kristen: hi, there. you are watching "getting answers" live on abc 7. every day we talk about issues important to the bay area. officials are considering charging people to drive on freeways and not just in toll lanes or express lanes. we will get details on the proposal from the true politician transportation commission. also, california's wolf population is on the upswing. we will talk to the center of biological diversity to understand why that is important. first, a level two storm is

coming our way tonight. it is expected to bring heavy rain and gusty wind to the bay area, especially between 4:00 and 8:00 a.m. joining us now is the lead scientist of uc berkeley's central snow lab. thanks for coming on the show. >> thank you for having me on. kristen: i'm wondering if you are sitting there going, this is a juicy storm, a good, old-fashioned, classic weather storm. is it? >> it really is. we are super excited for this storm. it will bring plenty of precipitation across all of california. we are really excited for it. kristen: let's talk about rain in the bay area. how much are we expecting? >> most of what i'm seeing at this point is saying we could see as much as an inch of rain in the bay, so quite a decent amount compared to the dry conditions we have had as of late. kristen: absolutely. now i'm going to get to what i

know you are excited about in the sierra. how much snow are we expecting? >> we actually just upped our forecast today. we were expecting one to two feet of snow, and now it looks like we could see a foot and a half to even three feet, so we are super excited to see that role in, and the more the better. kristen: ooh, so what is the period you might get snow until? i think it is friday, right? friday morning, midday? >> that's correct. we are expecting to see the bulk of your snowfall come in early tomorrow morning, maybe just after midnight tonight, and then continue pretty heavily through the day and tomorrow afternoon and then it will start to taper off and we will probably see it continue in some light amounts until maybe friday morning or so. kristen: right, and some of the time it will be white out conditions, so be prepared for dangerous driving if you are coming to the ski resorts? >> absolutely. we are expecting wind gusts of

over 75 miles per hour and snowfall rates of uto to three inches per hour which means realistically, white out conditions. any type of non-essential travel should be avoided. friday might be a better day. kristen: now that we have the public service part out of the way, i want to talk about what you are excited about in terms of us being in the middle of a drought. we have been struggling with this for quite some time. how helpful is it to have a storm like this early in the season? >> it is immensely helpful. these big early-season storms help us early in the season. the key being we cannot have the faucet turn off like we did last year. these set us up for additional snowfall to stick around longer because that snowfall keeps things nice and cool, but we want those storms to keep going through. kristen: we have another one this weekend, i think, right?

>> yeah, that one is looking pretty significant as well. maybe another foot or two feet of snow out here, and that's looking like it will be more midday saturday through sunday. speaking of travel, really, friday afternoon is the best time to do it. otherwise you might be waiting until monday. kristen: right. if you get the 1-2 punch and get to cooler temperatures like you mention, that will allow any snow that falls after that to stick around longer because you have that refrigeration going on. what do you mean by "has to keep going?" does that mean a storm a week, every two weeks? last year, we know it did not keep going. >> realistically, over bread and butter is storms that continue to occur, but they have to keep contributing. january through march last year was our driest period on record and we did not see snow for over a month. when it came in, it was just maybe an inch, so we want to see

on average, maybe it is snowing once a week, and more than just like dusting's. maybe 3, 4 inches if not these big storms that help us out. kristen: when you look at the longer term forecast, does that seem to be the type of winter we have in the making? >> this winter is looking similar to last winter. we are looking at warmer than average temperatures and drier than average conditions, so far, that has not come to fruition. but it is looking that way. kristen: what would you consider at the end of it all when you look at the snow totals, successful winter season? >> for us up here, a successful winter season is realistically average. that means 360 inches of snow, so 30 feet of snow for us. with that said, we need about an extra year's worth of precipitation. i guess a successful season this year is about 60 feet of snow.

i think that might be a little bit optimistic, though. kristen: has that ever happened? >> i think we have hit 60 feet of snow maybe once or twice, but it is incredibly unlikely. kristen: what is the average these days? is there even an average anymore? >> that is kind of the million-dollar question. average for us every year is about 30 feet of snowfall total and maximum snow pack death -- depth of 12 to 15 feet. as you touched on, we see so much variability from year to year that is it's really hard to say what average is anymore. kristen: because of climate change? >> absolutely. we have always had natural variability in the climate system, but human-caused climate change is definitely making that more intense, so we are seeing these larger swings from super wet. to super dry periods and we

