Catching up in the New Year
Well, everything newswise slows down as we all slack off for the last 2 weeks of December, and most of the first week of January, but there's been some happenings going on locally that deserve mention.
Before we get started, let's all take the time to remember Eleen Stern Harris, one of the great Californians who had the foresight and will to make the California Coastal Conservation Act of 1972 happen. Here's a great quote from her obituary:
Disillusioned by what she believed was the commission's failure to carry out its mandate, Harris told CBS-TV News in 2002: "I've long thought with all the overdevelopment on our coast that we're going to have to wait for a tsunami to sweep it all fresh and clear and start again."
In other nature news, whale watching season is officially under way. Get your photographic harpoons ready, boys & girls.
And let's not forget our bestest saurian friend, Reggie the Gator, who is currently keeping a low profile over at Harbor Lake. Looks like his former roommates are going to be spending time behind bars before he does, as they face 20 seperate counts in the dumping case.
The Polar Bears braved some very cold water on New Year's day.
And of course we had the big wind, here's some Breeze coverage on the damage. Trees are torn up all over town, one of the big trees at Cabrillo Beach was damn near torn in half.
Before we get started, let's all take the time to remember Eleen Stern Harris, one of the great Californians who had the foresight and will to make the California Coastal Conservation Act of 1972 happen. Here's a great quote from her obituary:
Disillusioned by what she believed was the commission's failure to carry out its mandate, Harris told CBS-TV News in 2002: "I've long thought with all the overdevelopment on our coast that we're going to have to wait for a tsunami to sweep it all fresh and clear and start again."
In other nature news, whale watching season is officially under way. Get your photographic harpoons ready, boys & girls.
And let's not forget our bestest saurian friend, Reggie the Gator, who is currently keeping a low profile over at Harbor Lake. Looks like his former roommates are going to be spending time behind bars before he does, as they face 20 seperate counts in the dumping case.
The Polar Bears braved some very cold water on New Year's day.
And of course we had the big wind, here's some Breeze coverage on the damage. Trees are torn up all over town, one of the big trees at Cabrillo Beach was damn near torn in half.
4 Comments:
Amen, Ellen.
The Coastal Act has failed Wilmington and San Pedro. In giving the Port the ability to certify its own Environmental Impact Reports, the Coastal Act has essentially turned our communities into environmental free fire zones.
They decided to sacrifice the communities around exisiting ports so that they could avoid despoiling any other areas of the coast with new ports.
We have now have thousands of acres of water replaced with industrial landfills with no finding of any aesthetic impact, let alone any mitigation. Ditto for the thousands of 1000 watt floodlights burning all night, 365 nights a year. No impact of light and glare, and no mitigation.
We have the most dangerous toxic air quality in the most polluted air basin in the country, all with no mitigation, under the finding of "overriding considerations". The ports and their clients need to make money, so, if hundreds of people die, and thousands fall ill, that's acceptable collateral damage.
I could go on as to traffic, environmental justice, and disruption of land uses, but you get the idea.
This has to change somehow.
There were two good letters to the editor in yesterday's Breeze re air quality and the environment. I don't know if they'll do anything, but it's good to know people are paying attention. If no one squawks, it'll be business as usual. This "overriding consideration" finding is disturbing. I think the gist is obvious, but can you elaborate briefly.
Under the California environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the "lead agency", in this case the Port, has to study a long check list of items including air pollution, traffic, water quality, aesthetics, light and glare, disruption of trditional land use patterns, and many others.
If they find a "significant" impact in any of these areas, they are required to "mitigate" the impact.
The Port develops, designs, funds, constructs, and receives the financial benefits of its own projects. It is also delegated the ability, under the Coastal Act, to perform and "certify" its own Environmental Impact Reports.
If this is not a classic conflict of interest, I cannot think what is.
The Port has consistently found that there is no "significant impact" in any of these areas except air pollution. The South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) has established "thresholds of significance" for air pollutants which cannot be ignored.
However, the great loophole of CEQA is that the "lead agency" has the ability to declare "overriding considerations" to significant impacts, which allows them to avoid mitigation. While the definition of "overriding considerations" is vague and confusing, it amounts to the decision that the economic benefits of the project outweigh the environmental damage.
This finding has been made in every EIR the Port has done for any major facility. It has led directly to the cumulative air quality disaster we are facing today.
We have never seen any rational economic analysis of these decisions. They can do it, so they do. Since the latest information shows that the current externalized health care cost of the Port (Los Angeles alone. Double it to include Long Beach) is over 1 BILLION dollars per year and 150 premature deaths, it seems pretty clear that such an analysis cannot actually stand up to scrutiny.
The only recourse of the citizens is litigation. First, of course, the citizens must pay attention, or they won't even know what is being done to them. Then they have to find the resources to sue. Until the Natural Resources Defense Council, et al, arrived on the scene, we were defenseless.
For example, the Port spent over $8 million to try to defeat the China shiopping litigation. How are citizens able to stand up in the face of that?
I can go on for the rest of the day, but you get the idea.
I do. Thanks, and keep up the fight. This is much more important to me than whatever team wins the whatever bowl. I hope the new HC actually accomplishes something in this regard. The faces change, new commissioners come in and talk tough about pollution, they get replaced while the air still gets worse. This paradigm sucks.
Post a Comment
<< Home