Planet Johnny

Landfill Near Drinking Water Source? Still a Bad Idea.

Thought a Toll Road through a State Park was a bad idea?  How about a kandfill ontop of an aquifer and near an aqueduct in a geologically unstable region containing Native American sacred sites?  This is precisely what the proponents of the Gregory Canyon Landfill have been trying to do for the last twenty plus years, despite the fact that the landfill site has been rejected by the County of San Diego, by using the initiative system to years of local government studies.  The landfill would be squarely ontop of the aquifer that provides Oceanside and other communities with much of their current drinking water as well as adjacent to aqueducts providing fresh water to the City of San Diego.  Sacred sites of the Pala Band of Mission Indians would be destroyed by the building of and operations of a landfill in this area.  Earlier this year this damaging project was to go before the San Diego Regional Water Quality Board however their application for a "discharge permit" was deemed to be incomplete after a local water authority decided to not provide the proposed landfill with the reclaimed water it needed for its operation.  Now the proponents are trying to piecemeal their application by getting a bridge needed for landfill operations approved before the discharge permit.  The Board will be considering approval of this bridge at its November 18, 2009 monthly meeting.  Concerned citizens and environmental groups will be speaking up at this meeting in order to oppose both the piecemeal approach to this project and this devastating project itself.

Background Information on this project:

County of San Diego

Pala Band of Mission Indians

NRDC

Flywheels to buffer 20 megawatts on grid | Green Tech - CNET News

Flywheel energy storage company Beacon Power on Tuesday said it plans to begin construction of a 20-megawatt storage facility in Stephentown, N.Y. Twenty megawatts could supply thousands of homes at a given moment, but flywheels store only several minutes' worth of electricity.

via news.cnet.com

This project bears watching especially here in California where we are trying to get old inefficient and environmentally destructive power plants retired.

Water, Water, Everywhere and Not a Tier to Climb

Is a market based approach the best solution to dwindling water supply in San Diego.  Three local academics certainly think so.  Voice of San Diego ("VoSD") recently had three pieces about the water shortage and how to deal with it. The first of these, No Need for Water Cops by W. Erik Bruvold, President of the National University System Institute for Policy Research.  Described as a "fiscal conservative" in his institute biography, Bruvold has served in a variety of policy capacities in the last 20 years in San Diego.  Mr. Bruvold argues that a market based approach by increasing the cost of water through tiers would go a long way to reducing consumption. 

Dr. Lynn Reaser, Chief Economist at Point Loma Nazarene University, a former chief economist at Bank of America, in her piece Water--Meeting our Destiny, points out that there are three methods to address the water problem.  Dr. Reaser lists regulation, moral suasion, and pricing as approaches to solving our water shortage.  Seeing the first two approaches and inefficient and uneven, with the later probably more tied to the recession, Reaser too points to pricing as a way to reduce water consumption and change the habits of ratepayers.  Another local academic argues that there is no water shortage but ends up coming to a similar conclusion as the prior two.  

In There Is No Water Shortage, Dr. Richard Carson, Professor at University of California San Diego's Department of Economics, talks about three general principles that San Diego has failed to articulate in regard to how water is priced to households.  Carson argues that this failure is due to not recognizing "the key features of San Diego's water supply situation."  Carson opens the discussion with a shot across the bow at what he describes as low value and water intensive agriculture in the San Joaquin and Imperial valleys, users of "most of California's water," and the way that water is doled out in California.  Carson, indicating that more supply is available at higher prices, says as his first principle that water rationing should never be part of intelligent water policy and that rather that the water supply agency should charge more money to those who wish to use more water.  Underpinning the second principle is the need of San Diego to determine who is entitled to low cost water and asking whether developers or current ratepayers should bear the cost of obtaining new water sources.  The third principle addresses a need for higher "marginal" prices and an "increasing block rate structure" in order to make supply consistent with demand and to charge those who use more water a higher rate.  Carson attacks the argument that an increase in rates will affect those of low income by saying that a blocked structure would encourage more conservation through a lower base fee that would be dramatically reduced.  

Each academic presses for a market solution: tiered structure to help alleviate supply issues.  Dr. Carson's pointing to inefficient farming practices adds to the equation a piece that isn't often discussed and that might roil certain "Buy California" or "Buy America" or farm activists. All three of the academics are participating in a weeklong VoSD panel entitled The Game of Pricing Water in San Diego: What is This?  

Apple Touts it's Improved "Life Cycle Impact" to the Environment

Apple has devoted a part of its website to how the company has become more green and lessened its impact on the environment. As part of an industry that has not always been known for environmental awareness, Apple is sure doing its part.

To accurately measure a company’s environmental footprint, you must look at the impact that company’s products have on the planet. Apple uses comprehensive life cycle analysis to determine exactly where our greenhouse gas emissions — all 10.2 million metric tons of them1 — come from.

via www.apple.com

Welcome to My Blog, Planet Johnny, Part II: Blue and Green

Welcome to my new blog, Planet Johnny.  You may ask yourself, what is this, who is this Johnny and what does he have to say?  Well, I'm blue and green and geek all over.  Growing up in New England and spending parts of my childhood and much of my adult life by or near the ocean (though many New Englanders don't consider anything more than five minutes away to be close) gave me an appreciation for the beauty and majesty of the our oceans.  The beautiful mountains of northern New England gave me further appreciation of the nature and a belief that it needs to be preserved and protected.  

