Earth Blog

We have been following the Los Angeles City Council and their struggle to pass an ordinance banning single use plastic bags and charging a fee for paper bags for months now- since December to be precise.

Earlier this week during a three hour Energy & Environment Committee meeting the ban was revisited as the requested fiscal and community reports pertaining to a bag ban were given. This meeting also included a presentation of the proposed fiscal budget for the Department of Water and Power for the upcoming year by its commissioners.  

The California Strawberry Commission (CSC) wants to remind you that peak season has arrived! Though strawberries are sold year round the finest examples of one California’s top crops (7th most valuable fruit crop estimated at $2.1 billion) are sold March through August.

Well over 80 percent of our nation’s strawberries are grown in California by a network of more than 500 family owned and operated farms. Together these farms grow strawberries on a combined total of 36,000 acres. This means that 56 square miles of California’s vast size is used for strawberry cultivation or about twice the size of the city of Oxnard, which is considered the “Strawberry Capital of the World.”

All farmers are concerned with sustainability and safety this obviously includes berry farmers. A look at farms and the people working on them in the self-proclaimed capital gives us an idea of the sustainability practices currently in place.

The Halaco site in Oxnard, California, is one of many superfund sites in Southern California currently being cleaned up and studied by the EPA. Some residents of the area are old enough to recall the metal smelter’s havoc on the air and most all have a passing knowledge if not curiosity about the abandoned and fenced-off plant situated so close to the ocean.

The San Diego car2go electric car sharing program was launched in November of last year as part of the Smart City San Diego initiative. Since then more than 6,000 people have registered to use the service and over 25,000 trips have been taken.

There were only 800 electric vehicles (EVs) in the city and now thanks to car2go there are 300 more EVs on San Diego’s roads-a 40% increase. San Diego is now one of the top cities in the world for electric vehicle drivers with an estimated 7,000 EV users.

“At a time when the cost of fuel is reaching record-high prices, San Diegans are looking for ways to reduce their dependence on fuel and for more cost-efficient modes of transportation; and car2go is a very logical choice for them," said Nicholas Cole, president and CEO of car2go.

This week in bag ban news the idyllic hamlet of Ojai is on course to become the first city in Ventura County to ban single use plastic bags.

The Ventura County Star reported that the Ojai City Council passed the ordinance but it will still require council’s approval later this month to be officially deemed a law.

The sad deaths of 108 dolphins due to stranding along Cape Cod on the east coast isn’t this year’s only news of marine mammals dying in “unprecedented” numbers. The west coast is looking at a dwindling
sea otter population that is for once not due to anything humans have done.

Just in time for Spring Break a new federal regulation will prevent certain boats from discharging sewage -whether or not it’s treated- into California’s marine waters.  The sewage ban will create the largest “No Discharge Zone” (NDZ) in the country stretching from Mexico to Oregon and includes waters around major islands. The ban will stop an estimated 22 million gallons or more of treated sewage from being dumped into the oceans, bays, and estuaries each year along 1,624 miles of coast. Under the Clean Water Act the state of California was able to ask the EPA to approve the NDZ to help restore water quality.

“This is an important step to protect California's coastline. I want to commend the shipping industry, environmental groups and U.S. EPA for working with California to craft a common sense approach to keeping our coastal waters clean," said California’s Governor Jerry Brown.

As we seek clean and renewable alternatives to fossil fuels, it’s increasingly important to analyze the full implications of nuclear power.  In Japan, 30 percent of their power is generated by nuclear reactors.  Ideally, these plants do operate cleanly and efficiently, reducing the amount of fossil fuels consumed and pollution released into the atmosphere.  However, the ideal situation was far from reality in Fukushima on March 11, 2011.