Top Story: Environment

Good start for new L.A. River project

Weedy and industrial, the concrete channel near the football field at Canoga Park High School scarcely looks like a notable site.

But the spot where Calabasas Creek meets Bell Creek—be it ever so humble—is actually a landmark: the beginning of the Los Angeles River. And this week, it came a big step closer to getting the kind of makeover that would allow it to finally shine.

The Board of Supervisors accepted a $1.97 million state grant to help launch construction of the Los Angeles River Headwaters Project, which eventually will create more than a mile of recreational trails at the point where the storied urban river starts near Canoga Park High School in the San Fernando Valley.

Tentatively scheduled for completion in 2013, the Headwaters Project is part of a larger plan to reclaim and revitalize the river, which runs for some 50 miles through 13 cities, including Los Angeles, before it empties into the ocean at Long Beach. (Click here for an artist’s rendering of the project.)

The grant, authorized under the Proposition 84 state park program and awarded by the California Natural Resources Agency, will be a substantial down-payment on the headwaters improvement, which is expected to add some $9.3 million worth of pedestrian paths, landscaping, signage, water quality improvements and decorative fencing to an area now closed to the public and mostly used for flood control and maintenance.  

Officials from the county Department of Public Works say it is the first of several grants for which they’ve applied in the hope of mitigating the cost of the project. And, they note, the City of Los Angeles has applied for an additional Metropolitan Transportation Authority grant to add a bike path to the area.

“Right now, it doesn’t look like a place anyone would want to visit,” says Terri Grant, principal engineer for the county Department of Public Works.

“But when it’s done, it will enhance the community, and draw people to a new area of open space where they can enjoy themselves and relax.”

Posted 7/13/11

Horseplay at the aquarium

You dads out there might be feeling pretty good about yourselves with Father’s Day just around the corner. But sorry, Pops, the seahorse has you beat.

The male seahorse is so devoted that he carries as many as 1,000 offspring deposited by the mom in a brood pouch for 14 days, until they hatch. At that point, with the fry fully formed, the father is pretty much done with parenting chores. But for those two weeks, he’s as attentive as they come.

The seahorse, like the giant panda on land, is one of those iconic creatures that seem to naturally capture our affection and pique our curiosity. Maybe it’s the odd shape, maybe it’s that comic snout they use to suck in food, who knows?  It’s hard to even remember they’re fish.

For Randi Parent of the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium, the attraction of seahorses is in the way they move.

“They kind of have that vertical thing going for them,” she said. “Their locomotion is just so different from other marine animals – it’s captivating.”

Also like the giant panda, these creatures, especially the native Pacific seahorse, can serve as a symbol for conservation efforts.

“Pacific seahorses live close to the shore in tall marine grasses,” said aquarium Director Vicki Wawerchak, “which makes them very susceptible to coastal development and subject to capture and overfishing. Never buy dried seahorses at novelty shops.”

Why buy a lousy dried one, anyway, when you can see a whole herd of them live at Santa Monica Pier Aquarium’s new exhibit? The Pacific seahorse featured in the exhibit grows up to 12 inches and is the only species found along California’s coast.

As part of a special aquarium promotion, seahorses are also available for “aquadoption” at a cost of $50 (it goes to $250 after July 1). Adoptive parents make an investment in the animal’s care and, in return, receive an adoption certificate photo, free aquarium passes and a year’s membership to Heal the Bay, along with the satisfaction of contributing to the preservation of marine life.

More than 100 other species are also on display at the Aquarium, which is Heal the Bay’s forum for educating the public about marine life. Heal the Bay is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to keep coastal waters and watersheds of SoCal clean and safe.

The exhibit opens this Saturday, May 28. Aquarium hours are 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 12:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. on the weekends. There is a suggested donation of $5 for admission (or a $3 minimum entry fee). Kids 12 and under get in free. The Aquarium is located at the beach level of the Santa Monica Pier, 1600 Ocean Front Walk.

Posted 5/25/11

Green day for energy makeover winners

Short of a visit from Ty Pennington, it’s the ultimate homeowner’s daydream: $10,000 or even $50,000 to bring the old place up to date.

In the case of six lucky Los Angeles County families, just such a windfall is headed their way. But don’t turn green with envy—because these environmentally-friendly home improvement projects are meant to benefit everybody.

Winners were announced today in the Home Energy Makeover Contest sponsored by Energy Upgrade California, an alliance among L.A. County, local cities, Southern California Edison and the Southern California Gas Company.

The $50,000 Grand Prize makeover went to the Gerardo family of San Fernando, whose 1953 one-story home will be transformed into a “near zero energy house.” (Which means that this prize will be a gift that keeps on giving as far as future energy bills are concerned.)

