Officials say air near Tijuana River Valley is safe
Good Morning, I’m Debbie Cruz….it’s Wednesday, September 11th.
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County officials say the air near the Tijuana River Valley is safe, as the cross-border sewage crisis continues. More on that next. But first... let’s do the headlines….
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Today (Wednesday) marks 23 years since the September 11th attacks.
On that day, nearly 3-thousand people were killed in New York, Washington D-C and Pennsylvania.
Throughout the county there will be multiple remembrances today (Wednesday).
Including a memorial on the flight deck of the U-S-S Midway Museum.
That begins at 2-30 P-M.
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A man who shot 15 people at a Santee High School in 2001 had his first parole hearing yesterday (Tuesday), and it was denied.
Andy Williams was 15 years old when he killed two students and wounded 13 others at Santana High School.
Tim Estes was one of the people wounded that day.
He was a student teacher at the time.
He spoke to our media partner K-G-T-V.
“He just randomly went after people that did nothing to him. He did the ultimate sin type of thing, he can’t, I mean, how do you talk to those parents that you took their child?”
California state law changed sentencing guidelines for juveniles who were tried as adults and received life sentences.
Now, they have a chance at parole after 15, 20 or 25 years, depending on their sentence.
A California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesperson says Williams will next be eligible for parole in three years.
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The county board of supervisors this week accepted more than 2-million-dollars for the Cal Fresh Healthy Living Program..
The grant is from the California Department of Public Health.
The money will go towards improving physical education programs in at least five school districts and building community gardens.
It will also help recruit San Diegans to advocate for public policy change to improve neighborhoods, transportation and activities that promote an active lifestyle.
The program started in 20-12, and focuses on areas where more than 50-percent of households earn below 200-percent of the Federal Poverty Level.
The goal of the program is to help San Diegans enrolled in SNAP, or who are eligible to enroll, make healthy food choices and engage in physically active lifestyles.
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From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now. Stay with me for more of the local news you need.
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Cross-border sewage continues to exacerbate the environmental crisis along the Tijuana River Valley and Imperial Beach.
Last week, scientists reported dangerous levels of toxic gasses in the air, prompting their team of researchers to leave the area.
Yesterday (Tuesday), county officials told reporter Gustavo Solis that the air is safe – at least for now.
A day after scientists sounded alarms, county officials Tuesday tried to ease concerns about elevated levels of toxic gas in the South Bay emanating from the Tijuana River Valley “The levels are not posing a public health hazard. I want to make sure we emphasize that.” County Supervisor Nora Vargas says follow up tests from the County’s Hazardous Incident Response Team showed acceptable levels of hydrogen sulfur and hydrogen cyanide. Officials ordered air quality testing after scientists at San Diego State University and UC San Diego evacuated researchers who were studying the impacts of toxic gas connected to sewage from the Tijuana River. UC San Diego Researcher Doctor Kimberly Prather said Monday that dangerous levels of hydrogen cyanide prompted the decision. “100 percent raw sewage flowing between 40 and 70 million gallons per day dumping into our pacific ocean.” Prather wrote on Twitter that Vargas’s statements are misleading and contradict the data. County officials did not release the results of their air readings. They did not say why the air quality readings no longer showed dangerous levels of toxic gasses or if those dangerous levels could come back in the future. Gustavo Solis, KPBS News.
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Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential campaign unveiled an ad this week featuring some of former President Trump's senior officials who now say he’s unfit to be president.
Conservative pundit Bill Kristol disavowed Trump during his first run for president in 20-16.
He spoke to reporter Amita Sharma recently about why he thinks the former president is a danger to democracy.
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Two iconic, one-of-a-kind homes in Encinitas are in danger of collapsing.
North County reporter Alexander Nguyen says there’s an effort underway to save the historic boathouses.
Dinging of the bell “c’mon in. As you come in. Nice big living room.” From the inside … this house looks just like any homes built in the 1920s. But it’s the outside that makes these homes unique. They look like boats. “the boat houses were built by Miles Kellogg and his family.” Bart Smith is the president of the Encinitas Preservation Association, which owns the Boathouses. BART SMITH PRESIDENT, ENCINITAS PRESERVATION ASSOCIATION “He got the inspiration to build houses that look like boats. So that's what he did. And they were completed in like 1927.” And the SS Encinitas and Moonlight have been here ever since. But time has taken its toll on the homes. There are dry rot … rust stains and peeling paint. And the Encinitas has started to list to the right. “it was getting concerning back in 2018. And, then it just started accelerating.” John Knowles is a board member of the Preservation Association. He says all it takes is a big storm or an earthquake … for a piece of Encinitas' history to be gone forever. The association plans to do some fundraisers between now and early next year …… to restore the homes and get them ready for the next family to move in. AN/KPBS News.
