The Department of Conservation's (DOC) tagline is “Managing California's Working Lands”—that is, the state's farms, mines and oilfields. It also attempts to preserve the lands that someone might want to work in the future, by issuing grants and incentives to spare farmland from traditional development and designating mineral-rich areas as such for the purposes of land use decisions. The department, which is in the Natural Resources Agency, is charged with balancing safety and environmental concerns with economic ones, regulating lucrative industries with the hope of creating jobs and tax revenue without endangering the residents or natural resources near worksites. In November 2011, Governor Jerry Brown put economic considerations first, firing the department's acting director and chief oil regulator for failing to approve drilling permits quickly enough.
The Department of Conservation (DOC) was formed as the Department of Natural Resources in Governor C.C. Young's cabinet reorganization of 1927. It contained divisions devoted to fish and game, forestry, parks, and mines and mining—this last the only division to remain in the department to this day.
The state mineralogist who presided over the mining division had his first antecedent in John Trask, a doctor appointed honorary state geologist by the Legislature in 1851. The state, having formed largely around the 1849 Gold Rush and been recognized because of it, appreciated the value of cataloguing California's mineral wealth. An official state geologist position, given to Josiah Whitney, followed in 1860.
Whitney took his role in leading a comprehensive, scientific survey of the state seriously, not confining himself to information about gold, or even about minerals. “It is not the business of a geological surveying corps to act . . . as a prospecting party,” Whitney said. His professional opinion and lack of diplomacy did not waver in the face of cuts to his budget, and the survey was defunded entirely in 1874.
The State Mining Bureau and somewhat pointedly renamed state mineralogist were created in 1880, and a board of trustees—the predecessor of the current State Mining and Geology Board—was appointed to assist the mineralogist. Though it has since been dissolved, reestablished and renamed, both it and the mining bureau were populated by figures from the minerals industry and focused their efforts on it until the 1960s.
Meanwhile, the late 19th century saw the development of oil drilling operations on the extensive Los Angeles City, Beverly Hills and Kern County oil fields. The Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources was created in 1915, and joined the Department of Natural Resources in 1929, shortly after the department's formation.
In 1961, the Department of Conservation took on its current title, and the newly created Natural Resources Agency became its parent organization. The Division of Fish and Game had separated into its own department in 1951. With the departure of the Division of Forestry in 1976, the DOC took on its current organizational structure, minus a couple of divisions.
The Division of Mines became the Division of Mines and Geology and the state mineralogist once again the state geologist after the DOC's renaming. In the 1970s, the division's interests, and those of the State Mining and Geology Board, shifted. Earthquake dangers to cities and the reclamation of the state's many abandoned mines became more of a concern as California's population was increasingly urbanized. By 1991, resources devoted to mine reclamation became large enough to warrant the creation of the Office of Mine Reclamation. In 2002, DOC Director Darryl Young allowed the Division of Mines and Geology to be popularly referred to as the California Geological Survey, harkening back to its roots. The Legislature made this name change official in 2006.
The government's other response to urbanization via the Department of Conservation were programs to protect farmland. In 1938, California created the Division of Resource Conservation to combat soil erosion and support the development of arable land. The division was disbanded in the 1970s, although the locally administered resource conservation districts created by the same legislation still exist.
In 1965, lawmakers passed the Williamson Act, offering owners of agricultural land a tax break for maintaining their land for open-space uses and farming. In 1982, the Farmland Mapping and Monitoring Program was born, and administration of the two was handed to a new Division of Land Resource Protection. The division was quickly dismantled and rebuilt as the Office of Land Conservation in 1987. It retook its earlier name in 1998.
California passed its bottle and can deposit law in 1986, and the Department of Conservation administered it until recently. In 2010, the government consolidated bottle recycling with the functions of the Integrated Waste Management Board, which it abolished, creating the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, popularly known as CalRecycle.
The Foundations of Paleontology in California and at Berkeley (1843-1874) (University of California Museum of Paleontology)
History of the California Geological Survey (California Geological Survey website)
History of the SMGB (by Stephen M. Testa, from the 2010 SMGB annual report) (pdf)
Inventory of the Department of Natural Resources Records, 1927-Sept. 30, 1961 (Online Archive of California)
Oil, Gas & Geothermal—About Us (DOGGR website)
Department of Conservation—About DLRP (Division of Land Resource Protection website)
Bottle Bill History (Californians Against Waste)
The Department of Conservation is in charge of oil and gas drilling operations, mining, and farmland conservation, and researches earthquake hazards and geology.
The Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources regulates onshore oil and natural gas drilling and geothermal energy generation, issuing permits, inspecting sites for compliance with the law and giving the Outstanding Field & Lease Facility Maintenance Award to “operations that protect public safety and the environment above and beyond what is required by law.” The division caps orphan and idle wells. It also provides records of oil and gas production and maps oil well locations.
The Office of Mine Reclamation administers the Surface Mining and Reclamation Act of 1975 (SMARA). It conducts surveys to discover abandoned mines, and operations to close them, eliminating safety hazards to those who stumble upon them and ultimately allowing the land to be used for other purposes. It also ensures active mining operations' compliance with the safety and reporting obligations of SMARA.
The State Mining & Geology Board is composed of nine gubernatorial appointees serving four-year terms. The board hears appeals on rulings by the Office of Mine Reclamation, on SMARA determinations, and on classification of land as containing “significant mineral deposits” by the state geologist and the California Geological Survey. It issues clarifications, guidelines and reports on mining and geology regulations. The board also administers SMARA for 42 mining sites.
The California Geological Survey is the DOC's oldest division, and home to much of its history and records. It is led by the state geologist. It researches, maps and reports on the state's mineral composition and seismic hazards. It archives and issues a variety of publications and operates its own public library in Sacramento.
The Division of Land Resource Protection maps farmland and issues grants for its conservation. It administers the Williamson Act Program, which allows owners who promise to maintain their land for agricultural use for at least ten years to receive property tax breaks. The state then makes up lost property tax revenue to the affected locality. The division produces maps and statistics on farmland through the Farmland Mapping & Monitoring Program. It gives grants for the establishment of agricultural conservation easements—that is, voluntary agreements to reserve land for farming—and to local resource conservation districts, which agree to sustainable development of their land for the conservation of water or plant and animal life as well as farmland. It also offers grants through its Watershed Program, an extension of the interagency CALFED Bay-Delta Watershed Program.
California is third in the nation in both onshore oil production and oil refining capacity, after Alaska and Texas. As of 2009, it was also fourth in the value of the nonfuel minerals it produced. The Department of Conservation's power over these lucrative industries makes oil and mining magnates, environmentalists and residents in areas affected by the harvesting of those resources the chief stakeholders in DOC decisions. Governor Jerry Brown's firing of the heads of the DOC and Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) for slowing down the permitting process made the government's economic stake in the DOC's actions explicit.
While in 2011, the department spent 82% of its reported 28.8 million contracting dollars on state programs and grants for land conservation, the budgets from previous years and proposal for 2012 shows it allocating the most to the DOGGR. In addition to contracts for information technology, which are awarded by every California agency, the DOC hires construction companies to assist with work at oil and mining sites and scientists and universities for seismic research. In 2011, no single such entity received as much as $350,000.
Top 10 Contractors: The Department of Conservation confirmed data from the State Contract & Procurement Registration System (eSCPRS) about the department's largest service contractors in 2012, and added the following details about the transactions:
California Department of Conservation—$893,147
This is actually three items: a $355,000 contract with the U.S. Geological Survey for data and spatial analysis, plus grants of $398,423 to the City of Stockton and $139,724 to Yolo County. The grants—related to the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006—are managed by the Department of Conservation for the California Strategic Growth Council.
University Enterprises, Inc. —$420,000
Student assistants for DOC divisions
R Systems Inc. —$250,240
Information technology consultation for Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources online functions
Frontier Environmental Solutions, Inc. —$223,614
Abandoned mine remediation work for the Office of Mine Reclamation
The Xcavation Company, Inc. —$222,072
Abandoned mine remediation work for the Office of Mine Reclamation
The Geological Society of America—$215,900
Temporary staff for Office of Mine Reclamation abandoned mine inventory work under federal ARRA contract
Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. —$197,403
Information technology software and maintenance for the California Geological Survey
AECOM Technical Services, Inc. —$194,500
Bat surveys (needed prior to mine remediation work) for the Office of Mine Reclamation
Allied Network Solutions, Inc. —$185,231
Maintenance of routers, switches and other computer equipment
Strole's Tri-Service—$173,500
Abandoned mine remediation work for the Office of Mine Reclamation
3-Year Budget (pdf)
Crude Oil Production (U.S. Energy Information Administration)
California State Energy Profile (U.S. Energy Information Administration)
California's Non-Fuel Mineral Production (California Geological Survey)
Oil Regulators Fired for Permit Slowdown Amid Fracking Debate
In November 2011, Governor Jerry Brown fired acting DOC Director Derek Chernow and head of the Division of Gas, Oil, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) Elena Miller amid complaints about a backlog of oil and natural gas drilling permits. State Senator Michael Rubio, state Senator Jean Fuller, Assemblywoman Shannon Grove and Congressman Kevin McCarthy, all of whom represent the seat of many of the state's oil and gas operations in Kern County, had personally requested action from Governor Brown. “As we all know, in Kern County, permits equal jobs,” Rubio said.
