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Life & Times Transcript
5/14/07 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- There's a vast reservoir of water under the San Gabriel Valley, but why is it going untapped? Gabriel Monares>> If the contamination isn't cleaned here in the San Gabriel Valley, it flows down into southeast Los Angeles and affects the water supply from cities ranging from Montebello all the way down to Long Beach. Val Zavala>> And then, should anyone's murder go unnoticed? One journalist is out to humanize the cold hard facts of homicide in Los Angeles. It's all straight ahead 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>> It's hard for us to imagine because we can't see it, but beneath the San Gabriel Valley is a huge underground water supply as big as Lake Tahoe. The only problem? A lot of it is contaminated and that's bad news for water rates or if a disaster should strike. Sam Louie has our story. Sam Louie>> Jennie Tang is a real estate agent in Arcadia. Like most southern Californians, she doesn't think much about the price of water. Jennie Tang>> I don't really measure by the gallon, but I do dishes probably two or three times a day even if I use a dishwasher. I have two boys, four and six, so it's hard to limit their water consumption and they love taking showers. So they'll sit there and take showers for ten, fifteen or twenty minutes if I'm not on top of them. Sam Louie>> But when water is scarce like it was during the drought a few years ago, things change, including water rates. Jennie Tang>> I would say it was a good twenty percent increase because it was so hot. You still have people that are washing their cars in the summer and, again, not being very aware of how much water they're using. Sam Louie>> What Jennie and most residents of the San Gabriel Valley don't know is that they're sitting on a huge underground water supply, or aquifer. Water from storms slams into the San Gabriel Mountains and seep into the valley's soil, but parts of this enormous aquifer are polluted with industrial solvents and rocket fuel from aerospace facilities during World War II. The EPA has declared the San Gabriel water basin a superfund site. Gabriel Monares>> We are the nation's largest superfund site and the number one superfund site. Our contamination spreads all the way from the Alhambra area out to Azusa, Baldwin Park, Whittier Narrows, South El Monte, El Monte. It pretty much touches every resident in the San Gabriel Valley. Sam Louie>> Not to worry. The water is treated thoroughly before it's piped into homes and businesses, but the challenge is how to clean up the polluted areas before disaster strikes. What kind of disaster? This kind. If an earthquake should strike along the San Andreas fault, aqueducts carrying water from the Colorado River, the Owens Valley and Sacramento Delta could be disrupted. Gabriel Monares>> We have the water that comes in through these vessels over here. It comes in through the top of the pipes and into these vessels. . . Sam Louie>> Gabriel Monares is Director of the San Gabriel Water Quality Authority. He says that the aquifer has enough water to last six months, but only for local residents. Gabriel Monares>> So in case of an earthquake, the San Gabriel Valley would be okay. It's the rest of the basin of Los Angeles County that would be in dire straits after six months when Diamond Valley Lake runs out of water. Where are they going to get their water if there is contamination here? Sam Louie>> Whether it's an earthquake, drought or other disaster, Monares is on a mission to get the polluted sections of the aquifer cleaned up. Gabriel Monares>> We feel that, if we are able to clean the San Gabriel basin which holds as much water as Lake Tahoe, we could use this as an emergency storage facility that would help us meet the needs of the greater Los Angeles area in case of an earthquake. Sam Louie>> But purging toxins from underground water is no simple task. To do it, you need plenty of these. Gabriel Monares>> That water goes through a couple of treatment trains. One is an . . . Sam Louie>> Pollutants have taken nearly fifty years to seep deep into the soil. Gabriel Monares>> The only people who were told to dump it back then is they were told to dig giant pits, dump the chemicals in there and that they would eventually evaporate. Nobody realized that those chemicals actually seep down into the groundwater table over time and contaminate the local drinking supply. Sam Louie>> The biggest challenge is not the technology, but finding the money to pay for more treatment plants. Ron Merry>> All of the facilities that we've had to build are very, very expensive. The facility for the perchlorate alone, capital costs were close to four million dollars. Sam Louie>> Ron Merry is Director of Public Works for the city of Monterey Park. He says that the underground contaminants are always changing and migrating, so it's hard to tell what will turn up where. Ron Merry>> There are more pollutants out there. We don't know if and when they're going to hit us and, if they do, then, of course, those are very expensive plants to build. Sam Louie>> Water officials have succeeded in getting six hundred million dollars mainly from the federal government and the polluters. But to finish the job and maintain the facilities, they'll