http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/?IssueNum=192&id=1006
DR. WALTER BOYCE
~3rd Degree~
By Annette Stark
The UC Davis wildlife expert on the mountain lion in Griffith Park, avoiding the deer, the best way to greet a big cat
In a few episodes of The Sopranos last season, a bear wandered out of the Jersey wilderness and into Tony Soprano's backyard. The show's erstwhile hero didn't name the bear or develop any rapport with it; he just sat there in his shorts with a shotgun, waiting for the elusive ursine to reappear. Fortunately, the bear was a no-show. So far, the Griffith Park mountain lion hasn't been given a proper name, either, even though the wild animal has made several high-profile appearances. Since May, the lion has been sighted on the north side of the park and in a residential Los Feliz neighborhood at the intersection of Commonwealth and Cromwell.
But here in L.A., the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife has expressed no interest in capturing and killing our lion, assures Dr. Walter Boyce, the big cat expert and UC Davis professor who runs the university's Wildlife Health Center. Last week, Griffith Park officials flew Boyce in to tour the area, evaluate the danger, calm nerves, and generally provide education and advice about how our wildlife and people can coexist in this ever-shrinking cityscape.
-Annette Stark
CityBeat: How does the mountain lion differ from other big cats?
Dr. Walter Boyce: The mountain lion, cougar, puma, catamount, panther - all those refer to the same animal - is the only large cat we have in the United States. The next size is the bobcat, which is considerably smaller. Mountain lions range from about 80 pounds for an adult female to about 150 pounds for the male. They are exquisite athletes and predators and use this athleticism to hunt by ambushing their prey. A mountain lion has a burst of energy and is fast for short distances. So they lie in wait where the prey is and then it's a quick rush and jump.
Where did our Griffith Park lion come from?
We may never know, but the two most logical choices are either the Santa Monica Mountains or the San Gabriel Mountains. There seems to be a better connection to its habitat on Mulholland Drive, which runs in a line from the Santa Monica Mountains toward Griffith Park. It wouldn't be easy for a lion to make this journey, but it's conceivable. They would use any cover that's available to them - drainage ditches and trees - they're very cryptic, secretive.
Is there a possibility that it came from someone's backyard?
Yes. There are a number of accounts back in the eastern U.S. of mountain lions being seen in places like New York State. Mountain lions used to occur there, but as far as we know there aren't any native mountain lions still living in the wild in New York. But there are a number of privately owned mountain lions in this country and sometimes people release them or they escape. But an animal that's been in captivity wouldn't know how to behave in the wild. And the reports we're getting on this, the fact that it's been seen a couple of times with a few weeks in between, fits with it being a native wild animal.
Are there others in the park?
We don't even know how many there are in California. The Department of Fish and Game estimates there are maybe four or five thousand but that's just an estimate. There's no way to count them.
You have said that the appearance of the Griffith Park lion might indicate an upswing in the mountain lion population. What would account for that?
That's just speculation on my part. There are certainly more sightings, but there are more people, making it difficult for lions to avoid us. But we really don't understand much about why the lion population goes up and down. Over the past few decades, the number of lions has increased in California. Mountain lions were killed on bounty very aggressively during the first half of the 1900s, and when that stopped, mountain lions increased. And since lions track available food, as deer numbers go up and down, the available prey goes up and down.
Is it correct to say then, as a safety precaution, avoid the deer?
Whenever you see deer in Griffith Park, or in any of the mountains around L.A., there could be a lion in the area. But I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that the lion is very close to that particular deer. Most of the time, lions will be hunting at night, dawn or dusk. It just means that the prey is nearby and you're in mountain lion habitat.
What safety precautions did you suggest to Griffith Park officials?
These are the same things that anyone who goes into the mountains in Southern California should be aware of. You're in mountain lion habitat; the times you're most likely to encounter a lion is at night, or dawn or dusk. Travel with companions. Don't let your children get out of sight. And it's always a good idea to have a cell phone in case you do have an encounter. I saw some reports making a big deal about dogs off their leashes. Mountain lions do view dogs as a prey item, but that's typically when a lion comes onto someone's property. In Griffith Park, if you do have a dog poking around, you don't know what's going to happen.
You were quoted saying that the assumption about lions being shy and reclusive is changing. Are the lions changing, or just the assumptions?
Actually, I would like to correct that. Lions are still shy and reclusive and I didn't mean to imply they aren't any longer. That fits with what this Griffith Park animal is doing. Otherwise it would have been seen more frequently. All of the research we've done in San Diego fits with the idea that the lions are still doing what they can to avoid being seen.
From the lion's perspective, what most concerns you about this situation?
Griffith Park is not a good place for a mountain lion. It's a relatively small habitat and it's difficult for a lion to stay there a long time without getting into trouble. For example, moving out into the streets and getting hit by a car, or showing up in someone's yard where it could cause alarm and a response by law enforcement. Mountain lions are a true wild animal and Griffith Park only provides a portion of what a population of lions would need long term. There is adequate food and cover, however, with dozens of deer and smaller animals, as well, which is probably why this lion has remained there this long.
Are there any plans to capture it?
There's no plan to do that. The lion really hasn't done anything that would warrant capturing. I know some people would prefer it wasn't there. But the lion is behaving the way we expect lions to behave and want them to behave. It's avoiding people. There's nothing to suggest that this lion is a public threat.
What should you do if you encounter a lion? Most Californians are never going to see a lion. The times it has been seen, the animal looked at the person and went in the other direction very quickly. That's normal. If the lion should behave in a threatening way, you basically want to act big, do whatever you need to do to show the lion that you're the aggressive, dominant animal.
Showing posts with label By Annette Stark. Show all posts
Showing posts with label By Annette Stark. Show all posts
A Fungus Among Us By Annette Stark
A FUNGUS AMONG US
Sudden Oak Death spreads, gets a name change, and inspires new federal rules that threaten to shut down California Nurseries
http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/?id=865&IssueNum=47
By Annette Stark
A growing national panic over Sudden Oak Death - the killer tree disease that first showed up in Northern California a decade ago and finally made its way to the Southern California-based Monrovia Nursery in March - took another fast twist last week with the delivery of a new set of USDA rules regarding the disease. The new regulations, the most stringent yet, beef up federal inspections to control the spread of SOD and validate controversial new methods for detecting it.
With the new rules, time-consuming lab cultures will no longer be necessary in certifying that a plant is infected with the fungus associated with the disease (Phytophthora ramorum). DNA testing will be used - which produces faster results - to simply indicate that a plant is carrying P. ramorum spores, even if it's still healthy. A positive DNA test will restrict movement of plants even outside the 12 Northern California counties originally quarantined. Also, as regards to confirmed SOD hosts, a DNA positive in the nursery on a confirmed host will cause all plants in the genus - for instance, all roses - to be tested and possibly subjected to quarantines.
The news was a crushing blow to an industry that is already struggling from financial losses totaling in the millions from individual state embargoes that preempted federal rules. Four states, including Florida, are still refusing to take any California nursery stock.
"Regulating on the basis of DNA is a dangerous precedent," says Don Dillon, chairman of the California Association of Nursery and Garden Centers (CANGC), indicating that false DNA positives can occur 10 percent of the time. "It's dangerous to put the whole genus on the list. There is no scientific basis for that."
Also last week, the American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA) announced that it has renamed the disease. "P. ramorum causes disease in certain trees and shrubs. ANLA has decided to call this disease 'Ramorum canker and blight' rather than the somewhat inaccurate and alarming term, 'sudden oak death,'" executive vice president of ANLA Robert J. Dolibois was quoted in Landscape Management.
It was the strongest move yet to control the SOD panic that some say is spinning out of control. Many are wondering nationwide if it might be too late.
In a letter leaked to CityBeat, dated April 14, UC Berkeley scientist Dr. Matteo Garbelotto took up the case for DNA testing. (Dr. Garbelotto and UC Davis' Dr. David Rizzo are credited with isolating the P. ramorum fungus as the probable cause of SOD.) "This is a serious ethical issue," Garbelotto warns. "I cannot close my eyes when I hear CDFA people at meetings make comments like 'DNA tests are not species specific,' when all of the scientific evidence proves the contrary." The letter was e-mailed to officials at the California Department of Forestry and Agriculture (CDFA) and to the National Phytophthora ramorum Program Manager for USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Jonathan M. Jones.
On the surface, the letter is alarming: "If this were polio," Garbelotto asks in the letter, "would you feel confident letting your non-immunized child play with somebody that resulted positive for polio through a DNA test?" It also reeks of political innuendo, with Garbelotto asking if this is "a crusade I have to start by myself" and referencing his political connections: "I can certainly talk with congress members who know me personally."
"What are we going to do," he asks, "allow the infestation to move on to the rest of the country?"
It's unclear whether Garbelotto's letter influenced the new USDA rules. The letter preceded the USDA regulations by only two weeks and the strict measures it demands are a close match with the updated rules.
Nurseries and growers, which comprise the state's third largest industry, are alarmed by these fast-moving events. They now feel they are in serious jeopardy from statements like those made by Garbelotto and the national press. Is this rhetoric, they're asking, or does Dr. Garbelotto actually believe this is a killer epidemic?
If actions speak louder than words, the answer might be in the steps Garbelotto followed about reporting the wood rose as a confirmed SOD host on April 1. If you missed the importance of this discovery in light of the spreading SOD epidemic, Garbelotto was there to remind you. In a fuzzy press release dated April 1, 2004, he noted that P. ramorum had been found in a wild wood rose, and wrote, "Although no infected roses have been found in commercial nurseries yet, this finding should prompt surveys of roses sold commercially (especially wood rose) to ascertain their infection status."
The nursery industry took immediate issue: "That comment unfairly raised the risk and alluded to the fact that there would be a problem spreading this to commercial roses, which is unfounded," Dillon explains, "It was just a big 'what if?'"
But CityBeat learned that scientists had information about the rose host much earlier than they announced it, by nearly a year. In fact, according to the paper published by the Garbelotto team in the April issue of The American Phytopathological Society journal, isolates were confirmed in the lab on the wood rose leaves in May 2003, which probably would have qualified it for the Aphis SOD quarantine list of associated hosts. But Garbelotto didn't report it to APHIS until March 4, 2004.
"It is clear from the published record that Phytophthora ramorum was isolated from diseased leaflets of wood rose in May 2003" observed Dr. Lee Klinger, a noted plant pathologist formerly at the National Center for Atmospheric Research who has postulated that mosses might be a possible cause of SOD. "So it's a good question why this species didn't make it onto the APHIS list of non-regulated hosts at that time."
Questions now linger over the timing of the appearance of the wood rose as confirmed host to P. ramorum. Klinger says it should have been on the confirmed list as early as December 2003. And in light of a federal quarantine, time would have been of the essence.
When first asked about the peculiar timing, Dr. Rizzo said: "Because P. ramorum is a quarantined pathogen, only APHIS has the authority to list hosts in any way. Our role is to provide information to them and then it is their decision to list a new host and/or release the information. The regulatory agencies have required us to have data peer reviewed in a journal and published."
But, according to APHIS, peer review in a journal is not one of their requirements. "I've posted other plants to the SOD confirmed host list that were not accompanied by any published papers" said Jonathan Jones of APHIS, who also wanted to make it clear that scientists did nothing legally wrong.
In other words, the reporting was left up to them. When pressed further, Rizzo then said, it was CDFA rules - not APHIS - they had decided to follow: "CDFA has always required peer review and that is the standard to which Matteo's lab adhered ... APHIS apparently does not necessarily require it for associated host status - I guess this is new to me." (Garbelotto did not respond to numerous requests for comment.)
APHIS, however, not CDFA, controls the quarantine list.
The upshot is that information about roses possibly carrying "Ramorum canker and blight" was held up for almost a year. Peer review was done and the paper was accepted for publication by January 23, which would have still prevented the "polio" from traveling on Valentine's Day roses. They didn't do that, either. Is this a group that's knocking itself out to control a deadly plant epidemic? Or, is this just so much hyperbole and politics - a way to keep the research funds flowing into the Garbelotto Berkeley lab? "It certainly raises the possibility that they (Garbelotto and Rizzo) don't think it's that infectious of a disease, which is what we've been saying all along," Don Dillon says. "We know there's a political aspect to the regulation of this pathogen and I guess there is always the possibility that the desire for power might be a factor. To me, it just brings up all sorts of issues about human nature."
Published: 04/29/2004
Sudden Oak Death spreads, gets a name change, and inspires new federal rules that threaten to shut down California Nurseries
http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/?id=865&IssueNum=47
By Annette Stark
A growing national panic over Sudden Oak Death - the killer tree disease that first showed up in Northern California a decade ago and finally made its way to the Southern California-based Monrovia Nursery in March - took another fast twist last week with the delivery of a new set of USDA rules regarding the disease. The new regulations, the most stringent yet, beef up federal inspections to control the spread of SOD and validate controversial new methods for detecting it.
With the new rules, time-consuming lab cultures will no longer be necessary in certifying that a plant is infected with the fungus associated with the disease (Phytophthora ramorum). DNA testing will be used - which produces faster results - to simply indicate that a plant is carrying P. ramorum spores, even if it's still healthy. A positive DNA test will restrict movement of plants even outside the 12 Northern California counties originally quarantined. Also, as regards to confirmed SOD hosts, a DNA positive in the nursery on a confirmed host will cause all plants in the genus - for instance, all roses - to be tested and possibly subjected to quarantines.
The news was a crushing blow to an industry that is already struggling from financial losses totaling in the millions from individual state embargoes that preempted federal rules. Four states, including Florida, are still refusing to take any California nursery stock.
"Regulating on the basis of DNA is a dangerous precedent," says Don Dillon, chairman of the California Association of Nursery and Garden Centers (CANGC), indicating that false DNA positives can occur 10 percent of the time. "It's dangerous to put the whole genus on the list. There is no scientific basis for that."
Also last week, the American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA) announced that it has renamed the disease. "P. ramorum causes disease in certain trees and shrubs. ANLA has decided to call this disease 'Ramorum canker and blight' rather than the somewhat inaccurate and alarming term, 'sudden oak death,'" executive vice president of ANLA Robert J. Dolibois was quoted in Landscape Management.
It was the strongest move yet to control the SOD panic that some say is spinning out of control. Many are wondering nationwide if it might be too late.
In a letter leaked to CityBeat, dated April 14, UC Berkeley scientist Dr. Matteo Garbelotto took up the case for DNA testing. (Dr. Garbelotto and UC Davis' Dr. David Rizzo are credited with isolating the P. ramorum fungus as the probable cause of SOD.) "This is a serious ethical issue," Garbelotto warns. "I cannot close my eyes when I hear CDFA people at meetings make comments like 'DNA tests are not species specific,' when all of the scientific evidence proves the contrary." The letter was e-mailed to officials at the California Department of Forestry and Agriculture (CDFA) and to the National Phytophthora ramorum Program Manager for USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Jonathan M. Jones.
On the surface, the letter is alarming: "If this were polio," Garbelotto asks in the letter, "would you feel confident letting your non-immunized child play with somebody that resulted positive for polio through a DNA test?" It also reeks of political innuendo, with Garbelotto asking if this is "a crusade I have to start by myself" and referencing his political connections: "I can certainly talk with congress members who know me personally."
"What are we going to do," he asks, "allow the infestation to move on to the rest of the country?"
It's unclear whether Garbelotto's letter influenced the new USDA rules. The letter preceded the USDA regulations by only two weeks and the strict measures it demands are a close match with the updated rules.
Nurseries and growers, which comprise the state's third largest industry, are alarmed by these fast-moving events. They now feel they are in serious jeopardy from statements like those made by Garbelotto and the national press. Is this rhetoric, they're asking, or does Dr. Garbelotto actually believe this is a killer epidemic?
If actions speak louder than words, the answer might be in the steps Garbelotto followed about reporting the wood rose as a confirmed SOD host on April 1. If you missed the importance of this discovery in light of the spreading SOD epidemic, Garbelotto was there to remind you. In a fuzzy press release dated April 1, 2004, he noted that P. ramorum had been found in a wild wood rose, and wrote, "Although no infected roses have been found in commercial nurseries yet, this finding should prompt surveys of roses sold commercially (especially wood rose) to ascertain their infection status."
The nursery industry took immediate issue: "That comment unfairly raised the risk and alluded to the fact that there would be a problem spreading this to commercial roses, which is unfounded," Dillon explains, "It was just a big 'what if?'"
But CityBeat learned that scientists had information about the rose host much earlier than they announced it, by nearly a year. In fact, according to the paper published by the Garbelotto team in the April issue of The American Phytopathological Society journal, isolates were confirmed in the lab on the wood rose leaves in May 2003, which probably would have qualified it for the Aphis SOD quarantine list of associated hosts. But Garbelotto didn't report it to APHIS until March 4, 2004.
"It is clear from the published record that Phytophthora ramorum was isolated from diseased leaflets of wood rose in May 2003" observed Dr. Lee Klinger, a noted plant pathologist formerly at the National Center for Atmospheric Research who has postulated that mosses might be a possible cause of SOD. "So it's a good question why this species didn't make it onto the APHIS list of non-regulated hosts at that time."
Questions now linger over the timing of the appearance of the wood rose as confirmed host to P. ramorum. Klinger says it should have been on the confirmed list as early as December 2003. And in light of a federal quarantine, time would have been of the essence.
