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Life & Times Transcript
8/8/07 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- They patrol the rubble after a disaster, but who makes sure there are enough rescue dogs to answer the call? Wilma Melville>> It is a fascinating thing to see in an unwanted animal that is in danger of being euthanized within a few days, to see that dog turn into a wonderful, highly-trained animal. Val Zavala>> And then, it has an other-worldly feel, but did E.T. provide the plans? We pay a visit to the Integratron. 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>> Whenever there's an earthquake, an explosion or other disaster, there's no better way to find human survivors in rubble than the use of search and rescue dogs and yet we have only about half of the number of these dogs that we could use, and why is that? Well, as Hena Cuevas tells us, producing these remarkable animals is an art, a science and a commitment. Hena Cuevas>> They were called to service in New York looking for survivors on September 11. They were in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. And most recently, they were in Minneapolis after a highway bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River. They're search and rescue dogs critical to finding survivors in the aftermath of a disaster. [Film Clip] Hena Cuevas>> When it comes to the sense of smell, few animals can beat the power of a dog's nose. But despite their proven value, there's a serious shortage of search and rescue dogs. That's where this training center in Ventura County comes in. Marc Valentine>> "All right, let's hook her up and take her back." Hena Cuevas>> This is the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation based in Ojai. Today Fire Captain Marc Valentine is helping to train other handlers. Marc Valentine>> "If he goes across and nails it in the middle, he's got a whole south end of the pile that you've got to now direct him with the wind at his back." Hena Cuevas>> He and his dog, Val, short for Vallejo, have been together for almost eight years. Marc Valentine>> My dog is my best friend. He's my confidante, my work companion, but he also is a tool. Hena Cuevas>> A tool that gets sharpened here, so to speak. The Foundation trains more search and rescue dogs than any other facility in the country. Wilma Melville>> "Now I'm going to be very directive with you. I'm going to tell you step by step." Hena Cuevas>> The driving force behind the center is not who you'd expect. She's a seventy-three year old retired school teacher from Ojai. Wilma Melville>> "Because we're training you to train Ranger. All right." Hena Cuevas>> Wilma Melville started the nonprofit twelve years ago. After retiring as a physical education teacher, she was looking for a second career. Then in 1995, the Federal Building in Oklahoma City was blown up. Wilma and her dog, Murphy, volunteered to help search for survivors. That's when she realized the training she and her fellow handlers received just wasn't enough. Wilma Melville>> The groups who did the training or attempted to were just really good-hearted, generous people, but they didn't have enough together to do a competent, capable, really good job of training new handlers who were training a new dog. Hena Cuevas>> So she decided to build her own program intensifying the training. Eight months for the dogs and more than a year for their human handlers. Wilma Melville>> "So you're going to be ready for that weight." Hena Cuevas>> Today Davis Doty from the Orange County Fire Authority is training with Ranger. Davis has been waiting to get a search and rescue dog for more than a year. Davis Doty>> "Easy, wait. Good. Sit." Wilma Melville>> "Okay, now, what did the dog do incorrectly?" Davis Doty>> "What the dog did was to break off of the teeter-totter and come to me and not finish to the end." Wilma Melville>> "Okay, now had you simply moved your hand, he would have moved all the way down. Let's do it again." Davis Doty>> "Yes. Ranger, come on." The course in the last week has been quite intense, a lot more than I thought it would be. Wilma Melville>> "Walk with him. Perfect, very nice." Davis Doty>> "Very good, good." Wilma Melville>> "Let's do it again, mostly for you." Davis Doty>> Every movement that I make, whether it's a shoulder hitch or my eyebrow moves or my mouth opens, the dog is paying attention one hundred percent of the time. Right now, he's focused on you, but he's paying attention. Wilma Melville>> "Okay, now put the leash in the other hand. That's it. Oops, now we can't have that." Davis Doty>> This week is training and I'm with Ranger today and tomorrow I'll be with another dog, Rosa. However, in a few months, I'll be given my own