Governor selects veteran official for water board

Jake Mackenzie, who made tackling climate change a key focus of his 24 years on the Rohnert Park City Council, has been appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board.

The appointment, to a four-year term, pending state Senate confirmation, builds on Mackenzie's 30-year career with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and his service on various regional boards focused on conserving open spaces and local waterways.

“I'm excited and looking forward to representing the southern end of such a vast region that is hugely resourced and faces many unique challenges,” Mackenzie, 84, said.

“It fits well into my academic and professional background and with a lot of the work I did regionally on the council.”

The North Coast water board, one of nine regional boards in California, extends from southern Sonoma County to the Oregon border.

Its tasked under state and federal law to regulate, maintain and restore water quality in the region's waterways.

Mackenzie is a retired pesticide regulator with the EPA and served on the City Council from 1996 to 2020.

He represented the area on the Sonoma Water Advisory Committee and on the Russian River Watershed Association during his time on the council and he's long served on the board of directors of the Greenbelt Alliance, which advocates for sustainable growth and preservation of open space to combat a changing climate.

Mackenzie said he was representing Sonoma County Supervisor Susan Gorin on the North Coast Resource Partnership, a coalition of local governments and tribes focused on protecting water resources, when he was approached last summer by the water quality board's executive director who was recruiting to fill several vacancies on the board.

Mackenzie consulted Grant Davis, general manager of Sonoma Water, the region's main water supplier, about the position, and Davis encouraged him to apply.

“I've had a long-standing interest in water quality issues and a certain amount of professional expertise and I've pretty much been all over the North Coast region and know the territory so I thought this would be an interesting challenge” Mackenzie said.

Newsom's office notified Mackenzie about the appointment Monday and he said he's already preparing for the new role, reviewing copies of the board's workplan and scheduling meetings with regional and state officials.

He said he's particularly interested in the board's responsibility to regulate discharges into the Russian River watershed and the impacts of agricultural activity and also learning more about waste discharge and pollutant use associated with the cannabis industry.

He expects to be seated by the board's April 4 meeting in Santa Rosa.