The Sierra Nevada Conservancy (SNC) promotes conservation and restoration of the 25 million acres in 22 counties—one-fourth of California—that lie along the Sierra Nevada mountains. It works with federal, state and local governments, as well as non-profit organizations, to protect the natural, cultural and historic resources of the region. The conservancy, which is in the state Natural Resources Agency, encompasses one of the most biologically diverse regions in the state, and is the state's principal watershed, supplying about 65% of California’s water. The region provides half of California’s annual timber yield, is home to 60% of the state’s animal species and half its plant species, hosts 50 million visitors a year, and is the only place on Earth you can gaze upon nature’s largest living thing: the Giant Sequoia. The conservancy has no regulatory power. 

For years before the Sierra Nevada Conservancy made its debut, groups like the Sierra Nevada Alliance, The Sierra Fund and the Sierra Business Council agitated for creation of a regional state conservancy. The state Assembly approved legislation in 2002 that would have created the conservancy, but it died in a senate committee.

The conservancy finally made its debut in 2004, as a result of bi-partisan legislation co-authored in the state Assembly by Republican Tim Leslie and Democrat John Laird. (Seven years later, Laird would be appointed secretary of the conservancy’s parent Natural Resources Agency by Governor Jerry Brown.)

Passage by voters of Proposition 84—The Safe Drinking Water, Water Quality and Supply, Flood Control, River and Coastal Protection Bond Act of 2006—authorized $5.4 billion in general obligation bonds to fund a host of water projects across the state. The conservancy’s share was $54 million for grant distribution and administration spread out over a period of years.

The conservancy built on the experience of nine conservancies before it, each focused on specific areas of the state as they sought to channel state and federal resources to their regions, while forging bonds with the community.

The conservancy embarked upon an ambitious program of grant distribution that to date has awarded nearly $40 million for more than 150 projects protecting, restoring and enhancing the environment, including the outright acquisition of land.

In late 2008, the global recession and California’s escalating budget deficit crippled the market for sale of Proposition 84 bonds that funded the conservancy project grants. Nine projects were suspended by the end of the year and didn’t resume for months. By 2012, it still had about $10 million left to dole out.

Major Environmental Legislation Fails to Win Approval (Foothill Conservancy)

Conservancy Strategic Plan, 2011 (pdf)

Sierra Nevada Conservancy (The Sierra Fund)

Sierra Nevada Conservancy Proposed (by Paul Shigley, California Planning and Development Report)

Changing Course (by Lawrence Ruth)

Celebrating a Decade Supporting Sierra Nevada Resources and Communities (by The Sierra Fund Executive Director Elizabeth “Izzy” Martin, The Union)

The Sierra Nevada Conservancy, like its brethren across the state, brings state and federal resource programs closer to regional problems. A primary way it does that is by being a conduit for grants to public agencies, nonprofit groups and other interested parties. In California’s challenged economic environment, that role is ever-shifting. When the money is available, the conservancy can consider using it for resource protection, recreation, tourism, environmental improvements, reducing wildfire risks and pollution threats, and local economic assistance. 

The conservancy is governed by an executive officer, appointed by the governor, and a 16-member board. The state Secretary of Natural Resources serves on the board, as does the Director of Finance (or their representatives). Three board members, including the chair, are appointed by the governor, two are selected by the Legislature and six sit on county boards of supervisors that work with the conservancy.  The National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management are each represented by non-voting liaison advisers.

The conservancy offers grants funded by Proposition 84—the Safe Drinking Water, Water Quality and Supply, Flood Control, River and Coastal Protection Bond Act of 2006.  It began offering these grants in 2007 and as of December 2011 had spent almost $40 million on 220 projects. The conservancy has nearly used up its $54 million allotment of Prop. 84 money.

The conservancy-backed projects helped protect or restore 40 miles of river and nearly 12,000 acres of land, as well as leveraging protection for another 10,856 acres. Nearly 215,000 acres were surveyed for invasive species. Around 4,400 households received consultations on fire safety. And nearly 1,700 students and volunteers were trained in ecology, fire and watershed restoration.

These grants support the conservancy’s goals of increasing tourism and recreation in the Sierra Nevada region, protecting, conserving and restoring natural, historical and archaeological resources in the region, reducing the region’s risks of natural disasters such as wildfires, assisting the region’s economy and enhancing public use of publicly-owned lands within the region.