When first asked about the peculiar timing, Dr. Rizzo said: "Because P. ramorum is a quarantined pathogen, only APHIS has the authority to list hosts in any way. Our role is to provide information to them and then it is their decision to list a new host and/or release the information. The regulatory agencies have required us to have data peer reviewed in a journal and published."
But, according to APHIS, peer review in a journal is not one of their requirements. "I've posted other plants to the SOD confirmed host list that were not accompanied by any published papers" said Jonathan Jones of APHIS, who also wanted to make it clear that scientists did nothing legally wrong.
In other words, the reporting was left up to them. When pressed further, Rizzo then said, it was CDFA rules - not APHIS - they had decided to follow: "CDFA has always required peer review and that is the standard to which Matteo's lab adhered ... APHIS apparently does not necessarily require it for associated host status - I guess this is new to me." (Garbelotto did not respond to numerous requests for comment.)
APHIS, however, not CDFA, controls the quarantine list.
The upshot is that information about roses possibly carrying "Ramorum canker and blight" was held up for almost a year. Peer review was done and the paper was accepted for publication by January 23, which would have still prevented the "polio" from traveling on Valentine's Day roses. They didn't do that, either. Is this a group that's knocking itself out to control a deadly plant epidemic? Or, is this just so much hyperbole and politics - a way to keep the research funds flowing into the Garbelotto Berkeley lab? "It certainly raises the possibility that they (Garbelotto and Rizzo) don't think it's that infectious of a disease, which is what we've been saying all along," Don Dillon says. "We know there's a political aspect to the regulation of this pathogen and I guess there is always the possibility that the desire for power might be a factor. To me, it just brings up all sorts of issues about human nature."
Published: 04/29/2004
Screaming Trees Sudden Oak Death Epidemic By Annette Stark
SCREAMING TREES
Botanist and environmentalist Ralph Zingaro may know the cure for tree diseases wiping out California
By Annette Stark
The epidemic of bleeding trees was first noticed in 1995, affecting the tanoaks in leafy Northern California coastal areas like Marin County, Santa Cruz, Mill Valley, and Monterey. Soon after, Sudden Oak Death (the killer earned a name) was detected in other tree species, including coast live oaks, which rapidly deteriorated and died off. Majestic giants that were more than 100 years old were dropping like flies, succumbing within weeks to the blight of yellowed drooping leaves and blood-like bark cankers - the burgundy-red-to-black-colored sap oozing from their trunks. Horrified Northern Californians watched their woods slowly bleeding to death: the views along California's coastal highways were irreparably changed, endangered wildlife lost vital shelter, and property owners were rapidly giving up on their beauty, privacy, and shade.
With the cause of the blight unknown, government officials didn't know how to react. Theories that the epidemic was caused by bark beetles seen feeding on infected trees prompted the Marin County Department of Agriculture to recommend spraying with a pesticide, Astro. Outraged environmentalists balked. For one thing, it didn't work. For another, it left an even-more-toxic environment and the infection kept right on accelerating.
It didn't take long for Sudden Oak Death to show up in other areas and tree species. By 2000, Sudden Oak Death was found in California's historic redwoods and Douglas Firs, which might have led some to conclude that all tree deaths were connected. Amazingly, it did not. Scientists studying the epidemic held fast to the theory that these were all unrelated illnesses. In a Homeowner's Guide to Sudden Oak Death, provided in the mid-'90s by the University of California Davis's Nicole Palkovsky and Pavel Svihra, the writers offered, "It's unclear whether tanoaks and coast live oaks are being affected by the same disorder." Sometime later, in 2000, UC Berkeley scientists Matteo Garbelotto and David Rizzo isolated the cause of the disease - a fungus, Phytophthora ramorum, which is believed to attack the roots.
Garbelotto, armed with a Ph.D. in plant pathology from UC Berkeley, millions of dollars in grants, and the blessings of Marin's Department of Agriculture, set about the task of finding a cure.
But one guy kept getting in their way. Petaluma-based botanist Ralph Zingaro insisted that the findings were wrong. Zingaro, a hard-line environmentalist, known to Northern California conservationists as an environmental "contrarian," received his degree in forestry from Cornell University in 1977 and has been digging in the dirt and hugging trees ever since. His company, Bioscape, touts non-toxic products, beneficial insects, and organic fertilizers, and his clients include Southern California golf courses Bear Creek and Canyon Lake, pesticide-conscious homeowners from Marin County to Los Angeles, and conservation-minded celebrities introduced to him through the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The 47-year-old Zingaro belongs to various societies like the Pesticide Free Coalition and the NRDC, helped the city of Fairfax go pesticide-free, and speaks as often and as frankly as he's permitted about the scourge of environmental poisons.
Zingaro doesn't believe in fungus. He believes in a toxic planet. "Read The Dying of the Trees," he suggests. In the 1995 book, author Charles Little exposes tree mortality across the U.S. Though suspected causes span everything from acid rain to smog, a damaged ozone layer, pesticides, and toxic emissions from burning fuels, Little makes it clear that something has gone terribly wrong with the ecosystem. "That's what's weakening our forests," says Zingaro, "leaving trees that are unable to withstand otherwise harmless insects or fungi that have been around forever."
Garbeletto contacted Zingaro shortly after his discovery to conduct some experiments. Although Zingaro had been engaged in a strongly worded public rebuttal, he agreed. They were, after all, both interested in a cure. The pathogen, if it existed at all, Zingaro insisted, was merely a secondary cause, a microbe feeding on a malnourished, environmentally stressed tree. "It's caused by soil acidification," Zingaro said to anyone who found his or her way onto his three-acre Petaluma ranch. (An outbuilding houses the office, experimental "dirt" and products. "I get to the truth because I'm willing to pick up a shovel and dig.")
Applying his own theory to Sudden Oak Death, Zingaro fed his customers' trees - those affected and also ones deemed "high-risk" - with a phosphite-based fertilizer, Bio-Serum, which he touted as a "tree tonic." He also says he applied a combination of other minerals and rock dust, designed to address the problems with the soil. "The fertilizer was around for ages," he points out about Bio-Serum, and it was legal to use for such purpose.
Zingaro's cure worked. He had many delighted customers, albeit most were like-minded environmentalists. On the Bioscape website, along with the ads for Non-Poisonous and Humane Rodent Control Bait and Sluggo Biorational Slug and Snail Bait, are testimonials from customers like Steven Murch, from the Bradley Architect Group, thanking Zingaro for using a copper and phosphorus mix in a food-oil base to save his dying tree. "Ralph told me the recently discovered fungus, or any pest for that matter, is not the reason the trees are dying," Murch enthuses.
"Zingaro believes that the farmers can protect their lands without using poisons," Fairfax Mayor Frank Egger explains. (Fairfax is one of 11 incorporated cities in Marin County) "He's assisted us in our goals of keeping the poisons out of our community and creeks. Here the Coho salmon and steelhead trout are both listed as endangered species."
"He stands tall amongst the trees," offers fellow conservationist, Joe Aliff, who did early work with environmentalist Dr. Orie Loucks on "bleeding oaks," and says he first saw the syndrome 50 years ago in West Virginia. "That started the Eastern Tree Movement. This isn't local to California; bleeding oaks are everywhere." Aliff explains that his interest in the trees is part of his heritage as a Cherokee. "For some people it's a sideline," he says, "but, it's natural and obvious to us."
Obvious, maybe, to Cherokees and conservationists, but apparently not to Marin County District Attorney Paula Freschi Kamena. On February 4, her office served Zingaro with a civil lawsuit, California vs. Ralph Zingaro and Bioscape, charging, among other things, that Zingaro used Bio-Serum as a pesticide, to kill the P. ramorum fungus, and that this use as a fungicide wasn't legally approved. Additionally, the case charges that offering Bio-Serum was an act of "consumer fraud" in that it didn't actually work - even though Garbelotto himself would prove that it did. The D.A. is also charging that Zingaro took "unfair advantage" of the marketplace, in selling a product that wasn't approved while other businesses suffered, waiting for a legal solution.
~ Deep Fertilizer ~
To understand Zingaro's case, it's important to note that Bio-Serum, a potassium phosphite fertilizer, is considered by everyone involved to be chemically identical to the product that was finally approved in October 2003 as the sole treatment for Sudden Oak Death. That product, Agri-Fos, was once classified as a fertilizer and re-classified as a fungicide as the result of UC Berkeley experiments about the efficacy of phosphonates against P. ramorum. By using a non-approved product, the D.A.'s office maintains, Zingaro broke State pesticide laws. That he says he was trying to treat tree death, they say, is irrelevant. In their opinion, he was trying to kill a pest.
"Why would I try to kill a fungus I don't believe exists?" Zingaro argues.
"All over Marin, people fear losing their oak trees. Preying on this fear in order to bilk people of their money is despicable," the Marin D.A. said in a statement that was aired February 6 on KFTY Santa Rosa news.
D.A. Freschi Kamena never mentions that the cure actually worked. Nor that Zingaro has a pesticide license, and could have legally applied hundreds of other toxic pesticides or fungicides if he so chose.
The civil suit demands, among other things, restitution at a minimum of one million dollars and reimbursement of the Marin County D.A.'s office attorney fees. A preliminary motion is scheduled for Friday, March 5.
A key witness in the State's case against Zingaro is the scientist credited with isolating P. ramorum. Though not directly quoted in the State's lawsuit, Garbelotto's recollections are provided by Shawn Spaulding, Special Deputy District Attorney in the Consumer Protection Unit. Why Garbelotto isn't directly quoted is unclear. (When contacted, the Marin D.A.'s office refused to comment on the case.) Spaulding tells of Garbelotto's encounter with Zingaro in 2000, the purpose of which was to conduct some experiments, using Zingaro's three-acre Petaluma ranch. The episode cumulated in Zingaro saying he was going to make phosphonates available to his customers and Garbelotto cautioning him not to.
Garbelotto insists he had no real interest in participating in this case. "I'm subpoenaed," said the scientist, who has been published extensively on plant pathology. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Padua, Italy, received his Ph.D. at Berkeley in 1996, and first garnered recognition for studying chestnut blight in Italy.
Although Garbelotto says he hasn't seen the Bio-Serum label, he admits that the product and Agri-Fos are likely to be chemically the same. "About a hundred products are. We tested half the products in the world. We picked the one [Agri-Fos] that is the most efficient from the most ethical company. We also had the idea to choose a small company that understood the need for research."
It took three years from the point Garbelotto identified P. ramorum to the point that Agri-Fos was relabeled from fertilizer to pesticide. Science (and government agencies) moves slowly, as everyone knows. "I have millions of dollars in grants and 25 people working full steam on research," Garbelotto offers. "My position is to do exactly that."
During those three years, environmentalists point out, Sudden Oak Death spread: it has been found in areas of Oregon and Washington State. Great Britain has reported infections of bleeding trees. Recently, the California Oak Mortality Task Force posted on their website that 22 tree species are now known to be hosts for the disease and 38 species are known to be susceptible.
Early concerns about Phytophthora ramorum spreading to Southern California proved to be unfounded, but other tree blights hit here. Eucalyptus tree death first appeared in Southern California in 1998, with trees being victimized by a previously unknown pest, a small insect called the Red Gum Lerp Psyllid. Two years later, UC Berkeley professor Dr. Donald Dahlsten imported wasps from Australia and released them in the infested areas to prey on these pests. The wasps took hold but it was too late, according to Gerry Pinnere, Supervisor of Pest Management in the Forest Division of L.A.'s Parks Dept. "The wasps are still out there," Pinnere says, "but the trees died." (Dahlsten passed away from skin cancer in September 2003.)
Since the eucalyptus tree death, a fungus seen in Florida and Las Vegas, Fusarium oxysporum, has been found to cause palms to wilt in Santa Monica, Hancock Park, and Dana Point, hitting the urban forest in Beverly Hills especially hard. Another pathogen, once seen in avocado trees, Phytophthora cinnamomi, is said to be producing SOD-like symptoms in Southern California oaks. And while scientists still refuse to connect worldwide incidents of tree death, anyone who watched the trees ravaged by Pine Tree Mortality explode into flame in last fall's San Bernardino Forest fire couldn't help but wonder. How can bark beetles feeding on dying pines in Southern California be entirely disassociated from bark beetles feeding on dead trees in the north?
Garbelotto insists it's more complicated than that. "This is a serious pathogen, not a secondary organism," Garbelotto explains about P. ramorum. "In San Bernardino, the issue is overcrowding of the forests. There is a scarcity of resources for the trees to grow. These trees are starved from lack of light and nutrients in the soil, and the trees are weakened by root disease. The oaks were not overcrowded up here; they were weakened by the pathogen, and the beetles could sense it and went in."
Though one product has been deemed effective against Sudden Oak Death, Garbelotto's research is ongoing. The press has rushed to declare that Agri-Fos is a cure for Sudden Oak Death, but others are more careful. "It appears to have some efficacy against the disease," said Marin Deputy Agricultural Commissioner Fred Crowder, who is also a key witness in the government's case.
In an article in UC Berkeley News dated October 2, 2003, Garbelotto noted that the treatment does not kill the pathogen, but that it stops its growth if used in the early stages of infection. The article also points out that phosphites have been used for more than 10 years as a relatively non-toxic substance.
~ The Bug in the System ~
If Berkeley's information sounds like Zingaro's argument, well, it almost is. Berkeley says the phosphate product appears to arrest the growth of the fungus; he says, of course, replacing missing essential nutrients will produce that, and other, desired effects. Hence, under Zingaro's system, both the tree and the now-harmless fungus will live.
Tree owners, conservationists and Zingaro supporters, meanwhile, are growing increasingly angry. Research your heads off, they plead, but give us something that can save our trees. Even Garbelotto admits that, as regards Sudden Oak Death, the "cure" came too late. The trees that are the sickest will probably die.
Commenting on the case, NRDC spokesperson Jonathan Kaplan took a different position. "If anything, this case underscores the government's need to be more responsive in fast-tracking alternative, less toxic products to treat these problems with our trees."
"I have defended and prosecuted unfair competition claims and I've never seen a claim quite like this one," says Zingaro's attorney, Bari Bonapart. "Usually you see people being sued for offering a product that doesn't work. But I've never seen anyone sued for offering one that does work."
"Personally, I see it as harassment," says Virginia Souders-Mason, one of the founders of the Beyond Pesticides Coalition.
"I would have thought the county would have been exalting Ralph for curing all those trees, and been delighted to have somebody on the scene who really cared," says Joe Aliff.
"Obviously they didn't like Zingaro's pesticide-free approach," offers Fairfax Mayor Egger, who authored his city's Neighbor Notification Law, requiring 48 hours notice to your neighbors before you spray pesticides in the area. "He's being harassed by the county agricultural commissioner, Stacy Carlson. Fairfax has had run-ins with Carlson, too. The County [Marin] is not happy with our pesticide ban and is working to overturn our ordinance. Zingaro has tried to assist our town in remaining pesticide free. So it's pretty much no surprise to me that the county would go after this guy."
Actually, it's impossible to know which of Zingaro's activities irritated the D.A.'s office the most. There were, in fact, so many.
To begin with, there was an ad - a starring piece of evidence in the D.A.'s case. Bioscape ran the ad for short time in 2000. It featured an ambitious claim that Bio-Serum had a "curative" effect on SOD, which the D.A. charges constituted consumer fraud. County officials served Zingaro with a "Cease and desist" order, demanding that he pull that ad. "We immediately complied," recalls Zingaro's partner, attorney Alex Choulos. "We never ran it again." (Though UC Berkeley scientists were experimenting with phosphonate fertilizers as a treatment for the fungus, Agri-Fos had not yet been approved.)
"That may be true," Commissioner Carlson admits, "but he did other things that constituted breaking the law. He was applying this material where others did not and they couldn't compete fairly as they were waiting for a product that was legal."
Then, Zingaro posted to websites. On November 2001, Zingaro posted this message to an SOD newsgroup: "Our beloved trees are not dying from a fungus or a beetle, rather they are dying from good old fashioned cumulative effects of air pollution. Sadly, Ralph Zingaro."
This rang alarm bells at Berkeley, where they had garnered much publicity for isolating that fungus and had received millions in grants. In reponse to Zingaro's post, Berkeley staffer and SOD task force member Nicole Palkovsky posted: "Several of you have expressed concern about this page. How shall we respond?" (Palkovsky declined to be interviewed, saying she no longer works with ´´ SOD.) Another post to the same group reads, "Be cautious with this guy."
Zingaro also gave interviews. In 2002, he was quoted in the Pacific Sun: "Most declining trees don't have Phytophthora. They are declining without it, because soil acidity, which leaches calcium and makes phosphorus unavailable to trees, is killing the roots. The reason that phosphite works is because it forces the tree to grow roots fast."
Others insist that Zingaro was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and that this is not the first instance where Freschi Kamena failed to serve her constituents. A campaign to recall the D.A. was initiated in 2000, in response to her supposedly overzealous prosecution of medical marijuana users. (The election was held and by a huge margin Freschi Kamena retained her office.) Rulings by the Marin County family courts have been the subject of probes, and allegations of "cronyism." Complaints about the courts in Marin reached State Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who called them "substantive and serious" in the Marin Independent Journal.
~ More Pests in Paradise ~
Ask Zingaro why he's a defendant in a case about SOD; he'll say he honestly doesn't know. "All I was doing was feeding nutrients to trees."
