The data cover 162,912 positions and a total of nearly $10.38 billion in 2021 wages and more than $2.92 billion in health and retirement costs for 3,061 special districts.
Special districts are governmental entities created by a local community to meet a specific need.
Data for 2021 show the top 10 districts by total wages are health care, transportation, utility, water, and fire districts. The top 10 individual salaries reported are all in health care districts.
In Lake County, there are 30 special districts, with 413 employees. In 2021, those districts paid salaries totaling $11,315,911, with benefits of $3,811,700.
The top 10 special districts in Lake County by total wages and retirement are as follows:
• Lake County Fire Protection District: 40 employees; wages, $1,911,823; retirement, $782,966.
• Hidden Valley Lake Community Services District: 23 employees; wages, $1,063,821; retirement, $480,375.
• Lake County Vector Control District Mosquito Abatement: 14 employees; wages, $658,242; retirement, $277,696.
• Konocti County Water District: 21 employees; wages, $592,621; retirement, $128,650.
• Cobb Area County Water District: 19 employees; wages, $384,963; retirement, $91,485;
• Lower Lake County Waterworks District No. 1: 16 employees; wages, $362,111; retirement, $80,951.
California law requires cities, counties and special districts to annually report compensation data to the state controller.
The state controller also maintains and publishes state and California State University salary data.
A list of districts that did not file or filed incomplete reports is available here.
Users of the site can:
• View compensation levels on maps and search by region; • Narrow results by name of the district or by job title; and • Export raw data or custom reports.
Since the GCC website launched in 2010, it has registered more than 14 million pageviews. The site contains pay and benefit information on more than two million government jobs in California, as reported annually by each entity.
As the chief fiscal officer of California, Controller Yee is responsible for accountability and disbursement of the state’s financial resources. The controller has independent auditing authority over government agencies that spend state funds.
Follow the Controller on Twitter at @CAController and on Facebook at California State Controller’s Office.
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. — The Middletown Area Town Hall will meet this week and hear reports from local officials.
MATH will meet at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 8, in the Middletown Community Meeting Room/Library at 21256 Washington St., Middletown. The meeting is open to the public.
To join the meeting via Zoom click on this link; the meeting ID is 659 964 1209. Call in at 669-900-6833.
At 7:05 p.m., Chief Paul Duncan of Cal Fire is scheduled to speak, followed by Pacific Gas and Electric representative Melinda Rivera.
At 8:05 p.m., Supervisor Moke Simon is scheduled to give his monthly report.
The MATH Board includes Chair Monica Rosenthal, Vice Chair Ken Gonzalez, Secretary Todd Fiora, Rosemary Córdova and Bill Waite.
MATH — established by resolution of the Lake County Board of Supervisors on Dec. 12, 2006 — is a municipal advisory council serving the residents of Anderson Springs, Cobb, Coyote Valley (including Hidden Valley Lake), Long Valley and Middletown.
For more information email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lakeport City Council will consider taking action to fill the seat of the departing mayor pro tem and hold the first reading for a zone change ordinance for a new housing project.
The council will meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 6, in the council chambers at Lakeport City Hall, 225 Park St.
The council chambers will be open to the public for the meeting. Masks are highly encouraged where 6-foot distancing cannot be maintained.
If you cannot attend in person, and would like to speak on an agenda item, you can access the Zoom meeting remotely at this link or join by phone by calling toll-free 669-900-9128 or 346-248-7799.
The webinar ID is 973 6820 1787, access code is 477973; the audio pin will be shown after joining the webinar. Those phoning in without using the web link will be in “listen mode” only and will not be able to participate or comment.
Comments can be submitted by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. To give the city clerk adequate time to print out comments for consideration at the meeting, please submit written comments before 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 6.
Last week, Mayor Pro Tem Mireya Turner accepted the job of Lake County Community Development director on a permanent basis, as Lake County News has reported.
On the same day, Aug. 30, Turner immediately resigned her position on the Lakeport City Council after two terms.
On Tuesday, the council will be asked to direct City Clerk/Administrative Services Director Kelly Buendia to solicit applications to fill Turner’s seat and to work with Mayor Stacey Mattina to set a date and time for interviews at either a regular or special meeting.
At the same time, the council will be asked to nominate and elect a new mayor pro tem.
On Tuesday, the council is set to hold a public hearing for staff to introduce approval of entitlements related to the Parkside Residential Project, proposed by Waterstone Residential.