don't get the averages we used to. kristen: i know this sounds basic, maybe even stupid to ask, but i want to know, what are the different ways in which a healthy precipitation, healthy winter snow pack -- how is that important to us? >> absolutely and no stupid questions whatsoever. realistically, when we get those nice, big snows, it helps keep a lid on fire danger, right? that snow sticks around late into the spring and summer months and helps keep our forests moist, so that means less time for those forests to dry out and eventually turned into fuel for forest fires. that is one big way snows help us. another big way is realistically all that water that comes from that snow goes into our reservoirs and taps at the end of the day and into our agriculture as well, so if we have meager years, we are not getting the water we need for our industry, for our homes, and

for our ecosystem health that we need, so that's why we always want at least average conditions if not better than. kristen: how do we adjust and adapt for these conditions? we are never going to go back to what it was before 20 or 50 years ago. >> there's a lot of ways we can look at how to adapt to this period moving forward. traditional methods do not seem to be the optimal ones. building dams are not the bulletproof strategy they used to be necessarily. to a certain extent, we need to be looking at things like desalination plants, but those can be costly, and we need to be looking at kind of out of the box things that we have not yet embraced. things like rainwater collection for homes and businesses as well as rainwater recycling. those are two technologies that are pretty far along and successful but we just have not implemented them enough. it is a little bit of investing

in infrastructure that we have used once the past, but it is also embracing new technologies as well. kristen: fascinating ideas. thank you so much for that excellent information. thank you so much. >> thank you. you have a good one. kristen: you, too. how about this? find out about a new idea that is

kristin: when it comes to freeways, californians have long viewed them as a birthright almost. cars should be able to drive on them for free, right? but many lanes in recent years have been designated express lanes that charge a toll. now comes a new idea that may

have drivers paying by the mile. joining us like to discuss this, spokesperson for the metropolitan transportation commission, john goodwin. good to see you. >> good to see you as well. kristen: we know the idea is in early stages, but the idea is to treat freeways as a public utility. what does that mean? >> that is exactly right. and use pricing to influence demand on that public utility. we are asking questions like what can we do? what role can pricing or tolls play in convincing people to move more trips to off-peak hours? what role can tolls play in convincing people to carpool more frequently or to ride public transit more frequently as an alternative to driving more.

kristen: why are we asking these questions right now? >> this stems from some work that was done in the past, roughly a year ago, ntc adopted plan bay area 2050, which looks at the future of our region out to the year 2050, with a focus one of the exercises done was to use some pricing dynamics for the roadway system. we found that wind and put into the travel model -- and i don't want to get too geeky with your viewers here, but that showed that they could be an effective way to help the bay area meet its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, so that

prompted the decision to study this further, and we are not even halfway through this two-year study, which is known as the next freeway study. kristen: got it. look, i know this is kind of in line with california's goals to reach zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 and no cars that would pollute by 2035, so i know is it's an ambitious goal and the timeline is part of that, but tell us how this fee structure might work when you say pay per mile. like, how much? when would you have to pay? how does the freeway know? >> it is way too early to get into those operational details. that will come much later in the study probably, at least a year from now, but probably the easiest way to conceive of it is

to imagine the existing express lane system covering all wayne's . it would operate much like an express lane using an electronic transponder, your fasttrack tag if you will, but what the rates would be, the toll rates, you know, that will depend on time of day, the amount of traffic, etc. the study may very well conclude that this is an idea whose time has not come. kristen: right. one thing that comes to mind is the equity issue, right? when express lanes were first introduced in the bay area, i know people were concerned that they were the lexus lane because if you were wealthy you could pay to drive in them and if you were poor, you could not. how would you address that,

especially if it is all the lanes? >> right, that is very much one of the questions that those who are conducting the study are grappling with, how can tolls be implemented in a way that is equitable for everybody in the bay area? and then as the transportation system evolves, how can it remain equitable, and these are tough issues. getting back to the express lanes, data not only from the bay area, but from around the country indicate that people from all walks of life use the express lanes but not every day. kristen: right. do you envision carpool or's and perhaps electric or hybrid car owners not having to pay? >> certainly i would expect that there would be discounts or full free travel for qualifying carpools. i think that while there

currently are express lane discounts for electric vehicles or other clean air vehicles, i think as those cars constitute a bigger part of the bay area, it is just ultimately not going to be practicable to provide a price break for the electric car people. kristen: i see. i hope is we will get to 90%, 100% of vehicles being electric or hybrid soon, but will there be low income assistance, do you think? >> that's one of the possibilities that will be modeled as well. it is very much on the table. kristen: just exploring ideas. before we get to that, i'm just wondering, some might be looking at these proposals and wondering why can we not just build more freeways? your answer to that would be?

