San Diego water deal upheld, Salton Sea fight continues

A state appeals court Wednesday upheld the landmark water transfer between the Imperial Valley and San Diego County but left room for more legal wrangling regarding the Salton Sea.

A three-judge panel of the 3rd District Court of Appeal overturned a 2010 ruling by a Sacramento Superior Court judge that the water sale was improper because the Legislature had essentially signed a blank check to repair damage done to the Salton Sea.

So, the deal itself is now salvaged. But the same panel refused to decide the arguments that redirecting irrigation water to slake the thirst of San Diego decreases the amount of runoff into the sea, causing it to shrink. That, in turn, is imperiling birds and fish and creating toxic dust storms as ground laden with agricultural pesticides is suddenly exposed to the air.

Those arguments, the panel said, should go back to the Sacramento Superior Court, thus preserving the chances that opponents will be able to scuttle the deal between water-rich but cash-poor Imperial Irrigation District and the cash-rich but water-poor San Diego County Water Authority.

“This is obviously good news, and it’s been a long time coming,” said Kevin Kelley, general manager of the Imperial Irrigation District, “but there’s still considerable work to do in turning this agreement into one that is environmentally sustainable for the Salton Sea and economically viable for Imperial Valley agriculture.”

Maureen Stapleton, general manager of the San Diego County Water Authority, noted that in water issues, perseverance is key. “We were confident we would persevere and prevail,” she said.

The deal, the largest transfer of water from farms to cities in the nation, was signed in 2003, after years of pressure on the Imperial Irrigation District by the federal government. The water sales have continued despite the Superior Court ruling that the Legislature lacked authority to make an open-ended agreement to save the sea.

Straddling Imperial and Riverside counties, the Salton Sea is dependent on agricultural runoff for replenishment. As more water is sold to San Diego rather than used to irrigate farms, runoff has decreased and the sea has shrunk.

The appeal court’s 156-page opinion could serve as a treatise on the complexities and feuding that are part of California’s use of the Colorado River. Its opening sentence tells the tale: “For the better part of 100 years, citizens of the American Southwest have been fighting over the right to water from the Colorado River.”

Imperial County enjoys the largest allocation of any agency in the seven states that depend on the Colorado River. Farmers were braving the valley’s boiling summer temperatures a century ago to pull water from the river, long before California coastal cities saw the river as a source of water.

San Diego County, blessed by nature with mild weather and a gorgeous landscape, is virtually devoid of groundwater. For nearly half a century San Diego officials have hunted for a way to get an “independent” supply of water and decrease the county’s dependence on the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

Although the Legislature agreed in 2003 to help the Salton Sea, the state’s financial woes, and a lack of a political constituency for the sea in the power corridors of Sacramento, have largely kept the state from following through on its promise, a point that environmental lawyers are sure to make when the issue returns to the Superior Court.

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-- Tony Perry in San Diego

Photo: A tributary of the New River flows into the Salton Sea. Credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

'Entourage’s' Adrian Grenier and Peter Glatzer SHFT Hollywood green

When "Entourage" star Adrian Grenier was introduced to indie film producer Peter Glatzer a number of years back, their mutual commitment to eco-friendliness and sustainability compelled them to work together. They put together the show “Alter Eco” for Discovery’s Planet Green channel in 2008, a reality show about folks moving the needle on sustainability. The pair saw a hunger for solutions, but realized they needed a new platform that could grow as they grew. SHFT was born.

Yes, SHFT.com is a website, but Grenier and Glatzer have already proved it can be more than that. It’s an honest attempt to move ideas into the culture. The “Watch” section has five original video series that continue to expand, including the “Eat LACMA” series on food and community, and “Lighten Up,” about green touring strategies for bands on the road. Like “Alter Eco,” the shows are about beautiful people making a difference. But the site is also a pretty impressive resource for sustainable products as varied as electronics and art, and a connection to lifestyle news and information.

SHFT is creating an entity that’s pretty rare for famous Hollywood types: a community.

“We’re looking to permeate the culture and change the perception of what it means to be environmentally friendly,” Grenier says by phone from New York. “Because, for so long, it’s been a marginalized cause. But we don’t see it as a cause. We see it as a way to improve your quality of life.”

Glatzer, speaking from L.A., takes it further: “The notion of ‘environmentalism’ was just antiquated and anachronistic to the world we live in now. To think of environmentalism as a movement or a separate category of things that we do that are Earth-friendly is not the way to think about it. It has to be folded into the fabric of our lives and into the small choices that we make every day.”

