Robin Meadows
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Water & climate journalist @MavensNotebook 💦 bylines @bioGraphic @cenmag @highcountrynews @SciAm 💦 @pulitzercenter @ijnr_connect @Open_Notebook @UCSC_SciCom
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Articles by Robin Meadows
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: New program helps California land owners and managers coexist with beavers
By Robin Meadows Pierre Paquelier was thrilled the first time he saw chewed bark and other signs of beavers at Lone Tree Farm, his 80-acre horse property along the Tuolumne River near the Central Valley town of Waterford. He grew up in France at a time when beavers there were all but gone. But then his majestic Valley Oaks started dying. Beavers stripped the bark all the way around their trunks, weakening and eventually toppling trees as high as 50 feet.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: National Academies study: New and notable recommendations for protecting at-risk fish from water diversions in the Bay-Delta system
by Robin Meadows In 2021, California suffered a severe drought and the hottest summer then on record. Water was beyond scarce. It was brutal for the fish, farmers and others who depend on flows in the San Francisco Bay-Delta watershed, a system that spans hundreds of miles from mountain headwaters to the confluence of California’s two longest rivers, the Sacramento and the San Joaquin. Water conveyance in California includes the Central Valley Project (black) and the State Water Project (green).
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Boosting climate resilience in the Delta’s mountain headwaters
The 36 Delta headwater study sites are across five Northern Sierra Nevada watersheds. by Robin Meadows Many of the great rivers that meet in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta begin high in the Sierra Nevada, where summer snowmelt feeds streams that start as trickles and then gush downslope toward the sea.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: The biggest threat to the Delta you’ve (probably) never heard of
Excess sediment in the South Delta puts the water supply and the ecosystem at risk by Robin Meadows In 1962, when Mary Hildebrand was 10 years old, her family moved to their farm between the communities of Vernalis and Mossdale in the southern tip of California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The 140-acre farm sits on the banks of the San Joaquin River, which squiggles north through the flat expanse of the South Delta toward its confluence with the Sacramento River.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Giving everyone a say in the Delta’s future: a conversation with adaptation planner and landscape architect Brett Milligan
by Robin Meadows It seems like just about everyone has a plan for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Governor Newsom wants a tunnel under the Delta to pipe water south. Environmental advocates want more tidal marsh for fish nurseries and protection against rising seas. And farmers want to continue a way of life that has been in their families for generations. But most plans for the Delta are not inclusive.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Risk-taking is key to saving California’s freshwater species: A conversation with water lawyer Jennifer Harder
by Robin Meadows California’s freshwater species are threatened by habitat loss and degradation, and are pushed to the brink of extinction by climate change. Many could be gone by the end of the century. Now, a new Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) report highlights another threat to conservation: fear of making the wrong management decision. But saving freshwater species will require taking some risks.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: How Karuk ceremonial leader Ron Reed used Western science to take down the Klamath dams
by Robin Meadows The Karuk people have lived in the thickly forested mountains along the Klamath River in Northern California for so long that they simply say since time immemorial. Chinook salmon were intrinsic to their way of life. For thousands of years and hundreds of generations, the tribe feasted on the throngs of fish that rushed upstream to lay eggs.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Keeping microplastics out of the San Francisco Bay: A conversation with environmental toxicologist Ezra Miller
by Robin Meadows In 2019, the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) published a three-year study of microplastics in the San Francisco Bay that was―and still is―among the most thorough assessments of these tiny contaminants globally. The study was also groundbreaking. Much to the researchers’ surprise, microplastics that entered the Bay in runoff from storms dwarfed those from wastewater treatment plants.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Partnering with tribes to restore a Delta wetland: Benefits go both ways
By Robin Meadows Five years ago, Plains Miwok cultural practitioner Don Hankins got a surprising invitation from Russ Ryan, a project manager at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The agency owns four islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, including one called Webb Tract, and Ryan asked Hankins for help stewarding them from an Indigenous perspective. Hankins was skeptical at first.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: How a new wetland restoration could expedite transforming the Delta from a carbon source to a carbon sink
By Robin Meadows Staten Island lies in the heart of California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, and exemplifies the woes of this troubled region. More than one quarter of the Delta―about 200,000 acres―is deeply subsided. This extreme soil loss puts stress on the levees encircling the islands. And, because the soil there is peat and so rich in organic matter, subsidence in the central Delta also spews carbon into the air.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: New hope for saving salmon: Weaving together Indigenous and Western sciences to restore California’s winter-run chinook
