CEQA changes scorn those most affected

It looks at times as if Gov.

Gavin Newsom is trying to imitate Jerry Brown as he tries to gut California’s main environmental protection law, at least for large infrastructure projects like reservoirs, road and bridges.

Brown certainly did reduce the clout of the 1970 California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA, usually pronounced “see-qua”) during his fourth and final term as governor, mainly clearing the way for large spectator sports facilities like the Golden State Warriors’ Chase Center in San Francisco, the Inglewood SoFi Stadium that’s now home to both the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers and the rapidly rising Inglewood basketball arena under construction for the Los Angeles Clippers.

“We have proven we can get it done for stadiums,” said Newsom, “so why…can’t we translate that to all these other projects?” It’s clear he doesn’t want the very people who figure to be most affected by these changes to have any voice in their fate.

This all is a facet of the years-long domination of Sacramento by developers and their allies in the building trade unions. Over the last three years, they have moved politicians whose campaigns they help finance to eliminate virtually all single-family residential zoning around the state, make permitting of small

Housing opportunities

“granny flats” or additional dwelling units almost automatic, allowed creation of six dwelling units on lots formerly occupied by just one and eased the building of high-rises near light rail stops or major city bus routes.

Newsom’s several-pronged attempt to ease CEQA takes this farther, seeking a ninemonth limit on legal actions under the law. He also wants more funding for planning departments and other agencies that review large-scale plans and other exceptions to the current law. The presumption is this would speed up their work.

CEQA would have few teeth if Newsom gets his way. One pet plan is a long-stymied version of the old Peripheral Canal project, rejected overwhelmingly 43 years ago by state voters. That has now morphed into a plan to bring Sacramento River water south to customers of the state Water Project via a tunnel under the Delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers.

Lawmakers seem prepared to go along. Said Democratic

Davis needs more housing. However, peripheral development that intrudes into our agricultural buffer is not a wise approach. Instead, a thoughtful examination of our current buildout reveals available sites for additional housing that can solve the housing shortage while avoiding the environmental impact of expanding our boundaries. Maintaining compact development keeps our overall GHG emissions lower as the needed biking and busing infrastructure is already in place.

Given the worsening threat of climate change, Davis needs to move in a direction that cuts our greenhouse gases and avoids our dependence on fossil fuels. Currently, transportation accounts for 65% of our city’s greenhouse gas emissions, predominantly from autos. However, if we build infill housing wisely, we can deliberately encourage bicycle and transit use while avoiding sprawl.

The city's recent housing element provides such a path forward. It identifies properties that can accommodate 3,341 units. In addition, the Downtown Plan can produce at least 1,000 residences. The Covell Boulevard infill site across from Nugget Markets that was once in the City's General Plan can accommodate 1,400 residences. The city property along Fifth street at L Street has the potential for 290 more residences. Property on Fermi Place and Montgomery Avenue can accommodate 204 apartments. Redevelopment of several shopping centers could produce 400 or more apartments. Altogether, infill could provide 6,635 new housing units.

Rather than considering several proposals for peripheral development on our eastern side, the city should help owners of infill sites create viable visions for their properties. Such a choice would kick off implementation of Action TR.11, “Develop sustainable housing,” in the city’s adopted Climate Action and Adaptation Plan.

Climate change is bearing down on us. We must move beyond business as usual. This will require using our creative abilities to provide compact, mixed-use,

Speak out

President state Senate President Toni Atkins of San Diego, “The climate crisis requires that we move faster to build and strengthen critical infrastructure.”

Both she and Newsom give lip service to the environment while working steadily to denigrate it.

It was much the same under Brown. The onetime seminarian called his efforts to ease CEQA “The Lord’s Work.”

In his time, this meant interpreting the law to let developers qualify initiatives OKing their projects for local ballots and then have city councils adopt the initiatives without public votes.

That’s what enabled building both the Chase Center and SoFi Stadium, plus approval for a former SoFi rival stadium once planned in nearby Carson.

This tactic could be repeated as Los Angeles gets set to host the 2028 Olympics, with some competitions to be staged in various other parts of the state.

All this essentially leaves out the folks most affected by big projects, just like it did in Inglewood, where citizens had nothing to say about razing the Hollywood Park racetrack and replacing it with SoFi Stadium’s much more imposing presence.

Wrote attorney Aruna Prabhala of the Center for Biological Diversity, “CEQA offers necessary protections for communities and the environment. We should be wary of exaggerated claims by development interests that suggest otherwise.”

A housing shortage, she said, “does not give us free rein to build recklessly. It’s not clear that the governor has fully considered the unintended consequences of fast-tracking infrastructure projects.”

