Heal the Bay Blog

Heal the Bay helps you cut through the clutter of a crowded ballot. If you care about a clean, reliable water supply and healthy open spaces, please support Props. 1 and P.

For decades, Heal the Bay has played a role in shaping policy and the funding environment needed to support our work to clean up the Bay. And Nov. 4 marks another important day for people who care about healthy watersheds and thriving oceans. The election will shape the future of our local watersheds, as well as determine how to best manage water resources around the state. We’re keeping our eye on two important campaigns: Proposition 1 (the state Water Bond) and Proposition P (the L.A. County Parks Bond).

Heal the Bay has long supported the “integrated water management approach.” But what does that phrase really mean? In simple terms, water managers need to consider all of our water systems holistically in order to ensure a sustainable water supply and healthy waterbodies.

For example, instead of allowing billions of gallons of stormwater to flow to L.A. County beaches during each rain event, runoff should be captured and infiltrated into local aquifers. This will not only help augment our local water supply but it will also prevent dirty stormwater runoff from polluting our rivers and Bay.

The integrated approach also supports increased water recycling, where we utilize the highly treated wastewater for beneficial uses (e.g. irrigation, industrial needs, recharging aquifers). This in turn will minimize discharges to our Bay. To give you some perspective, the city of L.A.’s Hyperion plant discharges nearly 360 million gallons a day of treated wastewater into the ocean. Imagine if we replenished our aquifers with that water instead of dumping it into the Bay.

These projects are an investment in our collective future, but they do require public funding. Propositions 1 and P can help our region secure these critical funds. Protecting rivers, coasts and watersheds and moving towards regional self-reliance for water supply are vital to our state’s future ecological and economic well-being, as well as our quality of life. This is especially true in the face of threats like climate change and long-term drought.

Proposition 1

What: Proposition 1 is a $7.54 billion dollar statewide bond measure that is focused entirely on water resources. Specifically, the bond includes $1.535 billion for water recycling, stormwater capture, water efficiency and other local water projects. It includes another $900 million for cleaning up groundwater contamination. Also of note, it includes $1.495 billion for watershed protection and $520 million for clean, safe and reliable drinking water.

Why we support: If passed, investments will be made in local water supply projects and watershed restoration — initiatives that can directly benefit our drought-stricken state and Santa Monica Bay.

What opponents might say: Some opponents argue that there is a disproportional amount allocated in the Bond for water storage projects – projects that can have major environmental impacts and do not promote the practice of finding “new” local water sources. While this is true, we believe that the many good elements of Proposition 1 outweigh the potentially problematic elements. As the saying goes, you can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Further, on-the-ground advocacy and current environmental review requirements should help prevent bad projects that are proposed.

Vote: YES on Proposition 1.

Proposition P

What: Proposition P continues funding generated by a 1992 funding measure that is set to expire. Should Proposition P be approved, it would continue funding $54 million a year through an annual $23 per parcel special tax for 30 years.

Of particular note, 15% is allocated to the County for parks, beaches and clean water/park projects and 30% to the County for regional projects for open space, foothill, mountain, trail, river, wetland and stream projects. Cities get 20% of the funds to spend on similar types of projects.

Why we support:  Proposition P allocates funds across Los Angeles County, with increased emphasis on projects that enhance water quality in the L.A. River, San Gabriel River and local creeks, lakes and beaches; projects that protect water supply sources; projects in park-poor areas; and projects that employ local youth (Proposition A employed more than 25,000 young people).

Since 1992, we have seen nearly 1,500 projects successfully implemented as a result of the current funding measure. If passed, Proposition P would continue to fund these important projects as well as provide open space for L.A. County residents to enjoy. It would also consider water quality improvements concurrently with these projects.

What opponents might say: Some opponents argue that this is just another tax during tough economic times. Although the measure would cost property owners $23 per year, it’s a small price to pay for a sound investment in the health and wellbeing of Los Angeles and increased water sustainability.

Vote: YES on Proposition P

Are you a Los Angeles or Orange County voter? Click here for polling place and election info.

Painting by Elizabeth Kennen

Oct. 14, 2014 — With the state grappling with record drought, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti today issued an executive directive to dramatically reduce the use of fresh water and the purchase of costly imported water in California’s most populous city.

Flanked by Heal the Bay policy director Kirsten James and other local environmental leaders at a press conference at DWP headquarters, Garcetti laid out ambitious targets for increasing local water supplies.

The mayor’s directive requires a reduction in fresh water use by 20% by 2017 and in the DWP’s purchase of imported water by 50% by 2024. Garcetti estimated that reducing per capita water use by 20% would save ratepayers up to $120 million annually.

“Our relationship with water must evolve. We cannot afford the water policies of the past,” Garcetti said. “We must conserve, recycle and rethink how we use our water to save money and make sure that we have enough water to keep L.A. growing.”

