THE LOS ANGELES URBAN ENVIRONMENT
(Prepared in 1996)
Executive Summary
Foundation funding of environment and development efforts in Southern California is urgently needed for many reasons, such as:
* Current approaches to land use and transportation have corrosive health, social, economic and environmental costs.
* Without more residents involved and serious consideration of new ideas, regional transportation planning is likely to continue down the current paths of congestion and inequity.
* Southern California could actually be self-sufficient in water, with effective conservation and recycling efforts.
* A broad multi-stakeholder process has produced an excellent plan for the restoration of Santa Monica Bay, but it is languishing for lack of seed funding to begin implementation.
* In spite of nearly running out of landfill space, there is still a very small percentage of urban green waste that is being actively recycled into compost and other uses.
Some examples of projects where foundations could make a big difference in quality of life for current and future residents of Southern California are:
* Funding public participation efforts for transportation planning.
* Supporting pilot projects in transportation to demonstrate feasibility of alternatives that are environmentally and economically sound.
* Educating the public and decision makers on the costs and benefits of various land use options through mass media, public access TV and schools.
* Supporting public education campaigns on water conservation, choices of vegetation, landscape management techniques, and irrigation practices.
* Funding demonstrations of modern methods for collecting and storing rainwater.
* Supporting urban water runoff education programs to reduce storm drain pollution into Santa Monica Bay.
* Funding research and demonstrations of green waste recycling, especially those that also promote urban forestry and gardens to help make residents more self-sufficient in food.
There are a large number of organizations throughout the Southern California area that are well-equipped to receive and implement such grants for environment and development purposes.
Introduction
"We have the capacity and the ability to create a remarkably different economy, one that can restore ecosystems and protect the environment, while bringing forth innovation, prosperity, meaningful work and true security." -- Paul Hawken The Ecology of Commerce
Not long ago, national resources seemed unlimited, and it seemed the environment would forever sustain life and absorb our wastes. However, we have used up resources much more quickly than we have restored them. Without a clear shift, we could literally destroy every natural system on earth over the next few decades. We now know that critical losses in our ecosystem and pollution of our air, water, and soil threaten human life as well.
Southern California is the most congested region in the country, with the worst air quality; landfills are filling to capacity and new ones are difficult to site; we import 40% of our water at high costs, and large water shortages are projected in the future. All these trends will escalate with the 40% expected population growth between 1990 and 2010.
Environmental, social and economic sustainability calls for policy on a number of fronts: energy and water conservation; sustainable waste management; and encouragement of social choices that reinforce sensitivity to global limits, social equity and quality of life beyond material consumption. The good news is that people are educable; for example, due to water conservation efforts of local residents and businesses, the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts did not need to invest $200 million to build a new sewage treatment plant. Vast resources are also being saved through energy conservation and recycling.
This paper has been put together by members of SCCED's staff and members of SCCED task forces in Transportation and Air Quality, Water, and Waste to outline a response to the growing urgency of our urban environmental problems, with their consequences for good health, a viable economy, and a sustainable future. This paper is written by request from the funding community to elaborate what the environmental funding needs are in our region, why they are significant, what can be done about them, and how foundations can help impact change.