The conservancy maintains a list of grants, loans and other resources, along with a searchable database of past grants. It also has a database of documents relevant to the region, including plans, reports, studies, handbooks and assessments. 

The conservancy coordinates regional activities like Sierra Day in Sacramento and the Great Sierra River Cleanup that brings together 11,200 volunteers to remove more than 500 tons of trash and recyclables from watersheds throughout the Sierra Nevada. It promotes tourism and recreation at its website and helped develop the interactive online Sierra Nevada Geotourism Mapguide Project—in partnership with the Sierra Business Council and the National Geographic Society.

In September 2011, the conservancy completed an update of its 5-year Strategic Plan.

About Us (Conservancy website)

3-Year Budget (pdf)

Governing Statutes (Conservancy website)

The Sierra Nevada Conservancy was created two years before passage of Proposition 84—the Safe Drinking Water, Water Quality and Supply, Flood Control, River and Coastal Protection Bond Act of 2006—which authorized $5.4 billion in general obligation bonds to fund a host of water projects across the state.

The conservancy was allocated $54 million of Prop. 84 money for grant distribution and administration. The funds were the conservancy’s primary source of funding until 2011-12, when it was left with about a half million dollars of prop money to spend. The conservancy continues to receive about $4 million annually from the California Environmental License Plate Fund, which is now its major source of cash. That is equivalent to the amount it spends annually on administration, evenly split between personnel and operations.

California’s dire economic conditions had a significant effect on the conservancy in 2011-12. A multi-billion state deficit forced cutbacks that included a 12-month 4.6% salary reduction, a reduction in state pension contributions and a hiring freeze.

The conservancy has used its Prop. 84 money to fund a number of projects through grants. Its 2010-11 annual report lists 26 recently completed projects with price tags ranging up to $1 million. The list includes: the 4,320-acre purchase of Lemon Canyon Ranch; a 214,919-acre watershed survey project to decrease invasive species; training for 24 volunteer crew members and eight hired crew leaders to implement trail projects in the Inyo, Sierra Stanislaus National Forests; remodeling of the historic Merced River visitor center; and a project that brought 1,685 students from five grade levels together with trained scientists to study the Eastern Sierra Watershed.

Top 10 Contractors: The conservancy reports that its largest service contractors in 2012 were:

2010-11 Annual Report (Conservancy website) (pdf)

3-Year Budget (pdf)

Grant Program: Fiscal Year 2011-12 (Conservancy website)

Logging

Among its myriad attributes, the Sierra Nevada region supplies half of California’s annual timber supply. In 2010, the Sierra Nevada Conservancy sponsored the “Sustainable Sierra Nevada Initiative” in an attempt to make peace between factions fighting over logging. The region has a history of wholesale clear-cutting of forests and a more recent movement toward preservation of forests that some say make them more susceptible to devastating wildfires.

After a century of logging, the Sierra Nevada became ground zero in the 1980s and ‘90s for environmental activism over forest destruction. In environmentalists’ most celebrated victory, Pacific Lumber agreed to stop its clear-cutting of redwoods and sell a large chunk of real estate to the state for preservation and restoration. But as environmental awareness rose, the logging-based economy declined.

Environmentalists worried about threats to endangered species like the spotted owl, loggers wanted a plan that would keep them in business. Communities where mill closures had devastated their local economies wanted jobs and most everyone wanted a better way to settle disputes than lawsuits.

The conservancy claims it is searching for innovative, alternative solutions to these vexing dilemmas, but some critics don’t see it that way. The Sequoia ForestKeeper, an environmental organization dedicated to protecting ecosystems in the southern Sierra Nevada, called the initiative “nothing more than a giveaway to the timber mills” and encouraged its members to protest the conservancy’s initiative using a form letter it provided.

“While the initiative states that increasing timber yield from the Sierra would reduce fire risk and increase the economic viability of the various rural towns located there, it would be disastrous on many levels to rely on logging to solve the problems of the Sierras,” the letter said in part. The group encouraged the conservancy to abandon hope that logging would save the region and suggested that it should keep its focus on tourism. Otherwise, it was in danger of becoming “just another bureaucracy that destroys our natural resources in the name of profits.”  

Logging in the Sierra Nevada is now dominated by Sierra Pacific Industries, which owns around 1.7 million acres from the Southern Cascades south through the Sierra Nevada. It is California’s largest private property owner, with nearly 2% of the state’s land, and its largest timber operator. And it is a major proponent of clearcutting, the controversial practice of removing virtually every tree in an area. Proponents of the method say it is environmentally beneficial when combined with an aggressive tree-replanting program; opponents call it devastating deforestation that destroys wildlife ravages ecosystems.

