Sunday Beach Bike Ride - Five Blog Posts In One: Heermann History, Chevron Prop Taxes, Hermosa Beach Oil, And More

B and I biked Saturday from the Marina del Rey along the beach path to the end near Palos Verdes.  What a wonderful ride.  Above are surfers from the Manhattan Beach pier.

I took this picture to show the surf board racks people have on their bikes.  When I was growing up here, the boards were much bigger and heavier and if people had bike racks, they were trailers behind the bike.  Another thing I noticed in this shot was how pale the surfers are.  Wearing wetsuits definitely blocks the sun.  These guys look like Alaskans under their wetsuits.

I liked the blue wave bike racks at the Manhattan Beach pier.  But when we got back from walking on the pier about ten minutes, a lot more bikes were parked.

Here's the pier itself.  There's a cafe and aquarium at the end.  The round house aquarium can't be very big, and even though the website calls it "Roundhouse Marine Studies Lab and Aquarium"  it seems more like a tourist attraction than a science center.  The website doesn't mention any research, but it does have a link for parties.

Further down was the Redondo Beach pier.  It's full of tacky looking tourist shops and restaurants.  I took the top picture on the way down.  On the way back it was obscured a bit by fog.  Strangely it was sunny the whole time, but if you looked ahead or back it was foggy.  I think there was just light fog all the way and sometimes it got a little thicker then dissipated.  It was probably in the high 60s. 


Based on the Seattle area's Audubon Birdweb  pictures and description, this is a Heermann's Gull.  I was eating a granola bar and it was clearly hoping I'd share.

The black feet and black tip of the orange beak give it away.  ABCBirds says:

"Close to 95% of the entire world’s population of Heermann’s Gull nests in a single location: Isla Rasa, in the Gulf of California, Mexico, which supports
300,000 breeding birds. The island is protected by the Government of Mexico as a seabird sanctuary. The other nesting locations are islands along the coast of western Mexico; there are no sites where the species has successfully bred within the U.S. The bird undertakes a reverse migration, beginning in May, when non-breeders appear off the California coast, later to be joined by breeders. It moves as far north as Vancouver Island, British Columbia, before all but a few individuals head back south during the fall and winter."

Adolphus L. Herman from here

I was curious about who Heermann was and finally found a photocopy of seven pages of Cassinia - Proceedings of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club, 1907, by Witmer Stone.   Today it's posted on the Club's website, 106 years later.

He was born about 1818 in South Carolina, according to the text, and was trained as a medical doctor, but seems to have been more interested in ornithology.  He came to California in 1849.

"Upon the organization of the Pacific Railroad survey parties Dr. Heermann obtained the appointment of surgeon and naturalist to Lieut. Williamson's party, which was to explore southern California with the object of finding available passes through the mountains by which the routes along the 32d and 35th parallels might reach the coast."

The proceedings say the gull is named after him and so is a song sparrow (Melospiza melodia heermanni).  I found a Heermann's Kangaroo Rat while I was looking too that lives in California, but I couldn't document a connection to Heermann, but it's likely.  Do look at the proceedings of the Ornithological Club for the whole story on Heermann.  The author who tracked down the notes would have made a great blogger.  And his piece on Heermann has made it on line now.

And if you want to know even more, I found that Dr. Joel Weintraub

"will explore the life and accomplishments of 19th-century California naturalist Adolphus L. Heermann. You will learn about the impact Adolphus had on the natural history of California"

at Cal State University Fullerton, at Mackey Auditorium, on Feb. 24, 2014 from 10 am to 11:30 am.   I think calling him "California naturalist" is a bit of a stretch.  He did important work in California, but from the Delaware Club's publication, it seems he only spent a relatively short part of his life in California.

Moving along on our bike ride - not necessarily in chronological order - we also rode by the Chevron refinery in El Segundo. [Note:  as you go through the following on Chevron's property taxes, you'll see I missed a key point, then found it.  I leave it in so you can see the process of my thinking and writing on this, not just the cleaned up (and possible still erroneous) final version.]

I wouldn't have known it was Chevron - there was nothing that said it was - except that B pointed it out to me.  He said the massive wall with spikes on top was new.

From Chevron's El Segundo website:

"We've been a part of this community since 1911 when the main product produced was kerosene for lamps. In fact, the City of El Segundo (Spanish for "the Second") was named after the refinery, then Standard Oil's second in California. Today, the El Segundo Refinery provides jobs for more than 1,100 Chevron employees and 500 contractors, covers approximately 1,000 acres, has more than 1,100 miles of pipelines, and is capable of refining 290 thousand barrels of crude oil per day. Transportation fuels -- gasoline, jet and diesel -- are the primary products refined from the crude oil. We are responsible caretakers of our land and the environment, we operate our own electricity, steam, and water treatment facilities, and even maintain one of the only two remaining preserves in the world for the endangered  El Segundo Blue Butterfly. "

Previously it only had a chain link fence, he said.  And eventually the medieval fortress wall ended and the old fence began.




From KOLO 8 TV, April 18, 2013:

 SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Tests of pipe samples from Chevron Corp.'s refinery in El Segundo found corrosion to an extent similar to the pipe that failed and caused a large fire at the company's Richmond facility.

