A final installment of Mark’s memories of Heal the Bay, with the “Baywatch” babes

Pop culture  HtB’s involvement in popular culture has always been memorable.  From “Baywatch” to KTLA’s Coastal Cleanup Day specials, we ended up in the more popular media in a lot of ways.  Who could forget “The Solution,” a benefit CD with Bad Religion, Blink 182 and Black Eyed Peas contributing tracks?  Evidently nearly everyone — it didn’t sell much.  In the movies, we had our star turn in the thriller “Cellular” starring Kim Basinger, Jason Statham and Chris Evans.  The kidnapping occurred on the pier during a Heal the Bay “benefit.”  The band was supposed to be Incubus, but they had a conflict.  HtB also showed up on an exploded bus billboard in “Speed” and a billboard in the John Cusack end-of –the-world  saga “2012.”  And I lost track of the number of fishbone HtB cameos in TV shows, from “thirtysomething” to “Hannah Montana” to “Modern Family.”

Malibu  So much work.  So much contention.  Yet there is no way to walk away from fighting for that incredible coast. One memory: “Surf Doctor” Jeff Harris setting up a PSA shoot at Malibu Lagoon with Mel Gibson.  The focus was on the impacts of Tapia’ summer discharges on Malibu Lagoon and Surfrider Beach.  I have never seen anyone more agitated in my life.  The guy was being stalked by the paparazzi  — helicopter overhead and guys behind bushes.  This was a real “Conspiracy Theory” They were out to invade his privacy.  On the good news side:  the Regional Board ordered Tapia’s discharge out of Malibu Creek from April through October, a major boon to Surfrider’s water quality because the lagoon berm breached less frequently.

Bravery  I’ll always remember the courage of the volunteers that gave Heal the Bay everything they had even when they were fighting cancer.  Jean Howell and Bob Hertz for Speakers Bureau.  Joe Crocker, our first board treasurer.  And of course, Dorothy.

Heroes  Finally getting to see my idol, Jacques Cousteau, speak about saving the oceans. It was at a Marina del Rey chamber of commerce lunch. I took Mark E Pollock.  It was surreal. Cousteau was wearing a powder-blue leisure suit and he stood on bright green Astroturf.

Science!  I’ve always been partial to hiring very strong technical staff for the science and policy department. At one time, we had four doctorates (all UCLA Environmental Science and Engineering grads):  myself, Mitzy Taggart, Craig Shuman and Shelley Luce. One Shelley story stands out. She was our science and policy director and she applied for the executive director position for the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission. I encouraged her to apply, but I was majorly concerned about losing such a valuable staff leader. The search committee included David Nahai and myself. We thought that the lead candidate, the highly experienced and extremely bright Nancy Sutley, would get the job in a heartbeat. After all she had recently left the state Water Board and Cal-EPA assistant secretary position. For some reason, Nancy wasn’t on her game during the interview, and Luce blew us away and got the job, where she’s flourished ever since. Sutley became Mayor Villaraigosa’s deputy Mayor for energy and environment and is now serving in the Obama adminsitration as the director of the President’s Council of Environmental Quality. It worked out for the best for all of us.

Smart propositions  The fight for clean stormwater led to the successful Prop O (Los Angeles) and Measure Y (Santa Monica) funding measures.  For the $500 million Prop O, I remember enviro groups and engineering firms pulling together under the leadership of Eric Garcetti and Jan Perry to make it happen.  And the measure passed with over 76% of the vote! Now that was a fun celebration.  Of course none of this would have happened without then Chief Legislative Analyst Ron Deaton’s decision to draw up the measure and go for it.  The Measure V success was a little different.  Craig Perkins convinced councilmembers like Bobby Shriver and Richard Bloom to push for the ongoing stormwater funding measure to reduce Bay runoff pollution and reduce flood risk and increase local water supply.  The integrated approach and ongoing funding was great.  The decision to make me campaign chair and plaster my ugly mug all over direct mail campaign pieces was really uncomfortable.  Measure V only passed by 100 votes.

Fishy business  During the height of the state and federal government’s natural resources damages lawsuit and the EPA’s Superfund enforcement actions, Heal the Bay undertook a fish contamination study on white croaker sold in local markets.  Staffer James Alamillo led the effort along with chemist Rich Gossett, and we found that locally sold croaker was highly contaminated: one fish had a concentration of DDT over 30 parts per million!  Talk about hazardous to your health.  As a result, the study was used by the government in its enforcement case.  Heck, the polluters even hired renowned UCSB  ichthyologist Milton Love to redo our study.  Since the contaminated croaker was largely found at Asian community markets, the Center for Biological Diversity actually sued those markets for supposedly knowingly selling croaker after the release of our study,  a Prop 65 violation.  We never predicted that litigious outcome, and we even got deposed on the case.  Due to the threat of third party litigation, the local white croaker fishery ended up closing down.

No seismic shift  Even an earthquake last year during a joint Heal the Bay-NRDC plea to the EPA office of water for more protective beach water quality standards couldn’t shake up the status quo in Washington D.C.  The recently released draft criteria are weaker in many ways than the 1986 criteria despite the completion of dozens of studies in the beach water quality microbiology and epidemiology fields.

