Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today went to a scruffy field in the San Fernando Valley to sign two pieces of water legislation passed earlier this week.

The setting was the Tujunga well field of the San Fernando Valley aquifer, part of Los Angeles' water supply.

One of the bills establishes a statewide program to measure groundwater elevations. The other adds 25 state enforcement officers to track down illegal water diversions.

Unlike other Western states, California has not monitored or regulated groundwater pumping, which has caused major subsidence in some regions.

In its early forms, the enforcement bill was much stronger. It called for increased penalties for illegal water diversions and gave the state water board more clout to stop them. But those provisions proved politically explosive and were dropped.

Schwarzenegger is expected to sign the remaining parts of the water package in coming days, including a $11.1-billion bond that will go before voters a year from now.

Surrounded by state lawmakers and local officials, the governor informally launched the bond campaign. "We want to invest in the future of California, and this is the best investment we can make. It's very important to vote yes," he said.

-- Bettina Boxall

Photo: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signs water bills as Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, left, and other legislators look on. Credit: Peter Grigsby / Office of the Governor   

 

U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake’s ruling follows a recent U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals order that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reconsider its earlier decision to deny the lizard protection under the Endangered Species Act. That decision rejected a Bush administration policy that environmentalists complained favored development at the expense of the lizard and many plants and animals across the nation.

In the meantime, the lizard’s population has continued to decline in Arizona, California and Baja California largely because its habitats of gravel pans and dunes have been taken over by farming, housing, off-road vehicles, geothermal leases, gravel pits, golf courses, military exercises and border fences between the United States and Mexico.

The Department of the Interior is expected to make a final decision about the status of the flat-tailed horned lizard by November 2010.

“The lizard is certainly as deserving of federal protection today as it was 16 years ago,” said attorney Bill Snape, who represented the Center for Biological Diversity in the matter. “Hopefully this is the final chapter in the lizard’s long and tortured legal history.”

Listing the lizard as threatened could potentially affect the ongoing rush to build huge solar energy facilities across the desert flatlands of Southern California, said Allan Muth, a plaintiff in the lawsuit and director of the Boyd Deep Canyon Desert Research Center, south of Palm Desert.

Anticipating a protection declaration, Stirling Energy Systems plans to mitigate the environmental impacts of its proposed Solar II facility on 6,500 acres of flat-tailed horned lizard habitat near the Imperial County city of El Centro by purchasing prime lizard habitat elsewhere and then donating it for conservation. [Updated at 7:51 p.m.: The name of that proposed facility was recently renamed Tessera Solar's Imperial Valley Solar Two by Stirling to reflect the name of its sister company.]

The group, Progressive Christians Uniting, is touting the proposal to congregants of dozens of San Gabriel Valley churches near the 650,000-acre range that constitutes about 70% of Los Angeles County's open space.

"We are helping to bring the moral compassion of people of faith to bear on an urgent public issue," said Rev. Peter Laarman, executive director of the Los Angeles-based group. "This is an ambitious effort. It involves public health, an important natural resource and millions of people who live near it. We want to be on board."

The designation would be made by the National Park Service, which is conducting an ongoing "special resource study" of the San Gabriels and the San Gabriel Watershed. The study includes three draft alternatives for new collaborative approaches to managing the range currently run by the U.S. Forest Service for purposes other than recreation.

A final recommendation could come in 2011. In the meantime, a coalition led by conservation groups and community organizations plans to present its "San Gabriel Mountains Forever" campaign to as many churches as possible.

"Religion and stewardship connect gracefully," said Sierra Club spokesman John Monsen.

Pastor Arthur Cribbs of San Marino Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, said his congregation recently forwarded a letter of support for the proposal to U.S. Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas), whose district includes a large portion of the San Gabriels.

"We are blessed to have such a natural resource," Cribbs said. "It is a place where we can step out of our everyday business in the metropolis of greater Los Angeles and find quietude and stillness, strength and magic."

-- Louis Sahagun

Washing machines account for 20% of an average household’s water use in California, but that may change now that the California Energy Commission has prevailed in a years-long lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy, which had prevented the commission from adopting a more water- and energy-efficient standard for clothes washers.

