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Life & Times Transcript

03/29/06

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

The idea of turning seawater into drinking water is nothing new, so why is Huntington Beach bringing it up again?

Debbie Cook>> This really is just about water for new growth and not for northern Orange County.

Billy Owens>> We think that it's an incorrect assumption that we're inducing growth.

Val Zavala>> And then, they have exotic names like Coral Bells and Wooley Blue Curls, but these plants are Californians through and through. We'll take you to a place that grows nothing but natives.

These stories and more next on tonight's Life and Times.

Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val Zavala>> The city of Huntington Beach has approved a water desalination plant. It would be the biggest one in the United States. But it's also created waves of opposition, especially from people who say that the city doesn't even need the extra water. So why are they moving forward? Orange County reporter, Roger Cooper, has the story.

Roger Cooper>> Huntington Beach is known far and wide for its long beautiful beaches, but lately it's getting known for its long City Council meetings. What kind of issue could keep the council in session until 3:30 in the morning? The debate here in Huntington Beach has been over whether to tap one of the city's greatest resources. That resource is inexhaustible. It's the Pacific Ocean itself.

A small private company has been trying to convince Huntington Beach to let it take water from the ocean and turn it into drinking water. Poseidon Resources wants to use a site beside the electric power plant on PCH to build the largest desalinization plant in the United States.

Billy Owens>> It's a desalination plant. In this case, it's taking seawater and removing the salt and creating drinking water.

Roger Cooper>> Poseidon executive, Billy Owens, says desalination will help ensure there's enough water for the future.

Billy Owens>> And for every two gallons of water from the ocean, you get one gallon of drinking water and one gallon of seawater going back.

Roger Cooper>> The two hundred fifty million dollar plant would remove enough salt from seawater to produce fifty million gallons of drinking water a day or about eight percent of the water needs in Orange County. That is, if it's built. Because not everyone in town thinks a desalination plant is needed or good for the environment.

Gus Mau>> "So far, this company and the current desal design that it wants to build have never flown, never gotten off the ground. Please vote no on the CUP. Thank you."

Gil Coerper>> "It's not going to cost the taxpayers any money. This is the reason why I say I need to support this. I've had people say that, if you support it, I'm going to recall you. I've had other people say, if you vote for it, I'm going to recall you. You know something? I really don't care. I'm looking out for the future."

Roger Cooper>> After six and a half hours of intense debate, the desalination plant cleared a major hurdle that night. By a narrow vote of four to three, the City Council granted Poseidon a permit to build it.

[Film Clip]

Roger Cooper>> But Poseidon will still need to get permits from numerous agencies, including the Coastal Commission. Mayor Dave Sullivan voted against the desal plant and says the fight will go on.

Mayor Dave Sullivan>> The staff of the Coastal Commission seems to be opposed to this project, so it's far from a done deal.

Roger Cooper>> Backers of the desal plant argue that it will reduce dependence on imported water from the Colorado River in northern California.

Billy Owens>> We think the greatest benefit is that desalination really offers a drought-proof source of supply and, given its location within the city, it's a very local supply. So it adds an additional insurance policy to the area if there are any shortages.

Roger Cooper>> But Mayor Sullivan says Huntington Beach has plenty of water for the foreseeable future.

Mayor Dave Sullivan>> Our local area water district has recently determined, in their twenty year plan, that we do not have problems for the next twenty years. Therefore, to me, this is not urgent right now.

Roger Cooper>> Poseidon wants to locate its desal plant next to the generating station so it can tap into the same pipes that already bring in ocean water to cool the generators. That seawater would be pushed through membranes using the process called reverse osmosis, producing drinkable water on one side and concentrated saltwater on the other. The concentrated saltwater, or brine, would be returned to the ocean and the company says would not hurt ocean organisms.

Billy Owens>> One of the values of collocating is that we're mixing with a large volume of water going out, so the concentrated seawater is diluted further. So by the time it gets back to the ocean, it's well within limits so that there's no harm done to the marine life or to the ocean environment.

Roger Cooper>> But City Council member, Debbie Cook, who served on the State Desalination Task Force, still has major environmental concerns about what the intake pipe does to ocean life.