dog from the Foundation. Hena Cuevas>> The key word is "given". The dogs are donated to their handlers, usually firefighters, but it costs the Foundation about ten thousand dollars to train each animal. Wilma Melville>> There is no cost to the firefighter for the professionally trained dog. There is no cost to the fire department for the Search Dog Foundation to train the handler. Hena Cuevas>> And where do the dogs come from? You might think they're hand-picked from certain select breeds. Not so. Every single dog trained as a rescuer was rescued itself from the local animal shelter. Wilma Melville>> "Well, I see here's one, but no interest in my toy." It is a fascinating thing to see an unwanted animal, an animal that's been tossed onto the trash heap, that is in danger of being euthanized within a few days, to see that dog turn into a wonderful, highly-trained animal. It's a beautiful sight to see. Hena Cuevas>> Once she finds one with potential, she runs it through a series of tests. Wilma Melville>> We look for dogs that are over the top in energy, boldness, focus and drive. I'm not talking about the active dog who loves to play ball. I'm talking about over the top, but can focus. Hena Cuevas>> If the dog passes, then it's off to doggie boot camp. And this is the main training ground, a pile of rubble, cement and debris. The dogs aren't on a leash and don't wear collars that could get caught in the rubble, so the handler has to watch carefully from the sidelines as his dog tries to locate a person buried beneath the debris. Their incentive? Each find is greeted with the greatest exuberance. >> "Oh, good job. Way to go, Duke. Oh, man." Marc Valentine>> It's not like he's getting a big reward. It's not like the big steak dinner or a hundred bucks. Just to chew on a piece of hose. That's all he's doing this for. "Come on, old man. You're holding up traffic." Hena Cuevas>> During the practice rubble exercise, the dogs are always rewarded by the person that they find. But what happens during a real disaster when there are few survivors or maybe none at all? Well, to keep the dogs motivated, members from the rescue search team take turns hiding in the rubble so that the dogs can practice finding them. Marc Valentine>> "If this was a real search, your dog just made penetration like that and you're coming up, how do you know where your dog is other than the bark?" Hena Cuevas>> Taking a rescue dog is a serious commitment. They're matched to handlers for the life of the dog. They live together at home, at work, on vacations, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Marc Valentine>> He's so much more than a pet and a coworker and a tool, but he is -- you know what? He's unconditional love. Wilma Melville>> Every dog that we accept into the program, whether they end up being assigned to a handler or not, has this lifetime care guarantee. Once rescued, they never need to be rescued again. Hena Cuevas>> But the training doesn't stop here. To work on national disasters, the teams must be certified by FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. That can take over a year. Marc Valentine>> The actual certification test, if you've trained right, it's a piece of cake. But it's the leading up to it. It's the continuous training. Hena Cuevas>> Wilma's foundation has graduated eighty-eight rescue teams and, as long as there are dogs in shelters and resources to train them, she'll continue putting dogs and humans through their paces. I'm Hena Cuevas 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>> Have you ever seen a home get demolished and thought, "What a shame. All those doors, windows, kitchen counters, sinks, plumbing, and perfectly good lumber all headed to the landfill"? Well, you're not the only one who's thought of that and now Sam Louie has found a group who is beating demolition crews to the punch. Sam Louie>> When demolition crews tear down homes and buildings, most of the debris ends up as trash often in our landfills. But did you know there's an alternative, with the possibility of saving the scrap? In North Hollywood, these homes are getting gutted. Everything from the rooftop to the floorboards to the windows are being stripped bare and removed. In the end, even the skeletal wooden frames of these houses will be taken apart to make room for a new condominium complex. But unlike most demolition projects, most of what's torn down will be resold and reused. Lorenz Schilling>> That entails saving just about everything that's reusable down to the studs in the walls, the floorboards, the fixtures, both plumbing and lighting, brick, roof tile. You name it. If it's reusable, pretty much everything but the drywall and the stucco. Sam Louie>> Lorenz Schilling is with the