By Robin Meadows Jamie Ward grew up hearing the stories his people have told for countless generations on the slopes of Mount Shasta, a glacier-capped peak in Northern California. Many of these stories celebrate the bond between his tribe, the Winnemem Wintu, and Nur, also called winter-run chinook salmon.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Fire and water: How cultural burns boost streamflows
By Robin Meadows On a mild November day in California’s Sacramento Valley, Diana Almendariz ignites a clump of dry grass in a grove of cottonwoods. Landin Noland, wearing a thick, protective shirt with flames running down the sleeves, expertly wields a long-handled tool to spread the fire. Within minutes, a bright orange line dances and crackles all along one side of the grove.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Seizing a rare chance to keep tidal marsh ahead of sea level rise in the San Francisco Bay
By Robin Meadows The San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge, which hugs the northern arc of the San Francisco Bay, was established half a century ago to conserve water birds. Now the refuge has an additional vital role: bolstering the region against climate change. The San Francisco Bay is the most urbanized estuary nationwide with 7.5 million people, and rising seas threaten to inundate much of the tidal marsh that absorbs floodwaters and buffers the shoreline from storm surges.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: How floating wetlands could transform restoration in California’s Delta
Floating wetlands sound like something straight out of a fairy tale, fanciful landscapes where the laws of nature are suspended. But these buoyant mats of peat and tall, spiky marsh plants called tules are very real. That said, floating wetlands do possess qualities that border on magic. They historically broke off from marshes in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, and could be so big―up to several acres―that people call them floating islands.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Atmospheric rivers from research to reconnaissance: A conversation with research meteorologist Marty Ralph
By Robin Meadows In the late 1990s, hardly anyone had heard of the storms called atmospheric rivers. That includes Marty Ralph, founding director of Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes (CW3E) and a leading expert on these relatively recently recognized streams of water vapor in the sky. Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow plumes of exceptionally wet air that shoot across the ocean and drop rain or snow when they hit land.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: How the fight against Auburn Dam advanced flood control in California
by Robin Meadows In 1990, Gary Estes moved to Auburn, a town of nearly 14,000 in the Sierra Nevada foothills on the North Fork of the American River. Estes, an environmentalist, immediately joined the fight against Auburn Dam. The proposed dam site was only about one mile from his house.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: We are still here: Partnering with tribes on the Delta
By Robin Meadows The first time Malissa Tayaba visited one of her ancestral village sites on the banks of the Sacramento River, she was in tears. “We are river people, we are salmon people. The river fed us, clothed us, and kept us healthy,” said Tayaba, Vice Chair of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, at the 2024 State of the Estuary Conference.
FEATURE: From litigation to collaboration: How environmentalists and water agencies went from fighting over fish to helping them
By Robin Meadows A decade ago, California fish advocates and water suppliers seldom crossed paths except as entrenched opponents in a court of law. Worse, both sides often drew opposite conclusions from the same science on how the state’s massive water delivery projects affect Delta smelt, salmon, and other species listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. Finally, in 2013, a judge decided he’d had enough.
FEATURE: Safeguarding California’s freshwater ecosystems against climate change: A conversation with aquatic ecologist Ted Sommer
by Robin Meadows California’s freshwater ecosystems―from springs and wetlands to rivers and estuaries―are in trouble and the warming world is hastening their decline. Fish and the wealth of other aquatic species that live in these habitats are increasingly vulnerable as freshwater flows shrink and water temperatures rise.
C&EN talks with Loreto Paulino, chemist and Arctic explorer
In the summer of 2023, on the heels of graduating from the University of Guam with his bachelor's in chemistry, Loreto Paulino Jr. set up camp in Alaska. He was there as part of the Polaris Project, which brings young scientists on climate change-related research expeditions in the Arctic. He and other project participants were temporarily stationed in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, a vast tundra on the Bering Sea.
FEATURE: Requiring water users to pay for ecological damage: A conversation with environmental lawyer Karrigan Börk
by Robin Meadows Water diversions can harm aquatic ecosystems, riparian habitat, and beaches fed by river sediment. But the people who use water don’t bear the cost of this ecological damage. “The public pays for it,” says Karrigan Börk, a University of California, Davis law professor who has a PhD in ecology. He is also Co-Director of the California Environmental Law and Policy Center and an Associate Director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Lights, sound...bubbles! New virtual barrier deters baby salmon from Delta death trap
by Robin Meadows If you visit the Delta town of Walnut Grove during winter or spring, look for a surprise in the Sacramento River just before it meets Georgiana Slough. A steady stream of bubbles rises from the river bottom, accompanied by flashes of bright yellow strobe lights and low whooshing sounds. It looks like an art installation, especially at night. But this barrage of light, noise and bubbles is actually there to protect imperiled baby salmon.