The newest plans for the property includes 128 new apartment units and 48 cluster homes on the 15-acre site at 1310 Craig Ave.
Staff will introduce the project’s general plan amendment, zoning code amendment and approval of a mitigated negative declaration under the California Environmental Quality Act.
The council will hold the first reading of the zone change ordinance and schedule a public hearing for a second reading of the ordinance for Sept. 20.
The Lakeport Planning Commission considered the project at its Aug. 10 meeting and is recommending the council approve it.
In other business on Tuesday, the council will receive a presentation about the second phase of a feasibility study on a recreation center, will discuss the revised commercial lease agreement with the Lakeport Yacht Club for use of the facility located at 15 Fifth St., and consider approving the associated purchase agreement for the procurement of a 2023 John Deere 310 SL backhoe.
On the consent agenda — items usually accepted as a slate on one vote — are ordinances; minutes of the special and regular meetings on Aug. 16; adoption of a resolution authorizing continued remote teleconference meetings of the Lakeport City Council and its legislative bodies pursuant to Government Code section 54953(e); approval of event application 2022-021, with staff recommendations, for the 2022 Climb Out of the Darkness event; approval of event application 2022-024, with staff recommendations, for the Lore of the Lake event; authorize the city manager to submit city of Lakeport responses to the 2021-2022 Lake County Civil Grand Jury 2021-2022 Final Report to the Lake County Superior Court; and conduct a second reading and adopt the ordinance amending section 17.52.040 of Title 17 of the Lakeport Municipal Code regarding the text of the Sign Ordinance.
The council also will hold a closed session for labor negotiations with the Lakeport Police Officers’ Association.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
With triple-digit temperatures forecasted through Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom has extended emergency actions taken last week to bring more energy online and reduce demand on the grid during the record-setting heat wave across the western U.S.
The prolonged heat wave is on track to be California’s hottest and longest for September and is projected to set a new record high for demand on the state’s energy grid with a load forecast of 51,276 megawatts today.
The state’s emergency response and efforts by large energy users, energy producers and California residents has helped to prevent outages during this extreme heat event, and even greater action will be needed in the days ahead as the state faces peak temperatures.
Californians’ action to conserve energy during the Flex Alert on Monday saved 1,000 megawatts of power. An additional 2,000 megawatts of savings was needed on Tuesday given the higher forecasts.
The state has also taken other urgent actions to bring more power onto the grid, including importing energy from out-of-state, installing emergency generators and creating a Strategic Reliability Reserve.
“Californians have stepped up in a big way during this record heat wave, but with the hottest temperatures here now, the risk of outages is real. We all have to double down on conserving energy to reduce the unprecedented strain on the grid,” said Newsom. “We need everyone – individuals, businesses, the state and energy producers — to do their part in the coming days and help California continue to meet this challenge.”
An executive order Newsom issued on Tuesday extends provisions of his earlier emergency proclamation and executive order through this Friday to increase energy production, reduce strain on the grid and provide additional flexibility to state agencies, energy users and utility operators.
Newsom on Tuesday also signed AB 2645 by Assemblymember Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona), which requires counties to ensure community resilience centers can serve as community-wide assets to mitigate public health impacts during disasters, including extreme heat events, and integrate these centers into their local emergency plans.
The California Independent System Operator has called a Flex Alert for Wednesday, asking Californians to reduce their electricity consumption between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. to save power and reduce the risk of outages.
Extreme heat endangers vulnerable Californians, including our elderly and those with health concerns. State agencies and departments have gathered resources and information to help the public stay safe, cool, and connected during this heat wave, more information can be found here.
Tips for how to stay safe during extreme heat:
• If you don’t have an air conditioner, go to a shopping mall or public building for a few hours. If you must be outdoors, wear lightweight clothing and sunscreen, avoid the hottest parts of the day, and avoid strenuous activities. • Sweating removes needed salt and minerals from the body. Avoid drinks with caffeine (tea, coffee, and soda) and alcohol. • Check on friends and family and have someone do the same for you. If you know someone who is elderly or has a health condition, check on them twice a day. Watch for signs of heat exhaustion or heat stroke. Know the symptoms of heat-related illness and be ready to help. • Find cooling centers in your area by contacting your county or calling your local health department, or find one at Cooling Centers | California Governor’s Office of Emergency Management • Employers who have questions or need assistance with workplace health and safety programs can call Cal/OSHA’s Consultation Services Branch at 800-963-9424. Complaints about workplace safety and health hazards can be filed confidentially with Cal/OSHA district office. Cal/OSHA’s Heat Illness Prevention program includes enforcement of the heat regulation as well as multilingual outreach and training programs for California’s employers and workers. Cal/OSHA inspectors will be conducting unannounced inspections checking for compliance at worksites throughout the state.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The East Region Town Hall, or ERTH, will meet on Wednesday, Sept. 7.