Ballona  The fight for the future of Ballona has gone on for over 30 years. I remember the proposal from former councilwoman Pat Russell that would have destroyed the wetlands. In response to public uproar, Ruth Galanter got elected as the Save Ballona candidate. Poring over reams of Playa Vista EIR documents and design specifications for the freshwater treatment marsh was enormously time consuming and tedious. But the turning point was the environmental group debates leading to the state purchase.  Areas A and B, the main wetland, were for sale and California had the bond money to buy it. Governor Davis’ days were running out because of the recall, so those in favor of the wetland purchase had to act fast. Environment Now hosted a series of meetings where the environmental community was split between buying the wetlands for the exorbitant price of $150 million, or opposing the purchase. The opposition didn’t want to pay more than $8-10M for the wetlands. The opponents were concerned that the extra revenues would enable Playa Vista to finish their development (Phase I was largely completed at that point.) After heated discussions, some of us (NRDC, Heal the Bay and Friends of Ballona to name a few) expressed our strong support for the purchase. I remember saying, “30 years from now, our kids won’t care what we paid for Ballona Wetlands. They’ll just care that they exist and they are preserved.” Luckily, this sentiment prevailed with Mary Nichols, the Secretary of Resources at the time.

The Staff of Life  Watching Alix Hobbs grow from an 18-year-old receptionist to Programs Director to the Associate Director of the organization. Seeing Meredith McCarthy go from a Coastal Cleanup Day coordinator to the Programs Director and a force for greening L.A.  Admiring the growth of a couple of UCSB Bren graduates into the water quality director, Kirsten James, and the coastal resources director, Sarah Sikich They’ve become environmental leaders locally and in Sacramento.  Receptionist Gabriele Morgan greeting me every day, usually with a bad pun or a political joke. Callers to Heal the Bay have been heard the soothing tones of Gabriele’s voice for a long time.  I’ll miss her voice, but not nearly as much as her biting commentary. Matt King, the best communication director in the business, constantly drawing on obscure film, news and sports references.  Kudos to Vicki Wawerchak, who has progressed from being a Key to the Sea educator to ably running our Santa Monica Pier Aquarium, a community asset beloved by children and parents alike. I’m thankful for having a decade of Karin Hall as Heal the Bay’s No. 2 – helping to build the aquarium, keeping the board engaged and managing staff.  Lee Myers sharing stories of the trials and tribulations of raising three kids while healing the Bay.  And James Alamillo, Big Game James, my closest friend on staff, providing innovative ideas and providing a quick critique, and always there in an emergency or when you want to kill some time talking about sports. I will miss you guys!

Dr. Aliza pinch hitting for Mark at a Beach Report Card presser

Beach Report Card  Most of the best BRC stories aren’t mine, but I have a few.  I remember sitting down with my first staff hire, Roger Gorke – now with the EPA office of water in D.C. –  to create the first report card.  It was an annual study and only included Santa Monica Bay beaches.  The early report cards often resulted in irate calls from electeds that somehow blamed us for their poor water quality.  We had many press conferences with Dr. Aliza (Lifshitz) providing a medical perspective and talking to the Spanish language media.  One year, she had to carry the whole press event at Cabrillo Beach because I literally had no voice!  James Alamillo and Mike Grimmer have taken the BRC through many incarnations, but the efforts of former Microsoft exec Jeff Littrell and former staffer Tom Fleming in making the leap to a statewide report card on the website was huge!  Amy Smart has come through as a spokesperson for the Beach Report Card, Annual Dinner, Day Without a Bag and Coastal Cleanup Day. I’m so glad Heal the Bay is honoring her at the annual dinner on May 17 this year.

Starstruck  An event at a Santa Monica bar where rock  Hall of Famers John Densmore and Ray Manzarek from the Doors made a generous donation, and The Surfers (Kelly Slater, Peter King and Rob Machado) played in front of an enthusiastic crowd including Pamela Anderson.

My dissertation research on pathogens in stormdrain runoff and the fate and transport of runoff plumes on the beach.  It never would have been possible without dozens of volunteers collecting samples during all sorts of conditions, support from the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project, and the analytical efforts of L.A.’s Environmental Monitoring Division, and virologist  Charlie McGee and his crew at the Los Angeles and Orange County Sanitation Districts.  The research demonstrated that human sewage was getting into stormdrains, which led to the first-ever epidemiology study on swimmers in runoff contaminated waters. The study demonstrated that people that swim at runoff polluted beaches were far more likely to get sick.  These results were the catalyst for AB 411,  a state bill that established California beach water quality standards and a beach monitoring and reporting program.

Cleanups  So many cleanups.  The scope and scale of trash at Compton Creek, year after year.  James Alamillo finding 10- foot-high marijuana plants in the creek bed. All of the weird items found during Coastal Cleanup Day:  I’ve always been partial to the pumpkin filled with eggs and the whole bathroom found on the PV coast.  My grey tabby-cat Ballona, now 11, a rescue from Ballona Creek. The Coastal Cleanup Day specials – KTLA GM Don Corsini and new Board chair Stephanie Rodriguez always made them happen.  Beach cleanups with the Lakers’ Fisher, Van Exel and Ceballos.  Sparks with Lisa Leslie. And the most memorable one : last year with the Dodgers’ Fernando, Garvey, shoulda-been-MVP  Matt Kemp, Shawn Green, and Sweet Lou Johnson.  I loved the stories from Johnson and Garvey.

Stream Team  Mark Abramson, or Abe, has always been the highlight.  The chain-smoking, Altoid popping, quad-vente swilling architect of the Stream Team program is one of a kind.  There are so many different Abe stories, ranging from his covert mapping activities on Ahmanson Ranch, to walking through stinging nettles on a stream mapping foray, to getting profiled on “Dirty Jobs” for removing a steelhead passage barrier in Solstice, and fighting with him because he wanted to sue everyone under the sun.  He even got evicted from his guest house in Serra Retreat because he wanted the Arizona Crossing replaced with a bridge (a major benefit for Malibu Creek). But my favorite moment was visiting him while he was removing the Texas crossing in Malibu Creek.  He was sitting in a folding chair while his crew members were breaking their backs removing all of the cement by hand!  A great restoration success, and Abe didn’t even break a sweat that day.

