Diving off Rocky Point is comparable “to the experience a hiker has walking inside Yosemite Valley,” Santa Monica Baykeeper executive director Tom Ford said last year, during the debate over making 18 square miles off of Rocky Point a marine preserve.
“I mean, it’s got it all: canyons, sea grass beds, kelp beds, marine mammals flying around all over the place, big fish, and big sharks,” Ford told Easy Reader reporter Mark McDermott in a September 2009 interview.
In September 2010, over two dozen blue whales began feeding off krill at the edge of the Redondo Canyon. Earth’s largest mammals spouted like Roman candles less than a mile offshore, awakening even South Bay residents who never leave land to the wonders of our offshore wildlife.
The debate over whether to make Rocky Point a preserve was the South Bay’s most contentious environmental fight of the past decade. It was also the most illustrative of how difficult it is to reach consensus on high stakes, environmental issues.
Fishermen and divers argued that the abundance of wildlife off Rocky Point was evidence that a preserve wasn’t needed. The proposed preserve, bordered by the Redondo Canyon on the north and Point Vicente on the south, is a favorite fishing ground for King Harbor’s commercial and recreational fishermen.
Preserve proponents argued that Rocky Point’s relative health was precisely why it was needed as a preserve. Channel Island preserves have proven that healthy habitats replenish depleted, neighboring habitats, the proponents argued.
Finally, this month, a full decade after the state legislature passed the California Marine Life Protection Act, Fish and Game approved a 350 square mile network of Southern California marine sanctuaries. Rocky Point was not among them.
“It was ultimately a choice of the impact to the fishing and boating community and the socioeconomics. It’s a difficult decision to make,” MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force member William Anderson said.
Diver Jose Bacalloa, a preserve proponent accused the task force of “throwing science under the bus.”
Fishermen weren’t happy either because Fish and Game did close White’s Point, just south of Rocky Point.
It ain’t easy being green
Unlike most social movements, environmentalism in the beach cities is being led by elected officials and city staffs. The residents, like the Christians who pray for virtue, but just not now, are the ones resisting change.
In Redondo Beach, slow growth proponents continue to protest a desalination plant in the harbor that began operation in 2008. The plant is designed to reduce the South Bay’s reliance on imported water from 65 percent to 50 percent by 2015. Opponents say its briny discharge kills fish and it uses too much energy.
Manhattan Beach’s plastic bag ban is going to the State Supreme Court because opponents contend the city should have done an environmental impact report.
“[Opponents] are using one environmental law to prevent passing another environmental law,” Manhattan Beach city attorney Robert Wadden told Easy Reader reporter Andrea Ruse in a February 2010 interview.
In Hermosa Beach, the city’s effort to replace car lanes with bike lanes was beaten back by residents who worried car traffic would be impeded. A compromise of questionable merit was reached with the painting of “Sharrows” on main streets. Sharrows are meant to remind drivers that bicyclists have equal rights to streets. But most bicyclists acknowledge that it’s neither necessary nor safe for bicyclists to take up a full car lane.
A unifying enemy
Perhaps the most positive environmental development of the past decade was agreement, on both the left and the right, that the environment needs protection.
In October 2009, 1,300 South Bay residents gathered at the Manhattan Beach Pier to form a waving human tide line as part of a worldwide protest against global warming, organized by 350.org. “It was the largest single day of political action in the history of the world,” said Joe Galliani, organizer of the South Bay 350 Climate Action Group.
In September 2008, Northrop Grumman, the nation’s third largest defense contractor, launched its own offensive against global warming with the dedication of the Environmental Center for Observations Systems, in Redondo Beach. South Bay Congresswoman Jane Harman said at the dedication that climate change was a “serious national security issue.” She said she has requested a national intelligence estimate on the effect of climate change.
Dr. Charles Kennel, a professor at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, told the guests that California spent $1 billion in 2008 fighting the 140 wildfires over just a two week period.
“The major reason for the increase in fires is climate change,” he said.
“There is a good chance that the Rocky Mountains will be snow free by 2050 and there is a 50 percent chance that Lake Mead will run dry by 2020, resulting in major water and power shortages.” Lake Mead powers Las Vegas.
Dr. Berrien Moore, founding director of the Nobel Prize winning Climate Central, told the gathering, “The Arctic ice cap was formerly the size of the lower 48 states. Today it is the size of the lower 48 states, minus land east of the Mississippi River.”
“We are taking a bright object and making it dark. We are changing the reflectivity of the planet,” he explained.
He called for a “diversity of sensors,” both space-and earth-based to address the problem.
Leaders lead the way
Leaders in Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach weren’t waiting for Northrop’s findings. All three cities established green task forces to work on three general problem areas — water conservation, reducing fossil fuel dependency and reducing waste. In 2008, Manhattan hired water management expert Sona Kalapura to be the city’s environmental programs manager.
Hermosa’s most notable success was in reducing ocean pollution from storm drains. According to the Surfrider Foundation, more than 300 million gallons of polluted runoff flow into the ocean in LA County every day.
On Earth Day, last April, Hermosa unveiled a storm water filtration trench that runs under the sand for four blocks, from the pier to Eighth Street. The trench collects storm-water runoff from the Pier Avenue storm drain, which previously dumped directly into the surf zone at the pier.
This past October, Hermosa city officials cut the ribbon on upper Pier Avenue improvements that transformed the street’s appearance with new landscaping and broader, more pedestrian-friendly sidewalks.
But the most significant improvement wasn’t visible. It was a perforated, underground storm drain that routes runoff to the new landscaping.
In June, 2009 Manhattan Beach adopted a tough water conservation ordinance designed to reduce the city’s water use 20 percent by 2020 and by 10 percent immediately.
