The Verdugo Wash is a small flood control channel that takes rainwater from the foothills above Glendale to the L.A. River, and 30 miles out to the Pacific Ocean.

When you visit the wash, as I recently did, you can see the massive chasm between rhetoric and reality in California water.

Since 2017, the Crescenta Valley Water District has been pursuing the sort of project that anyone who is anyone in California water says they want.

Crescenta Valley, which serves 35,000 people in mostly unincorporated neighborhoods between Glendale and La Cañada-Flintridge, wants to capture ocean-bound rainwater from the Verdugo Wash and use it to recharge local groundwater supplies. Verdugo Wash doesn’t carry a lot of water, but capturing it would provide one-sixth of the total water supply for the small district.

Stormwater capture and groundwater recharge are two pillars of the new State Water Plan, released with great fanfare this spring by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The California Department of Water Resources has championed local projects like Crescenta Valley’s through its “Go Golden” initiative. And Los Angeles County, where you’ll find Verdugo Wash, has a new Water Plan that emphasizes local collaborations on “sustainable water resources.”

The state, county, and neighboring local governments have been supporters and collaborators in the Verdugo Wash project.

Unfortunately, there’s one holdout: the city of Los Angeles.

Yes, L.A. talks big about launching its own stormwater capture projects, and has set a goal of achieving “zero wasted water” by 2050, as part of its own “Green New Deal.”

But, in the Verdugo Wash case, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power—and our ancient system of water rights—stands in the way.

LADWP maintains, citing a mid-1970s court decision, that all rain that runs into the L.A. River belongs to L.A., including the stormwater that ends up in Verdugo Wash.

LADWP could let Crescenta Valley Water District capture some of that water and have its project. LADWP itself lets it run out to sea.

But instead of doing the right thing—and backing up rhetoric with action—LADWP is blocking the small project, because it fears the precedent of giving up any rainwater. In the process, LADWP repeats its notorious history of appropriating the water of other places and people.

Maintaining that it owns the Verdugo Wash water, LADWP insists that Crescenta Valley, a smaller agency with limited resources, must replace any stormwater it captures by purchasing water for LADWP from other sources. In email correspondence with the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper, DWP suggested that Crescenta Valley buy the water from the Metropolitan Water District, which supplements the supplies of water agencies around Southern California.

That means Crescenta Valley would effectively be taking water from the Colorado River, which is drying up under pressure from Western states, to replace water it merely seeks to recycle from its own Verdugo Wash.

This isn’t the only way that LADWP doesn’t live up to its words. LADWP’s promised “self-sufficiency” has it seeking to quadruple the amount of water it draws from the Owens Valley in the Eastern Sierras. That move has drawn protests from environmentalists across the state.

“It’s the there-it-is-take-it mentality,” says the Crescenta Valley Water District staffer Patrick Atwater. That’s a reference to the famously short speech given by William Mulholland, the civil engineer behind L.A.’s water infrastructure, at the 1913 opening of the Los Angeles Aqueduct.

Atwater, whom I’ve known for years because of his work in improving California water data, met me at a section of Verdugo Wash where much of the infrastructure would be built, at Crescenta Valley Community Regional Park, to discuss the $3.3 million project.

Crescenta Valley wants to capture more stormwater and restore its groundwater supply, which had been reduced by droughts. The project is an efficient, environmental way to do both.

The project would set up two flexible barriers on the wash, one near the dog park and the other near a baseball field. The dams could be inflated when it’s raining to capture some of the flow (the rest would still go to the river and the ocean).

Much of the cost of the project would come from building new pipe to take the captured stormwater to the district’s groundwater production wells about a mile away. Every gallon of water collected would be a gallon of water that didn’t have to come from the Colorado River or another stressed water source. Capturing stormwater is cheaper than buying imported water, which is becoming more expensive. Crescenta Valley spends approximately $3 million on imported water a year; next year’s budget devotes $3.8 million to imports.

“It’s obvious that this is what the future of water should look like,” says James Lee, general manager of Crescenta Valley Water District. “It’s what everyone is telling us to do.”

Lee says the technology is not novel. If it wasn’t being blocked by L.A. water rights, permitting should happen quickly. But the project is unlikely to be built until water policy in Los Angeles, and in California, catches up with reality.

The post A Water Rights Storm Is Brewing in the Foothills Above Glendale appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

When it comes to brutal acts of history, desires to remember are inevitably challenged by cravings to forget. No nation or group wants to be seen as a perpetrator of evil deeds. Patriots across the world celebrate the heroism of soldiers and noble actions while ignoring dark or painful chapters of their nation’s past. For instance, many Americans have embraced a mythical view of their nation’s involvement in World War II, preferring to commemorate the greatness of the generation that fought rather than recall the horrors of Hiroshima, racial strife that permeated their military forces, or the trauma that soldiers brought home.