The meeting will begin at 4 p.m. at the Moose Lodge, located at 15900 Moose Lodge Lane in Clearlake Oaks.
The meeting can be attended in person or via Zoom; the meeting ID is 935 8339 6020, the pass code is 448228.
The guest speaker at Wednesday’s meeting will be Carter Jessop of the US Environmental Protection Agency, who will give the latest news on the Sulphur Bank Mine Superfund Site.
The EPA is due to release a proposed plan for cleanup of the on-land portion of the mine site this fall, with a public comment process to follow.
They also will hear the monthly updates on Spring Valley, commercial cannabis cultivation, the consolidated lighting district in Clearlake Oaks, the Lake County geothermal project watchlist, the Northshore Fire Protection District, the John T. Klaus 1994 Trust’s land donation for a new Clearlake Oaks park and get a report from Supervisor EJ Crandell.
ERTH’s members are Denise Loustalot, Jim Burton, Tony Morris and Pamela Kicenski.
For more information visit the group’s Facebook page.
It comes on the back of a wave of successful efforts to mobilize at Starbucks and Amazon. The growth of unionized stores at Starbucks in particular has been stunning. Since baristas in Buffalo, New York, became the first at the chain to unionize in December 2021, colleagues at a further 234 outlets have followed suit in recent months.
It comes as polling shows that public support of unions is at its highest since 1965, with the backing of 71% of Americans. Something is definitely happening in the labor movement in 2022.
A different kind of organizing
As a scholar of the labor movement who has observed union drives for two decades, what I find almost as striking as the victories is the unconventional nature of the organizing campaigns.
Workers at Amazon and Trader Joe’s are setting up independent unions, whereas at Starbucks and Chipotle, employees are teaming up with established unions. But that difference apart, the dynamics at play are remarkably similar: The campaigns are being led by determined young workers. For the most part, it is bottom-up unionizing, rather than being driven by official, seasoned union representatives.
Inspired by pro-union sentiment in political movements, such as Bernie Sanders’ presidential bids, Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Socialists of America, individuals are spearheading the efforts for workplace reform rather than professional union organizers. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to find many experienced organizers among the recent successful campaigns.
Instead, the campaigns have involved a significant degree of “self-organization” – that is, workers “talking union” to each other in the warehouse and coffee shops and reaching out to colleagues in other shops in the same city and across the nation. This marks a sea change from the way the labor movement has traditionally operated, which has tended to be more centralized and led by seasoned union officials.
A labor revival
Perhaps more important than the victories at Starbucks, Amazon, Trader Joe’s and Chipotle themselves is their potential for creating a sense of optimism and enthusiasm around union organizing, especially among younger workers.
The significance of the recent victories is not primarily about the 8,000 new union members at Amazon or a gradual flow of new union members at Starbucks. It is about instilling in workers the belief that if pro-union workers can win at Amazon and Starbucks, they can win anywhere.
Historic precedents show that labor mobilization can be infectious.
In 1936 and 1937, workers at the Flint plant of General Motors brought the powerful automaker to its knees in a sit-down strike that quickly inspired similar action elsewhere. In the reported words of a Chicago doctor, when explaining a subsequent sit-down strike by wet nurses in the city: “It’s just one of those funny things. They want to strike because everyone else is doing it.”
After working on the front lines for over two years, many essential workers such as those at Amazon and Trader Joe’s believe they have not been adequately rewarded for their service during the pandemic and have not been treated with respect by their employers.
This appears to have helped spur the popularity of smaller, workplace-specific unions.
The homegrown nature of these campaigns deprives chains of employing a decades-old trope at the heart of corporate anti-union campaigns: that a union is an external “third party” that doesn’t understand or care about the concerns of employees and is more interested in collecting dues.
