Climate Point: Fulfillment centers creep toward California's Coachella Valley

Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and the environment. I’m Erin Rode, writing from Palm Springs, California, which could be the next stop on the ever-growing logistics industry’s search for warehouse space.

As I recently reported for The Desert Sun, developers are looking eastward from California’s warehouse-inundated Inland Empire and toward the desert. Some Coachella Valley cities, including Palm Springs, are now changing their zoning codes to better accommodate large fulfillment centers in response to this interest from developers. 

Meanwhile, commercial real estate firm CBRE estimates that the U.S will need 330 million square feet of additional distribution space by 2025 just to meet the projected increase in online ordering during the next few years.  That doesn’t even account for potential demand from other industries that use warehouses, such as grocery companies. And in the Inland Empire, some communities are placing limits on future warehouse development, including moratoriums on new warehouses. 

One local environmental advocate in the Coachella Valley told me that at this point, warehouses are “a fact of life.” Local environmental groups are focused on mitigation efforts, such as requiring zero-emission technology and siting warehouses away from homes and important desert habitat. 

Here are some other stories that may be of interest this week. 

Some of these stories are only available to subscribers. You can subscribe to the Desert Sun for $1 for 3 months here, which includes access to the e-Editions of all Gannett/USA Today publications. 

Must-read stories

Climate anxiety. Ten years ago, Portland psychologist Thomas J. Doherty and colleague Susan Clayton, a professor of psychology at the College of Wooster, published a paper that proposed that climate change would have powerful psychological impacts. These effects would be felt not just by those experiencing the brunt of climate change, but also by those following climate change through the news and research, an idea that was seen as speculative at the time. But that skepticism is fading, Ellen Barry reports for the New York Times, and Doherty has since built an entire practice around that idea.

From coal to fire. The Marshall Fire in Boulder County, Colorado, began on the plains, burning more than 1,000 homes to become the most destructive fire in the state’s history. In Boulder County, housing developments now dominate an area once known for its coal mining, and before the towns were built, infrequent but large wildfires spread through the grassy plains. 

“The prairie makes way for the coal mine. The coal mine becomes a suburb. Most people in Boulder today have jobs in tech or health care or service work. They are often drawn to the area by the promise of the Rockies, dreaming of exploring those high mountains, but they build their lives on the prairie,” Kate Schimel writes in this essay about her hometown for High Country News. 

Building resilience. The $1.45 billion East Side Coastal Resilience project, which would transform Manhattan’s East River Park into a protective buffer between rising sea levels and lower Manhattan, seems like an objectively positive project. But it’s faced pushback from community members, who say the plan will temporarily close an important community resource and negatively affect the park, Zoya Teirstein reports for Grist. The pushback began after the city scrapped its initial plans for the park just a few months after finalizing them, and pivoted to a new effort after engineers determined the original plan wasn’t feasible. 

The East Side Coastal Resilience project is just one of several examples across the country of climate adaptation plans that are being met with community opposition. Experts told Grist that the key to avoiding this opposition is engaging with community members early and often. 

Public lands

Smoky. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s namesake haze is part nature, part pollution, reports Anila Yoganathan for the Knoxville News Sentinel. The natural fogginess in America’s most-visited national park is caused by emissions from trees and water vapor, but human-created pollution makes the area even hazier, obscuring views and exposing visitors and nearby residents to air pollution with long-term health effects. Some people are concerned that a draft plan from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to reduce haze is too limited to be effective. 

On the rocks. A proposed climbing management plan update by Joshua Tree National Park officials is being met by resistance from some climbers, reports Janet Wilson for The Desert Sun. Their main concerns are the possible closures of many climbing routes and what they say could be the unprecedented banning of fixed bolts in designated national wilderness areas, which make up 80% of the park. Fixed bolts are permanent bolts used by climbers to attach ropes. But park officials say a ban on fixed bolts isn’t in the works.

“We recognize that climbing is a legitimate use of wilderness for people to recreate inside of the National Park. There's no banning of bolts anywhere in the park, and the fact of the matter is right now, permits are already required for any new bolts in wilderness areas," said park Superintendent David Smith.

Money for BLM. The Bureau of Land Management is getting a partner nonprofit foundation to provide the agency with a financial boost, joining other land management agencies like the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which all have associated foundations that fundraise for projects like land restoration and addressing increased visitation. The Department of Interior recently announced that the Foundation for America’s Public Lands is finally forming, Kylie Mohr reported for High Country News. 

All about agriculture 

Pounds of pesticides. In California’s agriculture-heavy Ventura County, growers applied more than 32 million pounds of pesticides to fields over a six-year period, according to an investigation by the Environmental Working Group reported on by the Ventura County Star. Nearly 70% of the county’s residences are within 2.5 miles of treated fields, a radius that recent studies have linked to childhood cancers. An average of 4 million pounds of pesticides linked to respiratory problems were used annually in the county. And nearly three dozen Ventura County schools are within a quarter mile of a pesticide-treated field. 

Oil wastewater. Last fall, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board told the public that eating California crops grown with oil field wastewater creates "no identifiable increased health risks." But a review of the science and interviews experts show “that there is scant evidence to support the board’s safety claims,” Liza Gross reports for Inside Climate News. 

Hot takes

Surprise, surprise. While major corporations have pledged to fight climate change, researchers say many of those companies aren’t doing enough to back up their promises. Washington Post 

(Not) freezing over. Vermont’s Lake Champlain isn’t freezing as much or as frequently as in past years, which could mean trouble for the lake’s aquatic life. Burlington Free Press 

Salamander capital. The southern Appalachians and Great Smoky Mountains National Park are considered “the salamander capital of the world,” but can the salamanders adapt to climate change? Knoxville News Sentinel 

Bills, bills, bills. Utah’s Legislature is flooded with water-related bills this year. St. George Spectrum & Daily News

And another thing

ICYMI: I’ve been intensely following a local saga in the suburb of Woodside, California, in recent weeks that encompasses two of my favorite topics: housing density and mountain lions. Here in California, we have a new state law called SB 9, which allows duplexes to be built on single-family lots. The Silicon Valley suburb of Woodside, population 5,500, announced two weeks ago that the entire town is exempt from the new state housing law. Why? The entire town is habitat for potentially endangered mountain lions, Liam Dillon reported for the Los Angeles Times. 

Woodside backtracked this week after receiving a letter from California Attorney General Rob Bonta, and “announced a complete surrender,” Eric Ting wrote for SF Gate. “The Department of Fish and Wildlife advised that the entire Town of Woodside cannot be considered habitat,” the city announced in a press release, adding that staff will immediately begin accepting SB 9 applications.

That's all for this week. Stay in touch @RodeErin on Twitter or via email at erin.rode@desertsun.com, and you can sign up to get Climate Point in your inbox for free here.