Sustaining us is made possible by fire heart pictures and viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hello and thanks for joining us for Sustaining Us here on KLCS PBS, I'm David Nazar.

Los Angeles County is trying to find the best and most sustainable solution to keep trash from polluting our rivers and creeks, our wildlife areas, and the ocean.

And this begins in part with trash prevention and a one of a kind southern California project known as the interceptor.

The Barcelona Creek Trash Interceptor is an innovative first in the nation remedy for preventing trash runoff, in this case, trash that can hoard and infiltrate our waterways.

The interceptor was first deployed back in October of 2022 and is now operating in the second year of a special two year pilot project.

We wanted to find out more about this cutting edge technology, so we now take you to the interceptor as we explain how this sustainability project is really leading the nation in taking pollution out of the environment.

We are here at the mouth of the bay, on a creek at the site of the Bionic Creek trash interceptor Diablo seven, a collaborative project between L.A. County and the Ocean Cleanup.

This is the seventh interceptor that's been deployed by the Ocean Cleanup in the world.

The first one that the interceptor has been deployed here in the United States, the Trash Interceptor seven, is an innovative in channel solution to preventing trash from making its way to our local beaches and the ocean.

the way it works is, it is a catamaran that is equipped with automatic sensors, conveyor belts, trash rack.

and the way it works is, it funnels through trash and flowing material into the trash interceptor that is ultimately collected and hauled out away from the beaches.

This location was strategically selected, taking into various factors such as, location, the amount of water that comes through the creek, the tide, the depth of water.

And so this and Bionic Creek ended up becoming the ideal location for the interceptor.

The Bionic Creek trash interceptor has received very positive responses from the local community.

we see a lot of runners, bicyclists, people enjoying the beach.

we have interpretive signage, in this area.

we're constantly seeing people reading into it.

we receive a lot of inquiries through our website, through our email.

again, people being really curious and interested in how the project is working.

This is a great example of utilizing the latest technologies, to really address some of the issues that's impacting, our, our community, our environment today.

and so being able to implement, kind of a, and a pipe solution to, reduce the amount of trash and debris that's making into our oceans is it's a great project.

Our partnership with Ocean Cleanup, involves a two year pilot.

We are entering the second year of that pilot study.

the first year was really successful.

the interceptor was deployed in October 2022. and in the span of a year, we've been able to intercept over 85 tons of floating trash and debris.

And so, that material ultimately would have impacted, our local beaches.

how it's being used by our, our residents and then, obviously, potential impacts to wildlife.

our hope is over the next coming year, we'll collect additional data, collect additional, performance, information and see, you know, if this is an effective, way of, of managing pollution here in our, water bodies.

The interceptor is configured here in Bionic Creek.

utilizing trash booms.

And so as trash and debris is making its way down the creek.

it is being funneled into the interceptor.

Our current configuration right now, this is a trash bin that spans half the width of the creek.

When we have a forecast for a storm, we would then implement the second half of the trash boom covering the full width of the creek.

and that way, all of the trash, all that debris is ultimately being funneled into the interceptor.

It's fully automated.

So there's nobody in the interceptor.

during, normal operations.

There are sensors and cameras, that would notify our staff when, when the basins are full and up, debris and then ready to be hauled out when the bins are full of material.

the barge is ejected from the catamaran, and it is actually transported to a loading site.

just about five, ten minutes away from the interceptor.

from there, the material is taken to a materials recovery facility where the debris is sorted.

recycled materials are removed and the materials are handled.

Are managed, appropriately.

The interceptor was deployed in October 22nd.

since that time, we've had 15 offloads, of debris and material, from the interceptor.

that's, equivalent to, 85 tons of material.

interestingly enough, through the sorting out, the materials collected, there's about 2,000 pounds worth of recycled plastics, that was recovered, from this material.

that's equivalent to almost 50,000 and, 16 ounce plastic bottles.

So it just shows you even recycled plastics.

they're still not being properly handled.

the best way that they could.

And unfortunately, they're still making its way down here to the ocean.

While environmentally conscious programs like.

The Bionic Creek Interceptor can help stem the flow of trash into our ecosystem.

We must also examine.

The root cause of our trash problem to begin with.

The trash gets into our creeks and our and our our rivers and ultimately the ocean from a variety of sources.

when we litter, and it goes into the gutter and through that system, it enters the ocean when we have huge, you know, rains and it flushes.

all of those systems, our underground water system, it flushes out into those creeks, which is part of our flood control systems.