FEATURE: New National Academies study tackles the wickedest of problems: Can California have its water and save its fish too?
by Robin Meadows The San Francisco Bay-Delta is already among the most intensively studied ecosystems in the world. Now 18 experts are scrutinizing this system afresh in a committee convened by the National Academies at the request of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The stakes are high. The Bay-Delta system drains about half of California’s surface water.
Can chemists turn California's almond trash into sustainable treasure?
It's early October, and Christine Gemperle, a second-generation almond grower near Ceres, in the heart of California, has just finished harvesting the orchards she farms with her brother. The truckloads of almonds the Gemperles produce also generate piles upon piles of by-products in the form of a shell and a hull-a fuzzy, fruit-like outer layer-that together weigh about two to three times as much as the nut.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Nutrients from wastewater treatment plants may threaten coastal marine life―should California regulate them?
Nutrients from human waste boost ocean acidification & hypoxia in CA―wastewater treatment agencies say regulation is premature, environmentalists say it’s overdue & researchers say it’s “fair to ask hard questions” about the science. By Robin Meadows The State Water Resources Control Board is exploring regulating nutrients emitted from Southern California wastewater treatment plants into the ocean.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Future extremes: New models zoom in on California snowpacks and storms
by Robin Meadows When it comes to water, winter is a time of promise and peril in California. Our fate is uncertain―and can swing wildly―from year to year. Will mountain snowpacks be plentiful enough to get us through the dry season? Will they melt so fast in the spring that we’re down to a trickle by summer? Will too many atmospheric river storms in a row cause devastating floods like those we suffered last year?
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Ramping up releases of hatchery Delta smelt to the wild
By Robin Meadows It’s a lovely December morning in Rio Vista, a town of 10,000 in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The sky is a soft blue, the sun brings welcome warmth against the chill, and the water is calm with just a hint of ripples―ideal conditions for the team of state and federal biologists standing on a boat launch on the Sacramento River at 8:30 am. They’re here to release captive-raised Delta smelt, a small endangered fish unique to the region, into the wild.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: How AI can help protect California streams and fish
by Robin Meadows Rivers in California once swelled and ebbed as the seasons changed and as wet years gave way to dry ones. Salmon and other now-imperiled aquatic species depended on these historic patterns. But today dams and diversions have altered most of the state’s waterways, leaving their natural flows a mystery. “Natural flows have been a longstanding question in water management, especially for fish,” says Kirk Klausmeyer, who directs data science for The Nature Conservancy in California.
Almond Waste is a Growing Challenge
In collaboration with C&EN. It is early October, and Christine Gemperle, a second-generation almond grower near Ceres, in the heart of California, has just finished harvesting the orchards she farms with her brother. The truckloads of almonds the Gemperles produce also generate piles upon piles of byproducts in the form of a shell and a hull─a fuzzy, fruit-like outer layer─that together weigh about two to three times as much as the nut.
FEATURE: New survey of Delta residents aims to boost quality of life and equity
by Robin Meadows The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta seems like one of the most scrutinized places on Earth, with decades of data on everything from fish populations to water flows, temperatures and salinity. But key indicators of the region’s health are missing. The Delta, like many estuarine areas, is a lived-in landscape yet little is known about the well-being and priorities of the people living there. A new survey of Delta residents is a first step toward filling this social science data gap.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Heat waves strike rivers too-can prescribed burns and beavers cool streams for salmon?
By Robin Meadows While marine heat waves are well known, a 2022 study was the first to document aquatic temperature spikes in rivers nationwide. Even river experts were surprised. “I’d never thought about it,” recalls Sarah Null, a Utah State University physical geographer who focuses on environmental water management. “But when I saw the paper, I thought ‘of course.’” River heat waves are temperature extremes that last several days or more.
