On the ground reporters who were present during the 7.1 earthquake in Mexico city, more on LA County's Hep A outbreak, LA river's dismal water quality.
They didn't know the LA River was full of E. coli — but public officials did
Who should ultimately be a leader on the LA River's water quality?
Much of the credit for revitalizing the LA River goes to a grass roots group Friends of the LA River (FOLAR).
But there is no protocol to warn people about the bacteria levels in the water, and that can be a big concern for the increasing amount of people who do activities along the river.
Marissa Christiansen, FOLAR's executive director, joined Take Two about who she thinks should be in charge of a water quality alert system and what it would look like.
Listen to the full interview by clicking the blue audio player.
Too much water recycling could dry up the LA River
You don't have to think back too long to remember a time when people didn't really think of the Los Angles River as a river – it was basically a concrete flood control channel.
But in the last couple of decades, it's been transformed in part due to a $1 million restoration effort. Now, sections of the river have become places for kayaking, biking and even horse-back riding.
Kayakers aren't the only people with eyes on the LA River.
City planners have used a variety of water reclaiming methods, such as marshes, to "recycle" runoff river water.
This water is then used to replenish the groundwater in the San Fernando Valley, which depends on groundwater for irrigation and industrial purposes. City planners hope to expand this reclaiming system, all in the hope of making Los Angeles more water independent.
However a new study from UCLA suggests this may not be so sustainable, and unless the water is managed better, the river might run dry.
"We need to start making smart decisions," said UCLA's Mark Gold.
According to Gold, there's a fork in the road for city planners: do they want to commit the vision of the LA River as a recreational space, or as a way to ward off drought?
Or, if planners are careful, can they accomplish both?
"Is it just about putting parks and having bike paths along the river," said Gold, "or are we really going to do something to transform the river itself and the water said that feeds into it?
"And that's really what this study is all about, is it provides an incredible amount of information for those people who are doing the planning and decision-making to decide the future of the river."
To listen to the full interview, use the blue media player above.
Could an earthquake in Mexico trigger one in California?
Mexico was struck by two powerful earthquakes in less than two weeks, and the disasters have rattled the nerves of people in Southern California, too.
Take Two talked with Elizabeth Cochran, a seismologist with the United States Geological Survey in Pasadena, about whether those tremors could also occur here.
Is there any connection between these two earthquakes that hit Mexico City?
These two earthquakes are located quite far apart. So typically, this is outside of the range where we would consider yesterday's quake to be an aftershock of the earthquake on September 7th. However, it's right at the edge, so I think we could go either way in saying these are two related.
Could these trigger earthquakes here in California?
Well, actually we know that the magnitude 7.1 earthquake in Mexico yesterday did trigger a magnitude 3.6 earthquake in Coso, California.
Coso is located just up the 305 highway from Los Angeles going towards Mammoth. It’s what we call a geothermal area; this is an area that has a lot of heat and a lot of water moving around.
These types of areas tend to be very easy to trigger, so we often see remote earthquakes.
Anytime there’s an earthquake ... the waves actually do travel all around the world and cause very minimal levels of shaking. So what we saw during the [Mexican] earthquake is as those waves traveled through the Coso area an earthquake occurred there.
Should we be hyper-vigilant right now about earthquake threat?
There’s nothing in particular for us here in California that would indicate that we should be extra vigilant.
But, I think as always, we do need to be prepared for an earthquake here in Southern California.
Mexico has developed a pretty robust early warning system. Does yesterday's quake offer any lessons for officials here, who are also working on early warning?
Mexico developed an early warning system after the tragic 1985 earthquake which caused a huge amount of damage in Mexico City. They’ve now had an early warning system in place for about 20 years before yesterday's quake.
The earthquake was detected about 20 seconds before the shaking arrived in Mexico City. It's not clear if the residents of Mexico City actually received the alert through the siren system or on their cell phones.
We’re gonna have to look into that over the next couple days and weeks to see exactly how much warning they had.
My hope is that warning system was able to provide enough time to take protective action. What they recommend is that when people hear the sirens, they evacuate buildings.
That’s because they have a large number of vulnerable structures; we saw that yesterday as a large number of structures collapsed during the earthquake.
Here in California, it’s much less of concern. So the good thing about that is that with an early warning you only need five seconds or so to get under a desk or to protect yourself from objects falling in your office or home, rather than having to have tens of seconds to evacuate a building.
To hear more about the science behind earthquakes in Mexico and California, click the blue play button above.
K2 Sports: LA football, do we care?
There had been a lot of buzz with the NFL's return to Los Angeles, first with the Rams, then this season with the Chargers.
While having two pro teams in one city is a little unusual, Los Angeles has experience with it, we've got the Lakers and the Clippers, the Dodgers and the Angels.
But attendance hasn't been great for either of the NFL teams, could it be that this town isn't big enough for two NFL teams?
We asked that question on Take Two's twitter page:
NFL games aren't drawing the big crowds at LA's stadiums.
wants to know: Do you care about the NFL in LA?
— 89.3 KPCC (@KPCC)
NFL games aren't drawing the big crowds at LA's stadiums. @TakeTwo wants to know: Do you care about the NFL in LA?
— 89.3 KPCC (@KPCC) September 18, 2017
Here are a few responses:
Born and raised in LA but never a Rams or Chargers fan.
— Justin Satzman (@jsatz23)
Born and raised in LA but never a Rams or Chargers fan.
— Justin Satzman (@jsatz23) September 18, 2017
I am a native Angeleno & love football, but bringing a division rival of the
was a dumb move. It's like moving the SF Giants to LA.
— Lesley Annis-Cramer (@lesleynka_LA)
I am a native Angeleno & love football, but bringing a division rival of the @RAIDERS was a dumb move. It's like moving the SF Giants to LA.
— Lesleynka 🖐️ (@lesleynka_LA) September 18, 2017
Also, this doesn't help:
— Lesley Annis-Cramer (@lesleynka_LA)
Also, this doesn't help: https://t.co/5OqsYQhsfC
— Lesleynka 🖐️ (@lesleynka_LA) September 18, 2017
We talked about that and a lot more with Andy and Brian Kamenetzky.