Drop by Drop
With mounting pressure on the planet’s freshwater supply, many regions, including the western United States, are seeing their traditional sources of water dry up. "We’ve already tapped all of our major water supplies," says Doug Obegi, an attorney with NRDC’s western water project. "Rather than taking more water out of actual rivers, California has created a ‘virtual river’" through efficiency, recycling, and projects such as roadside gardens and green roofs, which help filter stormwater and preserve groundwater quality. The virtual river got a big boost last November, when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law setting the nation’s first statewide water-efficiency goals. The legislation, championed by NRDC, aims for a 20 percent average per-capita reduction in water use by 2020 throughout all of California’s urban water districts. Some of the new efficiency measures will be quite simple, Obegi says. Charging for water by volume, for example, can increase efficiency dramatically. Some water districts plan to meet the goal by offering rebates on water-efficient clothes washers, showerheads, and toilets, as well as incentives for landscaping with drought-resistant plants. Water districts that don’t comply with the new law will be barred by the state of California from applying for grants and loans — a huge disincentive. "Overall," Obegi says, "this law gives us a lot of the tools we need to get started."
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Famous Frogs That Escaped California Fire Threatened by Mudslides, Red Tape
In the hills outside of Los Angeles, a fire burned for five weeks last fall, killing two firefighters, destroying 89 homes, and leaving an area about a quarter the size of Rhode Island scorched and smelling of ash. Yet there are survivors in this charred wasteland — ground squirrels, crows, and to the great surprise of biologists who found them nestled in one rocky creek just outside the burn area, a population of frogs thought to be nearly extinct in Southern California They’re members of a species known as the California red-legged frog. About the size of a child’s baseball glove, with powerful crimson-dappled legs and bulging black-and-yellow eyes, they are the largest frog species west of the Mississippi. But having narrowly escaped the flames, as well as human development and a disease that has pushed them to the very brink of existence, this endangered frog lies in the path of yet another life-threatening hazard — the coming rains. The post-fire, poorly vegetated landscape is prone to flooding, which could signal the end for the lonely red-legged frog. Life wasn’t always so precarious. The pools and creeks in these parts once teemed with red-legged frogs; during California’s gold rush, they were a staple of the gold miner’s diet: frog leg stew, grilled frog legs, frog leg fricassee. They even starred in Mark Twain’s short story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." But unfortunately for the frogs, the foothills and canyons of coastal California are where people want to live, too. As development boomed during the second part of the 20th century, the red-legged frog population dropped by 90 percent. By 2003, scientists knew of only about 40 left in the entire southern part of their range, which stretches from Los Angeles County south to Baja. Biologists have been looking for other populations in this region for the past 10 years but have come up empty handed — until what’s known as the Station Fire subsided in early September. Soon after it burned out, a team from the U.S. Geological Survey went in to assess the ecological damage. While following the course of a small creek, the biologists stumbled on a series of small pools in the Angeles National Forest teeming with red-legged frogs. "It is really exciting," says Adam Backlin, a USGS biologist who has been monitoring the newfound population, which could number as many as 300. "This population may have a lot of genetic diversity that has been lost elsewhere." The discovery represents a rare piece of good news for amphibians as a whole. "Pretty much anywhere there are frogs, we’ve been documenting the decline and disappearance of species," says Dr. Vance Vredenburg, an assistant professor of biology at the University of California San Francisco. So Vredenburg is rooting for these survivors. "A lot of projects have shown that if we give them the opportunity, they will come back. And these frogs are hanging on in that area. That gives me some hope that they can expand from this spot." Although the fires are behind them for this season, heavy rains pose another challenge. Rain falling on a scorched landscape gathers dirt, rocks and debris from the naked hillsides and mixes them into a cement-like slurry that can cover several football fields. These mudslides race down canyons and basins at up to 35 miles per hour, leveling everything in their path. The Angeles Forest frogs wouldn’t stand a chance. So Backlin, the USGS biologist, and several state and federal wildlife agencies have been looking into potential rescue operations. "We would normally not advocate removing animals from the wild," Backlin says. "But they’re so rare, so fragmented, and the populations are so small. If we want them to persist, they need to be managed a little more aggressively." Officials considered temporarily relocating the frogs to zoos in Los Angeles or San Diego. Unfortunately, neither zoo can spare the extra money or staff to care for them. What’s more, some of the frogs have tested positive for a fungus called chytrid that is killing off amphibians around the world. Even though many frogs survive the disease and others seem resistant to infection, the stress of captivity can leave frogs more vulnerable to the effects of the fungus. Zoo officials fear that adopting the Angeles Forest frogs could introduce chytrid into their healthy populations. Another option would be moving the frogs into similar habitat nearby that hasn’t burned. But there aren’t many suitable locations, and because the red-legged frog is listed as "threatened" under wildlife regulations, a litany of requirements must be satisfied before the survivors could be relocated — even if that move is necessary to get them out of harm’s way. "Fortunately, we haven’t gotten a big rain out there yet," Backlin says, "but I don’t know if they’ll make it through the whole year." Meteorologists with the AccuWeather forecasting service predict an above-normal rainy season for southern California this winter, due to a strengthening El Nino. And forecasts call for heavy rains to drench much of the Angeles National Forest as early as Monday, with downpours much of the week. For the red-legged frog, that could be a forecast for extinction.
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Famous Frogs That Escaped California Fire Threatened by Mudslides, Red Tape
NRDC and Labor
NRDC’s David Pettit works with community and labor groups to fight air pollution in southern California. OE: Tell us a bit about the blue green alliance. Pettit: It used to be said that environmentalists would save a threatened mosquito at the cost of a million jobs and that unions would pave over Yosemite if they could get paid. This was always a phony dichotomy. The Blue Green Alliance embraces a number of labor unions and environmental groups, including NRDC, who believe that the green economy can provide hundreds of thousands of good jobs. Weatherizing homes and installing solar panels are jobs that can’t be outsourced offshore. On a different scale, California’s clean energy economy has generated $6.5 billion in venture capital in the past three years. OE: What are some examples of work that NRDC and labor groups have done together? Pettit: NRDC is working with a coalition of community and labor groups at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to clean up the single biggest source of deadly diesel particulate pollution in Southern California. Together, we crafted the Ports Clean Air Action Plan, the most environmentally progressive port cleanup program in the world, and convinced both ports to adopt it. NRDC is now fighting in court to keep the trucking industry from weakening the ports’ plans to clean up the fleet of 17,000 dirty, old diesel trucks that serve the ports. Several years ago, NRDC worked with community and labor groups near Los Angeles International Airport to make sure that LAX’s planned expansion was environmentally friendly and provided good jobs to local residents. NRDC also supported Los Angeles Measure B, a local initiative backed by many environmental and labor groups that would have encouraged the development of rooftop solar power in Los Angeles and provided for hundreds of good-paying installation and maintenance jobs. Unfortunately the proposal was narrowly defeated in March 2009. OE: Are there projects where NRDC and its labor friends disagree? Pettit: There are some projects where we have to agree to disagree with our friends in the labor movement. An example would be the Orange County Toll Road, an environmentally destructive project which NRDC fought to stop but which the trade unions supported. Another, similar situation is a very recent exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act that the California legislature gave to a football stadium project in Southern California. On the other hand, NRDC supports the construction of a far-reaching mass transit system in Los Angeles, which will provide not only construction jobs but operation and maintenance jobs too. The fact that there are sometimes disagreements does not detract from our belief that we really can have it both ways: we can clean up the environment while providing for important, good-paying jobs for Americans.
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NRDC and Labor