Through the directive, Garcetti is ordering city departments to sharply cut water use by reducing watering and replacing lawns or other water-intensive landscaping at city facilities, street medians and sidewalk parkways.  For example, city-run golf courses and car-washing operations will be moved aggressively toward 100% use of recycled water.

With the 8-million gallon water main break at UCLA still fresh in many residents’ minds, the mayor directed the DWP to report back with an enhanced leak detection and protection program to reduce loss and main breakages in the city’s aging pipe system.

The new rules sweeten city incentives to help L.A. residents cut back on their water use, including an increase in the DWP’s turf replacement incentive to $3.75 per square foot. Outdoor water use remains the major challenge for household water use, representing 50% of residential consumption.

The mayor also asked residents to:

• voluntarily reduce watering to two days a week
• to use DWP rebates to install low water landscaping and more efficient plumbing fixtures and appliances
• to ensure pools are covered to reduce water lost to evaporation

If targets are not met through the combination of mandatory city actions and voluntary resident actions, residential mandates will be implemented, including new watering, swimming pool and car washing restrictions.

In addition, the directive creates the Mayor’s Water Cabinet, which will be chaired by Deputy Mayor Doane Liu and includes the city’s first-ever Chief Sustainability Officer, Matt Petersen, and representatives from the DWP, Bureau of Sanitation, Recreation and Parks, the Metropolitan Water District and the city’s Proposition O Citizens Oversight Advisory Committee.

The Mayor’s Water Cabinet will be responsible for ensuring city departments hit targets outlined in the directive and will focus on long-term initiatives to ensure long-term sustainability of L.A.’s water supply, including:

• Increasing the local water supply through an integrated water strategy that coordinates groundwater remediation, stormwater capture and storage, green infrastructure, recycled water, and conservation
• Assessing the current tiered water rate system and identifying ways to improve it so that it optimally encourages conservation and local water use.
• Ensuring L.A. is in a leadership position on state rules and regulations related to water use.

 Heal the Bay’s policy team looks forward to working with the mayor and his Water Cabinet to achieve these aggressive goals. There are several connection points between improved local water supply and the health of the Bay.

For example, our staff continues to push for multi-use water projects that can help us capture the 10 million gallons of runoff that flow through L.A. stormdrains each day into the ocean during dry weather. Instead of dumping polluted runoff into the sea, we should be capturing, treating and reusing that water. The potential benefits are even greater during a rainstorm, which can send a 10 billion gallon torrent into the sea each day.

Please visit www.lamayor.org/drought for more conservation tips and rebate information.

                                           City golf courses are now mandated to use 85% recycled water 

Sheila McSherry, Heal the Bay’s Foundation Grants Manager, has a whale of a time looking for scat in the Pacific.

Through a friend’s invitation, I recently got the chance of a lifetime — hunting for whale excrement on the open sea! It may sound icky and a bit strange, but it’s not. It’s actually an important step in the fight to protect the gentle giants of the deep.

I joined the Center for Conservation Biology and Conservation Canines, a nonprofit organization based out of the University of Washington, on a recent orca whale research trip near the San Juan Islands.  As its name indicates, the center uses dogs to help collect whale fecal samples to determine the health status of the region’s Southern Resident Killer Whales.

As a longtime fundraiser for Heal the Bay, this outing on the water let me leave my laptop and deadlines behind and reconnect with the marine life we work so hard to protect. I also got to play scientist for the day!

On a sunny morning, I joined a crew that spent the day followed the orca whales around the islands and to the Strait of Georgia aboard the research vessel Moja. My fellow passengers included Dr. Deborah Giles,  a marine biologist who collects orca whale behavior data to assess the effects of decreased prey availability and noise pollution on the animals; wildlife biologist Elizabeth Seely; and a seafaring dog named, Tucker. I was so mesmerized by the beauty and power of the foraging and breaching orca whales, I nearly forgot we had a job to do!

Tucker, an energetic black Lab scat detection dog, was the chief detective. As Seely steadied him, Tucker leaned over the bow of the boat and communicated through movements and sounds when he sniffed a sample. Giles then maneuvered the boat so that it was easier for us to collect the samples using a clear beaker attached to the end of a long pole. These samples are sometimes as small as a lentil and can sink quickly in the open ocean. So we moved quickly to grab samples, which are tested for DNA, stress hormone levels, diet, the nutritional status of the whale, and toxins like DDT).

Conservation Canines employs rescue dogs to do its work. Tucker was found undernourished and wandering the streets of North Seattle by ShoLine Animal Shelter before becoming a scat detection dog. What makes him even more remarkable is that he is the only dog in the world trained to detect killer whale “scat” in the open ocean. His reward when he finds a sample? A rousing game of catch with his favorite WestPaw ball. 

There are three resident killer whale populations found between Washington state and Alaska. These whales are called residents because they spend about half of the year foraging in inland waters, and rely almost exclusively on salmon as prey. The Southern Resident Killer Whales are the most threatened, with a current population of 78 animals.

