Northern California communities face compounding environmental challenges related to forest health, wildfire risk, and water quality degradation. Large volumes of woody biomass are generated annually through fuels reduction and forest restoration projects, yet sustainable and economically viable end uses for this material remain limited.

CLERC’s Carbonizer Pilot Project in Middletown demonstrated the feasibility of converting forest-derived biomass into biochar at scale, producing approximately 3,500 tons of material. This project reduced open pile burning, lowered greenhouse gas emissions, and created a potential local supply of biochar for environmental applications.

At the same time, Lake and Sonoma Counties continue to experience degraded water quality from agricultural runoff, stormwater discharge, and toxic post-fire runoff, including sediments, heavy metals, and organic contaminants. Biochar has shown promise as a low-cost, high-surface-area filtration medium capable of adsorbing pollutants and improving water quality, but field-scale performance data and standardized use guidelines remain limited.

The proposed research will evaluate the performance of locally produced biochar as a filtration medium across a range of real-world conditions and device configurations.

• How effective is forest-derived biochar at removing nutrients, heavy metals, and organic contaminants from runoff and stormwater?
• How do different biochar production methods (e.g., pyrolysis units vs. kiln burns) affect filtration efficacy and durability?
• How do different feedstocks and processing parameters influence adsorption capacity and lifespan?
• How do various filtration structures (e.g., bioswales, filter socks, in-ditch filters) perform under field conditions?
• What maintenance intervals, replacement schedules, and end-of-life handling practices are most appropriate?

CLERC and the Sonoma Ecology Center intend to submit a joint proposal to the CAL FIRE Forest Health Research Program in Spring 2026. The selected research partner will collaborate on proposal development, study design, and methodological framing.

If funded, the research partner would serve as the academic or technical lead for data collection, analysis, and reporting, while CLERC and regional partners would provide field sites, locally produced biochar, operational support, and community engagement.

This opportunity is exploratory at this stage and contingent on grant award. However, it represents a high-priority applied research need identified by CLERC and its regional partners.

This project originated in response to the 1971 San Fernando Earthquake, which prompted broader investigation into the long-term behavior of the San Andreas Fault. In 1973, the U.S. Geological Survey drilled eight sediment cores from Clear Lake as part of that work.

Core 4, extending 115 meters into the lakebed, yielded a continuous pollen record that proved to be a landmark achievement. The resulting oak pollen percentage curve showed a striking resemblance to paleotemperature records from distant localities, despite having been constructed independently of those data sources.

The record is continuous, spans the last full glacial cycle of approximately 130,000 years, includes numerous large-amplitude climatic fluctuations, and can be correlated with other long records worldwide.

In 2012, Prof. Cindy Looy of UC Berkeley received a $2 million grant from the Moore Foundation to re-core Clear Lake. The Continental Scientific Drilling Program drilled at the original Core 4 site using modern equipment. These cores are now stored at the National Core Storage Facility in Minneapolis and are in the public domain.

CLERC has rescued and consolidated the surviving 1973 USGS samples, completed their transfer, and is currently repackaging materials to separate usable and identifiable samples from storage damage. The original data for all 2,376 samples from the 1973 cores has also been reformatted into a spreadsheet organized by core number and depth.

CLERC is open to proposals addressing any aspect of the available materials and is particularly interested in the following areas:

• Detailed palynological study of the Oxygen Isotope Stage 5 pollen record using the 2012 combined cores
• Investigation of intervals showing rapid climate change in the Core 4 record using the 2012 cores
• Black carbon studies in the 2012 combined cores to reconstruct fire history and its relationship to vegetation and climate change
• Comparative analysis of the pollen and algal records from Core 4
• Assessment of biochemical markers for acid-resistant microfossils and cyanobacterial blooms
• Comparison of the regional pollen grain record of Core 4 with records from smaller basins in the Clear Lake watershed
• Digitization and taxonomic study of approximately 4,000 SEM negatives of chrysophyte cysts from Clear Lake cores and reference sites across the western United States
• Logging of the second 2012 core by the Continental Scientific Drilling Program to enable preparation of a continuous section through the entire last glacial cycle

Researchers collaborating with CLERC will have access to rescued 1973 USGS core samples, a reformatted digital spreadsheet of all 2,376 sample records, a detailed log and digital images from the first 2012 CSDP core, access to the 2012 cores housed at the National Core Storage Facility in Minneapolis, published reference data, and the UC Davis CLERC I MySQL database covering lake chemistry, limnological conditions, and mercury pathway data from 1990 to 2000.

Laboratory microscopes are also available pending service and evaluation, including a binocular laboratory scope used for the original Core 4 pollen counts, a binocular phase-contrast microscope, and a Bausch & Lomb binocular stereo zoom dissecting scope.

There is strong interest in advancing research on the Clear Lake paleoenvironmental record. CLERC will maintain a list of interested researchers who may wish to partner to secure funding and contribute to work on one of the most significant long-term climate archives in western North America.