Natomas Basin Conservancy presentation, Mar 23, 2021

March 23, 2021 — Join ECOS for a presentation on the Natomas Basin Conservancy: Sacramento’s original Habitat Conservation Plan, with John Roberts, Executive Director of the Natomas Basin Conservancy. He will be discussing the accomplishments and challenges in the face of proposed major development in the Natomas Basin.

The Natomas Basin Conservancy is the entity responsible for implementing the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan. John Roberts is their first and only director. Roberts is an economist by training whose career has focused on managing non profits in the Sacramento region. He previously managed the California Rice Growers Association and the Metro Chamber of Commerce.

“In essence, the Conservancy provides refuge and sanctuary for wildlife displaced by urban activity in the Natomas Basin. Annual biological monitoring by independent third parties demonstrates wildlife is thriving on Conservancy-owned mitigation land.”

-John Roberts, Executive Director

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Meeting ID: 818 6537 7865
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Announcing the 2021 Environmentalists of the Year!

The Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS) has been giving the Environmentalist of the Year Award to hard-working, local environmentalists since 1973. This award is a way to celebrate and recognize the past year’s regional champions and community sustainability successes. This year, because of the pandemic, we will be hosting the awards via a video you will be able to stream online, featuring our wonderful awardees and their inspiring environmental work. We are excited to honor our community and reflect on the work we still have in front of us in the year ahead. 


Environmentalist of the Year

Dr. Michelle Stevens

Dr. Michelle Stevens, a professor in the Environmental Studies Department at CSUS, has been leading the Bushy Lake Restoration Project along the lower American River Parkway, which protects, studies, and restores Sacramento’s riparian ecosystem. Michelle was able to “sell” this idea to the local community, a myriad of stakeholders, regional professionals and experts, and fellow colleagues. Michelle started with planting a few plants that are important to native peoples in the region, and nurtured it until it grew into a grant-funded restoration plan involving CSUS students and volunteers. Her work is informed and guided in uplifting the historic indigenous practices and culture of traditional ecological knowledge, and provides a hands-on opportunity for college students through CSUS and volunteers. In 2019, this project won an award at the annual CSU-wide Student Research Competition.


Environmentalist of the Year

Brandon Rose

Brandon Rose was ECOS President 2016-2017. During his tenure, ECOS put on a California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) workshop, which helped to attract and train volunteers. ECOS supported Sacramento’s plastic bag ban and ethics reform ordinances. Under his leadership, ECOS also helped the City obtain a $44 million “Green City” grant to construct electric vehicle charging stations and acquire electric vehicle fleets for car sharing programs in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Also during Brandon’s board presidency, ECOS worked with Wilton Rancheria to locate their proposed casino within the County of Sacramento’s Urban Service Area, rather than a rural area. In 2017, ECOS sued Caltrans over its approval of extra lanes on US 50 without considering the environmental impacts of increased traffic, which led to a settlement providing funding for transit. Later that year, Brandon was elected to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) board, which has since committed to carbon neutrality by 2030.


Early Career Environmentalist

Moiz Mir

Moiz Mir was the president of the Environmental Student Organization at CSUS, 2017–2019. As an intern at the Sacramento Mayor’s Office, he organized youth summits to include students’ voices in the Mayors’ Commission on Climate Change, and served on the Commission’s Community Health & Resiliency and Equity Technical Advisory Committees. He co-won a statewide “Best Practice in Student Sustainability Leadership Award” for organizing the CSUS Student Summit on Climate Change. As a student, Moiz worked with Michelle Stevens, supervising student plant experiments at Bushy Lake. With Sunrise Movement Sacramento, Moiz is engaging youth in climate justice action. Moiz recently became the first staff at 350 Sacramento, where he developed a new after-school student climate organizing program.


Climate Hero

Anne Stausboll

Anne Stausboll chaired the Mayors’ Commission on Climate Change, which presented its recommendations in June 2020. She obtained a unanimous vote on a very progressive set of recommendations, which took two years to develop. The goal is to achieve carbon neutrality in Sacramento and West Sacramento, by 2045. Anne made sure the Commission reviewed and considered everything through a lens of racial and income equity. She is inspiring us to be active with the City of Sacramento to ensure that these recommendations are incorporated into the Cities’ Climate Action Plans, and into appropriate ordinances and other city actions. As Anne says, “it is a crisis situation, and we need to act now. We want the city to start seriously adopting and acting on the recommendations. Now. It’s not something that can wait.”


