If you (or a good friend) enjoy the outdoors and live in California, this is a must-read. In 2017, the California state legislature passed Senate Bill 5, which will allow the issuance of bonds to finance drought-recovery, water, parks, climate and outdoor access programs. That bill, now known as Proposition 68, will appear on California voters’ June 5 primary ballot. Prop 68 proposes the allocation of $4.1 billion for state and local park systems, water sustainability measures, natural disaster recovery, as well as wildlife and habitat restoration.
If the bill passes, a portion of the restoration funding would be funneled to salmon and steelhead habitat improvement projects. A full $200 million would go to watershed restoration which would include construction of fish passages and acquisition of conservation easements. An additional $30 million will be available for restoration of Southern California steelhead Habitat. As stated in the bill, “projects that remove significant barriers to steelhead migration and include other habitat restoration and are associated with infrastructure improvements shall be the highest priority.”
Another $25 million would be available to California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife for projects to restore rivers and streams in support of fisheries and wildlife. A minimum of $5 million will be set aside for restoration projects in the Klamath-Trinity watershed.
Follow these links to find out more about Prop. 68, and how the $4.1 billion is allocated.
Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.