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Debate Over Future of Fiesta Island Continues: ‘Improvements Needed to Expand Access’

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Editor: This is a continuation of the debate over the future of Fiesta Island. It began with op-eds in the San Diego Union-Tribune, and we helped it along with our earlier post. Here below, Judith Swink rebuts the rebuttals.

By Judith Swink

Improvements on Fiesta Island will happen eventually because they must.

The 1994 Mission Bay Park Master Plan carried forward that intention from the previous master plans. The proposed Fiesta Island improvements will make the island more useful and inviting to a much larger number of people than just those who want to use it as it is today. It is a key tenet of both the Mission Bay Park Master Plan and the California Coastal Act that coastal recreation areas be developed to enable use and access for everyone.

A Local Coastal Program amendment in 2002, in conjunction with approval of the Sea World Master Plan by the Coastal Commission requires the City to develop Fiesta Island as proposed in the 1994 Mission Bay Park Master Plan and LCP.   [Read more…]

Otay Water District Proposes Pipeline from Rosarito Desalination Plant into U.S.

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Serge Dedina says, “…before any U.S. government agency or any U.S. water agency gets a permit to suck desal water from the most polluted coast in North America and sell it back to U.S. consumers, they need to prioritize cleaning up this coastline.”

In Mexico, when sewage is collected, much of it is sent to a place called San Antonio de Las Buenos or Punto Banderas just 6 miles South of the Border.

WildCoast and Surfrider estimate that the sewage being discharged in the ocean each day “could be anywhere from 30 to 50 million gallons a day depending. No one’s really counting. We think it’s grown exponentially because of the increase in development that’s, in theory it’s a primary plant, but they don’t actually treat the sewage, they just put it through some ponds and then dump it in the ocean right on the beach,” Dedina says.   [Read more…]

Demand Sustainably Produced Cut Flowers

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Flowers add color and gaiety to any special occasion and are a time-honored way to say thank you or beautify living spaces. However, cut flowers have become a multi-billion dollar global trade industry with a not so pretty underbelly rooted in where and how they are grown.

Historically in the U.S., flowers were first grown in greenhouses in Eastern states and later in Western and Southern states when commercial air transportation made preserving freshness possible. In the 1970’s, the U.S. grew more cut flowers than it imported, only a small fraction originated in Colombia.

However, new market forces were unleashed in 1991 when the U.S. suspended import duties on flowers from Colombia to curb growing of coca for cocaine and to bolster the Colombian economy.   [Read more…]

San Diego City Council Votes on Plastic Bag Ban

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By Roger Kube and Michael Torti / Surfrider Foundation

On Tuesday, July 19th the San Diego City Council voted and passed the Single-Use Carryout Bag Reduction Ordinance, or “bag ban.” San Diego now becomes the 150th jurisdiction in the state of California to be covered by a ban.

In the City of San Diego, 700 million plastic carryout bags are distributed each year and less than 3% are recycled. This ordinance will remove 665 million plastic carryout bags from distribution and San Diego will take a huge step in reducing plastic pollution at its source and ultimately protecting our ocean and beaches.   [Read more…]

It’s Not Just Dog Owners Who Want to Keep Fiesta Island ‘Wild’

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Perhaps you’ve been too busy with summer to notice, but there’s been a ‘quiet’ debate going on recently in certain circles – including the op-ed pages of the San Diego Union-Tribune – over the future of Fiesta Island.

Fiesta Island – you know that flat and sandy piece of land that juts out into Mission Bay – it’s not really an island as it’s connected with the rest of San Diego by a narrow land bridge with an asphalt road – where people bike, do day-camps on the sand, water or jet-ski, or take their horses, have fires in the firepits, – oh, and who take their dogs to the great off-leash area on the Island.

The land of Island Fiesta itself is what’s left from all the sludge dredged up during the 1950’s development of Mission Bay Park.   [Read more…]

Artificial Turf Wars in San Diego Schools

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Some parents at Silver Gate Elementary School in Point Loma are leading an uphill battle against artificial turf that is supposed to be installed on the school’s playing field next Fall. And other beach area activists have been fighting the artificial turf wars for a few years now.

Writer Ashly McGlone, in a fairly exhaustive piece in Voice of San Diego published June 27th, captured the highlights of one of those battles in describing efforts of some parents at Silver Gate.

McGlone focused on Point Loma resident Erika Lundeen, who became concerned to hear that the school her kids attend, Silver Gate, was getting a new artificial turf field called “crumb rubber”. It’s a type of artificial turf made up of particles from crushed-up car tires which act as a cushion and is used as a filler between blades of artificial grass. And this FieldTurf is what San Diego Unified uses – and plans to use on dozens of playing fields around the District.

