The History Of Environmental Issues In California

We are surrounded by many things on earth, but most of the time we take them for granted. Our surroundings, whether they are living or nonliving along with the geographical area we live in, make up our environment. The area I live in is California, which is known for having issues within the environment such as poor air quality, droughts due to little precipitation, and rising sea levels. These problems are usually caused by the people living in this area and no one is doing anything to help the situation or they don’t care about the problems. Furthermore, I will be discussing the historical significance of environmental issues in California.

There is an abundance of situations we can look at in California’s history over time, but the first issue was conservation. According to Christopher Muscato, a teacher currently at the University of Northern Colorado, “Homesteaders started moving into the rural parts of California in the mid-19th century, they were struck by the awesome beauty of the state. The settlers wrote about it, talked about it, and painted it and soon California began attracting permanent settlers from the eastern US and immigrants. A homesteader named Galen Clark discovered huge sequoia groves and started fighting to protect them from logging around 1855. That fight was soon expanded to include the Yosemite Valley, which in 1864 became the first territory in the USA to be protected from commercial development by Congress and set aside purely for recreational use. In 1890, it was expanded and federally protected even further creating the place we know as Yosemite National Park” (Muscato). You can see during this time it was almost like a revolution in California. No one knew whether to worry about the people or to conserve the natural landscape.

After this park was created, years later in 1906 a huge earthquake hit San Francisco. Fires were all over the city and government officials realized they were severely underprepared when they did have the resources available to provide the public with fresh water, food and assistance to those who were badly injured. Christopher Muscato goes on to explain how these moments in history showed us the climate and natural disasters of California. “This forced them to start searching for a location to create a new reservoir. They found a good spot in the Hetch Hetchy Valley. It was a perfect spot because it was already shaped like a reservoir, and was close enough to provide lots of water to the city. The only problem was its location inside the protected Yosemite National Park. A massive debate was formed, what was more important, protecting California's natural treasures or providing for the people of San Francisco, who seriously needed a stronger water supply?

After years of argument, Hetch Hetchy was dammed and flooded, but the fight wasn't over. Hetch Hetchy was just a single incident of the struggle between protecting the environment and providing for the people of California. Water remains an unresolved issue in Southern California, which is much drier, leading to droughts and barely any rain. “In the late 19th century, Los Angeles had grown large enough to extend its water supply. For the city to keep growing, the city needed water, and in the first decade of the 20th century began planning to create an aqueduct to bring water from the Owens Valley of eastern California to Los Angeles. The pipeline was completed in 1913. To get the rights to this water, city officials relied on less than legal methods that included bribery and manipulation of the law. Owens Lake was almost drained, which ruined the economy of the agricultural communities that relied on it. The result was almost a century of fighting, remembered in history as the California Water Wars. Owens Valley farmers tried to destroy the aqueduct in 1924 and later turned to legal channels. After the pipeline was extended to include nearby Mono Lake in the 1940s, the problem got worse. From 1979 to 1994, the city of Los Angeles were in many legal battles over the rights to these waters. Lastly, the city was forced to stop draining Mono Lake in the 1990s, which has since slowly started to refill” (Muscato 2019). From this point, California was starting to become a decent place to live. The weather is becoming nice but on the other hand, there were still long droughts without water which can lead to agricultural problems and even cause fires.

Currently, California is still going through environmental problems due to a multitude of climates. One of the main issues we have in this state is poor air quality. Los Angeles is known as the most polluted city in the country and it never meets the required standards for sufficient air quality. Air pollution that comes from traffic and power plants also affects the ozone layer every year making the air we breathe very harmful with scientists linking respiratory problems to the air quality. In addition to the last point, pollution effects low income areas the most due to them likely being located next to factories and freeways. Another major climate issue would be that there is barely any rain in the southern area of california. Southern California is due for changes in rainfall since the major drought which lasted from December of 2011 until March of 2019. The average amount of rain in Los Angeles and other cities on the southern coast is 17 inches less than in Northern California. This climate can be harsh with the combination of droughts because the forests will be more susceptible to wildfires.

Another article from Sciencing.com goes over how storm can cause flooding and how the rising sea levels affect the areas they surround. “Los Angeles is famous for its extensive coastline that features tourist-populated beaches and busy ports that are the foundation of the city's economy. Rising sea levels threaten the area with storm surges that create the potential for flooding, which in turn can erode beaches and coastal infrastructure. Sea level rise is also a concern for the local transportation network, which includes bridges and roads that could be destroyed by the impact of floods. Storm water pollution is a major environmental concern in Los Angeles that is exacerbated by the densely packed residents in the city. Every day, millions of people engage in activities like littering, spraying pesticides on their lawns, and hosing off driveways and cars, all of which result in contaminated water traveling to storm drains and ending up in nearby creeks, rivers and the ocean. The public health outcomes include bacteria-infested waters and degradation of the marine-based food supply” (Gillespie 2019). The water and sea levels are nice to look at for entertainment purposes, but in the long run it’s ruining the area around the beaches and even the property surrounding the water.

In conclusion, I discussed how the environmental issues of California has historical significance. I feel like the rapid change in climate makes this state more unique than any other. After doing research on California, the history of this place would be different if the climate wasn’t mentioned because all the settlers came here based off the sunshine and other aspects that made it seem like this would be the perfect place to create a melting pot. California has a variety of climates across its landscape causing different problems in each area of the state. Air pollution, rising sea levels, and droughts have made California one of the most diverse states in the country in terms of weather. These issues can only be solved with the help of the citizens who live here along with the help of government officials who can provide resources to whoever is in need. I hope that from this day forward our community can come together to decrease the effects left on California after all these years.