Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
EcoJustice Radio guests Andrea Leon Grossmann from AZUL and Conner Everts from Southern California Watershed Alliance discuss the proposal by Poseidon Water Company to build a $1 billion desalination plant in Huntington Beach, California. When the price tag is more than 2x the cost of our current water system, is desal necessary? Can existing and future conservation opportunities provide the solutions necessary to ensure local water resilience in California and elsewhere?
THE BOTTLE SCAM – EcoJustice Radio connects the dots between the Water Bottle Scam and the fight for Land, Water, and Indigenous Rights. This is PART FIVE of a special seven-part series, called, “The Plastic Plague: Connecting the Dots between Extraction, Inequity, and Pollution.”
One billion people do not have access to clean water or the privilege to purchase a filtration system to feed their reusable water bottles — this is water equity. Our guests today are fighting for water equity in the Los Angeles County areas of Compton and Willowbrook, where the taps are running brown and bottled water has become a way of life.
Alexis Slutzky tells the story of a September 2015 pilgrimage through California’s Owens Valley, called Walking Water. This first phase of a much longer journey began at Mono Lake and ended 180 miles south at Owens Dry Lake. For 100 years, Los Angeles has piped water from there over 300 miles further south to sustain the city, draining ancient lakes and groundwater, destroying natural water systems. In the fourth year of an historic drought, Walking Water seeks to create a new narrative regarding this life-giving resource, investigating our common and often conflicting needs, and learning how to live within our means.
Is drinking water fluoridation safe and effective? New science reveals that fluoride is a developmental neurotoxin and an endocrine disruptor. The CDC tells us that drinking fluoride decreases tooth decay, at best, by 25%. Is one less cavity worth risking a child’s long-term brain and thyroid health? Watch the film “Our Daily Dose” and read the critique by Paul Connett.
Takeaways from a recent Green Festival Expo discussion on the Los Angeles River Revitalization include that the job of planning for water resiliency belongs to all of us, not Frank Gehry regardless of his recent charge, and we must also consider how public access, parkland, ecosystem restoration, cargo and passenger rail, bicycle greenways, and anti-gentrification environmental justice will fit into the mix. Collaboration is the key.
DamNation explores the history of dams in the US and the movement to tear down these “engineering marvels” and rediscover the wild flowing rivers and the ecosystems they nourish.