Shared Ground
Shared Ground is a podcast that explores resilience & grit, generosity & kindness. We start with true stories of kindness and support during and after the 2025 LA wildfires.
Shared Ground
Episode 10: Rebuilding LA While Healing the Bay with Tracy Quinn
What happens when fire meets ocean? In the aftermath of January's devastating fires that swept through Pacific Palisades and surrounding areas, the impacts stretched far beyond charred hillsides to affect even our coastal waters. Tracy Quinn, President and CEO of Heal the Bay, brings her unique perspective as both an environmental leader and someone whose home was impacted by the January fires in Los Angeles.
Quinn takes us behind the scenes of Heal the Bay's rapid response to the disaster. When scientists observed ash coating ocean surfaces up to 100 miles offshore, her team was among the first organizations permitted behind fire lines to collect water samples. What they discovered revealed a troubling gap in our disaster preparedness: "We don't have protocols for what to test for after a big urban fire," Quinn explains, highlighting how the science of post-fire water quality assessment is still evolving.
The conversation explores the complex relationship between resilience and adaptation. Rather than simply "bouncing back" to pre-disaster conditions, Quinn advocates for reimagining our communities to withstand climate change's intensifying threats. As a member of LA County's Blue Ribbon Commission on Climate Action and Fire-Safe Recovery, she's helping shape recommendations for more resilient water systems, innovative stormwater management, and sustainable rebuilding approaches. (Make sure to check out the Commission's report findings HERE).
Most poignantly, Quinn shares her personal journey of displacement while simultaneously leading her organization's emergency response. Despite tremendous loss, she finds hope in how communities have come together, creating support networks that filled gaps left by unprepared government systems. "I haven't felt alone through this process," she reflects, "and I feel so much closer to my community than I did before the fires."
This episode offers vital insights for anyone concerned about environmental resilience, disaster recovery, and the power of community in crisis. Subscribe to Shared Ground for more conversations exploring how we navigate challenges and build stronger communities together.
Shared Ground is produced by Sean Knierim and Allan Marks. Thanks to Cory Grabow, Kara Poltor, Corey Walles (from The Recording Studio) for your support in launching this effort.
For more stories of resilience & rebuilding, kindness & generosity: visit shared-ground.com and subscribe to Sean's substack. We invite you to share your own stories of resilience at the Shared Ground website - whether in response to the January fires in LA or other situations.
Follow us at seanknierim.substack.com, Instagram, or wherever you listen to podcasts (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc).
This is Shared Ground, a podcast about resilience and community. I'm Alan Marks and I'm Sean Knierim. Thanks so much for joining us. We're joined here today by a public servant, someone we've really looked up to for years, Tracy Quinn. Thank you so much for being here with us. Would you mind introducing yourself? Who are you? Who are you bringing to us today?
Tracy Quinn:Sure, I'm Tracy Quinn. I'm the president and CEO of Heal the Bay, which is a 40-year-old nonprofit based in Santa Monica that is working to protect and restore the coastal waters of greater Los Angeles.
Allan Marks:Thank you so much. Your background, too, is the LA Department of Water and Power and Metropolitan Water District, and you've dealt with so many agencies around the city before your work and even still now overlapping with your work with Heal the Bay, in all of those contexts, agencies, nonprofits, not just communities need to be resilient too.
Tracy Quinn:What is resilience to you? It's so funny to ask that question because so much of my professional life has been about trying to make communities more resilient, but I still find it such a difficult word to define, I think. In the simplest terms, I think of it as the ability to bounce back after threat or damage, and it's challenging because you're thinking about that with communities, with people, with coastlines, with infrastructure. All of this needs to be resilient, and I think that you can drill down to really just how can it bounce back after something is impacting it.
Sean Knierim:Yeah, can I ask you a question about the verb that you use, so bouncing back? Yeah, can I ask you a question about the verb that you use, so bouncing back? So that's assuming that we're bouncing back to where we were before. As we think about what we've come through in Los Angeles with the fires over the last few years, I'm not sure if we can bounce back to where we were. We're bouncing you, and those threats are changing and evolving.
Tracy Quinn:And so I think, when we think about the fires, we don't want to just build back the communities that we had before, because climate change is bringing additional threats and we need to think about how we can be more resilient, how we can be prepared to adapt to a changing environment.
Allan Marks:Let me stay with that for a second because that is interesting. We talk about bouncing forward versus bouncing back, for that kind of in the literature one sees it, adaptation, which is sort of an environmental concept, is really kind of different. And you're right to say resilience is bouncing back. That is actually the etymological origin of the word from Latin. But adaptation is sort of saying we're going to have to do something differently because the conditions have changed, the context of change. If humans are still emitting greenhouse gases and we have climate change and therefore extreme weather risk change and coastal erosion happens and we have more fire risk and so forth, then to adapt means we have to do things differently than we've done before, not merely come back to where we were.