We have a real issue with illegal dumping in unincorporated communities.

You know, people, you know, we want to talk about our unhoused.

And my argument with that is, you know, those of us who are housed have the luxury of knowing that whatever your trash pickup day, someone's coming to take trash from you.

And if you didn't have that luxury, what would you do?

So we've worked really hard with our homeless initiative.

The Department of Public Works to create options for our unhoused, to have a space, and also to have real stiff penalties for people who engage in illegal dumping.

We're talking about business who are trying to avoid the fees of going to the dump, who find strips of unincorporated property and dump or movers or homeowners.

Because if we're talking about double door refrigerators and caulking mattresses and couches, I can't hold my unhoused neighbor accountable to that.

Our unhoused are not the sole producers of the trash we see around our communities along the freeways.

the trash, in our beaches, which is what makes the Bionic Creek Trash Interceptor seven such a unique and special opportunity that I was thrilled to be able to host it here.

The first, of its kind in North America to see if it could be a part of our toolkit on how we prevent the tons of trash that enters our waterways every year.

So this interesting concept about a sense of personal responsibility and trash, it was having a conversation at a social event.

The woman said, I hate to bug you, but just it feels like the city is just full of litter.

And so I know that we've got policies.

I don't know that those PR campaigns are as prominent as they once were.

I go to the beach cleanups every year.

You know, I see the art produced by the young people who understand it.

We have fines.

If you litter on the highway, there's a $500 fine.

And yet I still see it happening.

You know, when I pull up in my neighborhood Starbucks, do the drive through, as we, many of us do, wear the car in front of me rolls down their window as we're inching through the line and throws out trash.

It has happened so often just to me that the first couple times I thought, well, that's ridiculous.

Well, it's happened so often that I now got mad.

I talked to the Starbucks staff on my.

Can you have a trash can here?

Like you roll through some fast food.

There's a trash can where you can reach in and they're like, you know, it's not in accordance with our corporate policy, but we have to sweep our drive through seven and eight times a day because it is filled with litter.

That's just one Starbucks.

That's just my own individual experience.

So, you know, I think when we think about trash and I'm an agent of government as an elected official, people, you know, tend to want to say, what are you doing about it?

And I've given you examples where we're piloting O seven interceptor.

We're passing policies, we're eliminating single use plastics.

We're trying to change personal behavior from a policy making perspective.

But at some point, we as individuals have to make a decision.

And you have perhaps experienced that, like I have.

You've traveled to other states, other countries where we see clean streets.

I remember traveling, to Japan where they don't even have trash cans on the street.

You are responsible for maintaining your own trash if you're out.

You wrap up and you keep your own trash.

We as a society, as a culture, have to figure out how we're going to take better and greater personal responsibility for the trash we produce.

The interceptor is one tool in our toolkit.

We're doing nets.

We're doing public information.

There are.

This is the only thing Department of Water and Power is doing to protect our waterways.

and as a part of our flood control system and all that, we're doing to keep our, you know, water table safe and free of debris.

But it's one more tool.

It's it's almost like the last stop.

if the netting and all that was kind of upstream, literally and figuratively didn't work.

And trash has made it through, the by on a creek, about to spew out, into the ocean.

This is kind of our last ditch effort to capture before it enters the sea.

The 60 tons of debris that it captured in its first year alone.

That's a success.

Thank you so much to all the good folks who helped out with that report.

The County of Los Angeles and the Department of Public Works.

Now, from the waterways of LA County and Southern California to the waterways of the Pacific Northwest.

We traveled to the famous Columbia River Gorge.

This majestic canyon of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest stretches for over 80 miles as the river widens westward through the Cascade Range, separating Washington State to the north and Oregon to the south.

Join us as we take a road trip with Portland State University geology professor Emeritus Scott Burns for a geologic exploration of the Columbia River Gorge.

As many amazing water features and some of the geological science of the gorge.

The story is part of our continuing content sharing partnership with public media and PBS stations throughout the US.

Our public media partner OPB, Oregon Public Broadcasting, has this report.

This whole thing, as a result of the eruption of Mount Hood in 1782 and it filled up this whole valley.

See, it's and continues on the other side.

Anyone who travels knows the best tour guides are those who love their subjects.

Where are we headed now, Scott?

So we're heading out to Chanticleer Point.

It's also called Women's Forum State Park.