Miller became supervisor in September 2009, as permit applications started multiplying—from 52 that year to 199 by November 2011. Over the same period, permit approvals dropped from 37 to 14.
During Miller's tenure, national attention to the potential dangers of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), in which fluid is injected underground to force natural gas to the surface, was mounting. Environmentalists worry that fracking could contaminate groundwater or lead to earthquakes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency established new fracking guidelines in 2010, which the DOGGR is not fully meeting and, so far, has not established plans to meet.
Although DOGGR has the authority to regulate fracking, it has yet to establish any permitting, siting or disclosure requirements for the oil and gas industry. Fracking is relatively uncommon in California—the fourth largest oil and gas producer in the nation—but the energy industry has shown keen interest in expanding fracking operations in the state.
Miller required testing at drilling sites to prove that waste would be contained. She revised division protocols in May 2010, removing some of the discretion Kern County DOGGR employees had previously held in what local reporter John Cox called a “turf war with Sacramento.” After the death of a Chevron worker in an oilfield sinkhole in June 2011, she halted steam injection projects for an investigation.
Unlike Miller, who is a lawyer, Tim Kustic, the new DOGGR supervisor, started his career in the petroleum industry. Shortly after taking the position, he said the division would develop a “more flexible approach” to the permitting process, relying on historical records from worksites rather than new testing.
Senator Rubio has also been working to change the DOGGR's approach. In addition to talking to the governor, he's authored legislation aimed at eliminating regulatory uncertainty about underground injection. In keeping with industry representatives' assertion that there needs to be a “clear path to approval” for oil and gas projects, the law directs the DOGGR to “establish standards for the permitting of underground injection.”
It's likely that any changes will be positive ones for the industry. As independent oil producer David Hartley said a few days after Chernow's and Miller's ouster: “Maybe we've reached the peak of [oil regulation] in California.”
Fracking has been driving a nationwide boon in oil and gas drilling and the industry has touted the potential of California, which contains 64% of the nation’s deep-rock oil deposits in shale formations. State regulators acknowledge they have no idea how prevalent fracking already is in California and what chemicals and other materials are being injected into the ground because they are no reporting requirements. The oil industry argues that revealing details of the process would compromise their proprietary trade secrets.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently completed a three-year study that said fracking was probably the cause of contaminated ground water in Wyoming and is investigating contamination in Pennsylvania. Ohio regulators unveiled tougher rules in March 2012 after drilling was blamed for dozens of earthquakes there. The Academy Award-nominated documentary “Gasland” featured a Colorado homeowner lighting his tap water, presumably loaded with methane from nearby fracking, on fire.
California Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski introduced a bill, AB 591, in 2011 that would require oil and gas companies to disclose what chemicals they were injecting into the ground. The legislation stalled after intense oil industry lobbying led by Halliburton.
New efforts to revive hydraulic fracturing legislation include notification of landowners before fracking begins near their properties. Other efforts seek to prevent fracking on public lands. At least nine states have legislation requiring companies to disclose what they inject into the ground during the process.
As of January 2012, the backlog of at least 77 well permits that had existed on November 15 was gone. At a press conference that month, Governor Brown boasted about the expedited permits and made a firm commitment to energy development.
“It's not easy,” Brown said. “There are going to be screw-ups. There are going to be bankruptcies. There will be indictments and there will be deaths. But we're going to keep going.”
