From too little water to too much. Why California can't save all of the recent rains, President Trump and the black agenda, the legalities of renting land for pot use, and sweet treats for Long Beach.
State reservoirs running out of space after January storms
Winter storms brought much needed rain to California in recent weeks. So much so that according to data by the U.S. Drought Monitor, nearly half of the state is out of the drought.
But: there's a problem. It seems the abundance of water from the sky is too much for California's reservoirs.
For more, Take Two's A Martinez spoke with John Leahigh. He oversees water management for the State Water Project.
Interview Highlights
What's going on with our reservoirs here in California? How's this increase being handled?
"This year we've seen just a complete turnaround from where we've been in terms of the prolonged drought that we've faced. Because of the drought, surface water supplies and ground water supplies have been heavily depleted over the last few years and what we're seeing now this year is our ability to go ahead and fill a lot of that depleted surface storage back up."
Is there room to handle all this extra water?
"We've reached the limits in terms of our flood control restrictions for many of the reservoirs especially in Northern California. So practically all of the reservoirs are in flood control operations, so we've filled to the point where we have to allow any additional inflow into the reservoirs to release those downstream just in order to maintain the vacated space for very big events that protect downstream levy systems."
This water, it's not a missed opportunity, right? We'll still be able to do something with it?
"...our pumping plants are at full physical capacity right now. This is actually at unprecedented levels of pumping that we're doing currently from the delta and that water is flowing down the California aqueduct. We're pumping it into off-stream storage so we have a major reservoir, San Luis reservoir which is essentially halfway down the state, we're pretty close to filling that reservoir. We're also filling a lot of the empty space that's been created down in some of the Southern California reservoirs so for example, Castaic Lake has been extremely low during the drought, at less than a third of its capacity and looks like we're likely to fill that reservoir back up to the brim."
To hear the full segment, click the blue play button above.
What's the agenda for black America under President Trump?
President Trump met with a group of African-American leaders for "a little breakfast" at the start of Black History Month this week.
Ben Carson, Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and only black cabinet pick, was at the gathering. Members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Urban League were not.
While President Trump praised the accomplishments of key black figures from history - Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass and Rosa Parks - others asked what the Trump administration will mean for America's black agenda.
For more on this, Marie Stroughter, founder of the website African-American Conservatives and Tim Watkins, president and CEO of the Watts Labor Community Action Committee joined Take Two to discuss.
Interview highlights
What President Obama achieved for black America
Tim Watkins: "[Obama] was blocked from day one. They [Congress] threw everything at him but the cotton gin. He was facing insurmountable odds coming into the office and then everything that he tried to do, right or wrong was blocked."
Marie Stroughter: I disagree with my esteemed counterpart, in that when President Obama initially got into office, he had a Democrat-controlled Congress for the first two years. So anything that could have gotten pushed through, he could have pushed through. But I think my biggest issue with respect to African-Americans has to do with jobs and particularly black youth or black teens. They had almost 50 percent unemployment under President Obama. So I think by those measurable standards, we did not perform as well as we could have and have under other administrations.
What President Trump can do to address the needs of the black community
Stroughter: I believe one of the key features that he discussed during his campaign and one that he specifically addressed to the African-American community is law and order. I think there is no doubt that black-on-black crime is skyrocketing and that cities like Chicago and other places are in dire need of our help in terms of being able to address the violence that's an epidemic in the black community.
Watkins: But you're looking at the extreme when you look at a city center where folks that have been living in desperation for generations are turning on each other. We've got a desperate situation across the country, in all these urban centers. And until we resolve the underlying problem - the world says it's poverty, I say it's poor public policy shrouded it with poverty - let's end this so-called war on poverty and start one on poor public policy.
Stroughter: I believe that under President Trump we have that hope. He is addressing education issues, I think, when we look at places where the black/white achievement gap is widening every single day. And when we look at poor performing schools, they are generally in the inner cities which have been under Democrat policy for decade upon decade upon decade.
Answers have been edited for clarity.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue media player above.
HighQ: Should I rent my empty property to marijuana growers?
If you've got 30 unused acres sitting in the middle of a remote part of Northern California, what do you do with it?