Acts of cruelty also raise questions of liability. It is hard to imagine the U.S. or England ever being receptive to claims from families of the nearly 800,000 innocent civilians who were killed by World War II allied bombings in Europe. Japan and America have argued since 1945 over whether the U.S. is morally responsible for the atomic bombings that ended the war and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of noncombatants.

The United States finally agreed to pay reparations to Japanese-Americans interred in prison camps from 1942 to 1946. But it took 40 years, and came only after the story emerged of Japanese-American valor and sacrifice in fighting on America’s behalf in Europe. This minority group—deprived of their possessions and rights during the war—had to link their claims to powerful patriotic identities associated with the American war effort—and downplay their victimization—in order to gain the hearing they deserved.

In a curious cultural turn, Japan actually embraced victimization in much of its public remembrance of World War II. The American bombings brought not only horror and death but also a rationale to avoid accepting any responsibility for brutal deeds like Pearl Harbor or the Rape of Nanking, in which Japanese forces raped and murdered thousands of Chinese citizens. For decades after the war, the narrative in Japan was that the nation’s people had been wronged by military elites who recklessly tried to expand Japanese power in Asia. Textbooks generally sidestepped any notion of responsibility and featured stories of Japanese suffering or kept silent about wrongdoing. However, though the hibakusha—Japanese citizens disfigured by atomic radiation—were certainly victims, they were shunned because of fears that they might spread radiation sickness. They were also troubling reminders of the devastating results of some of the Japanese government’s policies.

Similarly, the claims of Korean “comfort women” have always proved troublesome to the Japanese memory of the war. Their story raises questions not only about Japanese responsibility for sexual abuse but calls to mind the larger legacy of Japanese brutality in East Asia in the late 1930s and early 1940s. In 1991, three Korean female victims filed a lawsuit against the government in a Japanese court. Their cause was supported by women’s rights groups from many nations that were less invested in the politics of war commemorations than the problem of gender abuse. Japan rejected the women’s claims, and some Japanese officials asserted that these women had actually engaged in prostitution. Several years later, Byun Young-joo, a South Korean feminist filmmaker, produced two documentaries—The Murmuring (1995) and Habitual Sadness (1997)—that featured “comfort women” recalling their ongoing struggles since the war. Some spoke for the first time in years about their abuse, about being raped as teenagers, and of the physical and emotional pain they endured, with tears rolling down their faces. After the films came out, women’s groups from throughout Asia staged a tribunal in Tokyo in 2000 to hear testimony from “comfort women” and others as part of a larger public review of the Japanese emperor’s responsibility for wartime atrocities.

These women personify the difficulties in addressing trauma and persistent suffering in patriotic commemorations. Before Vietnam, American war memorials tended to efface a legacy of suffering and death and promote images that were more heroic. When it was created in 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. was controversial because it refused to erase the war’s legacy of agony by completely focusing wartime memories on the thousands of Americans who died.

It was certainly public knowledge that many Americans died in World War II or returned home with emotional problems. But until the Vietnam War, such traumatic memories were not at the forefront of the American commemoration of the conflict. Think of the famous memorial to the American victory on Iwo Jima erected near Washington, D.C. in 1954: Bronze figures of GIs are fused together in a victorious flag-raising. There is no mention on the monument that anyone died, a startling omission considering that one-third of all Marines who were killed in World War II lost their lives on that island. Most Americans still do not know of the struggles the men featured on the memorial encountered for decades after they came home. Ira Hays suffered from what’s known as survivor’s guilt and was upset that the sacrifice of Native Americans like him did not lead to improved living standards on reservations. James Bradley was haunted for his entire life by the sight of the mutilated body of a close comrade he served with on Iwo Jima.

The Glendale monument is not the first erected on American soil to raise issues of Japanese wrongdoing. Veterans of World War II who survived the Death March of Bataan and suffered in POW camps in Asia are featured on a number of memorials in New Mexico. In Las Cruces, New Mexico, for instance, bronze figures of American prisoners convey a sense of distress. Indifferent to the nature of American-Japanese relations, these men refused to subscribe to mythical ideas about a so-called “good war” and insisted their pain not be forgotten.

The post In Glendale, World War II Isn’t Over appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

While Thursday at Moonlight is technically “kids’ night” (no age limit), we think of it as R&B night because the DJ plays rhythmic beats that inspire the bouncing and rolling hip-hop-like steps of our dance routines: “Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll,” by Vaughan Mason and Crew, “Lay With You,” by El DeBarge. We used to skate Mondays at Moonlight, an adults-only night, but the music—mostly Top 40 and rock—wasn’t as good. Some of the songs work—such as “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke—but it’s really hard to groove to Bon Jovi.