Tracy Quinn:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think how you adapt is going to change over time in order to keep you resilient. So I think that you know this is something that we need to think about in all the ways in which our communities are changing. Extreme heat, flood, drought, beach erosion, sea level rise, ocean acidification these are all things that are happening in Los Angeles that are changing over time because of a changing climate.
Allan Marks:I asked you about the ocean in particular because after the fires I could walk along the bluff in Santa Monica and you look at that gorgeous view toward Malibu and across the bay with, unfortunately, the Palisades, is just gaping brown gap on the right-hand side. The other thing that I noticed is the blue water, or the blue green water as it comes close to the beach. In those days it was still very brown and the waves were yellow. They weren't white and the beaches were closed. Now they've reopened. Can you tell us a bit from your expertise about the water quality and how that's impacted by wildfires?
Tracy Quinn:This is, you know, something that there hasn't been a ton of research on, and so we're learning a lot, as we're, you know, delving into research and doing testing ourselves. But during the fires, there happened to be some scientists that were offshore and they observed ash coating the ocean surface up to 100 miles offshore. So we had the ash deposition that was contaminating, polluting our ocean. And then, as we think about it, our storm drains are all connected to the ocean. So, no matter where you are in greater Los Angeles, from Summit to Sea, all of that stormwater, all of that urban runoff, anytime you wash your car, all of that is flowing out to the ocean. So, as our firefighters were in the hills spraying down homes, spraying fire retardant, all of that was being washed into our storm drain system and then out into the ocean. So that may be what you were observing when you saw a change in the color.
Allan Marks:So staying with that for a moment. I mean looking at the ocean and ocean quality. What should be done, what would make that situation better? To know exactly what's going on, of course, you have monitoring systems in place and so forth, but in order to make us more aware of what's happening in the environment and then fix it.
Tracy Quinn:Yeah, I think for the urbanized areas, and that's where we're really concerned about the threats from things like burned electric cars and everything in our home these days is made from plastic and all of that is going to burn and flow to the ocean.
Tracy Quinn:So I think, in our residential neighborhoods and our more urbanized neighborhoods, really ensuring that we are capturing stormwater and then, when we need to, are diverting that to a sewer system instead of having that go out to the ocean. Even before the fire, stormwater was the number one source of pollution to our coastal waters here in Los Angeles. But something like a fire that is going to bring additional contaminants, things that are toxic to both human and marine health we want to be better prepared for, so being able to capture that water before it gets to the storm drain. That can be things like having proactive measures on hand, having LA Sanitation and LA County Public Works be ready to deploy things like filtration socks, but what I hope it means is that in the long term, we are building this into our infrastructure so that that stormwater, that polluted water, isn't making it out out to the bay.
Sean Knierim:So, tracy, with Heal the Bay, you were doing a lot of this work before January 2025. But then these events occur in close to where you live personally, where your organization is kind of based. What did you learn about your organization? Were you ready for this, or what did Heal the Bay have to do to adapt itself or to bounce back itself from these fires?
Tracy Quinn:Yeah, I mean I think this was a really a growing moment for Heal the Bay.
Tracy Quinn:We have 40 years of history of doing water quality testing and even, maybe more importantly, translating really wonky water quality data into an easy way to understand for the public, so that the public can really take ownership of their own health and know when and where it's safe to swim, whether you're in a river or out in the ocean, and that uniquely positioned us to be able to go out and to do the sampling ourselves.
Tracy Quinn:So one of the things I'm so proud of the staff is that they got to work right away. They could see what you observed as well with the ash deposition and the potential issues with water quality, and they put together a sampling plan and a protocol. Heal the Bay was one of the first nonprofits invited behind the fire lines to understand what was happening, and so we were able to be escorted within the burn zone and we did water quality sampling up north of the burn area in Malibu five different places within the burn zone and then south as far as Malaga Cove down in Palos Verdes, to really be able to get that spatial distribution of what was happening and, I think, what was so challenging about being impacted by this is you feel so helpless and it was really great to be a part of an organization that could immediately get to work and to take action to help our community and help protect this beautiful coastline. That, I think, is the reason that a lot of us love living here so much.
Sean Knierim:Can you share a little bit about leading an organization that is grounded and based in a place that had just come through a pretty tremendous shock and now you're going behind fire lines fire lines which included where you were living before the fires. Right, what was it like leading the humans that had to do this work? We'll talk about the systems and the work itself, but the people you were leading that had to be affected, going across those lines Any reflections there as a leader?
Tracy Quinn:It's tough to say as a leader.
Tracy Quinn:What I can say is, you know, we talked about resilience, the fact that my staff was so incredibly resilient, and I think people who elect to work in the nonprofit space, who elect to work at an organization that's providing a service to the community, I think, are naturally inclined to want to help.
Tracy Quinn:So to see everyone in every department. You know we run the aquarium underneath the Santa Monica Pier. Our staff opened that up to families that were impacted by the fire so that they had a safe place to drop off their kids. Their kids would be distracted with baby sharks and petting other sea cucumbers and such, so that they could go to the disaster recovery center and start dealing with trying to find housing and what they were going to do. From every element of the entire organization came together and said how can we help, how can we be there for our community? And I think, just being able to sit back, I mean to some degree I was kind of dealing with where am I going to live, and the staff really rose up to the occasion and met the moment and that was. I'm just in awe of them.
