Grazing cattle on an island in the central Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta could soon make way for Contra Costa County’s first rice fields and a mosaic of restored wetlands now that its owner has received a $20.9 million state grant.
The company plans to restore nearly 5,000 acres of Webb Tract, including 3,000 in wetlands, 1,500 in rice fields and the rest in other habitats, such as grasslands and scrub.
The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Conservancy Board recently approved funding for the restoration work at Webb Tract, which the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California proposed on land it purchased along with three other islands – Bouldin, Bacon and Holland – for $175 million in 2016. At the time, the district said it could use them to store construction equipment, but critics warned that it would make it easier for the governor’s proposed — and later scrapped — California Water Fix project to send more water to Southern California, with twin tunnels to be built smack in the islands’ pathway.
The new plan to turn one island into wetland and rice fields, however, seemed to get a measure of support all around.
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Aerial photographs showing Webb Tract, top, Bouldin Island, lower right, and Venice Island, lower left, shot on May 19, 2004 over the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Deltasland in Calif. (Archives/Bob Pepping/Staff Archive)
“This is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate how we can manage the deeply subsided islands of the Delta in a way that stops subsidence and related carbon emissions, maintains agriculture, provides habitat benefits, and – most importantly – improves the long-term economic viability and resilience of the islands,” Delta Conservancy Executive Officer Campbell Ingram said in a statement.
The grant for the project comes from the state Amended Budget Act of 2022, which provided the Delta Conservancy with $36 million for projects that support restoration, conservation and climate resilience for wetlands. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California also will provide $4.4 million in in-kind staff services for planning the project.
Reached only by ferry, Webb Tract is north of Bethel Island and southwest of Bouldin Island. Historically, it had been used to farm corn but is now being leased for cattle grazing. Over the years it has sunk deeply, or subsided, something that happened in many Delta areas as native wetlands were drained in the 19th century for agriculture, resulting in the lowering of the land elevation.
But Lauren Damon, ecological restoration and climate adaptation projects supervisor for the Delta Conservancy, said the Metropolitan project seeks to slow that subsidence by restoring nearly all of Webb Tract.
Transforming the island into wetlands could slow the sinking and may help trap carbon dioxide, reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change, according to Metropolitan officials and scientists who study the issues.
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“The primary goal of this project is to halt organic soil subsidence and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Damon told the Delta Conservancy board at its May 24 meeting.
The Delta has more than 150,000 acres of deeply subsided or sinking islands that are a contributor to climate change as they produce greenhouse gases and pose flooding risks to communities and agricultural lands in the Delta as sea levels rise, she said.
“Each year the islands continue to oxidize and subside, resulting in increased risk for climate change in play,” Damon said. “This project will achieve its goals by realigning the landscape and converting pasture into restored wetlands and rice crops.”
Damon said planning is already underway for the two-phase project, including designing and permitting followed by construction, which will be over a three-year period, according to company documentation. She also noted that the agency received letters supporting the project from residents, agricultural and environmental organizations, tribal leaders, local reclamation districts and water districts.
2004 FILE-Aerial photograph showing Bouldin Island in the foreground and Webb Tract in the background shot Wednesday, May 19, 2004, over the Sacramento River Delta island. (Contra Costa Times/Bob Pepping) (Contra Costa Times/Bob Pepping)
“Successful completion of this project will serve as a showcase for other landowners, demonstrating rice and wetlands as mutually beneficial alternatives to the current agricultural practices,” Damon said.
Some board members, however, wanted to make sure the Southern California water company did not use the island to mitigate the proposed Delta Tunnel Project that would divert water from the Sacramento River into a nearby 45-mile tunnel to more easily transport it to Southern California.
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But Ingram assured board members that was not possible.
“Essentially, with our public money, we can’t pay for anyone else’s mitigation,” he said. “We have a strong firewall.”
Ingram also noted that the grant monies have a short timeline and must all be obligated by 2025, making the large grant “reasonable.”
