KCBS Radio In Depth
Dr Ted Sommer discusses the impact of climate change and freshwater ecosystem
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This is KCBS in depth. When we think about how the climate crisis is affecting California, we look at the wildfires, we look at the heat waves, but climate change is being felt in our streams, creeks, and rivers as well. Welcome to KCBS in depth, broadcasting throughout the Bay Area and streaming on the Odyssey app. I'm Mary Hughes. California's freshwater ecosystems are one of the beating hearts of the state, keeping everything from flora to fauna in good stead. A recent report shines a light on the dangers that these ecosystems are facing and what needs to be done to save them. To help us dig into this topic, I'm joined by Dr. Ted Summer, research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, retired lead scientist for the California Department of Water Resources, and lead author of the report. I want to thank you so much for joining me on in-depth for this conversation. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks for your interest in this topic. In a broad sense, I think most of us know that our environments work together on multiple levels, but specifically when we're talking about California's freshwater ecosystem, how intertwined is it with the rest of our natural world? Yeah, so water is kind of the fuel that drives everything. It connects landscapes. So we have snowfall in the Sierra, which melts and goes into lakes in the mountains, but it also feeds our rivers, it feeds our streams. It also refills our groundwater. And this is a connection all the way from the mountains through the foothills, down into the valley, and then all the way out into the coast. So if, for example, if you look at the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, that drains 46% of the state. It's this massive connection from mountain to sea. Obviously, a lot has evolved and changed over time. And what's the state of that ecosystem today when we're comparing it, say, 10, 20 years ago? Yeah, so if we look historically, we have, of course, an extremely diverse geography. We had, therefore, a really high diversity of habitats. As I just mentioned, it includes, you know, the mountains, the valley, the coast, and that fed all these cool freshwater habitats, like lakes, rivers, streams, springs, different ponds. And that, in turn, supported very high biodiversity. We have a suite of native plants. We have some really interesting invertebrates, the different shellfish, crayfish, oysters, and so forth. We have diverse mammal populations, you know, things like otter, beaver, and other things. Fish, they're one of the highest profile resources that we recognize historically, particularly the iconic salmon runs, which had very high populations. And similarly, these freshwater habitats supported all kinds of bird populations and different amphibians as well, you know, frog, salamanders, different turtles. So when humans came along and I'm going to go, you know, way back, early on population densities were low and a lot of the indigenous populations seemed to have worked pretty well with the landscape. But when we had the massive population influx from the west, it fundamentally transformed the landscape. So early on, we had placer mining that dumped all kinds of sediments into our rivers and streams washed down into the bays. And those sediments are actually still working their way through the system here. Similarly, we diked and drained lots of different areas, so we could have agriculture cities. And then there was companion overfishing of a lot of different resources. And then, you know, on top of that, we added all kinds of other features to help support our camp economy. So dams, in particular, to provide flood protection, but also water supply, water diversions throughout the system. But also, we've added extensive groundwater pumping as well. On top of that, habitat loss, as we've gradually converted a lot of the native habitats to more economic or municipal type habitats. And then there's invasive species on top of it, because with all human activities, all the commerce, all the people moving around, we've introduced massive number of species. So, for example, San Francisco Bay, it's reported to be one of the most invaded estuaries on the planet. We've got 95% of the species in a number of areas that are visitors, if you will. So the overall effect on this, predictably, is long-term declines in many of the species. And fortunately, we have a number of legal protections available for some of the species. And so that covers some of the high-profile species, salmon, for example, some of the other species like delta smelt, sturgeon. But that's only 6% of the freshwater species that we're talking about here. So we have all these declines and then, you know, protections for just a modest number of species. And, you know, the overall effect of declines across the board then is also human effects. These declines have cultural significance to a number of groups. They have economic significance. We depend on these resources for recreation, for clean water, for our fisheries. So it's not just the sweetest species across the state that are suffering. We're feeling some of the impacts. The fishing industry is in particular trouble right now with the closure of the salmon fishery off the coast. For the second year in a row, they are right on the edge. And this is directly related to all these long-term problems. Well, yeah, it's the ripple effect of all of this. And that kind of leads us very nicely into the report that you're the lead author of, Climate Smart Tools to Protect Freshwater Ecosystems. And, of course, it highlights a little bit of the worry of what's happening to California's freshwater ecosystems. But it also looks at what can be done in order to preserve it and to help it continue into the future. Tell us some of what's in this report and what's being looked at. Absolutely. Well, let me start first with the main motivation for the report. And that's that we have climate on top of all those other issues that I just mentioned. So we have the long-term legacy issues, but climate change is hitting us hard and hitting us fast. And it's accelerating a lot of the issues that I just mentioned. And I have to be blunt. Climate change is moving faster than a lot of us expected. It's hitting us in every corner of the state and in a whole lot of really dangerous ways. And we hear a lot about the direct effect on our community. So, for example, right now, the wildfires, the heat waves that are going on. But this also applies in a really big way to our freshwater ecosystem. Those ecosystems are especially vulnerable. And we have, again, a lot of species at risk. So the motivation here was, "Okay, we know things are going badly. What can we actually do?" And it felt to us on our project team that we have a closing window of opportunity to do something to protect the freshwater