Yolo County Climate Action and Adaptation Plan Development

In 2020, the Yolo County Board of Supervisors set the goal of achieving a carbon-negative footprint by 2030, with a focus on equity and justice. This year the Climate Team was thrilled to receive input from the public through many community engagement sessions to assist with the development of Yolo County’s 2030 Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. Read more here.

Gibson Solar Farm

The Board of Supervisors approved the 100-acre Gibson Solar Farm project near Esparto, which will support Yolo County’s Climate Action Plan goals, Valley Clean Energy’s goal of increasing locally generated renewable energy and battery storage, and will bring economic benefits to the community with a Project Labor Agreement and the creation of 75 full-time jobs across five separate trades. There is also an opportunity to create a microgrid to improve electricity reliability in the Esparto and Capay Valley area. Read more here

New Electric Vehicle (EV) Chargers

Thanks to a collaboration with Valley Clean Energy, the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG), Yolo County, and the City of Winters, there are new EV charging stations in the Mary L Stephens library branch in Davis, and outside of Winters City Hall. As a County Supervisor, Vice-Chair of Valley Clean Energy, and former Chair of SACOG, I am thrilled to see the collaboration of these entities result in tangible next steps to help us achieve Yolo County’s ambitious climate goals of net-negative carbon emissions by 2030.

Yolo Subbasin Focus Areas

Yolo County staff worked in partnership with the Yolo Subbasin Groundwater Agency to develop a process to better protect long-term sustainability of groundwater. This work focused on areas of the county where the groundwater level is not recovering at the same rate as other areas of the county, or there is insufficient data to determine if a new well on historically non-irrigated land will cause subsidence or negative impacts to nearby existing wells. Read more here

Yolo County Community Wildfire Protection Plan

On March 21, 2023 the Board of Supervisors approved the Yolo County Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP). A CWPP is collaborative plan that identifies projects to reduce wildfire risk and enables access to funding for fuels reduction work and other wildfire resilience projects. The projects identified in this CWPP are focused in areas that fall within high severity fire hazard areas, primarily in Western Yolo County. This is a significant milestone for Yolo County and will enable access to critical funding streams to protect people and property. You can read the CWPP here.

— Excerpts from Lucas Frerichs Yolo County Supervisor newsletter Subscribe Here (for lots of content on other topics in addition to environment and climate)