So we were delighted when geologist Scott Burns invited us to explore his favorite subject, the Columbia River Gorge.

This is my favorite place in the gorge right here.

An interesting thing about the gorge is it's a story of two major floods.

The first floods were from 14 to 16 million years ago.

All of the basalt flows coming from eastern Oregon and filling up the area where the ancestral Columbia River was.

One flow on top of another, on top of another of basalt.

So right over here we got Vista House and that whole promontory.

There is one basalt flow.

One basalt flow.

The basalt flow came in and filled up totally from the bottom, all the way to the top with one flow and solidified.

And that is the flow that formed this particular headland.

Scott points out an intriguing difference between the two sides of the river.

The Oregon side is straight up and down.

The Washington side is very, very low angle going up.

Flow on top of.

Flow on top of flow of the Columbia River basalt.

But the whole thing has been uplifted and then tilted to the south.

So the whole Washington side, the tilting side is all landslide.

The Oregon side has all the waterfalls because it's straight up and down.

Water comes out to the edge and comes over.

The other story that we have here are the Missoula Floods.

Between 15 and 18,000 years ago, you had an ice dam that it formed up in northern Idaho.

And then all of a sudden that dam broke.

It took three days for all the water to leave.

And then that came down through Spokane, across eastern Washington.

All that water got back into the Columbia River and it came down the gorge.

Scott says these floods were the greatest known to have ever occurred in North America.

And we're talking velocity's coming out of the gorge at 50 to 60 miles an hour, eroding things and big, huge boulders being bounced around on the bottom.

We believe that there were 40 different floods that reached down here.

And so they really had a significant effect on the gorge.

And then way off in the distance, you could see beacon Rock sticking up and beacon Rock as a part of an old volcano.

and the Missoula Floods have really scoured it away.

And so we call it a volcanic plug or volcanic neck.

And why does that plug remain?

because it is very, very dense basaltic andesite, and it just doesn't weather very rapidly.

The other thing, it's very young, and it's the youngest volcano in the whole Portland area, 55,000 years old.

And so those are some of the things that we can see.

Wow.

Our route takes us along the old Columbia River highway and through some pretty tight turns.

Good thing you can shoot and be in a car at the same time.

Yeah.

Let me know if you get carsick.

All right.

Yeah.

We're almost through most of the hairpin curves.

Lateral falls.

Pretty close.

Lateral falls is my favorite falls.

Well, it is special.

Well, it's got a good story.

Oh, I can't wait to hear geology.

Yeah.

I love it.

In here in the summertime.

It's just wonderful.

Lateral falls is known for its beautiful columnar architecture, a characteristic of basalts, multifaceted structure and the way it cools.

This is another place where a flow has completely filled up a canyon.

Can you see the round canyon?

The lower part that we have got down here are columns.

And what happens is the flow will stop, and when it stops, it cools from the top down in the bottom up and as it does that, the rock forms a big crack because it shrinks sometimes 4 or 5 six sided shapes.

And so all up and down the Columbia Gorge you will see these beautiful basalt columns.

We use a lot of those columns in our gardens.

And it is very northwest.

So what is going on with that patch of lichen?

Lichen is a symbiotic relationship of algae and fungus.

And so if one has the house, one is the food.

And so it's a marriage.

And in fact, in the whole world, this is the only marriage on the rocks that actually works.

Surprisingly, Scott's favorite feature here at lateral doesn't have anything to do with the falls.

So this is the rock that I wanted to show you.

It's completely different from all the other basalt, primarily volcanic rock we call this site.

And this is really the dome of an old volcano from 25 million years ago.

Let's talk geology here.

I'm think it's very interesting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ology is always very nice.

You know what they say?

Geology rocks.

Yeah.

Our next stop takes us to another spectacular waterfall.

You know which one?

Where it Multnomah Falls, and it is probably the most photographed place in the state of Oregon.

And this really exemplifies the geology of the Columbia Gorge, especially on the Oregon side.

You have a major waterfall.

Also, you have got 5 to 6 major flows of the Columbia River basalt.

And the lower waterfall that we have right here is one flow just filled up to that point.

Then if you go up there like three major flows, maybe four, and then up to the very, very top where it's really, really irregular, that's pillow basalt.

That is where the actual flow flowed into a lake that was here at that particular time.

This magnificent falls is also the site of a cautionary tale.

back in 1995, about halfway up just about Benson Bridge, a 400 ton piece of rock the size of a school bus broke off and fell into the plunge pool.

