Heal the Bay Blog

Heal the Bay chief Ruskin Hartley says sewage isn’t sexy, but it’s fascinating:

I recently had the chance to tour the Hyperion treatment plant with a group of staff and volunteers from Heal the Bay. Many thanks to our friends at the Bureau of Sanitation for organizing an instructive tour. Here’ some of what I learned:

1. Hyperion was one of the 12 Greek Titans and the father of the god Helius. Hyperion is also the name of a sewage treatment plant in L.A. It’s also the name of the world’s tallest tree — a 379-foot coast redwood in Redwood National Park.

2. Hyperion is the largest sewage plant, by volume, west of the Mississippi. It treats 300 million gallons a day (MGD) on a regular basis and can handle 900 MGD flat out. By comparison, you’d only need 100 MGD to fill the Rose Bowl. Or 90,000 fans. Take your pick.

3. You may have heard of effluent. It’s the treated wastewater discharged into a bay or ocean. But did you know that influent is the name for what they call the raw sewage that flows in the front door of the plant. I didn’t.

4. The city of L.A. purchased the land that Hyperion stands on in 1892 and built the first modern plant in 1949. Up until that time, raw sewage was discharged to the Bay. But I use the word modern loosely. From 1949-98, the plant blended treated and untreated effluent and then pumped it into the Bay. The result? Sick surfers, dead fish, and dolphins with skin lesions. Oh, and a fight with Heal the Bay.

5. Heal the Bay was founded in 1985 to get Hyperion to clean up its act. By 1987 officials had agreed to fix the problem. But it took 12 years and $1.6 billion to get to a place where only treated effluent was pumped into the Bay. Now surfers are healthier, dolphins are happier, and the fish die of natural causes. Unless it’s raining. But urban runoff is another story and a much more challenging problem we work on day in day out.

6. Despite the fact the new plant has allowed the Bay to recover, the treated effluent itself is not safe for humans. Seagulls may swim in the treated water ponds, but if you or I did the same we would get sick. So the last piece of the treatment puzzle is the dilution provided by the Santa Monica Bay. It does it tirelessly and doesn’t get paid.

7. It can take several days for influent to get from your toilet to Hyperion. But once there, the liquid is processed within a day. The solids take longer to be digested by beneficial bacteria and converted to compost that is used in Kern County farms and Griffith Park.

8. Some 6,700 miles of sewage line feed into Hyperion. That’s like L.A. to N.Y. and back.

9. About 80% of the power needs for Hyperion are met from methane gas generated on-site from all that poop.

Heal the Bay staff is all smiles after a tour of the Hyperion plant, the historic Ground Zero for the group.

Ben Kay, a marine biology teacher at Santa Monica High School and longtime partner of Heal the Bay in the fight against plastic pollution, took a midnight run to Santa Monica’s Pico Kenter stormdrain this morning. Here’s his alarming report about the effect the season’s “Second Flush” had on our local shoreline:

Sorry, had to share another shocking video from my midnight run today: copious plastic pollution and mystery foam strike again. With much more rain, the second flush of the stormdrains this early morning turned out to be much worse than the first flush back on Oct. 9., spraying debris all along the beach. The sad thing is that this is totally preventable, yet my students and I have documented the same phenomenon six years in a row.

Unmistakable negative human impacts to oceanic and land habitats stem from our increasing reliance on disposable plastic goods. Each flush of Santa Monica’s Pico Kenter Storm Drain exacerbates the problem. Even in our affluent, progressive, and green-minded community of Santa Monica, a thick stream of plastic pollutants flows unfiltered into the sea, and nothing meaningful has been done to systematically combat this crisis in my eight years of examining the issue with students.

We clearly have both a litter problem and a plastic packaging problem, not just the former. Real solutions include:

• Mandatory environmental education in all schools at all grade levels
• Banning and refusing to use single-use plastic bags, utensils, straws, water/juice/soda bottles, and polystyrene food packaging
• Choosing reusable products
• Listening to sound science on environmental issues, not what the plastic industry tells us

If this report bothers you, consider joining our emergency Storm Response Team, a hardy group of volunteers that removes debris from our most impacted beaches following heavy rainfall.

