MAN STABBED DURING ROBBERY ATTEMPT IN LA MESA
August 26, 2013 (La Mesa) – Late Saturday night, La Mesa Police were called to the emergency room at Alvarado Hospital to investigate a stabbing. The victim suffered two stab wounds to his thigh that are not considered life threatening. The victim reported to police that the stabbing occurred around 8:50 p.m. in the 7500 block of El Cajon Boulevard in La Mesa The victim said he was waiting for a friend to give him a ride when he was approached by two males and a fight ensued over his property. The victim fought back and did not lose his property in the robbery attempt. The suspects were described by the victim as two black males, possibly of Somali decent, both in their late teens or early twenties. One was armed with a knife. The suspects were both wearing dark hooded sweatshirts and blue jeans. After the altercation, the victim reported seeing the suspects running east along El Cajon Boulevard from the scene. There is no further information on the two suspects at this time. Anyone with further information related to this investigation is encouraged to call the La Mesa Police Department. You may also call Crime Stoppers’ anonymous toll-free tip line at (888) 580-TIPS (or visit www.sdcrimestoppers.com). You can remain anonymous, and be eligible for a reward of up to $1,000 for information in this case.
HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS ROSE AND MAX SCHINDLER SPEAK OUT AT GROSSMONT COLLEGE
By Rebecca Jefferis Williamson August 26, 2013 (El Cajon) – “The smell of burning bodies was 24 hours a day. Some put their hands on the electric wires and died…killed themselves,” said Rose Schindler, Holocaust survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. Rose and her husband Max were at Grossmont College to give a talk on their shared experiences during the Holocaust to students of the Summer Institute Program (S.I.P.) on July 22. Their goal is to make sure that the world never forgets the horror of the Holocaust, in hopes that such a tragedy will never happen again. Don Harrison, acting director of College and Community Affairs, said the Schindler’s presentation was to the S.I.P. students “who just graduated from high school and are from immigrant families or come from disadvantaged families and are the first to go to college in their family.” Rose, 83, first started giving presentations on her experiences in Auschwitz when her son, Steven, attended Louis Junior High and found it would benefit her son and other students if she shared her experiences as a Holocaust survivor. “We have to do this because everyone is getting older,” Rose pointed out. “I was 14, taken in 1944,” she explained. “I lived on a farm, lots of land. We had everything we needed. No stores in town, no dress stores, one shoe store, butlers.” But later, she recalled, “Things started getting hard. Non- Jewish kids who were friends and neighbors started getting mean to us. Throwing rocks. Forty percent of the town (Seredne, Hungary) was Jewish. We were told ‘If you don’t behave we will shoot you.’ Many non-Jewish people worked for the Jews. When were went back there hoping to see old timers, people we knew, we were told ‘When Jewish people were here we never had it so good.’” Eventually Rose and her family were shipped by cattle cars to the concentration camp. Rose was imprisoned at Auschwitz; she eventually ended up in a work camp. Only Rose and her two older sisters survived. “Dinner was soup—rice, cabbage, or potato– and dirt,” Rose said. Pans used to cook the soup were not always washed. “There are no words to describe Auschwitz. I was there three to four months, she recalled. “I was in a long time because I was not selected to go to the slave labor camps. You either got the labor camps or the gas chamber.” “There were no blankets, no pillows, and no mattresses. The smell of burning bodies was 24 hours a day,” continued Rose, “Some put their hands on the electric wires and died…killed themselves.” “Who looked them in their eyes?” said Rose when asked what the guards’ eyes reflected. Her husband, Max, was freed from Theresienstadt. They met after the war in England and married and then moved to the states. They ended up in San Diego where they started a family and a business. Max spent time in five different working camps. Times were “tough, difficult,” he recalled. “You had to focus on yourself.” He worked digging ditches, doing roadwork, and shoveling coal at the age of 13 to 16. “The salt mines that I worked at in Wielka, Poland, are a tourist site now,” he said. “There was no sanitation, no latrines…You washed yourself in a horse trough,” he said of life in the work camps. “There were three levels of bunks with one blanket for three people.” Food included coffee, soup, and just three ounces of bread at night. “If someone wants to know how we survived, it was because of having my father and brother with me and the sense of camaraderie,” Max said. But tragically, he added, “My father died right after we were freed.” Another hardship was the loss of education during the years he was a prisoner. “We lost all kinds of schooling during those years,” he noted. “All my trades after that were through self-determined, self-made.” After coming to America, he wound up working 26 years for General Dynamics in San Diego. Both Rose and Max are troubled by Holocaust deniers. “When I speak to groups, I want them to spread the word…that this did happen—this tragedy,” Max concluded. S.I.P. student, Cheyanne Roberts, of Ramona, one of about 50 in the audience, had read the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel in preparation, then reread it two more times. After the Schindlers’ presentation, Roberts said, “It reminded me of what I already knew, but it was eye-opening.”
