Homegrown Habitat Comments for Sacramento’s General Plan/Climate Change strategy

On November 11, 2019 the Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS) and Habitat 2020 submitted a letter to the City of Sacramento to bring the Homegrown Habitat Program to their attention and to urge them to incorporate some of its native plant guidelines into the City’s General Plan and Climate Change strategy updates.

Below is our letter in full.

November 11, 2019
Scott Johnson, Senior Planner
Community Development Department
300 Richards Boulevard, Third floor
Sacramento, CA 95811
Email: srjohnson[at]cityofsacramento[dot]org
Subject: ECOS/Habitat 2020 Homegrown Habitat program comments for inclusion in the City of Sacramento’s General Plan and Climate Change strategy updates
Dear Mr. Johnson,
The Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization working to achieve regional and community sustainability and a healthy environment for existing and future residents. ECOS member organizations include: 350 Sacramento, Breathe California Sacramento Region, Friends of Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, International Dark-Sky Association, Physicians for Social Responsibility Sacramento Chapter, Sacramento Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Sacramento Electric Vehicle Association, Environmental Democrats of Sacramento County, Sacramento Housing Alliance, Sacramento Natural Foods Coop, Sacramento Audubon Society, Sacramento Valley Chapter of the California Native Plant Society, Sacramento Vegetarian Society, Save Our Sandhill Cranes, Save the American River Association, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1000 and the Sierra Club Sacramento Group.
Members of Habitat 2020, a committee of ECOS, include: Friends of Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, Friends of Swainson’s Hawk, International Dark-Sky Association Sacramento Chapter, Sacramento Area Creeks Council, Sacramento Audubon Society, Sacramento Valley Chapter California Native Plant Society, Save Our Sandhill Cranes, Save the American River Association, Sierra Club Sacramento Group and Sacramento Heron and Egret Rescue.
The Sacramento Chapter of the California Native Plant Society (CNPS), in coordination with State CNPS, ECOS and Habitat 2020, has embarked upon an ambitious regional campaign, called Homegrown Habitat, to promote the preferential use of California Native Plants in home and civic landscaping. Local native plants provide habitat within the build environment that promote regional biodiversity and help create pathways for local insects, pollinators, birds and animals through our built environment. CNPS’s Homegrown Habitat team has prepared a list of appropriate annual and perennial plants, shrubs and trees (HH Plant List) for use in the City of Sacramento’s private and public landscapes. CNPS is currently building the capacity to ensure that these landscaping options are widely available locally.
City wide utilization of these plants will directly contribute to several of the City’s major long-term goals including climate change adaptation and regional biodiversity. Utilization of the local native plants found on the HH Plant List in public spaces, residential areas, and commercial/industrial landscapes within the City will lower water consumption, provide carbon sequestration benefits (even during extended periods of drought when many non-native plants, shrubs, and trees perish), and contribute to regional biodiversity by providing homes and year-round food for pollinators and beneficial insects, local and migratory birds, and animal populations. Nearly all the region’s beneficial insect populations are in decline and many of our bird and animal populations that depend on them are suffering the same fate. We urge the City of Sacramento to adopt the goal of the Homegrown Habitat program and the HH Plant List within the relevant parts of the City’s general plan and climate action plan, and in so doing, take the steps listed in the attached comment document to ensure the planting of these local native plants throughout the City.
Chris Lewis CNPS’s Homegrown Habitat program chair would be pleased to meet with you to more fully describe the program’s goals, objectives, and activities, and to discuss how the program can be implemented within the City. Chris will be following up within the week to set up a meeting with you to further explore implementation of the program within the City of Sacramento.
Sincerely,
Ralph Propper Sean Wirth
President, ECOS Co-Chair, Habitat 2020
Cc: Chris Lewis, Homegrown Habitat Program Chair

Click here to read the letter in PDF.
Attachment 1

Photo from calscape.org, of Western Redbud (Cercis occidentalis)
https://calscape.org/Cercis-occidentalis-(Western-Redbud)?srchcr=sc5dca249f9a5c2

Rising Seas Aren’t Even the Scariest Part of Climate Change in the Oceans

By Rebecca Leber
September 25, 2019
Mother Jones

Some places are already “reaching adaptation limits.”
Climate change has already taken an irreversible toll on our oceans and frozen places, warns a major new report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Much of the carbon pollution we’ve pumped into the air has gone directly into the world’s seas: They have absorbed 90 percent of the excess heat from the atmosphere, warming without pause for the past 50 years. Because oceans are so unfathomably big and complex—covering two-thirds of Earth’s surface—that warming has consequences for the entire planet.

