Lauren Williams – Orange County Register

A puppy’s cuteness can blind prospective owners to its hidden costs

Lauren Williams — Thu, 28 Jul 2022 20:17:04 +0000

If you’re thinking about getting a dog, it’s hard to look past the soft fur, wagging tail and goofy, dangling tongue to think about the practicalities.

Like, say, the cost.

Not just the opportunity cost of parties missed while you’re sitting in an emergency room as a vet tech plucks a tick from your pet’s tear duct (true story!), but the actual hit your pocketbook will take once you bring home your new companion.

First, consider the adoption fee, which is the cheapest way to get a pet versus buying from a breeder. When stacked against all the debts you’ll incur, this is nominal by comparison. A full-grown dog can cost as little as $185 in adoption fees from a city-run shelter, while a cat can cost around $125 in Southern California. (Bonus: shelters ensure each pet is juiced up with its needed vaccines and is fixed.)

Puppies and kittens cost more because people like young and cute, while senior animals are effectively free to adopt since they’re…not young (although often still cute) and mostly sleep. Shelters are eager to get them out of their enclosures.

Private nonprofits can charge slightly more for their operational and rescue efforts, at about $300 per pup, whereas a breeder can easily set you back thousands of dollars.

That initial purchase of the animal is mostly to weed out the weirdos who want animals for untoward reasons, and also, perhaps, to mentally prepare you for all the ways in which your new friend will deplete your savings.

If you’re getting a puppy you must factor in training, which is really an investment in all the things your dog won’t eat in the future once they’re up to speed with what’s fair game to chew and what few items in the house are truly yours alone, like trousers or underwear.

To test this, you get a puppy with one floppy, velvety ear and a natural cat eye. In six months, your new furry friend consumes $1,000 in plants, more than $500 in shoes (the lining of which he rips with the precision of a cobbler), and several hundred dollars in books shredded (free confetti!). While you’re still at home – possibly in the bathroom, showering, tending to anything other than your new furry mate – he gnaws on baseboards and the arms of wooden furniture that if you really squint kinda do resemble the toys in his basket.

So, to render him too tired to destroy your shared dwelling, twice a week you will pay someone to load him up on a doggie school bus and cart him off to bootcamp to the tune of $150 a week. If you have a personal trainer, say goodbye to even more cash. It’ll cost $400 for four sessions – worth every penny.

Then there are the intangible costs of things like your pride as you slide a plastic bag over your hand and gently extract dangling plant matter from their backside while your neighbors watch in horror from across the street (another true story!). Also, the cost of your slowly eroding mental health when you call your last living parent in tears because your dog chewed through irrigation pipes – yet again – and your yard looks like an archeological excavation.

Once the plastic piping, rocks, plants and you-name-it have been ingested, you have to consider the cost of extraction. For $250, a vet recently told me Nelson somehow incurred lesions in his mouth, god knows how. That tick extraction in the lede? It cost a mere $95 for an Australian shepherd named Pebbles. In one weekend, you can easily shell out more than $1,000.

There are, however, a few tallies on your pet’s side of the ledger.

The constant companionship and unconditional love are truly unmatched and pay dividends when compared with your initial financial investment. I challenge you to find a teenage human who is genuinely delighted every time you walk in the front door. Their wonder at experiencing the mundane aspects of life, like ceiling fans and door hinges, is a delightful marvel, even on their most irritating days.

The quiet, undying loyalty when you’re outside on an adventure – guiding you, shepherding you, alerting you to possible dangers – is incomparable. The safety they provide when notifying you that an intruder (aka the UPS driver) intends on breaching your homestead beats any home security system, hands down. And, of course, there’s the cleaning they do – a tiny morsel of food doesn’t stand a chance on your floor (or countertop for that matter) with a dog around.

Let’s tally those savings: home security systems cost hundreds of dollars at least; a weekly cleaning service is another couple hundred dollars monthly; a private bodyguard merits at least a full-time employee’s wages plus healthcare; and of course you can’t put a price on unconditional love.

These qualities make the purchase of a pet priceless.

Unless you’re saving to buy a grossly overpriced house in Southern California. Then maybe buy a fish. Comet Goldfish go for as low as 16 cents at PetSmart. Just sayin’.