FORMER CONGRESSMAN PATRICK KENNEDY ADDRESSES NEW MARIJUANA POLICY IN SAN DIEGO
By Janis Mork August 26, 2013 (San Diego) – “Bottom line – we’re all losers if we stay in the political advocacy. We need to get them on our side [and] come up with a political campaign that’s a winning campaign.” – Congressman Patrick Kennedy Former Congressman Patrick Kennedy spoke in San Diego recently about a new project that began in 2012 called Project SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana). A background on San Diego marijuana issues was addressed followed by Project SAM at the offices of California for Alcohol and Drug Free Use. Kennedy addressed new strategies on marijuana to San Diego officials and community leaders on July 1. Project SAM is a new marijuana policy initiative based on public health. The organization is a bipartisan alliance of lawmakers, scientists, and other concerned citizens who want to move beyond simplistic dichotomies of “incarceration versus legalization” and instead focus on practical changes to marijuana policy that neither demonizes users nor legalizes drugs. This approach uses science, public health, and public safety principles to guide marijuana policy. He gave an overview of the project and then participated in a Q & A. Project SAM has four goals: 1) to inform public policy with the science of today’s marijuana, 2) to reduce unintended consequences of current marijuana policies, such as lifelong stigma due to arrest, 3) to prevent the establishment of “Big Marijuana” and a 21st century tobacco industry that would market marijuana to children, which could result from legalization; and 4) to promote research on marijuana in order to obtain FDA-approved, pharmacy-dispensed cannabis-based medications. When someone suggested addressing misuse of prescription drugs and talking with doctors, Kennedy replied, “That is a fantastic idea.” In a recent UT-San Diego editorial article, Kennedy stated, “In Congress, I voted many times to allow access to medical marijuana. Those votes reflected my early, uneducated views. I never looked too closely – I didn’t realize ‘medical marijuana’ was the Trojan horse for legalization.” He explained, “Since leaving Congress, I have focused on promoting brain research to find better treatments for mental illness and other neurological disorders. I’ve learned from experts…The more I’ve learned about how the brain works, mental health and addiction, the stronger I feel we must engage in a smarter dialogue about marijuana policy…” (http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/jun/28/tp-pushing-a-health-first-approach-to-marijuana/). Kennedy participated in an exclusive interview with ECM. Asked when he started SAM, he said, “After the 2012 election, when two states voted to legalize marijuana – Colorado and Washington. Initially, I thought medical marijuana was harmless. We need to slow down before rushing into anything.” We also asked about the pill vs. smoked forms of marijuana: Q: Studies have shown that the pill lasts longer and does not have certain risks of smoking marijuana. Other findings suggest smoking provides faster relief. Also, one use of marijuana is to ease nausea, such as in chemotherapy patients, who may have difficulty holding down the pill. Why shouldn’t doctors have a choice of which form to prescribe – the pill or smoking based on their patients’ needs? A: Physicians ought to have that authority. Frankly, medical schools don’t give the proper training…Using the legitimate need of people and tragically exploiting it for recreational use — we need to guard against it. We also need to take a bigger picture of the inventory; do the risks outweigh the benefits? We need to know what studies show so we know what the consequences will be. The end result is that kids are using it, there’s a greater availability, perception of harm reduced, permissibility, and then more kids use it. If we know all these facts, we might be more reluctant to embrace this as an answer to anything. For more information about Kennedy and Project SAM, visit: http://www.patrickjkennedy.net and http://learnaboutsam.com.
