Heal the Bay Blog

Despite the deck of cards stacked against many of the inland neighborhoods in which we work, Heal the Bay’s programs staff has had the fortune of experiencing some key victories with community organization work.

One of the most recent and exciting wins this year was the approval, by State Parks, of the building of the WAYS Reading & Fitness Park, which will recycle street water to irrigate its own landscape. This self-sustaining park in South Los Angeles  will do its part to help conserve one of our most precious natural resources: water. The $1.3 million project represents the latest twist in a journey that started over two years ago at a Watts Gang Task Force meeting with Kendra Okonkwo, founder and executive director of Wisdom Academy for Young Scientists (a charter elementary school).

The WAYS Reading & Fitness Park project has covered uncharted ground for both Heal the Bay and Wisdom Academy. From the beginning, this project embodied both the symbolic and concrete convergence of social and environmental issues. The project’s partnership began under a program that Heal the Bay was piloting, thanks to a grant from the California Coastal Conservancy.  Given the pilot nature of the project, Mrs. Okonkwo and Heal the Bay had no preconceived notions of what to expect from the collaboration and never imagined its ultimate scope and caliber.

The project’s park site was chosen by the membership of Wisdom Academy based on a neighborhood exploration walk, which lead to the selection of a quiet traffic median behind the school.  The location was surrounded by residential homes and unclaimed other than by illegal dumpers. As is too often the case, the absence of something positive in a community allows the negative forces to take over.  For the folks of South L.A.’s Wisdom Academy, the opportunity to reclaim this abandoned space back was a no brainer.  The next step was to dive into a series of design workshops.  Shared Spaces was contracted to gather input from the surrounding community and visualize what a park could look like at the selected location.  Architect Steve Cancian led and facilitated the design workshops (WAYS Concept Level Site Plan.pdf).

Through this partnership, Wisdom Academy and members of the neighborhood produced a rudimentary conceptual design that evolved from a small budget of around $7,000, which was paid for by the City of Los Angeles Community Beautification Grant, to an impressive budget of $1.3 million to implement Best Management Practice (BMPs) components that will make this park truly unique for the Los Angeles metropolitan area.  In addition, Liberty Hill Foundation stepped up to support this community organization effort, taking a gamble as a funder given the unprecedented nature of the organizing tactics that were used to support this transformative project.

The WAYS Reading & Fitness Park project has become the perfect example of a ground-up, grassroots effort evolving from and, at the same time, directly supporting a local community.  The members of the park’s neighborhood conceptualized and designed the project.  Next, they will build and then ultimately maintain the park,  taking full ownership of what was previously an abandoned site.

All of this energy and momentum hasn’t gone unnoticed by City of L.A. officials. Councilwoman Jan Perry has now become aggressively involved, championing access to the park, which is on city-owned land in her district. Much work remains to be done of course, and construction will take several years to complete; but for now, we should all take a moment and celebrate this momentous victory for the environment and the people of South L.A.

Just four years ago, in an refreshing showing of  cooperation, a coalition of environmental groups, concerned citizens, retail stores and local governments banded together to brainstorm a solution to the plastic bag problem in L.A. The “urban tumbleweed” was becoming a ubiquitous sight. Bags were caught in trees, found on the freeway, floating in the river and the bay, clogging storm drains and entangling marine life. The average Californian was using about 500 single-use plastic bags a year and recycling efforts were a flop. There had to be a better way.

The coalition formed an event, “A Day Without a Bag.” The event aimed to educate shoppers about the environmental harms of wasteful plastic bags and give them another option — a free one at that. Sites popped up all over the county to give away free reusable bags. 

The day of action took off and has since been celebrated in many creative ways. Seen as L.A.’s holiday gift to the environment, A Day Without a Bag usually involves a “green Santa” giving away reusable bags, sometimes with a “plastic bag monster” in tow. One year, plastic trash zombies even danced to Michael Jackson’s Thriller downtown to raise awareness about plastic pollution in the Santa Monica Bay.

With statewide plastic bag legislation falling through earlier this year, local action ramped up, and recently we’ve seen plastic bag bans from the County of L.A., the City of Long Beach and San Jose. In addition to holding close to 200 giveaway sites last week all over southern California, a summit was also held by the coalition to guide local officials through the process of enacting their own bans. The summit materials are posted online. This year’s event was a huge success. In addition to green Santa doing his thing, Sherrif Lee Baca even stopped by to help Compton High School students hand out reusable bags.

Learn more about the 2010 Day Without a Bag.

So, in addition to your two turtle doves, your five golden rings and your partridge in a pear tree, hopefully you landed yourself a great new free reusable bag on us and our partners for the holidays.

Happy last minute shopping.

Today, the Los Angeles City Council voted to move forward with an important ordinance on low impact development (LID). The proposed ordinance will now be reviewed by the City Attorney before a final vote likely to be held in early spring of 2011. Heal the Bay and other members of the Green Los Angeles Coalition have been advocating for the Ordinance’s passage for nearly two years.