We wish to thank the following people for their assistance in writing the sections of this paper:
Transportation and Air Quality: Eugene Fisher and the Transportation Task Force
Land Use: Rick Cole and the Transportation Task Force
Water: Brian McRae and Neal Shapiro and the Water Task Force
Santa Monica Bay: Marianne Yamaguchi and the Water Task Force
Waste Management: Barclay Hudson and the Waste Task Force
Transportation and Air Quality
Everyone is aware that Southern California has the worst air quality in the nation (most of it caused by vehicles) and that our current transportation "system" is not viewed as satisfactory by most people. Current problems include:
* Unhealthy air (and accompanying illnesses and deaths -- at least $9.5 billion annually in health expenditures);
* Traffic congestion costs billions of hours per year in lost work and leisure time, as well as creating mental stress and a lower quality of family life;
* Many deaths, injuries and property losses from accidents;
* High economic cost of buying, maintaining, parking, insuring and fueling automobiles (with large impact on the U.S. international balance of payments (what? reword...) from purchases of foreign oil);
* Inequities -- (i.e., billions of dollars are spent for freeways while the poor cannot afford cars and rail riders are more highly subsidized than bus riders);
* Poor land use -- about 30% of our urban land is used for transportation-related purposes;
* Drastic impacts on our ecosystem and wildlife from air/water pollution and storm water run-off;
* Billions of dollars and many jobs lost because of our inability to move goods rapidly;
* Overall reduction of our international competitiveness -- approximately 25% of our resources goes into automobiles (double the percentage of Japan and Germany);
* Poor linkages between transportation modes -- rail/bus/auto/bicycle/pedestrian -- lack of true intermodalism.
For decades our approach to land use has encouraged urban and suburban sprawl. Many billions of dollars of public money have been spent on freeways, providing vast hidden subsidies for drivers, the automobile industry and its subsidiary businesses. Expenditures focus on only limited approaches to problems, such as reducing auto emissions, increasing freeway capacity through high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, or building rail lines to the suburbs. Even with expenditures of over $50 billion, current transportation plans will not meet state air quality standards by the year 2010.
A key way that foundations can help solve Southern California's longstanding transportation crisis is to work to open up the dialogue by getting more people involved in the planning process who would be likely to look at positive change. Some key needs include:
* Sophisticated independent analyses of alternatives to automobiles, such as bicycles, pedestrians, and mass transit, with regard to their impacts on pollution, land use, public health, economic development, etc. to arrive at the most cost-effective uses of the $130 billion currently planned for regional transportation.
* Pilot projects -- transportation experiments such as jitneys, feeder vans to bus and rail stops, bicycle carriers on buses, etc.
* Promotion of "intermodal travel," in which multiple modes are used in getting from one place to another, rather than relying solely on the automobile.
* Public education regarding the linkage between land use and transportation efficiency.
* Research into public values regarding transportation and how to impact them; e.g., how do we get more people to use mass transit, car pools, electric cars, bicycles, telecommuting, etc.?
* Research into the health impacts and resulting costs of current transportation modes; e.g., how do emissions from cars and trucks injure our children?
* Public awareness campaigns regarding transportation choices through television, radio and print media.
* Public education regarding the hidden costs, both to the public and to individuals, of our current transportation system.
* Research and public dissemination of information regarding the inequities and inefficiencies of the current system such as a comparison of the subsidies for suburban rail and auto commuters vs. city buses; cost-benefit analyses of additional HOV lanes; accurate and inclusive cost accounting of individual automobiles and trucks, etc.
* Staff support for grassroots neighborhood coalitions and other independent organizations who can serve as watchdogs on the planning and development process and promote comprehensive alternatives.
* Greater public participation, especially by low income communities, in planning for transportation funding, specifically the regional transportation plan prepared by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG).
Land Use
During the past fifty years, the Los Angeles region -- often called "the hundred mile city" -- has grown into one of the world's megacities. It has defined a new pattern of human and urban development that has had worldwide influence. Now the staggering costs of unsustainable development are coming due. Symbolized by traffic gridlock, the symptoms are everywhere. Without massive changes, average commuter speeds will fall from the current 30-40 miles per hour to 15 mph over the next twenty years.
A strategic and long-term approach to alleviating the growing needs of the Los Angeles region means dealing with a currently unchallenged pattern of land use and transportation. The Metropolitan Transit Agency (MTA) is planning to spend $130 billion over the next twenty years, and the most cost-effective investment would be to shape land use patterns to reduce travel and encourage pedestrian, bicycle and public transit usage.