Currently, there is no standard for how much water a washing machine uses. It’s estimated that the average washing machine uses 39.2 gallons of water per wash, or 15,366 gallons a year for a normal household.

If California’s proposed standard goes into effect, an average machine would use just 6 gallons of water per cubic foot of washing machine capacity; the average washing machine would use just 21.1 gallons per wash, or 8,271 gallons per year.

On Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ordered the U.S. energy department to reconsider California’s request to set its own washing machine standard. While the U.S. energy department has not agreed to the state’s request, it could be granted next year, with the new standard going in to effect some time in 2013.

Jonathan Blees, assistant chief counsel for the California Energy Commission, said the standard does not require consumers to upgrade their machines; it merely requires manufacturers to apply the standard to all California washing machines that are made after the standard goes in to effect.

Blees said many washing-machine models, most of them front-loading, currently meet the 6-gallon standard.

Blees estimates that within the first year of the new standard, the state would save 4.76 billion gallons of water. Within 12 to 15 years, a time frame during which most Californians will have switched their existing machines to the more efficient standard, the state could save as much as 66.7 billion gallons of water – enough water to supply a city the size of San Diego every year. The new standard would also save the state 500 gigawatt hours of electricity and 50 million therms of natural gas -- energy that is used to pump water in to the home for washing machines and treat the water after it's been used.

-- Susan Carpenter

Photo: Whirlpool

Wolf hunting in southern Montana is closing just after sunset today, only a day after the general season opened Sunday, after the 12-wolf quota for the region was quickly exceeded by one.

The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks had suspended an early back-county hunt in a small, remote part of the region north of Yellowstone National Park after nine wolves were shot -- before  the general wolf hunting season, Montana's first in modern times, even opened on Sunday. That hunt raised controversy because four wolves from Yellowstone's Cottonwood pack who had ventured outside the park, including the pack's alpha male and female, were killed.

The brief opening saw an additional four wolves in the southern Montana region quickly shot, prompting Montana officials to close down all of Wolf Management Unit 3. Hunting remains open through Nov. 29 in northern and western Montana, where an additional 10 wolves out of the state's overall quota of 75 have been shot so far. Wildlife officials have held out the option of extending the hunt through Dec. 31 if the quota isn't met in November.

State officials said two of the four wolves shot in WMU-3 on Sunday were in Gallatin County, again not far from the border of Yellowstone National Park. The other two were shot in Sweetgrass County.

Conservationists have sued to stop the removal of Northern Rockies wolves from the Endangered Species list, arguing that wolf numbers could drop precipitously, especially since there are no assurances that wolves in discrete regions of Yellowstone, northwestern Montana and Idaho will be able to connect and share genes.

But Montana wildlife management officials have calculated that wolf numbers are likely to increase, despite the hunt. While there are about 500 wolves in Montana now, even if 75 are hunted this year, there are expected to be 590 wolves in established packs across the state, and 655 wolves overall (counting wolves that go out on their own) next year.

-- Kim Murphy

Map: Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks

Yellowstone's wolves are familiar to viewers of National Geographic and BBC documentaries, so there was more than a little mourning for the four Cottonwood wolves who died.

Yet in the gorgeous valleys around Yellowstone, there were few tears shed. Many residents there believe the 60% drop in the northern Yellowstone elk herd can be attributed to the reintroduced predators.

Read the full story here.

-- Kim Murphy

Photo: Wolf 527, killed on Buffalo Plateau on Oct. 3. Credit: Dan Stahler / National Parks Service

Members of 30 Santa Barbara and Los Angeles-area environmental groups and their supporters will gather at 3 p.m. on the Manhattan Beach Pier for the "Amazing Waving Human Tide Line" to highlight the the sea rise expected from climate change. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted last month to endorse the International Day of Climate Action. (Click here to download a description of the South Bay 350 Climate Action Group.)

In Orange County, the Irvine Ranch Outdoor Education Center will feature an International Day of Climate Action Festival from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., highlighted by an aerial photo of attendees gathered to form the number 350 on a field. Other activities will include a nature hike, a 5K walk, tree planting and talks by Orange County environmental and religious leaders. The United Methodist Church in Costa Mesa will host a lecture on "creation care," a movement to protect the Earth from climate-related threats.

