Water Quality Issues in Los Angeles/Long Beach Harbor

Author(s):  
S.A. Birosik
1986 ◽  
Vol 1 (20) ◽  
pp. 204
Author(s):  
A.F. Yuen ◽  
M.G. Burke ◽  
T.C. Leung

The Port of Long Beach, in cooperation with the Port of Los Angeles and the Corps of Engineers, has been working on the development of a Master Plan for the San Pedro Bay area. This Master Plan, nicknamed the "2020 Plan", is intended to project the Port's land and channel requirements through the year 2020. Any landfill expansion program would be implemented in phases throughout the life of the Master Plan. The initial phases of such a plan would greatly limit the ability of the Port to revise the future configuration of landfill phases, making it important for the Port to determine a final landfill configuration before implementing the early phases. In developing the 2020 Plan, the Port projected a need for approximately 2,600 acres of additional land. In attempting to turn this 2,600 acre figure into a landfill scheme, the controlling agencies had to take a number of factors into consideration, including (1) water quality and tidal circulation; (2) potential ship motion problems; (3) additional berths required for future development; (4) land and waterside transportation corridors required; (5) availability of dredge material for creating the land; (6) available areas for creating landfills; (7) efficiency of land usage in various configurations; (8) types of ships anticipated to use the new landfills; (9) types of terminals anticipated to be located on the new landfills. The Port of Long Beach developed two basic schemes which addressed the requirements listed above. In either case, the landfill configuration for the Port of Los Angeles remained the same. The first scheme (called the island scheme, Figure 1) had the advantage of more closely matching the proposed Port of Los Angeles development. Water quality and tidal circulation would be improved with this scheme. The second scheme (called the horseshoe scheme, Figure 2) created a channel on the Long Beach side which did not match the orientation of the channel on the Los Angeles side. This channel was better protected from wave forces than the island scheme, where ships would have to be berthed along the exposed southerly boundary.


1993 ◽  
Vol 28 (3-5) ◽  
pp. 65-68
Author(s):  
Michelle Miller

The following case study addresses the difficulties and promise of developing a statewide interagency public information campaign to raise general awareness of water quality issues and governmental programs to address them. Due to only moderate success of voluntary programs to curb nonpoint source pollution, agencies are looking toward information and education programs to motivate the public toward conservation behavior. One of the biggest obstacles in developing an effective information/education program is institutional barriers to interagency cooperation, mirroring difficulties local conservationists encounter in their work to restore and maintain water quality at the watershed level. Cooperation between federal agencies, and resource commitment to public information is necessary at the federal level, as well as state and local levels. Agencies involved to date include the United States Department of Agriculture-Soil Conservation Service; Wisconsin State Departments of Natural Resources, and Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection and Administration; University of Wisconsin-Extension; Wisconsin Land Conservation Association.


Water Policy ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (6) ◽  
pp. 1206-1224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Yaw Okyere ◽  
Felix Ankomah Asante

Abstract In this paper, we analyze perceptions and determinants of households' participation in a randomized experiment on water quality testing and information in southern Ghana. Beneficiary households assessed the components of the intervention including its relevance and adequacy in improving understanding of water quality issues. Motivating and constraining factors to participation in the randomized experiment are also assessed. We also estimate the correlates of participation in the intervention. Social and economic benefits derived from the intervention based on perceptions are compared with impacts of the intervention using an instrumental variable approach. We found evidence that subjective analysis estimates of the effects of the intervention are higher than the objective analysis estimates. Households generally perceived the intervention to be relevant in improving their understanding of water quality issues. However, there are differing opinions based on random assignment into either child or adult treatment groups on most- and least-liked attributes of the intervention, and also motivating and constraining factors affecting participation in the intervention. The factors that statistically and significantly influenced participation in the intervention include educational attainment, ethnicity, religious denomination and marital status of the household heads, in addition to the location of residence.


1994 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chandan K. Saikia ◽  
Douglas S. Dreger ◽  
Donald V. Helmberger

Abstract We have investigated energy amplification observed within Greater Los Angeles basin by analyzing regional waveforms recorded from several Nevada Test Site (NTS) nuclear explosions. Although the stations are located nearly at the same azimuth (distances ranging from 350 to 400 km), the seismograms recorded in Compton (the central part of the basin), Long Beach (the southern edge of the basin), and downtown Los Angeles are remarkably different, even for a common explosion. Following the onset of Lg waves, the Long Beach sites have recorded surface waves for more than 100 sec. From one explosion, the sites within downtown Los Angeles have recorded seismograms with strong 3-sec surface waves. These waves are not observed on the seismograms recorded in the neighboring hard-rock site California Institute of Technology (CIT) station. Thus, they must have been generated by local wave guides. Numerically, we modeled these 3-sec waves by convolving the CIT seismogram with the response of a sedimentary strata dipping gently (about 6°) from CIT toward downtown. We also examined the irregular basin effect by analyzing the variation of cumulative temporal energy across the basin relative to the energy recorded at CIT from the same explosion. Variation up to a factor of 30 was observed. To model the energy variation that is caused by extended surface waves in the Long Beach area, we used numerically simulated site transfer functions (STF) from a NNE-SSW oriented two-dimensional basin structure extending from Montebello to Palos Verdes that included low-velocity sedimentary material in the uppermost layers. These STFs were convolved with the CIT seismogram recorded from the MAST explosion. To simulate elongated duration of surface waves, we introduced in the upper sedimentary structure some discontinuous microbasin structures of varying size, each microbasin delaying the seismic waves propagating through them. Consequently, the surface-reflected phases through these structures are delayed and reflected into the upper medium by the underlying interfaces. This mechanism helps delayed energy to appear at a later time and result in a longer time duration at sites located at southern edge of the basin.


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