The current approaches to land use and transportation have corrosive social, economic and environmental costs:
* The business climate is harmed by the duplicative costs of massive infrastructure investment to accommodate sprawling growth in peripheral areas. Business also bears the burden of operating in an area of inflated housing and living costs.
* Disinvestment from inner cities and inner suburbs increases unemployment and poverty, while decreasing the tax base. Rising costs of human services and shrinking revenues have triggered the county fiscal crisis with its devastating cuts in healthcare. The cycle feeds upon itself as services and taxes must rise.
* Ethnic and class divisions are intensified and hardened by the physical isolation of rich and poor as those with the resources of affluence and mobility flee the inner cities and suburbs. The erosion of community undermines the common spirit and commitment to social justice that is essential to a healthy democracy.
* Efforts to preserve Southern California's fragile ecosystem and environmental quality of life are eroded by the accelerating need to expand urban growth.
* Public parks, gardens and useful open spaces are totally inadequate in most sections of the area, decreasing recreation opportunities and quality of life. Los Angeles has a 6% developed park space while New York has 14%.
Federal transportation legislation has also opened the door to a re-examination of gigantic investment in auto-dependent land use and transportation approaches. Recently, an authoritative report called "Beyond Sprawl" described the enormous costs caused by sprawl, and challenged California to "build a strong economy and retain a good quality of life for the 21st Century" by creating "a new vision of community." Jointly prepared by the Bank of America, the State of California Resources Agency, the Greenbelt Alliance and the Low Income Housing Fund, the report was designed to be a "wake-up call to all Californians that the sprawl issue has a new urgency in the state and that all of us can play a role in addressing the problem."
Other states (including Oregon, Washington, Florida and New Jersey) have moved to reshape growth patterns to be more socially, economically and environmentally responsible. Without a fundamental rethinking of the current pattern, our local region will continue to suffer from a declining economic vitality and quality of life, and the costs of that decline will be borne by the individuals and families who live here.
Driven in part by excessive housing and transportation costs, two incomes are virtually essential to support a local family, and average commute time can take up more than 10 hours a week. But commute times are only part of the cost of sprawl -- auto use is rising at a rate twice that of population. Southern Californians are making an average of thirteen short trips a day to stop by stores, visit schools and daycare centers and perform the functions of daily life. Those who don't drive - the young, the old, the poor and the disabled - must make these trips using a grossly inadequate public transit system that, under current fiscal realities, will shrink in Los Angeles and Orange County even as the need grows. Many trips can best be served by the bicycle--which also helps keeps the air clean--but facilities need to be provided. People often avoid bike riding on main thoroughfares because they are afraid of traffic and of the pollutants caused by car exhaust, and because often there are no safe bike-parking facilities. Plans to build bicycle "veloways" have been proposed but have not been actualized.
Population in the region is projected to rise by more than 3 million new residents over the next two decades. The cost of accommodating them under current land use and transportation policies will far outstrip available resources of water, clean air, and public dollars. Establishing a more equitable and sustainable alternative not only will have a profound impact on those available resources, but will also create more functional and livable communities.
In a region as complex as Southern California, there are few arenas where policy changes can have such profound impact not only on our common future, but on individual opportunity as well. Moreover, since Los Angeles has set patterns followed increasingly by the rest of the world, reversal of trends here could have considerable impact worldwide. If China, for example, continues to urbanize along the patterns being set in California, the social, environmental and economic impact of one-and-a-half-billion cars and the infrastructure that goes with them could be catastrophic.
Fortunately, there are viable alternatives now gaining increasing support among grass roots activists, as well as in professional and academic practice. Movements for "livable communities" and "the new urbanism" that promote compact and efficient growth patterns are garnering significant media coverage and public acceptance. But in the absence of vital and well-supported efforts to build coalitions and accomplish change, positive models are being overwhelmed by the inertia of already established patterns of business. By laying the foundation for needed change, significant and sustained aid for those groups now working on these issues can bring order and rejuvenation to the lives of citizens of Southern California in the 21st century.