Heal the Bay CEO Ruskin Hartley pays a visit to one of Heal the Bay’s greatest triumphs — Ahmanson Ranch, the largest parkland acquisition in the history of the Los Angeles-Ventura County region.

The early 2000s were heady days for land conservation. Flush with funds from voter-approved bond funds, the state competed for and secured protection for some remarkable pieces of property. At the time I was working in Northern California safeguarding redwoods. Save the Redwoods League had just protected the 25,000-acre Mill Creek property at a cost of $60 million. It seemed like a lot of money at the time, but I remember hearing of two transactions in Southern California that together cost the better part of $300 million. Wow, I thought. How could anything be worth that much?

Well, this past Saturday I finally stepped foot on one of these tracts of land: the former Ahmanson Ranch (now the “Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve,” a natty name I know). In 1998, Washington Mutual acquired the Ahmanson Ranch Co. and set about developing a self-contained city (complete with two PGA golf courses) located in the rapidly urbanizing San Fernando Valley. The proposal set off a firestorm of local opposition. Locals hated the thought of all the additional traffic, and the loss of local open space that was valued by both them and the critters that called the 3,000-acre ranch home.

A textbook campaign ensued that ultimately led to the ranches protection as parkland for all to enjoy. But before it could succeed, it had to go beyond a local issue to an issue of regional and state-wide importance. And that’s where Heal the Bay came in.

Ahmanson marked the first time that Heal the Bay had played a leading role in opposing a private development, one located many miles from the coast to boot. The nexus was water quality in Santa Monica Bay and the impact that unchecked development would have on the headwaters of Malibu Creek. Heal the Bay scientists mapped red legged frog habitat, assessed downstream water quality, and mobilized regional and statewide support for what until that time had been a local issue. Ultimately the stars came into alignment and the recent passage of voter-approved park and water bonds provided the funding to halt the development and create public park land.

California Governor Gray Davis, state legislator Fran Pavley, and director-activist Rob Reiner announced the deal back in 2003. This weekend they reunited to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the acquisition.

Yes, $150 million was a lot at the time. But it truly was an investment in the future. Not only does Ahmanson Ranch protect water quality each and every day, it also provides a much needed green sanctuary in the heart of suburbia for the residents of the Valley and beyond.

It’s safe to say, that without the dogged and persistent engagement of Heal the Bay to transform a local issue to a statewide campaign, the land today would be just another subdivision and place to play golf (two rounds). And as we know, subdivisions and golf courses don’t help water quality. Quite the reverse. Society as a whole ends up paying the costs to clean up the runoff they create.

I no longer look at the $150 million as an expenditure. It really was an investment in protecting open space that has a direct return in terms of enhanced property values, forgone costs of water pollution clean-up, and the intangible values of providing people open space to recreate in. Thank you Heal the Bay!

P.S. I just read about the latest Lear Jet. For its $600 million-plus price tag you could buy four ranches (at 2003 prices). That said, you and three friends could get anywhere in the world quickly and comfortably. I will let you decide which is the better long-term investment.

Visitors enjoying the open space afforded by the Ahmanson Ranch purchase in 2003.

Ruskin Hartley, Heal the Bay’s chief executive officer, says the L.A. Aqueduct changed the world. But now we must change.

A century ago, Los Angeles was largely reliant on the water that fell in its own backyard. Then Mulholland opened the canal gates and the people of L.A. took what they had been given.  Rain and snow from the eastern Sierra mountains could now flow under gravity to fuel the growth of suburban Los Angeles. It was then and is now an engineering marvel.

It’s all too easy to see this as a bad thing.  After all, as water flowed south the Owens Valley and Mono Lake suffered. I went there earlier this summer and saw the toxic dust clouds myself. The lake levels are down and the natural system is suffering as a result of all the water that is shipped south to this day.

At the same time, that water has changed the world.

Really.