There are three hypotheses that have been proposed for their decline:

• Less access to the whales’ primary prey, Chinook salmon
• A disturbance from private and commercial whale watching vessels
• Exposure to high levels of toxicants (e.g. PCB, PBDE and DDT), which are stored in the whales’ fat. 

Understanding the relative impacts of these three pressures is vital to mitigating further whale losses.

Joining Conservation Canines for the day is an experience I will never forget.  And as I move in to my ninth year in environmental fundraising, I’m feeling energized by all of the promising research and advocacy to protect endangered marine life here in the Santa Monica Bay and beyond. The Pacific Ocean is connected to us all. So it’s gratifying to know Tucker is doing his part, while I do mine in an office in Santa Monica.

Communications Director Matthew King uncovers some gems amid the trash collected at today’s 25^th annual Coastal Cleanup Day.

Sept. 20, 2014 — As with my children, I love all my Coastal Cleanup Day sites equally. But I admit that one type of site holds a special place in my heart.

To promote our biggest volunteer event of the year, I’m always on the prowl for oddball stories that capture the imagination of the media and general public. And the pier sites, where teams of SCUBA divers scour the ocean bottom to remove a truly bizarre hodgepodge of lost and abandoned items, never fail to deliver.

Over the years, we have found discarded wedding gowns and WWII-era gas masks underneath the Santa Moncia Pier. We’ve had to shut down the Redondo Beach Pier site when divers plucked what that they thought was a human skull from the seabed. Tests later revealed that the object was merely a very realistic anatomical model weathered by months (years?) in the sea. After 2011’s Coastal Cleanup Day, I spent a week in vain trying to track down an Encino woman, whose wallet we had found in the waves off the Santa Monica Pier. 

And this morning was no different.

In rolling surf, a team of about a dozen divers underneath the Redondo Beach Pier recovered what looked like the sliding piece of a semi-automatic handgun. Local police came down to retrieve the gun part and begin an investigation. Who knows, maybe a criminal tossed it off the pier?

Then, as I headed back to the office, I got word that divers in Malibu Pier had also found a handgun! Cue the opening theme music from “NCIS: Los Angeles.”

One side note more germane to our mission: Before finding the weapon, the Redondo divers discovered four octopuses and at least 100 crabs trapped or entangled in fishing line and other manmade trash.

The 11,155 volunteers who participated this morning in Heal the Bay’s 25^th Coastal Cleanup Day didn’t unearth anything as dramatic as a cephalopod or a Glock. Instead, they helped collect and dispose of the everyday items that comprise the bulk of trash in our beaches and inland waterways – cigarette butts, food wrappers, bits of Styrofoam, plastic bottle caps and the like. Scattered in piles, this detritus looks like an archaeological dig, a telling testament to our throwaway culture and how we treat our natural places.

That said, a few unusual items made this year’s blotter of found objects. Among them: a horse saddle and cash register (Agoura Hills), a manhole cover (Compton Creek), a video promoting a transgender beauty queen contest (L.A. River) and a Pepsi soft-drink can from 1994 (King Harbor). 

The final trash tally reveals that volunteers removed 30,480 pounds of trash at 49 locations, spanning 42.5 miles. That haul adds to an already impressive amount of trash collected by Heal the Bay during Coastal Cleanup Day over the past 25 years – more than 1.7 million pounds. That’s equal to the weight of two fully loaded 747 passenger jets!

We can’t possibly clean up all the litter that mars L.A. County shorelines, rivers and parks in three hours on one Saturday. It is a great day of action and community, but education remains the lasting benefit from Coastal Cleanup Day. A single morning on the beach, creek or park will empower tens of thousands to take steps in their daily lives year round to protect our beaches, neighborhoods and waterways.

After years on this job, it’s clear to me that most Angelenos still have no idea how the stormdrain system works. So it’s enlightening to go to cleanup sites and watch our site captains explain how urban runoff carries pollution directly to local beaches. You can almost see behaviors changing when participants learn that a cigarette butt tossed carelessly on the street in Pacoima, or a fast-food wrapper chucked out of a parked car in Beverly Hills, will ultimately find its way to sea.

Coastal Cleanup Day always lifts my spirits. Besides being good media fodder, the massive volunteer mobilization affirms my belief that L.A. residents care deeply about our work and the local environment. A cross-section of greater L.A. rallies to protect what they love — be it sororities from Cal State Northridge, soccer teams from Lincoln Heights, small business owners from Long Beach, surfer groms from Hermosa Beach or high school students from Compton. It truly takes a village to heal a bay.

Not to worry, if you missed today’s cleanup. You can still do your part. Our Programs staff hosts monthly beach cleanups throughout the year all over L.A. County. Come join us. You might be surprised about what you find.

For a photo roundup from some of today’s cleanup sites, check out our Flickr album. More pictures to come!

                                                                   Redondo Beach police officer takes possession of handgun part found at our dive site.