Potential ways that foundations could impact land use issues are by funding:
* Education of the public and decision makers on the importance of biodiversity and the costs and benefits of various land use options through mass media, public access TV and schools.
* Support for the development of livable urban communities, eco-villages, etc.
* Support for the development of a regional sustainable growth plan through education of the public and involvement of local governments and SCAG.
* Research into public values on land use and how to impact them.
* Neighborhood coalitions to increase informed public participation in land use planning, especially by low income communities.
* Support for development of municipal guidelines for sustainability (perhaps using Santa Monica as an example).
Water Supply and Conservation
Southern California imports the majority of its water from distant places, not
taking full advantage of local sources and effective conservation methods.
Some experts have pointed out that if utilized more efficiently, our urban
region actually has sufficient water sources to export water to other areas.
Implementing new approaches such as the increased use of recycled water would
have impressive implications for our quality of life and economic well-being,
as well as our environment.
Rainwater runoff is one of the major causes of pollution of Santa Monica and San Pedro Bays. Wasted rainwater is a key justification for an Army Corps of Engineers plan for parapet walls along the Los Angeles River. During droughts prices for imported water could rise, causing large outflows of funds from our region and shrinking the economy. A reliable water supply is a paramount factor in the location and retention of businesses.
According to the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), about 75% of the state's rain falls north of Sacramento, but 80% of the net water demand is south of Sacramento. Therefore 6 million acre-feet per year (AFY) must be moved from Northern California to Central and Southern California. Another 5 million AFY are brought in from the Colorado River, and still the demand is not met. [Note that an acre-foot of water contains 325,851 gallons and meets the residential needs for 10 people for a year.] The State DWR predicts statewide shortfalls of up to 4.1 million AFY by the year 2010. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation draft report on water use and reclamation has identified a shortage in Southern California of 0.23 million AFY in 1990, increasing to nearly 3 million AFY by 2040.
The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) serves 85% of the population of the SCAG region as well as the County of San Diego. The following table shows the MWD's actual resources (in millions of acre-feet per year) in fiscal year 1993-4, which was a "wet year" (27" of rain). The table also shows the MWD preferred resources projected for 2020 as a "dry year" (such as the severe drought in 1990-'91 - only 9" of rain), with a projected population growth in the MWD service area from the current 15.7 million to 21.5 million.
Sources 1993-4 2020 (if severe drought)
State Water Project (SWP) 0.82 1.37
Colorado River Aqueduct (CRA) 1.30 1.20
Los Angeles Aqueduct 0.21 0.21
Local Groundwater (wells) 1.03 1.64 (includes both wells & dams
Surface Production (dams) 0.17 and drawing from storage)
Groundwater Recovery 0.003 0.05
MWD Storage & Transfers 0.45
Recycled Water 0.25 0.55
Total 3.78 5.47 (million AFY)
Three sources could meet projected gaps and even produce an excess supply: harvesting rainfall, recycling water, and conservation.
* Harvesting rainfall: On average, about 12-15 inches of precipitation fall annually on the City of Los Angeles, equaling nearly 360,000 AFY, but most of it simply flows into the ocean. Each piece of land could be viewed as a "micro-catchment" where containment, storage and use of precipitation, and runoff are maximized. Many available technologies are awaiting implementation, such as parking lots with permeable pavement which allows drainage into the ground.
* Recycling water: The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation sees the potential for all of our sewage water to be recycled using current technologies, thus making available nearly 2 million AFY, instead of the 3- 400,000 AFY now being recycled.
* Conservation: Although many homes and businesses are practicing
conservation, the adoption of modern irrigation practices and growing
indigenous plants could save hundreds of thousands of AFY. A water ethic that
promotes efficiency, quality of use over quantity, and reuse of local water
should replace the present wasteful water ethic.
