Flooding at the south end of Seacoast Drive in Imperial Beach during a king tide. File photo by Chris Helmer / City of Imperial Beach
You don’t have to look very far in San Diego to witness the real and growing threats of a changing climate.
To the east, hillsides thick with brush put communities at risk of destructive wildfires. To the west, beaches and lowlands are imperiled by a rising sea. And in nearly every direction, communities lack safe drinking water.
Among the state’s top 20 deadliest wildfires, four have occurred in San Diego County — destroying thousands of homes and filling the sky with lung-burning smoke and ash. Communities and livelihoods here depend on the coastline but many local beaches are disappearing, eroding 1 to 3 meters a year. Of nearly 2.4 million Californians living in communities without clean drinking water access or where local water systems might fail, more than 20,000 live in the county.
All of these threats to our health, lives, and economy are expected to grow. Proposition 4 gives Californians a choice to prevent natural disasters rather than respond to them. This is why, as a scientist and a career firefighter, we urge you to support Proposition 4 on the November ballot.
In order to prevent devastating wildfires and toxic smoke, Proposition 4 provides $1.5 billion to create fire breaks near communities through prescribed burning and grazing, improve forest health, harden homes from wildfire, support specialized firefighting equipment, and deploy early detection and response systems. To preserve access to safe drinking water, it provides $3.8 billion to prevent or treat contaminants in groundwater, recharge aquifers, rebuild crumbling water infrastructure, and protect our watersheds.
Proposition 4 also provides $1.2 billion to help communities confront rising seas. Neighborhoods and basic infrastructure face significant challenges in the San Diego region, which has pioneered natural protections that could be expanded through Proposition 4. Dune restoration at Cardiff State Beach, for example, protects Highway 101 from significant tidal and storm surge events.
Similarly, wetland restoration at the San Dieguito Lagoon will absorb floodwaters from sea level rise while providing habitat for wildlife. With the City of San Diego projected to annually experience 20 days of high tide flooding by 2043 and at least 50 days by 2057, investment in such solutions remains vital.
Much of the funding in Proposition 4 targets the San Diego area directly, including $170 million for the Salton Sea Management Program, $73 million for the San Diego River Conservancy for watershed and wildfire resilience programs, $50 million for watershed and water quality projects on the Tijuana and New rivers.
Across California, the effects of a changing climate impact all of us.
This is especially true now that we are in a new era of megafires. Nineteen of the state’s top 20 largest wildfires occurred since 2000. Most burned since 2017, incinerating a land area 25-times the size of the City of San Diego. Between 2017-2021, wildfires caused over $100 billion in damages each year and $5 billion in costs to the state.
Our ability to breathe clean air is at stake. The state’s record-breaking 2020 fire season alone burned more than 4 million acres, offsetting emission reductions California made over nearly two decades. A recent UCLA study found 11 years of exposure to wildfire smoke caused more than 50,000 deaths in California and more than $400 billion in economic damages.
Our access to clean drinking water is also at stake. Watersheds damaged by wildfire and migrating ash contaminate water supplies. Dwindling snowpacks paired with boom and bust rain cycles prompted state water officials to warn that advancing climate change could cause a reduction in deliveries from the State Water Project by nearly a quarter over the next 20 years. This scarcity will strain 27 million Californians, 750,000 acres of farmland, and businesses statewide.
A better future is possible today. We have the solutions to focus on disaster prevention. Through Proposition 4, we can invest in them at scale to protect communities and local economies while keeping costs down for taxpayers and California families.
For these reasons, we are proud to stand with firefighters, Clean Water Action, and the Coalition for Clean Air to urge your support for Proposition 4.
Laura Engeman is an environmental researcher and a member of the San Diego Sea-level Rise Working Group. Christopher Anthony is a registered professional forester and former chief deputy director at Cal Fire now working as a strategic wildfire consultant.