The ordinance banned watering yards between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., washing vehicles at home, except with a bucket, and banned hosing down driveways. Hot tub and pool covers were required, and fountains were required to have recycling pumps.
When residents complained their lawns were turning brown, the city suggested they replace them with drought resistant plants, like the one the Manhattan Beach Botanical Garden board members Mike Garcia, owner of Environscape, and Mimi Anderson installed in front of city hall. The garden requires watering just six to 10 times a year.
Results of Manhattan’s water conservation plan were dramatic. At the start of 2009, the city’s environmental task force reported that the average person used 170 gallons per person per day. By the end of the year, monthly water usage had been reduced by 22 percent.
In Redondo, water conservation was spearheaded by Leadership Redondo. E.J. Caldwell, a program manager with the West Basin Municipal Water District, who was also part of Leadership Redondo, said that outreach is a key facet in addressing the drought. “People just don’t understand the water problem,” Caldwell said. “It’s not a ‘sexy’ issue.”
In September, 2009, the class unveiled its “Get Water Smart Garden” at Wilderness Park. The garden features both native plants and other drought-tolerant plants from around the world. It was designed with the help of a local “dream team” – retired city arborist Harry Johnson, Enviroscape’s Mike Garcia, plant sculptor Larry Labow and garden designer Cathie Goldberg.
Redondo also took the lead in making the city safe and convenient for bicyclists. In 2007, 10 years after receiving a $742,000 Metropolitan Transportation Authority grant, and seeing the cost double to $1.5 million, Redondo completed a 2.8 mile bike path. The path winds north from 190th in the middle of town to the MTA Green Line Station on Marine on the north of town, next to the South Bay Galleria. Solar panels power lights along the path. North Redondo Councilman Steve Diels pushed the project through despite concerns about safety from fellow councilmen.
Redondo employees who utilize the bike path include librarians at the new North Redondo library, the city’s first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified project. At its dedication in September, city engineer Mike Shay pointed out 18 bike racks and showers.
Green and greener
Some beach city residents found going green was a smart financial move.
Garcia, who helped install the drought resistant garden at Manhattan’s City Hall, converted his Redondo home’s swimming pool into a rainwater harvesting system that captures up to 3,600 gallons of water. That’s all the water he needs for his front yard’s three waterfalls, banana tree, and a fruit tree and the two koi ponds.
Following Garcia’s lead, last September, Redondo began collecting rain water to irrigate Alta Vista Park. The system is designed to capture up to six million gallons of rain water that would otherwise flow to the ocean through the storm drain system.
Hermosa Beach residents Robert and Monica Fortunato broke ground this past October on their “Green Idea House.” It’s designed to produce more energy than it uses.
Hermosa officials used the groundbreaking to announce their approval of small wind turbines for Hermosa homes, and the waiving of permit and plan-check fees for rooftop photovoltaic installations.
The stairwell’s “thermal mass,” along with the tendency of air to move up and down as it changes temperatures, will help heat and cool the Fortunato’s two-story building. Water will be recycled from the bathtub, showers and laundry to fill toilet tanks and water the plants.
Last year Hermosa’s St. Cross Episcopalian Church and this year Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church tapped into God’s power with rooftop solar panels.
“I’m writing this on a computer powered by the 36 Mitsubishi solar panels on our roof,” Manhattan Beach resident Dexter Ford declared in an April 2008 Easy Reader cover story. “I rode my daughter TJ to school this morning on a Jetsons-inspired Vectrix electric motorcycle. When we need more room, to carry humans or foods, whole or otherwise, we cruise Sepulveda Boulevard in our cool GEM electric car, blasting Little Feat’s “Dixie Chicken” on the stereo. And all our electric conveyances are powered, like this computer, our clownfish tank, and our squiggly light bulbs, by radiation coming straight from the nearest star.
“It was easy. And there’s no good reason everybody else can’t do it too. At least everybody else with, as they say, a clear view of the southern sky.”
“Getting an electric bill of $1.32, as we did last month, can put a real spring in your step. In my twisted, post-solar way, I actually enjoy watching as gas and oil prices go ballistic,” Ford confessed.
Eating your greens
In the final months of the decade, Beach Cities Health District ramped up a program for the coming decade to make people healthier by creating a greener environment.
Vitality City is co-funded by Healthways, a $700 million company that advises other companies on how to keep their employees healthy.
The program is the brainchild of Dan Buettner, author of the 2009 New York Times bestseller The Blue Zones: Lessons for living longer from the people who’ve lived the longest.
“National exercise programs, the food pyramid, special diets – none of those have been shown to increase life expectancy,” Buettner told guests at a kickoff breakfast this month at Eat At Joe’s in Redondo Beach.
What works, he said is changing the environment to make it easier for people to exercise and eat properly.
Vitality City’s goal is not simply to increase life expectancy, but to “improve economic and social vitality,” he said.
A Vitality City pilot program was conducted last year in Albert Lea, Minnesota, a city of 18,000 residents. In just 10 months, the 2,300 residents who participated in the program lost an average of 2.6 pounds and increased their life expectancy by 3.1 years. Absenteeism among city and school employees dropped 20 percent.
Some changes were as simple as having school buses drop kids one-quarter mile from school to encourage them to walk and socialize.
Albert Lea civic and business leaders were convinced to shelve plans to improve traffic flow through the downtown and, instead, allocate funds for a walking path around the city’s lake.
“What works is permanent changes in the environment. That is the principal behind this project,” Buettner said.
Buettner ended his remarks with a chilling reminder of the consequences if we do not making the world a healthier place to live.
“Today’s youth,” he said, “are projected to be the first generation in human history whose life expectancy is less than that of their parents,” he said. ER
