Turbines for Baja?

The U.S. government this week approved the nation's first offshore wind project. It took nine years. Will similar projects crop up in California?

"There’s a substantial wind resource offshore of CA, fantastic wind resource," says Mike Allman, CEO of Sempra Generation, "but it’s never going to be built, it’s too sensitive. It’s a gorgeous area and people don’t want their view profile changed. The wind is strong offshore, in many cases, and you can put larger turbines offshore. But you need a lot of support to get that done."

So Sempra is looking high and low for windy sites onshore, including across the border in Baja California. Listen to my piece for PRI's The World.

Take a gander at the Sierra Juarez. Learn more about offshore wind in Nantucket Sound.

Turtles Get Around

The Santa Monica Mountains are a refuge for many species that used to be common in LA County, but now face uncertain futures. One is the western pond turtle. Rosi Dagit, a biologist with the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains, studies them. She says, "Who knew turtles lead such soap opera lives." Here's my report. 

It Flows at a Price

The Colorado River Delta

One of my favorite stories from my years of radio reporting is one about the Colorado River Delta. For this report, I traveled to Mexico to meet the chief of the Cucapa Indians and biologists studying rare marsh birds. This might sound like a remote issue, but it's not. It's about the water southern Californians use.  The story received a national award from the Society of Professional Journalists. Here's it is on YouTube.

The Colorado River helped build the Southwest and it sustains its economy. The river waters crops and fills bath tubs. It runs from the state of Colorado down to the southeast tip of California, and into Mexico. Before the US built massive dams across it, the river roared into Baja and Sonora, Mexico, creating vast wetlands, and flowed out to the Gulf of California. Today, the river rarely even reaches the gulf. But Mexicans hope to restore the river and it's delta--and they're looking to the US for help.

Gimme Shelter

Many Mammals at Risk of Extinction

A report out this week finds almost one in four of the Earth’s mammals are in danger of extinction. The study was conducted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, an organization of governments, NGOs and scientists.

Julia Marton-Lefevre, Director General of IUCN says, “Within our lifetime hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our actions….”

IUCN says forty percent of the planet’s mammals are struggling to survive in smaller and degraded habitats.

In California, we have a lot of animal species that don’t live anywhere else … and many of them are also on the edge of extinction. That includes sea otters, red-legged frogs, desert tortoises, San Joaquin kit foxes, peninsular big horn sheep, southern steelhead trout … to name a few. And it includes an animal beloved by visitors to the Channel Islands. Here's my report.

SETZIOL: On a crisp winter afternoon, biologist Mitchell Dennis and colleagues with the National Park Service hop on an eight-seat plane headed for San Miguel Island … home to one of the world’s rarest animals … :

(sound of plane putting down runway)
DENNIS: We have a release going on today. We’ve caught them this morning in their pens and we’re going to fly across the island and release them.
SETZIOL: so these animals aren’t found anywhere else in the world?
DENNIS: No. Nowhere else…

(plane in air)

SETZIOL: As we leave the Ventura coast, we see the four northern Channel Islands rising out of the sea … blue-black, and backlit by a swath of sunlit sea, shimmering platinum and gold. San Miguel looms on the horizon, ringed by fog.

(sound of plane bumping down)

SETZIOL: When we get to Miguel …

(sound of plane bumping down)

SETZIOL: We pick up additional passengers: four little foxes, each about the size of a house cat. They’ve been part of a captive breeding program trying to keep Island Foxes from going extinct.
(location sound of)
SETZIOL: So they look a bit like the mainland grey fox.
DENNIS: they do, they’re about 40% smaller

SETZIOL: The tawny and gray foxes are curled up in portable kennels. They’re silent and motionless, but their eyes are wide open and alert. The biologists put on them on the plane for a short flight to the other side of the island.

(plane sound underneath, then fading out)

SETZIOL: Island foxes live on six of the Channel Islands. Each island has a genetically distinct subspecies of the dainty fox. Ten years ago, the foxes on the northern Channel Islands began to die off rapidly.

