Bag Ban Takes Effect

It's official - the Plastic Bag Ban in unincorporated Los Angeles County took effect yesterday, Friday July 1st.  The ban initially impacts large retailers, preventing them from dispensing sold items in plastic bags and instead requiring them to use paper bags only.  Cost of the change will be passed along to consumers who will be charged 10 cents a bag, unless they bring their own reusable tote bags.  Eventually the ban will include smaller, independent stores.  An overview of the ban was detailed by the LA Times:

The bag ban was touted by county supervisors as an environmental measure to rid the county of "urban tumbleweed" that pollutes landfills and gets washed out to sea. Paper bags will still be available, but customers will be charged 10 cents per bag.

The effort is intended to encourage shoppers to bring reusable bags to the market for shopping.

The plastic bag ban will affect anyone who shops at stores outside the county's incorporated cities, such as the communities of Rowland Heights, Hacienda Heights, Altadena, La Crescenta, Topanga Canyon, Marina del Rey, Baldwin Hills, Athens, Willowbrook, Florence, Rancho Dominguez, Valencia, East Pasadena and East Los Angeles. About 1.1 million people in the county live in the unincorporated areas.

Although some remain critical of the ban, this is a big environmental victory that should have long-term benefits for waterways throughout Southern California and beyond (see the Los Angeles Times Pulitzer Prize winning series on the ocean - Part 4 for more information on plastic bags effects).  Although incorporated areas of Los Angeles remain unaffected, the ban still impacts 1.1 million people, a figure that only 8 US cities (not including Los Angeles) have populations larger than.  In other words, this limited action by the County of Los Angeles actually produces a massive civic-sponsored change in urban function, pointing out how the scale of  Los Angeles is not just a challenge, but also an immense opportunity to exploit.  While we tend to focus on ways in which mistakes are magnified by the sheer size of Los Angeles, this ban highlights how small positive changes can also become monumental shifts for the benefit of the environment.

More coverage of the ban is available at the LA Times and at Marina Del Rey Patch.

LID Passes! (At least another round)

In rounding out unfinished business from 2010, a nice bit of news about the City Council passing a LID ordinance for Los Angeles before the calendar year ran out.  (Or, at least an important directive to prepare a full, legal ordinance to vote on and officially enact sometime in early 2011.)  LA Creek Freak has the details:

At its final meeting of the year, yesterday, Friday December 17th 2010, the Los Angeles City Council passed “LID”  Low Impact Development. You can read some earlier background at Creek Freak and elsewhere, but basically it means that, in the city of Los Angeles, new development (and substantial redevelopment) will need will need to be more sustainable in regards to rainwater. Buildings, landscapes, parking lots, etc. will need to slow, detain and store and/or infiltrate water on-site, instead of speeding it into storm drains, creeks, rivers, and the sea.

This took a while. L.A. Creek Freak started reporting on the city of L.A. efforts in September 2009, attended a workshop in October 2009, and reported on the Public Works Board passing LID  in January 2010. Plenty more excellent coverage is available at Heal the Bay’s Mark Gold’s Spouting Off.


It also took a great deal of effort from the city’s Board of Public Works and the Bureau of Sanitation’s Watershed Protection Division – in conjunction with city environmentalists, especially Heal the Bay, TreePeople, and Green L.A. Coalition. Some developers and building industry folks have opposed LID because it can make make some construction more expensive. Ultimately, though there had been opposition at earlier hearings, LID passed council with no elected’s nor public speaker’s opposition. It slipped in quietly via the consent calendar.

There are still a few steps before the mass proliferation of creek-friendly developments, too – the motion that passed directs the City Attorney to prepare the regulations, then those get adopted and take effect… stay tuned.

. . . .

Pretty exciting to recognize not only that environmental advocacy and education worked to pass the measure, but effectively worked (in conjunction with the support of environmentally engaged council members) to sway the entire City Council.   This bodes well for official passing of the final, legal measure once the City Attorney prepares it for the City Council.  Congrats to all of supporters of the measure, and the tireless organizations who helped move it forward.  The watershed, and I, thank you.  

Paper or plastic? How about just Paper

Image from LA Times. All Rights Reserved.