The upgrades to the Gerardo home will range from solving ventilation and insulation problems to replacing their antiquated swimming pool pump.

The other makeover prizes, worth $10,000 each, went to families in Encino, LaVerne, Pomona, Baldwin Hills and Whittier.

Meet the Gerardos and the other winners here.

More than 1,425 homeowners entered the contest, which is meant to inspire all of us to get with the energy-saving program. (You can start your own action plan here.)

Posted 5/12/11

Voyage to the center of the Earth Day

This weekend, you may hear the rumble and hoot of a distant drum circle inviting you to Topanga Earth Day.

Heed the call and you’ll find yourself transported to Los Angeles County’s Earth Day epicenter as Topanga Canyon lives up to its nature-centric reputation and throws a planet-loving bash to remember.

Where else on the planet, after all, can you spend a weekend building a tipi, making a seed ball, dropping by a Healing Arts Tent, listening to the Grateful Dead’s drummer and sipping some locally-produced wine—all in a one-of-a-kind community that’s just miles from Hollywood and the Westside on the map but a galaxy away in spirit?

Topanga’s annual holiday celebration began in 2000, as locals celebrated after a volunteer cleanup of Topanga Creek. Now the full-fledged festival lasts all weekend and includes musical acts from across the globe. The creek is so pristine that it doesn’t need cleaning this year, so the volunteers have shifted their focus to local beaches instead.

Many Topangans view themselves as stewards of the land, dutifully repaying the earth for the magic and majesty it bestows upon them in the form of fabled creeks and craggy mountains. Darkened by the canyon and a dearth of streetlights, it’s one of the rare places close to the city where you can still clearly see the night stars.

“We are surrounded by 200 square miles of state park,” notes Stephanie Lallouz, organizer of Topanga Earth Day. “Because of that, most of us in the community are pretty in tune with nature. We drive slower to protect the coyotes and bobcats.”

A bohemian spirit and ‘60s ethos lingers on in a place where folks like Joni Mitchell, Jim Morrison, Neil Young, and Marvin Gaye once lived, played or made music. And Earth Day 2011 seems a fine time to discover what they—and Topanga’s current eclectic crop of residents—have long known about this particular place in the sun.

The celebration begins Friday, April 22 from 7-10 p.m. with an eco-art show opening, wine tasting, and jazz.  The main event is Saturday and Sunday, and it lasts from 10 a.m. to sunset both days. There will be music, speakers, workshops, a children’s activity area, and plenty more.

Organizers take pride in the multicultural nature of the jubilee, so you can expect to find many parts of the planet represented. Musical acts hail from places like Africa, Florida, Japan, Jamaica, Israel, Jordan and India, to name a few. (Bill Kreutzman, original drummer for Grateful Dead, is also expected to make an appearance.)

Planned festivities are educational (learn to “plant native,” compost, and use earth-friendly technology), entertaining (a band that uses a 30-foot string setup, belly dancers, and wine tasting), service-oriented (beach clean-up, tree planting), creative (recycled art, flag painting), and esoteric (chanting, reiki).

You can make seed balls and learn ways to conserve water. You also can practice yoga in the morning, have an organic vegetarian lunch, and participate in a sacred Japanese tea ceremony. Along the way, learn to build a tipi and participate in a guided philosophical discussion inside of it.

For a full rundown of activities, visit the Topanga Earth Day website.

For entry, there’s a $12 suggested donation. Eco-friendly non-profit organizations will receive 60% of the proceeds, with the remaining 40% going towards next year’s event. This year’s beneficiaries include Doctors Without Borders, Sea Shepherd and the Topanga Community Club.

The event is sponsored by diverse community, government, and business groups, who will host booths with their own offerings. L.A. County Department of Public Works’ Waterworks program will be on hand with free giveaways as they educate the public on methods of water conservation.

If you go, keep the health of the planet in mind. Rideshare to designated parking locations along Topanga Canyon Boulevard, then bike, hike, or take the free BioDiesel Shuttle up to the festival at the Topanga Community Club Fair Grounds, 1440 N. Topanga Blvd., Topanga, CA 90290.

Posted 4/21/11

Are our clean beaches endangered?

Spring may have just arrived but folks in the Department of Beaches and Harbors have already got summer on their mind.

They’re scrambling to figure out how to maintain the county’s beaches and restrooms during the oncoming peak season after losing more than two dozen staffers who’d been hired with federal stimulus funds that are no longer available. At the same time, the department, like others in the county, cannot backfill for vacancies.

The impact, said LA County Department of Beaches and Harbors’ Chief Deputy Director Kerry Silverstrom, is unlikely to escape the public.

“We have an international reputation for clean beaches,” she said. “That will probably change.”