At 9:45 a.m. a group will meet at 6284 Mulholland Highway in Los Angeles to pose with a giant "350"  banner beneath the Hollywood sign. 

In Northern California, activists will rally at the Ferry Building in San Francisco at 3:50 p.m. for an aerial photo and to welcome cyclists who rode 350 km from Arcata, as well as surfers with "350"-decorated boards. At Mt. Diablo, 350 people will encircle the summit while a helicopter takes a photo. And vintners will gather in Sonoma Plaza to learn about the effects of climate change on wine growing and, according to organizers, "raise their glasses to a clean energy future." Outdoor enthusiasts will take a "350" photo at  Lake Tahoe.

The group 350.org advocates reducing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million from the current 390 parts. Before the Industrial Revolution, the atmosphere contained about 280 parts per million, but the concentration is rapidly heading toward more than 500 parts as a result of the burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of rain forests.

The group, which seeks to spur grass-roots consciousness of climate-change dangers, has its work cut out for it. Polls show that Americans are growing less, not more, concerned about global warming -- despite warnings from scientists that warmer temperatures, drought, melting glaciers, water shortages, species extinctions and sea rise will result from the buildup of carbon dioxide.

-- Margot Roosevelt

Photo: Activists gathered near the Golden Gate Bridge last year. Credit: 350.org

Psychologists call it the norm to conform. A well-known behavioral phenomenon that prompts people to mimic the actions of their peers, this subtle psychological trick is now used by utilities to cut their consumers’ electricity use.

Providing customers with information on how their energy use compares with their neighbors, along with specific energy-saving tips, has delivered dramatic results for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, which has used so-called comparative home energy information since April 2008. Of the 35,000 homes that receive Home Energy Reports from the utility, 75% are taking action to cut their energy use, the result being an annual average savings of $40 per household and $20 to $30 per customer for the utility.

"Most people say they try to save energy in their homes, yet next to none of us have any idea whether we’re doing a good job. The utility bill we get in the mail is inscrutable," said Alex Laskey, president and co-founder of OPOWER, an energy efficiency software firm in Arlington, Va., that works with utilities to engage their consumers and encourage conservation. "We thought there might be some opportunity to provide people with a better context for understanding their consumption and, in doing so, motivate people to take action."

The results OPOWER saw with Sacramento and other utilities formed the basis of a new state bill. Signed in to law by Gov. Schwarzenegger this month, SB 488 encourages California utilities to create pilot programs that use energy information-sharing by July 2010. It requires the California Public Utilities Commission and California Energy Commission to study the effectiveness of those pilot programs.

"These programs have been shown to be extraordinarily cheap and remarkably effective ways to increase conservation... If such programs were instituted statewide, [they] could have the effect of removing 300,000 homes from the electricity grid, and 4.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air annually," said the bill’s author, state Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills).

About 20% of greenhouse gas emissions come from the electricity used inside homes. If a nationwide home energy reporting system were implemented, it would be the equivalent of taking 6 million cars off the road, according to OPOWER’s Laskey.

At present, four California utilities are providing comparative home energy information to their consumers. In addition to Sacramento, which will be expanding its program in early 2010, San Diego Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison and Southern California Gas have pilot programs up and running. In November, Glendale Water and Power will start one with 25,000 of its 83,000 metered households; early next year, Pasadena Water and Power will also add its name to the roster of utilities that have partnered with OPOWER, bringing the total to 21 nationwide.

Currently, 1 million homes across the country are receiving the firm’s Home Energy Reports. The recipients are randomly selected by their utilities and targeted with personalized mailings that are separate from their regular bills in envelopes that are mailed from the utility. Comparisons are based on homes’ square footage and age as well as heating type. Customers who want to receive more accurate comparisons and targeted tips can provide additional information about themselves, their lifestyles and their homes on the OPOWER web site.