Kern Lawmakers, Industry Pressured Governor to Oust State's Top Oil Regulators (by John Cox, Bakersfield Californian)
Governor Removes DOGGR Supervisor from Her Post (by Rachel Cook, Bakersfield Californian)
Obama EPA Killing CA Energy Jobs (by Wayne Lusvardi, Cal Watchdog)
Fracking in California: Expected Increase in State Fracking Operations Prompts Legislative Action (by Earl Hagström, Hydraulic Fracturing News Flash)
EPA Audit of DOGGR Released (California Independent Petroleum Association)
Retired Oil Regulator Calls for Open Dialogue (by John Cox, Bakersfield Californian)
Timothy R. Kustic Named Head of California Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (Department of Conservation press release) (pdf)
Oil Chief Rolls Out “Flexible Approach” to Injection Reviews (by John Cox, Bakersfield Californian)
SB 682 (Legislative Information)
California's Oil Industry Speaks Loud Enough for Jerry Brown to Listen (Stephen Frank's California)
Brown Ordered Firing of Regulator Who Took Hard Line on Oil Firms (by Michael J. Mishak, Los Angeles Times)
California Government Has No Idea Fracking Is Happening (by Keira Butler, Mother Jones)
California Regulators: See No Fracking, Speak No Fracking (by Renee Sharp and Bill Allayaud, Environmental Working Group) (pdf)
Oil Extraction Method Widely Used in California with Little Oversight (by Michael J. Mishak, Los Angeles Times)
Raiding the Bottle Bill Fund
California's Beverage Container Recycling Program was intended to be self-sustaining, the deposits paid by manufacturers returned as bottles and cans were recycled. In practice, inaccurate forecasting of recycling has led the fund's surplus to fluctuate, making it, at times, an attractive target for borrowing by the rest of the government. That borrowing led from fluctuation to deficit. The program is now the Department of Resource Recycling and Recovery's (CalRecycle's) concern, but was part of the Department of Conservation from its creation in 1986 until 2010.
From 2002 to 2011, the Beverage Container Recycling Fund loaned $519 million to the state's General Fund and the Air Pollution Control Fund. The loans to the pollution fund, for enforcement of carbon emission legislation, caused particular ire because the Air Pollution Control Board has no definite means to repay them. “At least the General Fund has a source of revenue to provide the payback,” said Mark Murray of Californians Against Waste.
Department of Conservation Director Randall Ward noted that loans to the General Fund were unilaterally extended to be completely returned by 2013. “The ‘borrowing’ is suspect if it is never paid back. . . . With the delay in payback and this new loan, the ‘deposit’ starts to become a tax and not a deposit,” he said.
The loans left the fund insolvent in 2009, forced to reduce payback of the deposit and cut programs supported by the usual discrepancy between containers produced and containers recycled. Recycling centers fought back with a lawsuit. “If you borrow from the fund to the point that the program is not working, then that's illegal," said Brian Early of Californians Against Waste.
In 2010's special session on the budget, the Legislature passed
Accusations of fraud by out-of-state recyclers collecting California's deposits have also persisted throughout the bottle bill's history. In 1988, only two years after the program's launch, Controller Gray Davis accused the Department of Conservation of mismanagement in auditing for fraud after the fact rather than requiring documentation to receive payment. In 2010, the State Auditor's Office report was still stating that CalRecycle “may be missing opportunities to detect fraud.”
The 2010-2011 Budget: Funding and Policy Options for the Beverage Container Recycling Program (Legislative Analyst's Office)
Recycling Fund May Be Tapped to Help Enforce Greenhouse Laws (by John Howard, Capitol Weekly)
Randall Ward Letter to the Editor (Capitol Weekly)
State Trashes California's Recycling Program (by Heather Duthie, Mission Loc@l)
ABX8 7 Assembly Bill, 8th Extraordinary Session (Legislative Information)
Recycling Program Investigation Is Urged (by Carl Ingram, Los Angeles Times)
Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery: Deficiencies in Forecasting and Ineffective Management Have Hindered the Beverage Container Recycling Program (State Auditor's Office)
Abandoned Mines
The Department of Conservation (DOC) estimates that there are more than 47,000 abandoned mines in California, 5,200 of which have environmental hazards. About 67% are on federal lands and 31% are on private property. The rest are on state or local lands. These legacy mines, which pose a serious threat to watersheds and waters throughout the state, are unaddressed by the mining industry that left them behind.
Many of the mines were built in the 19th and early 20th century. Safety hazards include arsenic, lead and mercury contamination, in addition to the immediate danger posed by open, deteriorating shafts. Urban sprawl and increased recreation on public lands have put more people at risk. A report by the U.S. Interior Department’s inspector general in 2008 warned that lack of attention to these mines is “putting the public’s health and safety at risk.” The report said the federal Bureau of Land Management has “an ineffective abandoned mine land program that has been undermined, neglected and marginalized.” It pointed out that while there are various mitigation measures that can be taken, the only real solution is to permanently seal the sites. The bureau disagreed with that assessment and said it wouldn’t change its program.
While most of the mines are on federal lands, the states have their own abandoned mine reclamation programs. The DOC administers California’s and estimates that it would take $4 billion to clean up mines in the state.