The federal Chemical Safety Board and California Division of Occupational Safety and Health issued a report Thursday that found up to 60-percent wall loss in a pipe at Chevron's El Segundo refinery that processes the same type of crude.

Chevron voluntarily inspected pipes at its El Segundo crude unit after the Aug. 6 fire in Richmond caused by a corroded old pipe.

There's also a lawsuit over Chevron's tax deal with the city of El Segundo.  One can imagine the kind of influence Chevron has on this town.  Here's a snippet from a Daily Breeze article in October  14, 2012:

A county civil grand jury is looking into El Segundo's decision to negotiate tax deals with the Chevron oil refinery, including a 1994 pact over utility-users' taxes that has come under scrutiny in recent months.

Members of the grand jury last month interviewed former City Manager Doug Willmore, who was fired in February and alleges his ouster came in retaliation for proposing that Chevron pay higher taxes. Willmore said he met for more than two hours with five members of the volunteer grand jury.

A followup article on April 23, 2013 article says they negotiated a deal:

"El Segundo city leaders this week finalized a deal with the Chevron oil refinery that will yield an estimated $128 million in net new revenues over the next 15 years, bringing negotiations over the company's tax payments to a close.

The City Council on Tuesday passed the so-called tax resolution agreement on a 4-1 vote, with little discussion. Councilman Dave Atkinson was opposed. .  ."

Look at the dates.  This deal was reported April 23, 2013 as having happened "this week."  Above, the KOLO report on the pipeline corrosion was on April 18, 2013, just a few days before.  But KOLO is in Reno.  I can't find any coverage in the Daily Breeze on that until July 15, 2013.  (That doesn't mean it wasn't reported, only that I can't find it.  But I did several google searches and searched the Daily Breeze website.)  Just find it curious they didn't report it when many other outlets far from them did.  And the July 15 article was from the Contra Costa newspaper which is in the San Francisco Bay area.


And $128 million over a 15 year period?   That comes to a little less than $1.9 million a year for 1000 acres (according to Chevron's website, cited above) of prime Southern California waterfront property.  When you get to Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach just past the refinery, the beachfront is lined with million dollar houses.

From eConsultant, we get this:

Place: Hermosa Beach, CA
Population: 129,251
Median Home Price: $1,200,000
Average Property Taxes: $5,884 (2006)

Assuming four properties per acre - just a for a rough estimate - that would be over $20,000 of taxes per acre.  Chevron has 1000 acres.  That would come to $20,000,000 in property taxes per year.  Times 15 years, it would $300,000,000.  And they worked out a deal for $28,000,000 over 15 years.

One could argue that the Chevron land wouldn't be worth that much.  Who would want to build on top of a former oil refinery?  But that only tells us how much Chevron has cost this area.  What would it cost to clean up the land?

Maybe there's something I'm missing, but it sounds like Chevron's got a great deal going.   This is just a quick and dirty calculation, but if I lived in El Segundo, I'd want to check this out further.

As I looked more carefully, there was something I was missing - the $128 million is "net new revenues,"  but the article isn't totally clear on how much this will be.  There's this sentence later on in the piece:

"Chevron's first-year base payment totals $11.1 million - a figure that reflects its 2012 taxes with more than $5 million in added funding. "

Does that mean it's $11 million including the added $5 million?  That's still lower than the $20 million a year I estimated - but my numbers are just back of the envelope calculations and I'm sure people in El Segundo could explain the difference.  

And in Hermosa Beach, there were lots of those million dollar homes with these banners on them. 

Here's a snipped from the StopHermosaBeachOil website:

A few facts: The proposed drill site is located four blocks from the beach on Valley Drive, surrounded by family homes, small businesses, beautiful South Park and our iconic Green Belt. From this site, the oil company seeks to drill, produce, and process up to 8,000 barrels of oil and 2.5 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. The company plans to directionally drill in all directions under homes and below the sea floor to the one-mile boundary of tideland that the City holds in trust for the benefit of the People of California. The oil company’s proposition is, essentially, to plant an “offshore” oil rig four blocks inland from the beach.

Our website provides well-researched information, citing source documents, which we view as fundamental to helping our community reach a well-informed and educated decision about the prospect of drilling in Hermosa Beach.

It is our belief that the City’s ban on oil drilling, which voters studied and wisely adopted in 1932, 1958, and once again in 1995, and which the California Court of Appeals unanimously upheld in 2001, remains our best assurance to secure the welfare of our community and avoid the grave risks inherent in any oil drilling operation.

The company that wants to drill the oil is privately owned  E&B Natural Resources and here's what Business Week says about their President. 

Mr. Steve Layton has been the President at E&B Natural Resources Management Corporation since 2000. Mr. Layton joined E & B Natural Resource Management Corporation in 1983. In 1983, he Layton co-founded Alma Energy and Equinox Oil. He served as President of Alma and Equinox from 1997 to 2000. In November 2000, he purchased the Alma and Equinox assets out of bankruptcy and formed E & B Natural Resource Management Corporation. Mr. Layton has been active in the Independent Petroleum Association of America, Louisiana Independent Oil and Gas Association, and the California Independent Producers Association. He served as President of the National Stripper Well Association and a member of the National Petroleum Council. He has been appointed to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission by Texas Governors Richards, Bush and Perry. Mr. Layton holds BS and MBA from University Of Tulsa.