OPOWER’s program draws heavily on behavioral science research pioneered by Robert Cialdini, who is an investor in the company. Specifically, the program draws on two psychological concepts: "the norm to conform to what most other people do and the desire for social approval," said Yale Law professor Ian Ayres, who researched the impact of two OPOWER utilities and outlined the results in a study on peer comparison feedback’s ability to reduce residential energy use.

It’s the norm to conform that drives high energy users to reduce their use, Ayres said, and the desire for social approval, in the form of a simple smiley face, that keeps low energy users from increasing their power consumption.

Ayres noted that comparative information yielded the greatest conservation gains in low-value houses and households that used the most energy. It also found that low energy users are inspired to conserve even more when presented with the Home Energy Reports.

"If I said that relative to people in your neighborhood in similarly sized houses, you’re using 50% more water, you’d think, ‘I probably have a leak in my house’ or ‘I’m doing something wrong.’ It conveys powerful information about what’s possible," Ayres said. "It’s really the psychology and the informational economics that’s driving this behavior."

A water conservation component will be added to OPOWER’s Home Energy Reports some time in 2010.

-- Susan Carpenter

Photo: OPOWER

In the wake of President Obama's May 19 accord with California regulators, U.S. automakers, the United Autoworkers and environmental groups, the federal agencies will listen to public comments in Detroit today, in New York on Friday and in Los Angeles on Tuesday. 

Vehicles covered by the proposed rules account for 40% of U.S. fuel consumption and about 20% of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions, a colorless, odorless gas that is trapping heat in the atmosphere and disrupting the climate. The new standards would increase fuel efficiency by 5%, reducing U.S. oil consumption by 1.8 billion barrels over the lifetime of the vehicles sold from 2012 to 2016. They would would slash carbon dioxide emissions from passenger vehicles by 21% by 2030.

It was California's first-in-the-nation 2002 law requiring automakers to slash greenhouse gases that got the ball rolling. After lawsuits from automakers and years of push-back from the Bush administration, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007 ruled that EPA had the right to regulate carbon emissions from vehicles. Lower courts upheld California's right to set its own greenhouse gas standards for cars, which had been adopted by more than a dozen other states."California's leadership paved the way for the national standards," said David Doniger, climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

According to the EPA,  the fuel economy rules now under consideration can be met with existing technology. 

But even with the Obama administration's agreement, the state is forging ahead with additional rules to meet the state's 2006 landmark global warming law.  The so-called "Cool Car" regulations passed in June would require automakers to reformulate paints and glaze windows to cut solar energy entering a vehicle by 45% by 2014 and 60% by 2016.  The California Air Resources Board says the rule will eliminate 700,000 metric tons of CO2 by 2020.

Last week, the Assn. of Automobile Manufacturers, representing Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai and other foreign manufacturers, released a letter objecting to the Cool Car rules, saying that they are not "consistent" with the proposed federal fuel economy standards.

-- Margot Roosevelt

Photo: Richard Hartog / Los Angeles Times

They made ceviche at the California Science Center this morning to support some new initiatives from the aquarium and Science Center to preserve the oceans.

The aquarium, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, released a report today on the state of the oceans. Prospects for the oceans are improving with a growing consensus to manage wild and farm fishing, the report says. But it also cites the human demand for seafood as the primary factor in the oceans' decline.

The aquarium released a "Super Green" list, developed with the Harvard School of Public Health and the Environmental Defense Fund, of seafood that is healthy for people and the planet.

Sustainable seafood is catching on with the public and with professionals, according to Milliken, aquarium officials and others. But it's not always easy.

"You have to have so many things in mind to be a conscientious consumer," Milliken says. She recently turned down some Caribbean shrimp because, while the seller was moving toward sustainable practices, it was not there yet.

"I love a lot of products that are not sustainable, but I want my kids and grandkids to be able to taste them, too. I've had my share," Milliken says. "A little bit of everything won't hurt you. But I think we've gotten very kind of gluttonous."

The restaurants she and Feniger own now offer "good for the planet" dishes called "80/20," meaning that no more than 20% of the ingredients come from animals.They are among two dozen chefs who are part of the aquarium's campaign to get restaurants to serve sustainable seafood.