Why would the county sue Zingaro four years after he pulled the questionable ad and six months after it became known that the product Zingaro used is probably the same as the one currently approved? "No one had any qualms about using it as fertilizer," Commissioner Carlson says. "It was registered and available to be used that way and I can't argue with that logic. But, you cannot advertise it or use it as a pesticide. If you want to claim it controls disease, it has to be regulated."
In addition to asking more than one million in damages, the suit seeks to enjoin Bioscape from falsely advertising that they can cure SOD. "But they already did this years ago," Bonapart points out. "The county is asking for conduct to be stopped which has already stopped."
In a March 5 hearing, the D.A. is also asking for a preliminary injunction, preventing Zingaro from using his professional trademark caricature - a doctor with a stethoscope around his neck - or from calling himself (as he does) a "Plant Doctor." "The funny thing is, they are saying that people will see that and believe he's a Ph.D.," Bonapart laughs. "I don't know who they think lives here in Marin, but we can't be dumb enough to think a Ph.D. uses a stethoscope." She also plans to argue that Zingaro, who owns the trademark "plant doctor," has the legal right to use it. "That's just a blatant prior restraint on free speech."
Zingaro says that he and Garbelotto might disagree about the causes of SOD, but denies it's a feud, saying only, "I guess someone doesn't like me." He denies any possibility that UC Berkeley might be involved in any way. "Garbelotto came here and we did some experiments and I thought we had agreed to disagree. Anyway, I never saw any pathogens die, not that it would have changed my opinions about soil acidification being the primary cause."
Similarly, Garbelotto says that he bears Zingaro no ill will and refutes the idea that a university would elect to get involved in the D.A.'s lawsuit. He acknowledges, though, "There were red alerts. But I don't think there is anything organized against Ralph. Certainly his ways are unorthodox. He claims he is an environmentalist, but his company makes a lot of money. It was my decision not to work with him. I don't work with anyone who has a vested interest."
"They're certainly no General Motors," attorney Bonapart laughs, indicating that Bioscape is a two-partner company, (Zingaro and attorney Alex Choulos), with a website, three employees, and organic plant food and fertilizers stored in two outbuildings on the property where Zingaro also lives. Hardly a corporation that could absorb a million-dollar fine.
Did Bioscape commit consumer fraud? Interestingly, the lawsuit is stunningly absent of dead trees. There are a few customers that feel they were charged too much by Bioscape, or that maybe their trees were treated with nutrition that was not needed, but there are no dead trees. California vs. Zingaro is over a treatment that worked, and actually has more to do with why it worked, and who gets to say it worked. Hanging in the balance are state-issued pesticide licenses, future products like Agri-Fos with the legal rights as the sole "cure," and millions in research money. More trees will probably die while this is sorted out.
~ Rude Awakenings ~
Garbelotto is now working in Southern California tree mortality, studying Phytophthora cinnamomi, a disease that's killing oaks in the L.A. area, and in San Diego on Pine Pitch Canker and root rot. His belief is that "these are all different microbes that are carried in different ways."
Northern California environmentalists bravely insist that their radical stance against pesticides is necessary to help save not just trees, but also people - and that Southern California is lagging far behind in this issue. Marin County has the highest rate of breast, prostate, and skin cancers in the country. "There's something wrong in paradise," Souders-Mason explains. "Exposure to all these chemicals is part of the problem. That's why Beyond Pesticides was created, to request a 75 percent reduction in all pesticides and a total ban on EPA-classified Class One and Class Two substances. It was supposed to be met by 2004, but it was met in 2003."
Mayor Egger heartily agrees. "Carlson claims he's concerned about poisons being used, but at the same time he isn't recommending that the county goes pesticide free." (Fairfax is so serious about controlling pesticides, the city even maintains a community website, Safe2use.com.) "If I were a county supervisor, I'd be looking to replace this guy. San Anselmo was trying to enact Neighbor Notification like we have, and the County Agricultural Department attended their meetings and threatened lawsuits to overturn the ordinance."
Others say if the courts should rule against Zingaro it would set environmentalists back 30 years. "If I knew a way to feed and save trees and also knew it might result in a lawsuit like this, I'd just let everything die," said one source who didn't want to be named.
Of course, it's easy to imagine that Zingaro, the self-described die-hard, organic arborist, probably stepped on a few toes on his way to feed the trees. Souders-Mason speculates about this: "Personality wise, he's bombastic. It's 'my way or the highway.' Can he be irritating? Definitely. He's strident but he's an entrepreneur. I'm sure Bill Gates is the same way. People who are ahead of the curve are strident because they know more. And they get knocked down. And that's what's happening here."
Published: 03/04/2004
Botanist and environmentalist Ralph Zingaro may know the cure for tree diseases wiping out California
By Annette Stark
The epidemic of bleeding trees was first noticed in 1995, affecting the tanoaks in leafy Northern California coastal areas like Marin County, Santa Cruz, Mill Valley, and Monterey. Soon after, Sudden Oak Death (the killer earned a name) was detected in other tree species, including coast live oaks, which rapidly deteriorated and died off. Majestic giants that were more than 100 years old were dropping like flies, succumbing within weeks to the blight of yellowed drooping leaves and blood-like bark cankers - the burgundy-red-to-black-colored sap oozing from their trunks. Horrified Northern Californians watched their woods slowly bleeding to death: the views along California's coastal highways were irreparably changed, endangered wildlife lost vital shelter, and property owners were rapidly giving up on their beauty, privacy, and shade.
With the cause of the blight unknown, government officials didn't know how to react. Theories that the epidemic was caused by bark beetles seen feeding on infected trees prompted the Marin County Department of Agriculture to recommend spraying with a pesticide, Astro. Outraged environmentalists balked. For one thing, it didn't work. For another, it left an even-more-toxic environment and the infection kept right on accelerating.
It didn't take long for Sudden Oak Death to show up in other areas and tree species. By 2000, Sudden Oak Death was found in California's historic redwoods and Douglas Firs, which might have led some to conclude that all tree deaths were connected. Amazingly, it did not. Scientists studying the epidemic held fast to the theory that these were all unrelated illnesses. In a Homeowner's Guide to Sudden Oak Death, provided in the mid-'90s by the University of California Davis's Nicole Palkovsky and Pavel Svihra, the writers offered, "It's unclear whether tanoaks and coast live oaks are being affected by the same disorder." Sometime later, in 2000, UC Berkeley scientists Matteo Garbelotto and David Rizzo isolated the cause of the disease - a fungus, Phytophthora ramorum, which is believed to attack the roots.
Garbelotto, armed with a Ph.D. in plant pathology from UC Berkeley, millions of dollars in grants, and the blessings of Marin's Department of Agriculture, set about the task of finding a cure.
But one guy kept getting in their way. Petaluma-based botanist Ralph Zingaro insisted that the findings were wrong. Zingaro, a hard-line environmentalist, known to Northern California conservationists as an environmental "contrarian," received his degree in forestry from Cornell University in 1977 and has been digging in the dirt and hugging trees ever since. His company, Bioscape, touts non-toxic products, beneficial insects, and organic fertilizers, and his clients include Southern California golf courses Bear Creek and Canyon Lake, pesticide-conscious homeowners from Marin County to Los Angeles, and conservation-minded celebrities introduced to him through the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The 47-year-old Zingaro belongs to various societies like the Pesticide Free Coalition and the NRDC, helped the city of Fairfax go pesticide-free, and speaks as often and as frankly as he's permitted about the scourge of environmental poisons.
Zingaro doesn't believe in fungus. He believes in a toxic planet. "Read The Dying of the Trees," he suggests. In the 1995 book, author Charles Little exposes tree mortality across the U.S. Though suspected causes span everything from acid rain to smog, a damaged ozone layer, pesticides, and toxic emissions from burning fuels, Little makes it clear that something has gone terribly wrong with the ecosystem. "That's what's weakening our forests," says Zingaro, "leaving trees that are unable to withstand otherwise harmless insects or fungi that have been around forever."
Garbeletto contacted Zingaro shortly after his discovery to conduct some experiments. Although Zingaro had been engaged in a strongly worded public rebuttal, he agreed. They were, after all, both interested in a cure. The pathogen, if it existed at all, Zingaro insisted, was merely a secondary cause, a microbe feeding on a malnourished, environmentally stressed tree. "It's caused by soil acidification," Zingaro said to anyone who found his or her way onto his three-acre Petaluma ranch. (An outbuilding houses the office, experimental "dirt" and products. "I get to the truth because I'm willing to pick up a shovel and dig.")
Applying his own theory to Sudden Oak Death, Zingaro fed his customers' trees - those affected and also ones deemed "high-risk" - with a phosphite-based fertilizer, Bio-Serum, which he touted as a "tree tonic." He also says he applied a combination of other minerals and rock dust, designed to address the problems with the soil. "The fertilizer was around for ages," he points out about Bio-Serum, and it was legal to use for such purpose.
Zingaro's cure worked. He had many delighted customers, albeit most were like-minded environmentalists. On the Bioscape website, along with the ads for Non-Poisonous and Humane Rodent Control Bait and Sluggo Biorational Slug and Snail Bait, are testimonials from customers like Steven Murch, from the Bradley Architect Group, thanking Zingaro for using a copper and phosphorus mix in a food-oil base to save his dying tree. "Ralph told me the recently discovered fungus, or any pest for that matter, is not the reason the trees are dying," Murch enthuses.
"Zingaro believes that the farmers can protect their lands without using poisons," Fairfax Mayor Frank Egger explains. (Fairfax is one of 11 incorporated cities in Marin County) "He's assisted us in our goals of keeping the poisons out of our community and creeks. Here the Coho salmon and steelhead trout are both listed as endangered species."
"He stands tall amongst the trees," offers fellow conservationist, Joe Aliff, who did early work with environmentalist Dr. Orie Loucks on "bleeding oaks," and says he first saw the syndrome 50 years ago in West Virginia. "That started the Eastern Tree Movement. This isn't local to California; bleeding oaks are everywhere." Aliff explains that his interest in the trees is part of his heritage as a Cherokee. "For some people it's a sideline," he says, "but, it's natural and obvious to us."
Obvious, maybe, to Cherokees and conservationists, but apparently not to Marin County District Attorney Paula Freschi Kamena. On February 4, her office served Zingaro with a civil lawsuit, California vs. Ralph Zingaro and Bioscape, charging, among other things, that Zingaro used Bio-Serum as a pesticide, to kill the P. ramorum fungus, and that this use as a fungicide wasn't legally approved. Additionally, the case charges that offering Bio-Serum was an act of "consumer fraud" in that it didn't actually work - even though Garbelotto himself would prove that it did. The D.A. is also charging that Zingaro took "unfair advantage" of the marketplace, in selling a product that wasn't approved while other businesses suffered, waiting for a legal solution.
~ Deep Fertilizer ~
To understand Zingaro's case, it's important to note that Bio-Serum, a potassium phosphite fertilizer, is considered by everyone involved to be chemically identical to the product that was finally approved in October 2003 as the sole treatment for Sudden Oak Death. That product, Agri-Fos, was once classified as a fertilizer and re-classified as a fungicide as the result of UC Berkeley experiments about the efficacy of phosphonates against P. ramorum. By using a non-approved product, the D.A.'s office maintains, Zingaro broke State pesticide laws. That he says he was trying to treat tree death, they say, is irrelevant. In their opinion, he was trying to kill a pest.
"Why would I try to kill a fungus I don't believe exists?" Zingaro argues.
"All over Marin, people fear losing their oak trees. Preying on this fear in order to bilk people of their money is despicable," the Marin D.A. said in a statement that was aired February 6 on KFTY Santa Rosa news.
D.A. Freschi Kamena never mentions that the cure actually worked. Nor that Zingaro has a pesticide license, and could have legally applied hundreds of other toxic pesticides or fungicides if he so chose.
The civil suit demands, among other things, restitution at a minimum of one million dollars and reimbursement of the Marin County D.A.'s office attorney fees. A preliminary motion is scheduled for Friday, March 5.
A key witness in the State's case against Zingaro is the scientist credited with isolating P. ramorum. Though not directly quoted in the State's lawsuit, Garbelotto's recollections are provided by Shawn Spaulding, Special Deputy District Attorney in the Consumer Protection Unit. Why Garbelotto isn't directly quoted is unclear. (When contacted, the Marin D.A.'s office refused to comment on the case.) Spaulding tells of Garbelotto's encounter with Zingaro in 2000, the purpose of which was to conduct some experiments, using Zingaro's three-acre Petaluma ranch. The episode cumulated in Zingaro saying he was going to make phosphonates available to his customers and Garbelotto cautioning him not to.
Garbelotto insists he had no real interest in participating in this case. "I'm subpoenaed," said the scientist, who has been published extensively on plant pathology. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Padua, Italy, received his Ph.D. at Berkeley in 1996, and first garnered recognition for studying chestnut blight in Italy.
Although Garbelotto says he hasn't seen the Bio-Serum label, he admits that the product and Agri-Fos are likely to be chemically the same. "About a hundred products are. We tested half the products in the world. We picked the one [Agri-Fos] that is the most efficient from the most ethical company. We also had the idea to choose a small company that understood the need for research."
It took three years from the point Garbelotto identified P. ramorum to the point that Agri-Fos was relabeled from fertilizer to pesticide. Science (and government agencies) moves slowly, as everyone knows. "I have millions of dollars in grants and 25 people working full steam on research," Garbelotto offers. "My position is to do exactly that."
During those three years, environmentalists point out, Sudden Oak Death spread: it has been found in areas of Oregon and Washington State. Great Britain has reported infections of bleeding trees. Recently, the California Oak Mortality Task Force posted on their website that 22 tree species are now known to be hosts for the disease and 38 species are known to be susceptible.
Early concerns about Phytophthora ramorum spreading to Southern California proved to be unfounded, but other tree blights hit here. Eucalyptus tree death first appeared in Southern California in 1998, with trees being victimized by a previously unknown pest, a small insect called the Red Gum Lerp Psyllid. Two years later, UC Berkeley professor Dr. Donald Dahlsten imported wasps from Australia and released them in the infested areas to prey on these pests. The wasps took hold but it was too late, according to Gerry Pinnere, Supervisor of Pest Management in the Forest Division of L.A.'s Parks Dept. "The wasps are still out there," Pinnere says, "but the trees died." (Dahlsten passed away from skin cancer in September 2003.)
Since the eucalyptus tree death, a fungus seen in Florida and Las Vegas, Fusarium oxysporum, has been found to cause palms to wilt in Santa Monica, Hancock Park, and Dana Point, hitting the urban forest in Beverly Hills especially hard. Another pathogen, once seen in avocado trees, Phytophthora cinnamomi, is said to be producing SOD-like symptoms in Southern California oaks. And while scientists still refuse to connect worldwide incidents of tree death, anyone who watched the trees ravaged by Pine Tree Mortality explode into flame in last fall's San Bernardino Forest fire couldn't help but wonder. How can bark beetles feeding on dying pines in Southern California be entirely disassociated from bark beetles feeding on dead trees in the north?
Garbelotto insists it's more complicated than that. "This is a serious pathogen, not a secondary organism," Garbelotto explains about P. ramorum. "In San Bernardino, the issue is overcrowding of the forests. There is a scarcity of resources for the trees to grow. These trees are starved from lack of light and nutrients in the soil, and the trees are weakened by root disease. The oaks were not overcrowded up here; they were weakened by the pathogen, and the beetles could sense it and went in."
Though one product has been deemed effective against Sudden Oak Death, Garbelotto's research is ongoing. The press has rushed to declare that Agri-Fos is a cure for Sudden Oak Death, but others are more careful. "It appears to have some efficacy against the disease," said Marin Deputy Agricultural Commissioner Fred Crowder, who is also a key witness in the government's case.
In an article in UC Berkeley News dated October 2, 2003, Garbelotto noted that the treatment does not kill the pathogen, but that it stops its growth if used in the early stages of infection. The article also points out that phosphites have been used for more than 10 years as a relatively non-toxic substance.
~ The Bug in the System ~
If Berkeley's information sounds like Zingaro's argument, well, it almost is. Berkeley says the phosphate product appears to arrest the growth of the fungus; he says, of course, replacing missing essential nutrients will produce that, and other, desired effects. Hence, under Zingaro's system, both the tree and the now-harmless fungus will live.
Tree owners, conservationists and Zingaro supporters, meanwhile, are growing increasingly angry. Research your heads off, they plead, but give us something that can save our trees. Even Garbelotto admits that, as regards Sudden Oak Death, the "cure" came too late. The trees that are the sickest will probably die.
Commenting on the case, NRDC spokesperson Jonathan Kaplan took a different position. "If anything, this case underscores the government's need to be more responsive in fast-tracking alternative, less toxic products to treat these problems with our trees."
"I have defended and prosecuted unfair competition claims and I've never seen a claim quite like this one," says Zingaro's attorney, Bari Bonapart. "Usually you see people being sued for offering a product that doesn't work. But I've never seen anyone sued for offering one that does work."
"Personally, I see it as harassment," says Virginia Souders-Mason, one of the founders of the Beyond Pesticides Coalition.
"I would have thought the county would have been exalting Ralph for curing all those trees, and been delighted to have somebody on the scene who really cared," says Joe Aliff.