Debbie Cook>> On the State Desal Task Force, brine wasn't as much of an issue as the intake, the impingement and entrainment of the marine life, and it's huge. Along the west coast, there are over sixteen billion gallons a day of ocean water that are sucked in to cool power plants and that kills an incredible amount of marine life.

Roger Cooper>> Poseidon says the time to turn to desal plants is now because the technology is advanced and the cost is dropping.

Billy Owens>> We're not trying to compete with imported water. The way we look at this, this is water on the margin. There's an increasing demand for water long-term. The analysis done by the various water agencies in southern California indicate there is going to be an increasing demand for water supplies and they're doing all they can for a variety of means, including endorsing and pushing desalination.

Roger Cooper>> But Council member Cook doesn't agree that it will be affordable. She warns that rising natural gas and electricity costs could make desalinated water prohibitively expensive.

Debbie Cook>> I have a lot of reasons I'm opposed to it, but probably the primary reason is because of the energy component of ocean desalination. It's not all desal. It's just the saltwater desalination. It uses an incredible amount of energy as opposed to some of the other water sources that we have like imported water or groundwater.

Roger Cooper>> In fact, groundwater is the cheapest source at about two hundred fifty dollars an acre foot. Next is imported water at about five hundred dollars. The desalinated water can cost almost twice that, approaching a thousand dollars. And there are many other issues surrounding this desal debate in Huntington Beach. Will its location prolong the life of a power plant some wish could be phased out? Should the public's ocean be used for a private company's profit? And will the water produced help Huntington Beach or go to promote development in South County?

Debbie Cook>> It really is just about water for new growth and not for northern Orange County.

Billy Owens>> We think that it's an incorrect assumption that we're inducing growth.

Roger Cooper>> And there's the question of the desalination plant that Poseidon designed in Tampa Bay, Florida, a plant that still isn't working right.

Mayor Dave Sullivan>> And, unfortunately, Poseidon really has not completed a desalination plant. Just as if I were or any of us were doing a new kitchen in our house, our first question to the contractor would be, "What is your experience?" So this was a real concern for me, their lack of experience.

Roger Cooper>> Poseidon maintains the Tampa Bay plant's problems developed after Poseidon was out of the picture.

Billy Owens>> Halfway through the process, the project was purchased from us by the water agency at their request, not ours.

Roger Cooper>> As for the Huntington Beach plant, Debbie Cook believes the emphasis should not be on an expensive new water source, but rather on conservation.

Debbie Cook>> Because our state is at a critical juncture right now with production of electricity and the transporting, cleaning, disinfecting, disposing of water consumes twenty percent of the state's electricity.

Roger Cooper>> But Poseidon executives come back to the basic question: will there be enough water in the years ahead?

Billy Owens>> If you look out here at the Pacific Ocean, this is the largest unused reservoir that we have in California and it has great potential not only to drought-proof the coastline areas, but also to provide a diverse supply.

Roger Cooper>> The permit process will stretch into the summer. If all approvals are granted, it would be 2009 before the first desalinated water comes out of the tap. In the meantime, Huntington Beach is still deciding whether Surf City will also be known as Desal City. In Huntington Beach, I'm Roger Cooper for Life and Times.

Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".

Val Zavala>> If your child came home from school with Cs and Ds on his or her report card, you'd be pretty concerned. Well, for the past three years, the United Way has studied the huge Latino population in Los Angeles County and they've come up with a score card. The 2006 Latino score card looks at how Latinos are doing in five major areas.

In health, they got a C due mainly due to lack of insurance. In education, a D because of low test scores and college enrollment. Economic development got a D linked to high rates of poverty. Housing got a D due to low home ownership rates. And for public safety, a C+ because more than half of Latinos are victims of crime. Elise Buik is President and CEO of the United Way. She says there are some positive developments compared to previous years.

Elise Buik>> There have, and I think what's important to note as we look at these areas is change in tough areas like education and economic development which relates to poverty. It takes time to change those. We recently talked to the Secretary of Education for the state and he said that education forms in a fifteen year cycle, so they need to just recognize --

Val Zavala>> -- fifteen years?

Elise Buik>> Fifteen years. You know, change cycles take time. But to your point, we do see progress and we do want to highlight those. The public safety grade actually came up and youth violence is down fifty percent. Crime overall is trending downward. It's interesting because, you know, public safety and crime come up as top issues for folks, but we've actually seen a downward trend in crime, so that's good news.