ReUse People, a nonprofit organization that promotes deconstruction and the reuse of building materials. Lorenz Schilling>> There's always been selective salvage that happens throughout the country of vintage kind of artifacts, but we think it's high time that we go a little further and save everything that's reusable. Sam Louie>> As a result, the ReUse People now dedicate themselves to this mission. They partnered with Habitat for Humanity and salvage yards to resell these items during the deconstruction. Lorenz Schilling>> These are perfectly good French doors. They'll go to Habitat for Humanity and they'll be resold. At Habitat, you'll be able to buy these for probably seventy-five to a hundred dollars, whereas they'd cost you about, you know, four or five hundred dollars, if not more, at Home Depot. Sam Louie>> This deconstruction project takes about four weeks as opposed to plain demolition which could be done in just several days, but the advantage is that up to eighty-five percent of these materials will be salvaged and reused. And on this particular project, the ReUse People came across some quality items such as these vintage Spanish roof tiles worth several thousand dollars. Lorenz Schilling>> If you'll see, these tiles are about probably eighty or ninety years old. They were actually made by forming them on the pant leg of the individual who made them. You can actually see the finger marks on the tile itself. Sam Louie>> These homes were also built with old-growth timber, highly prized for its sturdiness. Lorenz Schilling>> Old-growth roughs on true two-by-four and this is just great material, very popular. You can't find wood like this new anymore. This will all be saved. All the studs in the walls will be saved. Everything over four feet in length. Sam Louie>> So with all the benefits of deconstruction, why isn't this being done more often? Part of it has to do with the extra time spent saving and sorting the materials. Mark Handel>> There's a natural tendency for developers to do things as expediently as possible. I mean, time is obviously money. Sam Louie>> Mark Handel is the developer and it's his first time using the ReUse People. He says the biggest hurdle is the extra cost. On this project, he'll pay twice the amount of normal demolition, but he was reassured that he'd get a tax break. Mark Handel>> I'm not going to be disingenuous. The Habitat for Humanity and the ReUse People obviously make it financially -- I wouldn't say advantageous -- but they attempt to diminish the financial burden by creating a tax incentive. Sam Louie>> But he also felt compelled to change the negative perception that developers don't care. Mark Handel>> Developers have not the best reputation in town and we're aware of that and we want the community and the people that we work with to know, hey, we don't mind coming to the table and doing something that we can all agree is a positive offshoot of our work. Lorenz Schilling>> And it's a win-win-win program that we have where homeowners can save money. You know, down the road, we make materials available to low-income families that can't always afford to go to Home Depot. We provide good jobs in the community. Sam Louie>> In the end, Schilling hopes this idea of reuse will get recycled by more and more developers and homeowners. I'm Sam Louie for Life and Times. Val Zavala>> Not all gardens are at ground level. In fact, one of the most innovative gardens is not rooted in the earth at all as Rebecca Tolin from our sister station, KPBS in San Diego, found out. Rebecca Tolin>> Jim Mumford, you've essentially turned your entire roof into one giant pot, some sixteen hundred square feet of space. What have you planted and how are they doing? Jim Mumford>> We planted a little over three hundred native plants that includes three different kinds of grasses, some bulbs like an Allium, some perennials, some Beach Primrose and some Prickly Pear and some succulents. Rebecca Tolin>> And you've also planted some wildflowers. Jim Mumford>> Eventually, we'll have flowers up here, but they're still very tiny little plants yet. Rebecca Tolin>> I see a little bit of green out here, but not a lot yet. So how are they doing? Jim Mumford>> About a third is doing really well. About a third is looking at me wondering what the heck I'm thinking. And a third isn't doing as well as I had hoped. Rebecca Tolin>> So why do you think that is? Jim Mumford>> It's hard to say. I'm thinking that they're maybe staying a little bit too wet. Rebecca Tolin>> So really this is a whole new science to you. What does it take to grow plants on the roof? Jim Mumford>> First off, it takes a very sound structure. A green roof can weigh anything from twelve pounds per square foot to sixty-five pounds