About 100 outraged protesters came out to the beleaguered Hump
restaurant during lunchtime today, shouting their displeasure with the
Santa Monica eatery serving endangered whale meat. The Hump didn’t even
bother opening due to the buzz surrounding the protest.
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At last night’s Santa Monica City Council meeting I spoke during public comment about what should be done about the Hump’s egregious and illegal serving of endangered whale meat.
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By now you’ve probably heard that Santa Monica restaurant the Hump
allegedly served endangered Sei whale meat to the team that put together
the brilliant, Oscar-winning documentary “The Cove.” Endangered whale
served in our own backyard, less than two miles from my house and the
offices of Heal the Bay, Santa Monica Baykeeper and the NRDC!
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Santa Monica High School competed admirably Saturday at the National
Ocean Science Bowl Regionals at USC. They learned some life lessons
during an exhausting day, and so did I.
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Overly zealous scientists, politicians and enviros embellish the
truth in order to make a point all too frequently. The controversy over
exaggerated or incorrect facts and dates on the global impacts of
climate change is just the latest example. The truth twisting has to
stop. It hurts the cause. It creates distractions and inertia in a
time when degradation is the dominant direction of most ecosystems.
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The Los Angeles Times finally ran its long-awaited article
on the state’s proposed rule to phase out California’s ecologically
devastating once-through cooling power plants over the next 12-14 years.
Not surprisingly, reporter Jill Leovy missed the point.
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The International Bird Rescue Center has been overrun by starving
pelicans this winter. Speculation about what’s sickening birds from
Southern California to Oregon has ranged from El Nino conditions to climate change to polluted runoff.
The bottom line is that hundreds of Brown Pelicans have ended up sick
and malnourished. Many birds stayed too long in the frigid coastal
waters off Oregon and Northern California in search of fish prey that
just weren’t present in high densities. By migrating late, many pelicans
were buffeted by major storms and they didn’t build up the fat reserves
to withstand the inclement weather.
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After 20 years, the City of Los Angeles’ stormwater program is at a crossroads.
The program has come a long way since its beginnings in the early
nineties as a result of the Hyperion consent decree and new regulations
under the federal Clean Water Act and the first countywide stormwater
permit. The City has done a superb job on stormwater education for
students, businesses and the public. During the early 1990s, Heal the
Bay worked closely with the City on our Gutter Patrol program where
volunteers helped stencil tens of thousands of catch basins all over the
city. Today, the City runs the program and you can’t find a catch basin
in the city without a “No Dumping” stencil.
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Usually, we hear about the need for Environmental Justice because of
the health tragedies that were allowed to get out of control. Asthma
rates near the ports. Cancer Alley along the lower Mississippi.
Pesticide-induced Cancer clusters near Macfarland and now, the cleft
palate cluster near Kettleman Hills’ Hazardous Waste Facility. Rarely
does the public hear about an Environmental Justice win, without the
associated, demonstrated environmental health tragedy.
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Last Thursday, the Regional Water Board voted to approve a Waste
Discharge Requirement (WDR) for the Los Angeles County Nature Control
District’s “channel maintenance” activity. After all, to the County,
our LA, Santa Clara and San Gabriel Rivers are flood control channels,
not living ecosystems and habitats.
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