Streaming in from the blogosphere
November 6, 2009 § 3 Comments
A couple of updates from the blogosphere:
Meredith McKenzie posts an update at ArroyoLover from two meetings pertinent to the Arroyo Seco: news of Congressional funding for the Army Corps feasibility study and a report on the Station Fire damage within the Arroyo. The Army Corps study follows up on several studies performed by local agencies and groups, such as the Arroyo Seco Watershed Restoration Feasibility Study (North East Trees, Arroyo Seco Foundation, Mountains Recreation Conservation Authority and National Park Service) and the Arroyo Seco Watershed Management and Restoration Plan(North East Trees), Cal Poly and Parkway studies and then some. So, some of us are already convinced that reaches of the Arroyo can handle naturalization – let’s hope the Corps agrees!
For additional info on the Station Fire, fires and chapparral, there will be a free talk this Saturday night (and you’ll still have time to go out clubbing afterwards) hosted by the Theodore Payne Foundation with Richard Halsey of the Chaparral Institute and Jon Keeley, PhD of the US Geological Survey: 6:30-8:30pm, Clark Magnet High School Auditorium, 4747 New York Avenue, La Crescenta, CA 91214.
Reader Thal Armathura follows up to an earlier post, Woodburied Creek, (and Petrea Burchard’s Pasadena Daily Photo) in our comments section with links to more info on Woodbury Creek at Avenue to the Sky.
If your interests run more towards wastewater, the LA Times reports that the LA Regional Water Quality Control Board is (finally) taking action to prevent high-powered Malibu pooh from seeping downstream into Malibu Creek and Surfrider Beach. Thank you, Tracy Egoscue for your leadership at the Board, and to Baykeeper and Heal the Bay and others whose persistence has resulted in action.
The Times also reports that statewide leadership is yielding a compromise on state water issues. I’ll reserve judgement for now, as there is both praise and criticism, and just point you to the article. Emily Green at Chance of Rain neatly summarizes the compromise (and gets extra credit for use of the word backslapathon in a sentence) and gives a blow-by-blow account of the maneuvers leading up to the compromise here (basically, if you don’t already, you should just have her bookmarked). [UPDATE] Reader NHB pointed out that Heal the Bay’s Mark Gold offers a critique of the deal at Spouting Off.
Last but not least from the Times this week is a report from Huntington Beach on a small coastal salt marsh that was filled without a permit by a developer, Beachfront Village LLC.
L.A. Creek Freak 
Jessica,
Did you see this review of the legislation?
Watered Down Reform from the Spouting Off blog?
Nope, I missed that one – thanks for letting me know.
Jessica Hall writes, ‘…some of us are already convinced that reaches of the Arroyo can handle naturalization – let’s hope the Corps agrees!’
Indeed! Yet we ‘greens’ who love Animalia and Plantae are so often thwarted in our hopes and aims by doctrinaire eco-types who sometimes go so far as being Let It Burn, Nature-as-Death-Goddess slaverers. Others prioritize cutting human OFF from natural areas, and eradicating non-native species no matter how both harmless and helpful they may be. Unfortunately, the latter seem to be quite influential in the edu- and bureau- cracies.
There is more than one kind of ‘pro-life’: Anti-war is a ‘pro-life’, and so is the ‘green’ that thinks Nature is best served by a humanely intelligent custodial, ‘garden’ sensibility. Not more hyperpruned parks full of Eucalypts, Chinese Elms, Pittosporum and Oleander, but improved firebreaks (swaths of low-thorn, fire-quelling succulents also serve), intelligent contour grading, terracing, berming and retaining walls, excavated cistern-reservoirs to take overage from floodpaths (rather than the concept of seasonal rills ‘controlled’ as open sewer culverts and drains) –wildlife and fire-quelling value, lessening deadwood by harvesting (as usable substance) rather than burning, and even allowing non-quite-local plants to thrive if they harmlessly serve. EMPLOY firewatchers, patrollers, planters, repairers and tidyers. Have signs & maps, benches, trash receptacles, compost pits, restrooms, and security stuff here and there. Take lessons on how more wildlife can sometimes be found in cemeteries and backyards than so-called wild/natural areas. We can do it for Life!