Sean Knierim:Can you talk about your own personal experience of January 5th January 6th when were you? What happened? Tell us your own personal journey to get here.
Tracy Quinn:Yeah, I was in Antarctica when the fires broke out. I had been invited to lecture on ocean health and heal the bay's work to a group on an expedition boat in Antarctica. It was the trip of a lifetime and something that I had been very much looking forward to, and we had and now you'll never forget it, and now I will.
Sean Knierim:That sounds wonderful, but yes.
Tracy Quinn:And so we had just finished crossing the Drake's Passage and had opened to our first day in Antarctica. When I learned of the fires in the Pacific Palisades, I started getting a flurry of text messages. I hadn't planned to purchase an internet plan on the boat. That changed quite quickly when I learned that my home was being threatened and certainly that the majority of the community that I had grown to love so much was being severely impacted and destroyed.
Allan Marks:And you're still out of your home, which, physically, is intact, but you're not able to return yet.
Tracy Quinn:Yeah, I feel incredibly lucky. I live in a condo in the Highlands and when you look at the fire map there's that little hole that kind of got missed by the fire. The fire burned on all four sides of our community but we were spared, so we do have smoke damage. I had a window open and someone very kindly went into my home when it was still under threat and rescued my family photo albums. So some ash came in the front door when they came in, but the structure is sound and I'll be able to move back potentially later this summer.
Allan Marks:Pause on that for a moment because the impact the emotional impact, of hearing you say that your photo albums were saved by a neighbor. That's pretty amazing for a friend. It also says something about the social networks that someone could do that for you and be in touch with you.
Tracy Quinn:Yeah, I mean I'm very grateful. I reached out to Councilwoman Tracy Park I had heard that she and her staff were behind the fire lines and were able to get in and I kind of threw a Hail Mary and said you know, is there anyone there that can go in? At Christmas, my mom had decided I would be the keeper of all of the family albums and so I had just gotten them. Two weeks later my home was under threat. So they very kindly went in and grabbed some things for me and kept them at their office until I was able to pick them up. But you know, I think that I was in communication with my neighbors. They were giving me real-time updates about what was happening, so I was trying to stay abreast of what was happening, and the community was so good about keeping each other informed.
Sean Knierim:That's wonderful. So in the subsequent months, what have you learned about yourself, about taking care of yourself, coming through this type of an experience, because I imagine that has to inform how you're serving the organization you're part of and some of the wider leadership roles that you have here in this community. But for yourself and taking care of yourself, coming out, what have you learned? What have you done? How are you able to do the kind of work you're doing in service to others?
Tracy Quinn:I mean, I don't think I'm a great example of how to take care of yourself, necessarily Tell us what to avoid.
Allan Marks:Tracy.
Tracy Quinn:I mean, I've really thrown myself into work. My work has always been, you know, I'm very lucky to have a job that I'm passionate about, and this is a place where we could really step up. I also, you know, because of my connections to decision makers and elected officials. Through my job, I've been able to work with the community and help them to get their needs met, their concerns, to the right folks. I think one of the things that's been so incredible about this is how the community has come together.
Tracy Quinn:In the early days, so many WhatsApp chats popped up and I'm still on several of them. I get dozens of messages a day that folks are communicating about the things that are happening with them no-transcript health and safety and moving back and a lot more questions about working with our insurance. There are no protocols for. Should you get tested for things like heavy metals in your home or VOCs? What does that look like? How much should it cost? Do you do it before remediation or after? So there was experts in the community. And then what the heck are you going to do with the answers that come back If you're all?
Allan Marks:required to be disclosed if you decide you can't go back and need to sell the property.
Tracy Quinn:We are really grateful that we have some incredible experts in the community that came together to kind of figure out what are the best plans, and we did webinars. There was a man, larry Vane, who he's part of Pally Strong, and put together this series of webinars for folks to be able to better understand, and so I was able to participate in one of those on the health of going back to the community.
Sean Knierim:So it seems like part of the answer in how you took care of yourself was by jumping in and being active in service to others as you figure out how to take care of yourself. Is that fair?
Tracy Quinn:Yeah, I think so. I like to stay busy in times of crisis, and this really provided an opportunity to do that.
Allan Marks:Sean, does that resonate?
Sean Knierim:for you? It certainly does. Alan says this if you're not watching this on video, he has a slight like caring, I hope, smirk on his face.
Allan Marks:It is caring. It's a smirk, but it's caring. It's a caring smirk, yes.
Sean Knierim:I don't know. Do you think I have taken? I do, because what?
Allan Marks:I've seen you in one of the ways you've reacted outwardly anyway, and we've talked obviously a lot about these things but one of the ways you've dealt with this is by kind of redoubling and channeling into care for others, starting with family of course, but radiating out and seeing you do that, seeing you you know Tracy seeing others, that's kind of a remarkable thing to see so many people with that response.