In October, the site manifested briefly as a pop-up gallery and shop on La Brea Avenue, something the pair has been doing in New York for years at Christmastime, and the opening was packed with people pawing over the bikes, art, furniture and housewares. The products on the website are made real at these events, and SHFT may soon develop a bricks-and-mortar entity in partnership with a mainstream retailer.

Mainstream, by the way, is where they want to be. These are people who make movies and TV, so of course the first thing they did was make a show. And they are still making shows. But “Alter Eco” confirmed that Hollywood is mostly allergic to this kind of thing, and for good reason: do-gooding is not (usually) hot media.

“Media is very tricky because it thrives on conflict,” Grenier acknowledges. “Really, the environmental notion is the opposite -- it’s something that is full or harmony and goodwill amongst people and collaboration, so it’s difficult to dramatize.”

Glatzer thinks the ideas just have to be worked into the groundwork of everything they make. “I watch movies all the time, like ‘The Descendents,’ for example, Alexander Payne’s new film. It really does have an environmental component to it that isn’t overt at all. It’s an appropriate dollop of environmentalism,” he says.

“If it’s a background, context-setting thing, great, but otherwise, I don’t know,” Glatzer adds.

None of this, by the way, is overtly political. They’re looking to change the culture through everyday choices.

“We like market-driven solutions,” says Glatzer. “As much as we’d love to see policies change and see the public sector do various things that we’re actually quite passionate about, having consumers be aware of what their options were was one of our big goals. And to make it fun.”

“Yeah, I found that my snarky, condescending glances at people, when I walked around the set, were totally ineffective,” chuckles Grenier. “I find that being able to take someone by the shoulders and say, ‘Hey, check out SHFT,’ or ‘Do you want to come to this pop-up store?’ is much more enjoyable for the both of us.”

Speaking of which, their first SHFT brand product? A red wine made in Paso Robles, SHFT House Wines. Because, yeah, it’s organic and all that; but it’s also a party in a bottle. Available on the site in the coming weeks.

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Photo: Adrian Grenier, left, and Peter Glatzer at the opening of the SHFT pop-up gallery and shop on La Brea Avenue in October. Credit: Brent Harrison for Guest of a Guest L.A.

Karen Dawn's Thanksgiving turkey rescue

This post has been corrected. See note at bottom for details.

Animal activist and author Karen Dawn makes a point of having turkey for dinner every Thanksgiving, but the birds are at the table, not on it. For the fourth year in a row, Dawn, the author of the book "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals," has rescued two turkeys from an L.A. slaughterhouse and is hosting them at her home in Pacific Palisades.

“They’re named Russell and Perry,” says Dawn, speaking from her home. “I had originally named them Russell and Katy, after Russell Brand and Katy Perry, who saw the movie ‘Forks Over Knives’ and Russell tweeted and said he was going vegan.”

After Dawn had bathed and blow-dried the birds at her home, as is her annual ritual, she noticed “Katy” had quite the snood -– the comb that hangs over the animal’s beak -– and that she was actually a he. So, she changed the name to Perry.

Dawn hosts two new birds each year, in what she calls her Palisades Pardoning, to raise awareness of the number of turkeys slaughtered each year for the annual holiday, and the conditions in which they are raised. Sherrie Rosenblatt, spokesperson for the National Turkey Federation, an industry group, says that an estimated 46 million turkeys will be consumed during Thanksgiving feasting in the U.S. this year.

According to information available on Dawn’s website, thankingthemonkey.com, the birds are often kept in overcrowded pens with their toes clipped back to remove their claws and beaks seared off.

Responding to such claims, Rosenblatt noted, “A turkey farmer’s No. 1 priority is ensuring the health and well-being of their flock. That’s how we can provide safe, nutritious and affordable food for consumers. Not only on Thanksgiving day but every day.”

Dawn’s other couples were originally named Bruce and Emily (after actors Bruce Greenwood and Emily Deschanel) -- later changed to Brucilla and Emily after a similar mix-up -- Monty and Marsha, and Ellen and Portia after vegans Ellen DeGeneres and Portia Di Rossi.

“People are very good at compartmentalizing: animals that you eat versus the animals that you pet,” says Dawn. “So I do something that makes it harder for people to compartmentalize. A lot of the neighbors will not eat turkey at Thanksgiving after meeting these guys.”

Curious neighbors come over to Dawn’s house to cuddle with the birds, which quickly habituate to human company and enjoy the attention.

“Friday, the little boys next door asked: ‘When are the turkeys coming?’ And I said ‘tomorrow’ and they literally jumped up and down with delight,” adds Dawn.

The birds will stay with Dawn through the Christmas holiday, then in January they’ll move to their new home at Farm Sanctuary’s Animal Acres in Acton, where Sunday visitors can see Russell and Perry and many other animals.