need another five hundred twenty million dollars. Ron Merry>> People should be aware that this is an ongoing problem and it's going to be with us for twenty to thirty years. It's a very costly venture. Sam Louie>> If the state doesn't pitch in, there's only one other revenue source: rate payers. Gabriel Monares>> If we don't have the funding to treat these facilities, our options are to triple water rates to meet the cost or it's to shut down these facilities and import water. Sam Louie>> So how does Jennie Tang feel about that? Jennie Tang>> As a homeowner, you know, when an item in your household budget triples, it really makes you kind of have to look at areas you need to scale back. Sam Louie>> Back in 1998, water users in Monterey Park were almost hit with a major rate hike. The city discovered rocket fuel known as perchlorate and had to come up with millions to build an emergency treatment facility. Ron Merry>> About the only thing we can do is pass the costs on to the rate payers. There's no place else to go. Sam Louie>> Fortunately for consumers, the San Gabriel Water Quality Authority stepped in with the money. Gabriel Monares>> Our agency came in with fourteen million dollars and built an emergency treatment facility. That facility allowed them to continue to provide water to the residents. If we hadn't done that, their water rates probably would have doubled or tripled. Ron Merry>> If we had to do it on our own, building these treatment plants out of our operating budget would have necessitated a significant rate increase. Sam Louie>> But now water officials say that another deadline is fast approaching. Gabriel Monares>> In two years, we're going to run out of funding to be able to continue the cleanup. It's tantamount to having a brand new car, but having no gas money. Sam Louie>> If the Water Quality Authority can't raise the five hundred twenty million dollars, nearly a million and a half water users in the San Gabriel Valley could be facing bigger water bills. Jennie Tang>> I had no idea that, you know, it was that complicated. I just wonder who's there to advocate for the consumer and what I can do as a homeowner. Ron Merry>> They can let their legislators know that they're concerned about this problem and it needs to be addressed. Sam Louie>> Water officials are working to get the state to establish a special fund to clean up the aquifer's hot spots. They say that the state hasn't contributed anything since 1999. Without the cleanup, San Gabriel Valley's water woes could flow into Los Angeles County. Gabriel Monares>> If the contamination isn't cleaned here in the San Gabriel Valley, it flows down into southeast Los Angeles and affects the water supply from cities ranging from Montebello all the way down to Long Beach. So you're talking about a basin there that provides drinking water for 3.4 million people. Sam Louie>> And that's something that no one would want to swallow. I'm Sam Louie 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>> There are more than a thousand murders in Los Angeles County every year, but did you realize that ninety percent of them never even get reported in the paper? Well, that bothered one Los Angeles Times reporter who decided to do something about it. Her name is Jill Leovy and she started a Homicide Blog. Vicki Curry talked with Jill outside a police station in Watts. Vicki Curry>> Jill Leovy, you've been a crime reporter with the Los Angeles Times for several years. Why did you decide to start this blog about homicide? Jill Leovy>> Well, space in the newspaper is limited by how much paper there is and how much space. Los Angeles County has eleven to twelve hundred homicides a year. There's no way to cover them all in the paper and the paper typically covers maybe ten percent of them, which means that ninety percent of the homicides are not being reported by the newspaper. If you cover ten percent of the homicides, you're almost inevitably going to create a distorted picture of homicide. You certainly aren't going to convey the statistical nature of homicide to the readers. That's one of the purposes of the site. It's not just to be a list of names, but to give people a fuller picture of what homicide looks like on a statistical level. Vicki Curry>> So much of the crimes that we hear about, they get a lot of major media coverage and are actually not typical. They don't represent what's normal in terms of homicides in our area? Jill Leovy>> Yeah. A lot of homicide is a non-story. It's not a traditional news story in that the events are very like each other, at least viewed distantly not in their personal details. In their circumstantial details, they're very similar. But the issue, you know, is a statistical issue. Our problem in America is that our homicide rate is inordinately high for a first-world country. It is the rate per hundred thousand per year that we should all be thinking about in this country. Vicki Curry>> What are those homicide rates? The national average is between five to six homicides a year per one hundred thousand people. In Los Angeles, both the city and the county, the average is between eleven and thirteen deaths a year. Jill Leovy>> If we were in almost any European country, it would be one or even below one per hundred thousand a year. So that gives you a sense of the level. We're in a