A hunt for the invasive dark unicorn snail shows UCI students how climate change is altering Crystal Cove tide pools

Lauren Williams — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 19:31:30 +0000

Lauren Pandori a UCI PhD candidate points out California mussels in the tide pools at Crystal Cove State Park in Newport Beach on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018 as part of a study how climate change impacts tidal pools. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG).

Researchers from the UCI Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department conduct survey of the number of mussels and other species in the tide pools at Crystal Cove State Park as part of a study how climate change impacts tidal pools. Pictured, clockwise from bottom, PhD student Piper Wallingford, Ritika Singh, and assistant professor Cascade Sorte. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

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Much of climate change research is focused on the big problems. Models forecast how quickly polar ice caps are melting in the Arctic and whether rising sea levels might drown entire islands in the South Pacific.

But two doctoral students working in the Sorte Lab at UC Irvine are searching for smaller signs of climate change in the tide pools of Orange County beaches. These subtle, incremental adjustments to the environment are hard to track, but Lauren Pandori and Piper Wallingford know just what to look for.

They’re looking for unicorns.

On a recent Thursday afternoon at a certain stretch of Crystal Cove frequented by sunbathers and vacationers, Pandori and Wallingford crouch over measuring tape stretched across a jagged outcropping, keeping their eyes peeled for the dark unicorn snail.

“I think ‘If I were a snail where would I hide?'” said Pandori, 25. “It’s very calming work.”

‘Climate invader’

By Jeff Goertzen, The Orange County Register/SCNG

The dark unicorn snail is what’s known as a climate invader, according to Cascade Sorte. Sorte is a professor of evolutionary biology and ecology and oversees the Sorte Lab, where students research how species react to climate change.

“All of these organisms have coping mechanisms,” Sorte said. “The question is: Is it enough? Will they win or will climate change win?”

In the case of the unicorn snail, scientists suspect a changing climate may have driven the carnivorous mollusk from its native habitat in Baja California up the coast. The purple-and-green-hued snail was only found as far north as San Diego County back in the 1970s. Now it’s traveled all the way to Laguna Beach.

Here’s one problem with that: Unicorn snails compete with whelks, smaller snails native to Orange County beaches, to feed on mussels. Whelks are now under threat of being squeezed out by the dwindling food supply.

The end result? A drastic change to the numbers and types of creatures that normally make up the ecosystem of Crystal Cove tide pools.

Dime-sized predators

Since they haven’t spotted any unicorn snails in their 30-minute once-over of this stretch of beach, the students switch gears to hunt for whelks and download temperature data from coin-size thermometers bolted to the rocks.

Pandori spots a whelk smaller than a dime inching toward a mussel, its tooth out and ready to bore into the shell and feast. She picks it up, marks its location on the measuring tape and places the creature back in the same spot to resume its slow advance on its prey.

“We’re seeing changes in (tide pool) communities already,” said Wallingford, 29, who has scuba-dived and scoured rocks in search of the dark unicorn snail. “If we think of what a pristine community is, it’s not going to be what we’re used to today.”

Wallingford’s research is focused on the expansion of the dark unicorn snail from Baja and whether these bigger snails could push out species like the California mussel. They might be under threat just by way of being the snails’ chosen food supply.

“They’re so important to the ecosystem,” Pandori said of the California mussel. “One of the main reasons why we have so many different animals in intertidal areas is because of mussels.”

Mussels are considered a keystone or foundation species – the cornerstone of a rich and tiny universe contained to these small saltwater pools. If the mussels disappear, so could barnacles, sea anemones, mollusks and a whole host of other species. According to research performed at Cal Poly Pomona, since the 1980s mussel coverage on rocks has dropped by 31.2 percent throughout California.

The extent to which they could decline is at the heart of Pandori’s research. She is trying to find out whether small cracks in the rocks can act as refuges where mussels can better weather the changing climate. From these slivers of space they may be able to produce better-adapted offspring.

“When people model what future ecosystems look like as a result of climate change they usually do it at really big scales,” Pandori said. “There’s so much that goes on in these smaller habitats that I think needs to be accounted for.”

UC Riverside study looks at wasps, roaches, zombie venom and… Parkinson’s

Lauren Williams — Wed, 14 Feb 2018 21:25:43 +0000

A rare wasp that uses its venom to control the mental activity of a cockroach — sending the bug into a zombie-like state — might hold the key to understanding what happens in the brains of people with Parkinson’s Disease, a recent study found.