The other positive statistic we saw is that Latino students at the fourth grade levels of reading and math are now scoring higher than the national average, so we're starting to see some progress. We're hopeful that the investments in early childhood learning and some of those efforts are starting to pay off and also creating small learning communities. You know, those are small upticks in progress that we hope will eventually translate into the graduation rate.

Then just very vibrant workforce in the Latino community. Latino males have the highest labor force participation of any ethnic group at seventy-eight percent. You know, when we've seen other cities kind of be hurt by economic impacts because we have that small mid-size business infrastructure, we have not seen any of those in Los Angeles as much.

Val Zavala>> It seems, however, that when it comes to the Latino issues, the major issue in the news is often about illegal immigration. We've got, you know, the Minutemen, Costa Mesa, all these groups that are rallied around the illegal immigration issue. But that doesn't seem to be a big part of this.

Elise Buik>> That dialogue can distract us from all of the hardworking Latinos that are here that are contributing. I think you're going to talk to Dr. Bautista. He'll tell you a little bit more, but ninety-four percent of the students in LAUSD are citizens here.

Val Zavala>> People don't realize that. Say that again. Ninety-four percent of the seven hundred twenty thousand students in the LAUSD are United States citizens, yet people, I think, would guess, no, there are many more illegals there than that.

Elise Buik>> Well, actually what we're seeing is that immigration is starting to decline. There was the big boom in the eighties through the nineties and now it's starting to go the other way. But, you know, we see that, as people are here longer, especially the children of folks that are here, their income levels rise, they are fluent in English, they get citizenship.

I think what's important is that these issues are interrelated. We can't talk about economic development and jobs without talking about the workforce that's, you know, going to take those jobs. There's been a lot of emphasis right now on kind of a resource shortage as we start to see the baby boomers retire and what kind of skill sets are coming out of our public schools.

You know, I think that's another critical component for people to understand is that there is an interconnectedness to those issues of, you know, people have a good education, good jobs, a safe place to live. It affects the safety of the neighborhood. It affects health factors. So we can't look at these in a silo. You know, I'm excited that there's been a lot more collaborative efforts in terms of how we do make change across all these areas and get us focused on productive conversation about how we can create a great community here for everyone.

Val Zavala>> Elise Buik, thank you so much and thank you for your optimism.

Elise Buik>> Thank you, Val.

Val Zavala>> If you'd like to see the full report, you can go to unitedwayla.org.

Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

Life and Times
4401 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Hena Cuevas>> We've heard the stories of how polluted the Los Angeles River is and efforts to clean it up, but just how dirty is the water flowing through Los Angeles? Well, one reporter at the Los Angeles Times has wanted to know, so he decided to conduct a very unique experiment, asking the question of just how long could two goldfish survive living in Los Angeles River water?

Steve Hymon>> There are some people who think it's quite possibly the stupidest single thing they've ever seen in the Los Angeles Times and then there are other people who think it's very interesting.

Hena Cuevas>> The reporter behind the goldfish experiment is Steve Hymon who covers the City Council for the Times. There's even a fish cam on the newspaper's website that allows readers to monitor their progress. It asks the question: can two goldfish survive in Los Angeles River water?

Steve Hymon>> (Laughter) You know, they've done all right. One of them has become a little discolored and we think, you know, he caught something or it's a result of being in an aquarium. Maybe it's a result of living in the Los Angeles River water, but we're not sure.

Hena Cuevas>> Hymon got the idea after he was asked to do yet another story about the efforts to restore the Los Angeles River, those thirty-two miles of concrete that drain water out of the city as quickly as possible when it rains. The problem is, after a storm, the river looks more like a garbage dump with tires, shopping carts, motor oil and pesticides. Could anything survive in that? Hymon decided to put the goldfish to the test.

Steve Hymon>> And when I bought them, the guy who sold them to me was like, "They're going to die." He was laughing and then he sold me a little more stuff, you know, that he thought would keep them alive for a few months.

Hena Cuevas>> Appropriately, the fish were named Little Ed after Councilman Ed Reyes, a big proponent for river restoration, and Little Antonio for who else? Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Steve Hymon>> When we scooped the water out of the river that day, I turned to the guy I was with, the City Hall staffer, and held up the pitcher. I was like, "Huh, it looks like a bottle of water." You know, I expected it to be slimy green or sort of glowing, you know, like it came from a nuclear plant. It wasn't. It just looked like water.