Companies like Santa Monica Seafood, the largest, are also collaborating with the aquarium. Logan Kock, purchasing director for Santa Monica Seafood, says the company will look at what it sells in terms of its species, country of origin and fishing methods to come up with a baseline. It will then educate its sales force and its customers with the goal of making "a substantial difference over the next five years."

Many consumers are baffled, however. "People ask me, 'Should I be eating seafood or chicken?'" says Sheila Brown, outreach manager for Seafood Watch, the aquarium's program to guide consumer choices. "People should be eating seafood and supporting the guys who are doing it right."

-- Mary MacVean

Photo: Wild Alaska Salmon is a sustainable fishery. Fish must be labeled according to what country it comes from and whether it is wild-caught or farmed. Credit: Richard Hartog/Los Angeles Times

To help save 83 imperiled coral species in U.S. waters, the Center for Biological Diversity has petitioned the National Marine Fisheries Service to protect them under the federal Endangered Species Act.

"Coral reefs are the world's most endangered ecosystems and provide an early warning of impacts to come from our thirst for fossil fuels," Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director for the organization, said in a statement announcing the petition. "Within a few decades, global warming and ocean acidification threaten to completely unravel magnificent coral reefs that took millions of years to build."

Up to one-fifth of the world's coral reefs already have been lost and the threatened species in U.S. waters could be gone by midcentury if steps are not taken, the petition said. Warmer waters have led to fatal bleaching of coral reefs, while ocean acidification, which occurs from the sea's absorption of carbon dioxide, prevents reefs from developing protective skeletons.

Elkhorn and staghorn corals in Florida became the first coral species to be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2006. Expanding the ESA listings could mean further controls on fishing, dumping, dredging and offshore oil development that could threaten reefs.

-- Kim Murphy

Photo: A squat lobster tiptoes through a coral reef off the U.S. Atlantic Coast. Credit: rthowardphotography.com

The 15-count indictment, handed down Monday, alleges that Jeffrey M. Bodnar and Veronica Anderson-Bodnar caught the protected cats in Park County in northern Colorado between late 2006 and March 2008. They allegedly sold the pelts to a fur dealer in Montana.

The Bodnars submitted false documents to Colorado game officials contending the animals had been legally caught. They are charged with, among other things, violating the federal law that forbids the interstate sale of protected animals, which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison. Bodnar is also charged with illegal possession of a firearm by a felon.

-- Nicholas Riccardi

The state can produce up to 2,787 megawatts, or 2.8 gigawatts, behind Texas, with 8.8 gigawatts, and Iowa with 3 gigawatts. But California outpaces Minnesota, with 1.8 gigawatts, and Oregon, with 1.7 gigawatts.

Only 10 states can produce more than a gigawatt of wind energy, according to the trade association.

Across the country, 1.6 gigawatts of wind-power generators were newly installed in the third quarter, more than the previous quarter or the third quarter of 2008. This year, more than 5.8 gigawatts have been added.

States such as Arizona, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Wyoming and New Mexico had the fastest growth rates in the third quarter.

Overall, the country can currently produce more than 31 gigawatts of wind energy, or enough to power nearly 9 million homes and avoid 57 million tons of annual carbon emissions, according to the wind association.

But manufacturing of wind turbines is still slower than the 2008 levels, despite 1.7 gigawatts of new construction starting during the quarter and $6.5 billion in new investment.

The fourth quarter will also be weaker than the equivalent period in 2008, according to the association. With a credit crisis that dragged down turbine orders, ongoing construction is nearly 38% lower.

-- Tiffany Hsu

A warming planet is expected to bring a host of ills, including rising seas, spreading deserts and disease infestations. Yet it's not all bad news, apparently. Researchers at Oregon State University looked at a variety of climate models and found that higher-elevation forests in the Pacific Northwest can be expected to vigorously expand their growth with warmer temperatures -- up to 500% a year, under some scenarios.

That means more carbon sequestration. But there's a downside too: lower-level forests, where the majority of timber is harvested, could see declines as warmer temperatures dry up moisture. Their report was published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management.  Read more here.

