Mailbag: ‘Empty Plate’ is high in culture content

If you haven’t seen “An Empty Plate in the Café du Grand Boeuf” at the Laguna Playhouse, I urge you to do so.

The playhouse’s aptly titled artistic director, Andrew Barnicle, selected and directs this delightful play by Michael Hollinger. The comedic actors each develop their character, and nothing is as it seems.

There are numerous references to Ernest Hemingway and gourmet dishes and there’s the best bullfight sans bull you’ll ever see.

We here in Laguna Beach are blessed to have an abundance of art within easy reach.

Master Glass Blower artist John Barber was recently interviewed by Bill Harris at “Inside Studio Art” and quoted Kevin Spacey. Spacey is artistic director of Old Vic, London’s famed Royal Victoria Theater.

Spacey said, “In these turbulent times our concepts of what we value are being reconsidered. Banks may collapse, individuals might display unprecedented levels of greed, innocent people may become casualties. But what we can rely on is our creativity, our inspiration, and our passion.”

When asked about this statement, Spacey continued, “I believe in arts and culture and I believe far from being a luxury item they are a necessity in our lives, and first of all I think that can be said “” that we need the arts for our common good, both as people and as nations. Because countries may go to war but it’s culture that unites us.”

Enjoy an a few hours of culture and comedy at the Laguna Playhouse this month.

KATY MOSS

Laguna Beach

Editor’s note: Katy Moss is a Playhouse Women Charter member.

Why the steelhead is important to Aliso Creek

Drought cycles and resulting fresh water resource depletion renew the century-old battle in California to find a sustainable balance of protected wilderness and increased human population demands in our home state. Many of these skirmishes wind up in courtrooms, the issues confused in the layperson’s mind by the labyrinth of regulatory edicts and hearing room proceedings.

Portrayed in the media as pitting “Humans vs. Nature,” zero-sum games, many residents are unaware of the nexus between preservation and restoration of ecosystems for threatened or endangered species and improved safe environs for us all.

A recent decision by NOAA’s National Marines Fisheries Service due to years of lobbying by the Clean Water Now! Coalition provides an excellent example of how these local grass roots efforts succeed in assuring future generations of the heritage they and their children deserve.

The Clean Water Now! Coalition is a watershed protection group focused upon reversing the water quality impairments that affect aquatic and riparian biota.

In the case of Aliso Creek, a renowned polluted watercourse rife with the “toxic soup” of urban runoff, we find the formal recognition in February by National Marine Fisheries of the creek as one of Southern California’s Distinct Population Segments for the federally endangered steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) to be fortuitous.

Illegal dumping, past and present, of contaminants upstream that have impacted spans of decades haunt this and many of California’s watersheds. Increasing urbanization continues a drip feed of carcinogenic substances unabated through runoff.

Frustrated by little change in the watershed for years, several years ago board member Mike Hazzard and I formed a working group, Friends of the Aliso Creek Steelhead ( www.alisocreeksteelhead.org).

The only watchdog organization to achieve any significant enforcement actions by Cal/EPA within the Aliso Creek Watershed, we knew that water quality and habitat monitoring continued to show degradation and entropy. Many indigenous species populations were either decimated or non-existent due to abuse. We were confounded by local jurisdictional denial of steelhead historical presence in Aliso, so we developed a database to support our contention and provided it to the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Sometimes a fountain pen or the tap of a few computer terminal keys by regulatory overseers can do what threats, cajoling, demands and even sound science cannot. In this case, O. mykiss also enjoys a more elevated status because it qualifies as an Evolutionary Significant Unit: It is a separate species from its cousins, unique to the Mediterranean climate of Southern California and Northern Baja Mexico.

“Anadromous,” it migrates from salt to fresh (where it spawns) back to salt water during its life-cycle, and you may know it as the beautiful multi-colored rainbow trout, its resident incarnation. Adapted to the warmer, more ephemeral coastal streams of our area, this opportunistic salmonoid can survive environs with less oxygen than its northerly counterparts. Remarkably, it need not return to the watercourse or estuary where it was born.

If a stream has steelhead in it, then one can assume it’s safe and healthy enough for human immersion. This is what USEPA Clean Water Act guidance requires of these types of waters “fishable and swimmable.” O. mykiss’ three primary necessities, low toxicity, low temperature and high dissolved oxygen content are the markers biologists have encouraged our state public agencies to honor for optimal water quality objectives and standards. What’s good for the steelhead all over California is therefore actually good for humans too.

What’s next? For us the sustaining of our contention regarding O. mykiss by National Marine Fisheries will assist us in reversing the distress within this watershed. Higher standards will be integrated in the regulatory oversight food chain, almost every water-related project will get closer planning scrutiny and hopefully not require litigation or enforcement action to do so.

For the steelhead it’ll mean eventual restoration and recolonization, a Southern California native fish given a chance to finally come safely home again. Someday, a child will gaze into this creek with wonder and awe at this amazing survivor, if we’re successful.

ROGER VON BÃœTOW

New York hotel taxes are sky-high

We recently returned from New York City where we stayed at a hotel. In addition to the room rate, there was a state tax, city tax, occupancy tax-state and occupancy tax-city. These added about 16% to the room rate.

JIM KREDER

Laguna Beach

Take action against butt-tossers

According to the Ocean Conservancy, cigarette butt litter accounts for one in every five items collected during cleanups, making it the most prevalent form of litter on Earth. Cigarette butts are composed of cellulose acetate, a form of plastic, which can take many (estimated two to 25) years to decompose. Cigarette butts may seem small, but with several trillion butts littered every year, the toxic chemicals add up!

When you see motorists tossing their butts out the window, call Surfrider’s Cigarette Butt Litter Hotline at (877) 211-2888 and leave a message with the vehicle make/model, license plate number and location, time and day of the incident. We work with local law enforcement to make sure drivers are reminded that littering is against the law and bad for the environment.

It is a never-ending battle but someone has to fight.

RICK ERKENEFF

Editor’s note: Rick Erkeneff is chairman of the Surfrider Foundation South Orange County Chapter.