And as we were getting back to the Marina where B parked the car - it was about a 25 mile round trip bike ride and B didn't want to push his back more than that - we got to the rise where people were taking beginning hang gliding classes.  Fortunately - given how long this post is already - I thought I pushed the button to video tape the flight, but it didn't go on until I 'stopped' the video which got a picture of dirt before I shut off the camera.

 

 If you click on the picture, you can read the poster on the hang gliding classes.  And, if the lessons don't go well, at the end of the trail, where we saw the Heermann's gull, you can get a beach wheel chair.

This post got way out of hand.  But I think it also is revealing about how much we don't see when we wander around places.  Just trying to get a little background about the things we saw led me to all sorts of (I would say interesting, but you can fill in your own adjectives) things.  It's a reminder to me that everything is more than it seems on the surface.

Is LA Air Less Polluted? Yes, But . . .

Jacob commented on yesterday's post with extremely clear views of LA:

"Don't think I've seen LA air look so clear. Was it wind pushing pollution away or are environmental regs really making that much difference? A bit of both seems likely, but what's going here?"

nswfm commented that it was a bit windy.

But I haven't experienced any wind since I got here.

The answer, according to an LA Times article yesterday on the San Jaoquin Valley is that pollution is down, but EPA standards are up.  

After spending decades and hundreds of millions of dollars cleaning up

DOT map San Joaquin Valley

stubbornly high levels of pollution, air quality officials in the San Joaquin Valley are telling federal regulators that enough is enough.
San Joaquin Valley officials say that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is unfairly blaming locals for air fouled by outside sources and is failing to take into account the pollution-trapping topography of the mountain-ringed basin.
"Once we've done everything we can, we should not be penalized," Seyed Sadredin, executive director of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, said in reference to fees his agency has imposed on local drivers and businesses in recent years after failing to meet federal deadlines to curb smog.

The local officials argue the smog they get comes from pollution blowing in from Asia and non-local vehicles driving through the San Joaquin Valley.  The Valley reported that they now meet EPA standards.

"The EPA says that readings at two of the most polluted air quality monitoring sites are flawed and do not prove that the region's air has been cleaned up enough to reach the agency's 1979 standard for ozone. The EPA says that it will hold the San Joaquin Valley to the same standards as the rest of the nation and has asked the district for more data to back up its contention."

You can read the whole  LA Times  article, but interestingly, the print version has graphics that are not online.  They show a steady, but inconsistent decline. 


The San Joaquin Valley starts north of LA.  ABC News  in April 2013 said that

 "Los Angeles Tops ‘Dirty Air’ List for 13th Time in 14 Years"

They cite a report from The American Lung Association (Key Findings) where you can look up air pollution information on any state and city in the US.  I say "look up" but it doesn't mean you'll find it.  All of Alaska, for instance is labeled either INC (indicates incomplete monitoring data for all three years) or DNC (ndicates that there is no monitor collecting data in the county).


But they do have information on Los Angeles.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to copy the table and preserve the format, so I'm posting a screenshot and the links below don't work - the image is just an image.  But if you click on it, it will take you to the Lung Association page and you can read more.    As you can see, despite getting failing grades, there are significant improvements.

So, Jacob, I hope that answers your question. 


[Note:  Just when I thought the Feedburner problems had been fixed, this post hasn't made it to other Blogrolls for over 7 hours now.]

Alaskans Get Colorado Christmas Trees And Mexican Poinsettias

During the film festival, the creator of The Words I Love (Honorable Mention in the short docs category) stayed with us for several days.  Thanachart Siripatrachai - Benz - for short and I went for a few outings and during one we stopped at Bell's Nursery and found, to our surprise, Christmas trees from Colorado.

Down on the bottom - it says Poncha Springs, CO.

Needless to say we were surprised to learn Alaskans buy Colorado trees.  

Here's Benz taking pictures.















I don't think these particular poinsettias are from Mexico, but I did some checking and they come originally from Mexico.








From American Phytopathological Society:  

The poinsettia, Euphorbia pulcherrima Willd., is a member of the family Euphorbiaceae. The genus Euphorbia contains some 700 to 1,000 species. It is characterized by a single female flower, without petals and usually without sepals, surrounded by individual male flowers all enclosed in a cup-shaped structure called a cyathium. The showy red, pink, white, or bicolored portion of the plant, popularly referred to as the flower, consists of modified leaves or bracts (Fig. 1).

The poinsettia is a native plant of Mexico and originated in a rather limited region near present day Taxco. Long before the arrival of Europeans, the Aztecs of central Mexico cultivated the plant and called it Cuetlaxochitl. Because of its brilliant color, the poinsettia was a symbol of purity to the Indians. It was highly prized by both King Netzahualcoyotl and Montezuma, but because of the high altitude climate, the plant could not be grown in their capital, now known as Mexico City. The Indians used poinsettia bracts to make a reddish-purple dye. They also made a medicine for fever from the plant’s latex.  .  . [emphasis added - and there's a lot more about the history of this plant at the APS link.]