>> the answer is one, it is just prohibitively expensive to do so. when the interstate system was being built, you have the federal government picking up 90% of the cost. that's not there anymore. the price of land in the bay area is astronomical. we really have to accept the reality that the era of big scale freeway construction is behind us, and it really has been behind us for an entire generation, so now we are looking ahead to the next generation. we have come to the conclusion that the freeway capacitor we have in the bay area is pretty much what we will have for many years to come, so how can we use that resource as effectively and efficiently as we can?

if people have thoughts, they are always welcome to let us know. just send an email to info @bayareametro.gov. kristen: thank you very much for this conversation today. i really appreciate it. take care. they are back. california's wolf population is california's wolf population is all bu when a truck hit my car, california's wolf population is all bu the insurance company wasn't fair. i didn't know what my case was worth. so i called the barnes firm. i was hit by a car and needed help. i called the barnes firm, that was the best call i could've made. i'm rich barnes. it's hard for people to know how much their accident case is worth. let our injury attorneys help you

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and trappers 100 years ago, but today, good news -- one california will has just produced the largest litter of pups in a century. joining us, the senior wolf advocate with the center for biological diversity. i almost said adversity, but they have gone through some adverse conditions. thank you for being with us. >> thank you for having me. it is an exciting time. kristen: it is very exciting because the biggest litter of pups was just reduced by one of the wolves on california. tell us about it. >> this is the whale backpack. they were first confirmed as a pair of wolves in 2020 and had their first litter last year. i think they had six or seven. five are still with them. they are now what we call teenagers or sub-adults. on top of that, this last spring, they had eight more pups. this is just one of california's

packs, but you only have three. we know for sure that two have and having pups. to third may have been having pups. not confirmed yet. kristen: how many wolves total do you think that is? >> between 30 and 34. the whale back pack currently has 15 members. the mom and dad, five teenagers, and eight new pups from april. the last new pack has 10 members. then there's the beckwith pack. that consists of 22 -- two to three wolves. when they were originally found, they thought they were two to three adults. right now, it seems one of them might be a pup. the video you're showing is the last of the pack from the 2019

litter. if you're curious what they are munching on, that is their poop. -- that is there -- that is bear poop. they range across parts of laszlo in plymouth county. the back worth pack is in southeast plumas county, not too far from back worth. kristen: with so few, some 30 wolves in california, give us the history and put in perspective why this is so exciting that they have this big litter. they were pretty much wiped out a hundred years ago, right? >> that's true in california and elsewhere across the country, we had wiped out wolves pretty much everywhere except far northeastern minnesota and it was not until the endangered species act was passed in 1973

and then wolves were listed for protection that it then became illegal to kill wolves. recovery efforts were started by the federal government. there never was a recovery plan developed for california, but what happened is wolves that were reintroduced to central idaho in the mid-1990's, their offspring began to move to oregon, and eventually, their offspring's offspring began to move into california. almost every wolf that has come into california since 2011 has come from oregon. it is important and exciting that we now have three packs and that they are producing litters because you need diversity to keep the population going. you want to have wolves from different packs who came from different original packs themselves for genetic diversity because that is important, too.

kristen: i guess that is the question -- why are they so important to have in the ecosystem, other than to the diversity that you're talking about? >> wolves are what scientists call top predators. top predators are at the top of the food system. they interact with everything below and have a really big impact on everything below. elk and deer and bison are as healthy as they are because they evolved with wolves. if you like how fleet and muscular and agile elk and deer and bison are, you have wolves to thank for that. but because wolves keep these populations on the move, that allows the vegetation to go back so those animals are not over browsing. birds roost and nest in those trees.

eagles use them for building materials. when beavers build dams, that creates ponds that fish need to thrive. if you are a fly fisherman, you should also love wolves. it is all part of nature. if we kill wolves, we pull out a really important thread and by putting them back, we make things whole again. kristen: thank you for that lesson on the circle of life, if will. that is why we should be celebrating this huge litter, eight cups. reminder, you can get our live newscast with our abc 7 bay area streaming app available on apple tv, google tv, fir (vo) a medicare advantage plan should come with all the benefits you want and zero compromises. with anthem blue cross, it can. just go to anthem.com/answers or call 833-797-4179 for a free one-on-one medicare plan review. ask about our zero dollar monthly premium plans

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tonight, the deadly tornado outbreak. more than 30 reported tornadoes. we're live on the scene at this hour. and the system now moving across the northeast. this evening, two people killed when a confirmed ef-2 touched down. winds up to 120 miles per hour. search and rescue teams going door-to-door, looking for possible victims. the twisters hitting several states. and in the northeast tonight, heavy rain and strong winds from new york city to boston. rob marciano is live. tonight, will the rail strike be averted here in the u.s.? congress taking action. tonight, house democrats and republicans voting to force workers to accept a tentative deal. so, what next from the senate? with questions still remaining over sick leave. rachel scott live on the hill for us. the emotional plea tonight and you'll see it from a family urging parents