In her November 2009 testimony to a House of Representatives hearing on abandoned mines, DOC Director Bridgett Luther highlighted the challenges facing California in its efforts to remediate the problem. First and foremost was a lack of money to do much of anything. “Until recently, California received little or no direct federal funding to help remediate the state’s abandoned mine sites, including abandoned mines located on federal lands,” she told the panel. The state is “just beginning to address the multitude of abandoned mine hazards on federal lands.”
California Senator Dianne Feinstein proposed legislation in 2009 to set up an abandoned mine cleanup fund using money raised from mining royalties and fees, but it was never enacted into law.
Cleaning Up Abandoned and Orphaned Mines in California (Sustainable Conservation) (pdf)
Abandoned Mine Lands Report (Department of Conservation website)
Abandoned Mine Lands in the Department of Interior (U.S. Department of Interior’s Office of Inspector General) (pdf)
Audit Hits Hard at U.S. Federal Abandoned Mine Lands Programs Safety, Environmental Hazards (by Dorothy Kosich, Mineweb)
Abandoned Mines Pose Threats (California Senator Dianne Feinstein)
Abandoned Mine Reclamation Act of 2009 (GovTrack)
The removal of the Department of Conservation's authority over beverage container recycling represents the biggest reform enacted in the department in decades. Consolidating the state's recycling functions had been recommended as early as 1995, when Governor Pete Wilson planned to subsume the department entirely in a new Department of Energy and Conservation and move its recycling functions to the Integrated Waste Management Board (IWMB). In 1998, the Legislative Analyst's Office also recommended moving bottle recycling to the IWMB. And in 2005 they reprised their recommendation in more detail, offhandedly suggesting that “the Legislature consider options for transferring remaining (nonrecycling) functions in Department of Conservation to other state agencies,” as well. In the end, it's the IWMB that was swallowed up by the new Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, along with the DOC's recycling responsibilities.
In 2011, Governor Jerry Brown proposed the elimination of the State Mining and Geology Board, wanting to send its appeals responsibilities to the Office of Administrative Hearings and allow the Office of Mine Reclamation to handle the rest of its functions. The reorganization didn't make it into the final budget.
Review of Governor's Reorganization Plan No. 1 (Little Hoover Commission) (pdf)
LAO Recommended Legislation, 1998 (Legislative Analyst's Office)
Recommended Reorganization of Recycling and Waste Management Programs (Legislative Analyst's Office) (pdf)
Reducing State Government (Budget Summary, 2011-2012) (pdf)
State Mining & Geology Board Remains Intact (Raney Recorder) (pdf)
Putting a Price on Agricultural Land
In 1965, California answered the population boom and resulting development pressures on farmland with the Williamson Act. The act allows landowners to enter into long-term contracts with their county governments, promising to reserve their land for growing and ranching in exchange for tax breaks, for which the state then reimburses the county. As of 2008, half of the state's agricultural land and almost a third of all private land was covered by such contracts. While the Williamson Act is not the government's only tool for preserving farmland, it is the oldest, biggest program, and the most embattled.
The first three governors of the 21st century all have attempted to get rid of the subventions that fund the act. Governors Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger both proposed removing the payouts before restoring funds in 2003 and 2007. In 2008-2009, Schwarzenegger suspended payments entirely due to the perennial budget crisis, and only $10 million, rather than the more typical $35 million – $40 million, was budgeted in the next year. Faced with more limited funds, participating localities were forced to choose between eliminating their programs, continuing them with their own funding (accepting new applications or not), or decreasing the tax break and term of the contracts as the state continued to foot the bill.
In July 2011, Governor Jerry Brown succeeded in finally ending the state-county Williamson Act relationship with AB 1265, which phases out reimbursements over five years. How quickly and completely the elimination of the subventions will trickle down to destroy the local contracts remains to be seen.
California Agricultural Land Loss and Conservation: The Basic Facts (American Farmland Trust) (pdf)
Valley Farmers Praise Decision to Preserve Williamson Act Funding (Lodi News-Sentinel)
Williamson Act Funds Restored in State Budget (by Ching Lee, Ag Alert)
Assembly Bill No. 1265 (California Legislative Information) (pdf)
Ending the Williamson Act
The Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) has repeatedly recommended phasing out state funding for the program. While claiming that “both [state and local] government [has] some role to play in designing and implementing policies that preserve a certain amount of open space,” the LAO questions the effectiveness of the act. Since the state has no control over what land is placed under contract, it can't ensure that the subventions are narrowly focused to stop development. “[I]t is likely that some lands under contract would not be developed even absent the Williamson Act subventions,” a 2004 report notes. The LAO also states that, because landowners can cancel or opt not to renew Williamson Act contracts, they are not effective tools for lasting change.
