Last week, Governor Jerry Brown proved me right.  He DOES like our Oceans.

In what environmentalists and advocates would call a double victory, our Governor not only signed a landmark bill to save sharks but he also signed a law that forces Big Oil to pay their share for oil spill safety in California’s waters.  By signing the Oil Spill Bill (AB 1112), oil companies will now pay their part to fund California’s Oil Spill Safety program.  And with this, we get increased oversight and monitoring of the highest of spill risks – all in better efforts to prevent a catastrophic oil spill.

No doubt, this is a wise decision.  The consequences would have been far worse otherwise.  As I have indicated in earlier posts, if this bill was not signed into law, the state would no longer have sufficient funds to run the state’s oil safety program, forcing cuts to program and staff as early as 2012, and leaving protection of California’s coastline in doubt.   This bill now requires oil companies, like BP, to pay an over-due increase in fees on each barrel of oil that enters our state to pay for the program, thus sending a clear message that our state is taking oil spills seriously.

We must realize that oil is a dirty business and as long as our demand for it continues and the industry continues to supply it, we will always have to deal with the associated risks.  It was only a few years ago that California experienced the Cosco Busan disaster, over a year ago that our nation experienced the BP disaster in the Gulf, and right now New Zealand is dealing with their own oil spill catastrophe.

This bill is important. So, great job California! And, thank you Assemblymember Jared Huffman for introducing this great bill and many thanks to the advocacy work of several environmental groups and respective supporters who urged our Governor to act on this bill!

Green Anhui made its first breakthrough in addressing Anhui Province’s water pollution challenges when it successfully eradicated chemical companies from the village of Qiugang. The campaign was later featured in the academy award nominated documentary, the Warriors of Qiugang, which was released last year. With a young staff of seven, Green Anhui continues to help clean up Qiugang following the village’s epic struggle with chemical companies. The organization already has two ambitious new targets: Lake Chao in central Anhui, and the Xingan River in the South.

On our visit, we met Wang Wei, who directs the organization’s water program, at the Xingan River project site. In contrast to the heavily polluted Huai River watershed, where Qiugang is located, the Xingan River flows through hilly terrain that is home to China’s famous holy mountain, Huangshan. The mountain has been the subject of poets and painters in China for millennia, and for good reason. Its steep spires rising out of lush bamboo forests are stunningly artistic.

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The City of Wuhu

Anhui Province is a bit smaller than the state of California, and lies inland to the west of the sprawling, wealthy metropolitan regions of Nanjing and Shanghai. We came to Anhui to meet with Wuhu Ecology Center as well as its cousin organization, Green Anhui, whose office is in the Anhui Provincial Capital of Hefei. These two organizations are the only environmental non-governmental organizations in Anhui. Young, understaffed, and idealistic, these organizations face incredible obstacles trying to take the region’s polluters to task.

Gray, acrid smog met us the day we arrived in Wuhu, a giant city on the banks of the Yangtze which is China’s largest inland river coal harbor. We walked in the smoldering sun along the river with a crop of Wuhu Ecology Center’s new volunteers, taking in the newly redeveloping downtown. The Director of Wuhu Ecology Center, Tian Qian, pointed out fishing boats crowding the mouth of a small tributary as it entered the Yangtze: “The boats flush their garbage directly into the river…sometimes this whole area is full of algae.”

But the impact of fishing boats is a drop in the bucket compared to the industrial pollution entering the waterways here. Later, we cabbed out to an industrial development zone where we were introduced to one of the region’s many waste incineration plants. The smell of garbage and burning metal filled the air as we strolled down a dirt road adjacent to the plant. And in the distance, barely visible through the smog, we could just make out the insignia of the Chinese car manufacturer Chery and the high grey walls surrounding the automobile brand’s production base.