Beginning May 1, the Beaches and Harbors Department says it will consolidate last summer’s three overlapping shifts into just one, with the primary focus being to keep the beaches and restrooms clean during peak attendance. This means that, at some beaches, there’ll be no maintenance staff during early morning and evening hours.

With fewer workers, some previously performed maintenance will inevitably suffer, beach officials acknowledged. That includes large debris removal, weed abatement and even replacing damaged volleyball nets. But beach officials stressed that the financial situation is fluid and that they can’t say for sure exactly what services will be most impacted.

The Department of Beaches and Harbors—which maintains 17 beaches across 25 miles of coastline, with 52 bathrooms and 36 parking lots—first announced changes in bathroom service hours in a statement on Monday, saying “some restrooms may not be opened and serviced until as late as 11:00 a.m. year-round.”

Some news outlets followed up with stories in which they reported that bathrooms might be closed for days. This prompted irate phone calls from the public. The department responded on Facebook by saying that there will be no closures during the summer season and that the changes in hours would “allow limited staff to provide restroom cleaning later into the afternoon when beach usage is heaviest.”

Silverstrom said that both the frequency and intensity of cleanings would suffer because of the reduced numbers of maintenance workers, especially later in the day. Previously, all restrooms were opened by 6 a.m. But tentative plans now call for opening some at around 8 a.m. and others not until about 11 a.m.

Department officials said they do not yet know how many restrooms would be impacted but stressed that the most crowded would get the most attention. The use of portable toilets has been suggested but Silverstrom said she believes this could cause consternation among residents and beachgoers.

Aside from bathrooms, beachgoers will likely notice other issues stemming from the reduction in staff, including parking.

Maintenance staff has been responsible for opening and closing the lots in years prior.  Now that they’ll be reporting 2 hours later to their shifts, Beaches and Harbors is trying to figure out how to still get the lots opened early and closed late. Some lots, including a dozen at Zuma Beach, will not be affected because early-arriving power equipment operators will open them. Officials are still determining how to get them locked up at night.

The department said it will also make sure that 5 lots identified as among the county’s most popular will also be opened at 6 a.m. Under one tentative plan, another 6 lots in relatively safe locations would be kept open around the clock. At least one lot, at Nicholas Beach, will open later in the day.

All these challenges are exacerbated, of course, by the consistently large draw of the county’s beaches. Last year was considered a “bad weather year” for LA County beaches. Still, Silverstrom estimates that 60 million visitors came to play in the sand and surf—10 million more than in 2008.

The department said it will continue to update the public through its Facebook and Twitter pages.

Posted 4/7/11

A hike with a view

For more than a quarter-century, Southern California hikers have dreamed of a trail that would offer the mother of all vistas, a 32-mile ocean-view trek between Topanga Canyon and Point Mugu.

Backpackers could, say, hike up the coast, uninterrupted by “No Trespassing” signs and fences, enjoying an ocean breeze while treading through virgin chaparral and fragrant canyons. At night, they could pitch a tent on a Malibu bluff and awaken at dawn with the blue Pacific heaving and roaring below.

The Coastal Slope Trail has been part of the Los Angeles County Trails Master Plan since the early 1980s, with occasional controversy and little progress. But now, bit by bit, the dream is coming true, despite some continuing dust-ups along the way.

Late last year, the California Coastal Commission approved a plan that included the trail, restrooms, parking and the first-ever public camping within the Malibu city limits, approval of which has been challenged by the city and a homeowner’s group. And just this month, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority—a joint powers authority that includes the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and a number of park districts—announced the acquisition of several pieces of land along the Carbon Canyon section of the proposed trail site.

The acquisitions, north of Malibu, will not only mark the first public open space in Carbon Canyon, but will begin to connect the disparate parks and public lands that now dot the Los Angeles County coastline like gems in a half-made necklace.

So far, the acquisitions represent only eight of the roughly hundred parcels needed to bring the trail to completion. But Paul Edelman, the authority’s chief of natural resources and planning, says they’re “a significant momentum gainer.”

The authority, he says, is poised to acquire up to eight more properties along the trail in 2011, and is hoping to finish most of the Los Angeles County portion within the next couple of years if funding and public support hold steady. To date, Edelman says, 64% of the property needed to accommodate the Slope Trail is in public hands.

The completed trail would link at least 15 distinct public spaces, ranging in size from 15,000 acres to two acres. They include the state parks at Topanga, Malibu Creek, Leo Carrillo and Point Mugu, as well as the City of Malibu’s Charmlee Park.

“People like to go to these areas—there’s a real pent-up demand,” says Edelman. But hiking from one to another is next to impossible. Some spots are fenced off; others are too steep and rugged even if hikers were daring enough to trespass.