Throughout the 2011 budget process, Governor Brown claimed, not that the Williamson Act program and many other axed programs were useless, but that they should be funded on the local level.
Enforcement of the Williamson Act's standards has been spotty, allowing developers to parcel out land at the minimum acceptable size to qualify for the contract and sell it for residential use. “The biggest threat to the Williamson Act is the creation of rural ranchettes,” John Gamper of the California Farm Bureau Federation (CFBF) said in 2007.
In recent years, the proliferation of “solar farms” has also caused an uproar, as some counties have considered the harnessing of open space for solar power generation—an industry eligible for its own subsidies and grants—a “compatible use” with the Williamson Act. The California Farm Bureau has sued Fresno County for merely allowing a farmer to cancel a Williamson Act contract to set up a solar farm.
Some question the value of the Williamson Act program even when used as directed or funded locally. Thomas Sowell, author of “The Housing Boom and Bust” blames government programs like the Williamson Act for the housing crisis. “Because, despite the abundance of land in California, laws prevented people from building on much of that land... housing prices were shot up primarily because the land on which the houses were built was prohibitively expensive,” Sowell said.
General Government: 2004-2005 Analysis (Legislative Analyst's Office) (pdf)
Valley Growth Fuels Farmers' Land Use Concerns (by Kate Campbell, Ag Alert)
Are Solar Thermal Facilities Compatible with the Williamson Act? (by David H. Blackwell and Michael Patrick Durkee, Land Use Navigators)
Bulldoze Williamson Act Subsidies? (by Dave Roberts, Cal Watchdog)
Preserving the Williamson Act
There is no question that California's agricultural land is dwindling. Over a million acres of farmland have been converted to other uses in the past 20 years. Proponents of farm subsidies see preserving farmland, stopping urban sprawl and keeping a local source of food as goods in themselves.
Paul Wegner, president of the CFBF, has argued that lower property taxes for farming are commonsense: “If you are a taxi driver, you should be taxed as a taxi driver and not based on what your salary was if you had chosen to be a doctor.” In other words, it's precisely because the land generates less income per square mile than a shopping mall or housing subdivision that it should be taxed less. Farms and ranches also are less densely populated than other land, producing less strain on the community's roads, schools and other services provided by the local government.
Although the farmers, ranchers and county governments who champion the Williamson Act have lost the battle to keep it at the state level, other agricultural preservation programs remain, and more may follow. Mark Nechodom, newly appointed acting director of the Department of Conservation, comes to his post from work on federal environmental markets, which place a monetary value on exactly the sort of ecological benefits agricultural land provides—and do so without direct payouts by the government.
The Williamson Act at 40 (by Daniel Macht, Capitol Weekly)
Budget Cuts Threaten the Williamson Act, California's Longstanding Farmland Protection Program (by Alvin Sokolow, California Agriculture)
Fund to Protect Farmland, Open Spaces Facing End (by Marie C. Baca, California Watch)
Mark Nechomom, 2011-2015
Derek Chernow, 2011 (interim). Chernow was fired by Governor Jerry Brown in November 2011 along with his deputy, Elena Miller, for failing to relax rules and approve permits for oil drilling using a controversial method of extraction. Chernow said granting the permits before a thorough review of each application would violate environmental laws. The oil industry complained and Brown forced Chernow out.
Bridgett Luther, 2005-2010
Darryl Young, 1999-2004
Larry Goldzband, 1996-1999
Elin D. Miller, 1995-1996
Michael F. Byrne, 1994-1995
Edward G. Heidig, 1991-1994
Randall M. Ward, 1986-1991
Don L. Blubaugh, 1983-1986
Jan Denton, 1981-1982
Priscilla Grew, 1977-1981
Lewis A. Moran, 1975-1977
Ray B. Hunter, 1972-1975
James G. Stearns, 1967-1972
DeWitt Nelson, 1953-1966
Warren Hannum, 1944-1953
William H. Moore, 1943-1944
Kenneth I. Fulton, 1941-1943
Richard Sachse, 1939-1941
George Nordenholt, 1934-1939
Daniel H. Blood, 1931-1934
Fred G. Stevenot, 1928-1931
- Table of Contents
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- Suggested Reforms
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