
Make Your Water Heater Work for You, Plus a SNEW Project Highlight
Learn about ways you can save energy and money through the WatterSaver program and how SNEW services are helping our community.
Government & Community Affairs Director
In the spring of this year, California’s leaders took bold action in passing $536 million in an emergency action wildfire funding package to fund wildfire resilience projects (including fuel breaks, prescribed fire, watershed restoration, and ecological thinning) ahead of the standard budget cycle. Amidst record-breaking heat waves, a historic drought, and the weight of unparalleled wildfire risk, it is imperative that California’s leaders continue and expand upon this bold action through the final 2021-22 Budget. Sierra Business Council, alongside partners across the region as well as the state, are advocating for direct funding allocations to local entities with proven ability to turn dollars into meaningful action, with a particular focus on the Sierra Nevada and California Tahoe Conservancies.
Policy wonks throughout the state know that this year’s budget process has been unlike any other. Funding for wildfire prevention, in particular, has gone through a bizarre process, riding a rollercoaster of proposals from $1 billion to $258 million, to the most recent addition of $500 million that could be made available this year should the Department of Finance deem it necessary. SBC strongly supports the addition of $500 million available funds added to the initial allocation of $258 million in this year’s budget. Those funds should be directly allocated to local experts and implementers, not through the discretion of the Department of Finance.
Experts have, however, identified a minimum of $2 billion/year for 10 years is required to restore California’s forest health and wildfire resilience. We strongly encourage an additional $1.25 billion, utilizing the added $3 billion in surplus funds realized in the past month alone, to fund regional, landscape-scale restoration and resilience work. To protect our communities, our people, and our natural resources, to increase our resilience to the impacts of climate change, and to ensure this protection is sustained in perpetuity, it is vital that California increase its commitment to meaningful and proactive land management.
We recognize that some legislative leaders have concerns regarding agency capacity to implement such a funding increase in the timeline needed to protect California. However, regional entities such as state conservancies, resource conservation districts, fire-safe councils, and land trusts have proven track records of getting those funds implemented on the ground. For instance, the Sierra Nevada Conservancy (SNC) just this week that it is funding 15 projects in some of California’s highest risk areas through Immediate Action Wildfire and Forest Resilience Fund awards, allocating nearly 100% of their early action funds. An additional 13 projects met SNC’s grant criteria, but additional funding was not available. SNC has a database of shovel-ready resilience projects, identifying a $135 million need and opportunity to take historic action toward reducing the Sierra’s wildfire risk. Similarly, the California Tahoe Conservancy has allocated 100% of the early action funding it received. The funds will be used throughout the year to reduce hazardous fuels and hazard trees on small lots in neighborhoods, as well as to provide matching funds to grant-funded projects, and for permitting, surveying, and marking for 2022 and 2023 projects.
As our legislative leaders work to determine the final details of the FY 2021-22 budget package, Sierra Business Council’s stance is that the following wildfire resilience components are vital to the resilience of the communities, economy, and environment of the Sierra Nevada region:
These budget recommendations are based on the three-tiered wildfire strategy that SBC has advocated throughout the legislative session, working to increase our response and resources toward three primary needs:
As the Legislature heads into their summer recess, we encourage our leaders to work together to determine the key details of the available funds, with a focus on providing local and regional experts the resources needed to implement the projects that are ready to go ahead of next year’s wildfire season. We have an unprecedented opportunity to address California’s wildfire crisis, enabling action at the scale essential to provide for a safer present, stronger recovery, and more resilient future.
Learn about ways you can save energy and money through the WatterSaver program and how SNEW services are helping our community.
Please join Sierra Business Council at an upcoming workshop designed to collect important community feedback on broadband access and digital equity in the Sierra Nevada on May 12 from 10 am to 2:30 pm.
Make an impact in your community through the CivicSpark program! CivicSpark is an AmeriCorps program dedicated to building capacity for local governments in California, Washington, and Colorado to address emerging environmental and social equity resilience challenges such as climate change, water resource management, affordable housing, and mobility.
we’d be poor advocates of the region if we failed to acknowledge the history and current role of the original stewards of the Sierra Nevada. From the Maidu to the Miwok, the Niesenan to the Shoshone, the Paiute to the Washoe, and all the other diverse cultures throughout the region, the Indigenous peoples of Sierra Nevada were the original caretakers of this landscape, and they are critical partners that should be respected and involved in this region’s future.
For fear of sounding like a broken record, I will skip over the detailed account of how my fellowship/life is not exactly as I expected it to be, thanks to the pandemic. It’s 2021 but you could also call it December 56th, 2020. It didn’t become a brand new world January 1st, we are still wearing masks, working from home in our sweatpants, and trying to avoid refreshing the news. At the same time, I have been pondering the beauty of my unexpected journey to CivicSpark and SBC.
I entered college knowing I would major in environmental studies. This interest in the environment was the constant in my ever-changing adolescence (and involved many phases, including when I only wore green, yikes!) and it helped direct me when I arrived on campus as one of the 45,000 students at the University of Washington. I started taking environmental classes right off the bat and didn’t have to flounder around, searching for some deep unstoked passion. It was already there.
Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, I have grown up with the luxury of beautiful mountains, trails, rivers, and beaches. I spent most of my free time recreating outdoors and waited for any opportunity to venture to new places. Studying the environment seemed like an extension of the things I love. I could learn about the birds, trees, and rocks that I saw. I could learn about the tides and the rivers that I know. I could become an expert on my home.