"Obviously they didn't like Zingaro's pesticide-free approach," offers Fairfax Mayor Egger, who authored his city's Neighbor Notification Law, requiring 48 hours notice to your neighbors before you spray pesticides in the area. "He's being harassed by the county agricultural commissioner, Stacy Carlson. Fairfax has had run-ins with Carlson, too. The County [Marin] is not happy with our pesticide ban and is working to overturn our ordinance. Zingaro has tried to assist our town in remaining pesticide free. So it's pretty much no surprise to me that the county would go after this guy."
Actually, it's impossible to know which of Zingaro's activities irritated the D.A.'s office the most. There were, in fact, so many.
To begin with, there was an ad - a starring piece of evidence in the D.A.'s case. Bioscape ran the ad for short time in 2000. It featured an ambitious claim that Bio-Serum had a "curative" effect on SOD, which the D.A. charges constituted consumer fraud. County officials served Zingaro with a "Cease and desist" order, demanding that he pull that ad. "We immediately complied," recalls Zingaro's partner, attorney Alex Choulos. "We never ran it again." (Though UC Berkeley scientists were experimenting with phosphonate fertilizers as a treatment for the fungus, Agri-Fos had not yet been approved.)
"That may be true," Commissioner Carlson admits, "but he did other things that constituted breaking the law. He was applying this material where others did not and they couldn't compete fairly as they were waiting for a product that was legal."
Then, Zingaro posted to websites. On November 2001, Zingaro posted this message to an SOD newsgroup: "Our beloved trees are not dying from a fungus or a beetle, rather they are dying from good old fashioned cumulative effects of air pollution. Sadly, Ralph Zingaro."
This rang alarm bells at Berkeley, where they had garnered much publicity for isolating that fungus and had received millions in grants. In reponse to Zingaro's post, Berkeley staffer and SOD task force member Nicole Palkovsky posted: "Several of you have expressed concern about this page. How shall we respond?" (Palkovsky declined to be interviewed, saying she no longer works with ´´ SOD.) Another post to the same group reads, "Be cautious with this guy."
Zingaro also gave interviews. In 2002, he was quoted in the Pacific Sun: "Most declining trees don't have Phytophthora. They are declining without it, because soil acidity, which leaches calcium and makes phosphorus unavailable to trees, is killing the roots. The reason that phosphite works is because it forces the tree to grow roots fast."
Others insist that Zingaro was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and that this is not the first instance where Freschi Kamena failed to serve her constituents. A campaign to recall the D.A. was initiated in 2000, in response to her supposedly overzealous prosecution of medical marijuana users. (The election was held and by a huge margin Freschi Kamena retained her office.) Rulings by the Marin County family courts have been the subject of probes, and allegations of "cronyism." Complaints about the courts in Marin reached State Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who called them "substantive and serious" in the Marin Independent Journal.
~ More Pests in Paradise ~
Ask Zingaro why he's a defendant in a case about SOD; he'll say he honestly doesn't know. "All I was doing was feeding nutrients to trees."
Why would the county sue Zingaro four years after he pulled the questionable ad and six months after it became known that the product Zingaro used is probably the same as the one currently approved? "No one had any qualms about using it as fertilizer," Commissioner Carlson says. "It was registered and available to be used that way and I can't argue with that logic. But, you cannot advertise it or use it as a pesticide. If you want to claim it controls disease, it has to be regulated."
In addition to asking more than one million in damages, the suit seeks to enjoin Bioscape from falsely advertising that they can cure SOD. "But they already did this years ago," Bonapart points out. "The county is asking for conduct to be stopped which has already stopped."
In a March 5 hearing, the D.A. is also asking for a preliminary injunction, preventing Zingaro from using his professional trademark caricature - a doctor with a stethoscope around his neck - or from calling himself (as he does) a "Plant Doctor." "The funny thing is, they are saying that people will see that and believe he's a Ph.D.," Bonapart laughs. "I don't know who they think lives here in Marin, but we can't be dumb enough to think a Ph.D. uses a stethoscope." She also plans to argue that Zingaro, who owns the trademark "plant doctor," has the legal right to use it. "That's just a blatant prior restraint on free speech."
Zingaro says that he and Garbelotto might disagree about the causes of SOD, but denies it's a feud, saying only, "I guess someone doesn't like me." He denies any possibility that UC Berkeley might be involved in any way. "Garbelotto came here and we did some experiments and I thought we had agreed to disagree. Anyway, I never saw any pathogens die, not that it would have changed my opinions about soil acidification being the primary cause."
Similarly, Garbelotto says that he bears Zingaro no ill will and refutes the idea that a university would elect to get involved in the D.A.'s lawsuit. He acknowledges, though, "There were red alerts. But I don't think there is anything organized against Ralph. Certainly his ways are unorthodox. He claims he is an environmentalist, but his company makes a lot of money. It was my decision not to work with him. I don't work with anyone who has a vested interest."
"They're certainly no General Motors," attorney Bonapart laughs, indicating that Bioscape is a two-partner company, (Zingaro and attorney Alex Choulos), with a website, three employees, and organic plant food and fertilizers stored in two outbuildings on the property where Zingaro also lives. Hardly a corporation that could absorb a million-dollar fine.
Did Bioscape commit consumer fraud? Interestingly, the lawsuit is stunningly absent of dead trees. There are a few customers that feel they were charged too much by Bioscape, or that maybe their trees were treated with nutrition that was not needed, but there are no dead trees. California vs. Zingaro is over a treatment that worked, and actually has more to do with why it worked, and who gets to say it worked. Hanging in the balance are state-issued pesticide licenses, future products like Agri-Fos with the legal rights as the sole "cure," and millions in research money. More trees will probably die while this is sorted out.
~ Rude Awakenings ~
Garbelotto is now working in Southern California tree mortality, studying Phytophthora cinnamomi, a disease that's killing oaks in the L.A. area, and in San Diego on Pine Pitch Canker and root rot. His belief is that "these are all different microbes that are carried in different ways."
Northern California environmentalists bravely insist that their radical stance against pesticides is necessary to help save not just trees, but also people - and that Southern California is lagging far behind in this issue. Marin County has the highest rate of breast, prostate, and skin cancers in the country. "There's something wrong in paradise," Souders-Mason explains. "Exposure to all these chemicals is part of the problem. That's why Beyond Pesticides was created, to request a 75 percent reduction in all pesticides and a total ban on EPA-classified Class One and Class Two substances. It was supposed to be met by 2004, but it was met in 2003."
Mayor Egger heartily agrees. "Carlson claims he's concerned about poisons being used, but at the same time he isn't recommending that the county goes pesticide free." (Fairfax is so serious about controlling pesticides, the city even maintains a community website, Safe2use.com.) "If I were a county supervisor, I'd be looking to replace this guy. San Anselmo was trying to enact Neighbor Notification like we have, and the County Agricultural Department attended their meetings and threatened lawsuits to overturn the ordinance."
Others say if the courts should rule against Zingaro it would set environmentalists back 30 years. "If I knew a way to feed and save trees and also knew it might result in a lawsuit like this, I'd just let everything die," said one source who didn't want to be named.
Of course, it's easy to imagine that Zingaro, the self-described die-hard, organic arborist, probably stepped on a few toes on his way to feed the trees. Souders-Mason speculates about this: "Personality wise, he's bombastic. It's 'my way or the highway.' Can he be irritating? Definitely. He's strident but he's an entrepreneur. I'm sure Bill Gates is the same way. People who are ahead of the curve are strident because they know more. And they get knocked down. And that's what's happening here."
Published: 03/04/2004
How Much Is That Doggie In The Window By Annette Stark
How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?
Dogs at L.A.'s animal shelters are now auctioned off for as much as $1,000 a pooch
By Annette Stark
When Lance Mancuso promised his 11-year-old daughter a new puppy last Christmas, he never imagined that he would end up paying $1,000 for a stray dog at a city shelter. Almost a year later, the former Studio City resident still describes the experience as "a nightmare."
Like many Southern Californians, Mancuso felt "it was wrong" to buy a pet from a breeder or a puppy mill. So, one day before Christmas, he showed up to adopt a six-month-old Saint Bernard he had seen at the East Valley Shelter. "They told me that it wouldn't be available 'til the day after Christmas, even though it had already been there more than a week. I said, 'I'll be back,' and they said, 'Get here early.'"
Two days later, Mancuso was "racing to get there at six a.m." He was the first one on line and for three hours watched the crowd grow to over 20 people. Eventually, Mancuso learned that the two men behind him had found the Saint Bernard and brought it to the shelter, which meant that they had first rights. He stayed anyway for a boxer puppy. At nine, a shelter employee came out and announced, "If you're here for the boxer puppies, go to the back and put your name in. We'll be auctioning them." The crowd rushed to the back where another employee announced that the bidding would start at $140.
Mancuso was shocked, but he didn't want to let his daughter down. When the bidding escalated to $800, he shouted, "I'll pay a thousand!" The puppy was his.
For days, Mancuso rationalized that he had promised his daughter and "couldn't lie to her." But later, recounting the fiasco at a meeting of the Studio City Neighborhood Council where he was a member, Mancuso learned that this shelter policy was completely unknown. "Some people said, 'You paid a thousand dollars for a shelter dog? Why didn't you just go to a store?'" he says.
"When I first heard about Lance's situation I was in shock," recalls animal activist Charlotte Laws, Ph.D., member of the Greater Valley Glen Council and a longtime advocate for no-kill L.A. shelters. "The goal of animal services in my view is to help the animals. It shouldn't be to auction them off to get the most amount of money. It puts the emphasis in the wrong place. Time and energy should not be spent that way."
Laws isn't alone. Many activists were stunned to hear about this practice. "I have been in the animal protection field for well over a decade, and I have never heard of a system whereby unwanted animals are auctioned off to a highest bidder," remarks Daphna Nachminovitch, director of Domestic Animal and Wildlife Rescue & Information for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). "Treating animals like auction items - up for bid as if they were inanimate objects, merchandise - perpetuates the throwaway mentality that lands millions of animals in our nation's shelters each year. It's counterproductive to the extreme."
Others say they had known and had opposed it. Animal Defense League (ADL) founder Pamelyn Ferdin says that she and others had fought the auctions at meetings with the Board of Animal Services Commissioners in 2004. In fact, copies of the minutes from a March meeting of the Board indicate that: "Ferdin feels that the auction process sends the wrong message to the public that not all animals and breeds are worthy of adoption."
"It's unethical, immoral, and racist," says Ferdin. "It discriminates against poor people. And a lot of really nice people said they would not go to an auction ever again."
Even those who don't see the policy as racist still say there are plenty of reasons to object. "Auctions discriminate against everybody who can't afford to be the high bidder, having nothing to do with racism," says Jim Bickhart, who is associate director of transportation and also serves as the mayor's staff member responsible for animal services. "I don't think auctions are biased in any way, other than they are biased as to who can afford."
"The good thing is that we have so many puppies," argues Karen Knipscheer, commander of the Departmental Air Rescue Team (DART) and Los Angeles Animal Services (LAAS) spokesperson. "If they don't get the one at the auction, there's always another one behind that." Like others we spoke with, Knipscheer had thought that the auctions were limited to "the cutest purebred dogs." She was surprised when we told her that we had witnessed mixed-breed puppies auctioned for as much as $300.
It would help if LAAS was more proactive in convincing people to take the older dogs, Ferdin insists. "Some people might not realize that they don't want to train a puppy and that it might tear up the furniture, but if the shelter was serious about people adopting older dogs, they would have a meet-and-greet table, like they do in New York. We have secret shoppers going in to the shelters and all they hear is 'the dogs are back there.'"
Full disclosure: this reporter became aware of the practice, like many, while attempting to adopt an eight-week-old Shepherd mix at the East Valley Shelter in North Hollywood. We were the only ones there when the shelter opened at nine, and we got the puppy. Minutes later, an employee rushed out and said, "You can't have it. That's the TV dog. Come back at 12." Apparently, that puppy had been featured on the morning news.
We returned at noon and, again, we got the dog, as well as half the paperwork completed. While the puppy was in the back, being checked for Parvo, a woman rushed in and said, "I want that dog. I'll do anything it takes to get that dog." At that point, we bowed out.
Truthfully, it wasn't as bad as Mancuso's "nightmare," but it wasn't a process you'd be eager to repeat. On return trips to the auction, however, I watched families drop out of the bidding while pets flew out the door for $300 a pup. One family bought two. The policy, it turns out, is actually mandated by law; a point that is made amply clear on the LAAS website that states if two or more people show up to adopt the same dog, an auction will be held. Many say overturning the policy rests entirely with the Board of Animal Services Commissioners.
"It's a department policy," explains Knipscheer, insisting that most shelter personnel don't even agree with it. "I talked to [Commision] Commander [David] Diliberto this morning and he said that he has asked the Commission to change it on two separate times, and they said no."
Ferdin questions how the Commission could continue to ignore the issues, such as poor families sometimes having to bid against wealthy private rescue foundations. "When [private foundations] see a dog that they consider to be gorgeous, they want that dog. There was one purebred Maltese, and they went to the auction and said they would do anything to get that dog."
Teri Austin, who heads the nonprofit Amanda Foundation, admits bidding against private owners at shelter auctions when she thought that "the person bidding could not take care of the animal." Austin supports auctions and expressed the belief held by many that the auction profits go to animal care. But, according to Knipscheer, "the auction money goes into the general fund. It does not go back to the shelters."
"I don't have a great process," Knipscheer admits. "Somebody mentioned bingo this morning, a number in a hat. Yes, maybe that is a lot fairer, but people would still be unhappy because they're not getting the animal."
Bickhart agrees that the lottery is a good idea ("When 20 people show up for one dog, everyone could take a number"), but thinks that state law might prohibit it.
To Ferdin, who has been lobbying to have the entire L.A. shelter system revamped, it's obvious. "It should just be first-come, first-served," she says.
Published: 09/15/2005
Dogs at L.A.'s animal shelters are now auctioned off for as much as $1,000 a pooch
By Annette Stark
When Lance Mancuso promised his 11-year-old daughter a new puppy last Christmas, he never imagined that he would end up paying $1,000 for a stray dog at a city shelter. Almost a year later, the former Studio City resident still describes the experience as "a nightmare."
Like many Southern Californians, Mancuso felt "it was wrong" to buy a pet from a breeder or a puppy mill. So, one day before Christmas, he showed up to adopt a six-month-old Saint Bernard he had seen at the East Valley Shelter. "They told me that it wouldn't be available 'til the day after Christmas, even though it had already been there more than a week. I said, 'I'll be back,' and they said, 'Get here early.'"
Two days later, Mancuso was "racing to get there at six a.m." He was the first one on line and for three hours watched the crowd grow to over 20 people. Eventually, Mancuso learned that the two men behind him had found the Saint Bernard and brought it to the shelter, which meant that they had first rights. He stayed anyway for a boxer puppy. At nine, a shelter employee came out and announced, "If you're here for the boxer puppies, go to the back and put your name in. We'll be auctioning them." The crowd rushed to the back where another employee announced that the bidding would start at $140.
Mancuso was shocked, but he didn't want to let his daughter down. When the bidding escalated to $800, he shouted, "I'll pay a thousand!" The puppy was his.
For days, Mancuso rationalized that he had promised his daughter and "couldn't lie to her." But later, recounting the fiasco at a meeting of the Studio City Neighborhood Council where he was a member, Mancuso learned that this shelter policy was completely unknown. "Some people said, 'You paid a thousand dollars for a shelter dog? Why didn't you just go to a store?'" he says.
"When I first heard about Lance's situation I was in shock," recalls animal activist Charlotte Laws, Ph.D., member of the Greater Valley Glen Council and a longtime advocate for no-kill L.A. shelters. "The goal of animal services in my view is to help the animals. It shouldn't be to auction them off to get the most amount of money. It puts the emphasis in the wrong place. Time and energy should not be spent that way."
Laws isn't alone. Many activists were stunned to hear about this practice. "I have been in the animal protection field for well over a decade, and I have never heard of a system whereby unwanted animals are auctioned off to a highest bidder," remarks Daphna Nachminovitch, director of Domestic Animal and Wildlife Rescue & Information for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). "Treating animals like auction items - up for bid as if they were inanimate objects, merchandise - perpetuates the throwaway mentality that lands millions of animals in our nation's shelters each year. It's counterproductive to the extreme."
Others say they had known and had opposed it. Animal Defense League (ADL) founder Pamelyn Ferdin says that she and others had fought the auctions at meetings with the Board of Animal Services Commissioners in 2004. In fact, copies of the minutes from a March meeting of the Board indicate that: "Ferdin feels that the auction process sends the wrong message to the public that not all animals and breeds are worthy of adoption."
"It's unethical, immoral, and racist," says Ferdin. "It discriminates against poor people. And a lot of really nice people said they would not go to an auction ever again."
Even those who don't see the policy as racist still say there are plenty of reasons to object. "Auctions discriminate against everybody who can't afford to be the high bidder, having nothing to do with racism," says Jim Bickhart, who is associate director of transportation and also serves as the mayor's staff member responsible for animal services. "I don't think auctions are biased in any way, other than they are biased as to who can afford."
"The good thing is that we have so many puppies," argues Karen Knipscheer, commander of the Departmental Air Rescue Team (DART) and Los Angeles Animal Services (LAAS) spokesperson. "If they don't get the one at the auction, there's always another one behind that." Like others we spoke with, Knipscheer had thought that the auctions were limited to "the cutest purebred dogs." She was surprised when we told her that we had witnessed mixed-breed puppies auctioned for as much as $300.