Hena Cuevas>> Hymon took the water from the section near Taylor Yards, an old railroad facility. That area is unlined with a natural river bottom and lots of vegetation.

Steve Hymon>> It's probably not the cleanest water in the world. During the dry months, it's probably not the filthiest water either.

Hena Cuevas>> So on March 6, Little Ed and Little Antonio moved into their new home for what Hymon called a three-day experiment. A week later, his story ran and, much to his surprise, the fish were still alive.

Steve Hymon>> If they would have croaked, then I think you have to ask yourself, "Wow, maybe if even a couple of hardy goldfish can't live in it, what possibly can?"

Hena Cuevas>> Once a week, the water is replaced with fresh river water and staffers take turns feeding them. They will stay on line until the end of March and then move to City Hall. Updates, of course, will be available on the Times website. So once either one of them dies, people will know?

Steve Hymon>> Well, we'll let them know and I'm sure they'll let me know what they think of that.

Hena Cuevas>> He's had his critics, animal lovers who feel the experiment is cruel, but Hymon is quick to point out that the goldfish are feeders sold at the pet store as food for bigger fish.

Steve Hymon>> I think this experiment, however unscientific it may be, sort of poses the question that, if something non-native but known to be pretty sturdy can't survive, do we really have a shot at some of the other things like steelhead trout?

Hena Cuevas>> That experiment on the trout might have to wait, but for now, goldfish are showing there may still be hope for the Los Angeles River. I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> We all know that you can grow almost any kind of plant in Southern California, but the bad thing is we often forget about the hundreds of species of native plants that do so well here. Well, we found a nursery tucked away in Sun Valley that offers nothing but native plants. Now how many acres have you got here?

Holly Wagner>> Well, we have about twenty, a little over twenty acres.

Val Zavala>> Twenty acres. The Theodore Payne Foundation Nursery has been cultivating and selling California native plants for thirty years. Holly Wagner is its manager. Any idea how many plants you've got? How many different kinds of plants?

Holly Wagner>> It varies, but probably between six hundred and eight hundred.

Val Zavala>> Six hundred and eight hundred different native species?

Holly Wagner>> Yeah, yeah.

Val Zavala>> Wow. So what are these, Holly?

Holly Wagner>> These are Yellow-Eyed Grass. And these, even though it looks like a grass, it's actually an iris and it has a beautiful yellow bloom to it and they're just prolific. Here they are sitting in a pot and they look a little innocuous, but they do spread which we always like in a native.

Val Zavala>> It looks like grass.

Holly Wagner>> It looks just like grass, but it's much flatter than a grass. I like native plants because you can just put them in and pretend that, you know, your garden, you can just walk through it every day and just ignore it.

Val Zavala>> These are great. Look at that. What are these called?

Holly Wagner>> Wooley Blue Curls.

Val Zavala>> Wooley Blue Curls. Again, what conditions would they grow under?

Holly Wagner>> These actually I've seen on very dry, very hot slopes.

Val Zavala>> Really?

Holly Wagner>> Yes.

Val Zavala>> Because they're deep green. They've got these great blossoms.

Holly Wagner>> They're very deep green, yeah. These are some of the ones that you have to sit there and slit the pot and slit off the bottom and stick them in.

Val Zavala>> Oh, in terms of getting them established?

Holly Wagner>> Getting them established.

Val Zavala>> That's a great trick when you don't want to disturb the roots, right?

Holly Wagner>> Right. You do not want to disturb the roots on these guys.

Val Zavala>> So you just cut this off.

Holly Wagner>> Cut that off.

Val Zavala>> Slit it here and then place the whole pot in.

Holly Wagner>> Right.

Val Zavala>> And then you take the pot out eventually?

Holly Wagner>> Yeah, in a year or so after. You see, by that time, the roots have gone all down there and it's well established.

Val Zavala>> And then you just --

Holly Wagner>> And then you take that off, right.

Val Zavala>> And what is this called here?