But with the generosity of some landowners and the help of Proposition A park and open space funds, the land between them is being appraised, acquired and turned into connective tissue. “This will be the public’s chance to access these areas without having to tramp through private property or tick-infested bushes,” Edelman says.

The largest gap right now, he said, is a steep, 4-mile stretch between Point Mugu and Leo Carrillo state parks that’s owned by the Mansdorf Family Trust, which grew from the storied estate of an aviation entrepreneur. The smallest is a quarter-mile gap between Solstice and Latigo Canyons that for decades was used as a horse trail, but is now fenced. It is owned by the famed U2 lead guitarist The Edge.

No easements have been offered through either of those parcels, Edelman says.

In Carbon Canyon, where much of the land near the trail is too steep, rugged and fire-prone to be useful, Edelman said a dentist from Northern California donated a 2.5-acre parcel of chaparral, and a “former Fortune 500 guy who wanted to remain anonymous” donated the 3-acre plot next door. A third property owner agreed to sell the authority an adjacent easement for $480,000. “The guy was British and had an understanding of the importance of public land,” says Edelman. “He had this sense of duty to make sure there was a public right of way.”

That stretch of land, he says, will now be the start of a bridge between Tuna Canyon Park and Sweetwater Mesa, where the authority has a 24-acre plot.

“People don’t even think about what will be visible when we finish this project,” says Edelman. “The beautiful back ridge line of Carbon Canyon. Some of the coolest rock formations in the Santa Monica Mountains—maybe the coolest. Higher up, you’ll be able to see all the way to Malibu Point, all the islands. Stunning.”

Posted 2/24/11

An autumn story, in living color

Southern California may specialize in the colorful and unexpected, but here’s something that even locals can appreciate as a novelty: From Topanga to Pomona, the hills and streets have turned scarlet and gold with fall foliage. And if the 2010 colors seem unusually vivid, botanists say, it’s not your imagination.

This year’s cooler-than-usual summer and fall, coupled with milder-than-usual Santa Anas, apparently have created the ideal conditions for a New England-style autumn in L.A.

“In the 12 years I’ve been here, this is the best I’ve seen,” said Frank McDonough, botanical information consultant at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden. “I’m like a surfer on a big wave day.”

Some trees, he said, were changing color for the first time since he’d come to the arboretum.

“Look at that one!” he enthused, strolling with a visitor this week through stands of bright red Chinese Pistache and golden Ginkgo biloba. “Look at that one! Look at that one!”

(For a photo gallery and video tour of the arboretum, see below.)

Deciduous trees in Southern California tend to change colors later and with less visual drama than in cooler climates, but they do exist here, and do change. Poplars brighten the fall in places like Canyon Country and Acton. Crepe myrtles deck backyards in the San Fernando Valley; Liquidambars blaze along boulevards in Westwood and San Marino. Sycamores bring autumn gold to warm inland suburbs and rustic canyons.

But most autumns are too warm and windy for the leaves’ true colors to fully emerge before they dry up and get blown away by the desert winds, says McDonough. Leaves turn because of complex chemical changes triggered as temperatures drop and days shorten. Time plays a big part in the transition.

The bright autumn colors are actually what remain when dwindling sunlight and cooler weather signal the onset of winter, and the green chlorophyll in a leaf starts to dissipate as it stops producing food.

As the leaf’s green-ness ebbs, previously hidden orange and yellow pigments surface. Meanwhile, a red and sometimes blue pigment known as anthocyanin can be generated as cold night air chills the leaf, trapping sugars manufactured in warmer daylight. The result is the emergence of the season’s hallmark golden, copper, crimson and burgundy leaves.

“It’s a process that takes a while and requires cooler temperatures,” says McDonough. “But a lot of times here in Southern California, because we have such hot fall weather, that process doesn’t go very gracefully.”

This year has been different. First, an upper level trough off the coast gave Southern California one of the coldest summers since the National Weather Service began keeping records in the 1940s. Then, after a little September warmth, the soil and air were cooled again by a series of rainstorms.

“October was extremely wet,” notes Jim Ashby, service climatologist at the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno, NV. “Rainfall was 433% of normal at the Los Angeles [International] Airport in Los Angeles, and 254% of normal downtown.”

Then, after a brief heat wave in early November, the mercury again began dropping, with nighttime lows by the end of the month in the low- to mid-40s — coincidentally the perfect temperature for anthocyanin creation.

“It’s definitely been a different weather pattern,” says National Weather Service meteorologist Curt Kaplan.

And what better time to put on your walking shoes and enjoy it than now, in these final days of fall?

A fall day at the Arboretum. Photos by Zev’s Web Staff

 
A video tour of the Arboretum

Upload your Southern California autumn pictures on Zev’s website by clicking here.

Posted 12/9/10

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