ecosystems. It's pretty easy to get overwhelmed by this, but we felt that a more productive strategy would be to try and come up with some bold conservation solutions that we could use. So our goal in this was really to create what we call a toolbox of some innovative options for conservation. And so our basic approach was to try and crowdsource this issue by brainstorming with a lot of colleagues we have across the state to kind of get input on some of their most creative conservation solutions. And to do that, we spent months hosting workshops, bringing in really smart people and reading various conservation plans dealing with that. And so the report we just released is a summary of those ideas. It's kind of a summary of the toolbox. We came up with a total of 22 different options that we could use for the conservation of species in the face of climate change. And we organized these into three different categories. We've tried to provide a toolbox with different drawers that managers, watershed groups, members of the public, scientists, engineers can all use to kind of take action. I will say many of the ideas that we've included here are pretty familiar approaches, habitat restoration. People have heard of that. It's a relatively common activity. But we've also identified many ideas that kind of verge on science fiction that may not be ready for prime time, but deserve consideration as part of a full approach to deal with this issue. But yeah, there was some that I was very interested in picking your brain on there as to what that might look like. But as you mentioned, there are some familiar methods and terms in there, the ones that we recognize already. How can those be adapted to kind of keep up with the evolving climate change that we are dealing with? How can they be used now if perhaps they're outdated in some way? So one of the key issues with climate is that there's a fair bit of uncertainty about what the trajectory is going to be like. Also, we have a suite of species, a suite of different ecosystems. So our pitch is that we are going to need a portfolio of actions. Historically, there has been a decent amount of work in California in conservation. But often those approaches tend to be on safer type things, or they tend to be really focused. So freshwater inflow is appropriately a priority. But what we're seeing now is, freshwater inflow is necessary, but it's not enough to deal with this other changes. So one of the key messages we're pushing here is, again, a portfolio of ideas, tackling different watersheds and coming up with a broad suite of actions that we can use to protect those ecosystems. 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Sell or assessment fee not included. Limited number of ETFs are subject to a transaction-based service fee at $100. See full list at Fidelity.com/commissions. Fidelity brokerage services LLC. Remember N-Y-S-E-S-I-P-C. What's being looked at that maybe hasn't been tried before or ideas that can maybe fit more readily into what we're dealing with now instead of some of the tried and true ideas of the past? I don't want to push the tried and true ideas outside. Often those ideas are brilliant, but they are not at the necessary scale that we need, or they're not coming forth at the rate that we'd like. For example, the recent removal of the Klamath River Damps. That is a huge and fundamentally important project, but it took more than 20 years to get it going. We don't have 20 years, so we have a lot of ideas for habitat restoration, but those may not be sufficient. So we also have a second drawer in the toolbox of ideas to support specific species of targeted actions to make sure we don't lose species while some of the bigger, broader, bolder projects are underway. I'll give some examples of some of the tried and true examples in our categories, but then also some of the more innovative and edgy ideas. So again, habitat restoration, this is the largest category in the toolbox that we're suggesting. This is our top tier, and it's not a coincidence. These are the types of things that we can do that are most likely to have ecosystem benefits, and this includes, again, obvious needs like fresh water inflow and in various methods to restore high quality habitat. So riparian zones, marsh, reconfiguring stream channels to more their historical state. Some of the examples that we provide that people might be familiar with, the Salton Sea example. This is an area which is undergoing rapid salinization. The inflow is dropping, it's getting saltier, and this is affecting fish, wildlife, and humans. The project going on down there now is using a suite of conventional ideas doing habitat restoration out there, using streamflow, but it's taking a targeted area, trying to focus on a specific zone for starters that we can use to create high quality habitat. So here's an example of using traditional ways, but kind of prioritizing, picking our battles there. What can we realistically do with the freshwater resources we have now? Under habitat too, there are much edgier examples as well. So I mentioned invasive species are a big issue. People, when they go down to our waterways, they'll see all kinds of invasive weeds, different critters crawling around. Historically, people have tried things like using herbicides or pesticides. This is expensive. It can be really hard to do in large scale ecosystems, and there are obviously some environmental issues associated with them. Mechanical removal of aquatic weeds is also a common approach, but this is hugely labor intensive and may not be economically feasible except in specific focused areas. One of the emerging areas is the use of robotics. So trying to use robots to help remove some of the worst of the weeds. When we started this project, honestly, I put this one out there as more of a sci-fi type idea. This is something out in the future. Interestingly, I'm up here in Lake Tahoe right now for a course. There's a really innovative project using what's called a pixie drone to remove aquatic weeds and trash from some of the worst zones here. Already being tested at least on a focused scale here in some of our freshwater ecosystems. That's amazing. You'll see a lot more use of this technology. The second drawer of the toolbox, as I mentioned, is species support. In a lot of cases, what we can do in the way of habitat restoration isn't going to be fast enough or at the right level to save individual species. We have to therefore consider focused action to support the conservation of individual species. We have several different approaches here that we're suggesting. Distribution, population, and genetic tools. Starting first with distribution support, climate change is going to force major changes in the locations that species are going to be able to survive. In some cases, the species will be able to move on their own. Great. But one of the things that people are starting to do much more commonly is assisting the species movements. So