Sean Knierim:We had a guest, dan Dorkus, on here, who works with high performing communities and works on performance hard situations, and he talks about the common things we know to take care of ourselves. So sleep a little bit more, get some more water, some good food, some more activity, be around others, but like mindfulness, meditation, prayer if that's part of your world and I find in these moments of unsettling times that sitting still with my thoughts and reflecting is a scary thing Then moving and moving in a way Is it?
Sean Knierim:scarier than it was before for you. I have waves now. Two weeks ago it was probably more emotional for me than the week after we lost our home. Now I feel pretty solid. I haven't cried today but I know that could come back and I think staying in motion is and this has always been for me in my life like meditation. In motion is the way that I've been able to get to a mindful state and that's usually through some kind of physical activity where, if I lose focus, something's going to happen. But I think that also reflects in the work. The way you're talking about how you threw yourself into this Tracy absolutely resonates, and Tracy for you.
Tracy Quinn:Yeah, I mean, I think I'm naturally inclined to stay busy. I may be a workaholic, you know, before I was at Heal the Bay, I was at the Natural Resources Defense Council lobbying, sort of being the only one fighting 400 industry folks that were, you know, clashing all the time. And that takes a lot of effort and a lot of time, and I'm very passionate about what I do and so it was very easy to slide into. How do I use this knowledge and how do I use the expertise of my organization to be to make this better? And I think that that is kind of how I'm dealing with a little bit of the trauma. I also I have a lot of trouble with the quiet moments. I've been back to the community several times and I find it really hard. The pictures are just so very different than being in it and smelling it and tasting it, and it's just a very different experience.
Allan Marks:And so Toxins are a little more real.
Tracy Quinn:I'm sure that there will come a time where there's a moment to step back and be a little bit more mindful. I try to do some walks in the morning, especially now that my current housing situation is near the beach, and go for some walks Even most of that. I'm planning out my day and figuring out what I need to do.
Allan Marks:Let me ask you then if you can imagine the emotional response when, several months or years from now let's say a year and a half you're able to go back maybe sooner to a home but it's your home and it's been cleaned up and you can put the photo albums back on the shelf but you're coming back to a neighborhood that otherwise looks a lot like a charred lunar landscape. Businesses aren't back, the market's not there, it's not the same anyway, even if it is, but it probably won't be in that time period and your island of neighbors half of them aren't coming back perhaps. How is that going to feel?
Tracy Quinn:I think about that a lot. I love living there. I mean, I saved for 25 years to buy my first condo and the only reason I was even able to buy it was that my father passed away and I sold his townhome and was able to put a down payment on a condo. And I loved every moment of living in the Highlands and the Palisades. And I'm terrified of going back, I think, even though I wasn't there, and I can't imagine what it's like for the people who were there and had to escape, and the stories that I've heard from my neighbors. During the fires I was texting with a neighbor who was told to shelter in place because the fire was blocking both exits, and I know that that will always be in the back of my mind. So I am. I population starts to come back, that one that it maintains that beautiful community spirit that we had before, but that we settle into the new normal of living in this version of the Palisades.
Sean Knierim:Yeah, so you have both chosen to, and been selected to join a leadership group in the LA area. The Blue Ribbon Commission focused on the rebuilding.
Allan Marks:And just to give her context, because not everybody listening to this is. You know, from here, the LA County Board of Supervisors Lindsay Horvath, in particular, a supervisor, along with Leo Frank, who's the new head of UCLA, put together a commission which you're on, which is, I mean, they call it Blue Ribbon and it is just a stellar, like outstanding, group of people and leaders in the community that are looking at fire recovery in ways that are sustainable and resilient, in particular.
Sean Knierim:Thanks, alan, for giving that context Tracy, as being part of this and thinking about that bridge of your own personal connection to community and the community that you hope to be able to establish. How has your role on this commission, how has that been affected by these thoughts you have for the community that you had and that you want to have when you get back into the home?
Tracy Quinn:Yeah, I mean I think, Alan, you spoke to the incredible expertise on this Blue Ribbon Commission and I'm so honored to be a part of it.
Tracy Quinn:I started my career as a civil engineer doing water and wastewater infrastructure design, and so I'm excited to be able to engage in that area, but I'm also the only person from the Palisades that was impacted.
Tracy Quinn:That is a part of this group, so able to bring some of the experiences and some of the concerns from the community into the conversation as we think about the types of recommendations that we want to make and what the community is looking for in the recommendations that we make.
Tracy Quinn:So we're tasked with, as you noted, not only thinking about how can we be sure that this community is built back in a way that is fire resilient, so that we don't see this type of devastation again, but also how do we use this opportunity to rebuild communities in Los Angeles in a way that is more resilient to the impacts of climate change? So how are we thinking about extreme heat and flood and drought and all of the other ways in which we may be impacted by climate, and how do we build that into these communities to make them more resilient and also provide other benefits. How do we make sure there's more green space? How do we make sure there's redundant water supplies, so homeowners aren't pulling from the same system as our firefighters? So it's a really interesting way to approach rebuilding and making recommendations for what these communities are going to look like in the future.
Allan Marks:I read there's the interim, or at least initial preliminary report that came out, which was very impressive, long, detailed, concise in its individual sections. And I was struck because I mean obviously Altadena, which is the Eaton Canyon fire. It was an unincorporated Los Angeles county, pacific Palisades is in the city of Los Angeles, so different jurisdictional, but was still within the greater county of LA. And when I looked at the preliminary discussion there was also a point made about lessons that can be learned so that other areas of the county that have not burned can also be hardened in a way. Now there wasn't a lot on land use, which of course is a critically important part of this in dealing with climate risks and weather and so forth anyway, but it was very interesting to see that. How much attention will be given, do you think, to improvements that would be recommended either in building codes, code enforcement, land use and other things you know countywide?
Tracy Quinn:I think you'll see several recommendations that are looking beyond the areas that were directly impacted by these fires. When we look at the new maps that were released about where the vulnerable areas are, it extended far beyond the areas that burned in January, and so the recommendations are going to be looking at things like building codes, but also what does retrofitting look like? How do we make these changes in these built environments where you're not getting to start from scratch again? What kind of things can we do there? And so you're going to see a lot of that in the report next week.
Allan Marks:And is your expectation that it's financially possible to do that in a way that brings back insurability to a lot of those now expanded zone of wildfire risk or fire risk areas should say areas or is it something that will require more severe adaptation from a land use?
Tracy Quinn:perspective, insurability was a big part of the conversations that we had as a part of this commission. There were several work groups that were looking at a number of different issues, but that was something that came up quite often in a lot of the different work groups and when we came together as a larger group. So making sure that our communities, that we, can continue to have insurance, is going to be really important. So you'll see a lot of recommendations that are trying to directly address that, and we were very lucky to have insurance experts on this Blue Ribbon Commission that could help to provide information about what insurance companies are going to be looking for, what their constraints are and how we can help to adapt, moving forward.
Sean Knierim:So you're sitting on this commission with a bunch of long-term lifetime public servants, extraordinary people You're taking on information flows from across. Two have expected if someone asked you what you were going to run into in January, what are the pieces of this time for you, working on the commission that you're going to remember in 10, 15 years and look back God, I never thought about that. Anything comes to mind.
Tracy Quinn:I learned so much as a part of this commission. We have experts that have gone into disaster areas all across the world that are bringing their expertise from tsunamis and floods and hurricanes and tornadoes and all across the world that are bringing their expertise from tsunamis and floods and hurricanes and tornadoes and all of the different disasters that are experienced on this planet and what the best practices were in other parts of the world. I'm struggling to think of a particular example. I think I learned a lot more about insurance than I ever thought I would ever need to know. When I bought my home, they told me that I needed insurance to close and I said OK, and and I got insurance and I don't think I really read the policy. But learning so much more about the how insurance companies function in California, that has been a huge learning curve for me and sort of what they're facing when they're thinking about insuring Californians and you know when you know that's changing on a weekly, monthly basis right now.
Tracy Quinn:Absolutely. I mean, when you think about you know the risk that they're thinking about when they go into a neighborhood, learning that you know they may not want to insure a single company, may not want to insure more than a couple homes on a block in a fire-prone community, You're thinking, well, gosh, you know, there were nearly 7,000 homes that burned in the Palisades, over 9,000 in the Eaton fires, and there's only a handful of companies operating. Where are we all going to find this insurance? Or are we going to have to rely on the California Fair Plan? And then there's risk there. So that, I think, was a huge learning curve for me.
Allan Marks:Well, and Fair Plan once you get passed a reinsurance which is billions of dollars, right, you then get stuck with it going back to the insurance companies, which means they have to. That gets very expensive very quickly for kind of everybody. It'll be interesting to me to see, by the way, how it's different between Altadena and Pacific Palisades, because in the Palisades, because the source of ignition is unknown and probably not related to utility equipment, basically a natural disaster, like a lot of wildfires that are adjacent to cities, in Altadena there may be that nexus to Southern Comfort Edison. That brings in our inverse condemnation statutes which, like the PG&E experience in Northern California, means that there could be a pool of funding through utilities and rates and the wildfire insurance funds that were set up in the wake of the PG&E bankruptcy at the state level. So there's very different sources of capital for rebuilding or liability coverage in those two communities, even though what actually happened there was not that different.
Tracy Quinn:That reminds me of another thing that I learned that I found really fascinating was the types of programs that are typically available after a disaster like this, and the type of funding that is usually coming from the federal government and various federal programs that is not available this time around and may not be available for future disasters.
