Karen Kraus started Pollinate in January 2014 to help clients grow their ideas. Pollinate Environment is about making positive environmental change – helping clients who influence how we live and interact with our environment.
About Karen
Karen has over 20 years experience in federal, state and local environmental matters, including:
- CEQA and local planning requirements
- open space, habitat and wildlife
- wetland and coastal protection and restoration
- water resources
- Superfund cleanup, Brownfields redevelopment and hazardous waste management
She worked for the Environmental Defense Center and for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of General Counsel. She has communicated and collaborated with federal, state and local agencies and officials, and with a wide array of stakeholder interests from community activists to landowners, from company executives to scientists.
Karen graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a degree in Environmental Studies and received her J.D. at Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley.
Linda Krop – Environmental Defense Center, Chief Counsel: “I have worked with Karen for many years and am impressed with her integrity and her ability to draw on her knowledge and experience to address issues of importance to the community. She is a superb strategic thinker and approaches issues with an open, nonjudgmental mind. She has made our region a safer, more environmentally sound, place to live, work and recreate.”
Peter Brand – State Coastal Conservancy (ret.): “Karen is an excellent researcher and writer and enjoys thinking strategically. She enthusiastically embraces the requirements of community outreach and works creatively and congenially with a wide array of stakeholders. This requires the qualities of compromise and patience and significant collaborative skills, all of which she possesses. Elected officials rely on her for her knowledge, discretion, quick understanding and sound judgment.”
Craig Fusaro – PhD, Board Governor Emeritus, California Trout, Inc.: “Supporting our efforts to protect and restore endangered Southern Steelhead, Karen Kraus represented CalTrout during State Water Board hearings on amending water rights on the Santa Ynez River. Her legal insights, strategic thinking and tenacity on this project were far beyond the call of duty. Karen is truly dedicated to preserving our natural resource heritage.”
Diane Underhill – President, Ventura Citizens for Hillside Preservation: “Ms. Kraus was a phenomenal asset to our campaign to preserve the Canada Larga Valley. She wielded her legal environmental expertise like a surgeon’s scalpel and kept a significant wildlife corridor from the bulldozer. We would highly recommend her to other environmental organizations.”
Garry George – Chapter Network Director/Renewable Energy Director, Audubon California: “I’ve worked with Karen on some very difficult environmental issues in wind energy siting in Santa Barbara County and she was able to maintain a balanced and informed advocacy that resulted in substantial changes to a wind project and the permit that resulted in our support of the project.”
Shirley Godwin – Oxnard resident: “I have known Karen Kraus for more than ten years. I have been a member of a local community group that has worked for many years to protect our coastal areas from inappropriate development, and especially to preserve the Ormond Beach Wetlands in Oxnard. Karen’s legal expertise has been invaluable in these efforts. What is most impressive about Karen is the way she works in partnership with her clients and the larger community. “