A team of researchers, including undergraduate and graduate students at UC Riverside, studied the venom of jewel wasps, a creature that is native to the South Pacific. As part of its reproductive cycle, a jewel wasp will sting a cockroach, using its venom to turn the crawling scavenger into something akin to a zombie. The roach’s physical functions are frozen and controlled by the wasp, even though the roach remains alive for much of the wasp’s reproductive process.

The part of the study that looks specifically at how the cockroach brain responds to the wasp venom is expected to be published in the upcoming print issue of the journal Biochemistry and was published online Jan. 19.

“We can understand how the brain’s circuitry is altered to produce this reduction in movement,” said Michael E. Adams, a UC Riverside entomologist and neuroscientist who oversaw the study.

“We may have new ideas on how to reverse it.”

The bug’s reduced reactions to stimulation in some ways resembles the effects of Parkinson’s Disease, which is characterized by slower movement, rigid limbs and difficulty maintaining balance.

“(Parkinson’s) patients have trouble initiating movements and following through on movements,” Adams said.

“Once movements are initiated, they don’t function because of dopamine deficits” in the brain, he added.

Jewel wasps rely on cockroaches to host and feed their offspring. To breed, the wasp injects the roach with a special neurotoxin twice, once near the roach’s front legs and again directly into the roach’s brain. Within a matter of seconds the cockroach becomes less sensitive to stimulation and loses its ability to flee, though it remains alive.

“The animal is not paralyzed,” Adams said. “Its locomotive behavior is just altered. It doesn’t respond like it normally does to stimuli, (such as) air currents.”

The wasp then leads the cockroach into a burrow it has previously dug, implants the roach with a single egg, and seals off the seemingly hypnotized bug inside the burrow. Over the next week or so the wasp egg hatches inside the roach and feasts on the unsuspecting bug’s organs. After the roach dies, the young wasp emerges from the roach’s carcass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_NbXiNuqM0

The scientists at UC Riverside studied the wasp venom and found a molecule called “ampulexin,” which is unique to the jewel wasp and, the researchers believe, a possible key to the venom’s effect.

To suss out whether ampulexin is an active agent, the researchers injected two separate groups of roaches, some got natural wasp venom and others were shot up with a venom created only of ampulexin.

They then used electric stimulation to determine which roach group was most zombie-like. It turned out that roaches injected with natural jewel wasp venom were rendered more immobile, and for longer periods, than the roaches who were injected with ampulexin-only venom.

The effects of the natural venom, however, weren’t permanent. Within a week or so, the roaches — which weren’t being inhabited and consumed by wasp eggs — recovered.

That recovery, Adams said, gives researchers reason to hope that studying the venom might help humans battle Parkinson’s.

“It’s reversible,” Adams said of the effects of the venom. “That’s another fascinating aspect of this.”

Scientists plan to study components in the venom other than the ampulexins. They also plan to study what happens inside the roach that, once injected with wasp venom, makes the roach lose control of its physical movements.

“Once we understand that, we may be able to wake (the roach) back up again,” Adams said.

The South Coast AQMD is proposing a quarter-cent tax aimed at curbing pollution

Lauren Williams, Tony Saavedra — Wed, 14 Feb 2018 00:46:46 +0000

Staffers with Southern California’s air quality agency are proposing a ballot measure that would impose a quarter-cent tax to help cut diesel emissions throughout the region.

The proposal, which would begin with a survey of residents, isn’t without critics. They argue that staffers are trying to sidestep the governing board at the South Coast Air Quality Management District by asking residents, directly, if they would be willing to pay the potential tax.

“Taxes should be absolutely the last resort,” said Orange County Supervisor Shawn Nelson, an AQMD board member and congressional candidate in a district that reaches from north Orange County into Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. “There’s nothing emergency about this.”

The quarter-cent sales tax would be a first from the AQMD. It could generate $700 million a year to help electrify transport trucks that carry goods throughout Southern California. The move would be part of a 15-year plan aimed at reducing some of the region’s more dangerous pollutants, ozone and nitrogen oxide.

For decades Southern California has been designated as being in “extreme non-attainment” for ozone levels by the federal government — the worst designation — meaning the region did not hit targets on the amount of pollution in the air.

“We’re making a lot of headway, but it’s a combination of two things,” said the agency’s spokesman Sam Atwood.