“It helps move that money quickly and justifies more in the future,” he said. “ And, it helps so that we can actually step up the pace and scale of restoration that we need to achieve statewide objectives for biodiversity and nature-based solutions and natural working lands.”
Ingram explained that dry agriculture is causing oxidation and continued subsidence of lands like Webb Tract and any “wet” agriculture you can do (like rice fields) stops subsidence and carbon emissions.
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“So we’re looking at it as a way to keep agriculture viable and actually increase the economic value (with rice), but also really focus on stopping the subsidence and the carbon emissions,” he said.
Board member Diane Burgis of Oakley said that while Contra Costa County supported Phase 1, there were many other projects that had hoped to apply for the Phase 2 monies, which now will go to the Webb Tract project.
“I have concerns about committing so much money to a project when we don’t even have the project yet,” she said, noting other smaller projects were “ready to go.”
Ingram explained the money must be spent by 2027.
“These are large, complex projects. … They take many, many years to move forward,” he said. So we’re trying to compress the obligation process locking the funding for the project, as well as the timeline to design and implement it as quickly as possible.”
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The board later unanimously approved the funding.
“This project will significantly improve the sustainability of Webb Tract in multiple ways and help develop methods and strategies that can potentially be applied throughout the Delta,” Metropolitan General Manager Adel Hagekhalil later said in a statement. “We anticipate it will help reverse ongoing subsidence, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create new critical habitat, while also supporting the studies that can lead to carbon sequestration opportunities and the development of sustainable agriculture.”
President Donald Trump announced Monday that he will pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement, streamline permitting for oil and gas drilling and revoke electric vehicle rules.
The claims, which came in his inaugural address and in statements from the White House, are a replay of actions Trump took to roll back environmental rules during his first term from 2017 to 2021.
“We will drill, baby, drill,” Trump said Monday. “America will be a manufacturing nation once again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have: the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we are going to use it… we will revoke the electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry and keeping my sacred pledge to our great American autoworkers.”
But many of Trump’s efforts to rewrite environmental laws during his first term were overturned by courts or reversed by President Biden after he took office four years ago. As with Trump’s first term, experts are expecting California and other Democratic states to continue now to push to meet the Paris Agreement’s voluntary targets — which aimed to keep the planet from warming more than 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit or 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels — and take other steps to maintain their state environmental laws.
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“I think there is going to be more rhetoric about California than impact on California,” said Dustin Mulvaney, a professor of environmental studies at San Jose State University. “California has very strong decarbonization policies and state environmental policies. The concern is all the other states. California can’t tackle climate change alone. But California will use the resources we have to move its targets forward.”
In 2017, former Gov. Jerry Brown helped launch the U.S. Climate Alliance, an organization of states that agreed to work toward the Paris targets by expanding renewable energy, electric vehicles and other areas. Today there are 24 states in the group representing 55% of the U.S. population, including California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Arizona, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and most of the New England states.
“We’ve filled the void left by the federal government before and Americans can be sure, we’ll do it again,” said Casey Katims, executive director of the U.S. Climate Alliance, on Friday.
Trump is likely to clash with California on the environment in five main areas: Vehicle emissions, offshore oil drilling, offshore wind energy, water policy and federal aid for wildfires and other natural disasters.
When he was president the first time, Trump denied California permission under the federal Clean Air Act to set pollution standards for cars and trucks that are tougher than national standards, something it has done since the 1960s. Trump also attempted to revoke the state’s ability to set tougher standards at all for cars, trains, trucks or any vehicles.
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But he failed to achieve long-lasting change. California sued, and the lawsuit was still pending when Biden took office and restored the state’s powers. A month ago, Biden granted a key waiver to allow California to move forward with state rules to prohibit the sale of new gasoline-powered cars, minivans and pickup trucks starting in 2035. Already, 24% of new vehicle sales in California are electric, with higher percentages in the Bay Area.
