News

EPA declares L.A. River 'traditional navigable waters'

7/7/10 U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on Wednesday declared the entire concrete-lined Los Angeles River channel "traditional navigable waters," a designation crucial to applying Clean Water Act protections throughout its 834-square-mile urban watershed.

The designation overturned an earlier ruling by the Army Corps of Engineers that only four miles of the river were navigable, which would have made it easier to develop its upper reaches by eliminating the need for certain federal permits.

David Beckman, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, suggested that the shift could affect the way many other river systems are managed.

"The EPA's decision has been closely watched as an indicator of whether similar rivers throughout the West — dry as a bone one day, a torrent the next — would lose historical protections under the Clean Water Act," he said. "So this is great news. It means less pollution in the river and provides a vital support for community efforts to rejuvenate and restore it."

Among those listening at the news conference was Heather Wylie, a former project manager in the Ventura field office of the Army Corps of Engineers, who lost her job after kayaking down a stretch of the L.A. River in late 2008.

The expedition was in protest of the agency's ruling that year that only a small portion of the river was boat-worthy. She was suspended from her duties and eventually left the agency.

"All I did was go kayaking to make a point about Clean Water Act protections," she said. "I am grateful for the EPA stepping in and fixing this."

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Toxins Found in Whales Bode Ill for Humans

6/25/10 A report released Thursday noted high levels of cadmium, aluminum, chromium, lead, silver, mercury and titanium in tissue samples taken by dart gun from nearly 1,000 whales over five years. From polar areas to equatorial waters, the whales ingested pollutants that may have been produced by humans thousands of miles away, the researchers said.

The researchers found mercury as high as 16 parts per million in the whales. Fish high in mercury such as shark and swordfish — the types health experts warn children and pregnant women to avoid — typically have levels of about 1 part per million.

Chromium, an industrial pollutant that causes cancer in humans, was found in all but two of the 361 sperm whale samples that were tested for it.

He said another surprise was the high concentrations of aluminum, which is used in packaging, cooking pots and water treatment. Its effects are unknown.

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Read the Ocean Alliance's Voyage of the Odyssey Report

Global Whaling Moratorium Stands as IWC Shelves Compromise Plan

6/24/10 A controversial plan that would have meant the end of a 24-year long moratorium on commercial whaling was today put on ice for a year by the International Whaling Commission at its annual meeting.

The 88 IWC member governments meeting in Agadir failed to agree on the proposed compromise between whale conservation nations and whaling nations that would have legalized whaling in return for bringing the hunt under IWC control.

Currently, three whaling nations - Japan, Norway and Iceland - set their own quotas without regard for the moratorium observed by all other countries.

Japan conducts "research" whaling in Antarctica's Southern Ocean and North Pacific under a provision of the IWC treaty, while Norway and Iceland have taken objections to the IWC moratorium. The three countries have killed more than 33,000 whales since the the moratorium took effect in 1986.

The proposal by IWC chairman Cristian Maquieira of Chile and vice chairman Anthony Liverpool of Antigua and Barbuda was the result of three years of negotiations, but even they have said repeatedly that it does not reflect their personal views and was tabled merely as a basis for discussion.

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Slide sends silty slug down Bayside's Jacoby Creek; agencies say landslide is from failure of old logging road

6/5/10 Earlier this week, Jacoby Creek turned the color of chocolate milk.

While there has been a lot of rain recently, old-timers who live in the watershed said they've never seen it run so muddy. In the past few days, officials have found the source of the heavy silt, a landslide that started on an old logging road on a tributary of Jacoby Creek called Monahan or Golf Course creek.

Now they are trying to figure out how to stem the flow of mud from the collapse, especially since salmon are taking the brunt of it in the estuary before heading out to sea. The slide is on private property above the Baywood Country Club Clubhouse Restaurant, according to e-mails sent between California Department of Fish and Game personnel. Fish and Game Environmental Scientist Scott Bauer wrote that water had been pouring from a cut bank onto the old road, which made the road fail.

”The hillslope is very steep ... and this failure will continue to discharge sediment for some time,” Bauer wrote.

Those who live along the creek are mostly concerned about having the problem fixed.

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It won't save the whales

The moratorium on commercial whaling that took effect in 1986 has been one of the most successful international agreements in the conservation world. The number of whales killed each year instantly plummeted from 38,000 to between 1,000 and 2,000. Whale populations began to rebound. It brought about a new global consciousness — and conscience — about whaling.

Now a panel of the International Whaling Commission is proposing to effectively suspend that moratorium for 10 years. Its goal is a noble one: to bring the three rogue whaling nations into a pact that will place an agreed-upon limit on their catches, as well as to better monitor their whaling and ensure more humane hunting practices. These are all good ideas. Unfortunately, the proposal gives away more than the whaling commission would get. It says in essence that all a nation has to do to escape the commission's official disapproval is refuse to cooperate long and hard enough.

Supporters of the proposal say it would save at least 5,000 whales over the 10 years. The actual number would be somewhat smaller. That's because the three whaling nations — Japan, Iceland and Norway — currently set their own limits, which are far higher than those in the proposal, but don't actually catch as many whales as they say they will. Anti-whaling activists expect that pattern to continue. Demand for whale meat is declining; Japan's whaling operation survives only with the help of large government subsidies. If the three countries continue to catch whales at their current rate, the number of whales saved by the proposed agreement would be closer to 3,000.

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