RAMONA WATER DISTRICT BOARD SEEKS TO OUST MEMBER
By Miriam Raftery August 26, 2013 (Ramona) – The Ramona Water District Board is trying to oust one of its elected members. Last year, the board voted to change its meeting time from 4:30 to 2 o clock p.m. But the director, Kit Kesinger, was absent and says he can’t attend meetings so early in the day. He wants the board to change the time back to 4:30, when more members of the public can also attend. But the board has refused. Now Kesinger has missed 7 meetings over the past 90 days, and fellow directors have asked board President Darrell Beck to draft a letter of reprimand and ask for Kesinger’s resignation. Backers of Kesinger say that the board engineered the time change to stifle an underdog who has questioned back room deals, posts on the Ramona Sentinel’s website indicate. Ramona resident Don Kedick stated, “No one who is paying the water district bills can make a meeting at that time. We’re all working! The meetings should be at 7 p.m. The Ramona Water District is clearly in need of having the light of truth shown upon them.”
WATER AUTHORITY STRATEGIES ALIGN WITH GRAND JURY RECOMMENDATIONS
August 26, 2013 (San Diego) – The San Diego County Water Authority’s Board of Directors on Thursday said the agency is advancing plans that align with recommendations issued by the San Diego County Grand Jury in its May report, “Reduce Dependence on Imported Water.” The Water Authority and its 24 member agencies “will continue to implement programs and projects that encourage efficient water use through conservation and water recycling,” the Water Authority’s official response said. “Additional supply options are being pursued to address the multiple challenges to providing future water supply reliability.” The letter was submitted August 1 to comply with the Grand Jury’s deadline, and then ratified on Thursday by the Water Authority’s Board. “The Grand Jury’s articulate assessment of water issues benefits the entire region,” said Thomas V. Wornham, chair of the Water Authority’s Board. “It’s encouraging to have this kind of support for our mission as we craft water supply plans through 2035. We will continue diligently looking for cost-effective ways to enhance the county’s water supply portfolio and emergency safety net.” In May, the Grand Jury said the Water Authority “has made substantial progress in diversifying water supply sources.” It formally recommended that the Water Authority “continue to pursue a vigorous policy to lessen dependence on imported water by continued conservation, reuse and reclamation, additional emergency storage projects and new desalination projects.” It also recommended that the Water Authority “further demonstrate the economic feasibility of expansion of desalination projects to include a Camp Pendleton location.” The Water Authority said those recommendations are being implemented through various means, including the development of local groundwater and recycled water supplies, ongoing conservation efforts and the evaluation of seawater desalination options conducted in collaboration with Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. In addition, the Water Authority fully agreed with two findings issued by the Grand Jury – that desalination is a viable local source of water and that long-term local storage of water for use in emergencies is vital. The Water Authority partially disagreed with a third finding – that six months of water storage capacity for emergencies is insufficient. Based on projected growth, supply development and conservation, six months of capacity for emergency use remains adequate for responding to an earthquake or other catastrophic event for the next 20 or 30 years, according to the Water Authority. However, the agency is developing 100,000 acre-feet of additional storage at San Vicente Reservoir to address potential needs due to environmental restrictions on water deliveries, drought and other factors that can limit supply availability but don’t fall under the parameters of the Water Authority’s Emergency Storage Program. The Water Authority’s diversification strategy dates back to the early 1990s, when the agency relied on the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern California for up to 95 percent of its water. In 1991, a severe drought led to a 31 percent reduction in supplies for San Diego County, with threats of deeper cuts. In response, the Water Authority launched a long-term plan to increase water supply reliability through a series of investments in major infrastructure projects, water-transfer agreements and conservation measures. The agency helped craft the nation’s largest agriculture-to-urban water transfer in 2003 and embarked on a multi-billion dollar Capital Improvement Program that has substantially increased the region’s ability to move and store water by adding and expanding facilities. In addition, the Water Authority has promoted water-use efficiency through legislation, outreach and conservation upgrades such as low-flow toilets, weather-based irrigation controllers and water-efficient landscaping. Those efforts helped decrease regional water consumption by about 30 percent between 2007 and 2012. The Water Authority’s overall strategy has markedly reduced its reliance on MWD. In 2020, the San Diego region plans to meet 30 percent of its demand with water supplies from MWD, and the rest will come from its portfolio of other sources.