“We have the worst smog in the nation for a number of reasons. The second thing is, every year, medical studies show there are harmful effects of ozone at lower levels than were previously known, and standards are made more stringent,” Atwood said.

“We’re making a lot of progress,” he added.

The proposed tax would pay some 70 percent of the projected $1 billion cleanup. It would be used by local businesses to convert older diesel fleet vehicles — which are the region’s top contributor of nitrogen oxide — to green trucks.

The agency isn’t able to regulate emissions from cross-country trucks transporting goods to businesses and many that frequent the port complex, in part, because that is the role of other agencies.

On Monday, the SCAQMD’s legislative committee — which includes five of the agency’s 13-member governing board — voted in favor of polling residents and advancing the proposed tax to legislators. Two local officials, Nelson and San Bernardino County Supervisor Janice Rutherford, objected, saying other options should be explored before resorting to a tax.

“A tax for clean air programs and projects is not warranted,” said Rutherford, who advocated for expansion of cap and trade programs. “I’m not willing to let the state off the hook. And I’m not willing to support a regressive tax.”

The governing board could pull the report from the agency’s agenda at its March 2 meeting and halt the agency from getting a legislator to sponsor the tax.

After you die, you’re usually not environmentally friendly. The alternative is a ‘green burial’

Lauren Williams — Wed, 07 Feb 2018 00:35:56 +0000

When Jackie Wilson dies, she’ll leave this world as she lived in it.

In her 76 years, the retired family doctor has hiked 125 miles of the Appalachian trial. She has sailed and ridden horses; camped and kayaked.

Four years ago, after she’d complained of blurred vision out of one eye, Wilson was told she had a rare and incurable form of Stage 4 lung cancer. The cancer, she also was told, had spread to her eyes, bones and liver.

It was then that Wilson decided her exit from this world would be in keeping with her values — causing as little harm to the earth as possible.

“I drive an electric car. I eat organic. That’s the kind of person I am,” said Wilson, who alternates between living in Southern California and New Jersey.

“When I heard they embalm you with formaldehyde, and put you in a cement vault, and then they bury you in the ground on this manicured lawn with all kinds of toxic herbicides and weed killers — I decided I couldn’t be buried in that kind of situation.”

Wilson is part of a growing world of people who are shunning conventional burials and even cremation — disillusioned by the environmental impacts — in favor of burials that are super earth-friendly, low-tech and cheaper.

For Wilson, the plan is simple: A hole will be dug. Her body will be placed in the hole. And the earth will be put back over her body.

Nature will take her from there.

Machinery, chemicals, heat

Burial — at least, the kind of burial still favored by nearly half of all Americans — is something of an environmental disaster.

The non-profit Green Burial Council estimates 64,500 tons of steel, 1.6 million tons of concrete and nearly 830,000 gallons of formaldehyde are buried in the U.S. each year. That’s when taking into account a few key burial items — embalming fluid, burial vaults and caskets. These numbers do not include the wood that is used to bury the dead or the heavy machinery used to dig graves or the fertilizers needed to keep the grave green for a few centuries.

Cremation, in turn, once viewed as the greener choice, increasingly is being shunned for similar reasons. The gases used (and created) by the process are carbon intensive, and the mercury that becomes air when dental fillings are burned is nothing less than toxic.

Enter so-called green burials. Some are as simple as Wilson’s bury-the-body-in-a-hand-dug-hole plan. Others include simple pine boxes. Almost all involve using no machinery or chemicals or heat.

“As baby boomers are aging up, it’s going to become more and more popular,” said Caitlin Doughty, a Los Angeles-based mortician and self described “funeral industry rabble-rouser.” Doughty’s Undertaking LA, in Los Angeles, is one of three Southern California businesses designated as environmentally friendly by the Green Burial Council.

“I think there are a lot of families with environmental bents to their lives, people who consider themselves eco-conscious and know cremation isn’t the best thing for the planet,” Doughty said. “Cremation is not the magic pill for an environmentally friendly death.”

Because more people like Wilson are choosing a more environmentally friendly farewell, the Green Burial Council has grown from one cemetery in 2005 to more than 400 green cemeteries and affiliated businesses, including companies that sell green burial services and related products, such as plant-based embalming fluid.

