Los Angeles Times - 09.11.2019

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H

unched over a tank inside the Bodega Marine
Laboratory, alongside bubbling vats of sea-
weed and greenhouses filled with algae,
Kristin Aquilino coaxed a baby white abalone
onto her hand.
She held out the endangered sea snail — no larger than
a bottle cap — like a delicate jewel. After years of fretting
over their health, cleaning tanks and filtering the saltwater
just right, one tiny oops could undo it all.
“They’re like human hemophiliacs,” Aquilino said,
using a plastic ruler to measure the stubborn gastropod as
it twisted and squirmed. “Even a small cut, they can bleed
to death.”
To the untrained eye, they appear pretty drab. But in
this humming lab, home to more white abalone than in the
wild, these invertebrates have captured minds and even
hearts. They’re the unsung canary in the coal mine — their
vanishing numbers sounding the alarm of human greed
and the perils we face as the land

WHITE ABALONEraised in a Northern California lab are placed in the ocean off Los Angeles last month.
“If we can make enough of these animals,” one scientist said, “we will be able to save the species.”

Photographs byCarolyn ColeLos Angeles Times

COLUMN ONE

Abalone were everywhere

— and then they weren’t

Scientists strive to bring back the endangered sea snail

A SMALLred abalone is measured. Abalone once

were to California what lobster is to Maine.

By Rosanna Xia
reporting from bodega bay, calif.

[SeeAbalone, A10]

For nearly 70 years, Cali-

fornia fire departments have

fought blazes statewide

through a codified system of

neighbor helping neighbor.

But as catastrophic

windblown wildfires strike

with more frequency, Cali-

fornia’s system of mutual aid

is under stress, with fire

chiefs sometimes reluctant

to assist their counterparts

or unaware help is needed

because of outdated com-

munications.

Chiefs of the state’s big-

gest fire departments say

the connective tissue of mu-

tual aid has become weak-

ened in the last 20 years. The

days of sending every avail-

able resource to help put out

a neighbor’s fire without

question has been replaced

with hesitation — should

some be held back to save

money, or in case another

fire erupts nearby?

“In 2003 in San Diego — I

was a battalion chief — the

way we supported mutual

aid was, if you asked, we

sent,” said Brian Fennessy,

now chief of the Orange

County Fire Authority. “We

didn’t talk about drawing

down [resources]. How far

should we allow ourselves to

be drawn down? That wasn’t

even a conversation.”

That 2003 firestorm was a

game changer for mutual

aid, Fennessy said. In a mat-

ter of days, thousands of

homes were destroyed and

hundreds of thousands of

acres were burned across

San Diego and San Bernar-

dino counties. More than 20

lives were claimed. The

Cedar fire was the one of the

last of the big blazes to ig-

nite, and San Diego County

found itself outgunned, with

the bulk of its force fighting

fires to the north.

“There was some politi-

cal pressure at that point

that, ‘Wait a minute, as a

county and city fire protec-

tion district, you shouldn’t

allow yourself to get so

drawn down where you can’t

provide basic services,’ ”

Fennessy said. “ ‘Maybe I

won’t send six strike teams.

Maybe I’ll send three.’ ”

At the same time, the

state’s mutual-aid computer

program, the Resource Or-

dering and Status System,

or ROSS, is antiquated —

better designed for logging

pay and hours than rapidly

shifting resources across

multiple counties.

Cracks appear

in fire agencies’

system of aid

As disastrous blazes

occur more frequently,

departments are

rethinking how they

assist one another.

By Joseph Serna

[SeeFirefighting,A7]

WASHINGTON — Val-

erie Plame, whose role as an

undercover CIA operative

was famously blown in an act

of political retribution in

2003, has some advice for the

still-anonymous whistle-

blower who sparked the

Trump impeachment inves-

tigation: Be prepared to see

your life turned upside

down.

“Your name is being

tossed out in the public

sphere and it’s being dis-

torted and who you are and

what you’ve done,” Plame

said Thursday in a tele-

phone interview, recalling

her experience. “I found it

very disorienting.”