[For the Record, 6 p.m. Nov. 21, 2011: An earlier version of this post used a photo and a video that were from 2010. Both have been changed.]

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Photo: Karen Dawn blow-dries the feathers of one of her birds at her Pacific Palisades home. Credit: Hugh Slavitt

Gulf of Mexico fish-tracking system goes full steam ahead

Responding to deepening concerns about seafood mislabeling and the safety of fish caught in the Gulf of Mexico, a trade association of Gulf fishermen is tagging and credentialing each of the fish its members pull from the water. It is also routinely sampling catch for dispersants, heavy metals and other oil-based contaminants to allay customer concern over the safety of fish caught in the vicinity of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion, which spilled 4.9 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf. 

The new Gulf Wild system follows a six-month pilot program, during which 100,000 American red snapper and Gulf-caught grouper fish were tagged with identification numbers after being hauled aboard fishing boats. Upon reaching shore, the numbers were electronically recorded and uploaded to an online database with information about the fish's species, the harvesting vessel that caught it and the approximate harvest location. The Gulf Wild program went into full production this week with 100 high-volume commercial fishermen within the five-state Gulf region.

Bubba Cochrane, of Galveston, Texas, is one of the fisherman participating in the program. "We take each fish off the hook individually, so we tag them when we gut the fish and then they go down below for the ride home," said Cochrane, who typically catches 10,000 pounds of red snapper per four-day trip.

Cochrane then manually enters the tag numbers on data sheets, where he also writes the time, date and GPS location where he caught the fish. The data sheets are logged in lots of 100 fish, and are then given to the fish buyer, who enters it into the Gulf Wild database so the individual number on each fish can be tracked.

A recent investigation by the Boston Globe reported that fish was mislabeled 48% of the time.  Consumer Reports also reported recently that red snapper is labeled correctly just 45% of the time.

The Gulf Wild system is being rolled out just as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced plans to ramp up its new DNA fish-testing program. Early next year, FDA regulators will take DNA samples from fish as presented for import and from domestic warehouse and distribution centers, processing the data at six field labs in a program to determine how the FDA can best focus its efforts to reduce seafood fraud.

"Mislabeling seafood is illegal, and in recent years we’ve ramped up our focus on that," said FDA spokesman Doug Karas, adding that the FDA's main priority is seafood safety. He said seafood mislabeling presents a safety concern to people who may have allergies to certain types of fish and mistakenly eat something labeled as something else.

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Photo: Red snapper, mackerel and rainbow trout on sale at a fish stand. Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times

'Snowtober' fits U.N. climate change predictions

While the Northeast is still reeling from a surprise October snowstorm that has left more than a million people without power for days, the United Nations is about to release its latest document on adaptation to climate change.

The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is expected conclude that there is a high probability that man-made greenhouse gases already are causing extreme weather that has cost governments, insurers, businesses and individuals billions of dollars. And it is certain to predict that costs due to extreme weather will rise and some areas of the world will become more perilous places to live.

Federal climate scientists have labeled 2011 as one of the worst in American history for extreme weather, with punishing blizzards, epic flooding, devastating drought and a heat wave that has broiled a huge swath of the country. Weather related losses amounted to more than $35 billion even before the Nor'easter shellacked the East Coast.

Among the more costly events in the U.S. this year was the flooding of the Mississippi River and tributaries due to rapid melting of the Rocky Mountain snowpack and early spring rains. That event, which prompted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to open a Mississippi River spillway and flood more than 4,000 acres in Louisiana, caused billion of dollars in direct damage.

April also spawned 875 tornado reports nationwide, well above the 30-year average for the month of 135. The "super outbreak," as climatologists dubbed it, killed 327 people.

Drought in Texas has caused more than $5.4 billion in damage to the cattle industry alone, driving up beef prices, while wildfires consumed 2 million acres. A heat wave throughout much of the country caused 29 states to issue heat advisories in July. Nationwide, the hot spell was blamed for scores of deaths.

The "Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation" will be released Nov. 18. It builds on the climate change panel's previous assessments of the Earth's climate, and is intended to help governments and policymakers boost preparedness for extreme weather events.

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Photo: Children in New Smithville, Pa., make the best of a freak fall snowstorm that cut power to more than 3 million people from Virginia to Maine. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

Target commits to 100% sustainable, traceable fish by 2015

The second largest discount retailer in the U.S. announced Thursday that it will sell only sustainable, traceable fish by 2015. Minneapolis-based Target Corp. operates 1,762 stores, many of which are converting to incorporate PFresh markets that sell fresh and frozen foods, including fish.

