Solana Beach boasts less than two miles of coastline, but the battle over how to protect that pricey property could end up shaping urbanized blufftops all along the state’s coastline.While sea walls are at the center of the conflict, the bigger issue is whether the California Coastal Commission can impose what some residents say amounts to a forced retreat from the sea that undermines their property rights and property values.It’s a classic debate about the balance between development and the natural environment that pits the California dream of seaside living against widely held values of public access to the beach. Conflicts are compounded by projections for rising sea levels that likely will increase wave erosion along the shoreline.A band of Solana Beach residents under the ... Continue reading →
DeAndre Ware, San Gabriel Valley Mosquito & Vector Control Technician photographs pools and then logs in the addresses, of mosquitoes breeding pools, so that the residents of the home can contacted to clean their pool. Pasadena Police Department's Foothill Aerial Support Team is working with San Gabriel Valley Mosquito and Vector Control to find filthy swimming pools. (SGVN/Staff Photo by Walt Mancini)Gallery: Pasadena Police, SGV Mosquito Vector Control use helicopter to find filthy swimming pools From his seat aboard a Pasadena police helicopter, mosquito-control technician DeAndre Ware has seen a lot of filthy swimming pools during his years of insect hunting. From 1,000 feet in the air, the dirty pools stand out for their green hue, a sharp contrast to the brilliant teal of a ... Continue reading →
CORONADO, Calif. (AP) -- Like a Hollywood star, Coronado's 1.5 mile-long beach literally sparkles, thanks to the mineral mica glinting in its sand. That's one of the reasons why Coronado - flanked by the iconic hotel featured in Marilyn Monroe's 1958 film "Some Like It Hot" - has been named the No. 1 beach in the United States in the 2012 survey by "Dr. Beach" professor Stephen P. Leatherman of Florida International University. It is the first time "Dr. Beach" has given the top slot to California in the more than two decades that he has been ranking beaches in the United States based on their environmental quality and safety for swimmers. Coronado Beach, on a peninsula across the bay from San Diego, has near-perfect ... Continue reading →
Good news for sand and surf-loving Angelenos: The beach water is getting cleaner. The water at 82% of L.A. County beaches earned A or B grades from April to October last year, up from 75% the previous year, according to Heal the Bay’s annual Beach Report Card, released Thursday. Last year, the Santa Monica-based environmental group reported a dip in water quality that bucked years of steady improvement. That was attributed in part to heavy rainfall. Heal the Bay credited the gains to a drier winter and the construction of more facilities to capture, treat and divert tainted storm water before it reaches the ocean. The city of Los Angeles has completed eight such projects from Pacific Palisades to Playa del Rey, the group said. ... Continue reading →
Los Angeles became the largest city in the nation Wednesday to adopt a ban on plastic bags at supermarket checkout lines, handing a major victory to clean-water advocates who sought to reduce the amount of trash clogging landfills, the region’s waterways and the ocean. Egged on by actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus and an array of environmental groups, the City Council voted 13 to 1 to phase out plastic bags over the next 12 months at an estimated 7,500 stores. Councilman Bernard Parks cast the lone no vote. "Let’s get the message to Sacramento that it’s time to go statewide," said Councilman Ed Reyes, who has focused on efforts to revitalize the Los Angeles River. Council members quietly backed away from a more controversial plan to also ... Continue reading →
A multiagency team of scientists on Monday announced said they have launched an initiative to reduce the number of whales killed by ship strikes and entanglement in fishing nets in the waters of Southern California and the rest of the West Coast.The WhaleWatch project will use data from the tagging and satellite monitoring of more than 300 whales to look for areas where whales and ships are most likely to intersect, and when collisions are most likely. Scientists involved with the effort are Oregon State University, the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science and the National Marine Fisheries Service.Ship strikes hit home in San Diego late last year when a 67-foot fin whale washed ashore after being struck by an unknown vessel.“We hope that ... Continue reading →
SANTA CRUZ - In February, a pair of federal scientists released a paper that announced itself like a thunderclap - the sardine fishery in the northeast Pacific Ocean was collapsing. The conclusion reverberated immediately, especially at the intersections where fishermen and environmentalists meet to hash out fishery policies. It was a warning that the sardine fishery was set to ebb again and echoed Cannery Row's sardine collapse of the 1950s and 1960s, which crushed a vibrant industry and etched itself into the history of Monterey Bay. "Our conclusion is that a number of events that were present (during that collapse) appear to be recurring," said the paper's co-author, David Demer, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist who heads the Advanced Survey Technologies Program in ... Continue reading →
(Courtesy of National Hurricane Center) The May 15-November 30 eastern Pacific hurricane season is well underway with the National Hurricane Center forecasting that Tropical Depression TWO-E should become Tropical Storm Bud later today. The Center says it could hit southwestern Mexico near the resort city of Manzillo as a Category 2 hurricane on Friday. Aletta, this year’s first eastern Pacific tropical storm formed on May 14 and died on May 19 without ever threatening land. Prevailing easterly winds usually push most eastern Pacific tropical storms and hurricanes away from North America, which is why these storms usually attract little public attention. Nevertheless, nearly every year two or three of these storms move to the east to hit Mexico’s Pacific Coast, sometimes as a Category 3 ... Continue reading →