This past Tuesday, Los Angeles County officially banned all plastic carryout bags from use in unincorporated portions of the County.  The vote marks a big environmental victory for LA County, with the potential to severely reduce the amount of plastics polluting our waterways and urban landscapes.  Admittedly, the ban remains imperfect, particularly because it only affects unincorporated portions of the County, but with more than 1.1 million residents being affected, the scale of the ban is still quite significant.   The LA Times has great coverage and recap of the vote, including comments from its detractors, and comparisons of the ban to similar efforts in California and beyond.  Below is an except:

. . . .

The ban, which will cover nearly 1.1 million residents countywide, is to the point: “No store shall provide to any customer a plastic carryout bag.” An exception would be made for plastic bags that are used to hold fruit, vegetables or raw meat in order to prevent contamination with other grocery items.

If grocers choose to offer paper bags, they must sell them for 10 cents each, according to the ordinance. The revenue will be retained by the stores to purchase the paper bags and educate customers about the law.

“Plastic bags are a pollutant. They pollute the urban landscape. They are what we call in our county urban tumbleweed,” Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said.

Mark Gold, president of the Santa Monica environmental group Heal the Bay, said previous county efforts to promote recycling of plastic bags at grocery stores was a failure.

“You cannot recycle your way out of the plastic bag problem,” Gold said. “The cost of convenience can no longer be at the expense of the environment.”

The measure is a significant win for environmental groups, which suffered a major defeat in Sacramento at the end of August with the failure of the state Senate to pass a sweeping plastic bag ban that won the support of the state Assembly and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger amid heavy and costly lobbying by plastic bag manufacturers.

But the ban could cause confusion. The action by the Board of Supervisors only covers the unincorporated areas of L.A. County, covering some neighborhoods like Altadena, Valencia and Rowland Heights, but doesn't cover 88 cities in L.A. County. City councils could adopt a similar ordinance.

Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich  raised the prospect that small mom-and-pop shops could suffer financially because they won’t be able to buy paper and reusable bags in great volume, and could force low-income people to buy bags to pick up pet waste or carry their lunch.

“At a time of economic uncertainty, with a large number of businesses leaving our state and community this would not be an appropriate time ... to impose this additional regulation,” Antonovich said.

Opponents of the ban told the supervisors that a legal challenge to the ban is still a possibility.

With the Tuesday vote, L.A. County’s measure is more stringent than similar bans adopted elsewhere in California, Gold said.  

San Francisco’s ban, which passed three years ago, is less restrictive because it still permits grocers to offer bioplastic bags made from corn starch, which are imperfect because they also do not degrade in the ocean, Gold said. Bans in San Francisco and Malibu also do not add a surcharge on paper bags, Gold said, which does not give consumers an incentive to switch to reusable cloth bags.

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Long Beach Turf Rebate

Image from LA Times.  All Rights Reserved.

News flash - rebates and outreach work.  Or, at least they do in Long Beach, whose recent turf reduction rebate program has been a rousing success.  As Emily Green from the LA Times reported a few weeks ago, the first two rounds of the program, which offers a $2.50 per square foot rebate for lawn converted to low-water garden, are complete, and have produced a number of compelling and interesting outdoor spaces for residents of Long Beach:

It stands to reason that clean-ocean advocates would appreciate how important it is to check the stream of pesticide and fertilizer pollution that runs into the Pacific from lawn-sprinkler overflow. But what has dazzled everyone familiar with the Beautiful Long Beach Lawn-to-Garden Incentive Program is how citizens of this beach city have been so ready to do their part. The first day that the Long Beach Water Department began accepting applications, conservation specialist Joyce Barkley said, “They were gone in 45 minutes.”

Hopefully these great results will not only further such programs but pay dividends in making LA a more sustainable city.  Some great photos and stories of homeowners taking advantage of the rebate can be found at Green's column.

Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase

This Sunday was the 2nd Annual Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase.  The tour is hosted by the Green Committee of the Mar Vista Community Council, and features over 80 different homes.  As the website describes:

This free, self guided garden tour is all about water conservation. These homeowners have all made choices to eliminate or reduce turf lawns and have created gardens that thrive in our Southern California climate while using minimal water. Many are investing the water they use to grow fruits and vegetables for their families to enjoy.