It has the effect of nullifying that central argument of anti-union campaigns despite the many millions of dollars that companies often pumped into them.
An unfavorable legal landscape
This “self-organization” is consistent with what was envisioned by the authors of the 1935 Wagner Act, the statute that provides the foundation of today’s union representation procedures.
The National Labor Relations Board’s first chair, J. Warren Madden, understood that self-organization could be fatally undermined if corporations were allowed to engage in anti-union pressure tactics:
“Upon this fundamental principle – that an employer shall keep his hands off the self-organization of employees – the entire structure of the act rests,” he wrote.“ Any compromise or weakening of that principle strikes at the root of the law.”
Over the past half century, anti-union corporations and their consultants and law firms – assisted by Republican-controlled NLRBs and right-wing judges – have undermined that process of worker self-organization by enabling union elections to become employer-dominated.
But for the long-term decline in union membership to be reversed, I believe pro-union workers will need stronger protections. Labor law reform is essential if the almost 50% of nonunion American workers who say they want union representation are to have any chance of getting it.
Meaningful labor law reform is unlikely to happen unless people are engaged with the issues, understand them and believe they have a stake in the outcome.
It isn’t known where this latest labor movement – or moment – will lead. It could evaporate or it may just spark a wave of organizing across the low-wage service sector, stimulating a national debate over workers’ rights in the process.
The biggest weapons that anti-union corporations have in suppressing labor momentum are the fear of retaliation and a sense that unionization is futile. The recent successes show unionizing no longer seems so frightening or so futile.
Pregnant women in the U.S. are being exposed to chemicals like melamine, cyanuric acid, and aromatic amines that can increase the risk of cancer and harm child development, according to a study from researchers at UC San Francisco and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Melamine and cyanuric acid were found in nearly all study participants’ samples, but the highest levels were found in women of color and those with greater exposure to tobacco. Four aromatic amines that are commonly used in products containing dyes and pigments were also found in nearly all pregnant participants.
The highest levels of melamine and cyanuric acid were found in women of color and those with greater exposure to tobacco.
People can be exposed to melamine and aromatic amines in a variety of ways: through the air they breathe, by eating contaminated food or ingesting household dust, as well as from drinking water or by using products that contain plastic, dyes, and pigments.
“These chemicals are of serious concern due to their links to cancer and developmental toxicity, yet they are not routinely monitored in the United States,” said Tracey J. Woodruff, PhD, a professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine who directs the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, and is the co-senior author of the study published August 30, 2022, in Chemosphere.
Melamine and its major byproduct, cyanuric acid, are each high production chemicals that exceed 100 million pounds per year in this country alone. When exposure to these chemicals happens together, they can be more toxic than either one alone. Melamine is found in dishware, plastics, flooring, kitchen counters, and pesticides; cyanuric acid is used as a disinfectant, plastic stabilizer, and cleaning solvent in swimming pools; aromatic amines are found in hair dye, mascara, tattoo ink, paint, tobacco smoke, and diesel exhaust.
When exposure to these chemicals happens together, they can be more toxic than either one alone.
Melamine was recognized as a kidney toxicant after baby formula and pet food poisoning incidents in 2004, 2007, and 2008 that caused several deaths as well as kidney stones and urinary tract obstruction in some people. Additional animal experiments suggest melamine reduces brain function.
For their study, researchers measured 45 chemicals associated with cancer and other risks using new methods to capture chemicals or chemical traces in urine samples from a small but diverse group of 171 women who are part of the National Institutes of Health’s Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program. The study period covered 2008 to 2020.
These chemicals are of serious concern due to their links to cancer and developmental toxicity, yet they are not routinely monitored in the United States.
The 171 women came from California, Georgia, Illinois, New Hampshire, New York, and Puerto Rico. About one-third (34%) were white, 40% were Latina, 20% were Black, 4% were Asians, and the remaining 3% were from other or multiple racial groups. Prior studies on melamine were conducted among pregnant women in Asian countries or limited to non-pregnant people in the U.S.
“It’s disconcerting that we continue to find higher levels of many of these harmful chemicals in people of color,” said study co-senior author Jessie Buckley, PhD, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
For example, levels of 3,4-dichloroaniline (a chemical used in the production of dyes and pesticides) were more than 100% higher among Black and Hispanic women compared to white women.