It would help if LAAS was more proactive in convincing people to take the older dogs, Ferdin insists. "Some people might not realize that they don't want to train a puppy and that it might tear up the furniture, but if the shelter was serious about people adopting older dogs, they would have a meet-and-greet table, like they do in New York. We have secret shoppers going in to the shelters and all they hear is 'the dogs are back there.'"
Full disclosure: this reporter became aware of the practice, like many, while attempting to adopt an eight-week-old Shepherd mix at the East Valley Shelter in North Hollywood. We were the only ones there when the shelter opened at nine, and we got the puppy. Minutes later, an employee rushed out and said, "You can't have it. That's the TV dog. Come back at 12." Apparently, that puppy had been featured on the morning news.
We returned at noon and, again, we got the dog, as well as half the paperwork completed. While the puppy was in the back, being checked for Parvo, a woman rushed in and said, "I want that dog. I'll do anything it takes to get that dog." At that point, we bowed out.
Truthfully, it wasn't as bad as Mancuso's "nightmare," but it wasn't a process you'd be eager to repeat. On return trips to the auction, however, I watched families drop out of the bidding while pets flew out the door for $300 a pup. One family bought two. The policy, it turns out, is actually mandated by law; a point that is made amply clear on the LAAS website that states if two or more people show up to adopt the same dog, an auction will be held. Many say overturning the policy rests entirely with the Board of Animal Services Commissioners.
"It's a department policy," explains Knipscheer, insisting that most shelter personnel don't even agree with it. "I talked to [Commision] Commander [David] Diliberto this morning and he said that he has asked the Commission to change it on two separate times, and they said no."
Ferdin questions how the Commission could continue to ignore the issues, such as poor families sometimes having to bid against wealthy private rescue foundations. "When [private foundations] see a dog that they consider to be gorgeous, they want that dog. There was one purebred Maltese, and they went to the auction and said they would do anything to get that dog."
Teri Austin, who heads the nonprofit Amanda Foundation, admits bidding against private owners at shelter auctions when she thought that "the person bidding could not take care of the animal." Austin supports auctions and expressed the belief held by many that the auction profits go to animal care. But, according to Knipscheer, "the auction money goes into the general fund. It does not go back to the shelters."
"I don't have a great process," Knipscheer admits. "Somebody mentioned bingo this morning, a number in a hat. Yes, maybe that is a lot fairer, but people would still be unhappy because they're not getting the animal."
Bickhart agrees that the lottery is a good idea ("When 20 people show up for one dog, everyone could take a number"), but thinks that state law might prohibit it.
To Ferdin, who has been lobbying to have the entire L.A. shelter system revamped, it's obvious. "It should just be first-come, first-served," she says.
Published: 09/15/2005
PASSING JUDGEMENT, PASSING GAS
Residents join with developers to debunk KNBC reports on the threat of explosive methane gas to Play
Residents join with developers to debunk KNBC reports on the threat of explosive methane gas to Play
By Annette Stark
Five years ago, Steve Donnell put his name on a waiting list for a new Playa Vista town home. Purchase price: $750,000. He and his wife moved in 18 months ago and have spent another $50,000 on improvements so far - marble floors, window treatments, and crown molding. Then - on May 25 and on June 27 - two KNBC news specials warned ominously that their expensive new home in the massive Westside development sits on a virtual landmine of explosive methane gas.
Despite that, Donnell says they have no "absolutely no intention" of moving. Nor do his neighbors, whom Donnell insists were never approached by KNBC to contribute their views. They aren't alone: Some residents and activists are startled to learn that there are forces who still consider this decade-long debate to be unresolved - especially considering the project's very public history. (See "Bubbling Trouble," CityBeat, June 16.)
Environmentalists began opposing the construction of Playa Vista more than a decade ago, and the history of the methane discovery dates back to at least the late '90s. By 2000, the Los Angeles Times had reported on it extensively, and as a result of efforts by environmental groups such as Environment Now, Friends of Ballona Wetlands, and the Grassroots Coalition, the city was forced to act. So in 2002, the Building and Safety Code was modified to require elaborate gas mitigation systems at new developments such as Playa Vista. These systems include vents, alarms, and a gas sealant (membrane) placed between the ground and a building's foundation.
Also as a result of the 2002 code, structures that were built after 1986 in methane -saturated areas such as the Fairfax District were required to be retrofitted with gas mitigation systems. (Still, engineers and geoscientists will attest that much of this city is sitting on a ton of un-vented gas) And when the L.A. City Council overwhelmingly approved Phase II last September by a vote of 10-1, many on both sides considered the subject closed. Others saw environmental contributions from Playa's developers as compensation for the traffic and other anticipated "blights" large developments can potentially inflict on an area.
Playa developer Steve Soboroff says, "I think we're doing great things to make the beaches cleaner, the freshwater marsh, we adopted 16 squirrels. I'm proud of this as a great neighbor. I'm confident that people will drive by, fly over, or walk there and say 'I'm glad those guys were here. I'm glad they built what they did.'"
Some environmental groups that originally opposed the project have softened their stance. "I would have loved to have kept it open space," admits Ruth Lansford, Friends of Ballona Wetlands president. "But considering the other developments that are going up around here, this was done well. They dotted every I and crossed every T."
But, if there is one thing KNBC's series (titled "Burning Questions") made glaringly obvious, it's that the opposition to Playa Vista - at least as far as the methane is involved - is still very much alive.
"I'm not surprised," says Soboroff. "The rhetoric is a sport for [the opponents]. Our residents tell me over and over again that they resent the fact that a handful of extremists have shopped their theories for years to anybody who will listen, regardless of the facts. And the proof of it is that not many people buy what they're selling. The courts, the city agencies, the state agencies say the same thing. It's a beautiful and safe community."
Officials at the L.A. Department of Building and Safety (LADBS) are quick to indicate that Soboroff has a point: Methane is an old story in Los Angeles and the standards the city requires at Playa Vista are the strictest in the country. Hence, Playa residents we spoke to cited areas where the gas has not been mitigated - such as Venice, Santa Monica, and nearly all of the Westside - as more dangerous. "Truthfully I'm more comfortable living in an area where they have taken proactive steps," Donnell says.
With this much methane seeping out of the soil, most people following the situation believe that it's coming from natural sources in the ground. Nevertheless, Grassroots Coalition's Bernard Endres and Patricia McPherson have alleged for years that much of the Playa gas is coming from an old SoCal Gas storage facility that is located about a mile and a half down the road. They have also advanced the possibility of a leak under the Fountain Park apartments and another near the town house area. Both, they contend, stem from failures of the gas mitigation membranes. And then there are the gas bubbles, which the Coalition and KNBC showed rapidly percolating in nearby creeks.
Critics of the group - which includes officials at LADBS, SoCal Gas, many civil engineers, Playa residents and developers, and even some environmental groups, claim these allegations are unsubstantiated.
"Much of the methane is natural - not the kind that comes from the gas company," insists Lansford. "The methane bubbles in the freshwater marsh are also. Swamps have natural methane in them and as long as it disperses in the air I don't think it creates any problem at all."
According to city engineer Colin Kurnabe, the bubbles are "naturally occurring gas that can be found throughout this area. If you put water over methane in dry ground, methane will bubble up through the water."
The reality is that methane gas (also known as marsh gas) is bubbling in every pond, most creeks, and some lakes in America. But methane gas in a creek or lake vents into the air and is extremely unlikely to explode.
If the creeks were filling up from a failure of the Fountain Park membrane, LADBS spokesperson David Keim insists the city would be the first to know. "That's why we've gone to such lengths to make them [Playa developers] install such elaborate alarms. We require them to do annual reports on this project to determine if any gasses are leaking. If they find anything they are required immediately to do repairs. But there is no empirical evidence to suggest that the membrane is leaking."
According to the city fire department, there have been some false alarms, but Keim attributes this to a hypersensitive system. "That's true of some alarms. Not just gas. Even burglar alarms."
In fact, residents say there have been some notorious glitches in the alarms. Donnell recalls: "Where some people are staining wood and there were fumes, there might have been some false alarms. When that happens we're all informed. And it gives us assurance that the system is so sensitive to all kinds of fumes, if there was enough gas at Fountain Park that they could set it on fire, our alarms would have been going off."
Soboroff even remembers an incident when Windex set off the alarm. "It was a Sunday morning and the ammonia or something triggered the alarm system. It was in the beginning and nobody knew what to do."
As to the allegations regarding the leaking gas storage facility, SoCal Gas spokesperson Peter Hidalgo insists there are more than 300 such facilities in the U.S. "Some date back to the 1930s, and others are being built now. The technology is safe and reliable.
"Our storage site has been there under our jurisdiction since 1940."
The Grassroots Coalition declined to answer any questions from CityBeat, including by e-mail, but recently corrected its website to reflect the paper's June 16 article, which quoted City engineer Colin Kurnabe calling the Coalition data "unsubstantiated." The Coalition had indicated that Paraseal GM is not an HDPE (high density polyethylene shield) and therefore unsuitable as a gas sealant. As CityBeat reported - and Grassroots corrected - Paraseal GM is an HDPE.
However, LADBS officials indicate there are still corrections to be made. Among these are allegations that Paraseal is not licensed by the city as a gas sealant, and that it was not used elsewhere. "They used Paraseal in La Brea and Fairfax," Kurnabe informs.
CityBeat located Research Report 25425 - the city's approval document for Paraseal GM as a gas sealant - online at the LADBS website. There is also a copy on the Tremco website, which manufacturers Paraseal GM.
Keim says that, to the best of his knowledge, no one has requested a copy of this report. Regardless, the LADBS expects the debate to continue. "I understand how they feel and - God bless them - it's not that we doubt or question this concern," Keim insists. "It's just their manner of alarming people who are living and working out there and their manner of not verifying facts."
Published: 06/30/2005
THE CASINO NEXT DOOR
Schwarzenegger's new casino pact has tribes pushing for urban gambling.
By Annette Stark
Schwarzenegger's new casino pact has tribes pushing for urban gambling.
By Annette Stark
Schwarzenegger's new casino pact has tribes pushing for urban gambling.
It took only a week for the Garden Grove City Council to shoot down a proposal that would have set up gambling next door to Disneyland. Last week, the council voted unanimously (5-0) against selling an estimated 45-acre parcel on Harbor Boulevard - just a few blocks from Disneyland - to the Mesa Grande Band of Mission Indians. It was widely reported that the tribe was planning to build a Vegas-style entertainment strip in partnership with Vegas mega-developer Steve Wynn.
The news came amid a flurry of media coverage about urban gambling. First, there were Propositions 68 and 70, two gaming initiatives on the November ballot that, if passed, will create more gambling venues on and off the reservations. Then, in a startling revelation September 1, the Associated Press reported that Sacramento Kings owners Gavin and Joe Maloof organized a $1 million fundraiser for the Schwarzenegger campaign even though their brother, Vegas power broker George Maloof, was in partnership with the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians to build a mega-casino in the heavily populated Bay Area suburb of San Pablo. George Maloof runs the family's posh casino resort in Vegas, The Palms.
Just the week before, the Schwarzenegger administration had suspended support for the San Pablo deal with the Lyttons, one of five tribes who had agreed to forge new compacts with the state exchanging unlimited slot machines for extra revenues paid to the state. The legislature had already approved compacts with the other four tribes, but on August 31 turned down the governor's deal with the Lyttons.
Some had been saying that the San Pablo and the Garden Grove casinos were proof that the governor was caving in on urban gaming, a complete reversal of his prior position that casinos in urban areas - as opposed to Indian casinos isolated on the reservations - were bad for California.
But it seems the governor's withdrawal may have been heading off other problems. Both the governor's office and the Maloofs claim the fundraiser was done before any San Pablo deal was in the works. Schwarzenegger's critics say this is money taken indirectly from Indian gaming interests, a harsh contradiction to his election promise not to take money from special interest groups.
"He's flip-flopped on a lot of things, but we didn't need him to oppose this," says Garden Grove Mayor Bruce A. Broadwater about their casino deal. "The council vote was five to zip."
Broadwater claims he isn't familiar with Proposition 68, which would expand commercial gambling to urban areas by allowing card rooms and racetracks to feature slot machines, or Proposition 70, which would allow the tribes more Vegas-style games and unlimited slot machines. He also says he was unaware of the statewide debate that is currently raging around the future of Indian gaming and isn't sure it's fair to restrict gambling to just the tribes. However, he did know that, in Garden Grove, where he's lived for 33 years, "the forces that would oppose [the casino] would be horrendous.
"We worked hard to clean that area up," Broadwater continues. "The drugs and prostitution was horrendous. And I just couldn't see us going downhill again. Garden Grove is not even a half-mile from the main gate of Disneyland, so Disneyland would oppose it. And there's no way the governor would go against Disney."
In other towns, citizens are slightly more keyed-up about the gaming debate, with concerns mounting that California is about to bite off more gambling than it can digest.
In a recent wave of commercials designed to defeat Prop. 68, Indian gaming tribes remind Californians about their long-held conviction that Indian gaming is a safe bet as long as it stays on the reservation. But the Garden Grove situation, some argue, presents a different side to that story, which is that any tribe that cuts a deal with the governor for unlimited expansion would have the financial incentive to expand beyond the reservation. Critics are saying that his attempts to reduce the state's fiscal crisis by tapping into tribal-casino wealth have opened a huge can of worms.
From his first days in office, Schwarzenegger has taken a hard-line position against urban gambling (Vegas-style casinos in congested communities) and has promised to campaign hard against Prop. 68, which would allow card clubs such as Larry Flynt's in Compton to have slot machines. But while the governor hasn't said anything to indicate he's changed his mind on this issue, many argue that these newly signed compacts give the tribes a blank check.
In San Pablo, the Lytton Band is trying to build a plush gambling facility right in the heart of a congested, working-class neighborhood in the San Francisco Bay Area.
"It's certainly pragmatic money he wants, and he's come upon Indian gaming to get it. He's doing a flip-flop. He's not being a moralist; he's being a politician," says Bill Thompson, a University of Nevada professor and gambling authority, who has been retained by some of the tribes to fight Prop. 68 and, until recently, supported the governor in much of this debate. "Which is okay, except that he's abandoning the California tradition he supposedly admires in Ronald Reagan. Or even Jerry Brown."
Calls to Schwarzenegger's office for comment were not returned.
Reports about the size of the San Pablo casino have changed. Two weeks ago, The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Lytton tribe was planning to have "the nation's third largest gambling emporium" - a six- to eight-story casino with up to 5,000 slot machines - something that their compact for unlimited slots had guaranteed - but local opposition got it scaled back to 2,500 slots and a smaller facility.
And, while many local legislators balked, the prospect of potential job growth caused some, including Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, to express cautious interest. (The San Pablo casino would have been located 15 miles outside Oakland.) San Pablo mayor Barbara Vigil indicated in The Chronicle that she would sign off on it. "I absolutely think it's a step in the right direction ... . If it's scaled down, everybody can live with that."
Right now, it looks like they won't have to. Schwarzenegger's team pulled back, and then the legislature voted to put the deal on hold. But the provisions in the compacts and the legalities about withholding the deal from any one tribe could mean that the Lyttons would be able to bring a federal petition and eventually prevail.
While a majority of Californians continue to support Indian gaming, including Prop. 70, which would allow for unlimited expansion of Vegas-style games in reservation casinos, critics insist that urban casinos are a different beast. The negative effects of placing slot machines smack in the middle of a working-class community such as San Pablo, they say, would be tough to mitigate. In addition to increased law-enforcement problems, easy access to gambling has been shown to produce gambling-addicted locals.
Though Thompson has been a strong supporter of gambling by tourists on vacation, he's been a longtime opponent of urban gambling, citing examples of the deleterious effects that these casinos have had on the working class and retirees on fixed incomes living in Vegas. (He recently addressed the urban-casino debate still raging in Pennsylvania in a Washington Post editorial.) "You just get more locals playing, which is bad," Thompson says. "The average American loses three hundred dollars a year gambling, but in Vegas, the locals lose three times that. That's why the tribes are opposing Flynt. And since this is why I'm working with them and it's the entire basis for my opposing Flynt, I'd feel a lot better if the tribes would clear it up."
Published: 09/02/2004
Bubbling Trouble Methane Gas Leaking In Playa Vista?
BUBBLING TROUBLE
What is the truth about possible methane gas leakage into the buildings of Playa Vista?
By Annette Stark
Viewers who caught last month's KNBC Channel 4 news investigation "Burning Questions," about the presence of methane gas at the Westside Playa Vista development, got an eyeful of alarming news. To illustrate the dangers of underground methane, KNBC showed old footage of the 1985 gas explosion at a Ross Dress For Less in the Fairfax District, begging the implied question: Could this happen at Playa Vista?
But while the images were correctly identified in the report as being from 1985, the city Building and Safety Code has changed since then to include measures that city engineers believe would have prevented that fire - all of which have been applied to Playa Vista.
But some environmentalists are saying the gas problem there still isn't solved.
Opposition to Phase II of the Playa Vista development remains stiff, focusing mostly on questions of increased traffic, open space, and Native American issues. But neither Bill Rosendahl - incoming councilman for the District 11 District and an opponent of the Phase II development - nor environmental giant Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have taken an official position on the gas.