per square foot, and you also need a great waterproof membrane. Once you've got those two parts licked, then it's a great soil mix. This is a very custom blend that we created. Plants are going to survive in a very harsh environment. It's hot, it's windy, it's dry, and the soil is only four inches deep. That takes a rare kind of plant. Rebecca Tolin>> And is that why you think some of the plants aren't growing quite as well as you had hoped? Jim Mumford>> Yeah. It's a harsh environment up here. As you can tell, it's sunny, it's windy. We're still trying to dial in the irrigation. We want to irrigate as little as possible, but you have to water enough to make sure the plants can be viable. Rebecca Tolin>> So, Jim, your company, Good Earth, specializes mainly in indoor plants. So what motivated you to climb on top of your roof and start planting? Jim Mumford>> We've been doing container plants for thirty years and slowly over time we've been asked to go outside more and more, a couple of plants by the front door, a couple of plants by a deck or a patio. We've done a couple of rooftop gardens and, at some point, I saw a green roof like this and it said it was something I wanted to do. Rebecca Tolin>> So these green roofs, or eco-roofs as you call them, have a number of environmental benefits. What are the main ones? Jim Mumford>> I think one of the most important benefits of a green roof, it will help fight storm water runoff. A green roof will absorb sixty to eighty percent of a storm event here in San Diego. What it doesn't absorb, it filters as it goes down through the gutter and it's also slowed way down. It also has an insulating effect, so we're going to be able to cut down on our air conditioning bills this summer, maybe up to twenty to twenty-five percent. This has created a mini ecosystem up here. I specifically selected native plants because they're bird, bee and butterfly friendly. We've noticed immediately that we've got some noise reduction inside. We're right on the flight path of Montgomery Field and we don't hear the planes like we used to. Rebecca Tolin>> And I understand that it also will increase the lifespan of your roof. Jim Mumford>> Correct. Studies show that a green roof will extend the life of a roof by two to three times. And if you figure that we took ten thousand pounds off this roof when we took the old one off to put a new one down, that's a lot of material that's not going into the landfill. At the same time, it's an economic benefit for the owner of the building. You'd have to pay for a new roof every fifteen or twenty years. It may go fifty or sixty years or longer. Rebecca Tolin>> Well, speaking of the economic benefits, you're a businessman and you have to feel you're adding value to your business to put this in. I know you've already spent some twenty or twenty-five thousand dollars on this garden. What's the return on investment? Jim Mumford>> I think one of the neatest ones is one that I didn't expect. We've got a great little place to have lunch up here. We basically use every square inch of space on this property for business, for trucks, for storage, for people, for desks, etc., but now all of a sudden, we've got a nice little place to have lunch. The other economic benefit for me, I know that my air conditioning bill is going to be cut down this summer. I think another one is employee morale. Everybody in the company is really jazzed that we've done such a neat thing. It's cutting edge. It's new. It's different, and it's generating a lot of excitement amongst my employees and I'm hoping the productivity goes up. Rebecca Tolin>> Well, there are a lot of empty commercial and industrial buildings in Kearney Mesa and all over the county. What's your vision for these eco-roofs? Jim Mumford>> In Germany, the stats coming out are that fifteen to seventeen percent of all of their flat roofs are now greened. If you look around San Diego County, we have five hundred million square feet of commercial and industrial space. If we do one in every six or seven buildings with a green roof, that's going to make a difference. That is going to bring down the ambient temperature of the city. It is going to create more environments for the critters to be able to survive in and it's going to do things for our storm water that I'm not sure can be done other ways. Rebecca Tolin>> I know you have children and you think about the world that they'll inherit. How do you hope that this will make a difference? Jim Mumford>> Oh, my goodness. The environmental movement in the United States or maybe the world started some thirty or forty years, maybe forty-five years ago, with Rachel Carson's book, "A Silent Spring". I saw the environmental movement just kind of die and it went away. Well, now we're seeing the results and some of the problems we're having with global warming or the bay is being polluted or the landfill is over-filling. These are issues that are now real that we all thought were going to be a problem and the evidence is there now. So I'm convinced that, if we don't start making some changes now, it's going to be a worse place for our kids to grow up in and their kids. Val Zavala>> If you'd like to find out more about that rooftop garden, you can go to their website at greenroofsandiego.com. 