Are shipwrecks gravesites? Titanic exhibit sails into South Florida museum with controversy onboard

• October 16, 2023

Almost 112 years after it sank into the icy Atlantic, the tragic maiden voyage of the Titanic endures as a public obsession. One of those shipwreck junkies is the Cox Science Center and Aquarium in West Palm Beach, which is showcasing a blockbuster display of real artifacts from the doomed ship for the second time in 10 years.

Opening Thursday, Oct. 12, “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition” spotlights 81 relics salvaged from the most infamous maritime disaster in modern history. There are cracked perfume vials still fragrant more than a century later; a gilded five-socket chandelier from the men’s first-class smoking room; a preserved leather bag; chipped figurines and a delicate glass syringe and a third-class cup still marked with the White Star Line logo, the British shipping line that built the luxury liner.

These fragments of the past, plucked from their watery grave, are meant to be poignant reminders of the passengers and crew who left them behind — and most likely died with them, says Carla Duhaney, the Cox Science Center’s chief operating officer.

“It’s about love and heroism and the split-second decisions that these passengers and crew had to make that day,” Duhaney tells the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “You feel like you’re on the boat itself. What would you have packed on the Titanic? What would you have grabbed as it went down? Would you have saved yourself or someone else?”

A White Star Line china cup recovered from the depths is part of a display of 81 artifacts in the new “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition” in West Palm Beach. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

The artifacts are on loan from RMS Titanic Inc., which since 1994 has owned the salvage rights to the wreck and tours the objects in seven exhibits now circling the globe, including a permanent display in Orlando. (The 81 pieces on display are a fraction of the roughly 5,500 it has.)

If the company’s name sounds familiar, it may be because the federal government took action in June to block its future artifact expeditions — including one planned in 2024 — claiming that the ship is a memorial site that should be federally regulated. That legal battle to decide whether the Titanic’s remains should be salvaged comes in the wake of the June 18 OceanGate submersible disaster, when five people died attempting to tour the wreck.

For her part, Tomasina Ray, director of collections for RMS Titanic Inc., thinks the artifacts belong in museums and exhibits instead of the water.

“These artifacts should be recovered because they have so many stories to tell,” Ray says. “There’s so much you can get from seeing an actual piece of history than by looking at pictures. It sparks more conversation.”

And wonder. One of her favorite artifacts on display, Ray says, is the logometer, a mechanical device that measures the distance a ship travels. Reset at noon on April 14, 1912, the device showed that the Titanic traveled 268 nautical miles that day — then traveled no more.

A first-class chandelier recovered from the depths is on display at “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition,” opening Oct. 12 at the Cox Science Center and Aquarium in West Palm Beach. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

“It’s a remarkable thing showing the exact moment that the world stopped,” Ray says. “It’s frozen in time.”

Another display features century-old vials of still-fragrant perfume. Tomasina says they belonged to German-Jewish chemist Adolphe Saalfeld, who hoped to strike it rich in the New York perfume business but left the samples behind in a panic as the ship sank.

“The vial glass is really strong and held up to the water pressure all this time,” she says. “A lot of what we learned in recovering artifacts is we got lucky. The leather bags stayed intact because they happened to be coated in the right chemicals.”

A reproduction of a third-class cabin is on display at “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition.” (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Each museum visitor who buys a ticket is handed a boarding pass, which bears the name of one of the 2,223 passengers who sailed the Titanic. At the end of the exhibit, on a memorial wall, visitors can learn whether that passenger lived or died.

With somber reverence, visitors are also steered through Titanic history, learning about construction of the ship in Belfast in 1909; how its voyage from England to New York on April 10, 1912, was thwarted by a jagged iceberg; and how RMS Titanic Inc., managed to dredge up all those artifacts. There are recreations of first- and third-class cabins — as well as a 7 1/2-foot wide “iceberg” that patrons can touch.

A delicate Dutch boy ceramic piece is one of 81 artifacts on display for the “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition” in West Palm Beach. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

So why bring back the Titanic exhibit now? The answer, Duhaney says, is why not? The shipwreck never stops fascinating new generations — and never sails out of the news cycle for long.

There are Titanic-themed musicals; a low-budget mock sequel (“Titanic II”); endless social-media debates about whether Jack could have fit on Rose’s floating door in the James Cameron movie; endless conspiracy theories and encyclopedias and dedicated TikTok accounts; and no fewer than seven Titanic museums worldwide, one of which — in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. — is literally ship-shaped.

“It was a watershed moment in history,” Duhaney adds. “People are so obsessed with the Titanic’s stories, and we love to tell stories at the Science Center.”

IF YOU GO

WHAT: “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition”

WHEN: Oct. 12, 2023 through April 14, 2024

WHERE: Cox Science Center & Aquarium, 4801 Dreher Trail N., West Palm Beach

COST: $20-$24

INFORMATION: CoxScienceCenter.org/Titanic or 561-832-1988 

​ Orange County Register 

The Huntington is adding a major attraction to its Japanese Garden

• October 16, 2023

The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens has a new attraction that will bring the essence of a 17th century farming village to San Marino.

It is called the Japanese Heritage Shōya House, and it will open to the public on Saturday, Oct. 21.

The house was built around 1700 in Marugame, a city in Japan’s western Kagawa Prefecture. A shōya was a village leader, according to Robert Hori, gardens cultural curator and program director for The Huntington.

“The Japanese Heritage Shōya House will take the visitor back in time,”  he said in a phone interview. “What we have created is a rural village setting, which includes the house, walls, a gatehouse and terraced rice fields that would have surrounded it when it was originally built.”

The project is an addition to the nine-acre Japanese Garden that railroad magnate Henry E. Huntington created on his estate in 1912.

With its tea house and moon bridge, the Japanese Garden is one of the Huntington’s major attractions, along with the paintings “Pinkie” and “The Blue Boy,” a Gutenberg Bible and a Shakespeare first folio.

The Japanese Garden has always had a Japanese house, but the structure Henry Huntington installed, while built in Japan, was never a residence, Karen R. Lawrence, president of the Huntington, said at a press preview of the Shōya House.

“This is completely different. This the real deal.”

The Shōya House literally takes the Japanese Garden in a new direction. It opens a new 2-acre section of the 207-acre property to visitors between the original Japanese Garden and a Chinese Garden that was enlarged as part of a major expansion in 2020.

The 3,000-square-foot structure was owned for centuries by the Yokoi family. Los Angeles resident Akira Yokoi, a 19th generation descendant, and his wife Yohko offered it to the Huntington in 2016, according to a news release.

In the 17th century the house served as both a public space for civic business and a private residence, Hori said.

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Creating the compound was a seven-year project, and it’s still a work in progress. Japanese workers spent years taking apart the house and then reassembling it in San Marino. It occupies two acres that include an authentic gatehouse that houses an office and public restrooms..

In addition to rice, the Huntington has planted other grains in front of the compound, including millet and red beans. There is also a vegetable garden. But some of the plants have attracted rabbits.

The rice fields will help demonstrate sustainable agriculture to visitors, Hori said.

“The grains and rice are seasonal markers, so you will see changes in the space throughout the year, from planting in early spring to harvest in fall,” he added. “You’ll see the end of the growing season. We are ready to harvest.”

The project cost $10.2 million, funded by philanthropic support, according to the Huntington website.

The Huntington

Where: 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino.

Hours: 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Wednesday through Monday; closed Tuesday.

Admission: $25-$29 for adults; $21-$24 for military, seniors age 65 and older and students age 12-18

Information: huntington.org

​ Orange County Register 

Government undermines health care quality, while choice promotes it

• October 16, 2023

With Health Care Quality Week upon us, a few reminders are in order. First, the U.S. health sector improves health care quality around the world. Even so, government intervention reduces quality here at home. And making quality health care universal requires reforms that let individuals make their own health decisions.

The U.S. health sector leads all other nations in medical innovation. Those quality improvements make health care more universal around the world—even in countries that supposedly already had universal health care.

Consider sofosbuvir (brand name: Sovaldi), an “almost universal cure of chronic hepatitis C” with cure rates of 84-96 percent. One study found sofosbuvir reduces all-cause mortality among hepatitis C patients by a whopping 50 percent.

Before the U.S. health sector introduced sofosbuvir in 2014, hepatitis-C patients around the world suffered and died for want of a cure. Since 2014, the U.S. health sector has been filling that gap in every nation’s health system.

Even so, a high degree of government control relative to other developed nations suppresses quality here at home.

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) data show that in the United States, government directly or indirectly controls 85 percent of health spending. That’s the 8th-highest share among OECD nations. It’s higher than Canada (71 percent) and the United Kingdom (82 percent)—which have explicitly socialized health systems—and just two percentage points behind highest-ranking Germany. As a share of GDP, compulsory health spending in the United States (14 percent) exceeds total health spending in every other OECD nation (highest: 13 percent).

Government uses that control to encourage low-quality health insurance that makes the problem of preexisting conditions worse.

The average worker changes jobs 13 times by age 56. In Recovery: A Guide to Reforming the U.S. Health Sector, I provide data showing that patients with employer-sponsored coverage who are in poor health are significantly more likely to end up uninsured—i.e., with a preexisting condition—than similar patients who purchase coverage themselves.

Still, 55 percent of U.S. residents continue to enroll in low-quality coverage that vanishes when they change jobs. Why? If workers don’t purchase employer-sponsored health insurance, government penalizes them with lower after-tax earnings.

Meanwhile, government health programs literally pay producers not to improve quality.

For at least two decades, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has warned that in traditional Medicare, “providers are paid even more when quality is worse, such as when complications occur as the result of error.” One study found that when patients experience post-operative complications, Medicare ends up doubling hospitals’ net revenues from $1,880 to $3,629. Medicare rules reward private insurers for skimping on care to the sick.

Medicare’s quality-improvement efforts consistently fail to improve quality. A study of Medicare’s Hospital Value-Based Purchasing program found that “in no subgroups of hospitals was HVBP associated with better outcomes, including poor performers at baseline.” Medicare’s attempt to reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions likewise had zero effect on patient outcomes.

To reward all dimensions of quality, consumers must be free to make their own health decisions.

Congress should free workers to control the $1 trillion of their earnings that employers now use to purchase low-quality coverage. Letting workers control that money—in new savings vehicles that keep the best parts and discard the worst parts of tax-free health savings accounts—would constitute a massive and progressive tax cut. Workers would be free to remain in their employer plans but would gain the freedom to put that money toward higher-quality coverage.

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A traditionally Democratic idea would improve quality for Medicare enrollees. Medicare already contains a government-run “public option” that competes against private insurers. Yet the playing field is anything but level. Countless unnecessary rules push enrollees in one direction or the other.

“Public option” principles require eliminating those distortions. That means subsidizing Medicare enrollees with cash and trusting them to spend it, like Social Security does. Giving poorer and sicker enrollees larger “Medicare checks” than healthy and wealthy enrollees would enable all to afford a basic health plan. Any restrictions on how enrollees spend their Medicare checks would violate public-option principles by favoring one type of health plan over another.

Enrollees could then select plans that reward high-quality care. Also important, price-conscious consumers—rather than government price-fixing—would determine how much to reward pharmaceutical innovation.

There’s no Democratic or Republican way to promote quality. There is only what works, and that’s letting consumers reward quality by making their own health decisions.

Michael F. Cannon is director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute. His new book is Recovery: A Guide to Reforming the U.S. Health Sector (Cato Institute, 2023).

​ Orange County Register 

California’s job market: More firings – less hirings and quits

• October 16, 2023

“Numerology” tries to find reality within various measurements of economic and real estate trends.

Buzz: California’s employment picture has cooled to either (1) a new normal or (2) a worrisome slowdown.

Source: My trusty spreadsheet crafted the “HQF” index to loosely measure statewide tensions in the workplace. The math, taken from some novel federal job statistics, compares California hiring (an upbeat signal) with statewide quits and firings (usual signals of distress).

Fuzzy math: What’s up with workplace revolts across California this year – from tussles over work-from-home policies to numerous disagreements putting workers on picket lines?

Topline

California had an HQF rating of 112 in the year’s first seven months – that’s 112 hires for every 100 quits and firings.

What does that mean? Well, it’s sort of a “it-could-be-worse” message. Why? Consider the index’s history.

Since 2001, California has averaged 113 hires for every 100 quits and firings through July. So this year’s is a tad slow.

Now it’s not the worst. That HQF honor goes to mid-Great Recession 2009 which scored a 101. Nor was it the best such as 2021’s rebound from pandemic lockdowns, which scored 124.

MORTGAGE NEWS: What’s up with rates? Who’s lending? CLICK HERE!

Taking the shorter-term view, 2023’s HQF is an upgrade from last year’s 108. And it tops the 109 average of pre-pandemic 2018-19.

To the HQF, at least, the California job market isn’t so bad.

Details

Let’s see what’s moving the HQF in 2023.

1. Hiring pace cools. Staff additions show confidence in the business climate. And this kind of optimism is down. California bosses hired 4.1 million in 2023, but that’s off 10% in a year. However, it’s 2% above the 2018-19 pace.

EXODUS SLOWDOWN?: California exits drop 3%, arrivals rose 10%. READ HERE!

2. Quits slow. The “bye, boss” trend is cooling but remains a concern. The 2.4 million Californians who voluntarily left a job this year is off 22% in a year. But quits remain 2% above the 2018-19 norm.

3. Firings are up. Telling workers they’re no longer needed is the most public signal of worry. And the 1.1 million Californians who were involuntarily let go is up 5% in a year. And it’s 15% above pre-pandemic 2018-19.

Bottom line

Rising workplace tensions could be more than just awkward adjustments between boss and employee as the economy adjusts to post-pandemic normalcy.

Fewer job opportunities – less hiring and more firing – can make folks think twice about quitting. But it hasn’t stopped folks from walking off the job en masse.

More traditional job-market yardsticks also show a changing boss-worker dynamic.

Yes, a record number of Californians are employed. But the growth of staffing suggests bosses are a wee bit antsy.

The 2.4% increase in total workers statewide this year is historically strong. But it’s off from 2022’s torrid 6.9% job creation. Curiously, this year’s increase tops the 1.8% job growth of 2018-19 – supposedly the good ol’ days.

Peeking at unemployment, the average 900,000 California officially out of work per month this year is up 7% in a year and 9% above 2018-19. Job security seems to be slipping.

In some ways, though, this year’s workplace chill should be little surprise. It’s exactly what the Federal Reserve is seeking in its quest to fix an overheated US economy.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at [email protected]

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​ Orange County Register 

Why all-digital AM radio sounds like a good idea for the future

• October 16, 2023

Interference and fidelity have been the bane of AM radio broadcasters and listeners since the medium was developed in the early 1900s. In fact, what drove Edwin Armstrong to invent FM radio was that he hated the sound of AM, which he also helped develop.

Over the years, technical improvements have helped make AM sound better, but the erosion of listeners from the band has continued. One potential solution was digital HD radio, but the hybrid HD system introduced its own problems by increasing overall interference on the band, leading many stations to abandon it.

But what about all-digital AM? Does it have the potential to fix all that ails the band? In 2018, WWFD/Frederick, Maryland decided to find out. The station went all-digital under temporary authorization by the FCC (later approved for permanent full-time use).

That’s a huge risk. All-digital broadcasting means that only those with HD radios can hear your station. All-digital renders the vast majority of AM radios obsolete, as all they would “hear” is static (before eventually tuning out, you’d imagine). Having no listeners tends to hurt stations that rely on an active listener base to sell advertising.

Yet the idea is not unprecedented. Indeed, there were few radios available at the genesis of AM itself in 1922, and FM stations languished for years due to a lack of receivers.

Likewise, the payoffs are huge. For a station that is already losing money, it begs the question – why not take the chance? Of course, one could say that regarding programming itself, so there are multiple ways to take risks that might pay off big in the future.

In the case of WWFD, the management felt the risk was worth it. After five years of testing, the station has announced that it will remain all-digital, playing a wide-variety music format called The Gamut.

“It was my intention all the way back then that this would be permanent,” station programmer and engineer Dave Kolesar told radio engineering newspaper Radio World. “We have learned that all-digital AM broadcasting is much more robust than the hybrid mode of HD AM, and in fact has many advantages over analog broadcasting in terms of sound quality and metadata.”

Metadata is the capability of sending song information, album artwork, and even secondary audio channels over the air. “It makes AM look and sound like every other broadcast service in the dashboard, and that’s essential to the future of the band,” he said, adding “it even works well in electric vehicles.”

Another advantage of all-digital? The reception is almost instantaneous, much like analog. The hybrid mode on both AM and FM takes a second or two for digital to kick in. Likewise, interference between stations is reduced, as the signal is centered more tightly on the assigned frequency; hybrid mode puts the digital stream on the sides of the analog signal.

You can hear samples of the station online at meduci.com/airchecks.html. One of the included files demonstrates the fast reception capability, and I have to admit, I was surprised how fast it clicks in.

Obviously, digital is not for everyone, and programming trumps sound quality … it makes no difference what you sound like if no one wants to hear what you broadcast. While a station like KFI (640 AM) has too much to lose as one of the top-rated stations in town, a station like KABC (790 AM) might well consider it. There are rumblings that KMZT (1260 AM) will try testing all-digital at least temporarily at certain times of the day, and I think it would be a great idea. I’d like to know just how far the all-digital signal can travel, and if it can do so at night. It could indeed be a game-changer.

Kolesar agrees, telling Radio World that all-digital is something every AM broadcaster needs to move toward, sooner rather than later. “Analog AM listenership is declining, and we need to stop worrying about obsoleting analog-only radios … because fewer people are even bothering to turn them on.”

Modern Music

Alt 98.7 FM’s Woody Show announced the artists scheduled to perform at the annual Alter Ego concert to be held January 13, 2024 at the Honda Center in Anaheim. The venue is a change from the past … the Forum is being used this year by The Eagles, necessitating the move South.

As if to make my point that there is a lot of good new (or at least new-ish) music available … you just can’t hear it everywhere … the concert features some amazing talent that isn’t really alternative in my mind – it’s just good.

Paramore, The 1975, The Black Keys, Thirty Seconds to Mars, BUSH, Sum 41, Yellowcard, lovelytheband and The Last Dinner Party will perform all on one stage, making for a tremendous concert. It is sponsored by station owner iHeart Media and hosted by Woody and his crew.

Presale begins October 24th, general sales on October 27th. The concert will also be broadcast on iHeart alternative stations nationwide. Get more information at alt987fm.iheart.com.

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​ Orange County Register 

After ‘miracle’ water year, can agencies capture more from next El Niño?

• October 16, 2023

It was a perfect storm of, well, pretty perfect storms.

There was a lot of rain and snow during California’s just completed “water year,” from Oct. 1, 2022 to Sept. 30 — nearly double the historical average in the southern half of the state. But all of that rain didn’t fall too fast, and snowpack-melting temperatures didn’t spike too high, making it possible for most areas to avoid major flooding.

The agencies that capture and store stormwater also have become better at finding ways to keep more of that precipitation in Southern California rather than letting it all run out to the ocean.

Recent projects by the Chino Basin Watermaster, for example, which manages the aquifer that sits under much of northwestern Inland Empire, allow the agency to capture an additional 4,000 acre feet of stormwater. (Each acre foot is enough to serve two households for a year.) And given how much rain fell, Justin Nakanowater, who serves as the agency’s manager of technical resources, said the Chino Basin was able to hold onto 20,000 acre feet of water this year — two and half times more than last water year.

That’s helping to replenish reservoirs and groundwater basins that had been depleted by persistent drought, with lakes and rivers also looking much better than this time last fall.

It’ll take many more perfect storms to make up for past deficits, though, water experts caution.

“Just one rain year does not get us out of a drought,” said Kelly Gardner, assistant executive officer for the Main San Gabriel Basin Watermaster.

Forecasters are cautiously optimistic that the El Niño season shaping up offshore might mean another wet winter ahead.

That’s actually putting pressure on water agencies to ready systems that, in some cases, haven’t fully dried out from the past year’s storms. And they’re using technology and getting creative to further boost stormwater capture and storage options, since much more water still heads to the ocean during big storms than agencies are able to divert and hold onto for the inevitable dry years to come.

Rainfall in context

This time last year, most weather experts were predicting another dry winter ahead. Instead, 33.56 inches of rain fell statewide in the most recent water year, which is 141% of the historical average. And the South Coast region, which includes most of non-desert Southern California, did even better, with 33.62 inches of rain for 192% of the historical average.

It was a one in 50-year event, according to Dennis Lettenmaier, a UCLA professor focused on hydrology.

It was also the most rain the area has seen since the 2004-05 water year, when the Department of Water Resources recorded 39.96 inches. But that year, Gardner said most of the rain fell in a 30-day window. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which controls her region’s Santa Anita Dam and many others in the area, had to fill and empty reservoirs above the dams as quickly as possible to prevent flooding, which meant releasing much of that year’s stormwater out to the ocean.

Just two years later, we saw the least amount of precipitation since the agency started tracking these figures in 1981, with just 5.8 inches of rain during the entire 2006-07 water year. Most years since have been pretty dry, with 2011, 2017, 2019 and now 2023 as exceptions.

“California does have the highest annual variation in precipitation of any state in the U.S,” said Jeanine Jones, interstate resources manager for the Department of Water Resources. “So for us, these wild swings from wet to dry are pretty normal.”

But when you look at the historic record, Jones noted, this century overall has been hotter and drier in California than any other 23-year stretch.

“One of the expectations with climate change is that extremes become more extreme,” Jones said. “So while we experience warming and drying overall, and more drought risk, the flip side of that is some of the big winter storms we have are expected to become worse or more extreme.”

For water agencies, Gardner said that means planning for the possibility of another wet winter while keeping the overall trend toward more frequent and severe droughts front of mind when managing local supplies. And they’re urging residents to think the same way, making conservation practices — such as reduced outdoor watering, which is typically mandated only during dry years — a permanent routine.

“We really can’t say what we’re going to have this winter,” Jones said. “And that’s always why we have to prepare for either extreme.”

Surface water solid, with caveats

The good news is that even if it turns out to be a dry El Niño year, California’s 17 major water reservoirs are at 127% of average levels. That means residents who depend on those surface reservoirs for large portions of their water supply probably won’t face serious restrictions next spring or summer, even if we return to drought conditions.

Southern Californians, however, don’t get much water from reservoirs; we have just four in the region. Among those, the Cachuma reservoir near Santa Barbara and Castaic reservoir in northwest Los Angeles County saw the biggest jumps during the most recent water year, with both now full to 92% of their capacities. The Diamond Valley reservoir in Hemet is at 83% capacity, while Casitas in Ventura is 72% full.

Those reservoirs are always required to leave capacity for quick surges in stormwater, Jones said. So even if we do have another wet winter, she said there shouldn’t be concerns about flooding around those reservoirs, even as agencies try to hold as much water in them as they can.

Lakes that don’t serve as reservoirs — but are important for everything from wildlife to recreation to firefighting — also are looking good.

In late August 2022, Big Bear Lake was 16.5 feet below its full mark, which put it at less than 50% capacity, leaving docks stranded and adjacent wetlands dry. This August, the lake was down just 6.9 feet and nearly three-quarters full.

Rivers and streams — including the Colorado River, which is critically important for Southern California’s imported water supply — can be more temperamental.

Since rivers tend to get at least some of their supply from baseflow, or flows fed by groundwater, a new study out of UC Riverside shows they don’t recover as quickly or easily from drought years as do some other types of surface water. It took the Arroyo Seco stream near Pasadena nearly a year to recover each time drought hit over three decades tracked in the study, while some of the other 350 sites included in the study took up to 3.5 years to bounce back.

Underground water tougher to gage

The lag in drought recovery for underground basins happens as surface water seeps through layers of sediment and rock that can run more than 1,000 feet deep. Couple that with decades of people in some parts of the state pumping too much from aquifers and it’s easy to see why groundwater numbers didn’t jump up the way reservoir and lake numbers did during the last wet water year.

Some 42% of groundwater monitoring wells still show as below normal, per the state.

But while groundwater basins in the Central Valley have been overdrafted for years, to the point that land in some areas is physically sinking, Jones noted that Southern California’s aquifers have been much better managed.

“Our groundwater table has come up about 50 feet,” Gardner said of the basin in eastern Los Angeles County. “That’s a big improvement over almost hitting a historic low.”

Since recent storms were more spread out than the rains that fell during the 2004-05 water year, Gardner said her agency was able to capture more water even though rainfall totals were a bit lower. They then let hundreds of thousands of gallons of water percolate back into the groundwater basin through spreading grounds near the interchange of the 605 and 210 freeways.

The Orange County Water District, which manages a large underground basin that supplies much of the water for northern Orange County, has made substantial investments to create similar recharge stations near the intersection of the 91 and 55 freeways.

John Kennedy, the district’s executive director of engineering and water resources, said in a typical year they capture 53,000 acre feet of water. Last year, they got 94,000 acre feet. They have so much water that even though wholesalers are offering imported water at good prices, to use now or to store for future dry years, Kennedy said his district isn’t buying.

The Chino Basin Watermaster is actually storing some of that imported water in its catch basins on behalf of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Nakanowater said. They’re hoping more water agencies decide to buy that water and have places to store it. Otherwise, if more storms come and Chino needs space in those catch basins to store its own captured stormwater, large volumes of water could be released to the ocean.

There just aren’t enough reservoirs in Southern California to capture all or even most of the rain that falls in wet years, Kennedy noted. While his agency held on to 94,000 acre feet last year, for example, he said 140,000 acre feet got by them and went out to sea.

“For an average year, there might be six to 10 days where you see water get by us and go out the Santa Ana River to the ocean,” he said. “This year was so wet that there were more like 20 to 25 days where water went out to the ocean.”

But there also isn’t a lot of vacant land in low-lying portions of Southern California to add new water storage facilities, Kennedy and others said. Especially when that pricey project might only be needed once every several years, when rains are heavy.

Instead, water agencies are looking for ways to maximize the systems they have now.

In Chino, for example, Nakanowater said they’re working to pump water from one catch basin into another, where the geology allows the water to percolate into the underground basin more quickly. Many of those basins were created decades ago, he said, before technology allowed them to pinpoint more ideal locations.

The Orange County Water District and Main San Gabriel Basin Watermaster also have been asking the Army Corps to hold more water for a longer time above the Prado and Santa Anita dams. Since the Army Corps’ priority is preventing flooding, Kennedy said they’d typically release water out to the ocean when supplies behind the Prado Dam hit 498 feet in winter. Now, he said they’re letting water get to 505 feet year round.

More accurate and localized weather forecasts also can help. In the past, Kennedy said the Army Corps has started releasing water from local dams as soon as models showed a big storm building off the coast. But those storms often veer off and miss us entirely, and we dump water that could be saved.

That’s why California has partnered with federal and local water agencies to test a strategy called Forecast Informed Reservoir Operations, or FIRO, in the Santa Ana River watershed and other areas, Jones said. With FIRO, the Army Corps uses the latest forecasting technology to track storms and make decisions about water releases. Kennedy said they’ve been hoping the Army Corps would start testing this system locally this winter, but it he said it will be in place next winter for sure.

