Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission Executive Director Shelley Luce has been appointed to chair a nonprofit that works with the federal government to restore and protect 28 estuaries across the country.
Luce will serve a two-year term at the nonprofit, Association of National Estuary Programs, to coordinate relationships between public agencies and private companies and address ecological management issues.
The ANEP supports 28 individual programs in the National Estuary Program, a federal program established in 1987 that identifies estuaries at risk and provides grants to protect the areas. The Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission is one of the 28 programs that the Environmental Protection Agency created.
“The National Estuary Program fulfills a unique role in fostering collaboration among very broad stakeholder groups,” Dr. Luce said. “It’s really hard to get people from different perspectives and agendas to work together on one key thing – protecting our precious estuaries – and ANEP is critical in supporting the National Estuary Programs in getting this job done. I’m excited to be chair of this committed group. ”
In addition to identifying potential partnerships, Luce will also coordinate an outreach campaign to elected officials and increase public awareness over the importance of estuaries.
One of the projects the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission spearheaded includes the lower Topanga State Park berm enhancement that removed non-native vegetation and planted native species, including 100 coast live oaks.
The commission has also been working to restore kelp forests in the Palos Verdes Peninsula, due to the overall decline of kelp coverage that has led to a reduction in sea urchins and in turn their predators, such as the seat otter and spiny lobster. Scuba divers refurbished some areas with sea urchins and introduced reproductive kelp blades to the area.
The Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission oversees the 266-square mile Bay and its 400-square mile watershed.
THEY KILLED IT !!! They said they had 20 years of science and it turns out they didn't have the base line science. MONEY GRABBERS. check her response to Cindy Lin of EPA in response to getting after the fact data for Malibu lagoon by checking all the other estuaries along the coast. From a public records request email between Cindy Lin and Luce : "Wow, what a range. I don't know enough about the different locations - even type of wetland - to understand why they are so different. I would love the low down from one of you. I definitely don't know which are most similar nd possibly comparable to Malibu." Shelley Luce, D.Env. Executive Director Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission Pereira Annex MS:8160 1 LMU Drive, Loyola Marymount University Los Angeles, CA 90045 310-216-9827 www.santamonicabay.org DANGEROUS !!!
And then there is the basic problem with the US EPA calling Santa Monica Bay an estuary when it first designated this program as one of the "National Estuary programs" - there is no scientific justification - geographic, geomorphological, or geologic rationale for calling Santa Monica Bay an estuary. It is a BAY - not an ESTUARY. But millions of federal dollars have gone into this program.
To: Richard F. Ambrose; gold@ioes.ucla.edu; Shelley Luce Subject: Allocations/Targets for Malibu Lagoon ( from Socal coastal estuaries) Rich/Mark/Shelley: As you know from our discussion last, it's hard to come up with targets or numeric goals for Malibu Lagoon and the benthic community given we don't have real baseline data and also no data from a reference site. But, at the end of the day, we still need to include some goal. Here's my idea- do a survey of all relevant southern CA coastal estuaries and see what the species richness has been observed in past studies. My thinking is that as Malibu Lagoon is restored and conditions improve, it is reasonable to expect greater species richness. Instead of quibbling about the unknowns (i.e., which functional groups or taxa should be in Malibu), we want to see more diversity in the Lagoon. Actually, based on TJ estuary and Mugu Lagoon, there seems to clear evidence of decent benthic community diversity in a coastal lagoon with good tidal flushing (Rich: you may remember this from the 1995 Ambrose et al. Report for Malibu). The final goal or target would be to achieve XX number of total taxa richness on an annual basis, perhaps over a 5 year average. This XX number would be based on the average of taxa richness observed across applicable coastal estuaries. So, I quickly had a survey of the estuaries and their taxa counts.
Rich: let me know which estuaries you think should absolutely be out. There are some obvious ones and some have data that are not based on unimpacted areas. I just sent the whole table thinking you'd like to look at everything. Let me know your thoughts. Cindy
Wow, what a range. I don't know enough about the different locations - even type of wetland - to understand why they are so different. I would love the low down from one of you. I definitely don't know which are most similar nd possibly comparable to Malibu. Shelley Luce, D.Env. Executive Director Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission
Many people who received the notice that their taxes were going up, threw the brochure away, thinking it was junk mail. Yet another tricky move by these so called environmentalists.