FEATURE: Rethinking water management in California: how to benefit people and wildlife
By Robin Meadows A new strategy could help California water managers meet the needs of people as well as the environment. This could benefit at-risk species like shorebirds and salmon that historically flourished in the state’s great Central Valley, which stretches 450 miles from Redding to Bakersfield. Today people use so much water in this intensively farmed region that rivers can run dry.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: In 2021 people used all the runoff in the Delta watershed-how it happened and lessons learned
by Robin Meadows This year is a classic example of the way California’s water system was designed to work. Winter storms dropped towering snowpacks on the mountains, and spring was so cool that the snowmelt will likely last through the summer. But just two years ago, California was in a severe drought: 2021 was the state’s second driest year on record and was also exceptionally hot. The snowpack vanished before summer even began.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Moving beyond crisis management for winter-run chinook
By Robin Meadows Two years ago, California’s winter-run chinook were dealt a devastating blow. These endangered salmon were already struggling to survive, with as few as one thousand adults returning from the ocean to spawn in recent years. Then, in 2021, a sizzling summer on top of a severe drought killed three quarters of the eggs the fish laid in the Sacramento River near Redding, their last remaining spawning grounds. Now, a new plan to help protect winter-run chinook eggs is in the works.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: California’s unnatural river flows threaten aquatic life-here’s a (partial) fix
By Robin Meadows As a New York Times columnist once quipped, “California’s water system might have been invented by a Soviet bureaucrat on an LSD trip.” The system was engineered in the 1900s to capture winter rain and spring snowmelt in vast reservoirs and then send this water to cities and farms via thousands of miles of canals, pipelines and tunnels. While this system suits many people, it doesn’t suit fish, frogs and other river life.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Wild baby salmon raised on a California rice farm show stunning survival to the ocean
When Steve Neader’s rice farm flooded last winter after three years of drought, a UC Davis research team checked to see what else had come in with the water. Neader grows rice in California’s Sutter Bypass, a huge leveed channel north of the city of Sacramento that ultimately shunts river overflows into the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The team was looking for fish. “I saw the researchers on my way to lunch and when they told me what they were doing, I just laughed,” Neader recalls.
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NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Water rights key to San Joaquin Valley aquifer recharge
Written by Robin Meadows It sounds like such a simple fix for California’s groundwater woes. In phenomenally wet years like this one, when reservoirs are so full water is still being released to make room for snowmelt, just use some of that liquid wealth to inundate agricultural lands above severely overdrafted aquifers. But nothing is simple in the world of California water.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Sturgeon Arose During the Jurassic-Can They Survive the Anthropocene?
Written by Robin Meadows Sturgeon have been around far longer than humans—a jaw-dropping 200 million years to our comparatively short 6 million—and survived the cataclysm that terminated the age of dinosaurs. But can these ancient fish survive the age of people? New insights into the secret lives of these little-known fish, as well as into their increasing vulnerability, suggest ways of strengthening protections for sturgeon in California.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Voluntary Agreements Could Make the Delta a Better Place for Fish-Provided They’re Done Properly
By Robin Meadows The State Water Resources Control Board, which both allocates surface water rights and protects water quality for people and wildlife, is proposing a new approach to setting flow standards in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The Delta drains about 40 percent of California, including much of the Sierra Nevada, and supplies fresh water to two-thirds of the state’s population and millions of acres of farmland.
NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Sacramento’s New Wastewater Treatment Upgrade Will Help Recharge Groundwater-Will It Also Help the Delta?
by Robin Meadows Two decades ago, scientists were alarmed by sudden declines in at-risk fish and their tiny prey, called zooplankton, in California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. “No one knew why,” says Dylan Stern, a Program Manager at the Delta Stewardship Council, a state agency.
KNEE DEEP TIMES: Why California’s Water Extremes Are Wilder than Ever - And What We Can Do About It
Written by Robin Meadows What a relief last winter is finally over. In late December, California was hit by the first in a series of powerful storms called atmospheric rivers. These ribbons of extraordinarily wet air rush across the ocean and can dump staggering amounts of rain and snow upon landfall. After the driest three year stretch on record, it seemed like a miracle: Water! Falling from the sky! Then eight more atmospheric rivers arrived in January.
FEATURE: California Taps Beavers to Restore Watersheds
Written by Robin Meadows As evidence for the wide-ranging environmental benefits of beavers has mounted, champions of these 40-to-70-pound rodents have increasingly clamored for restoring them in California. Now, the state has finally joined others, including Oregon, Washington and Utah, that are putting these furry ecosystem engineers to work.
Why California’s Water Extremes Are Wilder than Ever — And What We Can Do About It – KneeDeep Times
L’Eaux Stewart, Chairperson of the Big Pine Paiute Tribe, is all for more equitable groundwater recharge. She lives in the Owens Valley, high desert just east of the Sierra Nevada. This arid land gets only a few inches of rainfall each year because the soaring peaks cast a rain shadow over it. But the mountains also provide snowmelt that once kept the valley’s water table high and streams flowing through the hot, dry summers. “We’re a land of little rain but not of little water,” Stewart says.
FEATURE: The Magic of the Mokelumne: How such a small river produces so many salmon
Written by Robin Meadows for Maven’s Notebook The Mokelumne River is on the modest side, running 95 miles from the Sierra Nevada and accounting for less than 3% of flows into the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. But the river’s impact on salmon is outsized and the latest figures really made a splash. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) puts the Mokelumne’s contribution to the 2022 commercial ocean salmon fishery at a whopping 51% of the total for hatcheries.
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