Governor Pete Wilson’s 1998-99 budget, seizing long-awaited opportunity in the state’s booming economy, focuses on improving and protecting California’s beleaguered environmental infrastructure, from the crystal waters of Lake Tahoe to the coastal wetlands of Southern California. The spending plan aims to spruce up worn state parks facilities, restore disturbed salmon habitat, conserve crop-producing farmland, and provide greater public access to coastal attractions.
Major Initiatives
The spending plan calls for major initiatives to enhance, preserve, and protect natural resources of the coast and ocean, watersheds, Lake Tahoe, and implementation of Natural Community Conservation Planning (NCCP), the nationıs model for balancing environmental protection and economic development. “This budget will achieve long-standing premier goals to improve and protect Californiaıs environmental infrastructure and invest in a high quality of life into the 21st century,” Secretary for Resources Doug Wheeler said.
Improving Watersheds
Under the Wilson administration, California has embraced a watershed management approach to conservation, demonstrating that it is possible to manage natural resources in cooperation with stakeholders on a landscape scale.
The Watershed Initiative provides significant funding to advance objectives of the Governor’s Watershed Protection Program, which is designed to improve, streamline, and coordinate state activities, and delivery of state resources to community groups and local governments.
Specifically, the budget calls for $8.9 million for local technical assistance, including $7 million authorized by the Legislature last year for Department of Fish and Game grants to local governments, watershed groups, and resource conservation districts for watershed improvement, such as community based and voluntary restoration projects.
“These new funds will go a long way toward involving public groups in collaboration with agency scientists in taking action on their watersheds and bring in expertise to assist local groups in training, monitoring and scientific assessment,” said Don Erman, director of the Centers for Water and Wildland Resources at the University of California, Davis.
Fish and Game will receive $1 million to provide biological and ecological fish and wildlife expertise to community watershed groups, training in watershed assessment, restoration, and monitoring; development of watershed ecological impact and recovery models, and monitoring species recovery.
In addition, $931,000 will enable Regional Water Quality Control Boards to assess and prioritize water quality problems within targeted watersheds and find the best solutions at least cost.
Governor Wilson also proposed an environmental infrastructure bond for Watershed, Wildlife and Parks Improvement and a Water Management Bond to further improve water quality, ensure a safe, reliable water supply, improve levees, promote conservation, and meet other objectives of his water policy and work.
Bond measures must be approved by the Legislature and the voters.
Protecting Lake Tahoe
To fulfill Californiaıs commitment to fund its share of a 10-year $904 million Environmental Improvement Program (EIP) for Lake Tahoe, Governor Wilson has proposed additional funding of $11.5 million for budget year 1998-99 and $95 million in his environmental infrastructure bond for subsequent years.
Under the EIP, California is responsible for $274 million over the next decade, with the federal government supplying about $300 million, Nevada providing $85 million, and local and private sources putting up the rest.
“This funding will help to safeguard one of California’s most magnificent natural treasures against erosion, air pollution and other contaminants that are slowly degrading the water quality and robbing the lake of its clarity,” Wheeler said.
News of the funding was encouraging to members of the Lake Tahoe Transportation and Water Quality Coalition who are working cooperatively on ways to safeguard the environment and tourist-dependent economy.
“The community is very excited,” said Stan Hansen, vice president of Heavenly Ski Resort. “Our No. 1 goal is to protect and enhance the water quality of the region, and there is an outstanding commitment among the local folks.” Governor Wilson has stepped up to the plate, and so has Governor Miller (of Nevada). Weıre now waiting for the federal government to put money in its budget as
Steve Teshara, who represents Nevada’s gaming industry on the Coalition, said besides latching onto funding, the stakeholders must work together to get the work done.
“No one agency, department, or entity in the public or private sector can do it alone. They must do it as a partnership,” Teshara said. He cited the California Tahoe Conservancy as “a model program”of public and private cooperation to accomplish environmental improvements. The Conservancy acquires, restores, preserves and enhances land and wildlife habitat in the lake basin, curtails erosion, and increases public access and recreational opportunities.