Tracy Quinn:And so how can states become more robust? I think you know there's an innovative idea that is coming out of this with a resiliency fund, and I think that the LA County supervisors are considering a motion on that sometime in the near term and, I think, looking at opportunities for us to think about. You know, what about the homeowners that can't afford to build back or they're underinsured? Where can that supplemental money come from in a place where there are no lawsuits or folks that are to blame that are going to be providing additional funds, and what does that look like? Are there places where we want to buy land because it can be strategic in firefighting, it can create that open space, that fire break? So I think that there's a lot of things that we can do and be thoughtful, but not having federal support is going to make this even more challenging going forward.
Allan Marks:I'll give you an analogy of flood insurance. So when you have federal flood insurance because the risks are known, they're high and private insurers won't touch it.
Allan Marks:So under by statute, federal law says fine, we're going to cover it. But when there's a payout, if the claim is more than half the original value, the pre-disaster value, eventually the government says you know, don't build back there, because it's cleared as the floodplain. Whether it's Mississippi and the Southeast, we've seen a number of areas where they've said we've done this two or three times, that's enough. In Southern California and I would say the same is probably true in most Northern California as well land prices are so high because it's still a very desirable place to live. We don't build enough housing. The demand is there. It's very unlikely that the cost to rebuild the structure, no matter how elaborate it was, is more than half the value, which could mean we keep building back in exactly the same places, even if we had federal insurance programs, which doesn't really reduce the risk.
Tracy Quinn:I think that that is definitely a challenge and I think that there are going to be places that people are finding it more and more challenging. I think you know there were over 300 homes along PCH that were burned.
Allan Marks:Right, and that's in Malibu, yeah that's in.
Tracy Quinn:Malibu no-transcript before you even get to building the home, and so I think that that'll be interesting to see how that plays out and what challenges that presents for that stretch of homes and if there are analogous things in other parts of Los Angeles where rebuilding is happening.
Allan Marks:What's the fair way to balance that systemic public policy prescription that might be. Maybe we shouldn't build back here to the private property owner's rights to say, well, wait a second, if I can afford to spend the $700,000 on my seawall and my septic tank, the delusion that this will last for more than 20 years, I should be able to do so. How do you reconcile that?
Tracy Quinn:I think that's a huge challenge. I think it's very tough to go to somebody who's just lost their home and say you can't rebuild. I think potentially there's opportunity for folks that are choosing not to rebuild to see if there could be a program that could buy that land for maintenance of public access, for shoring up PCH, for other things. But I think the challenge there is where is the money going to come from? I think that is where it presents the biggest challenge. I've been trying to do research and look at precedent and look at what the possibilities are here in California and I think that presents the biggest challenges. Is a fair price for that land is quite expensive and so looking at where that money would come, especially with what the budget looks like right now.
Allan Marks:And the social equity of that you know. Bailing out really wealthy landowners when poor renters aren't getting as much, I mean that's not a good look.
Tracy Quinn:Exactly, and I think that that's something that came up as well, and so I think that you know, these are not simple questions and with very complicated, challenging solutions, and we just haven't come up with them yet. So there are things that we had discussions about in the Blue Ribbon Commission that we just didn't have the time to fully vet to be able to make constructive recommendations.
Sean Knierim:So, as we look forward to what's happening in years ahead and you've shared how Heal the Bay has been around for four decades being of service in this area from what we've learned in the last months, what you've learned in your roles in the last few months, how do you see the mission of Heal the Bay, the work of Heal the Bay, changing as a result of what Los Angeles has come through here in 2025?
Tracy Quinn:Well, I think you know we were able to lead in the response to understanding the public health impacts along our coast. What I found incredibly surprising was that we don't have protocols for what to test for after a big urban fire. We went out and we tested for heavy metals, we tested for PAHs and PCBs, which you often see after a fire.
Sean Knierim:And what are those?
Tracy Quinn:Oh, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and you know that can come from burnt vegetation, but it can also come from fossil fuel-based products as well.
Sean Knierim:My refrigerator melting and rolling down the hill into the bay.
Tracy Quinn:Yes, that, for instance, and so we looked at those things.
Tracy Quinn:But there's no comprehensive list of all of the things that you might expect to find in surface waters after a fire that burned the types of things that we saw this fire burn. There are also no public health standards for recreational contact with a lot of the contaminants that we were looking at and so being able to determine. Is it safe for me to go swimming and surfing in my favorite spot? I see a bunch of black muck in the sand. Is that toxic? And not being able to definitively answer that question has been a huge challenge. So a role I see for Heal the Bay going forward is working with other scientists and researchers and toxicologists to be able to better provide guidance, to come up with a disaster recovery playbook that looks at what should the protocols be, what agencies should be taking the lead on these things and how do we start now so that the next time around or the next community that joins this very unfortunate club has those public health standards so they understand the risk to their own public health.
Sean Knierim:So you're pointing to some very technical requirements and scientific requirements and policy requirements, but in order for what you're doing if I understand this right to be effective, it also requires trust among those using the beach wanting to go in the water. That would trust you, heal the bay to tell them or to warn them. How are you establishing that trust with the communities that are going to be the beneficiaries of what you learned?