"Bill's position on Playa Vista Phase I was that he didn't like where it was built," says Rosendahl spokesperson Mike Bonin. "That was environmental. His main objection to Phase II was the traffic impact and the lack of community dialogue about the project."
The May 25 KNBC special focused on the Grassroots Coalition - a group that has touted methane problems as the reason to kill Playa Vista II. But the Fairfax fire shown occurred before the city code was amended in 2002 to require elaborate gas mitigation systems. In 2002, the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS) required the installation of those systems at Playa Vista, consisting of a membrane shield under the buildings, vents, and a series of alarms. This type of mitigation is now common. Methane is found in high concentrations in Beverly Hills, the Wilshire Corridor, the Fairfax District, Universal Studios, and Venice, just to name a few locations.
Colin Kunabe, senior structural engineer for the LADBS, points out that, as a direct result of Playa Vista, Los Angeles now has the strictest methane mitigation laws in the country. "There is nobody disputing that [methane gas] is there," says Kunabe. "The bigger issue is: Can you build in an area that is known to have methane? Our standards say yes, as long as you have the detection and the method to get rid of it."
According to Bob Steinbach, an assistant bureau chief at LADBS, the department turned down KNBC's request for an interview. "NBC approached our department and asked us for on-camera interviews about info that we did not have and asked us to comment on reports that we had not seen. They would not let us have copies of the reports.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's irresponsible journalism," he adds.
But the special did have a bombshell: It alleged that "the membrane shield placed beneath the building is probably leaking," and that "some safety systems have failed." This came from Grassroots Coalition leaders, actress Patricia McPherson (Knight Rider) and attorney/engineer Bernard Endres, who have been fighting the development for over a decade.
"This is the largest gas seepage site that has ever been located in the United States," Endres declared on the special.
"The ground is almost 100 percent saturated with gas in certain areas," McPherson offered, also on the TV show.
McPherson and Endres further claimed that samples they took from a basement at Playa Vista's Fountain Park apartments tested positive for gas. McPherson said they found "an enormous amount of gas" seeping under the apartment building.
But the Coalition has already lost multiple lawsuits on this matter. "The NBC piece said there were two legal challenges. I know of many and [McPherson] lost all of them," Steinbach says.
Largely due to the efforts of Playa opponents, and especially McPherson, the city admits that gas is present at the Playa Vista site. But detailing alleged trouble with mitigation is harder to pin down, and doing so seemed to draw McPherson's ire. Asked to reconcile inconsistencies amidst the data on the Grassroots Coalition's website, she refused to be interviewed. Questions remain as to why the city engineer called this information "unsubstantiated." Inconsistencies on the website include:
• McPherson has publicly stated that the (Paraseal) membrane shield at Fountain Park has an 85 percent failure rate. But the only corroboration found by CityBeat appears in a letter on the Grassroots Coalition website from LBI technologies, manufacturers of a competitive product, Liquid Boot. While the letter might be completely accurate, it reads more like a sales pitch than a scientific study.
• To prove the Paraseal GM product is inadequate as a gas sealant, the Grassroots Coalition quotes a "City Consultant" who allegedly told them the product isn't an HDPE - (high density polyethylene is used to manufacture methane gas shields). However, the manufacturer reiterated this is exactly what Paraseal GM is.
• Steinbach points out that Playa Vista is hardly the highest methane concentration in the country. "When you look at methane standards, [Playa Vista's] certainly not the first and won't be the last," he says. "You can go over to La Brea and the concentration is higher there."
Arguing that no mitigation would work at Playa Vista, the Grassroots Coalition also offers information on Liquid Boot in the form of a letter written to the LADBS in 2000 by Dr. Fleet E. Rust, president of the GeoScience Analytical Institute. In it, Rust cautions against using Liquid Boot. That letter still appears on McPherson's website and includes a link to a New Times interview, in which Rust says it doesn't matter which membrane would be used at the ´´ development since none would work: "It is just a piece of land that was not meant to have a lot of buildings ... ."
One year later, however, Rust did a 180-degree-turnaround. In an op-ed piece for the L.A. Weekly about the Belmont Learning Center (another toxic methane site) Rust praises Playa Vista. "Both sites have similar methane concentrations," he writes. "Nevertheless, Playa Vista is moving forward with state-of-the-art gas-mitigation systems including aquifer degassing, passive venting, and active backup venting systems."
KNBC did not contact Tremco, manufacturers of Paraseal GM, to discuss whether their membrane was failing. The company first the heard of the broadcast when contacted by CityBeat. Tremco's response reads, in part: "For the Playa Vista application, Paraseal met all project specifications and passed independent testing required by the City of Los Angeles ... . We remain confident that Paraseal GM is effective when properly installed."
CityBeat then contacted "Burning Questions" producer Frank Snepp to ask if KNBC had collected and analyzed its own samples from Fountain Park and also if they had contacted Tremco. Snepps returned a reporter's calls, but refused to defend "Burning Questions" against criticisms from LADBS or the developers. He indicated that McPherson was "right about everything," and then handed the matter over to the NBC PR department, which released a statement from KNBC Vice President and News Director Robert L. Long, which said the station had provided documents to the city, and added:
"KNBC relied entirely on engineering data provided by Playa Vista Capital, the City of Los Angeles, and Southern California Gas Company for its report. Further, KNBC had independent engineers evaluate the data and our report's conclusions. ... There was no reason to talk to the makers of the mitigation systems involved. Their devices were modified and Playa Vista Capital was, according to the chief legislative analyst for the City of Los Angeles, legally responsible for their effectiveness."
The NRDC did take a stand against Playa Vista in 2003, but not about the gas. In a strongly worded letter to the Department of City Planning, NRDC senior attorney Joel R. Reynolds expressed "concerns regarding the impacts of the proposed project on air quality and traffic circulation." At press time, Rosendahl had not yet watched the KNBC news special. "He has major concerns, or unanswered questions about the Indian burial ground and the methane issue," Bonin says. "There will need to be some further questions answered."
Published: 06/16/2005
What is the truth about possible methane gas leakage into the buildings of Playa Vista?
By Annette Stark
Viewers who caught last month's KNBC Channel 4 news investigation "Burning Questions," about the presence of methane gas at the Westside Playa Vista development, got an eyeful of alarming news. To illustrate the dangers of underground methane, KNBC showed old footage of the 1985 gas explosion at a Ross Dress For Less in the Fairfax District, begging the implied question: Could this happen at Playa Vista?
But while the images were correctly identified in the report as being from 1985, the city Building and Safety Code has changed since then to include measures that city engineers believe would have prevented that fire - all of which have been applied to Playa Vista.
But some environmentalists are saying the gas problem there still isn't solved.
Opposition to Phase II of the Playa Vista development remains stiff, focusing mostly on questions of increased traffic, open space, and Native American issues. But neither Bill Rosendahl - incoming councilman for the District 11 District and an opponent of the Phase II development - nor environmental giant Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have taken an official position on the gas.
"Bill's position on Playa Vista Phase I was that he didn't like where it was built," says Rosendahl spokesperson Mike Bonin. "That was environmental. His main objection to Phase II was the traffic impact and the lack of community dialogue about the project."
The May 25 KNBC special focused on the Grassroots Coalition - a group that has touted methane problems as the reason to kill Playa Vista II. But the Fairfax fire shown occurred before the city code was amended in 2002 to require elaborate gas mitigation systems. In 2002, the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS) required the installation of those systems at Playa Vista, consisting of a membrane shield under the buildings, vents, and a series of alarms. This type of mitigation is now common. Methane is found in high concentrations in Beverly Hills, the Wilshire Corridor, the Fairfax District, Universal Studios, and Venice, just to name a few locations.
Colin Kunabe, senior structural engineer for the LADBS, points out that, as a direct result of Playa Vista, Los Angeles now has the strictest methane mitigation laws in the country. "There is nobody disputing that [methane gas] is there," says Kunabe. "The bigger issue is: Can you build in an area that is known to have methane? Our standards say yes, as long as you have the detection and the method to get rid of it."
According to Bob Steinbach, an assistant bureau chief at LADBS, the department turned down KNBC's request for an interview. "NBC approached our department and asked us for on-camera interviews about info that we did not have and asked us to comment on reports that we had not seen. They would not let us have copies of the reports.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's irresponsible journalism," he adds.
But the special did have a bombshell: It alleged that "the membrane shield placed beneath the building is probably leaking," and that "some safety systems have failed." This came from Grassroots Coalition leaders, actress Patricia McPherson (Knight Rider) and attorney/engineer Bernard Endres, who have been fighting the development for over a decade.
"This is the largest gas seepage site that has ever been located in the United States," Endres declared on the special.
"The ground is almost 100 percent saturated with gas in certain areas," McPherson offered, also on the TV show.
McPherson and Endres further claimed that samples they took from a basement at Playa Vista's Fountain Park apartments tested positive for gas. McPherson said they found "an enormous amount of gas" seeping under the apartment building.
But the Coalition has already lost multiple lawsuits on this matter. "The NBC piece said there were two legal challenges. I know of many and [McPherson] lost all of them," Steinbach says.
Largely due to the efforts of Playa opponents, and especially McPherson, the city admits that gas is present at the Playa Vista site. But detailing alleged trouble with mitigation is harder to pin down, and doing so seemed to draw McPherson's ire. Asked to reconcile inconsistencies amidst the data on the Grassroots Coalition's website, she refused to be interviewed. Questions remain as to why the city engineer called this information "unsubstantiated." Inconsistencies on the website include:
• McPherson has publicly stated that the (Paraseal) membrane shield at Fountain Park has an 85 percent failure rate. But the only corroboration found by CityBeat appears in a letter on the Grassroots Coalition website from LBI technologies, manufacturers of a competitive product, Liquid Boot. While the letter might be completely accurate, it reads more like a sales pitch than a scientific study.
• To prove the Paraseal GM product is inadequate as a gas sealant, the Grassroots Coalition quotes a "City Consultant" who allegedly told them the product isn't an HDPE - (high density polyethylene is used to manufacture methane gas shields). However, the manufacturer reiterated this is exactly what Paraseal GM is.
• Steinbach points out that Playa Vista is hardly the highest methane concentration in the country. "When you look at methane standards, [Playa Vista's] certainly not the first and won't be the last," he says. "You can go over to La Brea and the concentration is higher there."
Arguing that no mitigation would work at Playa Vista, the Grassroots Coalition also offers information on Liquid Boot in the form of a letter written to the LADBS in 2000 by Dr. Fleet E. Rust, president of the GeoScience Analytical Institute. In it, Rust cautions against using Liquid Boot. That letter still appears on McPherson's website and includes a link to a New Times interview, in which Rust says it doesn't matter which membrane would be used at the ´´ development since none would work: "It is just a piece of land that was not meant to have a lot of buildings ... ."
One year later, however, Rust did a 180-degree-turnaround. In an op-ed piece for the L.A. Weekly about the Belmont Learning Center (another toxic methane site) Rust praises Playa Vista. "Both sites have similar methane concentrations," he writes. "Nevertheless, Playa Vista is moving forward with state-of-the-art gas-mitigation systems including aquifer degassing, passive venting, and active backup venting systems."
KNBC did not contact Tremco, manufacturers of Paraseal GM, to discuss whether their membrane was failing. The company first the heard of the broadcast when contacted by CityBeat. Tremco's response reads, in part: "For the Playa Vista application, Paraseal met all project specifications and passed independent testing required by the City of Los Angeles ... . We remain confident that Paraseal GM is effective when properly installed."
CityBeat then contacted "Burning Questions" producer Frank Snepp to ask if KNBC had collected and analyzed its own samples from Fountain Park and also if they had contacted Tremco. Snepps returned a reporter's calls, but refused to defend "Burning Questions" against criticisms from LADBS or the developers. He indicated that McPherson was "right about everything," and then handed the matter over to the NBC PR department, which released a statement from KNBC Vice President and News Director Robert L. Long, which said the station had provided documents to the city, and added:
"KNBC relied entirely on engineering data provided by Playa Vista Capital, the City of Los Angeles, and Southern California Gas Company for its report. Further, KNBC had independent engineers evaluate the data and our report's conclusions. ... There was no reason to talk to the makers of the mitigation systems involved. Their devices were modified and Playa Vista Capital was, according to the chief legislative analyst for the City of Los Angeles, legally responsible for their effectiveness."
The NRDC did take a stand against Playa Vista in 2003, but not about the gas. In a strongly worded letter to the Department of City Planning, NRDC senior attorney Joel R. Reynolds expressed "concerns regarding the impacts of the proposed project on air quality and traffic circulation." At press time, Rosendahl had not yet watched the KNBC news special. "He has major concerns, or unanswered questions about the Indian burial ground and the methane issue," Bonin says. "There will need to be some further questions answered."
Published: 06/16/2005
BAD MEDICINE By Annette Stark
BAD MEDICINE
A new federal law has UC campuses reluctant to provide researchers with crucial patient data
By Annette Stark
http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/bad_medicine/1399/
John Ott formed Stand Together in the Fight in 2001, one year after his nine-year-old daughter was diagnosed with brain stem tumors, a rare brain tumor with an historically poor prognosis. It accounts for more than 10 percent of all childhood brain tumors, and Ott's daughter died within eight months of being diagnosed. And within three years, so did three other children in his Huntington Beach neighborhood. "All our families lived off the same street," Ott says. "Three of us still do."
Since founding the cancer advocacy group with neighbor Susan Junghans - whose child was also one of the four - Ott has worked to provide financial and emotional support for families dealing with this disease, as well as raising money for a cure. But, since April 2003, Ott has joined fellow cancer advocates in another fight - to insure that the California Cancer Registry continues to provide immediate information about cancer patients to researchers, as it has for the last 16 years.
To cancer advocates, this has now become an onerous task as a result of interpretations of patient privacy rights contained in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a federal law passed in 2003. Since then, an increasing number of University of California campuses have become reluctant to comply with the Cancer Registry's requests for relevant data. On September 26, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that "citing the privacy rule, at least 17 Bay Area hospitals have imposed restrictions on the state Cancer Registry's accustomed rapid access to patient records."
The California Cancer Registry was created by an act of the state legislature in 1985, stipulating that all cancer cases must be reported to the Department of Health within six months of diagnosis for the purpose of providing qualified researchers with information to track incidents of the disease, study effective treatments, and locate patients who would be willing to participate in studies.
As cancer advocates indicate, HIPAA should not conflict with the Cancer Registry; HIPAA distinctly specifies that cancer is reportable, and excludes data mined for research from patient privacy protections. "There's a whole protocol for reporting and it's our position that it satisfies all legal and ethical privacy concerns," says Jim Knox, vice president of advocacy for the American Cancer Society. "To my knowledge there has never been a breach or a lawsuit."
"It worked without incident," says Dr. Dennis Deapen, who heads the Los Angeles Cancer Registry and is also president of the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries. "California researchers could identify new cases within four weeks of diagnosis, and most patients contacted were eager to participate."
"The people who turn down being in a study are few and far between," says Lloyd Morgan, a brain tumor survivor and activist with the Brain Tumor Action Network. "This is someone's last contribution, a chance to help."
Especially with cancers that might be genetically based, patients are eager to participate in research that might help other family members, particularly their children.
Despite this, Deapen says, "researchers requesting rapid access to data at UC hospitals have been turned away."
To those who devote their lives to studying diseases that can kill within three months of diagnosis, Rapid Case Ascertainment (RCA) is key. Scientists must have access to patient information cases where the prognosis is poor. "RCA is the gold standard for epidemiological work," Morgan says. In the event researchers would be denied rapid access, many with these kinds of cancers will have died before they can even become part of a study."
As regards patient privacy, Deapen maintains that the law is "wonderfully clear."
"It's appropriate about the balance between protection of privacy and how research must occur. We worked hard in L.A. to explain this to the hospitals."
But cancer advocates had their worst fears confirmed when a version of HIPAA panic turned up in Los Angeles in May of 2004, when West Hills Hospital denied Deapen access to non-cancer patient information he had previously mined for quality control - in other words, to ascertain that a hospital had not mistakenly omitted cancer patients in their lists. "They cited HIPAA as the reason, even though I communicated to them that this activity is in full compliance with state and federal law."
Unlike the 17 UC hospitals, West Hills has not changed its policy regarding rapidly reporting cancer patients. "Our issue is that we don't want anybody to have access to patients with other diseases," emphasizes Jessica Blue, West Hills' HIPAA officer and director of medical records. "We are happy to allow [Deapen] information. But there is a need-to-know provision from HIPAA and we feel that this surpasses his need to know."
Blue was unaware of the controversy that was brewing up north, but to Deapen, West Hills was the red flag signifying that other California hospitals were now getting on board with policies implemented by UC's. HIPAA privacy officer Dr. Maria Faer, who Deapen claims first misinterpreted HIPAA laws and now refuses to admit she got it wrong. Deapen says, "Dr. Faer continues to be the person in the UC system who is requiring the denial of access."
"I'm still trying to figure out what Dr. Faer's agenda is," Ott says. "I'm baffled about what she is trying to accomplish. It's like she wanders around, does her own thing and doesn't have to report to anyone."
Faer has explained that her agenda is privacy, telling the Chronicle of concerns about patients potentially being contacted by a researcher and learning they have cancer before being told by a diagnosing physician.