I grew up in England in the 1970s and 1980s. It was a long way from Los Angeles. But L.A. loomed large in television shows, popular culture, and fast food.  And the world tried to emulate it.  It is not a stretch to say that the Hollywood dream machine was built on the back of water from the Owens Valley.

And that’s where the problem comes in.  Classical economic theory would have it that a rational person chooses the option that maximizes economic return. Well that water diverted from the Owens Valley has created an awful lot of value down here in Southern California and around the world. Some might argue that it is greater than the value of all the fish and critters that lived in the Owens Valley.  So in theory if we had it over, we’d do it all again. Personally, I think that a simple economic approach is short-sighted and ignores the intrinsic values of nature that cannot (or should not) be monetized.

Because there is no going back, the challenge is where we go in the next 100 years. Realistically, we are going to continue transferring water from the Owens Valley (and Colorado and Bay Delta). The promise ahead is to do it in a way that helps L.A. and the Owens Valley, Colorado Basin and Bay Delta recover. One way to do this is to make better use of our water resources here in Los Angeles.

And that brings me to Heal the Bay. We’ve been focused on water quality in Santa Monica Bay for 28 years. We’ve also focused not only on water quality, but water supply as well. The two are inextricably linked. Our science and policy team has been working with local municipalities to mobilize public support for a stormwater funding measure that would build green infrastructure throughout the county. Capturing and reusing stormwater helps reduce water pollution, helps develop local water supplies, and in turn reduces our dependence on imported water. So it’s good for our bay, good for the Owens Valley, good for the Colorado River system, and good for the Bay Delta.  I am sure it makes economic sense. But it also just happens to be the right thing to do.

Ruskin Hartley, Heal the Bay’s CEO, says trees in the Valley hold some valuable clues.

I’m slowly exploring more of the greater Los Angeles area. Recently I drove over the mountain in Topanga to the San Fernando Valley. Before the switchbacks, a sign and pull-out pointed me toward the Topanga Overlook. Turns out people have been stopping here for as long as cars have been on the road. Early in the morning, the air was still clear. The overwhelming impression looking north was of a green valley punctuated with grey tower blocks, with desiccated hills beyond.

But it hasn’t always been this way. There’s a great interpretive sign at the Overlook that shows what you would have seen about 70 years ago. As I expected, the space looked more open. Back then farms and rangeland filled the Valley. But what really struck me were the trees. I expected to see the change in the built environment. But not the trees. (It’s telling that Encino, one of the Valley’s more notable communities, is named for the Spanish word for oak.)

As people moved to the Valley they brought the trappings of modern suburbia with them. Freeways. Strip malls. Tract homes. And trees.

Trees are great. Don’t get me wrong, I spent the better part of the last 15 years protecting them. But trees don’t thrive in arid environments. I have no idea what the proliferation of trees has done to the water budget for the Valley. But I do know that the vast majority of the water used to sustain them is imported from far away. Both the suburban sprawl and the trees are testament to that. Obviously, trees in the Valley aren’t the root of our water issues in L.A., but they do symbolize our complicated relationship to our surroundings.

Over the recent decades, Angelenos have embraced water conservation, reducing consumption while our population continued to grow. However, we’ll need to do more if Los Angeles is to secure a reliable water future. We’ll have to get smarter at retaining, recycling and re-using local water. That way we can retain our trees and ensure the future of our cities.

Heal the Bay is working with local communities in South Los Angeles to build urban pocket parks that both clean up stormwater and put it to beneficial uses to irrigate parks that people can enjoy. You can learn more about our Healthy Neighborhoods initiative here.

Signage at the Topanga Overlook.

(Historic oak image courtesy of CC Pierce Photography Collection, USC Libraries)

Mark Gold, the former president of Heal the Bay, is part of a team at UCLA that released today a comprehensive policy brief about abating the never-ending stream of plastic marine litter. He serves as associate director of UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, which released the study in conjunction with the university’s School of Law. Here he shares with us some of its findings:

An estimated 20 million tons of plastic litter enter the ocean every year. And plastic trash has been known to impact more than 600 species of marine life.  Recent EPA estimates of the economic cost of marine litter range in the $500 million a year range — an average cost of over $13 per person per year. Despite the scope and scale of the plastic pollution problems in the ocean, international law and policies have been largely ineffectual in stemming the continued growth of the problem.  Some of the most remote places on the planet have major plastic pollution problems. 