FOAMING PROJECT AIMS TO MINIMIZE ROOT INTRUSION IN LA MESA SEWER SYSTEM
August 26, 2013 (La Mesa) – The City of La Mesa began a process that minimizes root intrusion in its underground sewer system. Roots can enter the sewer through joints in older sewer pipes. Performing the sewer root foaming work is contractor Pacific Sewer Maintenance Corporation. Work began on August 22, 2013, and it will last between 30 to 45 days. There should be no disruptions to individual or business sewer services.
MILITARY VET/AUTHOR DELIVERS KEYNOTE SPEECH TO GROSSMONT COLLEGE
By Janis Mork August 26, 2013 (El Cajon) – On August 12, Brian Castner, author of The Long Walk, delivered a speech to faculty and staff at Grossmont College on how to reach out to military veterans. His book, The Long Walk, tells the story of Castner’s outward struggle of serving in combat and inward struggle to find himself again after he had been home for a couple years. “I felt like I went crazy.. I felt like I needed to explain myself,” Castner told ECM during an interview. So he wrote a book detailing his experiences. The book came out last year and is available online and in bookstores. He was in the Air Force as an Explosive Ordinance Officer (EOD) from 1999-2007 and deployed to Iraq to command bomb disposal units in Balad and Kirkuk in 2005 and 2006. “I was in the military bomb squad, working with different services,” he recalled, “and we tried to search for people making the devices.” He was in the Air Force ROTC at Marquette University and then joined the military after college when he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant. He now lives outside Buffalo, New York with his wife and four sons, and is a full-time writer. When asked what advice he would give to families going through what he’s been through, he answered, “Patience and loyalty. The biggest challenge is that they’re not understood.” Bridging the gap between the family and veteran isn’t easy, he noted. “Each family doesn’t need to solve the whole veteran’s crisis or trying to solve all of society’s issues with veterans,” he advised. “Just reach out to the one you’re closest with.. Be ready with that understanding and meet halfway.” Asked if there’s more that needs to be done for veterans, he replied, “That’s tough. You could always do more. There’s always going to be a gap between what the government can provide and what the vet needs…I’m really active with the EOD Warrior Foundation, you’re helping people you know best. There’s always going to be community groups,” he added of charitable efforts to help veterans. Asked if writing the book changed his perception of war, he replied, “I think writing and explaining did a little, but more so going through war itself.” He opened his speech by thanking college officials for inviting him to speak. “I love San Diego. San Diego is an interesting place to talk about veterans in our schools,” he said. Then he listed some facts. “As we’ve shrunk our military presence, what you end up with is a small military town and a lot of military people. I learned today that Grossmont College has 18,000 veterans. About 10% [of students] are military veterans.” He spoke of why he was chosen to speak on this topic. “I have no special qualifications, except I’m a vet and I wrote a book about it. I have plenty of struggles…Speaking for veterans is challenging. Everybody’s fought their own war; everybody’s different.” He explained the challenges and opportunities for veterans. “The big four are traumatic brain injury, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), suicide, and Veterans Administration (VA) backlog…I have a very mild traumatic brain injury from being very close to a bomb.” He listed some disturbing numbers. “One of the numbers is 19% of veterans kill themselves in the past (from a 2008 study). This year, the VA put the number at 22%. Among younger veterans, the number of people committing suicide is lower than the general public. The number one reason people tried to commit suicide in the military, but failed, is because of relationship issues.” He added that the number one thing veterans ask for is understanding. The number one thing veterans going back to school experience is a sense of loneliness because they had completely different set of experiences, he stated. He learned this when he had gone to a school in De Anza. “The feeling is ‘nobody knows what I’ve done.’ A lot of the time, veterans are in school and their [dead] friends aren’t. You just have a ghost looking over your shoulder wherever you go.” Another difficulty is the questions veterans are asked, such as, “Did you kill anyone?” Castner observes, “The answer for most of us is ‘Probably. We hope we didn’t.’” Another issue for veterans is the “warrior ethos that says ‘I don’t need help. I do things.’ It’s difficult to admit you need help,” he said. He has also advised veterans he has talked with to reach out to those in another country, such as joining the Peace Corps and helping people in poverty. He concluded, “Combat trauma is an injury and not a mental illness. When your brain gets blown up, it releases all sorts of chemicals. It can be an injury…you recover from. The good news is that 10% of students [here] are goal-oriented. They’re planners, they’re mission driven…They may be quiet or tired,” he said, adding, “They can also be a model student.” Then he answered some questions from the audience. One person asked, “In your opinion, why does the government send people to the same area when exposure is harmful?” Castner replied, “They keep sending people who have volunteered. Until you’re declared mentally unfit to go, you keep going. The government didn’t understand what effects the bomb had on the brain in the past. Now, you go through tests.” Someone else inquired, “Do you know of any efforts to bring vets and immigrants together in a dialogue?” Castner said, “That’s tough. It depends on which group it is. Nationally, [there’s] not a lot.” A woman asked, “Would veterans prefer to be in a collective class? Do they mind being asked if they’re veterans? I thank veterans for their service. Do they like that?” Castner told her, “I’m not sure if veterans like the attention drawn on them. When people thank me, I don’t know what to say. We so overly support; we put bumper stickers on a car.
EARTHTALK®: FOOD WASTE TO ENERGY
August 26, 2013 (San Diego) – Dear EarthTalk: Might another possible source for ethanol be discarded pastries from bakeries? For that matter, wouldn’t fermenting unsold bananas, oranges and apples from grocery store produce departments be able to provide an ample supply of fuel? — Curious in Warren, PA Food waste is indeed an untapped resource with great potential for generating energy. Some one third of all food produced around the world gets discarded uneaten, and environmentalists, energy analysts and entrepreneurs are beginning to take notice. Diverting even just a portion of this waste to so-called waste-to-energy (WTE) systems could free up large amounts of landfill space while powering our vehicles and heating our homes, and thus putting a significant dent in our collective carbon footprint. Perhaps that’s why WTE is one of the fastest growing segments of the world’s quickly diversifying energy sector. Currently there are some 800 industrial-scale WTE plants in more than three dozen countries around the world, and likely thousands of smaller systems at individual sites. Most employ anaerobic digesters, which make use of microorganisms to break down and convert organic waste into a fuel such as biogas, biodiesel or ethanol. With some 70 percent of food waste around the world still going into landfills, there is a lot of potential feedstock to keep this environmentally friendly carbon neutral fuel source coming. “Waste-to-energy doesn’t involve drilling, fracking, or mining, and it doesn’t rely on scarce and politically-charged resources like oil,” reports RWL Water Group, an international company that installs water, wastewater and waste-to-energy systems. The waste from small slaughterhouses, breweries, dairy farms and coffee shops can power hundreds of typical homes each day if the infrastructure is in place to sort, collect and process the flow of organic material. Navigant Research, which produced the 2012 report “Waste-to-Energy Technology Markets, which analyzes the global market opportunity for WTE, expects waste-to-energy to grow from its current market size of $6.2 billion to $29.2 billion by 2022. “With many countries facing dramatic population growth, rapid urbanization, rising levels of affluence, and resource scarcity, waste-to-energy is re-establishing itself as an attractive