Good morning, and welcome to the Important California publication. It’s Wednesday, Oct. 26. I’m Rosanna Xia, an surroundings reporter specializing in tales about our coast and ocean. You may often catch me geeking out about intertidal ecology or some delightfully obscure critter, and gosh do I've a narrative to share with you right now.
For years, I'd fly into San Francisco and marvel in regards to the large ponds of magenta and lime inexperienced water that sprawl for miles alongside the southern edges of the bay. The stunning hues of pinks, reds and greens are fairly a sight to behold, however the story behind them stunned me much more.
[Read today’s subscriber exclusive: “Building with nature: Can reviving a marsh save this California town from sea level rise?”]
Seems these ponds are salt mining ponds, they usually used to all be coastal wetlands — a swath of tidal marsh bigger than Manhattan. Early California settlers, capitalizing on native Ohlone salt-gathering practices, had diked hundreds of acres of wetlands into huge, shallow ponds that might then be managed by pumps and tidal gates. The view we see from the airplane right now is a vivid show of how the shoreline turned one of many largest salt evaporation complexes on this planet.
For greater than twenty years, a head-spinning variety of authorities companies have tried to show these salt ponds again into salt marsh. It’s the most important coastal wetland restoration west of the Mississippi and a mega instance of constructing with nature, slightly than towards it, within the face of local weather change. If completed proper, this undertaking may in the end save a long-neglected neighborhood and likewise reframe the best way California adapts to sea degree rise.
Reviving the forgotten marshy edges of the bay may additionally revive endangered wildlife such because the salt marsh harvest mouse, which exists nowhere else on this planet. (Salt marshes on the West Coast, by the best way, are additionally prone to disappearing completely as an ecosystem in lower than a century.)
There are such a lot of layers to this story, and I’m excited to listen to your ideas. My e-mail is rosanna.xia@latimes.com, and you could find me on Twitter. Thanks for studying, and I hope you get pleasure from studying about these salt ponds as a lot as I loved piecing collectively the historical past.
And now, right here’s what’s occurring throughout California:
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L.A. POLITICS
Karen Bass and Rick Caruso differ on public security and policing — however not as a lot as many assume. Each have constantly rebuffed calls to chop the LAPD’s price range and advocated hiring extra gang intervention staff — in addition to investing in sure alternate options to policing, equivalent to sending unarmed professionals to calls involving the mentally sick. And within the phrases of 1 outstanding anti-police advocate, neither candidate for mayor has proven a willingness to “tackle the LAPD.” Los Angeles Instances
The L.A. Metropolis Councilheld its first in-person assembly in almost two weeks. At Tuesday’s assembly, the council plowed via its agenda and took phone-in public feedback whereas demonstrators shouted, chanted and jeered from the viewers. Council members put in earbuds so they might hear their colleagues and the call-in testimony. Atop their to-do record: scheduling an April 4 particular election to exchange former Councilmember Nury Martinez, who stepped down after The Instances reported on racist and derogatory remarks she made throughout a secretly recorded dialog with Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin De León and Ron Herrera, who was then the highest official on the county Federation of Labor. Los Angeles Instances
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CALIFORNIA CULTURE
Earthquakes rely as California tradition, and yikes, the San Jose space acquired a rattler. Themagnitude 5.1 earthquakestruck at 11:42 a.m. Tuesday within the mountains east of San Jose, adopted by a minimum of two aftershocks. Fortunately,there have been no experiences of accidents or damages. (Enjoyable reality: My colleague Rong-Gong Lin II occurred to be in Daly Metropolis on the time, about 50 miles northwest of the epicenter, and obtained an emergency alert from the MyShake earthquake early warning system seconds earlier than the shaking started.) Los Angeles Instances
Unshaken. It is a good time to plug our sister publication Unshaken, which will get you earthquake-ready with its six-week course. The teachings are paced so you possibly can sort out initiatives week by week, together with placing an earthquake package collectively, assessing earthquake insurance coverage and placing collectively a household plan on your family. Enroll right here.
Talking of earthquakes … householders in 500 California ZIP Codes can get cash for earthquake retrofits. The Earthquake Brace + Bolt Program is now providing grants to residents who dwell in 521 “high-risk” ZIP Codes throughout California — an extra 126 ZIP Codes in contrast with final 12 months. San Francisco Chronicle
HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Recycled water could show essential for Northern California’s future resilience towards droughts. The San Francisco Bay Space is approach behind Southern California in reusing water — the decrease half of the state, in actual fact, recycled 83% extra water than the Bay Space final 12 months. Boosting water recycling across the Bay Space may even have a secondary profit: stopping algal blooms also called pink tides that threaten marine life. KQED
One other humpback whale washed ashore in Fort Bragg,the third lifeless whale in three months. The 31.5-foot male humpback whale washed ashore north of Pudding Creek Seaside in Fort Bragg on Saturday. Volunteers spent the weekend accumulating the whale’s pelvic bones for research on the California Academy of Sciences. The Mendocino Voice
Bought COVID? Your signs could rely in your vaccination standing. Researchers say COVID-19 signs are beginning to look increasingly more like flu and chilly signs, even allergy symptoms — particularly in the event you’ve been vaccinated. Sneezing, for instance, is now a quite common symptom of COVID-19, reported with growing frequency by individuals who’ve been vaccinated. Los Angeles Instances
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CRIME, COURTS AND POLICING
One man was killed and one other injured throughout a taking pictures early Tuesday on the Sky Hookah Lounge within the San Fernando Valley. Los Angeles Instances
Suspected thieves crashed a van right into a Chanel retailer in Beverly Grove. It was the second time in three months it had occurred. Nothing was stolen this time, police stated, and it’s nonetheless unclear whether or not this newest incident was linked to the one earlier this summer season, when about $60,000 price of merchandise was taken. Los Angeles Instances
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CALIFORNIA ALMANAC
Los Angeles: 72, sunny. San Diego: 69, patchy fog then largely sunny. San Francisco: 66, sunny . San Jose: 67, partly sunny. Fresno: 69, sunny. Sacramento: 71, partly sunny.
AND FINALLY
In the present day’s California reminiscence is fromSean Gallagher:
I used to be born and raised in Cambria, the place my pop was an abalone diver. After they cleaned out all of the abs in San Simeon, they moved to the distant San Nicolas Island, the place they might keep offshore and dive for a month and get resupplied by boat. We as soon as drove down from Cambria to satisfy him at L.A. Harbor in 1959, and I bear in mind how terrible the harbor water regarded ... like pea soup. Disgusting even for a 10-year-old child. Many years later, I used to be in L.A. for a authorized convention and drove down to have a look at it. The water had develop into a deep-sea blue and was stunning!! I may see the L.A. breakwater, and households had been there fishing! Such a tremendous transformation.
If in case you have a reminiscence or story in regards to the Golden State, share it with us. (Please hold your story to 100 phrases.)
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