“It’s really the people that chose this (form of burial) that drive it,” said Kate Kalanick, the council’s executive director. “Although we’ve consistently grown since 2005, the awareness and public interest went up exponentially in the last three years.”

Limited options

Still, for now, choices in Southern California are limited.

When Wilson looked for a green cemetery locally she found few options and eventually bought a plot in New Jersey. If she dies on the West Coast, her body will be put on ice and flown to Steelmantown Cemetery where her grave will be hand dug and marked only by a simple stone, if anything at all.

Ed Bixby, who owns and operates Wilson’s future resting spot, Steelmantown, entered the funeral business by happenstance.

Before running Steelmantown, in Southern New Jersey, Bixby worked as a real estate broker and developer. But when he learned that the cemetery where his brother was buried had fallen into disrepair he decided to buy it. He kept the maple and oak trees and installed walking trails.

“I wasn’t looking at it as a business opportunity. I was looking at it as ‘someone needs to be responsible for this place.’ I was looking for a new life for it,” Bixby said.

“I learned about the natural burial movement myself,” he added. “I wasn’t an environmentalist, but of course I care about the environment. I wasn’t a cemeterian, but of course I care about doing the right thing.

“I fit the bill and didn’t know it.”

Though the cost of real estate in Southern California is expensive, and available open space is dwindling, enthusiasm for green burials in California is growing.

In October Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a bill that would allow for water-based cremation in California starting in 2020. The process uses less power and does not emit toxins into the atmosphere.

In July, Bixby acquired a green burial site with ocean views in Northern California.

Steve Morgan, the chief executive of land management company Wildlands Inc., is looking for open space in Southern California where he can open a green cemetery.

Morgan has been in land management for nearly 30 years but was led to green funerals in 2016. He now has three properties in various stages of the permitting process in Northern California, including Napa Valley, where land could otherwise be used commercially for grape cultivation.

“You’re taking these landscapes that are very large and putting a permanent easement on (them),” Morgan said. “You’re helping preserve that landscape from being converted into something else.”

“Strange bedfellows”

It’s a concept that’s increasingly resonating with Baby Boomers and Generation Xers, and is appealing to people across political lines.

“One of my favorite things about the green burial population is it brings together strange bedfellows,” Doughty said. “Hippies and libertarians love it.”

Maria Mendez, 54, and her husband Vito Micale, 58, of North Hollywood, are already planning for their green funerals. After a conversation with their 23-year-old son and a string of friends’ funerals, the couple worked out a green death plan with Shari Wolf, one of two green-certified funeral service providers in Los Angeles County.

“Traditionally, my whole family has been embalmed and buried in a cemetery,” Mendez said. “I didn’t want the ground to have any of the chemicals involved in the embalming. Why would I preserve my body after it’s gone?”

The couple isn’t especially environmentally conscious, or spend much of their time outdoors. But they value environmental preservation.

“We’re not over the top,” Mendez said, “but this was important.”

For Wilson, part of the appeal of her final resting place in New Jersey are the trails, which are used by hikers and horses, and the natural landscape. A former equestrian herself, Wilson’s plot, near a lake, is surrounded by wild blueberry bushes, holly, pine, ferns and moss.

“It makes me feel satisfied,” Wilson said. “I’m less anxious.”

“I don’t have to go down a path I don’t believe in.”

Chatsworth house winds up with 1,000 guinea pigs after taking in survivors

Lauren Williams — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 16:00:58 +0000

Guinea pigs at the Los Angeles Guinea Pig Rescue in Chatsworth, CA, Monday, Jan. 29, 2018. (Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

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Guinea pigs at the Los Angeles Guinea Pig Rescue in Chatsworth, CA, Monday, Jan. 29, 2018. (Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

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Even from the road outside Saskia Chiesa’s ranch style, in Chatsworth, you can hear high pitch squeals and squeaks of excitement.

The two-acre estate is home to 13 horses, a goose, a tom turkey named Canela (“cinnamon” in Spanish), and a couple hundred guinea pigs.

Exactly how many guinea pigs Chiesa has now, and how many she was hoping to host, is an unresolved question.

Chiesa runs the Los Angeles Guinea Pig Rescue. Until three months ago, she housed and cared for a maximum of 125 guinea pigs.

But in October, Chiesa was called on to rescue guinea pigs from a home in Eureka, where more than 700 of the creatures — which can grow as big as 2.5 pounds — were wandering in plastic kiddie pools, the kitchen and a living room.