Yes, I needed to look it up too.  Here's what it says:

What Is Phytopathology or Plant Pathology?

The Study of Plant Disease

Plant pathology is an interdisciplinary science that includes knowledge of botany, microbiology, crop science, soil science, ecology, genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, and physiology. Most plant pathologists have master's and doctoral degrees and are employed by colleges and universities, state and federal government agencies, industrial firms, international institutes, and as private practitioners.

In any case, let me take this opportunity to wish all my readers who celebrate Christmas, a very merry Christmas!

Oil, Power, And Three Books

A story on NPR Friday talked about petcoke dust from refining tar sands crude oil.

Crude oil from Canada's tar sands is providing a booming business for American refineries, but residents of one Chicago neighborhood complain that a byproduct of that business has become a health hazard. They want towering mounds of a dusty substance known as petroleum coke, or petcoke, moved out of the city. And as NPR's Cheryl Corley reports, Chicago is now requiring one company storing the substance to do just that.

I'd note that it mentioned that the plants were owned by the Koch brothers - a good reason for them to try to make people believe that global warming isn't caused by human use of carbon based fuel.

I posted the other day about Keystone pipeline protesters in Oklahoma City against bringing tar sands oil through their state and being arrested on anti-terrorists grounds.sting

I also checked out the new books section at the UAA library this week.  There are lots of interesting books on important subjects.  But too many folks get all they know these days from sound bites and sketchy internet posts.  Good books that focus on a topic can give someone a reasonably comprehensive understanding of an issue.  Good books that is.  Or a couple, just to make sure the book is reasonably balanced.

Here are three I found that are related to these stories.

The first, Cold, Hungry, and In The Dark,  challenges 'common knowledge' about fracking and the belief that our oil shortage days are over. Keystone and fracking are different things, but they are brought to you by the same industry.  From Art Berman's forward to the book:

"When something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  This is particularly true about shale gas.  Shale gas is a commercial failure.  That is not what the exploration and production companies that produce gas or the mainstream media and sell-side brokerage companies that help promote the plays tell the public.
Over the past 5 years, I have evaluated, published and spoken about shale gas plays.  I am a petroleum geologist and I make my living evaluating prospects and plays based on fundamental geology and economics.  Shale gas does not pass the test.
I have written about a phenomenon that I cal "magical thinking."  Magical thinking focuses on gas production volumes but does not consider cost.  This is its catechism:  because the volume of shale gas production is great, it must therefore be a commercial success;"

Author Bill Powers is a Canadian investment manager.  Is he badmouthing shale oil to promote Canadian tar sands?  I couldn't find evidence either way, though it seems like his bias is finding good investments, in which case he should be seeking 'truth.'

Putting things into another context is From Enron to Evo:  Pipeline Politics, Global Environmentalism, and Indigenous Rights in Bolivia.   Evo refers to the indigenous Bolivian president.  Derrick Hindery argues that despite the green and indigenous rights image, Evo has sold out to big oil.

Watching how oil takes over a place like Bolivia gives us a sense of what they are doing in Alaska and other places.  And the influence they have on our officials.  But we know that already. 







 Putting things into an even bigger perspective is this huge book that looks at our modern day issues as they played on in the 17th Century.  This book is huge - 902 pages - which means not too many are likely to read much of it.  The publisher's blurb says:

Revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, regicides – the calamities of the mid-seventeenth century were not only unprecedented, they were agonisingly widespread.  A global crisis extended from England to Japan, and from the Russian Empire to sub-Saharan Africa. North and South America, too, suffered turbulence. The distinguished historian Geoffrey Parker examines first-hand accounts of men and women throughout the world describing what they saw and suffered during a sequence of political, economic and social crises that stretched from 1618 to the 1680s. Parker also deploys scientific evidence concerning climate conditions of the period, and his use of ‘natural’ as well as ‘human’ archives transforms our understanding of the World Crisis. Changes in the prevailing weather patterns during the 1640s and 1650s – longer and harsher winters, and cooler and wetter summers – disrupted growing seasons, causing dearth, malnutrition, and disease, along with more deaths and fewer births. Some contemporaries estimated that one-third of the world died, and much of the surviving historical evidence supports their pessimism.

Parker’s demonstration of the link between climate change and worldwide catastrophe 350 years ago stands as an extraordinary historical achievement.  And the contemporary implications of his study are equally important: are we at all prepared today for the catastrophes that climate change could bring tomorrow?  [emphasis added] 

Charging Environmental Protesters With Terrorism - The Potential Dangers of Glitter

A group of protesters from locked themselves to the entrance of Devon Towers in Oklahoma City.

Tulsa's Channel 9 report focused on the protesters.  The target, other than Devon Towers, is never mentioned.  The closest they come to explaining the reason for the protest was the term "anti-fracking protesters" and giving the names of the organizations sponsoring the protest:  "Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance and Cross Timbers Earth First."

The reporter, Lisa Monahan, says,

"although they had nothing to say to authorities, the protestors had plenty to say about their agenda."

What did we hear about their agenda?

"I don't know if I was scared, but I was angry."

That's it.  That's the plenty they had to say about their agenda.  Was the agenda in the original piece cut by the station editors?  It sure makes Monahan look bad. 