technology option to promote low carbon growth in the crowded renewable energy landscape,” says Navigant’s Mackinnon Lawrence. “China is already in the midst of scaling up capacity, and growth there is expected to shift the center of the WTE universe away from Europe to Asia Pacific.” The question is whether governments and individuals will make the effort to support diversion of waste into yet another separate stream. In areas where such systems are working, individuals are incentivized to separate out their organic and food waste because it saves them money on their trash pick-up bills. And bakeries, restaurants, farms, grocers and other big producers of organic or food waste provide an endless source of feedstock for WTE systems as well. “We’re barely scratching the surface of this potential—dumping over 70 percent of the world’s food waste into landfills, rather than harnessing it for fuel and electricity,” reports RWL. “Over the next 25 years, global energy demand will grow by 50 percent, while global oil supply dwindles at a rapid pace. Waste-to-energy is an obvious solution to meet the world’s burgeoning energy demand.” CONTACTS: RWL Water Group, www.rwlwater.com; Navigant Research, www.navigantresearch.com. EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E – The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.
FLOODING IN BORREGO ; 78 SHUT DOWN
By Miriam Raftery August 25, 2013 (Borrego) –A flash flood watch has been elevated to a flash flood warning today for north and central areas of East County, where heavy rain and flash flooding is occurring. Heaviest rains are from Shelter Valley north to Borrego Springs, including areas burned by the Vallecito Fire and Banner fire. Debris flows and flooding are occurring in these areas. A SIG ALERT has been issued for Highway 78, which has been shut down in the San Felipe/Monument Valley area, where boulders have washed into the roadway. At Tarantula Wash, one-way traffic controls will remain in effect for several days until roadway repairs can be done, according to the CHP website. Campgrounds may be impacted by flash floods and debris flows. Excessive runoff will also cause flooding of small creeks, streams, country roads and farmlands nearby. A flash flood warning remains in effect for a broader area in our local mountains and deserts. Monitor the news to learn if this becomes elevated to a flash flood warning, which means flooding is eminent or occurring. “Today we had the worst flash flooding we have seen in years,” Bob Kutscher, a resident of Borrego Springs on Velite Drive, a main floodway for the Hellhole Canyon watershed wrote in an e-mail to ECM. Here is a video that he shot of the flash flood on his roadway this afternoon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky2fhdoiHpA. Kutscher recorded 1.04 inches of ran at a weather station that he runs in the same location. http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KCABORRE7. For additional weather information, visit his noncommercial weather site tracking real-time data from three stations: http://www.boblandusa.com/weather.htm In Boulevard, planning group member Melody Ponchot offered this report. “On Friday afternoon I heard what I thought was an earthquake starting, for I could hear this loud rumbling. Stepping on to the porch I look to the south of the ranch into the meadows where the sound was coming from and I see a whiteness from the heaven to the earth-a fog? No it was a wall of hail as far as the eye could see slowly coming north to me. It was hitting the ground so hard it made the earth rumbled and the size of the hail was like a large marble…it was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in 41 yrs in these parts. After 10 minutes of this, the rain came down with such force, for another 20 min that the ground couldn’t even absorb it. And voila, a lake of water coverd the ground as far as I could see! Hallelujah–our poor dry land was given a drink of water we so desperately need…so bring more I say, bring more!” Flash flooding is nature’s number on killer, the National Weather Service warns. Never try to cross a flooded roadway or wade through flooded areas. Turn around – don’t drown. The Interagency Fire Weather Center advises that heavy rains and thunderstorms are also possible in coastal and valley areas through Monday night.