Foundations could have a huge positive impact on this situation by supporting the following types of programs:
* Local governments and water districts taking a comprehensive look at their water policies (the Global Cities Project assists municipalities in assessing current programs and policies and designing new ones).
* Government and business projects for local water harvesting, reuse techniques and conservation.
* Integrated water resources planning (IRP) strategies that link a watershed's land and water components, reinforcing nature's hydrologic cycle and the land's capacity to absorb and keep water locally. (MWD has already started such an IRP process.)
* Public water conservation campaigns.
* Public education regarding choices of vegetation (use of xeriscape species), landscape management techniques and irrigation practices, such as the use of micro-irrigation.
* Demonstrations of modern cisterns for collecting and storing rainwater, such as the Transagency Resources for Environmental and Economic Sustainability (T.R.E.E.S.) proposal by Andy Lipkis, founder of TreePeople.
* Demonstrations of permeable paving and land contouring to encourage percolation into the aquifers (see work at Cal Poly Pomona Center for Regenerative Studies and the Permaculture Institute).
* Studies of the most effective laws to encourage use of gray water.
* Studies of how to recycle the output of the region's Wastewater Treatment Plants and other water recycling proposals.
* Demonstrations of gray water use and xeriscapes, such as the L.A. Eco-Home.
Restoring Santa Monica Bay
Santa Monica Bay is more than a beautiful natural setting that enhances the quality of life for all Southern Californians. It is a major contributor to the economic life of the region. With over 40 million visitors each year, the 22 public beaches are an attraction and playground for tourists and residents alike. Tourism, boating, fishing and recreation contribute billions of dollars each year to the region's economy.
In addition, the Bay supports a wide variety of native flora and fauna. It is home to more than 5,000 species of plants, fish, birds and mammals, including several that are endangered. Among the Bay's many habitats are lagoons and wetlands, sandy beaches and dunes, kelp beds, rocky intertidal zones and the marine life communities in the open ocean and at the bottom of the Bay.
The problems facing the Bay are complex. The growth and build-out of the Los Angeles metropolitan area has resulted in damage to natural functions that are critical to the health of the Bay's ecosystem. Natural rivers and creeks have been confined in concrete channels; over 95 percent of the wetlands have been drained and filled, and flood plains and hillsides have been covered by asphalt streets, parking lots and buildings. Runoff from these hard-surface areas carries an assortment of pollutants through our storm drain channels directly to the ocean without treatment. We have lost open areas that provide food and shelter for fish and wildlife, that trap and assimilate contaminants, and that recharge groundwater aquifers. The cumulative effects of these losses create increased challenges for the Bay and for its watershed.
Toxic DDT and PCBs dumped or discharged into the Bay between the 1940s and the 1970s persist in Bay sediments and cause contamination of seafood species. Two of the nation's largest municipal sewage treatment plants discharge about 650 million gallons of treated wastewater into the Bay each day. Popular swimming beaches are posted with warnings due to high pathogen levels near storm drain outlets. All of these factors contribute to the degraded condition of the Bay.
To address the serious problems of the Bay, the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project (SMBRP) was formed in 1988 under the National Estuary Program. The SMBRP was charged with the responsibility to assess the Bay's problems, develop solutions and put them into action. Under a five-year development process outlined in the Clean Water Act, a plan of action was created with the involvement of a diverse group of stakeholders. The Santa Monica Bay Restoration Plan (BRP) is the product of this partnership of government, environmentalists, scientists, industry and the general public.
The BRP includes more than 200 actions for the Bay, 74 of which have been designated as "priorities." The plan addresses the need for pollution prevention, public health protection, habitat restoration and comprehensive resource management. A primary theme is the need for storm water pollution prevention. While financing is available for a portion of these priorities, there remains a $65 million deficit that must be secured from other sources.