Lundeen had seen local kids covered in little black specks on their clothes and bodies after rolling around in the turf at a field at Loma Portal Elementary School, with some kids playing with the black stuff.   [Read more…]

Anti-Parks Caucus Seeks to Remove Protections for Public Lands

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How Republicans Celebrate the National Park Service’s 100th Anniversary

By Susan Grigsby / Daily Kos

In 2015, the two million annual visitors to California’s Joshua Tree National Park spent almost $97 million in the surrounding communities. Those same visitors created 1,341 job,s which had a cumulative benefit to the local economy of $128 million, according to an April 21, 2016 statement from the National Park Service. And still, knowing how much his constituents rely on the existence of a National Park within his congressional district, Republican Rep. Paul Cook has done everything within his power to hinder any growth of the Park Service, which will be celebrating its 100th anniversary in August.

Paul Cook is one of 20 Republican representatives and senators, known as the Anti-Parks Caucus, who actively work to sell off public lands to private parties for exploitation. The American Legislative Council (ALEC) has led the charge in western states, and broken ground for action on a federal level. Most of the members of the anti-parks caucus are members of the tea party, have been challenged by a tea party candidate, or are in uncompetitive districts where they have little to fear from their failure to represent their constituents.   [Read more…]

Grading on a Curve: Carlsbad’s Intersection Circumspection

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Carlsbad’s elected officials took the city’s vision of “a small town feel and beach community character” and twisted it into a developer-friendly General Plan. Fortunately, their questionable integrity and patronizing “we know best” attitude are not reflected in the leadership and staff of Carlsbad’s talented, courteous and responsive city employees.

The 2009 public opinion survey that led to the development of the city’s Community Vision produced statistically sound results. But Mayor Hall and his council colleagues used them to justify land use changes allowing shopping centers and multi-use commercial/residential housing near the beach and lagoon.   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: Development

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A sign is posted
mountains vanish into clouds
billowing houses
  [Read more…]

Welcome to Half Dome, Sponsored by Nike

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Instead of funding our parks, the government will now auction off naming rights to the highest corporate bidders.

By Jill Richardson / OtherWords

Imagine painstakingly making up your way up the cables of Yosemite National Park’s famous Half Dome peak — only to see swooshes and slogans encouraging you to “Just Do It.”

“Welcome to Half Dome,” a gleaming banner greets you, “sponsored by Nike.”

Unfortunately, it’s a possibility. As the coverage swells over Barack and Michelle Obama’s recent visit to Yosemite and Carlsbad Caverns, Americans are learning that national parks will now start selling naming rights.   [Read more…]

Surfrider Volunteers Collect 1,131 Pounds of Trash

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By Mandy Sackett / Surfrider Foundation San Diego County Chapter

Over 300 volunteers gathered at four popular beaches on July 5th to assist with the Surfrider Foundation San Diego County Chapter’s annual post-Fourth of July Morning After Mess beach series. By midday, Surfrider volunteers had recovered 1,131 pounds of trash which otherwise would have been washed into the sea where it would add to the already critical pollution problem devastating the world’s oceans.

Surfrider volunteers hosted four cleanups in collaboration with I Love a Clean San Diego and San Diego Coastkeeper from 8 a.m. to 11a.m. at the Ocean Beach Pier, Belmont Park in Mission Beach, Crystal Pier in Pacific Beach and the Oceanside Pier. These cleanup sites were chosen because of the high concentration of beachgoers and notorious reputations for post-Fourth of July trash.   [Read more…]

Carlsbad Mayor Spins Results of City’s Public Opinion Survey

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Land Use Plans Don’t Match Community Vision

At the California Coastal Commission’s May 11 meeting Carlsbad Mayor Matt Hall testified that the city’s General Plan, updated last September, reflects the community’s vision for its future. But the responses to Carlsbad’s 2009 Public Opinion Visioning Survey Report paint a different picture.

Hall claimed the plan “provides a policy framework that will ensure we live up to our community vision and ensure an excellent quality of life for all who live, work, and visit our coastal city. In fact, values like small town beach community character, access to recreation and open space and multi-modal transportation are top of mind for our residents and given high priority in our General Plan.”

But when you find the General Plan’s land use changes allow mixed use commercial/residential development and high-density shopping malls to be built near the Agua Hedionda Lagoon and on property where the Encina Power Plant now stands, you begin to see the disconnect with the community’s actual vision.   [Read more…]

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