A document from the Sierra Nevada Alliance, outlining the six subregions the conservancy divides the Sierra Nevada into for planning purposes, details how “clear-cutting poses a major threat to the rural character of the subregion.” It paints a devastating portrait of Sierra Pacific Industries. “Between 1996 and 2003, Sierra Pacific Industries used clear-cuts or similar logging treatments on 10,137 acres in Tuolumne County and 11,783 acres in Calaveras County totaling nearly 22,000 acres of clearcut-type logging and since then, has not slowed its pace.” 

Building Consensus a Priority for Sierra (by Dana M. Nichols, The Record-Stockton)

Pacific Lumber Leans (by Tom Abate, San Francisco Chronicle)

Take Action against Conservancy-Sanctioned Logging (Sequoia ForestKeeper)

Sierra Nevada Forest and Community Initiative (Conservancy website)

Lawsuit to Block Sierra Pacific Industries Logging Operation Rejected (by Scott Mobley, Redding Record Searchlight)

Getting Clear with Sierra Pacific Industries (by Jonathan Curiel, San Francisco Chronicle)

Briefing Materials on Sierra Nevada Conservancy Subregions (by Julie Leimbach and Joan Clayburgh, Sierra Nevada Alliance)

Life After Proposition 84

The conservancy was created shortly before passage of the $5.3 billion Proposition 84 water bond and has funded its projects since then with its $54 million share of the proceeds. But that money was mostly gone by the end of 2011 and questions remain as to how it will continue to function in the future.

For now, most of those golden eggs seem to be in a basket known as the Safe, Clean, and Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act of 2012. Originally planned for the November 2010 ballot, the $11.1 billion bond initiative was pushed back two years because lawmakers feared the frightful state of the economy would scare off voter support.

The act earmarks millions for each of the state’s 10 conservancies, including $56 million for the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, but the size and scope of the bond issue could change before voters get a crack it. A big chunk of the $11.1 billion bond is for work in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta area and related water conveyance projects that raise controversial issues beyond the cost.

A continued lousy economy, a $7.6 billion annual bill for interest on outstanding bonds, other proposed 2012 bond measures and the prospect of calls for a tax increase could further imperil the water bond’s chances at the ballot box.

Assembly Bill 157: Safe, Clean, and Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act of 2012 (California Legislative Information)

California Water Bond Pushed Back to 2012 (by Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times)

Economy: Big Player in November Water Bond (by John Howard, California Water Wars)

Funding Dries Up

The conservancy got a taste of what life would be like without its funding base of state bonds when the global economic downturn in 2008 froze credit markets and forced California to suspend bond sales on December 17.

The state halted thousands of projects supported by general obligation bond measures, including 142 Proposition 84-funded conservancy endeavors. “The impact of the freeze on our grantees and other organizations throughout the region has been significant, causing layoffs and financial hardship in a number of cases,” Conservancy Executive Officer Jim Branham said.

The stoppage lasted eight months, at which time the conservancy eased back into business by freeing up $9.1 million for projects with the highest priority, but many projects saw their immediate funding supply cut in half. 

Sierra Nevada Conservancy Halts Funding for Grants (by Walt Cook, The Union Democrat)

Sierra Nevada Conservancy Funds Halted (by Jeannette E. Warnert, University of California Cooperative Extension)

Environmental Groups, Projects Lose Funding (by James Damschroder, Sonora Union Democrat)

Sierra Nevada Conservancy Restarts 142 Frozen Projects (Conservancy website) (pdf)

Better Accountability

In 2009, the state’s Department of Finance did an internal audit on the Sierra Nevada Conservancy to see if the almost $30 million in Prop. 84 bond funds allocated at that time had been awarded and spent correctly. It reviewed 25 of the 146 projects the conservancy had funded as of then. The Department of Finance found the conservancy had spent the money in accordance with legal requirements, but had room to improve in its future spending practices.

 The Department of Finance’s recommendations included suggestions for greater monitoring of how the grantees spend the money. For instance, the grants require that if any grant recipient earns interest on the money awarded them, that interest should either be spent on the project specified in the grant application, or returned to the agency. But when the Department of Finance reviewed a project in Butte County, the undisclosed agency receiving the grant had earned $448 in interest, and no one in the agency was able to account for how that interest was spent.

