CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, LONG BEACH

ES&P 400 Home Page
Environmental Science and Policy Capstone Project

"Consultancies" with "Position Openings"

Save the CSS

Our company has a number of ongoing projects focussed on saving existing California sage scrub and the habitat it provides for endangered species, as well as creating evidence-based guidelines for effective CSS restoration. We are looking at the impacts of various disturbance régimes on the ability of CSS to recover (e.g., fire frequency and intensity, grazing, plowing, air pollution, introduction of invasive exotic species, and damage to subsoil mycorrhizal communities), the kinds of soil and topography associated with CSS self-restoration, identifying vanguard/pioneer CSS species that can persist in grassland, and measuring differences in CSS communities behind stagnant and recovering CSS-grassland boundaries. We are also establishing a post-fire succession baseline in La Jolla Valley.

Projects include field transecting/quadratting in sites showing CSS advancement and stagnation with respect to exotic-dominated grasslands and revisiting sites in La Jolla Valley or Serrano Valley that had been classified as advancing or stagnent and tracking their post-fire restoration. Other sites available for such field studies include Charmlee Park in wesern Malibu, Sepulveda Dam Basin in the San Fernando Valley, and Palos Verdes.

Other projects entail collection of rootballs from such locations to evaluate differences in mycorrhizal infection.

Identifying suitable CSS-grassland boundaries can be done with remote sensing, as with Google Earth, wherever there is a fairly long record of imagery in Google Earth. A promising location is zoomed to, and images are captured at the same position for several years on the Google Timeline of historical imagery. PUtting them into a GIF animation or viewgraphs presentation can make vegetation change easily identifiable.

Puvunga Analytics

While the majority of the CSULB land has been developed for the university facilities, a 22-acre parcel in the northwest portion of campus remains open terrain. Perhaps the only non-developed or unmanaged open space remaining in the area, this parcel of land has become an important reminder of the landscape as it once existed as well as a significant location for cultural practices of the local Native American community, the Tongva. Archæological research indicates that the property contains prehistoric cultural remains that are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and that have been attributed to the location of Puvunga or Puvungna, a major spiritual locale for Tongva people.

The site could, however, make a major contribution to the mission of the university. Urgent needs of the campus include the building of new student housing, faculty housing, state-of-the-art classrooms and a conference center. These needs cannot be currently met by other facilities on campus. The stage is set for a conflict of interests over these 22 acres.

Our company is exploring all aspects of this conundrum. One of our projects works from the perspective that the Puvunga cultural site should not be developed but, rather, preserved as open space for the continuation of Tongva cultural practices and for future generations of the Long Beach community. We are working to develop a baseline of information about the site, the kinds of irreplaceable resources it may contain, and its basic environmental attributes. Could the site play a critical rôle in ecological restoration, as well as cultural preservation? What sorts of activities could be permitted on the site that honor its spiritual meaning to the Tongva and its possible contribution to local environmental restoration? The goal is development of a plan for the site that reconciles the many needs of the campus, local environment, and cultural heritage.

Another project examines this site from a more development oriented approach. The campus has critical needs that could be at least partially met by some kind of development of the site. Is there a way to allow major development of the site but afford protection to environmental and cultural resources in conformity with the current laws and policies? The goal here is to write an alternative plan for the site that permits campus development.

Midden Evaluation

A massive shell midden has recently been exposed by the May 2013 Springs Fire in the western Santa Monicas. This was built up by the Chumash people who lived in the western Santa Monicas until the Spanish began colonizing Alta California after 1769. Similar large middens are found on and around the CSULB campus, the result of Tongva activities. The composition of shell species in these middens reflects a variety of factors, including environmental conditions offshore as each species has an environmental envelope of required conditions. Changes in the balance of shell species can, thus, track changes in environmental conditions. Another factor is cultural preferences for particular species over others and the environmental pressures on the Native Californians (in good times, people tend to focus on their favorite species; in bad times, they widen their diet to include other species they may like less well). Basic analysis of the newly exposed midden in La Jolla Valley could include basic field mapping and quadratting and/or transecting to identify surface shells by family or possibly genus or species, count the numbers of identifiable shells or shell fragments and the numbers of shells broken too badly to identify. This could be repeated at one or more of the local middens and the different relative abundances compared with basic statistical techniques.

In times of economic growth and development, preserving these remains is a challenge since they exist in areas of prime real estate. There is a question, then, as to how to best preserve these kinds of remains. One possibility is to set some areas aside for parks and interpretative centers as a way of helping to inform the public as to the prehistoric occupation. Some, however, question this practice as advertising the locations of deposits may be inviting vandalism. Others support the idea that awareness increases preservation. To which extent do current laws and policies protect these cultural resources? How should they be preserved? How should the newly exposed midden be protected?

Green Campus

Increasingly, institutions such as CSULB are becoming aware of the inherent environmental impacts that result from normal day-to-day operations. Going beyond legally mandated work to mitigate the effects of new projects, this awareness has led to an interest in learning about ways in which existing operations might be altered to reduce negative effects resulting from operations that include emissions, resource consumption, negative environmental impacts and waste. To accomplish these kinds of reductions requires having statistically and empirically sound understandings of the current baseline of environmental impacts that campus activities make so that new initiatives can be evaluated for degrees of success.

Our projects include establishing baseline environmental data, which can include air quality, electromagnetic pollution, noise pollution, the quality of drinking water available on campus, temperature variations, and the habitat function of campus landscaping, and many other specific topics. The campus could benefit from analysis of current regulatory and policy that surrounds these resources and issues as well as proposed plans for increasing the quality of the environment through reduction of impacts.

The water issue may be of particular interest. Water is available to the CSULB community through plumbing (water fountains/bubblers), vending machines, and water refilling stations for those using reusable bottles. What is the relative quality of these three main sources of potable water? How do students perceive their relative quality?

Dr. Rodrigue's Home  |   Dr. Lipo's Home  |   Mr. Langdon's Home  |   Ms. Mills' Home  |   ES&P Home   |   CSULB Home  |  

This document is maintained by Dr. Rodrigue
First placed on web: 02/21/14
Last revised: 02/14/14