Media Watch Archives
'We're Not Prepared': Experts Call for Doubling Levee Protections as California Faces Increasing Floods
KQED -
As floodwaters recede, [Jeffery] Mount and Brett Sanders, his peer at UC Irvine, said this is the perfect time to rethink and update the state’s aging infrastructure to accommodate the future climate. Fewer than 10% of levees in the greater Bay Area have a federal risk rating, according to a KQED analysis of the National Levee Database. “The recent California storms showed us pretty clearly there’s a lot at risk and systems we think are there to protect us may not perform as we expect,” said Sanders, an engineering professor, of levees across the Central Valley and Central Coast that failed during winter storms. … “There will always be floods that are beyond the capacity of systems,” he said. “So, are we doing what we need to do to protect even those that aren’t protected?” Read More
UCI Receives $6M Grant to Study Jaw Joint Implant
Orange County Business Journal -
UCI said it received a $6 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to perform preclinical trial studies on jaw joint implant Hyaleon. Hyaleon, the main product of UCI-based startup Cartilage Inc., aims to treat adults living with a temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorder. According to officials, about one in four adults suffer from a TMJ pathology, and up to 70% of cases involve displacement of the TMJ disk. “Total joint replacement is performed for end-stage cases, but this is considered to be a drastic step,” Kyriacos Athanasiou, a biomedical engineering researcher at UCI who led the development of Hyaleon, said in a statement. [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.] Read More
3 Significant Benefits to Living in a Community Microgrid, and What That Even Means
Hunker -
Clean energy communities are very slowly popping up all over the country, including in Menifee, California, where KB Home recently launched two all-electric, solar, and battery-powered microgrid communities — the first in California — in partnership with solar solutions company SunPower, the University of California, Irvine, the U.S. Department of Energy, Southern California Edison, Schneider Electric, and Kia. Every home in these communities comes equipped with connecting solar panels, a solar-powered battery, and connection to the community's battery. When the sun is shining, each home generates its own electricity, which reduces or even eliminates the need to be connected to a traditional grid. Read More
Crystal Cove’s latest restoration focuses on past, but also a future facing climate change
The Orange County Register -
“Crystal Cove is a unique State Park in California because it is a place where we can contemplate the challenges of balancing environmental needs against cultural needs, against today’s recreational needs,” said Brett Sanders, a UC Irvine professor of civil and environmental engineering. “And realize that it’s not going to be easy.” [Subscription required, campus-wide access provided by UCI Libraries. Sign-up here: https://guides.lib.uci.edu/news/ocregister]. Read More
Menifee's 'microgrid' community offers energy self-sufficiency
CBS News -
"What a microgrid is, is the ability for a battery to operate, separate from a utility, a number of lots," said Scott Hansen, vice president of KB Homes Forward Planning and Land Development. "If you want to think of it like an island of power unto itself." … The idea started two years ago with a federal grant and joint partnership between University of California-Irvine, KB Homes, SoCal Edison and SunPower. "How do we provide reliability to our customers? How do we provide them with a product that we know that no matter what happens, our lights are on, our homes are still fully functional?" said Hansen. And that's how the microgrid was born. Read More
The Climate Crisis Is Making Floods Bigger. Is LA Ready?
LAist -
In the L.A. Basin, a study out of UC Irvine found that nearly a million people live in an area that is at high-risk for flooding in a more likely 100-year storm event. The study found cities along the lower part of the L.A. River — including Bell Gardens, Carson, Paramount City, and Compton — would see some of the most severe impacts, such as water spilling over the top of flood channels and waist-high flooding. “The flood risk facing cities is bigger than what federally defined maps would suggest,” said Brett Sanders, a UC Irvine engineering professor and lead author of the study. Read More
Can OC Cling Onto Its Iconic But Threatened Coastal Rail Line?
Voice of OC -
A publicized train ride last week between a federal rail administrator and Congressman Mike Levin put these issues into focus, with the announcement of requests for federal funding in the coming days for rail relocation studies, as well as a new county task force studying issues like beach sand replenishment. And at a Friday news conference in the rain, wind and cold, officials announced one of its first members: UCI civil engineering professor Brett Sanders, a coastal erosion and flooding expert, who has been sounding the alarm about the coastline’s railroad threats which halted passenger service since September of last year. Read More
Biden Administration Is Building a U.S.-Mexico Border Wall that Could Worsen Flooding in Both Nations
The Voice of San Diego -
The 1980 flood in the Tijuana River Valley was one of its worst. Rains filled nearby reservoirs so much that water had to be released into the already-raging Tijuana River. If a wall stood in the river then, like the one Customs and Border Protection is building right now, it would be met with water speeds and force equivalent to 175 fully-loaded shipping containers hitting the barrier every second, according to Jochen Schubert, [specialist, civil & environmental engineering], a flood risk expert at University of California, Irvine. Read More
Eyewitness Newsmakers: How to harness stormwater and the concerning 100-year flood assessment
KABC -
In this edition of Eyewitness Newsmakers with Marc Brown, Brett Sanders, professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Irvine, laid out a worrying scenario. He and his team mapped a 100-year flood scenario for our region. They discovered our network of flood control channels may not be up to the task, which could mean water may spill over the channel banks or banks could collapse, sending water into areas where millions of people live. Read More
Federal railroad official tours at-risk rail line in Del Mar, San Clemente. ‘It’s just a matter of time’
The San Diego Union-Tribune -
Federal Railroad Administration Administrator Amit Bose joined Rep. Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano, and a host of local officials for a train ride over the precarious Del Mar bluffs. Levin, Bose and others, including a University of California, Irvine professor, then held news conferences in Solana Beach and San Clemente to publicize the need to protect the tracks and move them to a safer inland location. … “It’s been estimated that this year’s storms have left more than $5 billion in losses across California, and most of that is concentrated along the coast,” said Brett Sanders, a professor of civil and environmental engineering. “Coastal change can be dramatic, dangerous and costly.” Read More