We are seeking sponsors! Click the button below to learn more about sponsoring.

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Learn more about the Environmentalist of the Year Awards, hosted by ECOS, by clicking the button below.

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Sacramento Climate Action Plan: draft ready for public review!

March 12, 2021

Sacramento County’s draft Communitywide Climate Action Plan (CAP), which addresses greenhouse gas reductions and climate change adaptation, is now available for public review.

An online workshop on the draft CAP will take place via Zoom at the Sacramento County Environmental Commission (SEC) meeting on Monday, March 15, at 6 p.m. The workshop will be an opportunity for the public and the SEC to provide feedback on the draft CAP.

Learn more


Photo by Yulia from Pexels

UC Berkeley Urban Displacement Project Presentation to ECOS – Monday, March 8

On Monday, March 8 at 6:00 pm the ECOS Land Use Committee will host two guest speakers from the Urban Displacement Project UC Berkeley at its meeting. The Urban Displacement Project aims to understand the nature of gentrification and displacement in American cities. It focuses on creating tools to help communities identify the pressures surrounding them and take more effective action. Tim and Julia will discuss the ongoing research their team is doing in several major US cities, and how it can help guide public policy in Sacramento. We hope you will join us! 


Tim Thomas PhD, Research Director, Urban Displacement Project

Tim Thomas is a postdoctoral scholar and research director at the Urban Displacement Project specializing in urban sociology, demography, and data science. His research focuses on how neighborhood change, housing, and displacement affects household socioeconomic stratification by race and gender in the United States. Tim is also the Principal Investigator for the Evictions Study, a multi-metropolitan analysis on the neighborhood drivers of eviction using census data and text mining court records. . . In 2019, his team’s work on evictions provided empirical evidence that helped pass several tenant protection laws in Washington State.

He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Washington and was a Moore/Sloan Data Science Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Washington’s eScience Institute.


Julia Greenberg, Research Manager, Urban Displacement Project

Julia is a research manager at the Urban Displacement Project. She is interested in using geospatial and data analysis to understand the impacts of land use, housing policy, and climate change on housing vulnerability and displacement. Julia is committed to collaborating with community-based organizations, governments, and other stakeholders to promote strategies that increase equitable access to affordable housing.

Julia graduated from George Washington University with her Master’s in Public Policy and has a bachelor’s degree in Urban and Regional Studies from Cornell University.


To join the meeting

Link to join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/543524123

To phone in: 1 669 900 6833 – Meeting ID: 543 524 123

Click here to learn more about the Land Use Committee.


Pushed Out: Displacement Today and Lasting Impacts

Will major scandal at Metropolitan Water District save Delta communities from the tunnel?

By Scott Thomas Anderson | March 2, 2021 | Sacramento News and Review

Metropolitan Water District, the driving financial and political force behind the proposed Delta tunnel, has suddenly found itself on the verge of losing one of its most important customers – the City of Los Angeles. The possibility of a break between California’s largest city and its largest water contractor comes after a host of women and members of the LGBTQ community said they were victims of sexual harassment, intimidation and retaliation while working for the latter.

The revelation has drawn MWD into a new arena of fire, one that’s separate from its ongoing standoff with conservationists, indigenous tribes, regional farmers, tax watchdogs and Northern California’s fishing industry about the future of the Delta.

“…There’s a real sense of imperialism with Met when it comes to how they treat the Delta communities, and now it seems like that’s something that might carry through to other aspects of its organization,” said Osha Meserve, an attorney who represents the Delta’s reclamation districts. “This could be really destabilizing for the tunnel project. There’s significant potential for LA to be a leader in coming up with some minimum standards for what kind of agency they want to get water from. If Met doesn’t share their values, whether it’s the treatment of women or destroying the environment, then they should step away.”

Click here to read the article in full.