After the first clash, California also signed voluntary agreements with five large automakers — Ford, VW, Honda, BMW and Volvo — to adhere to the state’s tailpipe emissions standards through 2026 as a way to ensure consistency when they design and build vehicles.
On offshore oil, Biden signed a sweeping memorandum earlier this month withdrawing all federal waters off California, Oregon and Washington from new offshore oil drilling. Trump said he would overturn it. But Biden used a 1953 law that a federal judge in 2019 ruled cannot be reversed without a vote of Congress. Some Republicans in California, Florida and other coastal states do not support expanding offshore drilling.
On offshore wind, the Trump White House announced Monday that “President Trump’s energy policies will end leasing to massive wind farms that degrade our natural landscapes and fail to serve American energy consumers.”
Trump has opposed wind energy for years, ever since the government in Scotland allowed turbines near a golf course he owned. He has claimed without evidence that wind turbines cause cancer and kill whales.
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Gov. Gavin Newsom and Biden pushed hard to build floating offshore wind turbines 20 miles or more off California’s coast to expand renewable energy. Trump could block new leases. But Biden already approved leases with five companies who have paid the federal treasury $757 million for the rights off Morro Bay and Humboldt County. Proposition 4, approved by voters in November, includes $475 million in state funding to expand ports to help build and deploy wind turbines. But the stock prices of some large wind companies fell after Trump’s win in November.
On disaster aid, Trump threatened to deny it to California during a rally in October over disagreements with the state over forest management and water policy.
“We’re not giving any of that fire money that we send you all the time for all the fire, forest fires that you have,” Trump said. “It’s not hard to do.”
Newsom and Democratic leaders, along with a few Republicans, like Rep. Young Kim, R-Anaheim, have said they do not support any conditions being placed on disaster assistance. Trump is scheduled to visit Los Angeles on Friday to tour areas that burned.
“In the face of one of the worst natural disasters in America’s history, this moment underscores the critical need for partnership, a shared commitment to facts, and mutual respect,” Newsom said Monday.
Look up how your sheriff responded to questions about their plans to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to ramp up immigration enforcement could put California’s 58 elected sheriffs in the hot seat because of their responsibility to manage local jails. CalMatters surveyed all of California’s sheriff’s about how they plan to navigate the complexities in local, state and federal immigration laws. Here’s what they told us.
CalMatters reached out to the sheriffs by email and website contact forms. When those weren’t available, we called the contact number on their website. Two county sheriffs’ offices — Monterey and San Mateo — did not return calls seeking comment.
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For months, Trump allies have signaled that they’d focus initial immigration enforcement on undocumented people who have committed crimes. This month, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would empower immigration agencies to deport people arrested on suspicion of burglary, theft and shoplifting. The bill is expected to pass the Senate.
During the previous Trump administration, then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed a so-called sanctuary law that limits how local enforcement agencies interact with federal immigration officers. At the time, several sheriffs from inland counties criticized the law and embraced Trump’s immigration policies.
Tomas Apodaca is a journalism engineer. He supports CalMatters and The Markup’s journalism by exploring data, reverse-engineering algorithms, and creating custom tools.
Before joining CalMatters and…
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Nigel Duara joined CalMatters in 2020 as a Los Angeles-based reporter covering poverty and inequality issues for our California Divide collaboration. Previously, he served as a national and climate correspondent…
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House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana on Sunday reiterated his belief that Congress should consider attaching conditions to aid for California following the wildfire disaster that destroyed many homes and parts of Los Angeles.
Newsweek reached out to the House Speaker’s office and Trump transition team by email on Sunday for comment.
The Context
California fire authorities over the past 10 days have worked to successfully contain all but the two largest wildfires – the Palisades fire and the Eaton fire, which as of Sunday afternoon local time stood at 52 percent and 81 percent contained, respectively. The fires spread rapidly due to unexpected Santa Ana winds blew the initial flames over land that had been in a drought since March 2024.
