KRCB News Feed

: Written by: Marc Albert; Published: 19 July 2021

Pacific Gas and Electric has abruptly changed course and will remove logs burnt and cut down in 2019 and 2020 in Sonoma county.

The giant Northern California utility has had an on-again, off-again policy concerning wildfire-damaged trees cut down by itself or its contractors. After the 2017 and '18 fires it hauled the cut logs away. After the 2019 and 2020 fires they were were cut down but left. Following months of pressure, PGE is once again hauling them away.

Johannes Hoevertsz is director of transportation and public works for the County of Sonoma. He told KRCB he's been fielding questions and complaints from concerned and frustrated landowners...and describes the change as a 'very good surprise.'

"I don't know how or why that changed." But, Hoevertsz said, it makes a lot of sense. "If you drop the tree, remove it and don't leave it for someone else to be responsible for it."

That's been an issue. Some dead or dying trees qualify for removal by FEMA or CalOES. Others, by PG&E. Still others, by agencies such as Hoevertsz's. One factor helping determine financial responsibility is where the tree might fall. Thousands of felled trees wound up in limbo.

Once a dead tree was chopped down by PG&E or its contractors, they couldn't fall. If they couldn't fall, they no longer threaten surrounding infrastructure, and wound up the responsibility of landowners. No federal aid, no state aid and no help from PG&E.

But the felled trees still present dangers, Hoevertsz said. "If we left that wood on the ground, first of all it would be a hazard to motorists, and it would be a fire risk the next time we have a fire. That's just timber there to burn next to the road, next to residences."

For property owners with burnt and dead trees needing removal, participation requires a signature allowing PG&E on to private property and absolving them of liability. A link to the required form is on the SoCo emergency site.

: Written by: Marc Albert; Published: 19 July 2021

A new phase of a wetlands restoration project is set to get underway at Sears Point in August. The 1,000 acre project, fallowed grazing land once eyed for a casino, is instead creating habitat for shorebirds, a refuge for salmon smolts and other fish, along with protecting surrounding low-lying areas from flooding.

The levee was breached in 2015.

Thursday evening, Peter Baye, a Coastal Ecologist and Botanist consulting for the Sonoma Land Trust, which is behind the project, said changing bay conditions and lessons from previous restoration work are helping shape the project.

Baye said over the last quarter century, a slow shift occurred, with more sediment washing out the Golden Gate than being deposited by river systems feeding it. "There's been a shoreline shift from widespread net seaward growth or progradation, fat mudflats, growing marshes to retreating marshes." Now sediment must be brought in. Clusters of pioneering grasses will be strategically added, enabling other plants to colonize the area. The second phase will add partly buried logs, reducing the force of waves, and giving plants a better shot at getting established. Earlier efforts generally used rock as a wave break, effective at slowing wave energy, but presenting an inhospitable surface for plants.

In addition to wildlife habitat, healthy marshes can absorb small waves and reduce flooding impacts nearby. That will become increasingly important as sea levels rise further. The project however is limited, Baye said.

"So much of our tidal lands restoration planning and engineering is still built along the 19th century configuration of levees and the 19th century configuration of roads and railroads, and it obviously makes no ecologic, geomorphic or engineering sense, it's just what we've inherited."

Baye said the restoration won't conflict with highway 37 or future plans for the roadway. Baye said if Caltrans eventually puts the highway and adjacent rail line on a causeway, levee removal could greatly expand both habitat and limit vulnerability to flooding.

: Written by: Tessa Paoli; Published: 17 July 2021

COVID numbers have doubled in Sonoma County this month and this week there has been a reported outbreak at Santa Rosa's Samuel Jones Hall Homeless Shelter, where over half the residents tested positive and almost half of those were fully vaccinated. KRCB's Tessa Paoli talks with UC Berkeley infectious disease and vaccine expert Dr. John Swartzberg to understand how breakthrough infections happen: