H. David Nahai – The Moral Center?
Blogger LA Creek Freak writes about the recent so-called Sustainable Water Forum and describes a very different H. David Nahai from the one that I’m familiar with.
The forum was put together to launch the cities effort to convince residents that recycled sewage is safe enough to mix into our water supply system and drink from the tap. A process known as Toilet to Tap.
At the moral center of the event was David Nahai who has served as the head of of DWP since late last year. I’ve encountered Nahai before, in his longtime role as a environmental stalwart on the regional water board. He’s great. One of the mayor’s very best environmental moves was to hire him to run the DWP. David Nahai is up-front, clear, principled and generous. He continually emphasized that water solutions would be based in partnership and collaboration – with an array of city departments, other governmental agencies, neighborhood councils, community groups, and an engaged public. He frequently voiced praise of (and deferred credit to) the work being done by his staff. He uttered the most stark (for a public official) assessment of the damage caused by L.A.’s thirst for imported water, saying that, in the Owens Valley “we left in our wake an environmental calamity.”
The moral center? An Environmental Stalwart? Principled and generous? That is not the Nahai that I’ve seen. Here is the Nahai that I know.
- Nahai tells the mayor and the city council that the LADWP has $182 million in ’surplus’ funds that it can transfer to the city’s general fund. Nahai approved this transfer while acknowledging that the cities underground electrical infrastructure has been decaying badly. Days later he begins a campaign for an electricity rate increase while holding up the tragic Westchester underground electrical explosion that took the life of a LAFD firefighter as evidence for the rate increase.
If Nahai had a moral center he would have resisted requests by city officials to transfer money away from the LADWP and argue that the LADWP needs these funds to upgrade the underground infrastructure and protect the people. The hundreds of millions of dollars in power transfers over the last decade could have gone a long way into modernizing the system but the principled and generous Nahia instead decided that his boss’s (Villaraigosa) request to put money into the general fund was more important than ensuring a safe electrical supply.
- An audit performed by his own department found that Nahai’s own home uses over 1,100 gallons of water per day! That’s about 300% more than the average resident. Weeks later, Nahai and the Board of Water and Power Commissioners drew up an Emergency Water Conservation Ordinance that places the entire burden on water conservation entirely on residents and none at all on current and future housing production.
If Nahai was an environmental stalwart his family should have been using about 350 gallons per day which is about average for a family of four. An environmental stalwart would also be arguing with city leaders that the last decades housing production and the accompanying water requirement has outstripped natures very real water supply water limits. He should be urging city leaders to support a housing production moratorium until they can guarantee sufficient supplies.
- Nahai is proposing a so-called Green Path North power transmission project to supply Los Angeles electricity from geo thermal sources. The transmission line would put towering structures that would would mar scenic vistas and intrude on private property. Met with criticism of his proposal, an undaunted Nahai later proposed burying some portions of the transmission but critics responded by pointing out that digging up the land would mar the sensitive desert landscape for years and harm plants that have lived there for perhaps 1,000 years.
In reality H. David Nahia is less the environmental stalwart and more the mayors point man to provide water and electrical infrastucture for this city’s unsustainable plans for growth.
LA Creek Freak got this right saying: “Basically, we’re not getting any more imported water, so we’re going to have to make the water that we already have go further. ”
However the fact is, we’ll be getting less imported water and even with recycled water it will not be enough to sustain city halls housing appetite. In November the State Water Project will be coming out with their preliminary estimates on how much water their contractors (including the MWD) will get. I suspect that there will be further cutbacks.
As a grandparent of 2 Playa Vista kids, I thought it was appropriate to make a comment in this forum, especially concerning the seriousness of what Nahai is now trying to do to the California Desert (where I reside) with the Green Path North transmission line project.
It’s Owens Valley all over again, but this time it’s the desert bioregion that the LA DWP is aiming to destroy. With Mayor Villaraigosa’s support, Nahai is trying to push this very not-green path through wildlife preserves, such as the Big Morongo Area of Critical Environmental Concern. The LA DWP could get geothermal energy from the Salton Sea along the existing I-10 transmission corridor by working with SCE, but LADWP wants to own new transmission lines (a greedily clever way Nahai can self-promote by passing along more cash to Villaraigosa’s city fund.
I hope concerned LA citizens will visit cadesertco.org to learn about the destruction Green Path North would do to the remaining pristine desert, its wildlife and its scenic vistas. This transmission line path would even impact Joshua Tree National Park (especially its herd of bighorn sheep). I want these beautiful lands to be here for my grandchildren as well as yours and all future generations.
I am honored that you’ve picked up my creek freak blog entry and furthered the discussion. I don’t think that the LADWP or David Nahai are perfect, but I think that some of what you’ve criticized Nahai for is longstanding city/DWP practice – for example: the City Council and Mayor take some income coming from the DWP to pay into the city budget.
Nahai did speak about his home water use. He admitted that he hadn’t focued on it, and was guilty of consuming excess water… though he did say that he has rectified the situation and reports that his home water use has decreased 30%.
We have a long way to go – there’s a lot of change I’d like to see in the DWP and the city – but I stand by my opinion that Nahai is taking things in a good direction.
>> I think that some of what you’ve criticized Nahai for is longstanding city/DWP practice – for example: the City Council and Mayor take some income coming from the DWP to pay into the city budget.
It is a long standing practice and it should end. Nahai cannot on one hand say that his department has a cash surplus and on the otherhand tell the residents that the DWP doesn’t have enough money to repair things so he has to seek power rate increases.
Nahai wears his environmentalism on his shirt sleeve but he was appointed by Villaraigosa and he knows who he works for and why. Generate money for the city and provide an infrastructure for another 1.5 million people to meet SCAG growth targets. This means providing water and power connections to every new project.
Any wonder why not one phase of the Emergency Conservation Ordinance places a moratorium on housing production?
As for Nahia’s own water use, his 30% reduction brings him down to roughly 844 gallons per day. Not even close to the average family of four and far from doing his part to conserve water. He is still a tier two consumer. Same with his neighbors.