As one of the few guinea pig-centric rescues in the region, Chiesa volunteered to transport the survivors back to her place. She didn’t get them all. Some went to rescues in Arizona and San Diego. But when the Eureka crew got to Chatsworth, her guinea pig population instantly ballooned to about 450.

That number, too, was in flux. Many of Chiesa’s new guinea pigs were females and pregnant. Soon, she had a guinea pig population boom on her hands.

“They were having babies every single day,” she said.

At one point, Chiesa estimates she that her Chatsworth rescue was home to nearly 1,000 guinea pigs.

“We definitely broke the record last year.”

Chiesa also rescues thoroughbred horses that are unable to race, rehabilitating them for adoption. But to make room for the rodent influx she had to clear out four stalls, though many of the skittish creatures now roam a large enclosure where they spend their non-sleep time hiding in colorful plastic huts and crawling through tubes.

“We had to kick three of the horses out,” Chiesa said. “(That) put a strain on our thoroughbred rescue.”

To accommodate the new arrivals, Chiesa had to hire a full-time and part time staffer and buy a second industrial refrigerator. When she adds in the extra costs of food and vet bills, she estimates the guinea pig boom is going to run her about $50,000. (Adoption rates are $35 for a single guinea pig; $50 for two.)

Chiesa’s Chatsworth rescue is one of three in the state that is focused on caring for abandoned and neglected guinea pigs. The others are in Orange County and another in San Diego. In addition to founding the Los Angeles Guinea Pig Rescue, Chiesa is chief executive of a global logistics company with a warehouse in Van Nuys.

Her passion for guinea pigs started when she was a young woman in Holland.

“I was never allowed pets,” she said. “At 18, I saw a guinea pig in a pet store. I picked it up and it was instant love.”

From there, wherever Chiesa lived – Holland, London, California – she had guinea pigs. In 1999, Chiesa started the Los Angeles Guinea Pig Rescue in Santa Monica. In 2011, she moved to Chatsworth and expanded the effort.

“What I… love about them is they’re so funny.”

Some guinea pigs, like Valerie and Suzanne, are playful and vocal ambassadors. They greet visitors, even from Chiesa’s garage. Others stand up to beg for food or track visitors’ every step. Most will trot off if given a piece of lettuce.

It was a chance encounter that led Chiesa to her life as a animal advocate. While sitting on the train in London’s underground she saw a silky long haired guinea pig being ushered around by a man who she would later come to call “the guinea pig guru.” He claimed to own more than 100 guinea pigs.

When she started a rescue of her own, she called the guru for guidance. Today, the role is reversed, and would-be rescuers call her with questions about guinea pig care and feeding.

She sees her advocacy as more than mere happenstance.

“There are no coincidences,” Chiesa said. “What are the chances?”

Southern California expected to get unseasonably hot and dry conditions over the weekend

Lauren Williams — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 23:27:57 +0000

Southern Californians should prepare for unseasonably warm temperatures and gusts of hot, dry wind beginning this weekend and leading into next week — conditions that could fuel any wildfire that breaks out in the region, fire and weather officials said.

Starting Saturday, Jan. 27, warm Santa Ana winds are expected to course through, with coastal regions seeing gusts of between 20 and 30 mph. Inland regions are expected to see gusts of 40-50 mph, said Dan Gregoria, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

“Those offshore Santa Ana winds really dry out the atmosphere,” Gregoria said. “It’s going to be dry and really warm with some strong wind gusts for the inland areas.”

Temperatures will pick up starting Saturday with Riverside seeing a high of 75 degrees, then an uptick to 83 on Sunday and getting even warmer on Monday. Anaheim will see a high of 79 degrees on Saturday and 87 on Sunday and Monday.

Along the coast, temperatures will be slightly cooler. Newport Beach should see 72 degrees on Saturday and 80 on Sunday. In the South Bay, at Los Angeles International Airport and in Torrance, the temperature will reach the low 80s on Sunday.

“From (Thursday), that’s a 15-20 degree jump, a really big warm-up,” Gregoria said.

Pleasantly sunny, yes, but this weather will bring low humidity, making for ideal — and troubling — wildfire conditions.