Audit of Sierra Nevada Conservancy’s Proposition 84 Bond Funds (Department of Finance) (pdf)

Why Conservancies?

It started in 1976 with the State Coastal Conservancy, a non-regulatory body charged with enhancing resources along California’s 1,100 mile coast and around the San Francisco Bay.

After that, the state established nine more conservancies, from the San Diego River to the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They are varied in their particulars, but all seek to bring resource programs closer to regional problems. Often, that translates into being a conduit for funds while interacting heavily with the community.

The goal is a more effective way to identify community issues and create a more efficient way to address them.

Does it work?

Conservancies (Natural Resources Agency website)

Conservancies Work

Nearly three-quarters of California’s 100 million acres are classified as wildlands. Another 24 million acres are farmland and roughly 1 million encompass urban areas. The federal government owns around 60% of the California wildlands and more than a third is privately owned, leaving just a small percentage owned by the state and local governments.

The state has long recognized a vital interest in preserving its natural resources and one of the more effective tools has been conservancies. Unlike most state attempts to manage resources, conservancies are governed by boards that include members of the community and local government. Board meetings allow public input and access to the decision-making process.

Because they lack regulatory power, conservancies tend to be less invasive and regarded as more collaborative and cooperative than other government entities. Partnerships with state governments, non-profit organizations and other local organizations facilitate establishment of worthwhile goals with an increased chance of success.

Their role as mediators can be underestimated. Surveying the scene in the Sierra Nevada region, conservancy Executive Officer Jim Branham said, “A century of fire suppression and decades of conflict between multiple stakeholders regarding forest and habitat issues on public lands has resulted in lawsuits, limited forest management and more frequent large damaging fires in the Sierra Nevada. At the same time, the loss of wood production infrastructure has contributed to forest overgrowth and the suffering of local economies. The status quo is simply unacceptable.” 

State Fact Sheets: California (U.S. Department of Agriculture)

What Is a Conservancy? (Natural Resources Agency website) (pdf)

Sierra Nevada Conservancy Governing Board Meeting & Tour of Sierra County September 1-2 (Conservancy website) (pdf)

Waste of Money, Waste of Effort

In 2000, the State Auditor reviewed the state’s land management policies and concluded that there was no overall plan coordinating the acquisition of land for wildlife habitat preservation and ecosystem restoration. The report noted that this lack of a plan was complicated by semi-independent conservancies with limited regional focus pursuing goals that weren’t necessarily in the state’s best interests.

Three years later, the state Legislative Analyst’s Office reached similar conclusions. The analyst was sufficiently concerned about the direction conservancies were going that it recommended sunset provisions be instituted that required periodic reviews by the state of conservancy goals and accomplishments and, if necessary, their shuttering.

While conservancies don’t have the kind of regulatory powers that private parties can find intrusive and threatening, they play a prominent role simply by the amount of money they wield. For many, it’s yet another layer of government to contend with while developers jealously watch as prime real estate is taken off the market for state-initiated preservation projects.

Since the auditor and analyst reports, the state has added more conservancies and increased their funding. Yet funding for conservancies remains one of the key concerns. Much of their funding comes from periodic sales of bonds, years apart, which introduces an element of uncertainty and potential conflict. California’s large deficits and crippled economy forced legislators to forego taking a massive $11.1 billion water bond to the public in 2010 and may endanger it in 2012. Meanwhile, a freeze in the credit markets in 2008-09 forced an eight-month halt to funding projects already in the pipeline.

Conservancies aren’t cheap. The proposed 2012 water bill includes more than $187.5 million for the State Coastal Conservancy, $18.8 million for the San Joaquin River Conservancy, $56.3 million for the San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy; $56.3 million for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and $56.3 million for the Sierra Nevada Conservancy. And that’s just half the conservancies. With funding being slashed for education, the disabled, the elderly and the poor, questions abound about money being quietly spent on hiking trails and visitor centers.

Over the past 10 years, Californians have borrowed $14 billion for the environment, $10 billion for high-speed rail and $3 billion for stem-cell research. Service on that debt costs Californians more than $7 billion a year.

California’s Wildlife Habit and Ecosystem (State Auditor) (pdf)

Sierra Nevada Conservancy Proposed (by Paul Shigley, California Planning and Development Report)

The Role of State Conservancies (Legislative Analyst’s Office) (pdf)

Debt Takes a Huge Chunk out of California's Beleaguered Budget (by Shane Goldmacher, Los Angeles Times)