--Kim Murphy

Photo: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

The march of offshore oil development into the Arctic has been given a boost by the federal Minerals Management Service, which approved Shell Offshore Inc.'s plan to drill exploratory wells in the Beaufort Sea off the coast of Alaska.

Conservationists have been fighting in the courts to delay further offshore oil development until  studies of the Arctic's fragile and interconnected ecosystem can be done. But the minerals agency said it will work with the company to make sure the development can be conducted "in a safe and environmentally responsible manner."

The company has agreed to take a mid-season break in its drilling program, scheduled to begin in July 2010, to accommodate the fall hunting season on bowhead whales undertaken by Native Alaskan villagers, who had feared that noisy drilling activities could injure or scare off the whales.

"We sincerely believe this exploration plan reflects concerns we have heard in the North Slope communities which have resulted in the programs being adjusted accordingly," Pete Slaiby, Shell Alaska's vice president, said in a statement.

The Beaufort Sea contains an estimated 8.22 billion barrels of oil and 27.65 million cubic feet of natural gas. Oil operations on the North Slope at Prudhoe Bay have already begun to move into the near-coastal waters, but Shell's drilling plan would take place in two leases located 16 and 23 miles offshore.

"We just don't know enough to be going forward with industrial activities in the Arctic," said Michael Levine of Oceana, which has urged a time-out in offshore drilling until effects on endangered whales and polar bears and other Arctic species can be assessed, along with the potentially devastating effects of climate change on the region.

"The reality of offshore oil drilling is that accidents will happen. And when oil spills in Arctic ice, there is no cleaning it up," Chuck Clusen, director of Alaska projects at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. "A blow-out like the one that recently despoiled waters off the coast of Australia would leave oil in the waters off the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for decades, illing whales, seals, fish and birds and turning irreplaceable spawning and feeding grounds into an ecological wasteland."

In its official comments on the Minerals Management Service's 2010-15 leasing plan for the entire outer continental shelf, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in September also urged the agency to "more directly address the challenges of Arctic and subarctic spill response...before proposing further oil and gas development in Alaska."

The agency said "no leasing should occur in the Arctic Sea under this proposed plan until additional information is gathered and additional research is conducted and evaluated regarding oil spill risk...and possible human dimension impacts on Alaska Native cultures from oil and gas exploration activities and potential oil spills." Download NOAA comments

The two Shell leases were sold under a previous five-year leasing program for the 2002-07 period.

Alaskan officials have long sought to expand both onshore and offshore oil development in the Arctic, and U.S. Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) applauded the agency's approval, saying it will allow the state to help meet the nation's shortfall in domestic energy production.

"This decision shows...the Obama Administration recognize[s] the importance of Alaska’s abundant offshore oil and gas resources, and it brings us one step closer to environmentally-responsible development offshore of Alaska," Begich said. "They are getting the balance right: including safeguards for important subsistence resources and allowing drilling to go forward."

--Kim Murphy

Photo: British Petroleum's Northstar Island was one of the first near-shore drilling operations in the Beaufort Sea. Credit: copyright BP plc

“Most of the solar and wind projects currently under review are in the wrong places,” said Greg Suba, conservation program director for the California Native Plant Society. He and other experts spoke at Cal State Fullerton for the Southern California Botanists’ 35th annual symposium.

“We believe that full surveys of all plants — not just of targeted species — should be required for all these project sites,” Suba said. “Plant species represent the underlying fabric of an ecosystem.”

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management and California Energy Commission are reviewing 130 applications to build wind and solar projects on more than a million acres of public land. Companies hope to begin construction on about a dozen of those projects by late next year.

The development of solar power facilities in the desert has been a top priority of the Obama administration as it seeks to ease the nation’s dependency on fossil fuels and address climate change.

But Suba and James Andre, director of the Sweeney Granite Mountains Desert Research Center in the east Mojave community of Kelso, urged that the projects currently under review by state and federal regulatory agencies be built on more than 200,000 acres of land already identified as ecologically disturbed.

“It’s the end of much of the California desert,” said Andre. “Millions of acres could eventually be bulldozed and fenced off. It’s your land, but you won’t be able to go there.”

Read more here

--Louis Sahagun reporting from Fullerton