We also come because Thursday nights aren’t that crowded, so we have plenty of space to practice routines and tricks. Lately, we’ve been learning to do “crazy legs” all the way up on our toes. We like to watch advanced jam skaters like Marcus, a rink guard in a black-and-white referee shirt whose rubbery legs swerve around like Gumby’s. Marcus impresses the crowd during the designated “advanced backward skate time” by rolling around while doing splits. One night of skating costs $9.

Amy and I usually spend about two or more hours at the rink, mostly skating, with one snack break to chat. We get water and popcorn and plop down on a carpeted bench for about 15 minutes to talk about everything from life goals to glitter nail polish. Even though Amy and I are both in our 40s, it’s nice to feel as if we are 14 again.

Skating makes me feel calm and elated at the same time. It’s like flying. I’m free. I first put on skates when I was 4 years old. Growing up in Mountain View, California, my sister and I skated everywhere—to buy Now & Laters at the 7-Eleven, to friends’ houses, and to the cement skate rink at our elementary school, where we’d practice doing the “orange,” a basic spin. Trips to the big, indoor rink in Milpitas were a special treat.

When my now-husband and I moved to Los Angeles from New York 11 years ago, I started to show up at Moonlight by myself, drawn to the nostalgia of the rink and craving a good heart-pumping roll. One day, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, the guys from the HBO comedy show Flight of the Conchords, were there teetering around on rentals. My friend Jen had come with me that night, and we were both freaking out. Bret approached us, asking if we would like to skate in his band’s music video adorned in disco clothes. We played it cool, pretending we had barely heard of the show, but literally jumped up and down when they left. About a week later, we spent a day with Bret, Jemaine, and a small group of skaters, filming their “Ladies of the World” music video in Venice Beach. You can see me leaning against a tree on the beach in an orange one-piece bathing suit in the beginning. (My only quibble is that skaters would never ever really stand in the sand!)

Because of Moonlight, I also ended up as a background skater on the set of Cold Case, shooting an episode about a 1970s murder case involving a roller rink. That’s where I met my mentor, Nelson. Nelson wears a gold roller skate necklace and chain and an impressive, sculpted roller skate belt buckle. There’s no other skater like Nelson, who smiles like a Buddha during his minute-long spins. Nelson learned to skate in the early 1980s, right after he moved to the U.S. from El Salvador, and, to this day, he still skates up to six nights a week in the Los Angeles area. He taught me all of the basic dance skate moves at Moonlight years ago—and a routine called the “downtown,” a series of bouncing, rolling, and spinning moves. Nelson also talked me into checking out the temple of skate dance that was World on Wheels.

World on Wheels, in midtown Los Angeles, was a pulsating, whirring dance party on skates. You paid your $10, pushed through a heavy buzzer door, and joined people of all ages, from 15 to 75. We skated together for exercise, to socialize, and melt stress away, to R&B, funk, soul, and hip-hop, holding hands and bopping around the rink. Many of the skaters had been going there for decades, since opening night in 1981. People wore jeans and fitted tops, and some of the skaters had loafer shoes fashioned into skates with tiny wheels. Sweat rags hung out of back pockets. I learned the “grapevine” at World on Wheels, a zigzagging move where you glide sideways as you cross your feet, moving from toes to heels.

Last year, World on Wheels closed. Roller rinks are on their way to becoming an endangered species in Los Angeles. Skate Depot in Cerritos, where many of the World on Wheels veterans ended up going, and which hosted hundreds of skaters from across the country each year for a raucous Memorial Day weekend skate party, is reportedly shutting its doors this August. With the closure of World on Wheels and Skate Depot, that crew will probably drive all the way to Skate Express in Chino and Skateland in Northridge.

There are a few other places to skate that are closer to home. Amy and I try to go once a month to Venice Beach, where you can perform outdoors on a little cement circle for the tourist crowds who watch from hilly lawns. The rink is too small to whip around in laps; it’s better for tricks and routines. The music there is my favorite of all the places we roll. They play everything from Rihanna, Drake, and Snoop Dog to upbeat remixes of pop songs like Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know.” The Venice skaters are a diverse bunch of black, Latino, and white folks, mostly over the age of 40. Pam—an icon of the Venice skate scene—is a volunteer who runs the music set-up both Saturdays and Sundays. She wears black shiny leggings and keeps her curly red hair in a ponytail under a visor. She and the Venice regulars break-dance, getting down on all fours to kick up their wheels.

But for our regular fix, Amy and I head to Moonlight, which thankfully doesn’t appear to be going anywhere any time soon.