The problem??? Feral pigs left over from ranching days attracted golden eagles to Santa Cruz Island. The eagles feasted on an abundant supply of piglets, and evidently found the foxes to be a satisfactory hors d’oeuvre. And the foxes were sitting ducks, so to speak, because they weren’t accustomed to being preyed upon. Biologist Rosie Woodroffe is one of a team of scientists advising the park service on fox recovery.

WOODROFFE: Most animals active in the day are constantly looking for predators, looking up. Foxes are not that vigilant because they spent thousands of years not needing to be vigilant. When you’ve got an animal with no anti-predator behavior at all-there’s very little you can do to convince them to look up!

SETZIOL: On the northwest side of San Miguel Island, the biologists unload the foxes. Then Mitchell Dennis and Debbie Watson listen to beeps transmitted from radio collars around their necks.

(sound of beeping)

DENNIS: that’s the mortality mode on her collar.
WATSON: It’s not supposed to do that.
DENNIS: Shake the collar, but you really can’t shake the fox, though.

SETZIOL: They decide to replace the broken collar.

DENNIS: Hi, sweetie.
WATSON: I’ve got a bandanna
DENNIS: Calms them down to have a bandanna over their face.

SETZIOL: Dennis says the Park Service has been capturing and relocating golden eagles … and it’s hired hunters to kill the feral pigs. So it’s safe enough to put some foxes back into the wild.

DENNIS: And they just do better in the wild. We had 4 females and 6 males released last year, and those 4 females produced at least 9 pups. All of our captive pens where we had 40 to 50 foxes, but we only had 8 pups between all of them.

SETZIOL: But a few--maybe 4--eagles have evaded capture and are still snacking on foxes. Last year, they killed 11. Biologist Rosie Woodroffe.

WOODROFFE: It’s true golden eagles haven’t been seen on San Miguel, but they have in the last few months killed at least one fox on Santa Rosa Island, which is a stone’s throw away. And it only takes one eagle to decide to fly over to San Miguel for a few days and they could take out the whole released population on San Miguel. It’s still on a knife edge whether the foxes will survive in the wild.

SETZIOL: Woodroffe says the park service should at least consider killing some eagles if they continue to evade capture and feed on foxes. But it’s not clear if killing the birds would be easier or cheaper, and it would certainly spark outrage from animal rights groups.

So to ensure the survival of the species, some foxes will remain in captivity. This year, the biologists will let them choose their mates, instead of pairing them by their genetics.

(sound of kennel opening)
WATSON: Ready?
DENNIS: yep.

SETZIOL: With all the collars working, Debbie Watson and Mitchell Dennis, open the kennels. And the captive-born foxes take their first steps into the wild.

WATSON: He’s heading off towards point Bennett!
SETZIOL: running!
DENNIS: Furthest he’s ever run in a straight line. (laughing)

SETZIOL: Three of the foxes bound out of sight. But a young female ventures only a few feet, then hunkers down in the grass looking a bit stunned … and uncertain.

From Channel Islands National Park, Ilsa Setziol, 89.3, KPCC.

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Los Angeles River

From my radio series on the LA River

When you think of the Los Angeles River what images comes to mind? Concrete? Maybe trash? Dirty water? But when some people look at the river they see willows and waterfowl—and they envision a future where the LA River is at the center of a greener city. All this week, KPCC’s environmental reporter, Ilsa Setziol, explores the dreams—and realities—of revitalizing the Los Angeles River.

(River sound)
SETZIOL: Once there was a wild river in Los Angeles. And the river had the run of the place. It wandered all over the LA basin, sometimes gushing, sometimes tricking. It nourished Native American villages. And created a landscape that delighted the first Spanish explorers, who noted the “very good water: pure and fresh.”

But even in the 19th Century, Angelenos were real estate hungry. They wanted land that belonged to the river. And when flooding damaged property and killed 59 people in 1938, they demanded the river be tamed. By the 1960s, most of the 52-mile-long river was forced into a cement channel. It became a dumping ground, a conduit for waste water. It was a joke: “that’s our river, that sewer that looks like another freeway.”