Added Barbara BarriganParilla, head of the Restore the Delta group that opposes Newsom’s tunnel plan, “(He) does not respect the people in communities that need environmental protection,” she said, citing alleged examples from the coronavirus pandemic era.

What’s clear in all this is that if the people most affected by the potential changes in CEQA don’t speak up to their legislators now, Newsom’s plan will pass, developers will have an even freer rein and those affected by new projects will have even fewer ways to protect themselves, their homes and their lifestyles.

Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It,” is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www. californiafocus.net transit-oriented, and affordable housing options, and avoid climate-unfriendly peripheral expansions. Hopefully the newly formed Community Action Network, organized for the purpose of tackling Davis's housing and climate issues together, can be of assistance in producing sustainable infill housing opportunities.

Michael Corbett Davis

Trans medical care

I happened to see a letter today regarding detransitioners in The Enterprise, and thought you might like some data to go with it: Detransition is exceedingly rare-around 1% of adults who had transaffirming surgery expressed any regret at all, and some of that was temporary. Other research has found that the detransition rate maybe between 1-8%, but does not capture the "degree" of detransition (there's a world of difference between changing your closet out for a new one, and attempting to reverse surgery and hormones), and does not capture people who go on to retransition. Even at 8%, though, trans-affirming care could still be considered wildly successful, when you realize that some other procedures such as knee replacement (20% regret rate) or gastric banding (8 to 20%) are notably less controversial and yet sport much higher rates of regret.

Allie Snyder seems to be repeating sev-

The Hon. Joe Biden, The White House, Washington, D.C., 20500; 202-456-1111 (comments), 202-456-1414 (switchboard); email: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

U.S. Senate

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 331 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 20510; 202-224-3841; email: https://www. feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/ e-mail-me

Sen. Alex Padilla, 112 Hart Senate Office eral talking points that come to us courtesy of various anti-trans thinkers. The careful framing of her thoughts as concern for others' well-being while criticizing medical care as an intentional and "homophobic" effort to turn children into lifetime medical patients, the conspiracy theory of a nefarious "gender medical industry" that is preying on defenseless LGB people, the dismissal of decades-old treatments as "experimental," even the meticulous phrasing of "the LGB and TQ communities" (designed to separate LGBTQIA communities into smaller, more easily targeted groups) are all commonplace tactics. The goal of these efforts is never clearly explained, of course, because then we get into the awkward process of determining which aspects of being trans such people feel should be allowed.

Regardless, those people who truly do detransition deserve our sympathy.

Nobody should have to deal with living in a body that feels foreign to them, and people whose journey has taken them into and then out of the transgender community are almost certainly hurting.

I would counsel caution, though, on the motives of those who would seek to prioritize the needs of detransitioners above those of the much larger trans community. It often seems as though those who lift up such stories are doing so for more than mere altruism.

Jessica Carroway Davis

Building, Washington, D.C., 20510; 202224-3553; email: https://www.padilla. senate.gov/contact/contact-form/

House of Representatives

Rep. Mike Thompson, 268 Cannon Office Building, Washington, D.C., 20515; 202225-3311. District office: 622 Main Street, Suite 106, Woodland, CA 95695; 530-753-5301; email: https:// https:// mikethompsonforms.house.gov/contact/ Governor Gov. Gavin Newsom, State Capitol, Suite 1173, Sacramento, CA 95814; 916-4452841; email: https://govapps.gov.ca.gov/ gov40mail/

Colorado deal forever changes the price of water in the West

By Grayson Zulauf Special to CalMatters

For the first time in this drought-stricken century, a new price for water in the West has been set — and it’s 25 times higher than what farmers have paid for the last 75 years.

Arizona, Nevada and California recently agreed to reduce their water consumption from the Colorado River by 13% through 2026. The federal government will pay their irrigation districts, Native American tribes and cities $521 for each acrefoot of water they don’t use.

This agreement is the start of the end of agriculture as we know it in the West, but not just agriculture. For every drop of water used, industries — from farms and ranches to data centers and power plants to ski resorts and golf courses — must determine whether it pays more to use the water, or to avoid using it.

And the price of using it will only increase. Some businesses will become more water-efficient. Some will move.

Some will close.

What was the price of water, anyway? It depends on both the source and the use. If water comes from a river or lake, it’s zero. If water comes from an aquifer in the ground, it’s the cost of pumping the water up. And despite the enormous infrastructure required, water delivered from reservoirs behind large dams (as promised by the federal Bureau of Reclamation) has historically cost farmers no more than $20 per acre-foot, which is enough to cover a full acre one foot deep.