“The brush is still dry out there, and we haven’t had enough precipitation for there to be any greening in the hills,” said Capt. Larry Kurtz of the Orange County Fire Authority. “Last year, we had tremendous rains and what it did was it helped our drought situation. It also grew a huge grass crop in the hills.

“This grass crop is one of the first things to dry out when the rain stops,” he added. “We have a huge amount of light-flash fuels in the hills. It’s what we call in the fire business ‘receptive fuel bed’ — it doesn’t take much for them to catch fire.”

Southern California is enduring what should be one of the wettest months of the year but instead has seen very little precipitation – extending the fire season.

“Unfortunately, there is no rain in sight, even though it cools a little midweek the dominant feature is the ridge of high pressure,” Gregoria said. “Not a good weather pattern for the state.”

OC Labor Federation ousts its executive director over #metoo sexual-misconduct allegations

Lauren Williams — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 21:28:55 +0000

Delegates for the Orange County Labor Federation voted unanimously to fire its executive director in response to allegations of sexual misconduct, effective immediately, the group announced Friday.

Julio Perez, 39, served as the executive director of the coalition of labor unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO that represents some 90 unions for teachers, grocery clerks, hotel employees, nurses and sanitation workers.

On Thursday, the federation’s delegates voted to fire Perez in response to an investigation launched in October. Allegations against Perez included inappropriate “sexual activity in the workplace” and comments, and threats of retaliation.

“There is no place for sexual harassment in the labor movement,” said Jennifer Beuthin, the investigation’s designated liaison, in a statement. “(This) vote is consistent with the values union members fight for every day.”

The labor group hired an independent attorney to conduct the investigation. The lawyer reported that there were credible findings from multiple women. The allegations first came to light as part of the #metoo movement on social media with women alleging they were harassed while working as interns or employees with the Democratic Party of Orange County or at the Labor Federation.

The alleged incidents at the Labor Federation took place in 2014.

“I’m just glad it’s resolved, and there’s closure,” said Fran Sdao, chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Orange County. “Hopefully, they’re providing support to the women who were subject to his harassment.”

The Democratic Party of Orange County faced separate allegations about a former employee as part of the same movement and handled the matter separately. The Democratic Party of Orange County does not have formal ties with the Labor Federation.

In a brief conversation with a reporter, Perez declined to comment on the vote, saying he had not yet been notified of the decision.

The federation’s president is leading the effort to find a replacement for Perez.

Solar tariff figures to hurt, not kill, an industry that’s helping Southern California in a big way

Lauren Williams — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 17:59:43 +0000

The Trump administration’s push to levy a 30 percent tariff on foreign-made solar panels could stall — but probably not wipe out — one of the fastest-growing industries in Southern California.

The tougher trade rule also has the potential to bump up electricity prices for local utility customers, and it adds a hurdle to the state’s goal of getting half of all its energy from renewable sources by 2030.

Solar dealers and others who track the industry say Southern California — probably the nation’s leading market for solar panels — said Tuesday that the solar business has already slowed in the past year, a result of uncertainty related to President Donald Trump’s oft-stated intent to toughen trade policy with, among others, China.

“We would definitely say this isn’t good news,” said Josh Buwell-Charkow, campaign director for the trade group California Solar Energy Industries Association. “This isn’t good for the state for seeking energy independence and lowering costs.”

The solar business has grown exponentially in recent years, in part because of cheaper panels made in China and other countries and assembled in the United States. Much of that growth has come from customers in the sunnier parts of California. Overall, solar installations statewide grew tenfold from 2013 through 2017.

Buwell-Charkow, like others in the industry, hopes the state will cut permitting costs for solar as a way to offset the new economics likely to come with the tariff.

“In California, we’re half the ballgame in the country,” he said. “There are things the state and local governments can do to counteract this.”

The new rules also could hurt employment. The solar business in California has provided a stark rebuttal to the argument that environmental regulations cost jobs. A study from the Berkeley Labor Center at the University of California said between 2012 and 2015 some 80,000 jobs were created in the San Joaquin Valley related to the construction of renewable energy infrastructure.

Though that statistic was related to all kinds of alternative energy, the solar business itself has been a strong job multiplier in Southern California in recent years.

Employers in that sector said Tuesday that the new tariff figures to slow that growth.

“This is a severe slap in the face to the state of California at the hand of this administration,” said Daniel Sullivan, whose company, Sullivan Solar Power, has offices in Irvine, Riverside and San Diego and employs up to 150 workers.