REYES: The river became essentially where you hid your gaslines, your pipelines, your powerlines, your rail lines,

SETZIOL: Los Angeles City Councilman Ed Reyes.

REYES: and you let those people live there so it became a social and economic divider, a place you send those other people to the other side of the tracks.

SETZIOL: But in the 1980s a group of artists saw all that concrete as a blank canvas, a place for a different vision. Poet Lewis McAdams and others founded Friends of the Los Angeles River.

(bells)
MCADAMS: The basic line was meeting people down by the river, making the river a place where people gather. The reason the city is here is because of the LA River

SETZIOL: McAdams walks through newly ploughed ground at what’s called the Cornfields. This former rail yard near the river in downtown is being turned into a state park. McAdams watches an evening performance piece created for the site. A dancer lifts a lantern to illuminate multicolored ears of corn attached to a chainlink fence.

(drumming)
MCADAMS: Most people can’t see what’s not there, only artists and schizophrenics can see what’s not there. The only people who could even imagine what I was talking about were artists.

SETZIOL: What McAdams was talking about was a return of a real river: with species that had disappeared, such as the steelhead trout. After legal and public relations efforts by Friends of the LA River, local officials started to see beyond the concrete. LA County developed a new masterplan and spent a hundred million dollars on trees, bike paths, and other improvements. Today, throughout the watershed, Angelenos are starting to gather in new parks, experiencing the river in places that used to be fenced off.

(fade up drumming sound & crowd chatter)
As the performance concludes, the audience gathers around a bonfire enclosed by river rock.

(bike bells) (drumming continued)
A group of cyclists wheel in. They pop open beers. Nelson Ornelas, Eric Crawford, and Philip Franco, kick around ideas for the river.

ORNELAS: I seen this city live up. I seen it changing. This used to be a railroad track, we used to come here and party my gang…I love this transformation. This city’s got so much vibes and so much potential.
FRANCO: We need this water. We live a desert
CRAWFORD: Couldn’t there ultimately be cafes on the LA River where you could have a glass of wine.
FRANCO: Maybe taco trucks certain parts of the day. (laughter)
(fade down on additional chat)

SETZIOL: As the men talk, their chatter and the drumming seem to pulse into the dark downtown sky, creating currents of anticipation.

For the bikers and many others, the once neglected river has become a focal point for ideas about a greener city. And many Angelenos now want a lot from it: more parks, cleaner water, a fix for neglected neighborhoods, and a healthier inner city.

LA City Councilman Ed Reyes:

REYES: I want to rezone the corridor, and create a river front district that has all these different elements of open space, natural habitats, as well as economic development opportunities.

(Riversound up)

MELANIE WINTER: It’s the one thing that connects all of our communities besides our freeways.

SETZIOL: Melanie Winter squats on a boulder in the middle of the river as it races through Sepulveda Recreation area in the San Fernando Valley. There’s no concrete on the bottom of the river here, but plastic bags, auto parts, and shopping carts are strewn over the riverbed and in the willows.

(roaring river sound)
WINTER: It’s not just a case of wanting it back, we need it back, for so many reasons. And the river is fundamental to making this a healthy place to be again. There’s a way for us to coexist with this river, to allow it to serve us and to allow us to appreciate it.
(roaring sound cross fade)

Ilsa Setziol, 89.3, KPCC

To hear the rest of the series, check out this link.

Recommended reading: Down By the Los Angeles River, Joe Linton, Wilderness Press

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Growing Green

Zucchini, beans and turtle in my garden

Tips for an environmentally friendly garden.

Here’s the first of my two-part radio story on eco-minded gardening, as it aired on 89.3, KPCC last month.

More and more people are shopping at farmers markets, as they seek out food that’s fresher and more environmentally friendly. Others have taken what they see as the next step in the green revolution: growing their own. But is home gardening really good for the Earth? It depends on how you go about it.