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The past few months have been busy for the budding environmental organization Green Stone. First, they stopped a plan to cut down 1,000 trees for a new subway line in the city of Nanjing, in Jiangsu Province. Next, they exposed a case of persistent, carcinogenic water pollution in one of Apple’s printed circuit board supply chains in the city of Kunshan (see Apple Report). The day before I arrived for a three day visit last month, one of Nanjing’s largest corporations called the Green Stone office, asking what they could do to improve their pollution record. Meanwhile, the Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau has asked Green Stone to be patient as they work to address the hundreds of pollution information disclosures requested by the group. “I think they are kind of afraid of us,” Green Stone’s Director Li Chunhua laughed.

The key to Green Stone’s recent success is not necessarily experience (their staff of three are all in their mid-twenties) but courage, charisma and recruiting. On a windy Sunday morning, we met staff and a group of 25 water monitoring volunteers by the edge of the Qinhuai River, the main river that bisects Nanjing City.  Most of the volunteers were under thirty years of age, including a few new freshmen from nearby universities. Everyone’s spirits were high as we embarked on one of Green Stone’s bi-monthly “river walks,” to collect water quality samples using donated equipment, and to survey visitors to the river. Most were male retirees, folks who have been coming to the river in their leisure hour for decades. “The river stinks when it’s not flowing,” one of our survey participants observed. “It needs to flow. When it doesn’t move the pollution gets worse.”

The Qinhuai River flows into the much larger Yangtze, the source of Nanjing’s water supply. The Qinhuai used to be much more polluted, at least on the surface. In the past decade, Nanjing has spent hundreds of millions of US dollars to clean up the river. Upstream farms were shut down due to their use of agricultural chemicals, and wastewater infrastructure has been improved. During our river walk we observed garbage patrol boats with long-handled scoops picking up every visible scrap of trash.

But with water pollution, there is often more than what meets the eye. As we conducted our basic water quality tests, a volunteer from Nanjing University held a tiny bottle filled with pink water up to a laminated chart, to “read” the levels of dissolved oxygen in the sample. “It looks like a four,” he said, indicating a significantly depressed level of dissolved oxygen. Since there is little farming left on the Qinhuai, the problem is likely being caused by untreated urban sewage and runoff.

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What a nice way to end the week!  Our Governor signed a bill today to ban the trade of shark fins in California.  We are thrilled that California has taken the right step towards doing their part to curb their contribution to the global shark fin trade.  While California wasn’t necessary the leader on this one (as states including Hawaii, Oregon and Washington have already passed similar bans), our state has certainly joined a courageous effort to crack down on one of the leading contributors of shark species decline, which is the international shark fin trade.  And the message is certainly clear – that California is taking shark conservation serious.  We can only hope that other states will also follow suit now that the entire West coast has taken action.  So, kudos to Assemblymemen Fong and Huffman for introducing this great bill and thank you Governor for caring about sharks and our oceans!

But wait, we’re not quite done yet. If oceans are on his mind, Gov. Brown has yet to decide on the fate of another important bill that will protect our oceans and environment and that is The Oil Spill Preparedness Act, or AB 1112.  This law would tighten up our state’s oil prevention standards while ensuring that there are adequate funds to manage these programs— and paid for by Big Oil, and not the citizens of California.  If this law does not pass, California’s waters will be at risk of devastating and costly oil spills which have severe impacts on our marine environment and public health.  Let’s cross our fingers that our Governor will also sign this bill that will assure California’s coasts and wildlife will be protected from the threat of oil spills.  We need a double victory for our oceans!

I think I am one of the luckiest people out there to be doing the work I am very passionate about, being able to travel, meeting some of the most wonderful people around the globe and being able to connect those people in order to make positive change.

I recently traveled to Nome, Alaska for the Beringia Days Conference organized by the Shared Beringian Heritage Program of National Park Service (NPS). The conference was first held in 1997 and since then it alternated between both sides of the Bering Strait. This year it was Alaska’s turn to host the conference. Nome welcomed more than 130 people.  Among them were native people of Alaska and Chukotka, Russian and American scholars, researchers, environmentalists, and representatives of government and non-governmental organizations.