Holly Wagner>> This is the Desert Marigold and it is absolutely gorgeous. It's actually even more gorgeous out in the field, but it's really gorgeous even in a pot. One of the things about almost all California natives is that, if you fertilize them or if you do soil amendments or all those things that you do to your lawn or other plants, they really don't do very well. And definitely pesticides, for the most part, you don't need them. Now we have problems with rabbits and I shouldn't say this, but rabbit stew isn't bad (laughter).

Val Zavala>> Now what's the main advantage to native plants?

Holly Wagner>> Okay, first of all, you can pat yourself on the back (laughter).

Val Zavala>> Yeah. Ecologically?

Holly Wagner>> Ecologically, you can pat yourself on the back, but there are lots of other things, one of which is most of them save water, okay?

Val Zavala>> So very little water needed.

Holly Wagner>> Very little water needed for most of them.

Val Zavala>> Cut your water bills down.

Holly Wagner>> Cut your water bills down. The other thing is, which I think is really important, because it's Southern California. There are two parts of that, one of which is that insects and so on that are accustomed to feeding on these that can't feed on the non-natives will be there and guess who eats them? The birds. So you can have many more birds and also just animals. Little teeny lizards and, who knows, if you're close enough to an arroyo, frogs. I mean, there are all sorts of things that will end up in your yard because you have natives.

Val Zavala>> Oh, so not just plants, but insects, birds.

Holly Wagner>> Right. And it's called like having a backyard habitat and actually you can get certified for that.

Val Zavala>> Wow.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> This is not just a front yard garden. It's a certified habitat created with native California plants by the Gillilands in Tujunga. That's where I met John Wickham, Chairman of the Board of the Theodore Payne Foundation.

John Wickham>> Theodore Payne came to the United States in 1893 from England and he came pretty much directly to Los Angeles and started working in the agricultural field. He was a trained seedsman and plantsman. As a high school student, he did a project where he went around the neighborhood and collected plant examples and he put them together in a project and he won first prize. In 1903, he opened his first nursery in downtown Los Angeles and that was the start of a sixty-year career in the nursery business in California and particularly with native plants.

Theodore wanted to retire and he had been looking for somebody to take over his nursery. People really wanted to make sure that his services continued and native plants were available, so they started a nonprofit organization. A group of horticulturists in the Los Angeles area came together and they formed the Payne Foundation. Forty-five years later, we have the Theodore Payne Foundation. We have a nursery that sells California native plants, as well as a wide variety of seeds so you can get wildflower seeds of all sorts.

Val Zavala>> So all these are for sale?

Holly Wagner>> All these are for sale. We have the ones over on the right which are for the shade, but this is a dry shade. A lot of our other shade gardeners may be wet shade, but these -- and there are a lot of irises in here. I'm not even sure -- the Coral Bells. That's the other name. We have a lot of Coral Bells in here, lots of different kinds of Coral Bells. I hate to say this, but in every color of Coral Bells and in every shape of leaf of Coral Bells you could ever want.

Val Zavala>> The variety is unbelievable.

Holly Wagner>> The variety is absolutely incredible.

Val Zavala>> And what are these really charming little orange-red flowers?

Holly Wagner>> These are called Monkey Flowers. I love Monkey Flowers. They come in lots of different colors. Actually, they don't come in the blues. They come in the range of orange, blue, pink -- not blue, excuse me -- orange, red, white, cream, and they're wonderful. But these also, if you give them too much water, they really don't like it at all, so you have to have good drainage.

Val Zavala>> Now what's the hardest thing about convincing people to convert to native plants?

Holly Wagner>> Some of the difficulties they may have heard from other people. A lot of developers apparently have put in native plants and then they've had terrible problems with them dying and so on. They may not be choosing the correct plants for the right spot and also their maintenance in terms of how they're watering it may not be correct. If you put it on a southwest face and you plant it in the summer, it's not going to do well, but sometimes the job calls for that. You can do that with non-natives, but with natives, there are just some things you can't do.

John Wickham>> It would be extraordinary if one or two or three percent or five percent of our landscape was returned over to native flora just in honoring our heritage as Californians. This is an incredible place for plants, for native plants. One of the richest floras in the world, and it's ours.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> This Saturday and Sunday, April 1 and 2, the Theodore Payne Foundation is having its annual native plants garden tour. For more information, you can go to their website at theodorepayne.org. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Sponsored in part by:


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