Acquiring the Aquarium  I negotiated with UCLA for two years to develop a partnership to co-manage the aquarium. Former Heal the Bay intern and longtime Fenton Communications  executive Parker Blackman helped make the negotiations happen with his Dad, vice chancellor Pete Blackman.  We finished the negotiations and then UCLA decided that the fiscal crisis of the early 2000s was too much to keep the aquarium going.  So they gave the aquarium to Heal the Bay – an organization-changing event that gave us a public face and provided educational opportunities on Bay biodiversity, pollution prevention and marine conservation to visitors from the region and beyond.  The early days when every rain was an adventure because the aquarium had a roof like a sieve. How the water running down the electrical conduits never caused a fire is a mystery to me.  And who could forget the eight- legged vandal that made international news by flooding the aquarium!  My best memories  are seeing my son Zack work behind the tidepool counter as a volunteer and daughter Natalie dragging me back to the life support to see the animals not on display.

Gutter Patrol was an enormous program that had volunteers stencil 50,000 plus catch basins with a “No Dumping.  This Drains to Ocean” message. You can still see some of the original stencils with fishbones on some catch basins in L.A.  Lisa Dobbins was dubbed the Gutter Queen for leading this enormous effort.  I still remember when we invited her over for dinner and asked her to bake a cake.  She made a chocolate cake and decorated it with the catch basin stencil.  The dinner party was in fact a surprise birthday party for Lisa.  She baked her own B-day cake!

Sickening stories  There have been a lot of dramatic beach water quality stories.  The most tragic was that of the young Pepperdine student Danny Villanueva, who died of a Coxsackie B heart infection (cardiomyopathy) in 1992. I still remember when he called me before his first heart transplant because our report on viruses in Malibu Lagoon had just come out. He was so sure that he got sick from surfing at Surfirder even though the virus could have come from other sources.  Perhaps the most famous incidences of illness from swimming were the lifeguards that worked at the beach in front of the Pico-Kenter drain in the 70s and early 80s. Although cause and effect was never demonstrated (most of the cancers were different), the focus on lifeguard safety in polluted waters became a major cause that helped lead to the creation of Heal the Bay.

The skirmish in Surf City  The most vivid beach battle I remember was over the sources of pollution to Huntington Beach during the summer of 1999. AB 411 began implementation that year so beach monitoring increased statewide.  Surf City was so polluted that the health agencies closed the beach during the height of the summer season, including Labor Day.  As a result, approximately $20 million was spent over the next few years to find out what caused the pollution problems during the summer of 1999.  Unfortunately, the effort was like chasing ghosts.  The water quality never got as bad again as it did that summer.  Great research was done by a wide variety of agencies that helped on beach water quality modeling and better understanding how water quality can vary with tidal cycle and tide magnitude.  Also, the enormous sanitary survey did result in some small sources getting abated and the sewage treatment plant outfall’s discharge getting cleared as the likely source of beach pollution.  My most vivid memory was a public hearing/witch hunt in Huntington hosted by then Assemblyman Scott Baugh.  I felt like I was hearing from the Amity mayor in “Jaws.”  All of the discussion was about the economic impacts of beach closures, and how AB 411 needed to be revealed.  I played the Dreyfus role by speaking passionately about the health risks of swimming in waters highly polluted with fecal bacteria.

Road warrior  Running in the Santa Monica Classic while suffering through a gout attack.  Enough said.

Countless memories of Dorothy  Press conferences where she called runoff a witch’s brew of toxins. Dorothy chairing our annual meetings and the first few annual dinners.  Slide shows of her trips with her beloved husband Jack.  Nine carousels was the record. Debates over the issues.  Learning how to effectively advocate. Admiring how she treated every volunteer as if they were the key to Heal the Bay’s success.  Numerous meetings in her living room where every Heal the Bay detail was discussed.  Monthly lunches with Paula Daniels and Madelyn Glickfeld.  Board meetings.  Science and Policy Committee meetings. Watching her in awe as she continually battled cancer and stood up to polluters.  My disappointment that DWP Commission members and environmental leaders Dorothy Green, Mary Nichols and Mike Gage couldn’t even turn that agency around on water recycling and rainwater capture. The joy on Dorothy’s face when she finally finished her book on managing California’s water crisis. Cindy Horn hosting the book event.  Working with Paula to record her final op-ed on what California needed to fix its ongoing water crisis.  Thinking of Dorothy every Wednesday night in winter as Paula and I teach the UCLA Leadership in Water Management Class in her honor.

Tomorrow: a few more memories

A hare-brained idea: having Gov. Gray Davis get up close and personal with the invertebrates at Heal the Bay's S.M. Pier Aquarium

Mark shares some more of his more memorable moments at Heal the Bay:

The Ahmanson Ranch campaign.  I remember: touring the watershed with Board President Tony Pritzker and former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, representing Washington Mutual.  Flying up to a WaMu shareholders meeting with Rob Reiner and Alfre Woodard on a private jet to protest the development.  The coalition of Hollywood (Chris Albrecht and Reiner), electeds, Native Americans, Mary Weisbrock and Save Open Space, Heal the Bay (Mark Abramson’s covert maps of Ahmanson Ranch riparian habitat were key), and the brilliant campaign work of Chad Griffin and Steve Barkan.  Getting screamed at by Reiner at a meeting.  The only other person that ever yelled at me like that was my dad.  I can only imagine what would have happened if we lost! The anti-climactic press event celebration when the state purchased the land (Governor Davis was being recalled).  The joy of taking my kids, Zack, Jake and Natalie, to the Ranch just days after it opened to the public.