Learn More

• Proposed LID Ordinace Factsheet
• Proposed LID FAQs
• LID Factsheet
• Low Impact Development in the City of Los Angeles

About the Ordinance

The City of LA has been considering a low impact development ordinance for nearly two years. Specifically, this regulation will make LID a key part of new and re-development throughout the city.  It exempts any project that deals with less than 500 square feet of impermeable surface, and larger developments or remodels must propose anything from installing a drainspout redirect, which would channel the water from gutters off of driveways and into a garden, to more elaborate tools to help rainwater and urban runoff filter into the ground.

What is LID?

Low impact development refers to building in a way that captures a majority of rainwater and runoff on site, mostly by creating permeable surfaces like gardens and green space but also by diverting rainspouts and using permeable asphalt and other paving surfaces.

Why is LID Important?

When water flows down city streets, it picks up chemicals, trash and bacteria, and carries those pollutants into the stormdrain system, where they are carried directly out to our rivers, creeks and beaches. When water instead is diverted to a permeable surface, like a garden, that water percolates through the ground, where it is naturally filtered and cleaned, and ultimately ends up recharging our natural groundwater supplies.

Because Southern California imports so much of our water, it is critical that we conserve and reuse as much water as possible. LID captures water that would otherwise be wasted and returns it to our water table. In addition LID saves local governments money in complying with Clean Water Act regulations.

In a nail biter, the State Water Resources Control Board got the three votes it needed Tuesday to turn down a broad amendment that would have gutted California’s new Once-Through Cooling policy for power plants. Board members Tam Doduc, Fran Spivy-Weber and Art Bagget supported the motion to uphold the policy and oppose the amendment.

The board also agreed to expedite analysis of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s implementation plan next summer. Over the past year, the DWP has argued numerous times that it can’t meet the OTC policy compliance deadlines for re-powering three of its power plants by the end of 2021.

Earlier, the DWP promised to phase out all OTC, but it wanted until 2031 for Scattergood and up to 2040 for co-generation power plants.  But, then DWP lobbied the State Water Board for a policy amendment to extend the compliance timeframe in exchange to phasing out OTC at all three power plants.  Instead of introducing a narrow amendment for DWP, the State Board proposed an expanded amendment, opening up a Pandora’s box in the OTC policy for co-generation and fossil fuel plants up and down the entire state coastline.

As a result, a number of enviro and fishing communities joined to oppose the expanded amendment for gutting the policy. Linda Sheehan, the executive director of California Coastkeeper Alliance, took lead in the comment-writing and organization effort. Santa Monica Baykeeper, NRDC, Sierra Club and Surfrider also strongly opposed the amendment at the hearing.

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December brings connotations of the holiday season. Office parties, vacations, holiday shopping, football bowl games, family gatherings, overeating, lighting the menorah, and Christmas lights and trees. For Heal the Bay, this December is anything but a time to ease into the new year. As always, there is our push for year-end giving. Tis the season for charitable write offs. Also, once again, Heal the Bay is spearheading the Day Without a Bag event. Over 30,000 bags will be given away at over 60 locations throughout LA County on December 16th as a reminder to bring reusable bags whenever you go shopping. Once again, partners include LA County, Los Angeles, other cities, retailers, grocers and other environmental groups. This year, the event has spread across much of the state with counties from San Diego to San Francisco participating.

However, this December is as busy as any previous December I can remember.

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Recently, the Los Angeles City Council voted for three supposed Department of Water & Power reforms:

• Creating an Office of Public Accountability with a ratepayer advocate;
•  Requiring DWP’s budget to be submitted earlier, with a guarantee that “surplus” funds will come to the city of L.A. for general fund uses;
• Granting the City Council the authority to remove the DWP’s  General Manager or DWP Commissioners with a two-thirds council vote.  The council could also override the mayor’s removal of the GM or commissioners with a two-thirds vote.

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Looking for a way to give back to the community this holiday season? Need to meet community service hour requirements? Just want to meet some like-minded new friends? Volunteering for Heal the Bay is a great way to meet people and earn CS hours while doing something that helps us out at the same time. We truly have a volunteer opportunity for every schedule and interest. Below is a sampling of how you can get involved. View all of our volunteer opportunities.

Don’t have a lot of time but want to make a big impact? Participate in a cleanup.

Like the office environment and have time on weekdays? Join our Wednesday office volunteers.

Enjoy speaking with people and going to events? Become an Ambassador.

We’ve been bombarded with half-page Chevron ads in the Los Angeles Times for over a month and a half now. I guess with the current financial state of the Times, any ad is a good for them. At least Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s hokey-looking award announcements can’t fill up the entire front section.

The ubiquitous ads highlight common-sense advice about renewable energy with compelling stills of indigenous people, children and everyday people like you and me.  Then the “We Agree” tagline follows with signatures from Chevron’s CEO or some other corporate executive.

The campaign spawned a brilliant parody from The Yes Men working with The Rainforest Action Network and Amazon Watch.  There’s even a contest for the public to come up with even funnier parody ads.

The spot featuring the little girl and the tag line “It’s time oil companies get behind the development of renewable energy” pisses me off the most.  After all, Chevron, along with big alcohol and big tobacco, bankrolled Proposition 26.  So I guess Chevron is behind the development of renewable energy as long as it is voluntary and maximizes shareholder profits.

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