Sacramento County Climate Action Plan

February 17, 2022

Sacramento County staff are hard at work on the County’s Climate Action Plan (CAP), which aims to significantly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and prepare the County for climate-related impacts for decades to come.

​The revised final draft of the CAP, and associated environmental document, are available for review and will be heard at a Board of Supervisors workshop in March 2021. You may review the revised final draft of the CAP, and associated environmental document, by viewing the links below. The public comment period is open from Thursday, February 17 to Wednesday, March 23, 2022.​

Click here to learn more: https://planning.saccounty.net/PlansandProjectsIn-Progress/Pages/CAP.aspx

Coyote Creek Agrivoltaic Ranch Project

On February 17, 2022, the Environmental Council of Sacramento, Habitat 2020, the Sacramento Group of the Sierra Club, and Sacramento Audubon offered the comments with respect to the preparation of the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for the Coyote Creek Agrivoltaic Ranch Project.

Below is an excerpt.

Our concern is that Blue Oak Woodland is an imperiled habitat in California, and it was recently highlighted as such in the draft “Pathways to 30 x 30” document. Such an important and imperiled habitat would not have necessarily been a top pick for constructing such a facility if the habitat values involved had been considered in the context of other potential locations in our region.  We acknowledge that there are limited options for the placement of such a facility, but we are not aware of a comprehensive analysis and compendium of suitable locations for solar farms prepared by SMUD for the region, so there is no resource to compare and contrast the Coyote Creek project. 

Click here to read the letter in full.


On February 21, 2022, the Environmental Council of Sacramento, Habitat 2020, the Sacramento Group of the Sierra Club, and Sacramento Audubon sent an addendum to our previously sent Coyote Creek Agrivoltaic Solar Project NOP comment letter.

Click here to read the addendum letter.

ECOS letter on Water Agencies’ Participation in Sacramento Area Turf Replacement Study

On February 14, 2022, the Environmental Council of Sacramento submitted a letter to Sacramento Area Water Agencies regarding their participation in a Sacramento Area Turf Replacement Study. Below is the content of the letter.

To: Sacramento Area RWA Water Agencies

The Environmental Council of Sacramento’s Water Committee has begun a project to calculate the potential water savings from conversion of ornamental grasses (turf) to drought-tolerant landscaping in the American River water purveyor area (i.e. Regional Water Authority member agencies). We are interested in your input and participation in this study. This letter describes the study plan. For more information or to participate, please contact Katrina Harrison, PE, ECOS Water Committee member and Project Manager, at kandchf[at]gmail[dot]com or (408) 644-9108.

The Water Committee has met with representatives of the Department of Water Resources (DWR) to share methodologies and inquire about data sources. DWR staff has been helpful but has suggested relying on publicly available datasets. Therefore, Water Committee plans to calculate the area of current ornamental grasses using 2019 or 2020 publicly available fine scale (~1 foot pixel size wherever possible) aerial and infrared imagery. Aerial images include National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP), Bing imagery, Planet, and NearMap.

This imagery dataset will be analyzed using the machine learning, or neural net, algorithms of the software program eCognition to determine turf grass area. Land classifications will be digitized in several sample areas, and the computer model will be trained using those areas including calculating the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) as well as a Tree Grass Difference Index. The aerial imagery processing will be validated manually to develop a calculation of the accuracy and estimated error bounds of the analysis.

Following calculation of the area of turf grass, ECOS Water Committee members plan to use California Native Plant Society information on the evapotranspiration and density of different plant palettes – lawn versus drought-tolerant landscaping – to determine the difference in water use. This difference will be multiplied by the area to determine potential water savings.

We appreciate any insight or methodology suggestions you may have. We would like to share our draft results with study participants and will make the final product available to the Water Forum for its consideration in the ongoing Water Forum 2 discussions. If you have an interest in participating, please contact Katrina Harrison at kandchf[at]gmail[dot]com or Ted Rauh at tnrauh[at]att[dot]net. We would appreciate hearing from you before the end of February so that your input can be included in the study.

Click here to view a PDF of the letter.

Spring Native Plant Sale 2022

When: Online Sale from Wednesday, March 9th noon; to Sunday March 13th 5 p.m.

Pickup on a Sunday: either March 20th from 10:00-2:30 or March 27th from 10:00-2:30
Where: Elderberry Farms Native Plant Nursery
2140 Chase Drive, Rancho Cordova, CA 95670 (On the American River Parkway at Soil Born Farms)

Contact: Gina Radieve, gina[dot]radieve[at]gmail[dot]com or Chris Lewis, cnpschris[at]gmail[dot]com

More information: SacValleyCNPS.org/PS

Native Plants are not only beautiful and climate adaptable but they also feed and shelter birds, bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Come find a wide selection of native perennials, shrubs, and trees, grasses, vines and native annuals! We’ll have plants from Cornflower Farms, and Elderberry Farms Native Plant Nursery.

Use this link – SacValleyCNPS.org/shop – to browse the entire list of plants we grow and sell. Not all plants will be available at every sale. The site will show which plants will be for sale two weeks before the upcoming sale starts.

The native plant sale is one of our best opportunities to connect our community members with their community of native plants. We have a wide variety of positions available. Currently we are looking for:

  • Plant Puller – help us gather the orders and bring them to the pickup area
  • Plant Loader – help us get the plants from the pickup tables into customers’ cars
  • Customer Service Specialists – greet all customers and call in their orders

If you are interested in any of these opportunities, please reach out to Lorena at Volunteer[at]sacvalleycnps[dot]org.

Hosted by the California Native Plant Society Sacramento Chapter, a member organization of ECOS.