Channel 9 concludes the report with a list of charges that included:

"Biological attack by throwing an agent or substance"


According to one of the protesters,  Eric Whelan,

"the black substance was simply glitter,  it was just to make good pictures and video and to make it pretty."

The Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance website gives us more explanation about the protesters' target and agenda: 

Devon Energy is a key player in the deadly tar sands industry. And though Devon Energy has been touted as practicing the safest and greenest form of tar sands extraction, the form of extraction that Devon practices, steam assisted gravity drainage, emits 2.5x the greenhouse emissions as open mining according to the Pembina Institute. Additionally, since 80% of tar sands reserves lie too deep within the earth to mine, this type of extraction will utilize 30x more land area than open mining.
“I’m opposed to the industry’s blatant disregard for human wellbeing in the pursuit of profit,” said Cory Mathis of Austin, TX—one of the activists locked down inside Devon. “These industries poison countless communities, often deceive and coerce folks into signing contracts, and when that doesn’t work, they use eminent domain to steal the land. Texas and Oklahoma have long been considered sacrifice zones for the oil and gas industry, and people have for the most part learned to roll over and accept the sicknesses and health issues that come with the temporary and unsustainable boost in employment.”

TransCanada Teaching Police and FBI how to use Terrorism laws to prosecute protesters

Vice.com puts this into a larger context of TransCanada training police and FBI on how to use anti-terrorism laws to prosecute environmental protestors.

When they got to jail, they found out they were being charged with a "terrorism hoax," a state felony punishable by up to ten years in prison.
Their attorney, Doug Parr, has been involved in dozens of protest cases like this one in Oklahoma and Texas. In other arrests, protesters have faced trumped-up charges, but this is a radical escalation. "I've been practicing law since the 1970s. Quite frankly, I've been expecting this," Parr said. "Based upon the historical work I've been involved in, I know that when popular movements that confront the power structure start gaining traction, the government ups the tactics they employ in order to disrupt and take down those movements."
TransCanada has been putting pressure on law enforcement to do exactly that. In documents obtained by Bold Nebraska, the company was shown briefing police and the FBI on how to prosecute anti-pipeline protesters as terrorists.
In Ohio, the Athens County Emergency Management Agency recently held a training drill that involved a fake anti-fracking group. The scenario was meant to prepare emergency first responders for a terrorist attack. Focusing the training on non-violent environmentalists caused such an uproar that the county had to issue a public apology.

Image from KWTV

Look at Sarah Totten as she was interviewed by KWTV channel 9 Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Image from KWTV

And here's Eric Whalen interviewed by KWTV.










Above are two of the protesters from tv news screenshots.  They looked terribly normal and non threatening.  But here is another set of pictures that Channel 9 says were the four who were arrested.  It takes these clean cut white kids (yeah, we're profiling here) and makes them look a lot edgier.  I'm not sure if this image was from the television station or from the police. In both cases, it's problematic. 

Image from KWTV

I'd note that before I wrote this post, I did a bit of googling to be sure I was getting the story reasonably correctly.  I do this when responding to stories I find online to be sure I'm not responsible for spreading hoax stories like the one the Anchorage Daily News reported about a SF school that was reported to having suspended a kid for wishing an atheist teacher a Merry Christmas.  That story quotes a psychologist on how we tend to believe what we want to believe:

"We tend to apply lower standards of evidence to information that confirms our predispositions," said Brendan Nyhan, assistant professor of government at Dartmouth College. "What that means in practice is people seize onto these online nuggets that confirm what they believe.
"They're certainly unlikely to seek out information to see if it's true."
Yet research shows that even if confronted with a correction to false information, it won't change people's minds, he said.
"Even in the case where someone accepts that this story is false, it isn't clear that they'll accept an actual 'war on Christmas' is false," Nyhan said. "No one thinks they're misinformed."

 This doesn't just apply to conservatives who seemed to have been the major group that keep this atheist story spreading.  Liberals can be just as vulnerable.  So constantly check your crap detectors and make sure they are working.   

AIFF 2013: Tuesday, From Mozambigue to Taiwan And Some Alaska Winter Surfing

We took a friend to see Hank and Asha because it's so good.  We were going to see two docs and then get her home and then to the Bear Tooth.  We had to make some adjustments.  We saw the first film, The Guide which was a feel good film about a young man whose ambition is to be a tour guide at the Gorongosa National Park.  He's clearly very bright and a favorite of the foreigners working to develop the park.  We get to see him guide E.O. Wilson, the great biologist and ant expert.  The exchange between the 82 year old scientist and the young man is wonderful to watch. 

Our friend had gone in with us and the film ended just in time for Hank and Asha and we skipped out and watched Hank and Anna for the second time.  I was surprise to see James and Julia, the film makers there since they'd told me they were flying out before this showing.  (I put up video of the film makers in an earlier post.)  It turned out their flight was delayed due to weather in Chicago, so they got to answer questions after the film.  It's really a feel good film.  You can put it on your Netflix list, it's due out in April. 

Then to the Bear Tooth for the Taiwan and Gay-la movie Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?  A fine movie about a guy who's been married nine years but it turns out he was actively gay before he got married and thought he could leave it behind.  But someone comes into his life.  It was very nicely done.  Unfortunately, it doesn't play again. 