You could grow food or raise cattle. Or, if someone offers to rent it out to grow weed on it, you could consider that as a possibility. That's exactly the situation that Andreina Sanve, who owns land in Lassen County, has found herself in.
"We own 30 acres in the mountains that we thought maybe one day we’d retire to. But now we’re 62 and 63 and getting old and falling apart, and there’s no way in hell I want to live on 30 acres, because I live on one that I can’t take care of now," Sanve said.
So, she reached out to me to ask whether renting it out was realistic.
The short answer is yes, she can technically rent it out or sell it. But Lassen County, similar to other counties and cities across the state, has outlawed the cultivation of marijuana. That means that a full-fledged outdoor grow operation on her property is likely illegal.
However, those laws haven't stopped people from buying property and growing marijuana in the area so far. Drive down roads in Lassen and you'll see farms with rows of cannabis plants out in the open, according to Cory Halter, a realtor there.
Marijuana growers regularly approach him to purchase property.
"Most of the people will beat around the bush and say that they want to have a few horses on there. They want to do a crop of corn. They want to have a few cattle. They won't give you a straight answer... and so after five minutes of talking, I'll just point blank ask them if that's what they're doing, and they'll say yes. And then we'll either go look at property, or we won't," Halter said.
The isolated, wide open, fertile terrain comes at a low price, making it an ideal spot for some growers.
Halter and other residents that I spoke with said that growers aren't always the best neighbors, oftentimes leaving behind trash and materials after they've harvested their crops.
That's only some of the damage done, according to DeWayne Little, who's with California's Department of Fish and Wildlife. The illegal grows use illegal pesticides and herbicides that can kill mice and bears, Little said, and land is also illegally razed, causing sediment to run into rivers, killing off fish. Sometimes, people working on the operations poach deer, Little said.
This sort of thing isn't rare in Northern California. Lassen is just east of the Emerald Triangle, which is known to be covered in both legal and illegal grow operations.
Policing of these properties is difficult due to how large and remote the area is, combined with there not being a lot of law enforcement there. For instance, Little and 13 other officers are responsible for policing watershed violations from Santa Cruz to the state's northern border — essentially, half of the state. They've focused on Lassen and the surrounding counties, but he said that there's still not enough people to stop all of damage done by illegal grows.
Little said that if someone's renting out their property and environmental damage occurs, they may be legally responsible for fixing the problem.
Lassen's ban hasn't stopped illegal cultivation, and it's questionable whether it can stop all cultivation. Under Proposition 64, households are allowed to grow six plants indoors, regardless of local laws — and rules are likely different in every incorporated city and county.
The state still hasn't issued licenses for cultivation, and unless a local city or county allows it, doing so could very well be illegal.
Whether Sanve can rent her property out isn't in question. Whether she should is. The legal gray area around marijuana cultivation right now is still being cleared up.
Why do people care so much they're willing to protest?
Reaction to President Trump's travel ban has led to outrage from some quarters and questions about the state of American values from others.
That led Take Two to wonder: what makes us care about one thing and not another?
As it turns out, our concerns are frequently informed by the perception of a threat, even if what seems dangerous isn't really harmful.
"The things that tend to capture our attention aren't always the things that are rationally the most dangerous," says David Pizarro, associate professor of psychology at Cornell. "Things that are vivid — like plane crashes — really freak us out. They stick with our memory; they're salient to us."
Pizarro says that's the reason we're more likely to be afraid of being in a plane crash than, say, a car crash. Even though car crashes are statistically more likely to occur, plane crashes are more likely to make the news.
"We're not good at being sensitive to numbers," Pizarro says. "What we're good at is being sensitive to loud, crashy, dangerous things that are immediately in front of us."
The ability to respond to perceived threats may have helped early man to avoid danger. Today, in the age of social media, it may be playing a part in engagement. People are constantly bombarded with images that inspire them to donate, to protest, or otherwise get involved, Pizarro says, adding that some organizations capitalize on this inherent trait, pushing out content aimed at getting a reaction.
But how can two people consume the same media but walk away with different perspectives?
