Marin County: What it needs to do to recover Coho Salmon

When you have an ache, it doesn't stop you, but it affects your performance. When you have multiple aches, the impacts pile on and can be debilitating. Cumulative impacts on the  environment are like this--they add up until ecosystem processes stop functioning, or the cumulative noise and light pollution make you just want to move away. And California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) analyses have traditionally done a very poor job of analyzing and mitigating cumulative effects. If they had done a good job, our impacts on the environment would have been arrested at 1970 levels when CEQA was passed. Just imagine if we still had a 1970s level of development in California (ok, skip the beards and bell bottoms). In a state where so many impacts are already cumulatively significant, as a general rule, it just makes sense to mitigate any new impacts. It is the only responsible way to act. We typically don't do that, but in the case of Coho Salmon in San Geronimo Valley, the courts have ruled that we should. And Marin County is legally on the hook for doing it.

Somewhere West of Joshua Tree

There is a Vermillion Flycatcher in a parking lot
There is a boy on his bike at the beach looking up at the snowy mountains
There is an old man in a hospital wishing he could be hiking in the mountains
There is a woman giving food to a hungry and homeless man
There is a baby taking her first steps
There is a cat sleeping in a sunny window
There is a girl climbing up to her treehouse
There is a tearful couple saying goodbye at the airport
There is a dad stuck in traffic on his way home to his family
There is a mother and son who are reunited at the train station
There is an ocean breeze cooling a runner's hot back
There is the aroma of delicious food in a backyard
There is a family gathering around a table
There is a group of kids playing in a creek
There is a surfer catching her first wave
There is a boy exchanging a glance with a girl
There is a mother giving birth
A hopeful person is planting a tree
A caring person is picking up litter
A loving person is smiling to say hi