And then back for the 9:45 by-popular-demand Alaska Sessions:  Surfing The Last Frontier.  This is an unexpected little jewel as they go by boat from Sitka to Homer for a month in the winter finding places to surf.  It breaks all the ice-box stereotypes of Alaska and the old body surfer in me could sit and watch them ride the waves all night.  A little less hyping Alaska would have made it a better film.  There's no need to tell people that Alaska is actually livable. 

Note:  The iPhone app apparently gave some people the wrong time for Hank and Asha and there's a chance - since the little theater was totally full - that another showing will be arranged, maybe Saturday.  Stay posted.  This is definitely worth seeing. 

Excuse the typos please.  These late night showings are killing me. 

AIFF2013: Documentaries In Competition - From Freeze Drying Your Pet and Harlem Blues, to Selling Kidneys and Antarctica

First the films are selected from all those submitted.  Then a certain number from each category is  selected to be 'in competition'' meaning these are the finalists eligible for an award in the category.  The documentary category has, if I counted right, 32 selected films (18 under 30 minutes and 14 over 30 minutes)  and 11 are 'in competition.'   Of these, three are under 30 minutes and the other eight above.

Films come from:  

• New Zealand/Antarctica
• Afghanistan/USA
• USA
• France
• Canada

• China/USA
• Mozambique
• United Kingdom/USA 
• Sweden
• Thailand (it's listed as USA, but the filmmaker is a Thai living in the US)

This is a fairly long list, so I'm going to list the documentaries in competition here with minimal information about each film and in reverse alphabetical order. (The A's shouldn't always be at the top of the list.)

The documentaries was one of the best categories last year with lots of outstanding films that weren't in competition.  So look beyond this list when you are looking for docs at the festival.  The audience favorite last year wasn't in competition. 

1)  The Words I Love

From images I got from the filmmaker

Thanachart Siripatrachai

USA

17m

"I come from Thailand. I am a bookish person and always carry a book with me. In my first year in New York City, I did not know that there was a dictionary on my cellphone. When I found a word I did not know, I would ask a stranger sitting next to me to explain the meaning. I was fascinated by our conversations. Later, I started to record their voices and put them together in this documentary to explore the issue of language."  From Glovebox.

Here's a link to a blog post of Benz' (Thanachart's nickname) project to wake people up from their eyes- glued-to-their-smartphones in the Bangkok subway, by shouting random words and then taking a picture of the people looking up at him.

And here's a link to his website which has some of his photos.



2)  The Guide

Jessica Yu

Mozambique

40m.

From the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation:

"The Guide  is a coming-of-age tale set against the restoration of a war-torn national park in Mozambique. Raised near Gorongosa National Park, young Tonga Torcida dreams of becoming a tour guide. But when he meets famed biologist E.O. Wilson, his new view of the world around him—and his future—places him at a crossroads. Should Tonga become a guide, or take on a bigger role in trying to keep the park alive?"

3)  Tales from Organ Trade
Ric Esther Bienstock
Canada 
82m
http://www.talesfromtheorgantrade.com/index.html

This film shows us the people who sell their organs because they need the cash and the people who buy them because they want to live and explores the ethics of the whole situation.






4)  McConkey
Murray Wais, Rob Bruce, Scott Gaffney, David Zieff, and Steve Winter
USA
109m

I'm guessing this one will have long lines at the Bear Tooth.  It's the kind of movie that draws a big audience in Anchorage.  Ski daredevils and one in particular.   Get your tickets in advance for this one if you want to get in.  Let's hope they schedule it a couple of times. 

“McConkey” is a heartfelt examination of the legacy one athlete left to the progression of his sports, and the path he paved to conquer his dreams. Shane McConkey is revered as a pioneer of freeskiing and ski-BASE jumping, and through his talent and ability to use his trademark irreverent humor, he inspired countless lives. In a new film from Red Bull Media House in association with Matchstick Productions, “McConkey” celebrates the life of one of the world’s ultimate innovators.

 
5) Lion Ark

Tim Phillips

United Kingdom/USA

97m

From the film's website:

Lion Ark is a vivid behind the scenes account of probably the most ambitious animal rescue ever undertaken, the finale of which sees 25 lions rescued from illegal traveling circuses across Bolivia being flown to safety in the USA.
A shocking undercover investigation leads to a ban on animal circuses in Bolivia. But the circuses defy the law. The team behind the investigation return, track down the illegal circuses and save every animal. We follow the confrontations, heartache and risks the team face, before an emotional finale sees 25 lions airlifted 5,000 miles to freedom in Colorado.

6) I, Slomo

Joshua Izenberg
USA

17 min

Neurologist drops out of rat race to slow motion roller blade.

Video is from the film's Kickstarter page

7)  Himalayan Gold Rush 
Eric Valli 
France 
48m.

"Every spring, in a remote part of Nepal, tens of thousands of men, women and children leave their villages for a dangerous trek to the high Himalaya, sometimes at the cost of their lives, to collect Yarsagumbu - a mysterious transmutation between plant and insect. Used in Chinese medicine, it is worth up to 60,000 USD a kilo – more than gold! " 

8) Harlem Street Singer
Trevor Laurence
USA
77m.