“Our findings raise concerns for the health of pregnant women and fetuses, since some of these chemicals are known carcinogens and potential developmental toxicants,” said Giehae Choi, postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and first author of the study. “Regulatory action is clearly needed to limit exposure.”
On Monday evening, the California Independent System Operator, or Cal ISO, requested the activation of temporary emergency power generators deployed by the Department of Water Resources, or DWR, in Roseville and Yuba City.
In total, the four generators can provide up to 120 megawatts of electricity to the statewide power grid during extreme heat events like the state is experiencing this week. That’s enough electricity to power up to 120,000 homes.
This was the first time that the generators were activated since they were installed last year.
DWR along with its energy partners at ISO and the California Energy Commission put this plan into motion following Gov. Newsom’s executive order in July 2021.
The agencies were able to deploy these units quickly and have them ready for any extreme heat events, wildfires or other climate-driven energy emergencies.
“DWR has been planning for this moment for months and we’re proud of our role in safeguarding the statewide energy grid. We are doing everything possible to help keep the lights on and the air conditioning running so millions of Californians can stay safe and healthy during this extreme heat event,” said Karla Nemeth, DWR director.
The temporary emergency power generators are powered by natural gas and are equipped with Selective Catalytic Reduction systems to reduce emissions and limit air quality impacts. The program is designed to support a transition to a clean energy future and is temporary in nature.
In addition to the 120 megawatts of generation from the temporary emergency power generators, DWR has coordinated with PG&E and Southern California Edison to procure, install, and operate dozens of backup generators to be operated only during a level 2 power emergency, as declared by ISO.
These backup generators are located in Northern California and Southern California and can provide up to an additional 80 megawatts of electricity into the statewide grid.
DWR is also developing the Strategic Reliability Infrastructure Assets program approved in June as part of the state's Strategic Electricity Reliability Reserve.
Programs under the reserve will result in a diverse set of backup electricity resources to act as an insurance for all utilities and balancing areas in the state as they address this challenge along with increasingly frequent and extreme climate-driven events and supply chain and related issues over the coming years.
The following cats at the shelter have been cleared for adoption.
Female domestic shorthair kitten
This 4-month-old female domestic shorthair kitten has a white coat with gray markings.
She is in kennel No. 13a, ID No. LCAC-A-3878.
Female domestic shorthair kitten
This 3-month-old female domestic shorthair kitten has a black coat.
She is in kennel No. 13b, ID No. LCAC-A-3880.
Female domestic shorthair kitten
This 4-month-old female domestic shorthair kitten has a white coat with blue eyes.
She is in kennel No. 13c, ID No. LCAC-A-3881.
Female domestic shorthair cat
This 2-year-old female domestic shorthair cat has an all-black coat.
Shelter staff said she is a “master greeter.”
“She is very talkative and likes softs pets down her back. She is uncomfortable when being picked up, but is more than happy to come to you, especially for pets,” and has a “chill” attitude, the shelter reported.
She is in cat room kennel No. 32, ID No. LCAC-A-3887.
‘Willow’
“Willow” is a female domestic shorthair cat with a gray and white coat.
She is in cat room kennel No. 47, ID No. LCAC-A-3762.
Male domestic shorthair kitten
This 4-month-old male domestic shorthair kitten has an all-black coat.
Shelter staff said he is a unique kitten, who is very sweet and playful despite having a limb deformity.
“He can run around and play with all the other kittens and he loves toys and adventure. He will need to be indoor only so he can live his life worry free,” the shelter reported.
He is in cat room kennel No. 62a, ID No. LCAC-A-3877.
Male domestic medium hair kitten
This 3-month-old male domestic medium hair kitten has a black coat.
He is in kennel No. 62b, ID No. LCAC-A-3874.
Male domestic medium hair kitten
This 3-month-old male domestic medium hair kitten has a white coat with blue eyes.
He is in kennel No. 62c, ID No. LCAC-A-3875.
Male domestic medium hair kitten
This 3-month-old male domestic medium hair kitten has a gray coat.
He is in kennel No. 74a, ID No. LCAC-A-3873.
Male domestic medium hair kitten
This 3-month-old male domestic medium hair kitten has a gray tabby coat.
He is in kennel No. 74d, ID No. LCAC-A-3876.
Female domestic shorthair kitten
This female domestic shorthair kitten has a gray coat with white markings.
Shelter staff said she came to them with an injury to one of her eyes and needed to have the eye removed, but that has only made her more eager for head bonks.