Kids’ night isn’t ideal for us dance skaters. Sometimes, the owners stop the free skate to play the dice game. It can happen when I’m right in the middle of bouncing to “Happy” by Pharrell. The skaters on the floor have to go to one of four corners, each of which are assigned a number. A giant fuzzy dice is rolled; if your number’s called, your corner has to get off the rink. Once, I was the last standing, winning a free orange soda.

Typically, only a handful of kids show up to skate. They range in age between about 7 to 12 years old. Occasionally, rowdy teenagers spill all over the floor as they try to race around on wobbly legs. I’d estimate Thursday nights draw about 50 or so people in total.

This past Thursday, as Amy and I were sweating and shuffling our legs about in a new variation of the downtown routine, one of the two kids at the rink that night—a floppy-haired boy of about 8—parked himself right in front of us. “How do you do that?” he asked. “I’ll tell you later, after we finish,” I huffed back, hoping he’d scoot away. His next salvo: “Your haircut looks like my mom’s friend’s.”

The kid clearly wasn’t going anywhere, so we stopped the routine, and patiently showed him the very basic steps: “Heel, foot over, restore, foot back, restore, heel.” We picked up the pace, and the boy caught on—he was doing the downtown. I started to picture him, decades later, busting out our dance with his skater friends. The rinks and the moves just might survive.

The post This Is How You Do ‘Crazy Legs’ On Roller Skates appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Call me Meatball. Some years ago–never mind how long precisely–having little or no food in my belly, I began to visit the neighborhoods in and around Glendale. That’s where I first found a collection of flavorful meatballs in a garage freezer. I also met a distracted text messager in his backyard. He seemed alarmed and fled. Some began to call me by my full name, Glen Bearian. People have asked who I am. They want to know what I think. They want to know how I come by my fashion accessories, such as the orange tag in my ear. So let me start at the beginning.

My life has not been easy. I grew up in the woods, scrounging for nuts, berries, and hiker litter. Forest fires were rampant. (The Station Fire still gives me nightmares while hibernating.) That said, relations between us bears and other species, human ones excepted, were friendly. I liked to meet mountain lions over drinks at the stream. (I’m calling P-22 about happy hour in Griffith Park.)

Some say I belong to the genus Ursus Americanus Californiensis, or “California Black Bear.” Some say my family name, “Bearian,” has roots in Armenia. These facts may be true. But all that I know is that my great-great-great grandbear came to the San Gabriel Mountains in 1933 from Yosemite National Park as part of a group of 11. They’d been expelled from the park after accusations of misbehavior (hamburger rustling, never proven), so they settled new lands, the ursine version of Australia. I suppose I inherited some of their pioneering spirit. That’s how I came upon the buffets of Los Angeles County.

Glendale is a special city, renowned for its food. Each dumpster is a cornucopia. I’ve told my colleagues about it, and if you’ve heard of the Baklava Bear or any of the youngsters who like to bathe in the cool waters of Glendale pools, you know of whom I speak. I should add that they would like you to power up the Jacuzzi, for comfort and variety.

For the most part, the denizens of Glendale have been generous. They leave their streetside food receptacles out in the open and unlocked. Some of them have been so kind as to clean out their indoor refrigerator units days ahead of garbage pickup. In this summer weather, the smell draws me in from miles away like a smoky mist in the shape of a beckoning hand. It has been a welcome guide as I cross the 210 Freeway, guided by my nasal GPS. When commuting, I prefer to take surface.

Likewise, the Department of Fish & Game has treated me well. We have been on a couple of road trips together, including one with a stop at In-N-Out Burger, although I was denied my requested animal fries and a double double double double. And I generally enjoy the media attention. It reminds the public that I am grateful for your food and willing to enjoy it in peace if you just leave me alone and keep the garage well stocked.

I do have some complaints. I am camera shy, and I often have bad hair days, so I don’t appreciate the paparazzi following me with cellphone cameras. Also, overzealous police officers blaring air horns can be unpleasant, causing me to retire early for the day and, worse still, to miss a meal. Most of all, I’m still trying to understand what I recently ate that would cause me to wake up 30 miles away from where I thought I was. But on April 3, 2012 I started keeping a diary on Twitter, and that has helped me track my whereabouts.

My greatest hope for the future is that people and animals all over the world have just enough food to sustain themselves without creating unnecessary waste or interfering with the other’s habitats. OK, who am I kidding? My greatest hope for the future is more meatballs.

Also, I’d like one day to retire in a sanctuary resort, some place where I can play with other bears, swim, and eat baklava and chicken kabobs. I’m told smart people are working on that, although I hope it’s not the same smart people who keep dropping me off far from the buffet. That’s no way to cut down on my commuting time between Glendale and Tujunga.

Glen “Meatball” Bearian is a California black bear and occasional resident of Glendale. His Twitter feed, maintained with the help of Sarah Aujero, can be read here.

*Photo courtesy of randomtruth.

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