Plame, a Democrat who

is running for a House seat in

New Mexico, recalls getting

stares and hearing whispers

at preschool drop-offs and

supermarket lines, seeing

her husband challenged to a

fight at an airport, and hold-

ing awkward conversations

with friends and family

whom she had misled for

years about her life as a spy.

She said she was horri-

fied by attempts by Presi-

dent Trump and some of his

allies to identify and smear

the motives of the individual

— reportedly an intelligence

officer — who filed the com-

plaint despite federal laws

intended to shield whistle-

blowers from retribution.

As he left the White

House on Friday, Trump

complained repeatedly to

[SeePlame, A7]

Outed

CIA

officer’s

words of

caution

Valerie Plame’s life

imploded in 2003. She

doesn’t want that to

happen to the Trump

whistleblower.

By Noah Bierman

Vitamin E

acetate linked to

vaping illnesses

Lung fluid from 29

patients sickened after

vaping had signs of the

syrupy substance, say

U.S. health officials.

BACK STORY, A

Bloomberg faces

an uphill climb

If the former New

York mayor runs for

president, he could

turn off some core

Democratic constitu-

encies. NATION, A

Weather

Warm and sunny.

L.A. Basin: 89/57. B

HONG KONG — One af-
ter another, the red lines are
breached.
Police firing live ammuni-
tion. Police beating demon-
strators; demonstrators
beating police. Legislators
attacked with metal rods
and stabbed in the chest.
Two young protesters shot
with live ammunition. A
man biting another man’s
ear off.
The latest crack in Hong
Kong’s implicit social con-
tract came Friday, when a
22-year-old student who
had plunged from the third
floor of a parking garage
died of his injuries, trigger-
ing still more protests that
were expected to continue
through the weekend. It may
be the first confirmed death
directly linked to police ac-
tion in Hong Kong’s five
months of escalating politi-
cal unrest.
Spontaneous demon-
strations mourning the
man’s death and condemn-
ing police erupted through-
out the city, with hundreds
chanting: “Murder must be
compensated with life! A
debt in blood must be paid in

Hong

Kong

mourns

protester

Activists direct rage at

police after a student

plummets to his death.

By Alice Su and
Ryan Ho Kilpatrick

[SeeHong Kong, A4]

are fed up with it.

“Something has to

change,” Mammoth Lakes

Councilman John Went-

worth said. “The Forest

Service is overwhelmed,” he

said, by 21st century chal-

lenges its founders could ne-

ver have imagined: climate

change, budget cuts, electric

mountain bikes.

Wentworth leads an am-

bitious and controversial

proposal that would allow

Eastern Sierra cities and

counties to fund, staff and

maintain tourism and recre-

ation projects, including

ing site, and only one func-

tioning toilet.

Naturalist John Muir glo-

rified the Mono Basin in his

writings, but now a visitor

center there is plagued by

stinging wasps and a leaky

roof.

The only access to Devils

Postpile National Monu-

ment is a narrow lane that

winds unevenly along steep

slopes.

The chronically under-

funded U.S. Forest Service is

partly responsible for these

conditions, and some offi-

cials in the Eastern Sierra

BISHOP, Calif. — Just

west of this Sierra Nevada

town, thousands of people

trundle out to boulders as

big as billboards, carrying

climbing gear and foam pads

to break their inevitable

falls.

They park haphazardly

along dirt roads, litter and

smash vegetation with their

crash pads. On a recent

morning, there were no

rangers in sight at the

Buttermilk Country climb-

some that have lingered for

decades in the Forest Serv-

ice’s deferred maintenance

backlog, which totals

more than $5.2 billion

nationwide.

Called the Eastern Sierra

Sustainable Recreation

Partnership, the project

would establish an econo-

mic alliance among the For-

est Service and the commu-

nities of Mammoth Lakes

and Bishop and three coun-

ties: Inyo, Mono and Alpine.

Local government agencies

would take the lead in devel-

[SeeRecreation,A12]

A MOUNTAIN BIKERdescends down a trail in Lower Rock Creek Canyon near Mammoth Lakes.

Brian van der BrugLos Angeles Times

Freeing the forest and the trees

Fed up with U.S. budget cuts, Sierra officials plan recreation partnership

By Louis Sahagun