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>> Now this is going to sound a little weird, but he believed that aliens told him to build a dome, a dome that would extend his life. Did it work? Well, we find out from student reporter, Heather Downie. She's part of USC's Annenberg School of Journalism and she headed to the desert to visit something called the Integratron. Heather Downie>> In the middle of the desert in Landers, California, an other-worldly sight filled with other-worldly sounds. Nancy Karl>> They've called it a temple. They've called it a church. They've called it a vortex. Heather Downie>> Thousands visit the Integratron every year. Constructed with no nails or screws, it's the only all-wood, acoustically perfect dome in the United States. It was designed by George Van Tassel, an aeronautical engineer and UFO enthusiast. In 1953, Van Tassel said he was contacted by aliens from Venus. Nancy Karl>> He said that he had a physical encounter with a space ship and that these beings told him that he could build a machine that would extend our lives twenty to fifty years or more. Heather Downie>> For the next twenty-five years, Van Tassel held annual UFO conventions to fund the construction of the Integratron, a structure for channeling electromagnet energy into the body, but he died before his high-voltage healing machine was complete. And while his intentions died with him, the Integratron took on a whole new life in 2000. That's when the Karl sisters, Joanne and Nancy, purchased and transformed the dome into a sound chamber. Even though the origins of this dome may seem a little bit out there, the acoustical benefits are actually grounded in real science. There's evidence that certain frequencies of audio can actually be good for you. These good vibrations are produced by thirty-minute crystal bowl symphonies, or sound backs, and are supposed to rejuvenate the body and mind. Nancy Karl>> That it bathes the nervous system and relaxes muscles and energizes the brain. Heather Downie>> Each crystal bowl emits a certain frequency, or note. Each note is supposed to heal a specific part of the body. Nancy Karl>> G at the throat, A at the middle of the forehead and B for the brain. Carl Ripaldi>> You hear them, but you also feel them. You feel them going through your body sort of pulsating. Each of the sounds has a different kind of a feel and pulsation to it and you kind of lose sense of time while it's being done. [Film Clip] Trina Nader>> It just sort of puts you into yourself. It's what some people might call spiritual. Heather Downie>> Spirituality aside, many architects come here to admire its design. Nancy Karl>> It's parabolic, right? The same shape as a satellite dish. When something is parabolic, anything that comes into it is focused and amplified. Some people call it sacred geometry. It's the same kind of math behind the architecture of cathedrals and mosques and Masonic temples and things like that. Heather Downie>> Some people claim the Integratron is even more sacred because it sits on top of a vortex, a spot where the earth's energy is said to be most powerful. Nancy Karl>> The building was put right here at an intersection of geomagnetic activity and then this parabolic structure focuses and amplifies that and creates this huge energy surge that really is magic. It's kind of like magic to people. You know, people go to the pyramids for spiritual quests, but they also go there because it's a wonder of the world. You know, I see this as kind of that, like a wonder of the world. Heather Downie>> A wonder in our own back yard. For Life and Times, I'm Heather Downie. Val Zavala>> Our thanks again to student journalist, Heather Downie, for that story. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. 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. Val Zavala>> Next time on Life and Times -- The British company that's promising a revolution in the grocery business. >> Our appeal is not around affluence, is not around your social class. Our appeal is around fresh foods, less processed foods, affordable foods. Val Zavala>> That's next time on Life and Times. Sponsored in part by:  | |
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