“She has the cutest little meow and is a running shelter champion for the ‘best biscuit maker,’” the staff said.
She would be best as an indoor-only cat.
She is in cat room kennel No. 107a, ID No. LCAC-A-3842.
Female domestic shorthair kitten
This 4-month-old female domestic shorthair kitten has a white coat with blue eyes.
She is in kennel No. 107b, ID No. LCAC-A-3882.
Female domestic shorthair kitten
This 4-month-old female domestic shorthair kitten has a white coat with blue eyes.
Shelter staff said she has a stunning Siamese coat, and is sweet and quiet. “She enjoys toys and gentle pets as well as curling up on a fluffy bed.”
She is in kennel No. 107c, ID No. LCAC-A-3889.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
Lake County Chapter of California Women for Agriculture
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lake County Chapter of California Women for Agriculture, or CWA, is pleased to announce its 2022 AgVenture class.
Twelve community leaders from a range of positions were selected to participate in this, the eleventh offering of this popular program, which returns after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Members of the 2022 class include: Lake County District 3 Supervisor Eddie Crandell; Lake County District 2 Supervisor Bruno Sabatier; Lake County Community Development Director Mireya Turner; Lake County Agricultural Commissioner Katherine VanDerWall; Lakeport Chief Building Official Bethany Moss; Lake County Deputy Water Resources Director Marina Deligiannis; Lake County Vector Control Technician Sandi Courcier; Lake County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Laura McAndrews Sammel; Lake County Farm Bureau Executive Director Rebecca Harper; Clear Lake Environmental Research Center Fire and Forestry Program Manager Tracy Cline; Bella Vista Farming Company Assistant Manager Will Weiss; and Lake County Record-Bee Reporter Nikki Carboni.
AgVenture is an innovative concept in agricultural education designed for non-farming community leaders and others who wish to understand the vital role that agriculture plays in Lake County’s economy.
AgVenture sessions cover topics including labor, history, marketing, water and land use, regulations, pest management and sustainability.
On August 12, AgVenture class members embarked on the first of four sessions as they learned about the pear industry including tours of Henderson/Panella pear orchard and Scully Packing Company pear shed.
Three subsequent classes will provide insight into the winegrape industry on Sept. 9, walnuts and livestock on Oct. 7, and olives, biotechnology and farm labor on Nov. 4.
Class members will be given tours of an olive mill, a walnut orchard, a livestock operation, a commercial vineyard operation and a commercial winery.
Started by Lake County CWA in 2010, AgVenture is designed to give participants a broad yet locally oriented understanding of the agricultural industry.
The AgVenture program Steering Committee, all CWA members, are Rebecca Harper, Colleen Rentsch, Toni Scully, Debra Sommerfield, Katherine VanDerWall and Sharron Zoller.
California Women for Agriculture was founded in 1975 and is the most active, all-volunteer agricultural organization in the state, with 20 chapters and more than 1,300 members comprising farmers, ranchers, bankers, lawyers, accountants, marketing professionals, support services, consumers, and the vast stakeholders of the agriculture industry.
CWA promotes leadership within local communities, advocacy on key local, state and federal issues, public service and outreach, agriculture literacy in our schools, and promotional initiatives to preserve and educate those living in our increasingly urbanized California landscape. CWA advocates for the economic sustainability of the diverse California agriculture community so future generations can continue to produce a healthy diverse food supply.
Energy efficiency can save homeowners and renters hundreds of dollars a year, and the new Inflation Reduction Act includes a wealth of home improvement rebates and tax incentives to help Americans secure those saving.
It extends tax credits for installing energy-efficient windows, doors, insulation, water heaters, furnaces, air conditioners or heat pumps, as well as for home energy audits. It also offers rebates for low- and moderate-income households’ efficiency improvements, up to US$14,000 per home.
Together, these incentives aim to cut energy costs for consumers who use them by $500 to $1,000 per year and reduce the nation’s climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
With so many options, what are the most cost-effective moves homeowners and renters can make?
My lab at UMass Lowell works on ways to improve sustainability in buildings and homes by finding cost-effective design solutions to decrease their energy demand and carbon footprint. There are two key ways to cut energy use: energy-efficient upgrades and behavior change. Each has clear winners.