The $11.5 million for budget year 1998-99 would be used to acquire and restore environmentally sensitive lands, enhance key wildlife habitats, implement high priority soil erosion control, restore watersheds, and improve recreational opportunities and public access.
Funding would provide $721,000 to Tahoe Regreen, a multi-agency program that restores forest health to reduce fire danger, plus secure two more California Conservation Corps crews and provide program support at the Conservancy.
In addition, the budget provides $294,000 to help meet environmental thresholds and evaluate monitoring, and $150,000 to the State Water Resources Control Board to reestablish 14 water quality monitoring stations for algae, sediment, nitrogen, and phosphorus.
The $95 million in bond funding would enable the Conservancy to restore 150 acres of wetlands and install 40 miles of roadside drainage and erosion control; preserve and restore up to 20 miles of instream fisheries habitat and 1,300 acres for wildlife; and establish new public access sites, among other objectives of the Environmental Improvement Program.
NCCP
Natural Community Conservation Planning (NCCP), hailed as a national land-use planning model, attempts to reconcile competing demands of environmental protection and economic development.
Governor Wilson’s proposed budget for 1998-99 provides $20.6 million for NCCP, including $10.9 million to the Wildlife Conservation Board to acquire coastal sage scrub and other habitat in Southern California and $5 million to the State Coastal Conservancy to acquire and restore coastal wetlands and watershed habitat in San Diego County. Another $3.6 million goes to the Department of Fish and Game to help local governments implement NCCP plans, and $1.1 million will provide the Department of Fish and Game with permanent NCCP staff support.
The Governor’s proposed environmental infrastructure bond contains $95 million to acquire and protect wetlands, riparian areas, and critical wildlife habitat, consistent with resource management efforts such as NCCP, conservation banking, and other habitat conservation programs.
NCCP projects are underway or being implemented in San Diego, western Riverside, Orange, and Los Angeles counties.
Ocean and Coastal Protection
Californiaıs ocean and coast are among its most magnificent resources, generating an estimated $17 billion from major ocean-dependent industries and providing more than 370,000 jobs. But these benefits depend upon maintaining a healthy ocean ecosystem.
In 1997, the Governor issued an Executive Order directing more efficient coastal resource planning, proposed a $17.1 million Coastal Initiative, and signed into law 15 coastal and ocean management improvement bills.
This year, Wilson proposed $128.2 million in additional budget and capital funding for programs such as improving public access, additional acquisitions, and conserving and restoring degraded resources. Funding includes:
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California State Parks will come in for some long-needed capital improvements this year, thanks to a healthier economy that promises more funding than was affordable during the lean years of the earlier 1990s, when operational needs were paramount.
Former State Parks Director Donald Murphy says Californiaıs great parks are suffering from a backlog of deferred maintenance often not visible to visitors.
³As taxpayers we have all made a tremendous investment in our park system,² Murphy wrote in Cal-Tax Digest. ³To ensure that our children and grandchildren benefit from this investment, we must provide the necessary tax dollars to maintain this investment for future generations.²
The budget provides $24.9 million to rehabilitate public facilities at state parks, beaches and campgrounds. The environmental protection bond would provide another $310 million to tackle the parks infrastructure backlog.
Preserving Farmland
Recognizing that farmland loss reduces Californiaıs crop production and threatens its $22 billion agricultural economy, the Governor boosted funding for farmland protection 85 percent to $3.7 million, which will enable the Department of Conservation to double Agricultural Land Stewardship Program acquisition of easements that preserve farmland.
³The time is right for California to put the benefits of its booming economy back to work rebuilding the natural resources infrastructure and stabilizing it for the future,² Director Larry Goldzband of the Department of Conservation said. ³We have the nationıs No. 1 farm economy contributing 10 percent of the nationıs agricultural export, and farming is the No. 1 contributor to the economy of our state.²
Farmland conservation is of particular concern in the crop-rich Central Valley, where population growth is expected to threaten the farmland base.
³Historically, we know an improved strong California economy also means an increase in development, and the time to plan for that growth is now,² said Carol Whiteside, president of the Great Valley Center in Modesto.