Weekly column by Sharon Byrne
Recent news stories tout local environmental advocacy successes with the Channelkeeper lawsuit, the plastic bag ban, National Surfing Day, and the defeat of Measure Y. I applaud efforts to preserve and protect the environment. The astonishing meteorological scale of air pollution generated in Bejing and the Pacific Garbage Patch come to mind as major environmental hazards that we as a planet need to take responsibility for and do something about. However, as the saying goes, think globally, act locally. So with that in mind, I do rather wish some of that wonderful environmental advocacy energy could be spent on some problems that don’t seem to be on the movement’s radar at present:
Pot smoking on State St and in public areas. We all think cigarette smoking is bad, and we have an ordinance that bans smoking within 20 ft of building entrances. For some reason, marijuana gets a pass from the disdain shown to tobacco. The goth-yoaches on State blow it right into your face. There’s a coolness factor that accompanies pot these days, probably because pro-marijuana advocates paint it as ‘green’ and ‘organic’. But seriously, no one wants to breathe anyone else’s smoke, whatever the source. So just ban it already.- On the subject of marijuana, what about a movement to save the back-country? Every year, Sheriff Brown gears up the helicopter, drops deputies into the back-country in our mountains, and rips out enormous marijuana grows operated by drug cartels. The cartels set up camps, dump trash and human waste, and divert mountain creeks to provide water to the grow. Pesticides have been found in grow sites that have been banned in the US for decades. Sheriffs also find guns, and occasionally a dead body. Hikers and backpackers have stumbled into grows, and one local couple was chased at gunpoint. The La Brea fire that burned over 80,000 acres in 2009 was traced to a campfire in a suspected cartel grow of 30,000 marijuana plants. When did we decide it was ok to turn over our mountain forests to drug cartels with nary a whimper? Why can’t environmentalists make it a huge cause to preserve and protect our backcountry from cartel grows? Seems like a slam dunk…
- Fix the stench emanating from the bird refuge. People report smelling it from the freeway to the Riviera to Milpas St. Crawfish are reported to be making some kind of mass exodus, though it’s not known whether this is an annual crawfish shindig tied to mating patterns, or a serious environmental warning sign. Widespread ammonia fumes just can’t be a good thing. And isn’t the refuge awfully close to the ocean? Why take the city to court over sewage spills from the sewer system, but not focus any attention on this problem? And, don’t just sue the city. Organize some kind of clean-up day and raise a bunch of money to fix this problem.
- Ban spray paint can sales. Wikipedia (questionable as a scholarly source, but provides citations to credible sources) says that “spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses chlorofluorocarbons or volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint unto a surface.” Environmentally bad, and it’s the weapon of choice for graffiti vandals. Removing graffiti requires donning rubber gloves and goggles because the removal chemicals are harsh. Good enough for me – just ban the darned spray paint cans. This one could be really easy, as it’s hard to visualize an opposition camp rushing to defend the merits of spray paint cans…
- Seriously enforce public urination and defecation, and clean out every encampment in every creek bed. That’s got to be an environmental hazard. Everything you dump on the street flows into the storm drains, and those flow to the ocean. Encampments at the creeks produce litter and human waste that wash down to the ocean with rain. We killed Measure Y, which would have cleaned the homeless encampment out of that creek. So are we just going to celebrate the defeat of another developer, and ignore the condition of the creek? Clean it up! Then do some cool ad campaign that tells everyone not to mess with the creek, or in it.
Maybe these causes aren’t as glamorous as suing the city and taking symbolic stances on the horrors of a plastic bag making it into our ocean and being swallowed by a random sea turtle. But sea turtles (random or not) deserve protection from human waste and whatever’s brewing in the bird refuge, too.
If the environmental movement would take up the banner on these causes, they’d go a long way to making a truly solid difference with preserving and protecting our local environment and natural beauty.
Surely the birthplace of Earth Day would step up to the task.