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We are doing an ongoing series on San Diegans who volunteer in unusual ways.
For this story, video journalist Charlotte Radulovich visited two women in Lemon Grove.
Juliet Deamicis and Chelsea Gastelum want to transform the city into a bee pollinator city.
The way it started, after we had invited folks over, I had filmed a video for social media, and it went viral. Jules: Someone reached out to us asking us to do their house, and that is the very first yard that we did of April last year. Jules: We are doing our may yard here out on Citrus street. If you don't know what the Busy Bee Garden Co-Op is, it is a lemon grove group of neighbors who go to each other's houses, and we basically storm each other's front yards and redo them with pollinator plants first. Jules: Yeah. So we have a funny start. Origin story. I met Chelsea online because she had posted on Facebook that she was looking for candidates to grow native pollinator plants in their yards. And she had free plants to give. And I was like, just had moved here and wanted to engage with my community, and so I volunteered to join her group. It wasn't actually a group. It was like an experiment, almost like we were supposed to put native pollinator plants in our backyards or in our front yards. I reached out to her because I got an idea and I basically was like, hey, I run a lot of social media for Lemon Grove. What if we take your idea and grow it bigger? And instead of you just going around and coaching everyone individually about these native plants, which would be a lot of work and time, instead, we work together to put pollinator gardens in each other's yards. I think that's the reason why our busy bees has been so successful, is that in order to get your own yard done, you have to volunteer once. That's kind of the shtick of the thing. And people then get to feel what it is like to give back with their neighbors and how fulfilling that is. Speaker 2 (Chelsea?): We're a small town, but we have the ability to be such a big conservation impact because we are putting in these patches all around town, which means pollinator pathway. You're going to cruise from one to the next and keep going. Chelsea: We have the only garden in California right now that's a certified native habitat by wild ones. Wild ones is also the ones who are providing the grant to put in the native pollinator garden in San Alto school. Jules: There's a very strong movement within the community of people who love where we live and recognize the potential of this place. Speaker 3: Let's take the lemon Grove bistro that allowed us to put in the gardens. And when you go in their beer garden area, that was all a busy bee project. Even though not all of those are natives, we put in what they would like in there. Jules: We have these really big goals of turning lemon grove into a bee pollinators. A bee city is what they call it. Interviewee: Can you tell me in your own words what you think about visibis itself? Speaker 4: What Chelsea has created is so important on many levels, not just particularly for the butterflies and bees and all the critters, but it's bringing a community together. Where neighbor gets to meet neighbor bringing us together. Speaker 3: It's been super powerful. Chelsea (?): It's Lemon Grove's time to shine. And in a few more years, I think we will be hearing a that type of thing about lemon Grove, starting with you guys.
TAG: That story was produced by video journalist Charlotte Radulovich.
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FilmOut celebrates its 24th year as San Diego's L-G-B-T-Q-plus film festival.
Cinema Junkie Beth Accomando has attended every one, and has a preview of this year’s festival.
The rewarding thing about being a loyal attendee of a film festival is that you sometimes get to see artists evolve. Benjamin Howard is a San Diego filmmaker who’s been screening his short films at FilmOut since 2017, and this year his debut feature Riley will close the festival on Sunday. BENJAMIN HOWARD If you had told me back then like, hey, you're going to make a feature and it's going to close out the festival, several years from now, I just I wouldn't have believed you, but here we are. And, coming back home to San Diego, where we filmed, where I grew up, we shot a scene right outside of the Museum of Photographic Arts, which is where we're screening the film. So it in so many ways, it's very serendipitous. And really special. The feature is based on a short that played at FilmOut in 2022. This year I’m especially excited by the fact that programmer Michael McQuiggan has tapped into his love of horror to take advantage of the festival running on Friday the 13th so he can screen an entire night of queer horror. There’s a Zombie Outside growl I’m thrilled to be a co-presenter for "There's a Zombie Outside" from Troma alum Michael Varrati, and the shorts "Bath Bomb" and "Last Night." There will also be ghosts and witches to scare up interest on Friday. So much to see over the four-day festival. Beth Accomando, KPBS News.
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That’s it for the podcast today. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. Join us again tomorrow for the day’s top stories. I’m Debbie Cruz. Thanks for listening and have a great Wednesday.
