Heal the Bay Blog

The WEFTEC water quality conference, with its acres of pumps, filters, water treatment devices and other gizmos, moved out of the L.A. Convention Center last week. But I’m still thinking about what the 20,000-person gathering of H2O nerds means for our nation’s waters.  I was asked to give three talks at the conference: one on the public view of chemicals of emerging concern in recycled water; another on the future of stormwater regulation for cities and industry; and a discussion on the greening of Los Angeles through stormwater projects and regulation.

After the debates with water professionals, I was struck by a common need:  Everyone wants greater regulatory consistency and clarity.

The current federal approach is for regulations, memos, and policies to have  a great deal of  “flexibility.” But that wiggle room means that there isn’t much incentive to improve water quality programs.  Any investor in cutting-edge water treatment technology should have the expectation that the regulatory climate will push everyone to cleaner water that is more protective of human health and aquatic life.

Without that regulatory certainty, there’s no incentive for cities or industry to buy more expensive, more effective water pollution technologies other than “doing the right thing.”  Based on the lack of progress on stormwater pollution abatement nationwide, the altruistic approach has resulted in limited success.

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The California Coastal Commission invites California students in Kindergarten through Grade 12 to submit artwork or poetry with a California coastal or marine theme to the annual Coastal Art & Poetry Contest. Up to 10 winners will be selected to win $100 gift certificates to an art supply or book store, and each winner’s sponsoring teacher will receive a $50 gift certificate for educational supplies, courtesy of Acorn Naturalists.

All winners and honorable mentions will receive tickets for their families to visit the Aquarium of the Pacific, courtesy of the Aquarium. Students may have their work featured on Commission web pages and materials, and winning entries will be exhibited throughout the state.

To be eligible for the upcoming contest, entries must be postmarked by January 31, 2012.

For rules and entry form (and helpful links for teachers and students), visit www.coastal.ca.gov/publiced/poster/poster.html, call (800) Coast-4U or email coast4u@coastal.ca.gov.

Contest flyers (PDF or hard copy) are available upon request.

The Los Angeles City Council today took the bold step of supporting unanimously a substantial sewage service fee increase. The household fee will incrementally increase from an average of $29 a month to $53 a month over the next 10 years. The hike will generate an additional $1.8 billion over the next decade to pay for much-needed sewer and sewage treatment plant maintenance, repairs and replacement.

 I’ve been going to council meetings for over 25 years and this was the most sophisticated and intelligent council discussion on wastewater that I’ve ever seen. The lack of public opposition to the rate increase underscores the Bureau of Sanitation’s effectiveness in educating the public. Even the Chamber of Commerce strongly supported the measure.

The end result? Multiple wins – for public health, for the environment, for long-term, sustainable green jobs.  It also marks a step in the restoration of my faith in the public process.

If the L.A. City Council can unanimously approve a major sewer service rate increase during an ongoing recession, then there is hope for government elsewhere to provide leadership on other environmental and green jobs issues. Today, L.A. understood that sewage infrastructure may be out of sight, but it can never be out of mind.

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Unfortunately, discussions about the future of K-12 public education in California typically focus on the state’s massive budget problems.  Talks of educational reform seem to exclusively revolve around teacher accountability and charter schools.  Very little of the dialogue centers on how we can educate students more effectively and with new, engaging curriculum. 

But on Oct. 17-18, environmental content will be the focus at the Green California Schools Summit at the Pasadena Convention Center.

California’s budget crisis has been so severe that students have not received new textbooks in the last three years, and they may not receive new ones until 2015.  That means that a student that was a fifth grader in 2008 will never use a state textbook to learn about the United States’ first African American President, the loss of Pluto as a planet, or the global economic recession.

However, an interim solution for environmental education is moving forward: the Education and the Environment Initiative (EEI). It’s progress, but the curriculum program to develop environmental literacy in California’s 6 million public school students and their 150,000 teachers won’t reach classrooms in the next few years.

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As a Jewish parent and environmental scientist, I am consumed by guilt for taking the baby bottle shortcut when feeding our kids many years ago.  Yes, I put formula, and even – gasp –breast milk, in a plastic bottle and heated  it for 30 seconds in the microwave to satiate our kids and get them to stop crying. Who knows what was leached from those indestructible, clear plastic baby bottles while I was heating milk to lukewarm temperatures.

Of all people, I should have known better.  As more information came out in the public health literature about the risks of consuming Bisphenol A (BPA), an organic chemical used to produce polycarbonate plastics that are clear and nearly shatterproof, my guilt grew over exposing my three kids to an endocrine disrupting, potential neurotoxin and carcinogen.

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