Alastair Bland, CalMatters
Alastair Bland lives in Sonoma County, California. He writes about water, climate, marine research, agriculture and the environment, and his work has appeared at NPR, Time, East Bay Express, Audubon, Hakai, Slate, Smithsonian and other news outlets.
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Advocates are pressuring California state water officials to halt diversions from Mono Lake's tributaries to Los Angeles, which has used a small but significant amount of this clean mountain water for decades.
Farmers in California are pivoting to frost-sensitive and heat-tolerant crops as temperatures rise with climate change — introducing some new and unfamiliar fruits and other foods to the state, including mangoes, cherimoya, dragonfruit, white sapote, coffee and more.
SGMA could help secure safe and reliable water for disadvantaged communities dependent on groundwater, while forcing farmers to reduce their crop production. But that’s only if SGMA goes as planned, and it might not.
State officials quietly gave away a significant portion of Southern California’s water supply to farmers in the Central Valley as part of a deal with the Trump administration in December 2018, potentially harming California salmon and L.A. County.
Once an abundant attraction off northern California's coast, red abalone and the lush kelp forests they relied on have been replaced by an overpopulation of kelp-eating purple sea urchins.
Today, roughly 100,000 people in Central Valley cannot drink the water that flows from their taps, for it is contaminated with high levels of toxins.
Amid the media hype over sharks and a wealth of inconclusive data, West Coast biologists can’t seem to agree whether or not great white numbers are increasing.
If you're in the wine trade, Napa County officials are willing to overlook a multitude of Zins.
Three-quarters of California's salmon and trout species are in danger of extinction. What can we learn from the ones that aren't?
The endangered Delta smelt gets all the attention, but the longfin smelt may be in even worse trouble — despite the wet winter.
"Our tradition says that if we don’t catch salmon, they’ll stop coming back.”
Increasing acidity in our oceans is already harming coral reefs.... and a whole lot more. Oysters, for instance.