precinct area right now where I've done a lot of work southeast. This is the Watts area of Los Angeles. It's the poorest in terms of median income of all the nineteen LAPD precincts and there are about seventy homicides a year here. That translates to a homicide rate of about four to five per hundred thousand per year. So that helps you put into perspective. If it's five nationally, you've got seven times the homicide rate here in this small area. So that's something very important to see about homicide and I'm gratified to see that the website seems to show this, the way homicide is highly concentrated. Many, many people live in this country with no experience of homicide whatsoever, and some people are drowning in it. That's something that is, again, hard to convey journalistically. Vicki Curry>> So what kinds of things are you including on the blog? Jill Leovy>> Well, the backbone of it is just a list of names. It's just the people who die, anyone who's killed by the hand of another. In Los Angeles County, that means I put the police shootings on there too. If you died by human means, you make the Homicide Report. I try to include the most basic information that I can get out of the police or the coroner, the where, when it happened, who it was, age, gender, ethnic background. Beyond that, I try to add whatever information I can glean from just gumshoe reporting like what I'm doing here today, which is talking to detectives, going out and meeting families if I can, that adds to sort of the story of what happened. I'm also doing little entries about homicide issues and things like that to the extent that I can. Vicki Curry>> And have the law enforcement agencies been pretty receptive to helping you? Jill Leovy>> Yeah, to varying degrees. But mostly, they've been helpful. There's an understanding certainly for detectives that the press has been ignoring these homicides and there's something wrong with that. I'm gratified that so many sort of see the point of at least mentioning somewhere that these people have been killed. I've gotten actually a couple of nice emails from a trauma doctor in one case and a paramedic in another who said to me, "Finally. I see this all the time. I see it every day. At last, I see that it's represented somewhere in the press." So you do get some of that reaction. Vicki Curry>> You choose to include race in the information that you put out there. Is that because of the statistics involving the different ethnic groups? Jill Leovy>> Yeah. You know, I've gotten lots and lots of emails on that and it takes a little bit of a steady nerve because I get some very ugly emails about that. The racial differences in a homicide victimization are stark. They're astounding. The degree to which certain people in this society are vulnerable and unprotected when it comes to homicide is something that we should all be thinking about and looking at. The rate particularly for African Americans is vastly higher than for anybody else, even for Latinos in Los Angeles. If rates were the same across the board, I think maybe you could argue for a colorblind approach. Vicki Curry>> The homicide rate for young men of color in Los Angeles County is particularly high. Between 1991 and 2002, Latino men ages twenty to twenty-four were five times more likely to die than white men the same age. And black men were sixteen times more likely. Jill Leovy>> And the rate for young blacks in Los Angeles County was in the two hundreds. Again, think about those numbers I just gave you. Five per hundred thousand overall, thirteen as a mass here in Los Angeles County. So you have one group of people with a rate of in the two hundred deaths per hundred thousand per year, so that's a level of suffering that's off the charts compared to everyone else, and you have to say that as a journalist. It's amazing how non-public these events are even though they're very, very catastrophic. Vicki Curry>> Jill Leovy of the Los Angeles Times Homicide Report, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us. Jill Leovy>> Thank you. 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. Val Zavala>> He is a world-renowned artist at the top of his field. His name is Robert Graham and, unlike other artists who experimented with abstract forms or conceptual art, Graham stayed true to his first love: the human form. For more than forty years, he has mastered human anatomy in all its exquisite details. I got a chance to talk to Robert Graham as an extensive exhibition of his work opened at the Ace Gallery in Beverly Hills. It is called "The Female Form". [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> From metaphysical to physical, from massive to miniature, from public monuments to personal portraits. Artist Robert Graham is fascinated with the human body. Robert Graham>> The human body has got everything in it. It's got everything that I am interested in and, without making a list which is pretty impossible, it's infinite and it's wonder and magic and, you know, that's enough for me. Val Zavala>> It is the female form that is the focus of this exhibit, a collection of more than fifty pieces, some of them never seen publicly before. He does not consider them statues, but rather three-dimensional portraits, each capturing the uniqueness of the models, Lise, Heather, Klara and Elisa. Robert Graham>> It's