Foundation funding for programs such as those listed below could leverage millions of dollars in public monies:
* Implementing the Bay Restoration Project
* Implementing wetland restoration projects at Ballona Wetlands and Lagoon, Malibu Lagoon, and Zuma Wetlands;
* Providing pollution prevention technical assistance to small businesses;
* Supporting urban runoff education programs, which in turn can provides the incentive for various agencies to produce the millions of dollars needed for implementation;
* Developing control measures for storm water/urban runoff pollution.
The challenge lies before us. We have a choice of two futures. One future is a thriving Bay -- a vital, self-supporting ecosystem that efficiently offers its multiple benefits to residents and businesses. The second future is the destruction in our lifetime of an irreplaceable resource.
Waste Management
Waste management is an area where we can dedicate ourselves to sustainable resource management. With current landfills near capacity and difficulties finding new sites, our waste will soon be transported over long distances at very high costs. This is a time to invest in reducing waste before it starts. The practice of waste reduction serves as an educational tool for citizens that can be translated to other environmental issues typically left to government agencies. It is through this education that a transformation begins, in which we become part of the larger solution of restoring our natural resources.
Waste management is "hands-on" and involves everyone directly: households, schools, neighborhoods, businesses, local governments, and inter-city cooperative networks. This is true whether the focus is on curbside recycling, smarter buying, or more thoughtful reflection on the fact that waste production must be disposed of somewhere and that sites are shrinking.
Over the next five years, Californians will be giving major attention to the state-mandated goal of diverting 50 percent of our waste from landfills by the year 2000 (AB 939). Think of a full shopping cart: half of that load consists of packaging that will have to go someplace different from where it went in the past -- not into the oceans, and not to landfills that are steadily being closed down. At the same time, citizens reject the placement of dump sites near their communities for industry's toxic wastes.
California could take either of two paths. We can back away from the challenge (i.e., roll back the state mandate) and miss an opportunity to make the vital changes needed. Or we can act now to identify and implement some of the major success stories that are already emerging.
The Situation At Hand
California's target of 50% diversion by the year 2000 will be far tougher to meet than the earlier goal of "25% by `95," because:
* The 1995 achievement used a "jump-start" of 10% diversion which already existed at the beginning of the decade, so the five year gain was only 15%; the next stage calls for a full 25% more;
* Earlier gains were achieved by "cherry-picking," implementing the easiest programs first; options for the next round require a longer reach;
* Markets existed for earlier-diverted materials, such as aluminum and newspaper, and some markets are steadily improving; but that's not as true for most of the wastestream;
* The mood has changed: in 1990 the landfill crisis received much publicity; but the crisis-of-the-moment today is budget balancing and the specter of cutbacks in public services.
Despite these obstacles, major opportunities present themselves:
* Inter-city cooperation is in place through various consortia formed to cooperate in AB 939 plan-making, based on local initiatives with multi-level public agency support;
* Green waste management, or "organic recycling", is productive as well as lucrative and will greatly help meet Year 2000 targets -- probably in the range of 10%-15%;
* Variable can rates (charging by the amount of garbage put out for pick-up, so those who create more waste pay more);
* Reduction of packaging waste;
* A growing range of analysis and programmatic initiatives are emerging to support the value of organic products recycling in the context of enhancing the "urban forest" -- with benefits on several fronts:
- energy savings (trees reduce need for air conditioning, thus cutting energy loads);
- flood prevention and water conservation (trees hold water and release it slowly);
- fire and erosion suppression through mulch applications;
- wood recovery from culling of urban trees, creating high-value wood products and jobs;
- agricultural applications of organic compost, not only in serving the growing market for organic produce, but responding to growing evidence that compost significantly impacts plant disease suppression and can help in reducing pollution run-off from chemical fertilizers.
There are a variety of ways foundations could make significant contributions to the research, development, promotion and implementation of successful waste reduction/diversion programs. Examples of programs that could be supported include:
* Research on how to increase the value of recycled mat