"When we're presented with information that is inconsistent with what we believe, we ask ourselves the question, must I believe this? We counter-argue," Pizarro says. "But when it's something that already agrees with your position, we ask ourselves a different question: can I believe this?"
In essence, Pizarro says, humans are defined by their passions.
Press the blue play button above to hear more.
Click the "Bonus Audio" link to hear the interview in its entirety.
Your go-to guide for the weekend in SoCal
‘Lucky Boy’ tells contrasting tales of immigration in California
The new novel "Lucky Boy" is a tale about immigration, privilege and motherhood. Its author, Shanthi Sakeran, visited us at Take Two to tell us about the book and the themes that motivated her writing.
What is the story of "Lucky Boy" about?
‘Lucky Boy’ is about two women. One of them is a young, undocumented Mexican woman named Soli who we follow across the border from Mexico up into Berkeley, California. And when we get here, she ends up pregnant and has a baby. And sort of early in the novel she gets picked up and put in detention and her son gets put with foster parents whose story we also follow, Kavya and Rishi. They take young Ignacio in and they fall in love with him. And they kind of want to keep him. And that's where our dilemma arises.
Why was it important to tell Soli's and Kavya's stories side-by-side?
With Soli, I wrote her as a mother. And I really wanted to know what it was like to be in a country as a mother, as sort of the guardian of a child who is American. And because it was very important to the structure of my story that she lose hold of her child in some way. And I wanted also to understand the people who ended up with Soli's child, and that would be Kavya. So the structure of this story necessitated two sides.
What was it that made you want to explore the theme of immigration in the U.S.?
I chose to look at immigration, I think, because it's sort of, in a way, what I always write about. It comes up again and again in my writing. And immigration, in some sense, is the ultimate story. It encompasses every plot type. Slaying the beast, and the hero's quest, and tragedy and comedy — I think it's the greatest story that can be told. And it's really, in so many ways, the story of America and the story of today's America.
How did your own family's story influence how you approached the book?
My family's narrative was relatively privileged. My parents came over in the '60s. My father was a medical graduate and he was given a visa; he was given a job. They did have to face the loneliness. They did have to face some ignorance and probably some bigotry as well during those early years, especially when there were very few Indians in the U.S. It did give me a way to look at what's happening in America today with people who are much less privileged, who really have to fight just for their right to be here.
Why set the story in Berkeley, California, of all places?
I set this book in California because, for one thing, it's where I live. It's really what I know. I chose Berkeley specifically because it's a very interactive environment. You are constantly coming up against other people, against minor conflicts and triumphs and great moments when you live in a place like Berkeley. I wanted to give that to my Mexican character especially; I wanted to give that to Soli since she was a newcomer. And I also wanted to set this in California, in a liberal setting, because I wanted to show that you don't have to be surrounded by bigotry, you don't have to be surrounded by terrible conditions in order for your life to be swept out from under you.
What do Soli's and Kavya's experiences say about achieving the American dream today?
Something that I've been thinking a lot about lately is, what defines the American dream? I think that that's something that's been defined differently for people for as long as there's been an America. We have people who come to the U.S. who are simply trying to stay alive. We have people who are literally running for their lives. We have people who have been here for generations, whose pursuit of happiness involves stability and a home and family. And they can complexify that pursuit a bit more than someone who's really just trying to survive. With Soli and Kavya, Soli is trying to establish a life here. Her pursuit of happiness starts with just trying to shed that alien feeling. Whereas for Kavya, she's grown up in the U.S. She is an American — an Indian-American. And her pursuit of happiness has more to do with fulfilling the roles that she has decided are important for herself. Like being a mother. Like having a good marriage and a job that she's happy with. And a lot of her life has been about negotiating what others see as happiness and what she decides is right for her.
Part of the American dream, and I think a very consistent part of the American dream, is the idea that you can come to this country and work hard and make something of yourself and establish a future for your children. What I see is that we pave the way differently for some immigrants over others. I don't have a policy answer to propose to this, but I would love it if people started to think about this and question who we value and why? And who deserves to come here and how that's changed over time?
* Quotes edited for clarity.
"Lucky Boy" author Shanthi Sakeran will be at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena Friday at 7 p.m. for a reading and book signing.