“What this does, it burdens the state of California with more costs that will ultimately be passed on to ratepayers because the Trump administration is unfairly discriminating against renewable energy.”

The push also figures to reduce demand, at least until traditional energy prices rise. The new tariff is expected to boost the cost of a residential solar panel by an average of $650, while commercial installations could jump by as much as $13,000, said Kelly Knutsen, the director of technology advancement for California Solar Energy Industries Association, which represents 500 installers, retailers and manufacturers.

California makes up half the market for solar panels and energy in the United States. Southern California, in turn, makes up half of the California market, Knutsen said.

“As the cost of solar has come down dramatically, we’ve also seen a dramatic increase in solar installations,” Knutsen said. “It’s really been booming.”

That boom paused last year, he said, as the industry and consumers waited for possible changes from the Trump administration, which campaigned, in part, on toughening trade rules with China. Solar system sales last year were about the same as they were in 2016, Knutsen said.

Still, many in the industry believe that the cost bump will slow, but not kill, solar growth.

Deep Patel, chief executive of Placentia-based GigaWatt, said most residential consumers who buy foreign solar panels will continue to do so, lured in part by the name brands and sleeker aesthetics.

“People want brands. People have LG refrigerators and cellphones. They’re just the premium brand on the market,” said Patel, who testified against the tariff at three public meetings on the subject.

“There are shoppers that say ‘I don’t care about U.S.-made. I want the best,’ ” Patel said. “It’s the Mercedes-Benz of the solar industry. And then you have the other consumers that want the Honda Civic. They just want to get from point A to point B. They just want the best value. That consumer would shop for the U.S.-assembled panel or a generic imported panel.”

About 70 percent of Patel’s business is made up of foreign-made solar cells assembled in Riverside that would not be impacted by the tariff. He said his customers probably will pay more for higher-end panels.

“Long-term, we need the costs to go down,” Patel said. “We could have been focused here helping customers and hiring more people. Whenever there’s this massive uncertainty, it’s not good for business.”

Not everyone sees a solar slowdown resulting from higher tariffs.

Greg Autry, a professor of entrepreneurship at USC who researches the role of government on emerging industries, believes the tariff will be only a short-term problem for the solar business in California.

“In the short run you’ll obviously see some price increases on panels,” said Autry, co-author of the book “Death by China,” which focuses on Chinese cyberattacks on U.S. businesses.

“This is a market where the cost has dropped an order of magnitude over the last decade. I think the trend towards solar, particularly in Southern California, is clear.”

DMV to offer REAL ID, special driver’s license making it easier to fly when regulations kick in

Alma Fausto, Lauren Williams — Sat, 20 Jan 2018 18:41:09 +0000

Want to make air travel easier in a few years?

The Department of Motor Vehicles can help.

Beginning Monday, Jan. 22, the California DMV is taking applications for special identification cards and driver’s licenses that can be used to comply with federal air-travel regulations that kick in 2020.

Called REAL ID, the special cards are to to safeguard air travel, in the post 9/11 world. To get a card takes more effort than obtaining or renewing the regular license or state-issued ID (DMV officials say the easiest time to get a REAL ID is when renewing a license or ID).

Unlike most times when renewing a license, you must go into a field office and also show proof of residency with a utility bill or a mortgage statement, proof of a Social Security number, and bring in a U.S. passport or a birth certificate.

An original or certified copy of any name-change document, such as a marriage certificate or a divorce document, may also be
required. A list of accepted documents is on the DMV’s website.

“It’s not mandatory,” Cristina Valdivia Aguilar, a DMV spokeswoman, said about the higher-end driver’s license and ID card. “Not everyone will need it or want it. The fees are exactly the same as what your card would cost to renew it ($35). We encourage people to get an appointment.”

After Oct. 1, 2020, U.S. passports, passport cards, military identification or other TSA-approved ID will still be accepted to board a domestic flight. But after that, a traditional driver’s license or state ID will no longer be enough.

Flashing the REAL ID will do the trick, though, for flights and to enter military bases or to get onto federal facilities. On domestic flights, minors still will not need ID if flying with an adult.

The new identification cards will have some different design features, such as images of a gold miner and California poppies in the background. With ultraviolet light, the Golden Gate Bridge and Coit Tower will appear.