It's ludicrous, Morgan says. "It would be malpractice for a doctor to not have told the patient as soon as a diagnosis was confirmed. Also, you couldn't end up on the list unless there was a confirmed diagnosis."
When contacted by CityBeat, Faer insists that her concerns are misunderstood. "We want a time lag of four to six weeks from the point of biopsy by the treating physician," she says, "to make sure that a patient has had sufficient time to meet and confer with her physician."
The list of those who "misunderstood" includes the American Cancer Society, Brain Tumor Action Network, hundreds of cancer patients who faxed concerned letters to UC President Dynes, and numerous research scientists such as Deapen who says Faer just doesn't get it. "We already explained to her that the process for us to mine this data takes six weeks after diagnosis, under maximum speedy conditions."
While Faer admits she doesn't know of any reported privacy breaches, she maintains it's an irrelevant concern. "The electronic age exists and you don't put laws in place because there has been a breech. You put laws in place to prevent it. And I have asked over and over for examples of where research has been prohibited or harmed, and it hasn't."
According to Burt Cohen, director for the California Office of HIPAA Implementation, the state and the university have been talking about a simple proposal for making this all work. "I've been following it, and my understanding is that there has recently been an agreement." Cohen reveals.
Activists say the absolute necessity for all RCA to thrive has them holding their breath about any possible agreements in the works. To date, Morgan's list of studies that have been harmed, or delayed, or grants that were not applied for as a result of UC's policies, totals 54. CanCORS (the federal colon cancer study) is one glaring example. "The federal government picked the type of patients they wanted as a national total for this research and asked for scientists to compete," Deapen explains. "Five centers won, including mine, and Dr. Dee West in Northern California, who partnered with Harvard. Two of the five centers are in California. So the fact that they have been unable to identify patients in Northern California from those UC hospitals means the government isn't going to get their national total, the statistics they paid for, because one person at UC made the decision not to comply."
Published: 11/18/2004
A new federal law has UC campuses reluctant to provide researchers with crucial patient data
By Annette Stark
http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/bad_medicine/1399/
John Ott formed Stand Together in the Fight in 2001, one year after his nine-year-old daughter was diagnosed with brain stem tumors, a rare brain tumor with an historically poor prognosis. It accounts for more than 10 percent of all childhood brain tumors, and Ott's daughter died within eight months of being diagnosed. And within three years, so did three other children in his Huntington Beach neighborhood. "All our families lived off the same street," Ott says. "Three of us still do."
Since founding the cancer advocacy group with neighbor Susan Junghans - whose child was also one of the four - Ott has worked to provide financial and emotional support for families dealing with this disease, as well as raising money for a cure. But, since April 2003, Ott has joined fellow cancer advocates in another fight - to insure that the California Cancer Registry continues to provide immediate information about cancer patients to researchers, as it has for the last 16 years.
To cancer advocates, this has now become an onerous task as a result of interpretations of patient privacy rights contained in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a federal law passed in 2003. Since then, an increasing number of University of California campuses have become reluctant to comply with the Cancer Registry's requests for relevant data. On September 26, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that "citing the privacy rule, at least 17 Bay Area hospitals have imposed restrictions on the state Cancer Registry's accustomed rapid access to patient records."
The California Cancer Registry was created by an act of the state legislature in 1985, stipulating that all cancer cases must be reported to the Department of Health within six months of diagnosis for the purpose of providing qualified researchers with information to track incidents of the disease, study effective treatments, and locate patients who would be willing to participate in studies.
As cancer advocates indicate, HIPAA should not conflict with the Cancer Registry; HIPAA distinctly specifies that cancer is reportable, and excludes data mined for research from patient privacy protections. "There's a whole protocol for reporting and it's our position that it satisfies all legal and ethical privacy concerns," says Jim Knox, vice president of advocacy for the American Cancer Society. "To my knowledge there has never been a breach or a lawsuit."
"It worked without incident," says Dr. Dennis Deapen, who heads the Los Angeles Cancer Registry and is also president of the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries. "California researchers could identify new cases within four weeks of diagnosis, and most patients contacted were eager to participate."
"The people who turn down being in a study are few and far between," says Lloyd Morgan, a brain tumor survivor and activist with the Brain Tumor Action Network. "This is someone's last contribution, a chance to help."
Especially with cancers that might be genetically based, patients are eager to participate in research that might help other family members, particularly their children.
Despite this, Deapen says, "researchers requesting rapid access to data at UC hospitals have been turned away."
To those who devote their lives to studying diseases that can kill within three months of diagnosis, Rapid Case Ascertainment (RCA) is key. Scientists must have access to patient information cases where the prognosis is poor. "RCA is the gold standard for epidemiological work," Morgan says. In the event researchers would be denied rapid access, many with these kinds of cancers will have died before they can even become part of a study."
As regards patient privacy, Deapen maintains that the law is "wonderfully clear."
"It's appropriate about the balance between protection of privacy and how research must occur. We worked hard in L.A. to explain this to the hospitals."
But cancer advocates had their worst fears confirmed when a version of HIPAA panic turned up in Los Angeles in May of 2004, when West Hills Hospital denied Deapen access to non-cancer patient information he had previously mined for quality control - in other words, to ascertain that a hospital had not mistakenly omitted cancer patients in their lists. "They cited HIPAA as the reason, even though I communicated to them that this activity is in full compliance with state and federal law."
Unlike the 17 UC hospitals, West Hills has not changed its policy regarding rapidly reporting cancer patients. "Our issue is that we don't want anybody to have access to patients with other diseases," emphasizes Jessica Blue, West Hills' HIPAA officer and director of medical records. "We are happy to allow [Deapen] information. But there is a need-to-know provision from HIPAA and we feel that this surpasses his need to know."
Blue was unaware of the controversy that was brewing up north, but to Deapen, West Hills was the red flag signifying that other California hospitals were now getting on board with policies implemented by UC's. HIPAA privacy officer Dr. Maria Faer, who Deapen claims first misinterpreted HIPAA laws and now refuses to admit she got it wrong. Deapen says, "Dr. Faer continues to be the person in the UC system who is requiring the denial of access."
"I'm still trying to figure out what Dr. Faer's agenda is," Ott says. "I'm baffled about what she is trying to accomplish. It's like she wanders around, does her own thing and doesn't have to report to anyone."
Faer has explained that her agenda is privacy, telling the Chronicle of concerns about patients potentially being contacted by a researcher and learning they have cancer before being told by a diagnosing physician.
It's ludicrous, Morgan says. "It would be malpractice for a doctor to not have told the patient as soon as a diagnosis was confirmed. Also, you couldn't end up on the list unless there was a confirmed diagnosis."
When contacted by CityBeat, Faer insists that her concerns are misunderstood. "We want a time lag of four to six weeks from the point of biopsy by the treating physician," she says, "to make sure that a patient has had sufficient time to meet and confer with her physician."
The list of those who "misunderstood" includes the American Cancer Society, Brain Tumor Action Network, hundreds of cancer patients who faxed concerned letters to UC President Dynes, and numerous research scientists such as Deapen who says Faer just doesn't get it. "We already explained to her that the process for us to mine this data takes six weeks after diagnosis, under maximum speedy conditions."
While Faer admits she doesn't know of any reported privacy breaches, she maintains it's an irrelevant concern. "The electronic age exists and you don't put laws in place because there has been a breech. You put laws in place to prevent it. And I have asked over and over for examples of where research has been prohibited or harmed, and it hasn't."
According to Burt Cohen, director for the California Office of HIPAA Implementation, the state and the university have been talking about a simple proposal for making this all work. "I've been following it, and my understanding is that there has recently been an agreement." Cohen reveals.
Activists say the absolute necessity for all RCA to thrive has them holding their breath about any possible agreements in the works. To date, Morgan's list of studies that have been harmed, or delayed, or grants that were not applied for as a result of UC's policies, totals 54. CanCORS (the federal colon cancer study) is one glaring example. "The federal government picked the type of patients they wanted as a national total for this research and asked for scientists to compete," Deapen explains. "Five centers won, including mine, and Dr. Dee West in Northern California, who partnered with Harvard. Two of the five centers are in California. So the fact that they have been unable to identify patients in Northern California from those UC hospitals means the government isn't going to get their national total, the statistics they paid for, because one person at UC made the decision not to comply."
Published: 11/18/2004
Robert Blake "The Blake Files" By Annette Stark
THE BLAKE FILES
For a few of us, the murder case against Robert Blake has actually been grossly under-reported
By Annette Stark
For a few of us, the murder case against Robert Blake has actually been grossly under-reported
You know, there's never an Enquirer reporter around when you need one. Otherwise, how do you explain all this tabloid snobbery toward Robert Blake? What is it, his hair color? It's been almost three years since the 71-year-old actor allegedly murdered Bonnie Lee Bakley in his car after leaving Vitello's restaurant. And I'm still waiting to read even one interview with a parking valet.
Hey, it's not like it's Blake's fault. In the world of slush-media objects, this guy really puts out. Considering that the former Baretta star has spent a long miserable stretch between prison and house arrest, he's been very available. There was even that 2003 Barbara Walters interview - with Blake decked out in jailhouse orange, eyes rimmed in tears. How many accused murders have garnered this much public sympathy just by suggesting they were getting sick from too much jail?
Also, Blake keeps sacking (or getting sacked by) his lawyers, which by now should have turned him into some kind of counter-culture god. Especially after last year's famous split with Thomas Mesereau Jr. right after Blake delivered that impromptu concert outside the Van Nuys courthouse, grabbing street musician Gypsy Vic's acoustic guitar and singing to the tune of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."
"Someone shot Bonnie Bakley
No, not I
Why's this heat on me lately?
I got an alibi"
Fortunately, there are websites like Spaff.com, posting the audio as MP3, so the song lives on in perpetual, downloadable obscurity. But there's more:
Hair: Until the murder, Blake had jet-black hair. Afterwards, he went gray overnight. Now, we already know that this wasn't due to grief over the dead wife, but couldn't he get any hair dye in jail? Maybe his first attorney thought that Blake would look more sympathetic with gray hair. If so, good thing that guy's gone.
House: Blake lived on Dilling Street, in a spiffy, well-heeled section of Studio City. From the front, his house, Mata Hari Ranch, looked like a chicken shack. By the time of the murder, it was probably the only unimproved wreck on the block, and when he sold it the new owners tore it down. But in Hollywood, the celebrity murder house is such a big thing. With the O.J. trial, we got news coverage of that Rockingham estate at least once a day. Where was the media when this historic site was ripped apart?
Money: How much is all this house arrest costing Blake? Will he run out of money, like John Gotti, and have to be sent back to jail? What has happened to real estate values on Dilling Street as a result of this murder?
Vitello's: So far, I've only seen one report about what lousy food Vitello's serves. On the website, newz.com, columnist Horton Lazario suggests that, if Blake actually ate there for 20 years - as has been reported - his attorneys could use this as an insanity defense.
The Dish: According to Vitello's management, Blake always ordered rigatoni with tomatoes and spinach, which they named fusilli a la Robert Blake. Was this a lot of food? In an interview shortly after the murder, Blake's daughter, Delinah Blake was asked why her father parked one block away from Vitello's. She responded that if you ever ate at Vitello's you'd understand that you needed that walk. I've eaten that dish and found it was like Chinese food. In an hour you're hungry again. So, I guess one block would do it.
Stallion: "I'm Italian," Blake told Barbara Walters, explaining why he went out to bars to pick up women. He made it sound like a genetic disorder. Now that the judge has allowed portions of that interview to be aired in court, has anybody bothered to ask what the hell he meant? The Buzz: Blake's bodyguard Earle Caldwell has maintained that Bonnie Lee was the victim of a stalker, a young guy that maybe lived on their street. They even gave him a nickname - "Buzz Cut," because of his great hair. Where is Buzz Cut now? He'd really stick out on that block. My best friend lived on Dilling Street for 17 years, and the hottest stud I ever saw walking around was Mike Farrell, the guy from M*A*S*H.
For a few of us, the murder case against Robert Blake has actually been grossly under-reported
By Annette Stark
For a few of us, the murder case against Robert Blake has actually been grossly under-reported
You know, there's never an Enquirer reporter around when you need one. Otherwise, how do you explain all this tabloid snobbery toward Robert Blake? What is it, his hair color? It's been almost three years since the 71-year-old actor allegedly murdered Bonnie Lee Bakley in his car after leaving Vitello's restaurant. And I'm still waiting to read even one interview with a parking valet.
Hey, it's not like it's Blake's fault. In the world of slush-media objects, this guy really puts out. Considering that the former Baretta star has spent a long miserable stretch between prison and house arrest, he's been very available. There was even that 2003 Barbara Walters interview - with Blake decked out in jailhouse orange, eyes rimmed in tears. How many accused murders have garnered this much public sympathy just by suggesting they were getting sick from too much jail?
Also, Blake keeps sacking (or getting sacked by) his lawyers, which by now should have turned him into some kind of counter-culture god. Especially after last year's famous split with Thomas Mesereau Jr. right after Blake delivered that impromptu concert outside the Van Nuys courthouse, grabbing street musician Gypsy Vic's acoustic guitar and singing to the tune of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."
"Someone shot Bonnie Bakley
No, not I
Why's this heat on me lately?
I got an alibi"
Fortunately, there are websites like Spaff.com, posting the audio as MP3, so the song lives on in perpetual, downloadable obscurity. But there's more:
Hair: Until the murder, Blake had jet-black hair. Afterwards, he went gray overnight. Now, we already know that this wasn't due to grief over the dead wife, but couldn't he get any hair dye in jail? Maybe his first attorney thought that Blake would look more sympathetic with gray hair. If so, good thing that guy's gone.
House: Blake lived on Dilling Street, in a spiffy, well-heeled section of Studio City. From the front, his house, Mata Hari Ranch, looked like a chicken shack. By the time of the murder, it was probably the only unimproved wreck on the block, and when he sold it the new owners tore it down. But in Hollywood, the celebrity murder house is such a big thing. With the O.J. trial, we got news coverage of that Rockingham estate at least once a day. Where was the media when this historic site was ripped apart?
Money: How much is all this house arrest costing Blake? Will he run out of money, like John Gotti, and have to be sent back to jail? What has happened to real estate values on Dilling Street as a result of this murder?
Vitello's: So far, I've only seen one report about what lousy food Vitello's serves. On the website, newz.com, columnist Horton Lazario suggests that, if Blake actually ate there for 20 years - as has been reported - his attorneys could use this as an insanity defense.
The Dish: According to Vitello's management, Blake always ordered rigatoni with tomatoes and spinach, which they named fusilli a la Robert Blake. Was this a lot of food? In an interview shortly after the murder, Blake's daughter, Delinah Blake was asked why her father parked one block away from Vitello's. She responded that if you ever ate at Vitello's you'd understand that you needed that walk. I've eaten that dish and found it was like Chinese food. In an hour you're hungry again. So, I guess one block would do it.
Stallion: "I'm Italian," Blake told Barbara Walters, explaining why he went out to bars to pick up women. He made it sound like a genetic disorder. Now that the judge has allowed portions of that interview to be aired in court, has anybody bothered to ask what the hell he meant? The Buzz: Blake's bodyguard Earle Caldwell has maintained that Bonnie Lee was the victim of a stalker, a young guy that maybe lived on their street. They even gave him a nickname - "Buzz Cut," because of his great hair. Where is Buzz Cut now? He'd really stick out on that block. My best friend lived on Dilling Street for 17 years, and the hottest stud I ever saw walking around was Mike Farrell, the guy from M*A*S*H.
Cover Story Walking Jordan By Annette Stark
WALKING JORDANThe feds see Watts as 8,000 gang members and only 24 gang cops. But a closer look might reveal a lit
By Annette Stark
It goes on all night long. You ride with the Southeast Gang Unit, you roll up on big doggs, maybe one every hour. I reach the police station at 108th and Main at about 4:20 p.m. By 4:45, the patrol car is already racing to 111th and Main with the Gang Unit's Sgt. Joe Guay (my guide) going, "Oh shit, oh shit," the entire way.
Seven patrol cars line the narrow block. Officers on one side of the street cover a distance of about five houses where it's believed the perpetrator has run.
"Got the gun?" Guay asks. Another officer shakes his head.
This is about nothing if it's not about getting guns off the streets. Guay says, "Often a suspect will stash the gun, and there's always the danger some little kid will find it."
A crowd of about 60 onlookers has gathered on the front lawn across the street. This is Eastside Crips territory, an officer explains. But you can look it up on any street gang website with a map; this particular Crip set is one of the most infamous of the 65 gangs that the LAPD estimates now control Watts. This block belongs to them. Now, one old man crosses to approach us. "We don't mean any trouble," he says, gesturing toward the gathering across the street. He has bloodshot eyes and smells faintly of alcohol. "It's just a funeral for my brother. He died today at 50," points to his head. "Brain hemorrhage."
A lot of unnecessary information, unless you need a cop to understand that your brother died of natural causes and not in a gang killing. Out here, a brain hemorrhage seems almost benign in comparison.
Guay eats his dinner - a turkey sandwich and coffee - on the hood of his car. Ten minutes later, we're rushing to 101st and Avalon, this time to catch an armed perpetrator who has broken in the back door and taken a kid hostage under the bed. Within a half hour, this suspect is in custody. He looks about 20 years old, seated on the hood of the patrol car, handcuffed and shaking. "He has tremors, but it's not unusual for a suspect to fake it," Guay explains as the ambulance pulls up. "He'll go to the hospital and eventually he'll go to jail."