The goal of the conference was to bring together various stakeholders for discussions around issues affecting communities both in Chukotka and Alaska. Some of the major topics covered during the conference were international cooperation, creation of the Shared Beringia Heritage Trans-boundary Protected Area, preservation of culture and language, youth programs, environmental issues including resource extraction, increased shipping, and pollution. Special attention was paid to marine mammal research and impacts of climate change on subsistence resources of indigenous peoples.

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The United States Geological Society’s Alaska Science Center recently released a video documenting thousands of Pacific Walrus—an animal currently being considered for listing under the Endangered Species Act—at a haul-out near Pt. Lay, a small community on the northwest coast of Alaska. This is the fourth time in the last five years that the unusual massive congregation of these large pinnipeds occurred in this location. Normally, walrus prefer to spend the late summer months resting on ice flows in the Chukchi Sea from which they forage for food on the shallow ocean floor. This year however, like recent years, the summer ice is non-existent except over the deep water off the continental shelf.  The walrus are then forced to haul-out and rest on shore, and then must travel up to 40 miles to forage. Read the rest of this entry »

This summer, Pacific Environment had the joy of hosting Zhou Xiang for a few days in the San Francisco Bay area.  Zhou Xiang, Executive Director of Pacific Environment’s partner group Green Anhui, is an inspiring leader in the new generation of environmentalists in China.

Touring the Berkeley recycling plant

Having grown up in a coal mining region in Anhui Province, he was influenced at an early age by environmental issues in his hometown.  He studied chemical engineering in college, but then made a 180 degree turn.  At his talk at the Asia Foundation on August 22^nd, Zhou Xiang remarked “I studied chemistry in college, and probably would have worked for the chemical industry. But then I met Wen Bo from Pacific Environment and instead, I started Green Anhui.”

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Last week, Solyndra, a Fremont-based solar manufacturer, filed for bankruptcy. What made this event of special interest was the fact that Solyndra received about half a billion dollars in loan guarantees as part of the federal stimulus program, and became a “poster child” for the program after President Obama’s appearance at their factory last year. Needless to say, opponents of progress are using this event to attack Obama, solar energy, and government investment in clean energy. Here are five reasons why they’re wrong.

1. Solyndra is a rare instance of failure for the government Loan Guarantee Program (LPG). According to a piece in Forbes ,“…when judged by its entire diverse portfolio of investments, the LGP has performed remarkably well. Indeed, with a capitalization of just $4 billion, DOE has committed or closed $37.8 billion in loan guarantees for 36 innovative clean energy projects. The Solyndra case represents less than 2% of total loan commitments made by DOE… ” It’s bad political luck that the company that went belly up is the same one that Obama chose for a personal appearance, but in the big scheme of things, this is a mere bump in the road for a wildly successful program.

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I’ve lived in Oakland for much of my life, and for nearly all of Jerry Brown’s time as Mayor. One of  former  Mayor Brown’s signature projects was to reinvent a blighted Downtown Oakland to a desirable, urban environment that would attract at least 10,000 residents with upscale housing and attractions. He called it the “10K” plan. In 2000, it seemed a tall order designed to sound good in a campaign, but quickly forgotten. In 2011, the many new condos, fancy restaurants and top-flight nightclubs have become a reality, and reportedly Brown’s 10,000 goal was surpassed.

I was recently at a conference called by Governor Brown which was all about his newest big number-driven goal: How to develop 12,000 megawatts of locally-sited renewable energy projects in California by 2020. As in Oakland, he’s almost starting from scratch, as local renewable generation to date is nowhere near that goal. While some businesses and homeowners have gone solar, it’s going to take some very large urban and suburban renewable projects to reach 12,000 by 2020. The question on the minds of conference participants was not whether or not to do this.It was made clear that the decision was already made by the Governor, who opened the conference with a keynote address that made it clear he’s determined to hit 12K.

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