really easy to say that they're all nudes and they're doing this and that, but what is important to me is that they're all portraits. They're all portraits of that person and they happen to be nude. Val Zavala>> This is the most complete exhibition of Graham's work to date, but to see a more complete portrait of the artist, you have to go to public places like the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. An angel haloed by the sky floats above doors twenty feet high weighing ten tons. Forty squares contain symbols of Christianity and ancient cultures. It took Graham five years and a team of two hundred to bring it to fruition. Robert Graham>> All their names are on the doors. It's something that, you know, every one of them at every level made it happen. Val Zavala>> Graham's work is seen in cities across the United States. In Detroit, a bold right arm hangs in tribute to prize fighter, Joe Lewis. In New York, jazz great Duke Ellington is surrounded by nine muses. In San Jose, the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl anchors Cesar Chavez Plaza. And in numerous Los Angeles locations, Graham's work lends a silent nobility to the sites. Robert Graham Pena was born in Mexico City. His father died when he was six. He remembers his grandmother taking him to see the spectacular monuments, cathedrals and murals of Mexico City. When he was eleven, his family moved to San Jose. Robert Graham>> This room has got some drawings that I did of my model Klara. Val Zavala>> His talent for drawing was apparent as a child. He went on to study art in San Francisco and it was not long before his sculptures were winning attention. In the early 1970's, Graham moved to Venice where he still works and lives today. His earliest pieces in the exhibition are from the 1970's, miniature nudes carved in wax or figures placed in relation to a mirror. Robert Graham>> The mirrors are in equal distance to the two figures to create a third figure in the middle and that was something that I've been using for a long time in terms of mirror images. Like the angels are complete mirror images. Well, the angels were first intended to be on the doors of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. By herself on the tympanum was enough. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> It was in 1984 that Robert Graham burst onto the public consciousness with the unveiling of the Olympic Gateway, a portal to the Los Angeles Coliseum. Mayor Tom Bradley>> "So it's an indication that our culture is very much alive in Los Angeles. We're proud of the contribution which Graham has made to that." Val Zavala>> But it's hard to be the force behind so much public art without also being a target. In Detroit, the twenty-four foot long arm was viewed by some whites as a symbol of black power more than a tribute to Joe Lewis. In San Jose, the plumed serpent was viewed by some as un-Christian. Reporter>> "The plumed serpent Quetzalcoatl has caused quite a stir. Some Christian fundamentalists claim the statue represents demonic forces." Reporter>> "A federal judge has already ruled this statue is a work of art, not a religious object." Reporter>> "Now can you say something about your work?" Robert Graham>> "It's too emotional. Let someone else talk about it." Val Zavala>> But over time, controversies fade and art endures. Robert Graham>> The authorship of the artist is not important in that sense because nobody really cares who made these things as long as they work. It doesn't mean that I don't have an ego (laughter). I have a big one. You know, it's just that that's not what's going to last. Val Zavala>> In the early 1980's, Graham tried something completely different. He designed a home for his friends and patrons, the Doumani's. It was featured in Architectural Digest. Despite the acclaims, he returned to his first love: the human figure. Graham knew that art could change lives and, after the Los Angeles riots of 1992, he hired eight former gang members as apprentices, teaching them the difficult process of casting in bronze. They made three thousand torsos and raised more than seven hundred thousand dollars for arts education. Robert Graham>> And these all have names. You can see on the walls who they are and, again, very specific portraits. Val Zavala>> In the center of this gallery is a bronze of Robert Graham's wife, actress Anjelica Huston. Graham's exploration of the human figure continues to evolve. In the exhibition, he displays not only sculpture, but drawings, videos and photographs. Robert Graham>> I did the series of like all these dancing things. These are part of kind of trying to see things that were influenced by the photographs that I was taking, the way the flesh moves, you know, as you're spinning around. There's nothing static on it. You can see like that is not any more real than that. Val Zavala>> Graham is often short on words even when he's receiving one of many awards and honors. Robert Graham>> "I'm very honored by this. Thank you very much." Val Zavala>> But then words are not Robert Graham's currency. He is an artist whose medium is metal and his message is strength and beauty. To see more of Robert Graham's work, check out is website at robertgrahamartist.com. 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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