Stop the leaks
The biggest payoff for both saving money and reducing emissions is weatherizing the home to stop leaks. Losing cool air in summer and warm air in winter means heating and cooling systems run more, and they’re among the most energy-intensive systems in a home.
Gaps along the baseboard where the wall meets the floor and at windows, doors, pipes, fireplace dampers and electrical outlets are all prime spots for drafts. Fixing those leaks can cut a home’s entire energy use by about 6%, on average, by our estimates. And it’s cheap, since those fixes mostly involve caulk and weather stripping.
The Inflation Reduction Act offers homeowners a hand. It includes a $150 rebate to help pay for a home energy audit that can locate leaks.
While a professional audit can help, it isn’t essential – the Department of Energy website offers guidance for doing your own inspection.
Once you find the leaks, the act includes 30% tax credits with a maximum of $1,200 a year for basic weatherization work, plus rebates up to $1,600 for low- and moderate-income homeowners earning less than 150% of the local median.
Insulation can also reduce energy loss. But with the exception of older homes with poor insulation and homes facing extreme temperatures, it generally doesn’t have as high of a payoff in whole-house energy savings as weatherization or window replacement.
The Inflation Reduction Act includes up to $600 to help pay for window replacement and $250 to replace an exterior door.
Upgrade appliances, especially HVAC and dryers
Buildings cumulatively are responsible for about 40% of U.S. energy consumption and associated greenhouse gas emissions, and a significant share of that is in homes. Heating is typically the main energy use.
Among appliances, upgrading air conditioners and clothes dryers results in the largest environmental and cost benefits; however, HVAC systems – heating, ventilation and air conditioning – come with some of the highest upfront costs.
That includes energy-efficient electric heat pumps, which both heat and cool a home. The Inflation Reduction Act offers a 30% tax credit up to $2,000 available to anyone who purchases and installs a heat pump, in addition to rebates of up to $8,000 for low- and moderate-income households earning less than 150% of the local median income. Some high-efficiency wood-burning stoves also qualify.
The act also provides rebates for low- and moderate-income households for electric stoves of up to $840, heat-pump water heaters of up to $1,750 and heat-pump clothes dryers of up to $840.
Change your behavior in a few easy steps
You can also make a pretty big difference without federal incentives by changing your habits. My dad was energy-efficient before it was hip. His “hobby” was to turn off the lights. This action itself has been among the most cost-saving behavioral changes.
Just turning out the lights for an hour a day can save a home up to $65 per year. Replacing old lightbulbs with LED lighting also cuts energy use. They’re more expensive, but they save money on energy costs.
We found that a homeowner could save $265 per year and reduce emissions even more by adopting a few behavioral changes including unplugging appliances not being used, line-drying clothes, lowering the water heater temperature, setting the thermostat 1 degree warmer at night in summer or 1 degree cooler in winter, turning off lights for an hour a day, and going tech-free for an hour a day.
Some appliances are energy vampires – they draw electricity when plugged in even if you’re not using them. One study in Northern California found that plugged-in devices, such as TVs, cable boxes, computers and smart appliances, that weren’t being used were responsible for as much as 23% of electricity consumption in homes.
Start with a passive solar home
If you’re looking for a home to rent or buy, or even to build, you can make an even bigger difference by looking at how it’s built and powered.
Passive solar homes take advantage of local climate and site conditions, such as having lots of south-facing windows to capture solar energy during cool months to reduce home energy use as much as possible. Then they meet the remaining energy demand with on-site solar energy.
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The Inflation Reduction Act offers a 30% tax credit for rooftop solar and geothermal heating, plus accompanying battery storage, as well as incentives for community solar – larger solar systems owned by several homeowners. It also includes a $5,000 tax credit for developers to build homes to the Energy Department’s Zero Energy Ready Homes standard.
The entire energy and climate package – including incentives for utility-scale renewable energy, carbon capture and electric vehicles – could have a big impact for homeowners’ energy costs and the climate. According to several estimates, it has the potential to reduce U.S. carbon emissions by about 40% by the end of this decade.
Prakash Nagarkatti and Mitzi Nagarkatti are immunologists who study infectious disorders and how vaccines trigger different aspects of the immune system to fight infection. They weigh in on how the updated booster shots train the immune system and how protective they might be against COVID-19.