Litigation  I’ve always been a “sue as a last resort” kind of advocate, but sometimes litigation is the only solution.  NRDC’s Joel Reynolds and I spent countless hours with former L.A. County Sanitation Districts’ GM Jim Stahl to settle the full secondary treatment lawsuit about the Carson plant.  Once we got through the “sewage is good for the fish arguments” (thank you Willard Bascom of the Southern California Coastal Waters Research Project in the late 1980s) and the “sewage solids are needed to cover up the DDT and PCB contaminated sediments” or “two wrongs make a right” argument, we were able to negotiate a resolution quickly.  In fact, it only took the Sanitation Districts four years to build its full secondary facilities.  Also, we partnered with NRDC on some industrial waste litigation and an industrial stormwater lawsuit against the Port of Long Beach (led by current criminal court judge Gail Ruderman Feuer).  I still remember all the inspections of pretty nasty Port facilities.

TMDLs  The litigation over EPA’s failure to implement the Total Maximum Daily Load requirements for L.A. and Ventura Counties’ impaired waters was an enormous victory for clean water.  Also, the settlement process and consent decree negotiations took my working relationships with David Beckman of NRDC and Steve Fleischli (then at the SM Baykeeper) to the next level.  That effort made us brothers in arms.  We all wanted numeric limits in stormwater permits and TMDLs  gave us the chance to make that happen for the region’s most polluted waters.  Also, like any set of brothers, there were a lot of insults flying around and silly, macho one-upmanship.  Science versus the law – to the death on the battlefield of regulation! Our caustic banter was great fun for the three of us, but it freaked out all of our staffs. I’m pretty sure that most dischargers got a little intimidated when the three of us walked into a regional or state board hearing room to argue a permit or a TMDL.

Water Board memories are endless: The David Nahai era when the most far-reaching Total Maximum Daily Loads (fecal bacteria, trash and metals) and the 2001 stormwater permit were approved.  Getting the “band” back together when NRDC’s David Beckman, the Waterkeeper  Alliance’s Steve Fleischli (now at NRDC), SM Baykeeper’s Tracy Egoscue and myself testified successfully on getting the beach bacteria TMDL limits in the stormwater permit. I remember when a Board in the early 1990s approved five L.A. County Sanitation Districts sewage discharge permits on the consent calendar despite the fact we had commented on the permits.  I arrived at the hearing in Glendale at 9:30, right after the Board vote. In 1996, we culminated a 40-day fight for a tougher stormwater permit (with help from Andy Goodman and the Environmental Media Assn.) with a big rally: T-shirts, Baykeeper Terry Tamminen leading protest chants, Julia Louis Dreyfus speaking at a press event, and a unanimous Board support vote.

Working with Linda Sheehan, the brilliant, attention-deprived, kick- boxing, lawyer from the Ocean Conservancy and the California Coastkeeper Alliance (now at Earth Law working on Rights of Nature issues).  The MIT chemical engineer with a law degree from Berkeley may be the most efficient person I’ve ever worked with.  She can crank out a 30-page comment letter in two days, and she has on issues ranging from nonpoint source management to stormwater to chemicals of emerging concern to once through cooling.  She’s the only person I know that can text, listen, write and negotiate at the same time.  Richard Katz is close though.

Passings  Getting the news from then Heal the Bay E.D. Adi Liberman that a policeman was on the phone from Vancouver.  I was told the devastating news that my father had passed away of a heart attack while I was at my desk. Talking to my mom seconds after that was among the hardest things I’ve ever done.

Clean Beach Initiative  Then-Assemblymember Fran Pavley calling us to ask how bond money could be used to clean up California’s most polluted beaches.  Two hours later, we created the Clean Beach Initiative, and Pavley ran with it. To date, over $100 million has gone to cleaning up beaches and beach scientific research.

More Pavley She partnered with then-Heal the Bay legal director Leslie Tamminen on the Education and Environment Initiative. Fran carried the bill.  Leslie and I came up with the audacious idea to require environmental education in all public schools.  Leslie did everything possible to make it happen.  The bill signing ceremony was at our aquarium, with Governor Davis and Pierce and Keely Brosnan there for the announcement.  I still remember how mortified Davis was when aquarist Jose Bacallao and I gave him a sea hare to hold.

The Den Mother Leslie watchdogged the EEI bill every step of the way.  There was no way that the measure wouldn’t get implemented on her watch.  It cost her a lot of baked goods, cards, flowers and other gifts to ensure that the EEI’s 85 units were finished and approved by the Department of Education in a timely fashion.  Leslie was also the den mother for Heal the Bay.  In 1999, I had an incredibly stressful four-month period with two back surgeries and a heart surgery.  Clearly, my stress addiction had consequences.  On top of that, Lisette gave birth to our daughter Natalie before my heart surgery.  Leslie was there for me every step of the way to help me through it.  Lisette and I will always be thankful for that.

Throughout the week: more nostalgia …

The resolution, crafted by Santa Monica city staff in response to a draft ordinance recommended by the city’s Task Force on the Environment, commits the city to come back this summer with recommended legal changes to allow individuals to protect those rights.  Although the council vote only approved a resolution instead of a legally enforceable ordinance, the action puts the city on track to a process that provides individuals defensible environmental rights and extends protective rights to local natural resources.

Last night was a first step towards changing the dialogue on environmental protection in Santa Monica, and hopefully that shift in dialogue will move far beyond the city’s borders. The recommended legal changes to Santa Monica law will come to the city council at the same time as the third iteration (and third decade) of goals and metrics under Santa Monica’s Sustainable City Plan. We could see a draft as early as mid-summer.

