Malibu Madness & Thanking Stephenie Glas

Malibu’s Epic Battle of Surfers Vs. Environmentalists
Local politics take a dramatic turn in southern California over a plan to clean up an iconic American playground

By Claire Martin
Smithsonian magazine, November 2012

“When a swell approaches Malibu’s most famous beach, Surfrider, it begins breaking just above a long, curved alluvial fan of sediment and stones near the mouth of Malibu Creek. It then flattens out, rears up again and rounds a small cove before running toward the shore for 200 yards. Here, according to Matt Warshaw’s book The History of Surfing, it ‘becomes the faultless Malibu wave of legend’—a wave that spawned Southern California surf culture. The plot of the classic 1966 movie Endless Summer was the quest for, in the words of the film’s director-narrator, ‘a place as good as Malibu.’ In 2010, Surfrider was designated the first World Surfing Reserve.

“Stephenie Glas moved to this stretch of Los Angeles County in the late 1990s. Blond, athletic and in her mid-20s at the time, she settled in a Malibu neighborhood with gaping ocean views and took to the water with her kiteboard. ‘She was one of the very few women that would hit the lip [of waves] with style,” an acquaintance of hers observed. ‘No holding back!’” ...

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Malibus-Epic-Battle-of-Surfers-vs-Environmentalists.html#ixzz2CclfzvvG

Wetlands work complete at Malibu Lagoon

By Melissa Caskey
Staff Writer, The Malibu Times, 10/31/2012

“State workers finished construction on the wetlands part of the Malibu Lagoon on Tuesday, one day ahead of schedule, according to Angeles district superintendent Craig Sap. ...”

http://www.malibutimes.com/news/article_4b381966-23aa-11e2-994f-0019bb2963f4.html

     It would probably be a safe bet that Malibu must be one of the nation’s major hot spots of liberal environmentalism, at least when it comes to opinion polling. One suspects that you could hold a successful fund raiser to end forest clear-cutting in about every third mansion perched above its turquoise sea. But, boy-o-boy, do the knives come out when someone might be inconvenienced by the restoration to reasonably clean water and native wildlife to a local creek, lagoon and beach area, although obviously activists on both sides must have been a minority of the community.

     In a comment under the Smithsonian article there was a claim that the outflow area of Malibu Creek is really just part of a flood plain. On things like that I would defer to what a majority of reputable conservation biologists would say, but most creeks and rivers spread and flood onto flood plains during floods. This is called flooding. And relying on old photos of a beach and lagoon area is not definitive. I have seen sandy California beaches become completely scoured down to rocks and pebbles by one storm, and then get built back up again to deep soft sand by another storm, all in the same season. 

     Should environmentalists and conservationists forget about working to make the Los Angeles River more healthy and wildlife friendly because that river has a pre-development history of flooding and radically changing course?

     Another irony of this issue is that we have repeatedly seen these fights across the nation over clean-up and the restoration of native wildlife to creeks, rivers, bays, marshes, lagoons and the like, and there is a pattern. 

     First the cleanup proposal. Then the raging fights. Later, if science and sanity prevail, and these places are cleaned up and restored to health and abundant wildlife, it turns out to be a boon to tourism and surrounding property values go up, with people pointing with pride that they live nearby. By that time even the local business people attending Chamber of Commerce meetings are patting each other on the back for having shown such uncanny community foresight at allowing the cleanup and restoration.

     No matter what her possible personal problems may have been–how many of us are never depressed or lose our temper?–it seems likely that the abuse shoveled upon Ms. Glas was the tipping point in her taking her own life. In firefighting she chose to repeatedly risk her own life to save others. On top of such a daunting profession and schedule she tried to un-poison Malibu Creek, its lagoon and the Surfrider playground and bring back native wildlife. And how was she was repaid? Amazing.

     However it is heartening that Ms. Glas had the courage and determination to accomplish so much in her much too short life. Malibu Creek and lagoon and countless generations of wildlife, including the surfers now surfing in cleaner water, will flow on and on. And so will the memory and good works of Stephenie Glas. Thank you Stephenie Glas.