John Krist

When San Diego's Multiple Species Conservation Plan (MSCP) was adopted a decade ago, then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt declared it "a model to the nation for how to plan for and balance the needs of man and nature." Ambitious in geographical scale, daunting in jurisdictional complexity, the plan was intended to regulate development across nearly a quarter of the fast-urbanizing county in such a way as to minimize conflict over scores of rare, threatened or endangered species and their hab...

When San Diego's Multiple Species Conservation Plan (MSCP) was adopted a decade ago, then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt declared it "a model to the nation for how to plan for and balance the needs of man and nature." Ambitious in geographical scale, daunting in jurisdictional complexity, the plan was intended to regulate development across nearly a quarter of the fast-urbanizing county in such a way as to minimize conflict over scores of rare, threatened or endangered species and their hab...

Finally heeding a message of alarm that experts have been sounding for a decade, California voters in November authorized an unprecedented investment in the fragile network of levees that protects homes, farms and critical infrastructure in the Central Valley from catastrophic flooding. Between Proposition 1E, which authorized $4.1 billion for levee improvement, and Proposition 84, a water bond that included $800 million for flood-control projects, the levee system stands to get a $5 billion ...