We all have the right to clean air, water and soil, and corporate rights should never supersede these rights.  The time is now to move from just voluntary intentions to making these sustainability goals legal, enforceable obligations.

Dorothy and Jack: mentors, friends ... and thwarted wedding photographers

I started volunteering at Heal the Bay as a 22-year- old in 1986.  Over the last 25 years, I have some amazing memories.  Here is an extremely abridged list of a few of the most memorable.

 My first hearing at the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board.  L.A. County San’s general manager, Chuck Carry, chewed my head off publicly for stating that the Carson Plant was violating the Clean Water Act’s sludge dumping prohibition by discharging centrate (the liquid removed from centrifuged sludge) off of Palos Verdes. After the Regional Board ruled that Heal the Bay was right, wise and kindly board member Chuck Vernon came over to me to offer support for hanging in there against Carry.  Definitely a Mean Joe Green-Coke moment.  That was the first of my over 200 Regional and State Water Board meetings.

Heal the Bay’s annual meetings  At one meeting, U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson and Attorney General John Van De Kamp, two of the three gubernatorial candidates in 1990, gave plenary talks.  Wilson announced for the first time that he would create Cal-EPA if he was elected.  He won the seat and he did just that.  Other annual meetings included a Senate environmental debate between eventual winner Barbara Boxer, Congressman and Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project founder Mel Levine, and Lt. Governor Leo McCarthy, and an L.A. mayoral environmental debate with every candidate but the eventual winner, Richard Riordan.  I still remember then-Councilman Nate Holden stating that he’d make Santa Monica Bay drinkable if he was elected.

Surfboard Art — one of the most creative, amazing events in non-profit group history.   The brainchild of Olympic swimmer John Moffat, the project gave America’s top artists a Clark Foam blank that they could decorate as they saw fit.  The creativity of Board member Cydney Mandel and the leadership of the Dill brothers were key.  Boards were created by Lita Albuquerque, Laddie John and Guy Dill, Joni Mitchell, Peter Max, and Ed Moses.  But despite a show in the Corcoran Gallery and other locales, it was a horrible fundraiser because the boards were raffled off rather than auctioned off.

Our nuptials My wife and I opted for a Heal the Bay wedding with lots of board members, volunteers and staff.  The wedding cake was a cross-section of the ocean with benthic animals (crabs and lobsters) on the bottom and pelagic animals in the middle (white chocolate tuna and dolphins) and a Gray Whale tale on top. We even had ocean-themed sourdough breads on the buffet table.  Lisette and I got married on a Saturday, before sundown, at the Malibu West Swim Club on beautiful Trancas Beach.  Tough to find a reformed enough rabbi willing to work on the sabbath.  We found one and he started the wedding exactly at 4 p.m.  Half the guests had not arrived, including HTB’s founding president Dorothy Green.  Dorothy’s husband Jack was going to film our wedding as a gift to us.  Oops.  We had to find the only rabbi in L.A. that started a wedding on time.  We had a wonderful wedding that culminated in a gorgeous sunset with my bride. In the evening after nearly everyone left, my friends and I body surfed after the reception.  

The birth of the logo In my biased opinion, Heal the Bay’s iconic fish-skeleton logo tells the story better than that of any other environmental group.  Thank you Chiat Day and Gabrielle Mayeur.  As a result, everyone in L.A. had to have a fishbones tee during the summer of 1988.  Speaking of which, our first PSA was almost as memorable. Mark Pollock persuaded Laurie Coots and Chiat Day to put together the “Leave Something for Your Children to Remember You By” multimedia ad campaign. Billboards and a Screenvision PSA that ran in the movie theaters (before it became passé) did a remarkable job of building Heal the Bay awareness.  Although I loved the home movie shots, I never liked the creepy voice of the ocean though. It should have been Sylvia Earle!

Other PSAs  I’ll always be partial to the “Revenge” PSA with Tone Loc doing the voiceover after the dolphin and two sea lions trash a local neighborhood and scream off in a 1960s Oldsmabuick, laughing all the way.  My brother Josh was the writer on the classic Chiat Day piece.  Of course the other PSA that sticks with me is the hugely popular “Majestic Plastic Bag” mockumentary.  I’ve always been a huge David Attenborough fan so I loved the DDB concept.  Then creative director Kevin McCarthy started the search to find the right voiceover talent for the film.  Eric Idle was interested, but the timing was wrong.  I called boardmember-to-be Dayna Bochco to see if she knew Idle, Attenborough, Russell Brand, or Anthony Hopkins.  Dayna answered, “I don’t know them, but I share the same agent as Jeremy Irons.  Would he be OK?” After I regained consciousness, I assured Dayna that Irons would not only be a fine choice, he was the perfect choice.  The only problem was that he was shooting a film in Budapest.  No problem. DDB had an office in Budapest.  Irons taped the voiceover a few days later. Only in L.A.  and Hungary!

Consent Decree meetings with the sludge judge, Harry Pregerson, and the City of L.A.  I really looked forward to these twice-a-year meetings where we discussed the progress at Hyperion and the problems cause by polluted runoff.  Judge Pregerson always made you laugh, and he kept everyone on track.  These meetings are where I learned so much about sewage treatment and where I developed relationships with city staff that lasted for 20 years.  Those relationships were the key when Mayor Riordan and aides Michael Keeley and Chris O’Donnell tried to get the city to back out of the consent decree because of the cost of clean water.  City staff would have none of it, let alone Judge Pregerson.