if dam removal is slow or just not feasible, actively moving species into the watershed. So extremely high profile example is the reintroduction of salmon above Shasta Dam into the McLeod River watershed. This is an incredible project with collaboration with tribal representatives, state, and federal biologists. It's a really bold action, something that 10, 20 years ago, none of us would have imagined. There's even a much edgier idea, and it's actually now a federal policy into the Biden administration that this can be considered, but actually consider moving species into locations where they weren't historically. If that may be the only viable habitat in the future. So if we're backed into a wall, it may be reasonable to move species up further in the watershed or up slope if they can't do it themselves. I have a question there. You said one part of that that put my mind at ease, which is you're looking for a habitat that this species, maybe it's not been there before, but it could live there, that there's a compatibility there. Does that cover all the surrounding environment? I feel like any introduction of something to an area creates change regardless. Is that something that's looked at more closely in order if that were a method that had to be relied on? Sure. So the other big recommendation in our report is that we need some decision support processes to make these hard decisions. We need to kind of go watershed by watershed and figure out, okay, what's going wrong here? Come up with some priorities and then come up with a whole range of options that we might be able to use. And our toolbox is intended to provide those options. Then we come to the hard part, which is the screening, weighing all those different things. In a number of areas, it may not be feasible to introduce a species because there's already some other sensitive species there, and it's just going to be incompatible. But there may be options where, okay, there's this one lake or stream over here where we could do a focused reintroduction over here. And so that's what's going on in the Cloud River. They picked a specific location to do the reintroduction. And there's a whole lot of different economic, environmental, cultural factors that need to be weighed every time we do things. There's so much in this report to look at and to delve into and to think about. But for any of these tools to work, it depends on how people implement them and use them. And people don't always do things in the best of ways or soon enough and time's not always on our side. So how do we change our mindsets so that we keep evolving with what freshwater ecosystems need in the moment? There's a need for a decision support process. We need to kind of go watershed by watershed and come up with some priorities. But that takes time and the projects that might be highest value can take a lot of time. So the other key recommendation we have is about the urgency of taking action. We can't wait for some of this. And a number of these methods are tried and true. We can, you know, do a number of the habitat restoration projects and feel confident that's going to be a positive thing. Other ideas we can probably test safely in some specific location. So I just mentioned the example of there may be a specific stream or a pond or a lake where we could try something out and really give it the care and attention science and monitoring to figure out how to do it right. But the urgency is a key part of all this. I will say though that mindset is a huge part of this. Being willing to take some risks, you know, the biggest risk is not doing anything. What we're doing right now isn't working. We're losing species. We're going to lose more species. So our pitch is that we need to be a little more aggressive. I didn't go into it in too much detail, but there's a companion project by our team looking into some of the more policy and legal topics. And one of the key recommendations is going to be for resource agencies, resource managers, to be willing to be more proactive in doing things more aggressively, at least on pilot test scales. Have you found that that's been a harder hurdle to get over, to get policy makers kind of on board with doing things at a quicker pace? There's two sides of that. First, one of the really positive parts of this is when we went into this project, we wanted to brainstorm about different ideas. And we thought, you know, maybe half of them are ideas that people are already doing. But actually, we found in California, there's a lot of innovation going on. So we're pleased to see people trying a number of different things. I will say not at the scale that we need, though, to protect the species. At the same time, coming from originally a government agency, agencies do not always move particularly quickly, and they often have the feeling that their hands are tied. But our assessment is that the agencies actually have more flexibility than they think they have. A lot of the hesitancy may be cultural, you know, long-term legacy thing of being careful, being conservative, which you want your government to be. But when there's a crisis, there's a need to act. And so coming this fall and into winter, there'll be some specific recommendations and how we can kind of supercharge that. And you know, that urgency that you've spoken of here during this conversation, I think that's something that I see and hear particularly with, you know, the next generation, when they are thinking about the climate crisis, they're definitely more focused on it. And what needs to be done, how do you see your report fitting into what they are going to do? And the role that they're taking on in protecting this ecosystem. So the number one reason I actually did this report was, you know, for the recommendations that managers could use. But over the years, I supervised mentored lots of young staff. And there was a fairly common sentiment of being just overwhelmed with climate. It's so big. And so our philosophy here was, it's not too late. There are things we can do. And we want to come up with specific ideas that we could do a handoff to the younger cohorts of scientists, engineers, policymakers, conservationists, and hit the ground running. And you know, we're not expecting that everything be tackled. Every individual has to be an expert on everything. But we did want to give some really concrete examples that people could think about. You can find this episode and past episodes of In Depth online at kcbsradio.com. Just go to the podcast tab and look for In Depth. You can also hear In Depth on the Odyssey app. Download the app on your smartphone and favorite Kcbs radio. Thanks for listening for Kcbs in In Depth. I'm Mary Hughes. You've been listening to Kcbs In Depth. 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When we think about how the climate crisis is affecting California, we look at the wildfires and heatwaves--but climate change is being felt in our streams and rivers as well.