None of these changes are going to make Southern California drought proof or able to suddenly start capturing 100% of stormwater, Kennedy said. But he said they all add up to a water system that’s able to better withstand whiplash conditions in California that are being exacerbated by climate change.

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​ Orange County Register 

Senior living: Fighting to see a specialist amplified pain for Southern California woman

• October 16, 2023

By Molly Castle Work, KFF Health News

Teresa Johnson can’t escape the pain.

It’s as if she’s getting pierced by needles all over her body, all at once. At night, she sometimes jolts out of sleep thinking bedbugs are attacking her. But it’s just the unfailing pain — day in and day out.

Johnson, 58, said her ordeal started in September 2022, when she went for a CT scan of her abdomen after a bout of COVID-19. Though Johnson warned the lab she was allergic to iodine, she believes the lab tech used it in an injection, triggering an allergic reaction. She spent the next three weeks in the hospital, feeling as if her body was on fire.

When she was discharged to her home at the base of the San Jacinto Mountains in Riverside County, Johnson said, her quality of life deteriorated and her frustration mounted as she waited for her Medi-Cal plan to get her assessed by a specialist. She could barely walk or stand, she could no longer cook for herself, and sometimes she couldn’t even lift her leg high enough to step into the tub.

“I would never wish this on anybody,” Johnson said while rocking back and forth on the couch to still the pain. “You don’t know if you should cry, or just say OK, I can make it through this. It messes with you mentally.”

Johnson said her primary care doctor told her he wasn’t sure what triggered the pain but suspects it was compounded by the lingering effects of COVID-19. Johnson, who is diabetic, developed neuropathy, a type of nerve damage, possibly after the allergic reaction caused her blood sugar levels to skyrocket, her doctor told her.

He referred Johnson, who receives care through California’s Medicaid program for low-income people, to an endocrinologist in March. But, Johnson said, she was not offered timely appointments, and it took more than six months, four referrals, multiple complaints to her health plan, and a legal aid group’s help to finally snag a phone call with an endocrinologist in mid-September.

Access to specialists — from gastroenterologists to cardiologists — has been a long-standing challenge for many Medi-Cal patients, especially those in rural areas or regions facing staff shortages. The Inland Empire, where Johnson lives, has the second-lowest supply of specialists in the state, according to the California Health Care Foundation. (KFF Health News is the publisher of California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.)

The state Department of Managed Health Care, which regulates most Medi-Cal health plans, requires plans to get patients in to see specialists within 15 business days, unless a longer waiting time would not harm the patient’s health. But the timeline often looks very different in reality.

“It’s hard to get a specialist to contract for Medi-Cal patients. Period,” said Amanda Simmons, executive vice president of Integrated Health Partners of Southern California, a nonprofit that represents community health clinics. “Specialists don’t want to do it because reimbursement rates are so low.”

Johnson said she made her first call in March to the endocrinologist assigned by her Medi-Cal insurer, Inland Empire Health Plan, and that the office offered her an appointment several months out. Over the next four months, she received three more referrals, but she said she got a similar response each time she called. When Johnson objected to the lengthy wait times, requesting earlier appointments, she was told there was no availability and that her condition wasn’t urgent.

“They told me it wasn’t important,” Johnson said. “And I asked, ‘How would you know? You’ve never seen me.’”

Esther Iverson, director of provider communications for the plan, declined to speak about Johnson’s case but said the plan makes every effort to meet the 15-day requirement. It can be challenging to meet the standard, she said, because of a lack of available physicians — especially for certain specialties, such as endocrinology and pain management.

She pointed to the nationwide physician shortage, which is more pronounced in rural areas, including parts of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, where the plan operates. She also noted that many physicians decided to leave the field or retire early because of burnout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the same time, she said, the plan’s enrollment ballooned to 1.6 million as eligibility expanded in recent years. Statewide, more than 15 million Californians are enrolled in Medi-Cal.

“The highest priority for us is timely access to quality care,” Iverson said.

During her quest, Johnson enlisted the help of Inland Counties Legal Services, which provides free legal representation to low-income residents. They called the plan multiple times to request earlier appointments but got mired in bureaucratic delays and waiting periods.

In one instance in August, after the insurer told Johnson it couldn’t meet the 15-day time frame, her legal representative, Mariane Gantino, filed an appeal, arguing that Johnson’s request was urgent. The insurer’s medical director responded within a few hours denying the claim, saying the plan concluded that her case was not urgent and that a delay would not cause a serious threat to her health.

