drive California’s wild salmon—as well as their habitat in the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary and all who depend on them—into a death spiral from which they may never recover.

New CA Program Can Deliver Organic School Lunches

Expert BlogCaliforniaLena Brook

By prioritizing procurement from organic farmers that avoid all or most pesticide use, our state’s farm-to-school program will also help reduce health risks faced by these especially vulnerable children.