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It’s hard to know if all or some of this posting is tongue-in-cheek, but I suspect that it isn’t because I have read some of Ms. Byrne’s previous opinion pieces. This posting can’t be taken too seriously because its purpose is not environmentally-driven, but Conservative-driven. I’d have more sympathy with the recommendation to reduce pollution by ending public urination if it were balanced by a desire to reduce manufacturers’ carbon dioxide emissions through legislation. And I must have missed the moment when the environmental movement decided that it was “okay to turn over our mountain forests to drug cartels with nary a whimper”. Also, I’m willing to go on record against graffiti, but I think, on the whole, the problems created by the oil industry for our area should get some mention if spray paint pollution is being cited as an environmental hazard.
Let’s have a little balance here and not make environmentalism sound like a crackpot movement hatched by dope-smoking, defecating greenies. And just to show I’m even-handed in my political leanings, I’m very willing to admit that Liberals are as much to blame as Conservatives for the stench emanating from the bird refuge.
And when you see G.D trash on the street, pick it up and dump it yourself. Don’t wail about the globe, when you don’t even bother to take care of what at what is under your own feet. Just do it. And don’t argue with you momma.
There is nothing natural about sticking anything hot, gaseous, toxic and smoking into your mouth gums,, throat and lungs. If Nature wanted you to smoke pot, she would have made it self-igniting. No, only the stupidity of Man created smoked pot. Stick it to the Man and shun the weed.
Smoking dope is so uncool. I don’t know anyone who does it any more.
I’m normally right there with you Sharon, but this piece sounds like the sky is falling nonsense of the Saturday EcoNutz lady. All of your “problems” have very simple solutions without government bans or more rules to be ignored.
Pot – Legalize it…it’s less harmful than booze and prohibition has failed every time it’s been tried.
Bird Refuge – Treat it like a sewage plant and install aeration equipment to eliminate the natural anaerobic process causing the stench (ok, this one’s probably going to have to come from the City)
Spray Paint – Are you kidding? Try painting a wicker chair with a brush. Spray paint is already locked up tight in this town and the kids are still getting it, so you’ve obviously got a parenting/supervision problem. Send em the bill for the cleanup.
Bums – Stop feeding the strays and they will go away….this includes all aspects of Homeless Inc.
Love it. Keep stirring the pot!
My earlier post was deleted for speaking too closely to the truth.
Welcome to the spin zone,, if its not within there reality then we just pooof its gone.
Ocean plastics are more real than global warming. The harm is here and now and we don’t have to wait for results. Check out the Algalita website for one a responsible organization doing rather than talking about this.
Blowing any kind of smoke is obnoxious, whether marijuana or tobacco. The State Street corridor, the parks, and the beaches ought to be non-smoking zones. The 20′ rule applies in the county, not the city. Time for the city at least to adopt the same rule and enforce it, preferably to join Calabasas and other health-aware cities that have banned smoking in public places altogether.
Our sister city to the north – RV’s parking in the K-Mart lot which they allow and now vagrants and pan-handlers on every corner of the Home Depot shopping center intersections.
Home Depot locked screens in front of the spray paint cans were wide open.
Boy that bird refuge stench is REAALLY bad. Have to roll up the windows just driving by and it still blows through@!
This Bird Refuge stench erupts as a problem from time to time for those of us with a long history here. But agree, this is the worst I can remember having been hit driving on 101 with my windows closed too. Can’t imagine what it must be like for those living there.
Was it not the Clark Estate who closed off this body of water so they could have lagoon views, therefore it would be nice if this now solvent probate estate did something permanent about a fix for their possible folly. Also the city had installed an aeration system after the last siege of stench. What happened to that?
Ban the fireworks! Biggest polluters of them all.
> Why can’t environmentalists make it a huge cause to preserve and protect our backcountry from cartel grows?
Because they depend on those grows for their cheap pot.
You need look no further than the Sierra club’s purge of leaders over the illegal immigration issue to see that hypocritical politics rules these types of archaic organizations