Going on a European vacation with my wife Lisette and watching CNN Headline News in Zurich to hear about Heal the Bay’s Children’s March for water, led by the cast of “thirtysomething.”

The  leadership of Rim Fay and Tom Hayden.  Rim was the Doc Ricketts of Santa Monica Bay, a brilliant, hard-living marine biologist that collected marine organisms for sale to researchers, colleges and universities.  He logged more time in the Bay than anyone else.  I got to see him in action at the Regional Water Board (he wore a lab coat and had a bottle of what smelled like sludge in sea water) and the Coastal Commission on many occasions.  He was particularly passionate about the impacts of DDT, PCBs and the San Onofre nuclear power plant on marine life.  Tom was the ultimate elected advocate.  Like Rim, Tom was fearless and he was a fighter.  A brilliant legislator, he helped mentor longtime Heal the Bay board members Adi Liberman, Cliff Gladstein and many others.  He continually challenged me to do more as an environmental leader, and we worked together on fish contamination legislation and a number of other bills. Of all the legislators I’ve worked with, Tom understood how to use the media to win on a cause better than any of them. His constant search for corruption in politics, including environmental politics, was unique for a legislator.  Tom still writes about numerous issues, especially the need for peace, but we’ve missed his eco-activism for quite some time.

Annual fundraising dinners.  So many dinners and so many stories.  I haven’t eaten at one since 1994.  Some impressions:  The first one in Santa Monica Place with Martin Short as emcee.  Honoring the Bridges Family and Mayor Bradley.  Talking to Lloyd about why environmental groups couldn’t work more effectively together to protect the coast.  Seeing Perry Farrell in a white leather suit giving an award to Trip Reeb and KROQ.  Cindy Horn and Felicia Marcus getting honored at the Water Garden.  The line of people waiting to get their pictures taken with Pierce Brosnan.  Lisette sitting next to the incredibly funny, kind and shy Phil Hartman at the dinner at the Beach Club.  A year later, I asked Phil to join our board and he said yes because he was a sailor that loved the ocean.  A week later, he was gone. Kenny Loggins playing at the old S.M. Museum of Flying.  The magic of Brian Wilson. Three separate, amazing times.  Stand-up with Billy Crystal.  Freezing on the S.M. Pier while listening to Jack Johnson.  Thankfully, we gave away beach towels to serve as warmth that year.  Lisette’s purse getting swiped at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel – the same night that Bill Maher offended half the room and was hysterical for the other half.  Jay Leno auctioning off a puppy at the dinner that honored longtime board member Julia Louis Dreyfus. Kim Francis and Luann Williams making centerpieces for countless hours.  (Come to think of it, add Meredith McCarthy to that list too.)  Or Barry Gribbon’s 10th annual last supper – he’s been the impresario behind the dinner, with Jennifer, for a decade. Finally honoring Dorothy – I still remember the standing O. The big 20th anniversary Over the Top blow-out under the big top next to Casa Del Mar – Hootie and the Blowfish and The Bangles capping off our most successful dinner ever. (Thank you Kelly Meyer.)  Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger arriving after the dinner to receive his award for the Education and the Environment Initiative. “Baywatch” getting honored at the Petersen Museum – the producers even did a couple of Heal the Bay episodes.  Don Smith getting congratulated via Skype, by his son serving in Afghanistan. Dorothy rocking out to Ozomatli, and so much more.

Tomorrow: More recollections of a labor of love

Gold: heading back to school

After spending more than half of my life at Heal the Bay, I’ve decided to move on and test the waters in academia at my alma mater, UCLA.  The decision to step down as president of Heal the Bay was one of the toughest decisions of my life.  I’ve put my heart and soul into this place and most of my closest friendships are with staff, board, volunteers and colleagues. 

As an organization, Heal the Bay has accomplished so much in the last 26 years.  No one can say that our local coastal waters are more polluted or that our coastal resources are less protected than they were when the organization started in 1985.  Coming to work every day to work on improving everyone’s quality of life in the region, and protecting aquatic life was the best job I could realistically imagine. (I hope Vin Scully will always have the best job I could unrealistically imagine holding). My decision to step down marks a mid-life crisis of sorts. For the last five years, I’ve been obsessed by thoughts that I could have a larger beneficial impact in the environmental field.  My experience as an an Aspen Institute Energy and Environment Catto Fellow made me think a great deal about the future and having larger impact.

Through the fellowship, our class of 20 focused on the the ineffectiveness of international environmental governance.  An eye-opening examination of multi-national environmental agreements, the UN Environmental Progam, and the UN environmental Millennium Development Goals made me appreciate Heal the Bay’s efforts on a local, regional and statewide scale even more.  Despite my increasing awareness that the “Think Global, Act Local” paradigm is most effective way to go on environmental issues, I came to the conclusion that I needed to move on for another reason. After 23 years at Heal the Bay, I wasn’t learning as much as I wanted and I needed a new set of challenges.

I spent a lot of time thinking about when I should move on from Heal the Bay.  I certainly didn’t want to leave when our founding president and my mentor and dear friend, Dorothy Green, was battling terminal cancer five years ago.  Also, leaving Heal the Bay shortly thereafter wouldn’t have been in the organization’s best interest.  Now seems to be a good time for a number of selfish and unselfish reasons.  Selfishly, we had a great year last year.  An amazing year:

Los Angeles approved a groundbreaking Low Impact Development ordinance and 10-year funding for sewer infrastructure and treatment plant maintenance and upgrades.  Long Beach passed a similar LID ordinance and a plastic bag ban.