From the Harlem Street Singer website:

"Harlem Street Singer, the first-ever film to tell the little-known story of Reverend Gary Davis, the great ragtime and gospel musician. Tracing his journey from the tobacco warehouses of the rural south to the streets of Harlem, the film is a revealing portrait of an artist who impacted the musical landscape of folk music and endeared himself to musicians such as Pete Seeger, Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Jorma Kaukonen, David Bromberg, Bob Dylan and countless others. In addition to interviews, the storyline features audio recordings from Woody Mann’s guitar lessons with Davis, archival footage, rediscovered photographs, concert and informal musical sequences by the Reverend as well as contemporary artists who have been influenced by him. Harlem Street Singer celebrates the beauty and spirituality of his music as well as the human qualities that made Reverend Davis a much beloved teacher and minister. This is the exciting story of an American musical icon whose legacy continues to live on in today’s music scene."

9)  Grand Rescue

Meredith Lavitt and Jenny Wilson 

USA

48m

There was something about the trailer that suggests a gripping film. And the mountain climbing rescue story should appeal to Alaskans.  And this one had it's premier just a couple of days ago - Nov. 5 - so we'll be among the first to see it. 




From The Grand Rescue website:

"It was August 22nd around 2:00 pm when a young graduate student and his female climbing companion became stranded on a narrow ledge 13,000 feet high. A boulder had broken free and showered the climbers with rock fall leaving Gaylord Campbell with protruding compound fractures. The young national park rangers quickly went to work, relying on innate skill, instinct and trust. History was about to be made...the rescue was the first one on the feared North Face - an unprecedented rescue for its time, due to the climber's severe injuries and unknown terrain."

10)  Furever

Amy FInkel

USA

80m

Learn how to freeze dry your pet.  Actually, it's a look at people who get their pets freeze dried and the people who will do it for them.

11)  Backyard
Deia Schlosberg
USA
28m
 

“Backyard” is a story of seeing broadly and considering the greater good. Told via animations and people's experiences with fracking."  From the Backyard Kickstarter page.

Hell's Gate Tram - Hiking Down - Open Coal Trains

"Originally perceived as a major obstacle to travel between the Coast and the Interior, the Canyon over time became the principal route for commercial and passenger traffic.  Originally dangerous in the extreme, travel through the Canyon was always a formidable prospect, although today's vastly-improved modern highway does not hint at the once terrifying and difficult journey that clung to the mountain's walls as if by sheer nerve.  Simon Fraser's journals speak of having to traverse sections of the canyon by a series of precipitous ladders and rock-climbs, and although several generations of road-builders had a crack at it (from 1859 onwards), the route remained a dizzying cliff-hanger until major highway improvements began in the later 1950s."

Before we got out of the canyon, we  stopped at Hell's Gate tram parking lot for lunch.  We made some sandwiches and checked out the tram office.  $21 to ride the tram - 1000 feet down into the gorge and their tourist shops and restaurant.  Not for us.

(I thought I'd written on this before and I do have a post that focuses on how the original work in the canyon resulted in disaster for the salmon and the people who lived off the salmon.)  

Another couple talked to the guy at the tram and when they passed us said there was a trail to the bottom that only took half an hour.

We walked along a path, under the red bridge to the other parking lot and then came to another parking lot.  The trail was wide enough for a vehicle, but gated off.  And it was a beautiful forest.  The sign said 1 km - a little more than half a mile. 

 This mourning cloak butterfly was flying and resting near me so, I thought I should get a picture. 




It was was definitely down hill, but not bad.  At the bottom there were no trespassing signs and danger signs, but I figured if they guy had said you could walk down, I'd do it.

From the bottom, here's one of the trams.  It took about 15 minutes to get down and 20 to get back up.  But you do have to cross the railroad tracks and given the long trains we saw, you could get stuck.  I decided I didn't need the touristy stuff - the tram website says:

Facilities include:  Simon’s Cafe, Gold Panner Gift Shop, Education Centre, Fudge Factory, Gold Panning, Simon’s Wall, Observation Decks & Suspension Bridge.

 I was more interested in the walk and the gorge.  The water must have been low because it wasn't the rushing torrent I was expecting.

Shortly after I got back over the tracks and started my return trip to the highway, this coal train came by.  I was amazed to see the coal transported in open cars.  Was there something I was missing?  I didn't see any coal dust going into the air, but it was a warm, windless day.

So I checked. 


 Coal Train Facts, a website opposed to shipping coal from Montana to Cherry Point in northwest Washington for shipment to China outlines coal dust concerns:

Because most coal trains are uncovered, they produce significant amounts of coal dust in the course of transporting the coal from one place to another. According to BNSF research, 500 pounds to a ton of of coal can escape a single loaded car. Coal dust is regarded as a nuisance, as the dust can damage the ballast and, the railway claims, cause derailments.  BNSF asks that shippers pay for dust mitigation; shippers typically balk at paying. The Puget Sound coast line is notoriously rainy and windy; it is unclear as to how effective surfactants might be at containing the pulverized coal in adverse weather. There seem to be no guarantees that dust would successfully be controlled en route from the mines to the port. 