In 2010, Target stopped selling farmed salmon, Chilean sea bass and orange roughy due to various sustainability issues. It currently sells 50 different brands of fish certified by either the Marine Stewardship Council or the Global Aquaculture Alliance. 

"We thought this larger commitment to fully eliminate anything that's not certified by 2015 would be the right thing to do to encourage our guests to make the right decisions," said Shawn Gensch, vice president of marketing for Target's sustainability initiatives.

Target is partnering with the nonprofit marine conservation group FishWise to reach its sustainability goals. According to FishWise executive director Tobias Aguirre, the group will assess all Target seafood products with vendor surveys to understand how the seafood is caught or farmed and will evaluate the environmental impacts associated with each product.

Aguirre said the fish species with the largest such impacts include big eye tuna caught with 50-mile fishing lines that snag high levels of unintended catch, including sharks, turtles and sea birds, and farm-raised shrimp that may have contact with natural bodies of water and spread disease.

Tracing Target's fish from the water to the store is likely to be more difficult because "there is no national traceability policy and the seafood supply chains are incredibly complex," Aguirre said. Supplier audits and a tracking system are among the tools FishWise plans to implement in partnership with Target.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not currently have a seafood tracking database. Just 2% of the seafood eaten in the United States is inspected, according to a seafood fraud report issued earlier this year by the Washington, D.C.-based international ocean advocacy group, Oceana.

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Photo: A steak is cut from the tail of an Atlantic blue fin tuna. Credit: Sachi Cunningham / Los Angeles Times

Mattel drops paper company linked to Indonesia deforestation

It's official: Barbie has broken up with Asia Pulp and Paper.

Responding to a campaign by Greenpeace, toy giant Mattel, maker of the famed Barbie doll line, announced Wednesday that it will stop buying paper and packaging that the environmental group has linked to rain forest destruction in Indonesia.

The El Segundo company said it will tell suppliers to avoid wood fiber from companies “that are known to be involved in deforestation.” Among those companies, Greenpeace said in a statement, is Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) group. 

“The rain forests of Indonesia should be for species like the Sumatran tiger, not for throwaway toy packaging," Bustar Maitar, head of Greenpeace’s campaign to save the forests in Indonesia, said in the statement  "That’s why it is such good news that Mattel has developed a new paper buying policy."

The group urged Asia Pulp & Paper to follow in the path of its sister company, Golden Agri-Resources, which “has already committed to clean up its act and has won back lucrative contracts."

Greenpeace has pledged to push other companies, such as Disney and Hasbro, to take similar action to protect rain forests. 

Mattel's move comes after Greenpeace tested packaging from the company's toys, packaged in Indonesia, and found the cardboard contained significant amounts of timber from Indonesian rain forests. The group used Mattel's advertising campaign that featured a "reunion" between Barbie and Ken to draw attention to the packaging, sending an activist dressed as Ken and another as Barbie, who drove a pink skip loader to the company's corporate office in June. They hung a banner from the building that read: “Barbie: It’s Over. I don’t date girls that are into deforestation.”

Mattel’s new policy also includes safeguards against buying wood fiber from tree plantations established in areas where natural forests once stood, a practice that is driving deforestation, Greenpeace said.  

The toy maker also said it intends to increase the amount of recycled paper it uses, and to increase the use of wood products certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

"Mattel is committed to advancing the use of sustainably-sourced paper and wood fiber in our packaging and products," a statement on the company's website said. "Mattel will strive to implement these fundamental principles to guide our efforts and maximize, to the extent feasible, the use of post-consumer recycled content and sustainable fiber."

The company also said it will "maximize post-consumer recycled content where possible, while maintaining packaging and product integrity and compliance with applicable laws and regulations."

It pledged to use only fiber whose source is known and traceable, and which is harvested "in compliance with applicable laws and regulations" locally, nationally and internationally, and in accordance with "international guidelines and treaties to protect the rights of indigenous peoples."

The company said it will establish specific goals and report on its progress publicly.

[Updated, 11:38 a.m.: A statement from Asia Pulp & Paper said the company “applauds Mattel’s commitments to recycling, wood legality, protection of High Conservation Value Forest, respect for the rights of indigenous peoples and robust auditing and certification procedures." 

The company added that it "supports all credible industry certification, however, we strongly urge companies to not limit their procurement policies to one standard, in this case FSC, which discriminates against products from Indonesia and other developing markets. APP supports policies that protect both the environment and the vital income which developing countries receive from the pulp & paper industries.”]