 The L.A. County Department of Public Health approved rainwater-use guidelines that provide certainty and clarity for future projects that capture local water supply from stormwater.  Santa Monica and L.A. County’s plastic bag bans went into effect.  Although extremely controversial, a State District Court judge upheld the State Parks and Coastal Conservancy’s Malibu Lagoon Restoration plan.

The state legislature passed the most important marine conservation bill of the last decade: a prohibition on the sale of shark fins. The Regional Water Board and Malibu entered into an agreement requiring the completion of a water recycling plant in the civic center by 2015, with commitments to hook up commercial facilities and residential properties causing or contributing to pollution at Malibu Lagoon and Surfrider Beach.

And the network of marine protected areas in Southern California, including MPAs off Palos Verdes, Malibu and Catalina, went into effect after years of studies, stakeholder negotiations and public deliberation. Leaving on the high note of an extremely successful 2011 provides a sense of closure and satisfaction.

Unselfishly, Heal the Bay has an incredible senior leadership team that has been ready to run the group without me for years.  The directors are all hard-working, experienced, gifted leaders that have accomplished a great deal, and they will achieve even more with the opportunity to make bigger decisions.

Meanwhile, it’s back to school for me.  I’m really looking forward to a new set of challenges, helping to build the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, teaching and working with students, and learning about environmental research and policy outside California’s water world.

My history at UCLA is nearly as extensive as at Heal the Bay.  I was born there, went to pre-school there, completed my bachelors, masters and doctorate there, and I teach there as adjunct faculty. I met my wonderful wife of 21 years as a fellow student in UCLA’s Environmental Science and Engineering doctoral program. I gave the commencement to the graduating organismal biology students a few years back.  My brothers and mother went to UCLA as well.  And yes, I was there when we owned USC in football and I even saw the Bruins win the hoops championship over Arkansas in Seattle in 1995.  Most important, genius cardiac surgeon Hillel Laks, saved my son Jake’s life with heart surgery on his second day of life. 

Heal the Bay will always be a defining part of me, and I’ll remain active as a board member. I’ll miss the advocacy and the fights for safe, healthy and clean water.  I’ll miss the camaraderie and elation after big wins.  I’ll miss wearing shorts and T-shirts to work on days without meetings.  I’ll miss working a mile from home.  I’ll miss the dedicated, wonderful staff and volunteers.  And I’ll miss working every day on issues that mean so much to so many in the region.  But there’s much, much more to do …

Go Bruins!

Tomorrow: Some of the more memorable moments at Heal the Bay

Will L.A. bag ban finally spur Sacramento to action?

The Los Angeles City Council’s energy and environment committee today approved an action asking for a Chief Administrative Officer-Chief Legislative Analyst report on a single-use bag ban within 30 days. Also, the Bureau of Sanitation must implement a public outreach program over the next 60 days.

Immediately after the committee meeting, the city council met to celebrate outgoing president Eric Garcetti’s long-term leadership. After Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue and the rest of the festivities, the council heard the bag-ban item.

Councilmember Paul Koretz amended councilmember Jan Perry’s E+E committee motion by including a March 31 deadline for final ordinance approval. In addition, public outreach and environmental review will all occur in parallel and will start immediately.

Nearly all of the present councilmembers strongly expressed their support for a plastic bag ban as soon as possible. Once again, the environmental community, neighborhood councils, the California Grocers Assn. and the L.A. Chamber of Commerce came out to support.

The council action today sends a loud message to Sacramento to move forward with a statewide ban. A continued patchwork quilt of various bag bans doesn’t make sense for the economy or for the environment. With the city of L.A. and its 4 million residents moving forward without plastic bags, the future of California could be truly plastic-bag free within the next year or two.

A historic vote to bag single-use bags in L.A. is set for Friday at City Hall.

The Los Angeles City Council heard testimony from over 60 people today on the long-awaited single-use plastic bag ban.  The environmental community was well represented and attired in natty green.  Other supporters included reusable bag manufacturers, the California Grocers Assn., the L.A. Chamber of Commerce, and 17 neighborhood councils!  Clearly, a life without single-use plastic bags is a popular movement that has grown well beyond L.A. County, Long Beach, Malibu, Santa Monica, Calabasas and other SoCal cities.

Opposition was provided by bag man Stephen “This bag is more than a toy” Joseph and Crown Poly bag manufacturing staff.  Joseph tried to tie the city council vote to California’s ranking by industry titans as the place they’d least likely want to do business.  I’m not sure where the ranking came from, but Joseph did say that Texas was No. 1.  Enough said.

Thanks to a prior commitment to the environmental community from Council President Eric Garcetti, the City Council heard the testimony. However, members were uncomfortable taking action without the bag ban first going through the Energy and Environment Committee.

Committee Chair Jan Perry was unable to get to the item in Tuesday’s meeting, but it will now be heard in a special session she has requested for Friday morning.  Because Friday is the last council meeting of the year and Councilman Eric Garcetti’s last council meeting as president, there is a heightened urgency to approve a motion asking for a Chief Legislative Analyst/Chief Administrative Officer Report.

The bag ban supporters made it clear that expediting a long-delayed environmental review and writing a draft ordinance needs to occur ASAP in order for L.A. to adopt a final ordinance by early spring.

The need for an expedited bag ban ordinance goes beyond the national precedent of America’s second largest city moving forward with such a critical environmental law.  An L.A. bag ban would provide another 4 million people living in cities and counties with bag bans in California, which is great for our coastal waters and watersheds.

Moreover, the approximately 10 million people living in communities in bag bans could provide the momentum necessary to finally get a statewide bag ban passed.  Because so many state legislators who opposed previous bag ban legislation have districts where bans would be in place, their opposition should blow away like a plastic bag on a Santa Ana.