Dust is also generated at the terminal site, as bulldozers continually shift and rotate the ground-up coal. Constant turnover is required to both keep the coal in one area, and also to prevent spontaneous combustion.  Wind and moisture can agitate the combustive properties of coal. The potential adverse effects of coal dust on adjacent sites was a factor in the Port of Vancouver rejecting a proposal to export coal from a new export site there. The dust is notoriously difficult to control, and has proven to be a concern for residents close to Westshore, the coal port in BC. The coal at the proposed GPT terminal will be stored in open heaps on 80-105 acres located in proximity to the Cherry Point Aquatic Reserve. Cherry Point can be buffeted by high winds, winter conditions often see wind gusts in the 60-70 knot range. It seems likely that the wind will agitate the heaped, pulverized coal. 

The leaching of toxic heavy metals from coal ash into water supplies is a proven problem. Exposure to arsenic, cadmium, barium, chromium, selenium, lead and mercury can cause any number of health problems, including cancers and neurological diseases.  It is unknown if and to what extent these heavy metals might leach out from the coal and/or fugitive coal dust, from the train cars and at the terminal storage site, into local water supplies and into the marine environment. There are potential implications for the safety of the water we drink and the seafood we eat.
- See more at: http://www.coaltrainfacts.org/key-facts#sthash.kjyRH0uH.dpuf

The pro coal side, represented by Freedom Works in this case, tends to pick at the details, but essentially seems to acknowledge the problems - just not where the environmentalists say.  Here's an example (which doesn't refer to the quote above): 

That passage from the white paper is instructive for a couple of other reasons. The author cites derailments and the average amount of dust lost from coal cars, but he does not say WHERE these things occur. It turns out that the two derailments in 2005 happened on the short Powder River Basin line, not far from the train's point of origin. It was attributed to coal dust fouling the ballast used as a bed for the rails. Regarding the amount of coal dust lost, what the enviros never tell you is WHERE that dust is lost. It doesn't take much effort to realize that most of the dust will be lost at the point of origin - near the mine where the cars are loaded. The further the train travels away from the loading point, the more the load will settle, meaning that less dust is going to blow away. The environmental extremist way of explaining this is to say, "It is unclear how much coal dust might escape in the Pacific Northwest ..."

Juan did a much better job of getting pictures of the spot than I did.  Check his site.

Anchorage To Seattle Day 5: Hazelton to Lac La Hache

Day 4 got us from the northern end of the Cassiar Highway all the way down to where it connected to the Yellowhead Highway (37).   This is what it looked like Thursday morning.



We'd begun at the Seeley Lake campground which was a lovely spot with nice campsites, but right up against the highway with lots of trucks going by all night.

Seeley Lake

I put up a picture of the Skeena Bakery, a few miles from the campground, at the end of yesterday's post.

Once off the Cassiar, we're out of the wilder country and coming into more civilized territory.  There are still lots of trees, but the forest areas are broken up by lots of small towns and farmland.  We saw lots of timber trucks and here and there stacks of dead trees.

It's hard driving and taking pictures so this isn't too representative of the land we passed through.  We stopped for lunch at Burns Lake.

Burns Lake

Reading the local paper in the New Leaf Cafe, we saw that there's lots of local opposition to the Enbridge pipeline that would take oil to the British Columbia coast.  

Trips like these run well with audio books.  We'd listened to Eowyn Ivey's The Snow Child out of Alaska and into the Yukon and Cassiar.  I hate to be churlish - anyone who actually writes a whole novel has my admiration.  And an Alaskan first novelist who wins international awards is something I want to support.  But I felt somewhat like this commenter at the Guardian:

"The descriptions of landscape are good.
I liked the way the women in the book were described which was not stereotypical.
But the actual story became boring because it was so obvious what was going to happen at each stage. Also the interpretation that wove myth and reality was often clumsy. Needed more hard thought how to make it work. It was a good concept but the author needed a bit of help and editing support."

The blending of supernatural and real is tricky.  And as the next book began - Walter Mosley's The Gift of Fire - I thought I had an example of an experienced writer doing this much better.  And that was true at first.  He didn't fuss trying to explain things - he had confidence that the reader would figure it out.  And it's much, much shorter.  But it too seemed to struggle to hold together what it started.  Both books though had lots of good insights into human beings and how they tick.  And a number of reviewers had much more positive things to say.  For many Alaska was an exotic setting.  For me it was home, though nearly a century ago and in harder times.

I realized yesterday that many readers have no idea where the places I've been writing about on this trip are.  The map below started in The Milepost and I've added white stars to mark Day 4 and bluish ones for Day 5.  Day 4 began about 60 miles south of the junction between the Alaskan Highway (also known as the Alcan) and the Cassiar Highway. Day 5 has us rejoining the red line from the Alcan at Prince George.

I saved it pretty big and if you click on it, you can see it a little better.

 

We were trying to make it to Lac La Hache to have dinner at the Edelweis restaurant which I've written about in a previous trip.  But when we pulled up at 7:30pm, the closed sign was already up.  But we did have this great sky to console us.  And a full moon came up a little later.  And it felt much warmer than it had been.   

We made it to Seattle this evening and I'll do more on today's trip later.