I dabbled with environmental activism, as an undergrad student, helping to co-author a paper on acid rain and would later read Senator Al Gore's "Earth In The Balance" which preceded his alleged assertion that he invented the internet.  It would not be until I moved to San Diego, California that I would become energized and activated and become a Coastal Activist.  It began through the encouragement of people like Alan Honadle and the inspiration of folks like Marco Gonzalez who blazed a path for those here in San Diego who care about our ocean.  By becoming involved with Surfrider Foundation San Diego Chapter, I'd learn of the deeds of and be inspired by countless others.  I don't think however I could call myself a true Coastal Activist until I got involved in the fight to Save Trestles.   

Not having grown up in a surf culture in New England, unless you consider listening to the Beach Boys surf culture, I had never heard of "Trestles."  All I knew that a trestle was a railroad crossing or bridge.  I would learn that Trestles is a world class surfspot that is part of San Onofre State Park and part of the only unspoiled watershed in Southern California on a swath of land north of Camp Pendelton and mostly in San Diego but partially in Orange County.  I also learned of the history of this park which was on former US Navy land given to the State of California by the federal government to be used as a park permanently and that for the past twenty years activists had been fighting attempts, the most recent by an Orange County transit authority, to build a road through the unspoiled park.  The Transportation Corridor Agency proposed an extension of their Route 241 toll road smack through the state park.   The pristine watershed, campsites and the world class surfbreak would be lost forever under the guise of alleviating traffic in Orange County but in reality in order to provide a route for planned housing units.  The California Coastal Commission would hold a hearing, in early February of 2008, at the Del  Mar Fairgrounds, in order to rule on the application for the toll road.  

The day started at six in the morning as thousands of opponents gathered with many less proponents whose numbers were bolstered by the busloads of paid persons who were brought in and had no knowledge of the issues at hand but were given $17 an hour and t-shirts in order to portray union workers.  That day would not end until after 11 o'clock that night with the California Coastal Commission voting 10-2 to reject the toll road.  It was the culmination of much work by many dedicated people and it was that night that I truly felt that I had been baptized a Coastal Activist.  The fight was not over however as the TCA appealed the decision to United States Secretary of Commerce.  The Commerce Department hearing would take place on September 22, 2008.  Months of waiting would pay off when the lame duck Bush Administration Commerce Secretary upheld the Coastal Commission's ruling in December.  Trestles had been saved but the struggle to protect special places continues.  

As long as monied interests press their own agendas whether it is the TCA trying to build a tollroad through a state park, an individual homeowner trying to protect a home from the inevitable advance of the ocean with a seawall, or an area trying to limit access to the beach, there will be a cadre of coastal activists who will oppose them.  As long as we face a time of dwindling resources with our oceans at risk, coastal activists from around the world will fight to protect them.  Whether it's by becoming involved locally in the political process or making a change in one's life to reduce one's plastic consumption in order protect our oceans or anything between, activists of all political persuasions will be there on the ground and in the water.  I expect to be there too and welcome you along for the ride.  This ride will include forays into the world of science fiction, full speed ahead!                   

 

Welcome to My Blog, Planet Johnny, Part I; Welcome

Welcome to my blog.  I am blue and green and geek all over. What you will read here are the writings of an environmentalist and geek, I shall meld the two worlds in a veritable Vulcan mind meld powered by solar and tide energy. We use reusable shopping bags and water bottles here, some adorned with stickers or buttons gotten from Comic-Con. It's all about sustainability, coastal activism, environmental awareness and whether or not Han Solo shot first, who was the best Starfleet captain and if any episodes of any Stargate series didn't get resolved in the last five minutes. Stay tuned because there is more to come about this blog and the author in Part II.

Save the Surrogacy for your DVD Player; New Willis Flick Disappoints

I have seen the new Bruce Willis movie,  Surrogates, and think one would be better served to wait to see it on DVD.  Set in a world very much like our own, the opening sequence sets the timeline and concept of surrogacy, a way by which human beings live their lives through robotic surrogates they control while seated in a control chair in their homes.  Based on the graphic novel by Robert Venditti, the movie focuses on Tom Greer (Willis) an FBI agent who living through his surrogate, a slick version of himself, investigates the murder of two surrogate operators through their surrogates a situation that is supposed to be impossible.  We find out that no homicides have been committed in fifteen years and the two murders should be impossible given safeguards in the surrogacy software.    

What follows is a formulaic plodding story that while it has interesting fx sequences becomes totally predictable and is at times quite silly as we are introduced to a group of rebels, led by a charismatic leader called the Prophet, as well as the creator of surrogates played by genre actor James Cromwell. What looked like a promising piece of science fiction joins other recent disappointments like The Day the Earth Stood Still as remarkably forgettable pieces that could not rise above a weak story and are destined to be in the discount DVD bin.  Bruce Willis alone cannot save this dud which