Fortunately, I live just down the road from part of the tour, so was able to hop on my bike, and enjoy the afternoon seeing about 10 houses that ranged from highly designed, horticultural gardens to self-described rock gardens.  Each garden provided a different look at water conservation, but all featured permeable surfaces, and low-water use plants.  Some of the yards had been converted to edible gardens, growing artichokes, lettuces, snap peas, chards, strawberries, and tomatoes among others.  I was also able to stop by the Venice High School Learning Garden, one of the more extensive school gardening programs in Los Angeles.  It was a great facility that features a range of demonstration gardens and plots tended by students at the high school.

Although I really enjoyed the aesthetics of some of the professionally or highly-designed gardens, there was something sort of wonderful about the home grown "rock people" and like-minded, willing amateurs who took a lot of pride in pulling out their lawn and putting in a few plants.  While the yards were certainly not showpieces, the owners took as much if not more pride in it as people might talk about their lawns.  But it wasn't simply about aesthetics, they felt a real sense of empowerment and pride about doing their part - displaying a sort of DIY ethos for sustainability.

Overall, it was a great event that not only provided inspiration for people to rethink their yards, but also a forum for community members to interact with each other.  Look forward to attending next year.

  Raised bed made out of straw waddles (erosion control devices)

  Traditional raised bed

 The Desert Garden at the Venice Learning Garden

Water Wise Gardening Resource

I stumbled onto a great resource from the City of Santa Monica for homeowners and residents of LA's Coastal Cities looking to reduce their landscape water usage.  "Los Angeles Water Wise Gardening" plant lists, watering tips, and the ability to create a plant list for your yard.  Perhaps the best feature, though, are the case studies of real gardens.  Each provides a different prototype design for different coastal situations, and includes interactive features that allow you to click on individual plants in the pictures and found out pertinent plant information (including anatomy, cultural requirements, and design suggestions).  Great portal for the amateur and professional alike to get ideas for our coastal landscapes.

Ballona Wetlands

I visited the Ballona Wetlands in Playa del Rey on Saturday for a guided tour of the Freshwater Marsh.  It is a wonderful example of a constructed wetland that not only provides stormwater management for surrounding development but also helps reconstruct lost habitat in an urban context. 

The project was the result of a compromise between developers and environmentally-minded community activists.  They successfully negotiated a reduced development footprint for the nearby Playa Vista development, as well as the creation of a constructed wetland to manage stormwater and replace lost coastal habitats. (A number of other habitats were preserved or restored as well, including a saltwater marsh and dune habitat).  In addition, HOA fees from Playa Vista help support ongoing maintenance of the wetland along with the active efforts of the non-profit Friends of the Ballona Wetlands.

Since it was completed, monitoring of the project has identified over 200 species of birds utilizing the marsh, including 5 indicator species.  Although still a work in process, it is an ecological asset for wildlife and nearby residents who can see a wide diversity of California flora and fauna right next door.  During my visit, I saw white egrets, green-winged teals, red-tailed hawks, bushtits, a kestrel, red-wing blackbirds, and coots among many others.   Check out more about the project's history here.  

Environmental Hope - "A Cleaner Bill of Health for Santa Monica Bay"

Guess what - sometimes there is good news about the environment!  Especially when we take measures to stop pollution sources (I know, a very radical concept).  The Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission (SMBRC) released their 2010 State of the Bay report, and it had some good news and hope for the future health of the bay.  As the LA Times reported, the assessment noted:

. . . the revival of bottom-dwelling marine life in the wake of treatment upgrades at the two big wastewater plants that empty into the bay several miles from shore. 

Diver surveys have documented sea animals and plants on the sea floor "where really it was barren before," said Shelley Luce, executive director of the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission, which issues the report every five years. "I think this is one of the more remarkable recoveries we've seen," she added.

"It's right up there with the return of the bald eagle and brown pelican."

Maybe not as visually dramatic: We're talking about snails and worms and other invertebrates crawling back into areas that for decades lacked the oxygen to support all but the most pollution-tolerant sea life.

While they might not be cuddly, charismastic megafauna, they are key elements of rebuilding an ocean ecology and hopefully signs of the bay's recovery.  Much work still remains to be done (note the historical contamination from DDT and PCBs persisting in sediment, and the ever present issue of urban runoff), but at least we can enjoy the return of invertebrates this time around.