And it was like a tsunami that went over the top of it.

We can see remnants of that on the side of the plunge pool.

So landslides and rockfall is very, very common here in the Columbia Gorge.

Next stop is going to be Cascade Locks.

What's the Cascade Locks?

The bridge of the God's landslide.

But it's actually a complex of a whole bunch of landslides that we have got across here.

Back in approximately the year 1450, a large landslide broke away from the peak to the left and came all the way down across the Columbia River and dammed it up.

Native Americans could cross from one side to the other side, and so they called it the bridge of the gods.

There wasn't an area with water flowing underneath it, and most likely it was just a huge dam.

And then eventually what happened is that landslide dam broke and all of that water went catastrophically down into Portland, probably a wall of water 50ft high, wiping out probably many of the Native American villages that were along the river.

You can still see remnants of the landslide, the little island that is right out in the middle of this area, and then these big rocks that are sticking out.

As we travel along the gorge.

Oh, here comes the rain.

These pouring along with the change in the weather comes a change in vegetation.

And we start losing the Doug fir and Western hemlock and start picking up the Ponderosa pine.

And then a dramatic change in landscape.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, there's the coyote.

Well, yeah.

There it is.

There's a coyote.

Well, on the Oregon side, most everything is flat.

All the bedding is flat.

But on the inside, a lot of times it's tilted.

And the reason is the whole Pacific Northwest is rotating in the clockwise manner.

Oregon, for some reason, is rotating as a solid block and pushing into Washington.

And all of southern Washington is being scrunched, squeezed together, and the flat line beds are now becoming tilted.

And so when we look across the river, we can see these tilted beds.

Where?

About 75 miles from Portland now.

But the landscape is not getting any less dramatic.

So this is where we're going to get off up here.

Okay.

We get off the interstate at Mosier and start climbing.

so we're on the old highway, and we're heading to Tom McCall State Park and the Rowena Overlook.

Wow.

Yes.

The valley here is just unbelievable.

Here we are.

Yep.

Rowena.

Crest.

gorgeous.

We've arrived at the end of the gorge here.

The landscape opens up to the high desert of eastern Oregon.

I love it, but this is the part of the gorge that everybody doesn't know about.

If you look on the other side, you can see layers of the Columbia River basalt.

And in fact, you go up the slope and then all of a sudden you lose them and you have just nice, smooth, rounded hills that are up there that's windblown silt.

And so it tells us how high the Missoula floods got.

And then if you as you start looking at those Columbia River basalt flows one on top of another, you go down and all of a sudden the the flows are going like this.

And then on the other side, they're flat again.

What's going on there?

Well, that's a fault.

And so originally you had, the rocks like this.

And then if you push them, it goes down like this.

And so you still have the flat ones on one side, but you have the other ones going down.

These dramatic angle shifts in solid rock are another example of the powerful forces that shaped the Columbia River Gorge.

If it seems like Scott knows pretty much everything about how all these features came to be, think again.

So I really want to look down onto the surfaces down here, okay.

And you can really see the differences because the green versus oh yeah.

And what did those come from.

This is the mysterious part of this whole thing.

So there are areas that are very, very green.

And then in between it's dry.

And if we go down to them they're mounds and they're called mima mounds.

What caused them?

For many, many years we thought it's freeze thaw processes.

But then all of the glacial specialists from around the world got together and they basically said, no, we don't like that.

one of the current things is that the Gophers caused them.

I'm a believer in the earthquake hypothesis.

If you take a piece of plywood, put sand all over it, and then hit it, what will happen is the sand will go into a whole bunch of little piles.

And if you take this hard surface and have a big earthquake, what will happen is those loose sediments will form into piles.

whatever the hypothesis is of the day.

they're intriguing.

And that's another interesting story that we have in the area.

And still a mystery.

It's still a mystery.

Thank you so much, Oregon Public Broadcasting, for that amazing report.

Unbelievable scenery.

Now for more information about our program just click on cox.org and then click contact Us to send us your questions or comments, even your story ideas so we can hear from you or contact me directly at DavidNazarNews on X or just go to DavidNazarNews.

That's all.

One word.

DavidNazarNews on YouTube.

You can contact me there.

You know, I'll get back with you and be sure to catch our program here on PBS or catch us on the PBS app.

Thank you so much for joining us.

I'm David Nazar.

Hi, I'm David Huizar, host of Sustaining Us.

Thank you so much for watching KLCS.

If you enjoy our program, as well as all the other programs here on KLCS, please consider supporting this station.

Your support helps keep all your favorite programs available.

You can support KLCS by calling 888998 KLCS or simply visit KLCS.org.

Again, thank you so much for watching KLCS PBS.

So what we are doing is trying to capture it before it enters the ocean.

LA County Department of Public, Public Works has done, netting systems and all kind of ways in which we try to capture that trash the gutter.

on the end of my block in my residence has a netting system.

And so you'll see debris caught in the netting as the water continues through.

So and, you know, we've eliminated single source plastics as a policy.

So I think from the policy perspective, to the operational what public works is trying to do to capture it before it enters the ocean, to public education campaigns to educate us all about, you know, what we put in the gutter will ultimately lead to the ocean, to the amazing, arts programs we run.

If you go to any county beach, all the trash cans are wrapped in art that students, from around LA County do.

And they're brilliant messages about, you know, all litter leads to the ocean.

So from policy to public education to catchment to now below seven interceptor.

we're trying to attack the problem from a variety of angles, if you will.

Well, and then, you know, I wonder if it is a cultural thing.

There was a piece on the news this last week about, electronics and the frequency with which we update our phones and where did the old devices go.

And unfortunately, it's often third world countries that we as an industrialized nation ship it.

There.

And just like the visions that you and I have both in in Nepal, it's now in, in Ghana where you have mounds of electronics, where people are burning, that people are scavenging, trying to get whatever operable piece out of it that they can then sell.

So it's an economics.

It's, you know, it's it impacts communities that are overwhelmed by poverty.

and so I think it's cultural and, and arrogant of us to think that we can ship our trash to other places for them to figure out as opposed to, you know, it being a part of our culture to figure out how to be, a citizen of the world and maybe.

You know, to kind of address it, you know, right across the border of Mexico, the San Diego, Mexico border, there's a there's a trash, crisis.

Right there where the trash is washing down from Mexico into San Diego and out to the ocean.

and obviously we have a huge, population.

Yes, yes.

is that kind of a culture problem?

Yeah.

I mean, I don't want to get you in trouble.

Yeah.

You know, I think I don't know that we can peg, you know, one source, you know, as you said, you remember the commercial as a young child, as do I, I just think as a as a society, As a society and population of consumers, we consume and discard.

And there's all kind of new movements afoot around, Being conscious consumers and particularly of products that sit in landfills, and don't disintegrate.

So there's a whole movement of fun about, you know, recycling clothing, you know, buying less.

And so I think it's our consumption as a society and our ability to pay other people and other places to take our trash on.

We are a a society and a culture of consumption.

and even making sure that businesses are on the same page.

You know that the news piece I saw talked about a company that is producing phones that last longer, producing phones, that the components can be easily taken apart and recycled, as opposed to us chucking the entire device.

So when you think about the frequency with which we update our laptops, our iPads, our telephones, you know, over the course of a lifetime, it's hundreds of devices per person.

We're a county of 10 million people, a state of almost 40 million.

So in terms of California, NEA's contribution to electronic waste, it's massive.

when I saw that piece, it was the kind of thing you don't think about, you know, as an agent of government.

You know, government provides the service.

the people don't think about, between a utility trash removal protecting the ocean from trash through the interceptor.

so it's, it's made me more into, particularly here at the local level of government.

You know, I sat on the sanitation board last year as chair of the board of supervisors.

And, you know, frankly, I think we all flush and never give it a second thought.

those plants that that treat the water to make sure the water that comes into our homes and businesses is clean and safe for us to drink.

How we hope in California, the drought capital of the world, can capture storm water and recycle it appropriately.

You know, some of that takes actions that we have to use at home in terms of using not using pesticides and looking at the chemicals we use that enter the water table.

So it is a function of government.

It is also a function of individual and individual decisions.

We have the power to make, to create a cleaner L.A. County for everybody.

I, was introduced to the concept when I, through redistricting, a little over a year ago.

the district I represent, the second district, was expanded and included many of our coastal communities.

And so it was after that happened that I was in talking to, the director of public works, Marc Mistral, and heard about this unique opportunity where we could have a two year pilot, this company from the Netherlands, that, the ocean Cleanup that has, interceptors one through six and other parts of the world.

And they were interested in a North America opportunity.