1. What is different about the updated booster shots?
The newly authorized shots are the first updates to the original COVID-19 vaccines that were introduced in late 2020. They use the same mRNA technology as the original vaccines. The key difference between the original COVID-19 shots and the new “bivalent” version is that the latter consists of a mixture of mRNA that encodes the spike proteins of both the original SARS-CoV-2 virus and the more recent omicron subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5.
As of late August 2022, the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants are dominant worldwide. In the U.S., currently 89% of COVID-19 infections are caused by BA.5 and 11% are caused by BA.4.
The inability of the original vaccine strains to prevent reinfection and to trigger long-term protective immunity prompted the need for the reformulated vaccines.
2. How does a bivalent vaccine trigger an immune response?
In an actual COVID-19 infection, the SARS-CoV-2 virus uses its protruding spike protein to latch onto human cells and gain entry into cells. The spike protein triggers the production of so-called neutralizing antibodies, which bind to the spike protein and prevent the virus from invading other cells.
But when the virus mutates, as we know that it does, the antibodies that were previously produced in response to the virus can no longer effectively bind to the newly mutated spike protein. In this respect, the SARS-CoV-2 virus acts like a chameleon – a master of disguise – by changing its body configuration and escaping recognition by the immune system.
The ongoing viral mutations are why antibodies produced in response to the original vaccine strains have over time become less effective at fending off infections by new variants.
The concept of bivalent vaccines aimed at protecting against two different strains of a virus is not new. For instance, Cervarix is an FDA-approved bivalent vaccine that provides protection against two different types of human papillomaviruses that cause cancer.
3. How protective will the new shots be against infection?
There are as of yet no human studies on the efficacy of the new bivalent vaccine at preventing reinfections and providing long-term immune protection.
However, in human clinical trials and laboratory studies, both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna found that their initial version of the bivalent vaccine, which was directed against the original SARS-CoV-2 virus and an earlier omicron strain, BA.1, induced a strong immune response and longer protection against both the original strain and the BA.1 variant. In addition, the companies reported that the same early combination generated a significant antibody response against the newest omicron subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, though this antibody response was lower than that seen against subvariant BA.1.
Based on those results, in spring 2022 the FDA rejected the BA.1 bivalent boosters because the agency felt the boosters may fall short of providing sufficient protection against the newest strains, BA.4 and BA.5, which were by then spreading quickly throughout the U.S. and the world. So the FDA asked Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to develop bivalent vaccines specifically targeting BA.4 and BA.5, instead of BA.1.
Because clinical trials are time-consuming, the FDA was willing to consider animal studies and other laboratory findings, such as the ability of antibodies to neutralize the virus, to decide whether to authorize the bivalent boosters.
This decision has stirred up controversy over whether it is appropriate for the FDA to approve a booster without direct human data to support it. However, the FDA has stated that millions of people have safely received the mRNA vaccines – which were originally tested in humans – and that the changes in the mRNA sequences in the vaccines do not affect vaccine safety. Thus, it concluded that the bivalent vaccines are safe and that there is no need to wait for human clinical trials.
Based on available evidence from the previous COVID-19 vaccines, we believe it is very likely that the new boosters will continue to offer strong protection from severe COVID-19 leading to hospitalization and death. But whether they will protect against reinfection and breakthrough infections remains to be seen.
4. Will it only be a booster shot?
The bivalent vaccines can only be used as a booster shot at least two months after the completion of the primary series – or initial required shots – or following a previous booster shot. The Moderna bivalent vaccine is authorized for use in people 18 years of age, while the Pfizer bivalent vaccine is authorized for those 12 years of age and older.
Because of the superiority of the bivalent vaccines, the FDA has also removed the use authorization for the original monovalent Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines for booster purposes in individuals 18 years of age and older and 12 years of age and older, respectively.
5. Will the new shots protect against future variants?
How well the bivalent vaccines will perform in the face of new variants that might arise will depend on the nature of future spike protein mutations.
If it is a minor mutation or set of mutations when compared to the original strain or to omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5, the new shots will provide good protection. However, if a hypothetical new strain were to possess highly unique mutations in its spike protein, then it’s likely that it could once again dodge immune protection.
On the flip side, the successful development of the updated vaccines demonstrates that the mRNA vaccine technology is nimble and innovative enough that – within a couple of months of the emergence of a new variant – it is now likely possible to develop and distribute new vaccines that are tailor-made to fight an emerging variant.
This article has been updated to reflect the CDC’s endorsement of the reformulated shots.