Mooring off the Pier...

No full-scale environmental study will be conducted before Belmont Pier mooring begins this summer, according to a 2-1 vote from the Long Beach City Council Planning Commission Thursday night.

The recently passed motion will only provide 45 of the intended 90 buoys, allowing people to park their boats for no more than 10 days at a time. Waste disposal, handled by a private contractor, will tend to all sanitary pump-out services. There is little talk of any other water activities besides building the actually buoys.

The project, despite its reductions and regulations, still has some critics disputing its lack of foresight for its impact on the environment.

The Belmont Pier website said that Long Beach has a unique breakwater system, permitting low-energy wave activities like wind sailing, row boating and canoeing.

Certainly unique, though perhaps not an ideal location for water sports, Long Beach has many problems that some organizations, Like Surfrider, disapprove of.

Unfortunately, very few people spend time on the actual shores of Long Beach. The most popular watering holes in Long Beach are Mother’s Beach or Alamitos Bay; even in mid-July, Long Beach is practically deserted. A year-old survey on Long Beach residents, shows that their favorite beach to go to is not Long Beach, but Bolsa Chica.

Even fewer people spend time on the pier. Pier-goers are usually recreational fishermen, not required to have a fishing permit on the structure.

On the main Belmont Memorial Pier web page, the site declares: “In the near future we will offer boat moorings, shore boat service, fishing boat charters, catamaran rides, water craft rentals, a restaurant and banquet facility at the end of the pier and from an information kiosk at the beginning of the pier, we will offer, for rent: bikes, skates, surrey bikes, umbrellas and beach chairs.”

This page also states that these activities will take place in the Summer, 2006, but have not transpired.

The Belmont Memorial Pier Buoy Mooring project, approved after much debate, will most certainly further augment Long Beach’s severely human-impacted coast. Since there has been no environmental study required to predict human effects of waste dispersal and pollution, these impacts are yet to be determined.

The links below provide a good bit of current debate and insight.

Belmont Pier website:

http://www.belmontpier.com/future.htm

Revised Mooring project details:

http://www.longbeach.gov/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=13061

Press Telegram article:

http://www.presstelegram.com/search/ci_5814241

City of Long Beach Plan:

http://www.ci.long-beach.ca.us/civica/press/display.asp?layout=4&Entry=1304

Surfrider article:

http://lbsurfrider.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=63&Itemid=46

L.A.: now serving 4 million mouths...

California’s population became roughly equal to the entire country of New Zealand’s in January, 2007.

If you live in the state, look around. It may be crowded, traffic may be at a stand still and lines may be long.

Southern Calif. is especially impacted by the population explosion. Major cities like Los Angeles and Irvine have seen substantial growth since the 1950s.

Edward Soja, a professor of urban planning at UCLA, is concerned that Southern Calif. is not currently structured to provide for so many people.

In an L.A. Times article Soja said, "I would say never before is it more needed to have some form of regional coordination, whether we are talking about housing and homelessness or transportation and airports or environment and pollution."

Imagine though, how such a dense population can impact the environment for both humans and other organisms.

From a biological standpoint, competition among members of a species is fierce, namely when resources are scarce. This applies to Homo sapiens too.

This same L.A. Times article cites that the newspaper used to celebrate milestones for the state, such as the 1 million mark in 1923 and the 1.5 million mark in 1940. But, like an older woman, California’s not celebrating the population growth.

National Geographic highlights the repercussions of urban sprawl and overpopulation in cities. Read the link, see if the shoe fits.

National Geographic article:

http://green.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/urban-threats2.html

L.A. Times article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/la-me-population2may02,1,6032019.story