Stormwater Redux

Clearer minds at L.A. City Hall prevailed Monday on the issue of raising stormwater fees. The city chose to develop a game plan for passing the fee rather than rushing it to the ballot.
Now the city can focus on passing the long-awaited Water Quality Plan, the blueprint for cleaning up local polluted waters. In addition, [...]

Serious About Stormwater

I’ve spent three years talking to the L.A  Department of Public Works and Mayor’s Office staff about the glaring need for sustainable funding for the city’s efforts to curb stormwater pollution. After all, the city has long been in violation of the summer beach bacteria regulatory requirements and looming regulatory deadlines exist for winter beach [...]

EPA in Surf City

’m here in Huntington Beach, participating in an EPA-hosted national conference focusing on beach water quality issues. More than 330 experts from the U.S., Canada and Europe have convened for three days of discussion and debate.
Among the hot topics:

Holy Trash

Israel is more like LA than I possibly imagined.
Both areas definitely suffer from the scourge of plastic pollution. From the iconic Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall in the old city of Jerusalem to the shores of Lake Kinneret, one can follow the histories of three great religions through trash. Important Muslim, Christian [...]

Rivers of Hope

Yael Mason, an Israeli friend of mine from my UCLA days, is an environmental chemist with years of experience at Israel’s Ministry of the Environment. During my trip to Israel, Yael set me up on a river tour with the nation’s premier watershed management and river restoration expert, Eyal Yaffe.
Yaffe and I explored the small [...]

L.A’s Sister River

Many Americans first became aware of Israel’s polluted rivers after a horrific bridge collapse on the Yarkon River near Tel Aviv in 1997.  An Australian athlete who fell into the toxic waters actually died from exposure to pollution. The catastrophic event catalyzed a movement to clean up and restore Tel Aviv’s major river and others [...]

A Real Beach Bummer

Imagine this scenario. An old sewer line ruptures because tons of garbage gets piled on top of the ground above it. The sewer spews over 1 million gallons per day into the nearby river. As a result, the health agency closes miles of popular beaches to protect the public.
The closure continues for days, weeks and [...]

Greetings from Tel Aviv

I was fortunate enough to get invited by the Jewish Federation to visit Los Angeles’ sister city, Tel Aviv, to discuss environmental issues with leaders here. I joined city and county officials and Federation activists to share stories about water quality, sustainability and river restoration.  We’ve met with people in the NGO community, the mayor [...]