[Updated, 11:55: Mattel spokesperson Jules Andres said the company this summer directed its suppliers "to not source paper and pulp from Asia Pulp & Paper. She said Mattel's new policy "directs our printers not to contract with controvesial sources," and that Mattel considers Asia Pulp & Paper "a controversial source."]

Indonesia has one of the fastest rates of forest destruction in the world. The Indonesian government estimates that nearly 2.5 million acres of rain forest is being lost every year, according to Greenpeace.  

Indonesia’s rain forest, the largest in the world after those in the Amazon and the Congo, is home to orangutans, tigers, elephants, clouded leopards and scores of other endangered plants and animals. In the last half-century, about 40% of the country’s forests have been cleared, mainly for palm oil plantations and pulp and paper operations.

Despite a partial moratorium announced last month, Indonesian government plans suggest, by some accounts, that nearly half of the remaining natural forest could be cut in the next two decades.

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Photo: Environmental activist Elise Nabor in a Barbie outfit, driving her "Barbiedozer" is stopped by an El Segundo police officer a half block away from the Mattel building in El Segundo, during a June protest. Credit: Mark Boster

Federal biofuel mandate flawed, report finds

A National Research Council report Tuesday said a federal requirement to add some 16 billion gallons of cellulose-based ethanol to the nation's fuel supply by 2022 won't be met unless innovative technologies are developed or policies changed.

The report also calls into question the ecologic and economic calculations behind Congress' backing of commodity-crop ethanol (mainly corn), particularly if production involves clearing land to grow crops dedicated to fuel.

In 2005, Congress enacted the Renewable Fuel Standard, as part of the Energy Policy Act and amended it in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act.

The amended standard, known as RSF2, mandated that by 2022 the consumption volume of the renewable fuels should consist of:

15 billion gallons of conventional biofuels, mainly corn-grain ethanol;

16 billion gallons of cellulosic biofuels produced from wood, grasses, or non-edible plant parts, such as from corn stalks and wheat straw.

4 billion gallons of advanced renewable biofuels, other than ethanol derived from cornstarch, that achieve a life-cycle greenhouse gas threshold of at least 50%.

1 billion gallons of biomass-based diesel fuel.

A lucky squirrel survives the La Brea Tar Pits

The California Wildlife Center in Malibu has cleaned up its share of birds rescued from oil spills. But last month, a goo-covered squirrel arrived, freshly plucked from the La Brea Tar Pits, the famous tomb of   prehistoric animals. 

The young female fox squirrel was rescued by staffers at the nearby Los Angeles County Museum of Art who saw her struggling in the pool of tar. She went under, managed to pop back to the surface and then was lifted out with a stick.

Once at the wildlife center, hospital manager Jo Joseph and animal care coordinator Christina Van Oosten attacked the black goop that coated the unrecognizable animal from head to claw tip. Their 90 minutes of scrubbing, first with mineral oil and then with a mixture of Dawn dish detergent and water, was recorded on video.

The center kept the squirrel for two weeks to make sure she didn't grow ill from her dunking and then released her on the tar pit grounds, presumably the wiser. 

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--Bettina Boxall

Photo: Replica of a prehistoric animal stuck in the tar pits. Credit: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

 

 

 

 

 

Texas wildfires: Is drought the new climate?

The litany of misery playing out in Texas is tough to watch but less difficult to predict.

Well before the contagion of wildfires was sparked this week, the state had been experiencing a weather catastrophe. Texas has seen its driest consecutive months since record-keeping began in 1895. Parts of the state have had no measurable rain in nearly a year. The drought, warn officials from the National Weather Service, may continue into next year.

A brutal heat wave has tormented residents, with some cities experiencing 100-plus degree weather for more than a month.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a GOP presidential candidate, scoffs at the notion of human-induced climate change, even suggesting recently on the campaign trail that scientists are manipulating data to make money. He also has declared a  weather-related state of emergency every month since December. Meanwhile, Texas' state climatologist has warned that his fellow citizens should get used to this new climate of extremes.

These horrible fires are driven by wind, to be sure, but are fueled by much more combustible decisions: fire-prone nonnative plants planted to benefit another nonnative -- cattle. Rampant urban incursions into wildlands, placing homes in danger. Private property owners' failure to manage the grasses and trees on their land. A budget-cutting policy that pared  most of the state's volunteer firefighters. 

Climate-watchers are reminding Perry that Texas' nightmare is a direct result of a political decision to ignore the reality of climate change, leaving the state unprepared for its devastating effects on public health, the livestock and agriculture industries, and, ultimately, the sustainability of life in the arid Southwest.

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--Julie Cart

twitter.com/LATenvironment

Photo: A nearly drained stock tank in West Texas. Credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times