The projects these people have in mind stink even more. They will destroy the Ballona Wetlands, more of Sepulveda Wildlife Area and every other natural wild area that they think needs a landscape architect and bureaucrats to "re-do" "better" than what they think Mother Nature is already doing. And who will decide what projects get approved? Watershed groups. Who will be coordinating these "watershed groups?" The Bay Commission & the same people who sued the cities and county for not meeting TMDL standards that have often been arbitrary, not taking into account natural source bacteria, etc. BACTERIA is not all bad. Some of it is not only good, but necessary for life. The people pushing this agenda are not taking into account NEW, UPDATED science that includes DNA analysis of bacteria sources to determine which bacteria are really harmful. Ask surfers who surf Malibu Lagoon all the time. They are FURIOUS over this, as it is not about cleaning the water.
The preceding Senate Bill 57 (Hayden) required the MOU to be executed between the Secretary of Environmental Protection, with the Secretary of the Resource Agency. The MOU on page Six, authorized the Commission to delegate the day-to-day functions of the Commission to an Executive Director. The role of Executive Director is an administrative service. Public Resources Code 30988.2(a) states in part that, “and the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) shall provide administrative services to the Commission.” Dr. Luce is the President and Chief Executive Officer of a private business. It is the Santa Monica Bay Restoration FOUNDATION. Dr. Luce is not an administrative service that according to the law shall be provided by the SWRCB. Her claim to be the Executive Director of a State Agency is specious. The private business that pays her gets money approved by the SMRBC. That same business gets money from the Coastal Conservancy. Luce recommends, on behalf of the SMRBC, for the Conservancy to provide money to the private business that pays her. CONTINUED
Luce is required to file a Form 700 with the State Fair Political Practices Commission reporting her income She reported no income in 2010. The form IRS form 900 from the business show she has been paid over One-hundred-thousand dollars a year. It cannot be both ways. But that is how Luce is playing it, and has for years. SMRBC never delegated its day-to-day activities to an Executive Director (administrative service) provided by the State. Late in 2012, years after Dr. Luce self-assumed the title of Executive Director of a State Agency, the SMRBC engaged in a cover up, purporting to delegate the role of Executive Director to the President and CEO of a private business that is financially fed by the same State Agency. The question is, can Dr. Luce lawfully represent the State of California as the Executive Director of one of its Agency’s to the Federal Government? Or, is this a false claim with the full force of the SMRBC behind it? Food for thought on this important subject, John Davis
I would like to make one correction to my posts. Dr. Shelly Luce is the Executive Director and CEO of the private business, Ballona Wetlands FOUNDATION, not the president. John Davis
I am always willing to correct errors to anything I post to ensure honesty and that the post is clear. John Davis
Dr. Luce would like to keep other scientists under her boot, like Travis Longcore. She does not want him to express his expert views. Disagreement is often what science is all about. Here is a link to a video demonstrating his expertise. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1viLaZaVhQY My next post is an email from Dr. Luce expressing her view regarding such an upstanding and honest scientist. John Davis
_______________________________________________ From: Shelley Luce [mailto:sluce@santamonicabay.org] Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2012 10:51 AM To: Gold, Mark Subject: your message Thanks for the call. State Parks may decide to send a letter anyway but I’ll let them know your take. Travis makes it known that he’s an IoES professor, and SMBRC and State parks have partnerships with IoES, and neither of us is comfortable with those relationships now that one of your prominent professors is working as hard as he can to stop our project, impugn our science, and cast himself as more of an authority on wetlands than Rich Ambrose or Eric Stein. And he is prominent, despite what you say. He posts on facebook all the time about the IoES and their great work on Stone Canyon (doesn’t mention anyone else) and the great projects his IoES students have done. Since his Urban center thing at USC died everyone associates him with IoES. If I were Rich I’d be having a shit fit over there right now. CONTINUED TO NEXT POST
__________________________________________________ But maybe he’ll have egg on his face when the project is done and everyone loves it. He can proudly declare how he opposed the beautiful, restored lagoon. Maybe he’ll boycott all the great birdwatching amenities we are building for him and his Audubon pals. I am so angry!!! Shelley Shelley Luce, D.Env. Executive Director Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission Pereira Annex MS:8160 1 LMU Drive, Loyola Marymount University Los Angeles, CA 90045 310-961-4444
And as fas as the Sepulveda "screw-up" - well, that's how it's been played - but the environmental documentation from the Army Corps said they were going to do a "restoration." These "restorations" that are really bulldozing habitat projects that look like a "screw-up" - well, the public is getting tired of the greenwashing. And that documentation - by the way - was distributed to the public as poorly as the documents were for a similar bulldozer-and-call-it-restoration at Malibu Lagoon. Have you seen what the screw-up looks like there? TRAGIC.