Tracy Quinn:Right now we're just trying to be really transparent, right, and I think the challenge is folks want the answer is this safe or is it not? And not being able to provide that has been a huge challenge, and I think also not having those limits where you can definitively say this concentration is safe and this concentration poses a risk has been a challenge. And so there's been different groups saying different things, which has seeded a little bit of mistrust, I think, or just confusion, maybe.
Allan Marks:More confusion.
Tracy Quinn:I think I mean.
Allan Marks:Heal the Bay your A through F scorecard grading different beaches in different areas. I think it's got a lot of trust for people who know it. I've relied on it in the past, picking which beach I want to go to after a state rainy season.
Tracy Quinn:We've been doing that beach report card for 35 years. We are the experts on bacteria and acute illness. It has been more of a learning curve and reaching out to other experts to better understand the public health risks from something like lead or hexavalent chromium or other contaminants that we're looking for in our water and in our sand. But I think what we can do is we can say this is the data and this is what we know right now, and these are the other experts that are affirming what we're saying, and we will continue to inform you as we learn and grow, and I think the challenge of something like this is that what we know is changing every day. We are learning something new every day and so we just need the public at large to be open and understanding of that. That what we said yesterday could change because we're going to get new information and our opinion could change, and I have a question about that because you mentioned before too, and I think it's true.
Allan Marks:If there's a scorecard, if there's something really easy, then I can look at it. It's simple, it's trust. I can go there and I can swim in the ocean and not worry about it. Yeah Right, I'm much more worried about the riptide and, you know, is there a lifeguard?
Allan Marks:Having said that, if I compare, for example, water quality or beach quality to air quality, if you go to one of the many apps or the AQMD South Coast Air Quality Management District's app itself, they will break it down based on the EPA's, you know, and MAWG components, you know when mild components that by statute on the Clean Air Act that are allowed to track.
Allan Marks:There's obviously others, but that's what they're, that's what they do. So I can see if today my problem is particulates, maybe because of the fire or smog, or I can see if it's ozone, or I can see, you know, I can see what it is, and I'm not sure what I would do with information. I'd probably still look at the number and say, gee, 25 green, great 125, pretty bad, 400, we just had 4th of July fireworks or a fire and don't go outside. So you can kind of figure that out For you looking going forward, if you do have data sets that allow you, on a consistent basis, to look at organic compounds or metals or other things that are in the oceans, how much value is there to breaking it apart and how much Does it make it too complicated for most people?
Tracy Quinn:I think there could be incredible value in that. I think that this has opened our eyes to a lot of things that were existed in our environment before the fire and I think that there's enough concern. It warrants continued monitoring. Something like bacteria or something like the different air quality measures those are things that are required by law to be monitored. We have passed legislation that says we're going to have continuous monitoring. We don't have that for the types of contaminants that we're looking at after the fire in the ocean, and the testing is incredibly expensive, particularly for a nonprofit like Heal the Bay to take on.
Tracy Quinn:We weren't sure what was going to happen right after the fires because no one was required to do testing. So we took money out of our reserves and we ran out and we did the testing. Each sample was about $3,000. So we did 10 samples and we did two because we did before the first rains and after the rains. So we spent 60,000 on lab sampling. That's a lot of money for an organization like Heal the Bay and if you're going to try to do that weekly or monthly, even that's an incredible expense. And so one of the things we'll be looking at is do we need this type of data at greater frequency. We didn't have baseline data for a lot of these things because it isn't tested regularly. There's no requirement to do so, and so one of the things we'll be looking at and talking with other experts on is do we need regular testing? And if so, you know we'll probably have to pass legislation to have it be required.
Allan Marks:So you mentioned, tracy, the things running off, you know, from the fires and you've done testing. You know, I'm sure, of the waters before and after the fire. How much from a fire of the pollutants are coming into the oceans in the Santa Monica Bay from smoke, because usually those fires are Santa Ana winds, so it's coming from the north and blowing over the water. So the ash coming on the surface of the ocean how much is coming from, you know, immediately coming into the water and how much is coming later when the rains come and start washing everything down through the storm drain system.
Tracy Quinn:You know that's a really challenging question to answer because we only have a couple of data sets and they don't necessarily follow the trends that we would expect to see. We did testing before so we think we have a good capture of some of the ash deposition, although our testing happened on, I think, january 24th, 5th around there, so it was a little bit after that. The majority of the ash deposition which could have settled lower to the ocean floor we are going out and doing offshore testing. I just was out with a boat and we did some sediment sampling from the ocean floor to try to determine that, and then the first rains that we had in January were also the first rains in about 11 months, so that carried every contaminant from throughout the watershed out into the ocean. So it's hard to differentiate. Are the metals that we're seeing coming from runoff from the burn areas, or are they coming from you know cars and other things from? You know Right?