SETZIOL: The Bronson family’s patio, in a neighborhood near LA’s Highland Park, used to be an unrelenting stretch of concrete. Earlier this year, they ripped out some of it, then put in a trio of three-by-five containers. Now they’re bursting with fruits and vegetables: A five-foot tall heirloom tomato displays fruits bigger than your fist, wispy chives shelter under it. Beneath a pyramid of leaves, melons are protected in cradles made from pantyhose. Two-year-old Maris is eager to show off the garden.

MARIS: Potatoes!
SETZIOL: What do you like?

MARIS: Salad

Maris’s mom Jessica says the garden is part of a larger effort to make their lives more environmentally sensitive.

BRONSON: Our idea for it began with an increasing interest in trying to be more self-sustaining, and also to be more aware of where things come from, and producing a local economy.

Jessica Bronson says their small garden has attracted a lot of birds and bees. And it’s kept their patio cool. They practice organic gardening, so they don’t use pesticides or synthetic fertilizers.

But with the state in a drought, should we be pouring water on gardens? Most of our water is imported. And pumping it long distances uses a lot of energy. Indeed, state officials estimate nearly 20 percent of all the power used in the state goes to transport and treat water.

PETER GLEICK: So if water for gardens means a lot of new water has to be moved from one place to another that’s not a great idea.

SETZIOL: Peter Gleick heads the Pacific Institute, a research group.

GLEICK: But instead if we could figure out how to reduce other uses of water and use some of it to grow food that’s not a bad idea.

Gleick says, to find wasted water, you don’t have to look farther than the end of your garden hose.

GLEICK: The largest irrigated crop in the US is lawn. And that lawn uses a huge amount of water. It’s ornamental, not necessary.


SETZIOL: Horticulturalist Lili Singer says ripping out lawn is a good place to start.

SINGER: If you’re taking out grass, or azalea, or another water needy thing, and put in a vegetable garden you may be using the same amount of water, but you’re getting more out of it.


SETZIOL: I asked Singer to visit my backyard garden. Wearing a broad-brimmed staw hat, she crouches down to watch a bee tunnel into a large, yellow zucchini flower.

SINGER: A lot of plants…need a lot less water than people give them. So really thick mulch—we’re talking at least 4 inches around the plants—…will hold water in so you’re not using as much.
SETZIOL: Are there certain plants that are good choices that aren’t especially water hungry?
SINGER: A lot of the herbs, rosemary, thyme, sage, are all very drought tolerant. …In terms of annuals like pumpkin, beans, squash, they’re doing so much production in so short a time, … they’re going to need more water. …Zucchinis can take water almost everyday because they’re growing so fast…but the amount you get

SETZIOL: Andy Lipkis, president of the environmental group TreePeople, suggests other ways to be water smart in the garden.

LIPKIS: You can water with drip irrigation, so you cut down in that case sometimes 60-80% of your water use, because you’re putting drippers right where your roots are.

SETZIOL: Lipkis sits next to a miniature creek—part of a TreePeople model that demonstrates more sustainable water use.

LIPKIS: You can move to the next step which is harvesting your gray water….You can take the hose from your washer and extend it right to your garden. If you can’t get it there you can have it fill some buckets.

SETZIOL: If you go this route, you should learn about local gray-water ordinances, such as requirements to put the water into the ground, instead of spraying it. And, Lipkis says, your plants will be happier if you use environmentally friendly detergents.

There are many other ways to be green in the garden. To reduce the need for pesticides, grow a variety of flowering plants, including natives such as ceonothus. They attract ladybugs and other insects that eat pests. Also, let your flowers go to seed, so birds will move in and eat both seeds and insects.

Tomorrow, we’ll examine another tool for environmentally friendly gardens: composting.

Ilsa Setziol, 89.3, KPCC

In part two of this story, I discuss the virtues of home composting. Listen Now.

Recommended reading: Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner (Peguin) First published in 1986, this book is a classic and still relevant