“I’m so burned out after dealing with this for so long,” Johnson said in mid-September. “Why do they have the 15-day law if there aren’t going to be any consequences?”

A few days later, Johnson finally received the call she had been waiting for: an offer of a phone appointment with an endocrinologist on Sept. 18. During the appointment, the doctor adjusted her diabetes and other medications but didn’t directly address her pain, she said.

“I’m in the same position,” Johnson said. “I’m still in pain. What’s next?”

Over the years, Johnson has worked various jobs — from driving 18-wheelers cross-country to weaving hair — but her most consistent work was as a caregiver, including to her six children, 21 grandchildren and three great-grandkids, with another great-grandchild on the way. Now, because of her extreme pain, the roles have been reversed. A daughter and granddaughter who live with her have become her full-time caregivers.

“I can’t do nothing. I can’t take care of my grandkids like I used to,” said Johnson, who sleeps most of the day and wakes up only when her pain medication wears off. “I was planning to take care of the new baby that’s coming. I probably can’t even hold her now.”

This article is part of “Faces of Medi-Cal,” a California Healthline series exploring the impact of the state’s safety-net health program on enrollees.

This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation. 

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

​ Orange County Register 

Ducks’ 21st man is their toughest fighter yet

• October 16, 2023

ANAHEIM –– Thirty years ago, the Ducks were expanding into a warm-weather market as its second franchise, and few then could have anticipated the staying power in their community and success on the ice they have fostered since.

But this season’s 21st Duck could teach all 20 of his new teammates and every other Ducks alumnus plenty about persistence, dedication and beating the longest of odds repeatedly.

Trent Sullivan, who also turned 30 this year, received an infant heart transplant and largely pessimistic prognoses that indicated he might live until adolescence at most. Today, he’s still standing, still smiling and creating joy for other children affected by pediatric diseases through his foundation, Grants Wishes, named for his brother, whom he lost to a rare pediatric cancer when Grant was just six years old and Trent was just nine.

“I’m very grateful for 21 years of doing all this and now getting nominated by the Ducks and having my charity be part of all this, it really means a lot,” said Sullivan, who already has the hockey-ized sobriquet Sully. “The day that I found out I just bawled my eyes out, because I’m doing it for my brother.”

Sullivan said the experience thus far had been “mind-blowing,” and that it still felt surreal.

“I’m still trying to process the whole deal, like ‘Oh, my God, I get to go on the ice, everyone gets to see me,’ so it’s really cool,” he said.

Such an emotional fan would naturally have a favorite player who was every bit as passionate about hockey as he has been about helping others, so it should come as little surprise that Sullivan’s pick was Teemu Selanne. Selanne, now retired, surprised Sullivan by popping into his suite during a preseason match this fall.

“The fact that Teemu sat down next to me was like ‘Oh, hey, man how’s it going?’ Like it was no big deal or anything, it was like old friends seeing each other,” Sullivan said.

In a sense, the meeting was exactly that way, as Sullivan and Selanne had a previous encounter, by chance, at a car show.

“When we met up again, he showed me the same picture two years later, he still had it on his phone,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan, an Anaheim native now living in Arizona, has spent plenty of his own life battling maladies and recovering from serious procedures: he’s also had a pacemaker implanted, undergone chemotherapy and been the recipient of a successful kidney transplant.

Since then, he attended and then became deeply involved with an event that gives teens who underwent kidney transplants and other such renal treatments to attend a prom night especially for them, among numerous other initiatives for youths who have surmounted adversity from a health perspective. It’s one of many wide-ranging ways Sullivan in which Sullivan and his mother Lori create an impact, with Grants Wishes being one that has granted the wishes of more than 300 children facing unconscionable difficulties.

“We live a different life, a 100% different life, and no one can ever imagine it. No one can,” Sullivan said.

Even during the COVID pandemic, when in-person contact was limited for most and all but impossible for the most vulnerable immunologically, the foundation found ways to grant wishes at parks and still participate directly by driving by in a caravan, honking and waving supportive signs.

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“Giving back means a lot to me, in general, because I’ve been through a lot in life and I see life from a different angle than a lot of people,” Sullivan said. “I still am going through things right now, but it won’t change my perspective on anything at all.”

Sullivan said that each recipient of a wish received a personalized memory book so that they could reflect upon the moment moving forward. Despite his own travails, Sullivan, his mother Lori and the small but potent non-profit are dedicated to making that magic over and over.

“We’re like Santa Claus,” said Sullivan, who shared first-star honors with Frank Vatrano Sunday. “But we don’t come in December, we come whenever we’re needed.”

​ Orange County Register