California’s voice for abortion rights takes political ring
People often ask me how things have changed at California’s Capitol over the last 60 years. One answer: Politics today is a lot more knee-jerk partisan.
A striking example is abortion.
That’s true of many issues. More legislators used to think for themselves and not be so subservient to party dogma.
Now, abortion is again front and center after news broke last month that the U.S. Supreme Court was on the verge of overturning Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized pregnancy terminations nationwide.
In Sacramento, there has been political gameplaying by Democrats and rote partisan voting by both parties.
That’s in stark contrast to 55 years ago this month, when the Democraticcontrolled Legislature narrowly passed and new Republican Gov. Ronald Reagan signed the nation’s most liberal abortion law.
Party politics wasn’t a factor. Whether a legislator was a Democrat or a Republican didn’t matter on abortion. Lawmakers were divided by religion. Protestants generally supported the bill and Catholics opposed it.
The rookie governor, a Protestant, was torn by conflicting advice and moral conflicts. George Steffes, who lobbied the Legislature for Reagan, remembers when he committed to signing the bill.
The author, Democratic state Sen. Tony Beilenson of Beverly Hills, was invited to Reagan’s office to make his pitch for the measure.
“At the end,” Steffes told me, “Reagan said, ‘Tony, I don’t agree with you. But most of the legislators have voted for this. Republican leaders voted for it and
now in its 32nd year, is based on routine water-quality testing conducted by local health officials, sanitation departments and state and tribal agencies. Beach samples are analyzed for three fecal-indicator bacteria that show pollution from numerous sources, including human and animal waste.
Because each agency formats raw data in different (and sometimes confusing) ways, Heal the Bay — a Santa Monica-based environmental nonprofit — began compiling and translating the information into simple A-plus through F grades for the public. Swimming at a beach with a grade of C or lower greatly increases the risk of skin rashes, ear and respiratory infections, and other illnesses such as stomach flu.
The State Water Resources Control Board endorses this report, which helps scientists and policymakers spot trends and specific beaches that need closer attention.
Santa Monica Pier, for example, came as a surprise this year at No. 3. This popular tourist attraction used to consistently log the worst grades in the state because of a big storm drain under the pier. But that had changed after 2018, when the city built a 1.6-million-gallon tank beneath the parking lot to capture and recycle dirty runoff before it flushed into the ocean.
City officials are still trying to figure out what’s causing this new spike in pollution. Birds roosting and pooping under the pier are likely culprits. (Birds are also probably behind the high bacteria concentrations logged this year at Vaughn’s Launch in Newport Bay, which is situated within an ecological reserve.)
Beaches with poor circulation also continue to be an issue. For the third year in a row, a concerning number of beaches in San Mateo County topped the list of dirtiest beaches in California. Many of these swimming areas — similar to Mother’s Beach in Marina del Rey — are confined by urbanized channels and harbors.
Although these beaches are shielded from big waves — making them popular for families with young children — pollution and bacteria build up easily with so little circulation.
“The physical nature of those beaches is a big issue — the surrounding development goes right up to the water’s edge,” said Luke Ginger, a water-quality scientist at Heal the Bay. “So there’s a lot of concrete, a lot of impervious surfaces. The stormwater flows right off the street and into the water.”
Failing infrastructure also proved to be a huge problem this past year. Last summer, 17 million gallons of sewage spewed into the waters off Dockweiler and El Segundo beaches after equipment at Los Angeles’ largest wastewater treatment facility broke down. Off the coast of Huntington Beach, an estimated 25,000 gallons of oil leaked into the sea in October after an aging pipeline ruptured.
At the border with Mexico, almost a billion gallons of sewage flushed into the Pacific after a deteriorating pipe known as the “International Collector” cracked in January. Communities near the mouth of the Tijuana River — which starts in Mexico but enters the ocean in California — have been chronically haunted by these failures to contain raw sewage flows.
“Just one big failure can undo a lot of work and cause a lot of problems,” said Ginger, who noted the many decades of efforts to clean up California’s beaches. “With aging and deteriorating infrastructure, we’re worried that events like this will become more common.”
Massive spills aside, runoff from storm drains remains the largest source of pollution for California’s beaches. Unlike sewage, which is usually filtered through treatment facilities before it’s released, most of this dirty water flushes straight into the ocean through a network of storm drains and concrete-lined rivers.
A good rule of thumb is to stay at least 100 yards away from storm drains and piers — and to be mindful when swimming at enclosed beaches. And always, always wait at least 72 hours after it rains before going into the ocean.
Ginger and his team have also been improving their daily reports, dubbed NowCast, at 25 local beaches to help people stay better informed. And for the second time this year, the report card included three popular beaches in Tijuana that are regularly affected by raw sewage: El Faro, El Vigia and Playa Blanca, which received the worst grade out of all the beaches assessed this year.
Inspired by the way this annual beach report has led to better statewide standards, a growing movement of people are now directing their attention up the watershed — to the many rivers and creeks that feed into the ocean and serve as recreation for inland communities.
The same urban runoff polluting the ocean often starts in these seemingly fresh rivers. But unlike today’s beach monitoring, there is no statewide oversight or standardization for freshwater pollution monitoring in California. Because of this data gap, people swimming in rivers are not provided the same public health information as beachgoers.
Now in its fourth year, Heal the Bay’s “river report card” uses a similar grading framework for 35 sites along Malibu Creek, the Los Angeles River and San Gabriel River in Los Angeles County.
It was alarming to discover just how bad the pollution has been in the lower L.A. River, the report noted, especially along areas that are not meant for recreation but still used for swimming and fishing. Homeless communities have also relied on this part of the river for washing and other needs.
Bacteria levels along this stretch of river were more than 10 times higher than what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers safe.
Tracy Quinn, who became Heal the Bay’s new president in May, said that expanding the river report card is a big priority. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation last October that tasks state officials with identifying every lake, river and stream in California that should be monitored for public health risks.
Quinn, who formerly oversaw California urban water policy at the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, is also advocating for more projects that can absorb and clean urban runoff while also doubling as parks — providing much-needed green space for inland communities. Our built environment and our health, she said, are ultimately inseparable.
“We have replaced natural landscapes with impervious streets and structures and that has resulted in high pollution loads in our rivers and in our ocean,” she said. “When we’re talking about coastal water quality, we need to think of it as a watershed issue. We need to address this from summit to sea.”