To the CARB Board:I support the California Air Resources Board
(CARB) 2022 Climate Change Scoping Plan WITH ADDITIONAL suggestions
to strengthen the natural working lands targets to better reflect
the importance of California's coastal habitats. California has
vital need for restoration of previously "developed" wetlands along
our coast. These essential rich biological areas both protect
native, migratory, and offspring of species, as well as generate
increased carbon sequestration.Intensifying wildfires, record heat
waves, and severe droughts, occur in significant part due to
desiccation resulting from wetland degradation by development,
drainage, and capping over with hard impermeable surfaces.Instead
large-scale nature-based solutions are necessary; restoring coastal
wetlands' carbon-absorbing properties is essential to advance
emission reduction goals. Specifically, I ask CARB to:•
Endorse the draft plan's recommendation to restore at least 60,000
acres of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to reduce emissions,
restart carbon burial, and provide flood mitigation, water quality,
and biodiversity benefits to the region and state.• Include an
acreage target and related management strategies for ALL of the
state's coastal wetlands, including San Francisco Bay, Eel River
Estuary, and Humboldt Bay, and the sloughs and pocket estuaries
found along the central and south coasts.• Improve accounting
for coastal wetlands, including tidal marsh, scrub-shrub, swamps,
and seagrass, in the state's Natural and Working Lands greenhouse
gas inventory, drawing upon established U.N. Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change methodologies for these habitats. CARB must
collaborate with state agencies and research institutions to
incorporate newly released and existing localized data sets into
the inventory.California has lost over 90 to 95% of its wetlands
after decades of diking, draining, dredging, damming, development,
and other impacts. And eelgrass has faced extensive loss in the
state because of excess sedimentation resulting from land use
practices, pollution, and direct impacts from coastal
infrastructure. Morro Bay, site of a National Estuary Program, has
experienced a massive die-off in eelgrass habitat, with declines of
more than 90% since 2007. Sea level rise will accelerate this loss
if eelgrass beds, tidal marsh, and other coastal habitats are
unable to migrate shoreward.These losses harm wildlife and people
alike. Coastal wetlands sustain resource- and recreation-dependent
coastal people and economies, protect cultural resources, improve
water quality, and reduce flooding. Failure to restore and strongly
protect coastal wetlands causes their loss of rich biological
habitat which releases this stored carbon back into the atmosphere.
I applaud CARB for developing the draft 2022 Climate Change Scoping
Plan and formally recognizing the role of natural and working lands
in this plan. I urge you to TAKE the opportunity to protect and
expand the state's blue carbon sinks by including strong measures
for ALL of the state's coastal wetlands. Thank you for your
consideration of this important issue.Sincerely,
Michael
McLaughlin
Eureka, California 95501
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