This time, two officers are hurt, and they get two guns. In 2003, this unit took 193 guns off the street. "You think you're going to solve this anytime soon?" I ask.
Guay shrugs. It's complicated. The LAPD estimates there are more than 8,000 gang members in Watts. The Gang Unit has 24 officers. "This is its own world. People don't understand this. Unfortunately, those who live here feel it's safer not to talk to us. Once in a while, someone sticks their head outside the door and whispers, 'Nice work, officer.'"
Watts vs. the community pimpsAsk any longtime Los Angeles resident: Watts is drive-over country. You drive over it on the freeway. In fact, if it weren't for decades of national headlines about terminal poverty, fiery riots, and gang violence, many L.A. citizens wouldn't even know Watts exists. So when Guay complains that the public is desensitized to this violence (a position shared by many community activists), it might be more on the mark to ask if anyone ever cared at all.
But for energetic legislators, bad neighborhoods offer many possibilities, and mounting national concern about street gang violence is already shaping up to be a pretty good business. In December, Congress appropriated $11 million for the FBI to create a National Gang Intelligence Center, spearheaded by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) which will create a national database of street gang members. In January, CityBeat reported that U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.) has revived her Gang Prevention Act, which would make it a federal crime to join or recruit members in a street gang. (Senator Ted Kennedy and other democrats killed Feinstein's original bill because she had provisions for the death penalty and prosecuting juveniles as adults.) It also authorizes $650 million for law enforcement, prevention, and gang intervention programs.
In fact, money - not more cops, not more effective outreach - has been lawmakers' pat response for decades, and is still the remedy suggested by respected commentators.
Last month, at his State of the Union Speech, President Bush announced the appointment of Laura Bush to oversee a new $150 million program aimed at addressing gang violence with faith-based initiatives and community programs.
Interestingly, the First Lady's appointment was preceded in December 2004 by a commentary in the L.A. Times by noted civil rights attorney Constance Rice (second cousin to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice). Terrifyingly titled "L.A.'s Budding Mogadishus," the piece was noteworthy for its description of anarchy in Watts, specifically around the Jordan Downs and Nickerson Gardens public housing projects. It's "the ugly L.A.," Rice writes, where the LAPD gave up on Jordan Downs and didn't return for a decade, "where mail carriers and meter readers balk when the bullets fly ... where paramedics and firefighters are hesitant to enter because of the crossfire."
In Watts, many read this and scratched their heads. The LAPD, for instance, is definitely stretched thin, but every cop I asked, including Southeast Commander Captain Sergio Diaz, insisted that no area here was ever left unpatrolled for a decade.
But Rice's commentary had an agenda, mostly involving more funding. She writes: "Bratton ... also agrees that cops must switch to problem-solving policing, and they champion restoration of the $1 billion a year in prevention funds lost since Proposition 13 passed in 1978 ... . Rob Reiner led voters to back universal preschool, and all-day kindergarten is now on the drawing board."
And yet more funds: "Councilman Martin Ludlow has proposed an urban affairs department to coordinate and elevate the city's scattershot programs into more sophisticated ... gang intervention strategies."
Besides the affront of having their efforts called "scattershot," community groups in Watts wonder why they never see any of this money.
"Who wants money now?" remarks Parents of Watts founder Sweet Alice Harris, when told about the article.
"Billions have been raised just by saying 'Watts,'" says another grassroots organizer who works with children on urban gardens. "Trouble is, nothing gets to the people. It always goes to administrative costs, or disappears to the community pimps."
L.A. Mayor James Hahn opposes Ludlow's bill on the grounds that it would only bring on more bureaucracy, but local Watts newspaper The Wave ran an editorial strongly supporting it.
So much for the proactive: The only comprehensive current strategy for slowing down the gang juggernaut in Watts appears to be City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's very reactive Nuisance Abatement Program. Delgadillo's office has used mandatory evictions of known gang members from housing projects, demolition of abandoned buildings, court injunctions on known gang members that prohibit them from flashing gang colors, and gang injunctions - whereby known street gang members cannot congregate together in certain areas. At present, there are 23 injunctions in place in various L.A. neighborhoods. Finally, Delgadillo's got Kids Watch L.A., whereby kid volunteers supposedly assist the police in providing a safe walk home from school. Though pleasant enough in theory, the obvious question is: With maybe one patrol car outside every school, where's the city getting the cops to assist the kid volunteers?
For the most part, the city is unaware of the federal gang actions. They are happening at such a 30,000-foot level that few in the community are even aware that they're being discussed.
"We were originally contacted by someone from Feinstein's office who talked about how [her] bill would provide support for gang intervention agencies," says Khalid Shah, founder of the Inglewood group, Stop the Violence, Increase the Peace, which has helped gang members turn their lives around since 1989 by providing job training, church breakfasts, and even anger management classes. "It didn't say anything about the death penalty, anything having to do with federal crime, because we'd never support those things. It would do some of the things we're trying to undo."
Like other community activists, Shah knew nothing about the FBI's new gang database. That one passed in appropriations quietly, without even a peep from the ACLU about civil rights infractions. "It's something we've talked about amongst ourselves for two years, that street gang members might end up being classified as terrorists," Shah says.
As far as the Gang Unit knows, nobody in Congress contacted the LAPD or the Inglewood Police Department for input, either. Can't imagine why. It's not like they aren't down here every night. No, the congressional action seems aimed at places like Rep. Wolf's district in Northern Virginia, now shocked to find itself with suburban gangs.
"I see these programs and quite frankly the money has been diverted away from people carrying out their missions," says Susan Burton, founder of A New Way of Life, which provides food, shelter, and job training for formerly incarcerated women.
In fact, Rice must have missed an article in the L.A. Daily News published one month earlier, in November, 2004. It reported on the six-year progress of Reiner's universal preschool idea, which was funded by Proposition 10 in 1998, saying: "millions of dollars raised by the measure ... have been spent on travel and administration but the universal preschool program it was supposed to fund has yet to get up and running." That $600 million program finally got off the ground when it issued its first small check just last Thursday.
Similarly, it's hard to see how money from Ludlow's Urban Affairs Department would get where it's needed - especially to the children.
"These little kids walk through some of the roughest neighborhoods you can imagine," Guay says. "We're not doing them justice by allowing this community to be this bad. Society should not tolerate this toward children."
How we rollEvery day since 1998, precisely at 2:25 p.m., ex-felon, ex-drug dealer, ex-member of the Grape Street Crips, Pastor Mike Cummings of the We Care Outreach Ministry shows up at Jordan High School to walk the children home. For a while he had a van, but it broke and he hasn't raised enough money to buy a new one. So he runs the length of 103rd Street, to the bus stop and back, cell phone and walkie-talkie in hand, communicating with the one patrol car in the entire area.
"Each child has to walk through at least three rival gang territories just to go home from school," says Pastor Mike. "There's the Grape Street Crips on one side of the street at Jordan Downs, Southsiders on the other. So, we're out here, keeping the children safe."
He stands about six foot four, an amiable but imposing presence on the street. He knows everyone who belongs here and who doesn't. He spots me a block away. More important, everyone - including the patrol officers - knows Cummings. "Reverend Mike is a good man," Diaz confirms.
Even the gangbangers respect Pastor Mike. He knows them as well as he used to know himself. "See how they congregate over there? Southsiders," Cummings says, pointing to eight or so young men hanging out in a front yard. "Let's go talk to them."
I'm guessing the oldest is maybe 21 and he stands out front. Nobody's passing out any names, but they shout at once when you ask them what they need: "Jobs."
"Yeah," one of them adds. "Or a great chemical formula for crystal meth."
The older one shoots him a look and shakes his head. Staring across the street at Jordan Downs, he says: "Maybe we could get a community center where people could go and get work right there. Cleaning up the projects would be good work. People who own the stores aren't from this neighborhood and no way they're gonna hire us."
Down the block, a crowd of teenagers boards the bus. Cummings spots one adolescent in blue basketball shorts, boarding on back. He taps him on the shoulder. "Front of the bus, young man, please get on in front." The kid turns, sees Cummings, jumps off the bus and flees in the opposite direction.
"He's a Crip," Cummings says matter-of-factly. "Maybe he wants to bother the kids, maybe rob them. So I respectfully told him he had to ride up front. See, he wasn't about to do that."
Up front, bus driver Mark Edwards is enjoying an interchange with Pastor Mike. "I ain't worrying," he chuckles, never taking his eyes off the back of the bus in the rearview mirror. "I'm just going to do the best I can."
Old friends, they've shared this cause for years, motivating kids and getting them safely home from school. "That's all it is," Edwards reasons. "Keep the kids, these young gangbangers, motivated. Education is the way."
The media hasn't paid much attention to Edwards. He was mentioned in rapper Tyrese's autobiography, but that was it. "I'm the one that caught Tyrese running in the park from the gangsters. Picked him up and always made sure he got to school. Life is hard," he says, chuckling again. "I keep Jesus in my heart. You can't leave out God. And that's how I keep my sense of humor."
Cummings is first to admit that - like a lot of small faith-based initiatives in Watts - his program is largely overlooked, and it hasn't gotten any better since Bush took office. He funds 30 percent from his own paycheck. Most politicians aren't regulars at church events and the media only comes if the mayor is speaking. And like many, Cummings can't afford the $5,000 or more for a grant writer to raise more funds. So it's one kid at a time. "Some of these kids have parents on drugs; whoever gives the love first, gets the child's loyalty, and that could be the gangs," he reasons. "So, we find them jobs. And our program - many of our local churches - gives out free food."
Holler if you hear meIf you didn't know better, you might call Demaria Perry an "at-risk youth." Raised around Nickerson Gardens, 17-year-old Perry, an honor student who graduated CalTech High School early, has two older brothers in the Bounty Hunter Bloods. But the only thing Watts's most outstanding young citizen is "at-risk" for is that, even though he has a job, he might not be able to scratch together enough money to get to college.
Described in the media as one of the most violent street gangs in history, the Bounty Hunter Bloods of Nickerson Gardens control the largest black gang territory in Watts. For decades they considered themselves the rivals of the Grape Street Crips, until the Gang Truce was negotiated in 1992. On the wall of the Nickerson Gardens gym on Compton and 114th there's the much-photographed symbol of that truce - a mural of the Bloods and Crips united.
The truce is real, but not everyone abides. "I think families are burying their children out of the neighborhood to avoid retaliation," says Ms. Maudine Clark at the Morningstar Baptist Church. "I heard of one last week at a mortuary in Inglewood, and to keep it quiet they didn't announce it till a couple of hours before."
How did Perry manage to keep his head straight in an environment such as this? He shrugs. "I always had a positive head. I kept with my dreams."
Perry dreams about politics. He belongs to numerous youth organizations and is a strong young voice on the Watts Neighborhood Council. In a couple of years he'd like to run for City Council in the 15th District - Janice Hahn's district. He believes that Hahn needs to show up more. "Our residents would do better if they saw their local politicians around," he says, noting he sees more of councilmembers Ludlow and Antonio Villaraigosa than his local representative. "And when I'm elected, whenever I'm not at City Hall, I'll be here."
So far, I haven't caught any sniper fire in Nickerson Gardens. Unlike Rice's "mailman and meter reader," I've never had to duck any flying bullets, either. This is not to trivialize the very serious problem with violence in this community, but why exaggerate about it?
Driving around, however, I do catch stares. Homies are always checking for who doesn't belong in their neighborhoods. When our photographer arrives, the group scatters. "They're afraid of being in a photo with me because of the gang injunctions," Perry informs us. "Because my brothers are Bloods."
For the last decade, Los Angeles has used gang injunctions to keep known members of gangs like the Bloods and Crips from congregating or creating a community nuisance. Delgadillo won an injunction against Nickerson Gardens in 2003. Here's where it gets weird: In a community where everyone knows or is related to a gang member, a father and son can be arrested for walking together.
And then there are questions about whether injunctions even work. A former gang member, and ex-con himself, Stop the Violence gang interventionist Kenneth "KB" Bell doubts they have much effect. "Even when the injunctions are enforced, you're out of jail in five days. "Some homies are like, 'Man I needed that rest.'"
'Cause when you're broke, you break, check it out...
-Dr. Dre, "Lil' Ghetto Boy"We return to Nickerson Gardens to interview Demaria's brother, De'Andre Perry. A sign on the door declares "Peace on Earth." Inside, the living room is nice, with gold and black brocade sofas and a mirror painted with two black panthers facing each other.
Perry wears a white T-shirt, black pants, and fire-engine red fuzzy slippers. He's 18, born and raised in Nickerson Gardens and has been a Bounty Hunter all his life. He recently returned home from County, where he served a sentence for possession of a stolen car and firearm. He has no plans to go back. "I did a lot of wrong stuff, but I'm glad I did it when I was a juvenile, because my record is clean." Now, he's working on becoming a deputy probation officer. In 10 years, Perry sees himself having kids, and living in a nice house, maybe (he says) in Rialto.
Last week, he was put on gang injunctions, like mostly everybody down here. But he wants to talk because he feels that if the public doesn't start thinking about Watts in a new way, nothing will ever improve. "Gangbanging started as a neighborhood watch and it got blown all out of proportion by knuckleheads," Perry says. "We became Bounty Hunters so nobody could come over here and mess with us. But I've never been jumped or shot at and I never shot anyone. Nowadays, people are getting killed over females, drugs, and stealing. It's not gang violence. It's regular problems."
I ask him about all the government-funded gang intelligence work, supposedly going on in prisons nationwide.
He shakes his head, impatiently. "In prison the colors are black, white, brown ... anybody walking around prison going 'I'm a Crip, I'm a Blood,' that's a fool." Both the media and the cops, he says, don't even differentiate between a gangster and a drug addict.
"People only want to hear what's bad, because they see it on TV - selling drugs, shooting at the police, and killing people," he says. "Nobody wants to give Watts a chance. They've been putting us down for the longest."
The penitentiary's packed and it's filled with blacks.
-Tupac Shakur, "Changes""If you murder or rape somebody, or molest a child, you can qualify for welfare and food stamps - but a drug felon can't," notes Susan Burton. "So a woman leaves prison with $200. Out of that they take money for her clothing, out of that she has to buy a bus ticket, and she ends up downtown on Skid Row with $140 to make a life. And then she applies for welfare and they say, 'You're not eligible because you took a drug.' It's cruel and unusual punishment."
Burton figured this out the hard way, and has been incarcerated four times. In 2000, she founded A New Way of Life to reach out to formerly incarcerated sisters and help them find their way back to productive lives. She started her first house in Watts on East 91st Street, a tree-lined block with well-kept private homes. Now she has two homes, comfortably furnished, with computers for job training.
She's been working Sacramento to get the drug laws changed, saying, "Once I got out, I began to understand how the law is shaped to make you stay in that cycle. I saw women losing their children because they're banned from housing, from getting a job, and can't get back on their feet."
Like Pastor Mike, she scratches by on private donations. When the women are able to pay, they help out. And though most everyone comes out of prison clean of drugs, Burton insists they attend substance abuse meetings. She also helps them get jobs. "Just because a woman took a drug should not ban her from getting decent employment as a cosmetologist or a nurse's aid," she says. She estimates that more than 100 have come into her houses and not returned to drugs, gangs, and jail.
Tenoshie Niigeia is 27 years old, and came to A New Way of Life after her last prison stretch. A former member of the Hoovers gang, she's been in and out of correctional facilities since she was eight and began using crack cocaine at 16. Her dad, an ex-Marine, also a gang member, is now locked up, charged with murder. "The streets were all I knew," Niigeia says. "Now I'm learning what the streets mean."
The house is comfortable and well-lit, and everyone has her own space. Niigeia is proud to show off her private closet, full of her own stuff.
It would surprise many in Washington to learn that no young person I spoke with - including the gangbangers - dreamt about being a rap star or a billionaire record mogul. The dreams I heard here were so small, so American - a job as a janitor, grocery clerk, probation officer, nurse, and then college, food, a van to drive the kids, a nice walk home from school. Fifty years of bloated promises on the left and on the right - stuck in the middle is Watts. If Laura Bush - who purports to understand this - doesn't come here and at least listen, it's nothing short of a national disgrace.
One place to start would be Inglewood Peace Initiative Community Breakfast, organized by Khalid Shah. At 9 a.m. on a recent Saturday, a community room at the True Vine Baptist Church is packed with police officers, probation officers, speakers like Inglewood mayor Roosevelt Dorn, gangbangers, and interventionists like Reina Carrillo and KB Bell. Young and old wear yellow Stop the Violence T-shirts while they pray over a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, home fries, and biscuits, plus a roster of issues.
"I was born and raised in Inglewood, second generation gang member," Reina Carrillo says. "My mother was a gang member. I was shot by one of my own. Now, I put my life on the line for these neighborhoods, because when you try to get in contact with big doggs your life is on the line and you better be working with God."
There isn't enough time at this breakfast to tell every story and there isn't enough space to repeat them all here. More than once, I spot Carrillo's eyes welling up. When I first met her in Shah's office, she recounted how once she could only think about killing the Crip who murdered her baby cousin, saying, "I loved him so much." Toward the end of the interview she proudly stuck out her feet and flashes pretty cream-colored pumps. "Look at me, now," Carillo said. "I even wear high heels."
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