So a lot is at stake in the L.A. City Council at the end of the week.  Tomorrow may be “A Day Without a Bag” across the county, but the fate of Los Angeles won’t be determined until Friday.  The City Council has the opportunity to finally follow through on the bag ban resolution it passed back in 2008.

On Thursday, do your part (if you haven’t already): Kick the plastic bag habit by bringing your own reusable bags wherever you go, and refusing single-use bags.  And Friday, please be there to support and encourage the council to provide the leadership that will eliminate the disposal of over a billion bags a year in local landfills, rivers, beaches and our Bay.

Instead of dog beaches, the L.A. Times should focus on more far-reaching environmental issues.

The Los Angeles Times editorialized today that mutts should be given a chance at a pilot Santa Monica dog beach. Last week I spoke with editorial writer Carla Hall for 45 minutes on why the dog beach would be a bad idea for public health protection, environmental compliance, and the preservation of endangered and threatened wildlife. Unfortunately, her mind seemed clearly made up. Even suggestions for Hall to hang out at our local dog park for a few hours fell on deaf ears.

Clearly, science and credible opponents (state parks, lifeguards, NRDC and others) didn’t tip the scales for her. Idyllic visions of Fido frolicking in the surf were too compelling. 

I can’t say I was surprised by today’s piece.  But in light of all the facts, I had hoped she might support a recommendation for an enclosed dog beach away from endangered wildlife and away from the intertidal zone. But she stuck to her original position.

But there’s something more disturbing than the L.A. Times taking a position in favor of dog beaches despite environmental and public health concerns. What’s troubling is its failure to adequately cover more important environmental issues in the editorial or news sections.

The gutting of the environmental section has been a major letdown, especially on climate and air issues. There is no analysis of the performance of the EPA, NOAA or Fish and Wildlife under the Obama administration. Where are the articles on the lack of impact or reform after the Deepwater Horizon disaster?  And where is the analysis of the inability of Congress or the state legislature to pass far reaching environmental legislation during the recession?  AB 32, California’s groundbreaking climate bill legislation, could never pass in this legislature, and this Congress is the most anti-environmental one in my lifetime. Where are the editorials on these issues?

The irony of the dog beach piece running today is that Santa Monica College held a forum last night on a draft Sustainability Bill of Rights. The hall was filled with about 150 people, who held a consensus position that government and existing laws are not protecting our environmental rights, let alone the rights of nature.

The audience seemed genuinely concerned and eager to change the paradigm of environmental protection in order to better protect public health and the environment. Comments and questions brought up were not self-serving or NIMBY in nature. People focused on broad, fundamental rights: clean water, air and land; manageable food policies; sustainable energy and solid waste management.

Thankfully, protecting an individual’s rights to do what they want at the expense of the health of others or the harassment of endangered species was not addressed by the panelists or the audience.  Woof.

Santa Monica may follow Pittsburgh's footsteps in codifying fundamental rights of nature.

In the Citizens United case last year, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that corporations have the same rights as citizens. The ruling already has changed the face of electoral politics in America, with unlimited campaign contributions by corporations for communications now apparently a First Amendment right. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney famously stated in Iowa last August that corporations are persons.  And the Occupy movement has continually spoken out about the disproportionate influence of Big Business in the United States.

In response to the corporate personhood issue, and the lack of progress statewide and nationally on a wide variety of environmental issues, the Santa Monica Task Force on the Environment worked with Global Exchange, Earthlaw and the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund to develop a draft Sustainability Bill of Rights.  The draft includes elements of the Rights of Nature ordinances that have passed in Pittsburgh and numerous towns concerned about the impacts of industry on local water supplies.

The draft also includes elements of Santa Monica’s renowned Sustainable City Plan, which was first approved by city council 17 years ago. And finally, the draft includes fundamental environmental rights that every person should have.  These are a modified version of the environmental bill of rights I recommended back in 2008 in this blog.

From my perspective, we all have fundamental rights to clean air, water and land. We have the right to sustainable water and energy supplies.  We have the right to sustainable food and waste management systems. We have a right to a natural climate that hasn’t been changed by greenhouse gas emissions. And we have the right to natural communities and ecosystems. Despite California and federal environmental laws, those rights simply are not protected as often as they should be.   All too often, air, water, soil and toxics regulations are thousands of pages long with more loopholes than you can count.

Also, no Congress has passed a far-reaching environmental law since the 1990 Clean Air Act, and the current Congress may be the most hostile towards environmental protection since EPA’s inception.  We can’t wait for Congress or our state legislature to solve our environmental problems.  A new approach is needed.

The Sustainability Bill of Rights is a new vehicle for environmental protection that emphasizes personal rights over corporate rights in a relatively simple manner.  To date, Santa Monica’s Sustainable City Plan has been voluntary.  The draft Sustainability Bill of Rights creates accountability to implement and comply with the Sustainable City Plan.

Also, the draft makes it clear that corporate rights should never supersede our basic environmental rights. Somewhere along the way, our regulatory system has failed in protecting these fundamental rights. This Bill of Rights reminds us why environmental protection is so important: to safeguard human health, our quality of life and nature herself.

Tonight, Santa Monica College will host a discussion on the draft at 6:30 p.m. in Room HSS 165.  It will be the first public discussion of the ordinance that affirms our fundamental rights and includes numerous requirements and metrics that, if achieved, will protect those rights for the people of Santa Monica.

The draft will be presented Jan. 24 at the Santa Monica City Council with the hopes that the city will continue its national environmental leadership by requesting the development of an ordinance based on the draft Sustainability Bill of Rights.