Click here to read more.

Ground Water Recharge

Ground Water Recharge: A Pathway Toward Regional Environmental Improvement and Water Supply Security

Presentation to ECOS Board
September 25, 2018 at 6 PM

The current and future water supply security for residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural, and conservation landowner customers in the Sacramento Region (Region) appears to be satisfactory when one reviews the water supply assessments contained in each of the Region’s water purveyors’ Urban Water Management Plans. However, some of these plans do not fully address the implications of climate change on the future availability of water supplies. The recent drought has shown limitations in some of the Region’s water supply systems, and climate scientists predict the frequency and severity of droughts will increase. The State Legislature has moved to ensure the increased frequency and severity of droughts along with other weather changes due to climate change, are planned for in future Urban Water Management Planning cycles. A more comprehensive understanding of the reliability of the Region’s water supplies will be known, once the impact of the Region’s changing climate is fully understood and planned for by all Regional water purveyors.
“Ground Water Recharge: A pathway toward Regional Environmental Improvement and Water Supply Security” Briefing Paper, September 2018

Read more of the briefing paper by clicking here (PDF).

Click here for the full meeting agenda.

ECOS Comments on the Folsom General Plan

On June 25, 2018, ECOS submitted our comments/testimony on the latest changes to the City of Folsom’s General Plan.

Here is an excerpt:

ECOS and Habitat 2020 are greatly relieved to see that the Study Area for new City growth south of White Rock road has been removed from the General plan.

Further growth in this area would pose potentially un-mitigatable impacts to invaluable agricultural and biological resources and severely inhibit successful implementation of the South Sacramento Habitat Conservation Plan (SSHCP), currently in its final phase of adoption after decades of development.

Further growth in this area would be critically inconsistent with the Sacramento Area Council of Governments’ (SACOG) Metropolitan Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy (MTP/SCS) for meeting State mandated greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions, Federal mandates for Air Quality Attainment under the State Improvement Plan (SIP), as well as myriad regional goals for social equity, public health and natural resource conservation.

Finally, ECOS is extremely concerned about the ability of the City to supply adequate water supplies to this potential growth area, or any new expansion area. With the decision to supply the City’s current expansion south of US 50 solely with conservation efforts of existing supplies, it is apparent that the City has fully allocated those supplies. We remain concerned that the City will not be able to supply the current expansion area without severe burdens on existing residents with the mandatory cut-backs in supply that the City is subject to in Dry and Extremely Dry years. We have not seen evidence that the City has yet acquired back up supplies to prevent these burdens, and given this, it is extremely difficult to see how the City could speculate on further expansion of their footprint.

Click here to read the full comment letter.

They are building 11,000 new homes in Folsom. But will there be enough water?

By Ryan Sabalow, Dale Kasler and Tony Bizjak

Updated June 18, 2018

The Sacramento Bee

It’s like a new city springing to life: 11,000 homes and apartments, seven public schools, a pair of fire stations, a police station, a slew of office and commercial buildings and 1,000 acres of parks, trails and other open space. Expected population: 25,000.

But will it have enough water?

As construction begins this month on the first model homes at Folsom Ranch, a 3,300-acre development in the city of Folsom south of Highway 50, state regulators continue to have questions about the project’s water supply. They still aren’t convinced the city has secured enough water to keep showers and spigots flowing as California contends with increasing uncertainty about rain and snowfall.

. . .

The drought, which officially ended last year, seems to have done little to impede development. No cities or counties appear to have curbed their development plans as a direct result of water-supply limitations,

. . .

Alan Wade, former president of the Save the American River Association, said it’s baffling state water officials would tell Folsom they had doubts about its water supply yet would let the development proceed.

“The reply from Folsom essentially told them to go pound sand: ‘We’re going to go ahead anyway,'” Wade said. “I don’t know how you can get away with that.”

California climate study shows worsening drought

By Evan Halper

December 05, 2017

The Sacramento Bee

California could be hit with significantly more dangerous and more frequent droughts in the near future as changes in weather patterns triggered by global warming block rainfall from reaching the state, according to new research led by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Using complex new modeling, the scientists have found that rapidly melting Arctic sea ice now threatens to diminish precipitation over California by as much as 15 percent within 20 to 30 years. Such a change would have profound economic effects in a state where the most recent drought drained several billion dollars out of the economy, severely stressed infrastructure and highlighted how even the state most proactively confronting global warming is not prepared for its fallout.

Unfortunately, the link to this article on the Sacramento Bee website has been changed and is no longer valid. We apologize for the inconvenience.