Despite the dire and growing problem, there are numerous success stories locally and around the world.  Many nations have banned single use plastic bags and over 10 million Californians live in plastic bag free cities.  Over 100 other cities have banned single use foam packaging.  The European Union has enacted extended producer responsibility programs that have greatly reduced plastic waste.  Some 10 states in the United States have bottle and can redemption fee programs that capture over 70% of the waste generated from those beverage containers. And California is planning to follow the Los Angeles region’s lead in passing a zero trash policy to reduce or eliminate trash in urban areas that goes to our rivers, beaches and coastal waters after a major rain.

 However, even with the development of numerous global and international marine trash reduction laws, policies and plans, the plastic pollution problem continues to grow.  The report authors analyzed the legal shortcomings in these international legal mechanisms and made a list of the top ten actions that need to be undertaken to solve the crisis. 

The top recommendation is to develop a new comprehensive international treaty with strong monitoring, assessment, programmatic funding and enforcement mechanisms.

 Additional potential actions include:

• creation of an “ocean-friendly” product certification program
• regional and national bans on the most common and damaging types of plastic litter
• expansion of extended producer responsibility programs that provide an economic incentive for manufacturers to manage plastic waste sustainably
• creation and implementation of certification and tracking programs for fishing and aquaculture operations
• establishment of funding sources for marine litter remediation through product redemption fees and shipping container fees at ports.

No individual action will solve the plastic marine litter crisis, but swift implementation of the recommendations on a global scale could finally stem the tide of this critical environmental problem.

The full report can be accessed here.

Joel Reynolds, the NRDC’s Western Director and Senior Attorney and a longtime ally of Heal the Bay, offers a guest blog post about the good work being done by Team Marine at Santa Monica High School.

One summer night in 1971 in Riverside, California, when I was still in high school, I learned to drive a stick shift in a Volkswagen beetle, fearlessly loaned to me for that purpose by one of my friends — undoubtedly without his parents’ permission.

Could I have converted that gas-powered car to electric? Not a chance. But even if I could, I never would have understood why that might be a good idea, much less why our collective fate might depend on it.

It’s a different world today. At least if you’re one of a group of dedicated and environmentally-savvy students called Team Marine at Santa Monica High School in Southern California.

Last month, after four years of work, they not only completed the conversion of a donated 1971 Volkswagen beetle from gas to all-electric, but when they turned it on, the car started up and it ran, as planned, just like the gas-powered car I had borrowed 42 years ago — but without the air pollution.

Under the direction of Santa Monica High School science teacher and team coach Benjamin Kay – a one-man force for environmental education if ever there was one – Team Marine received the donated VW in 2009 and then proceeded to raise money from a host of sponsors, acquire the parts, learn the technical knowledge required, and then convert the car by replacing its combustion engine and gas tank with an electric motor and 30-kilowatt hour lithium iron phosphate battery pack.

And that isn’t all. The team has also created an electric vehicle instruction manual, educational materials, and multi-media presentations that are designed to raise awareness about climate change, ocean acidification, energy conservation and carbon-reduction strategies. Over the next several months, the students will conduct local tests to showcase the VW’s anticipated 100+ mile range, maximum freeway speed, and zero to 60 mph time.

This is both an astonishing technical feat for a group of high school students and an extraordinary accomplishment in environmental education. But more than that, it is an act of environmental leadership from a generation of young students that, like it or not, are going to inherit the greatest environmental challenge the world has ever known – and have to solve it.

Climate change is a challenge of global proportions. But it is also an opportunity. In the words of the world-renowned whale scientist Dr. Roger Payne, “[t]he environmental crises we face provide us with the most singular opportunity for greatness ever offered to any generation, in any civilization.”

If one measure of society’s progress is environmental understanding and activism, the students of Team Marine are light-years ahead of where I was at their age. And that’s very good news for all of us.