Each of those fires now rank among the most destructive fires, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection: The Eaton fire, which has burned up 14,117 acres, has destroyed around 9,300 structures, making it the second-most destructive fire in state history; the Palisades fire, which has burned up 23,713 acres, has destroyed just over 4,300 structures, making it the fourth-most destructive fire.
However, Republicans have heavily criticized California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for their response to the wildfires, blaming a number of factors that they attributed to Newsom’s policies, including an allegedly drained water reservoir and budget cuts to the fire department.
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California authorities have ordered investigations into the various conditions that led to and exacerbated the wildfires.
U.S. Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks during a press conference following a House Republican Caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol on January 14, 2025 in Washington, DC. U.S. Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks during a press conference following a House Republican Caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol on January 14, 2025 in Washington, DC. Samuel Corum/Getty Images
What To Know
On Sunday, Johnson made an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, during which host Kristen Welker addressed comments he made last week where he suggested that any relief or aid to help recover and rebuild in the aftermath of the fire be given only on condition of addressing policy concerns.
When asked if he would commit to disaster relief for California without “strings attached,” Johnson said: “No, I won’t commit that, because we have a serious problem in California.”
“Listen, there are natural disasters,” Johnson said. “I’m from Louisiana. We’re prone to that. We understand how these things work, but then there’s also human error, and when the state and local officials make foolish policy decisions that make the disaster exponentially worse, we need to factor that in, and I think that’s a commonsense notion.”
“Listen, in California over the last couple years, they cut $100 million from forestry management,” Johnson said. “They cut, I think, almost $18 million from L.A.’s Fire Department, putting them into their other crazy priorities, and he had 117-million-gallon reservoir that was left empty for a year outside Pacific Palisades.”
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“Those were decisions they made based on whatever their ideas were, but it made it worse, and everyone knew it would, and the risk was there,” he added.
When asked if he would consider linking relief to a measure requiring an increase in the national debt limit, Johnson said, “That’s one of the things we’re talking about every morning.”
What People Are Saying
When asked for comment, California Governor Gavin Newsom‘s office directed Newsweek to comments made during an interview with MSNBC political analyst Jen Psaki: “If that’s leadership, I have a different definition. I imagine it would be universally felt here. I’m not meeting Democrats, I’m not meeting Republicans, I’m not meeting Californians: I’m meeting American citizens desperate in need, and what they need is empathy, care, compassion, understanding.”
“They need support, not rhetoric, not strings attached,” Newsom said. “I met families who lost not only their home, but their business, their church, their sense of self, place, community,” adding, “That’s the face of leadership in the United States of America? Conditioning aid to the American people in need? Politicizing this tragic moment? So, I’ll spare any more commentary on it.”
DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd in a statement: “Mike Johnson is following Donald Trump’s lead to put tax handouts for billionaires ahead of desperately needed disaster relief for Californians. Americans recovering from a disaster shouldn’t be a bargaining chip for Trump and Johnson’s reckless policies. But instead of working to provide help and lower costs for working families, Trump and Johnson are already telling us they’ll only focus on themselves and their billionaire backers over what’s best for the American people.”
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Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming told FOX Business host Larry Kudlow: “It is heartbreaking what we’re seeing happening right now in California, and we have our Wyoming national guard helping out there … but there’s going to help from the federal government, you’re absolutely right: There has to be accountability for that money. It cannot be a blank check.”
“What we’ve seen, and even the fire chief of LA County has said that they were let down by the mayor, the elected officials – I mean, gross negligence at the state and local level where the fire department had $17 million taken away from their budget, and they were already stretched too thin, and they used the money for social programs,” Barrasso said.
What Happens Next
California continues to fight the fires and will focus on completely containing the two remaining major wildfires while extinguishing the other fires they managed to control over the past 10 days.
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