And so when we look at bio in a creek, the role it plays, it is really the where so many of our waterways converge.

And through the bio on a creek, it leads to the ocean.

They thought it was a perfect position, a place to really try, given our topography.

and it was placed right on time because it was it's been in position, now in the last year where we've had some of our biggest storms, including Hillary, where we could see it in action and see the tons of trash trucks that we see floating on the top of the water, those single use water bottles and other to see how it captures it.

you know, the interceptor is, is a catamaran, that that houses these huge trash receptacles and how it captures the trash puts it on the, in the containers.

And when they're full, then it's removed and taken away.

but so far in only a year, it exceeded my expectation in terms of the 50 to 60 tons of trash we prevented from entering the ocean.

It's a good point.

You know, we as normal people, we always see what's on top, right?

You know, you don't see the tons and tons that are actually whatever you see, our doctors buy ten times, 20 times more.

Exactly.

And so, you know, the way that the catamaran, the way that seven works, it really skims it off the top.

And there are literally arms that capture it, collect it and then put it into the trash receptacles.

And I'm no oceanographer, but, you know, I'm assuming that a lot of that trash we see at the top through waves and currents will ultimately then be submerged to the bottom of the ocean.

So again, at the mouth of beyond the creek, we're capturing it before it enters the ocean, right?

yeah.

I don't want to make you repeat anything that we've already done over these days.

There are so many different ways to collect trash.

Why is this new interceptor such an innovative solution of trash prevention?

Again, from my view, at the end of this first year, it it has exceeded my expectations in terms of what it could do.

Timing some time is everything, and we got it in position at the perfect opportune time when we had historic record, you know, rain for Los Angeles, for California.

And, it performed in the middle of Hillary.

Who knew?

With global warming, or if we could expect to continue to have high rains, recognizing what major storm systems do to flushing trash to the system and pushing it out to the ocean.

This is a clear example of why we need an interceptor seven, to save us from ourselves, if you will.

It's also important to know because it was the first question I had.

Because, you know, since it's got these skimmers, the skimmer devices.

how?

Particularly in LA County beaches.

We wanted to make sure that wildlife, our sea lions weren't going to be harmed.

And so that has all kind of safety devices to make sure that in our effort to keep trash from entering the ocean, that we're not harming wildlife.

the location of it is ideal.

it is still here in by in a creek.

it, it we are still able to maintain the beneficial uses of the creek without impacting the recreation.

the other amenities that, the water body provides.

And so it's really worked out, both from an implementation, standpoint and also from the operations standpoint.

I think it's important to remember that the public plays a huge part in preventing trash from making its way to our rivers, our lakes and ocean.

trash starts, everywhere and anywhere.

It could be at a parking lot.

It could be at the sidewalk.

and so debris and trash, unfortunately can get collected if it's not properly handled.

And so, when we have storms, here in LA, for example, over the past year, we've had, 17 atmospheric rivers.

And so that's a mechanism of how that trash that is improperly handled in our streets eventually making its way through our storm drains, our rivers, and unfortunately, here in our beaches.

One of the neat things about the interceptor is it's really brought a star quality, to the trash collection world.

one of the positive things to come out of this, project is the coverage from both, traditional media and social media.

And so it's really given us a great opportunity not just to highlight the project itself and the effectiveness of the interceptor, but it's really, brought a spotlight to the issue of pollution.

we've received a lot of positive responses, not just from the local community, but, from folks, throughout the United States, throughout the world.

That's really curious.

how is the interceptor work?

is it is it really effective in, in picking up the trash?

and then in addition to that, we've really been working a lot with the local schools.

we've, received a lot of questions from students as to, hey, what can we do, to reduce trash in our beaches to help complement the efforts.

through the interceptor, we are entering the second year of our pilot study.

as I had mentioned, our goal is to really take a look at its performance.

This coming year.

the first year, the pilot, it was a very unusual year.

We had a lot of rain here in L.A. and as you all know, storm seasons vary from year to year.

And so being able to compare the data, compare its performance over two different storm seasons will allow us to really figure out what is the best way to optimize, best way to operate the interceptor.

We are entering year two of the two year pilot.

over the span of the remaining 12 months of the pilot study, we'll continue to collect data.

we will be doing a closeout report to be able to assess kind of the outcomes of the pilot study, quantify how much trash and debris was removed, be able to categorize, the, the amount of material and types of material that was collected over a two year period.