by Garth Meyer and Kevin Cody
Over the past two decades, Craig Cadwallader has advocated in support of the environment at South Bay city council meetings, and before countless, less visible public agencies, such as the West Basin Municipal Water District Board. He spoke in opposition to oil drilling in Hermosa, in favor of single use plastic and foam in the beach cities, in opposition to a Rancho Palos Verdes storm drain pipe that empties into the ocean, and, most recently, in opposition to West Basin’s 20-year-old plan for a $500 million desalination plant in El Segundo.
His grasp of local environmental issues, and his decades long, single-minded commitment have earned him comparisons to consumer protection advocate Ralph Nader. The comparison extends to their brisk manner and Spartan lifestyle. Nader lives on $25,000 a year. Cadwallader derives no income from his advocacy work. Nader refuses to own a car. Cadwallader refuses to use restaurant utensils. He brings his own.
Cadwallader estimated he spent 3,600 hours, or 150 days, opposing Hermosa’s oil drilling proposal. Much of that time was spent studying the project’s 12,291-page environmental impact report.
West Basin’s proposed desalination plant consumed even more time.
“It’s been a real long haul,” he said of his opposition to the desalination plant.. “I attended almost every West Basin board, and committee meeting (for the last 16 years), which is a little crazy.’
Cadwallader described his activist approach as “ sheer determination and hard work,” and “digging deep in these subjects and educating myself.”
Hermosa Beach political activist Dency Nelson credits Cadwallader’s effectiveness to his research.
“He’s like a walking footnote,” Nelson said. “It’s so important for activists to not just be emotional tree huggers, but to appreciate the science. When Craig steps up to the mic, he’s speaking facts, not emotions.”
Despite his grasp of technical issues, his background is not in science. Cadwallader earned a graduate degree in marketing from Northwestern University, and studied film at UCLA Extension. He subsequently founded his own marketing and web development company.
He has served on the boards of Leadership Manhattan Beach and Leadership Hermosa Beach and in 2005 was named “Business Person of the Year” by the Manhattan Beach Chamber of Commerce.
Cadwallader’s environmental “Road to Damascus” moment came in 2002, (coincidentally the year West Basin began planning the desalination plant), during a walk along the water’s edge in Manhattan Beach.
“I was looking at all the plastic on the sand, and thought, ‘This is crazy,” Cadwallader said.
A few days later he volunteered with the Surfrider Foundation. A week later, in his first environmental advocacy act, he manned a Surfrider information popup at an antique and collectibles market at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center
Cadwallader, who recently moved from Manhattan Beach to Rancho Palos Verdes, is currently the Policy Coordinator for Surfrider Foundation South Bay. He is also chair of the South Santa Monica Bay Watershed Area Steering Committee.
He persevered in opposition to the desalination plant, despite it steamrolling through the planning process toward what appeared to be certain approval. In 2019 the West Basin board cleared the way for building the plant by certifying its Environmental Impact report on a 4-1 vote.
Cadwallader credits the reversal in 2021 to the 2020 election of Manhattan Beach resident Dezi Alvarez to the West Basin board. Cadwallader had helped convince the Manhattan Beach’s city council to pass a resolution in opposition to the desalination plant, which would have been on Manhattan’s border with El Segundo.
Last December, two years after approving the desalination plant’s EIR, two of the West Basin board members joined Alvarez in voting to terminate the project.
“Ocean water desalination is energy intensive and produces more greenhouse gasses,” Cadwallader said in explaining his opposition to the plant. “There’s not been a new industrial placement on a Santa Monica Bay beach since the ‘50s,” he added.
The proposed desalination plant was to produce 20 million gallons of fresh water per day.
West Basin’s wastewater recycling plant produces 40 million gallons of water per day, which is less than half of its capacity, Cadwallader contends.
“They’re underutilizing an existing asset,” he said. “It could be 100 million gallons.”
He also advocates West Basin increase stormwater capture, using rain barrels and other means.
“Single use water is not acceptable during drought conditions, or anytime,” he said.
A South Bay desalination plant still has supporters, among them Grace Peng, PhD, the Natural Resources Director of League of Women Voters (LWV) Los Angeles County.
“We’re really in a perilous place, but if we plan ahead, we’ll be fine,” Peng said. “(Opponents) talk about the large electricity cost of desalination, but they don’t talk about the large energy costs of imported river water. It’s in the same ballpark. Anything you do with water, because it’s so heavy, costs a lot in energy.”
Peng agrees stormwater capture is a good idea, but is concerned that so much of the South Bay/Los Angeles County is paved over that not enough stormwater can be captured to meet the area’s needs.
The answer to which side is right will be found in the coming years when results arrive from desalination plants in Santa Barbara, Calabasas, and Huntington Beach, if the Huntington Beach plant moves forward.
In the meantime, Cadwallader is redirecting his focus to convincing all of Los Angeles County, not just the Beach Cities, to ban single-use plastics utensils and foam.
Manhattan Beach resident Gerry O’Connor, who worked almost as long, and hard as Cadwallader to stop the West Basin desalination plant, described Cadwallader’s effort as “Herculean.” But not only for attending every West Basin meeting for 16 years. Equally impressive, O’Connor said, is during those meetings, “Craig was consistently respectful, and positive in his focus on better solutions.
Despite his hard-learned knowledge, and well-founded disagreement with West Basin’s desalination proposal, Craig never led with criticism, but instead always complimented West Basin staff and board members on what they do well. With this approach, Craig was able to maintain an open dialogue, even when faced with what clearly seemed to be a deck stacked against him.”
Educate people, Cadwallader said, and the rest will take care of itself.
“I always believe if you put the real facts in front of intelligent people, they will almost always make the right decision,” he said. ER