Tracy Quinn:and industry and so forth, yeah from all over the greater Los Angeles area? That is going to be a really challenging question to answer. We looked at things like what's coming out of the storm drains. You know, I think one of the things that we saw was Rustic Canyon outfall, which drains the majority of the burned area. Like the most densely populated part of the burned area in the Palisades, we see higher levels of contaminants there than we do in other places, and that points to potentially some of this coming from the burn areas. But it's been really challenging and I think we'll take months and months, if not years, of studying and looking at the data that we have in a comprehensive data set to really be able to determine what the various sources were, and so we can start developing strategies to prepare for the next time.
Allan Marks:That's really interesting. If you were to do a stormwater system that filtered and protected the ocean from our runoff, would you size that? I mean it's different than, for example, when we built the Hyperion sewage treatment plant for the city thanks to federal lawsuits many years ago, because you know, normal sewage is actually pretty predictable flow. Would you size the stormwater for the extreme events of rains that we get once in a while, or would you? How do you figure that out?
Tracy Quinn:I wouldn't build great infrastructure for stormwater. I think you know we have paved over everything which has increased the amount of runoff we have. When it does rain, I would build in more stormwater capture, predominantly through additional green spaces. Permeability yeah. And so I think you know those types of things can bring incredible benefits to a community. So you're looking at nature-based solutions, you're addressing not only the pollution runoff, but you're capturing water that can be used for you know, to supplement our drinking water system.
Sean Knierim:It can be used for irrigation and replenish aquifers.
Tracy Quinn:Yeah, absolutely. You can do cisterns or you can do replenishment of aquifers. You know, these types of things distributed throughout the greater Los Angeles area could have huge impacts. And then, where you do have runoff, making sure that that first flush the majority should be diverted to a wastewater treatment system, because that's going to be the most contaminated, and then the rest could flow out to the ocean, would hopefully be a little bit cleaner and could have some additional treatment as well.
Tracy Quinn:But if we really met our goals in 2018, we passed Measure W. It provides almost $300 million a year for stormwater capture projects, having that deployed in a really methodical, strategic way to provide these benefits. I mean, you're looking at things like you can put these into highly urbanized areas and you can address extreme heat issues where we have, you know, kids that are in schools that are running around on blacktop. That is 106 degrees outside, but it's 160 degrees on that black top and they're having respiratory issues. You can put in a lot more green space and stormwater capture in the schools provide a learning opportunity for kids to learn about the precipitation cycle and what stormwater capture can do, but also cool that environment and then reduce the pollution that's running off. It's an incredible opportunity to address all of the threats that climate change is throwing at us, while also reducing the pollution in our ocean.
Allan Marks:The soil testing was one too. I know there were some places where LA Unified was doing soil testing in their schools. If you do it district-wide and you look at lead and there's lead poisoning in the soil that you didn't know about you weren't testing for it how much of that is from the fire? Well, it turns out, if you've a school that's not impacted by the fire, but you're right by a freeway and you've been there for the last 50 years, guess what? You got lead in your soil. So it's.
Tracy Quinn:There are things like arsenic and lead that are really pervasive in throughout Los Angeles, you know, because of our history of urbanization and just the impact of our activity, of human activities, and you know other things like that are naturally occurring. And so I think that for me, as an engineer and a scientist, more data and more information is always better. I think the statements that, well, we don't want to test because we might find legacy pollutants, and then there's going to be a question about who's responsible for cleaning up. Well, as a citizen, I want to know if it's there, I don't, I want to know who's responsible for it so they can clean it up.
Tracy Quinn:But more importantly, I want to know what me and my family are going to be potentially exposed to, so I always err on the side of more data.
Sean Knierim:As the Blue Ribbon Commission looked at different elements coming out of the fire, which included water availability throughout the two communities and I know that's one of the areas, Tracy, that you were working on specifically in your role on the commission Any learnings that came out of that or any observations that would be good for community members to know about up.
Tracy Quinn:Yes, we spent a lot of time looking at the pressure loss specifically that happened. That really impacted the firefighters' ability to push back the fire and have water in the fire hoses. So it wasn't a matter of having enough water, it was really about having that pressure. So we looked at the things that impacted that. So things like homeowners that were pulling from the same system, hosing off their homes or leaving their hose running, people whose homes burned and we didn't have automatic shutoffs so that water continued to rush out of their pipes, and all of this was competing with the water that our firefighters were using.
Tracy Quinn:So when we thought about our recommendations, we thought what are the things that we can institute to make sure that we can maintain pressure in the system? I mean, the other thing that happened was that the power went out and a lot of these systems had generators that had backup power, but they only had four hours and they were run by diesel. So you can imagine somebody having to run into an active fire with a diesel truck to refill a generator. So we tried to address a lot of those things to make sure that we had a resilient supply of water, and so we looked at things like how do we build redundancy into the system? How can we make sure that homeowners have the ability to have a supply that's going to be used for fire suppression on their parcel that isn't competing with what the firefighter is using? And those are the types of things that you're going to see in our report.
Sean Knierim:Wonderful.
Tracy Quinn:Thank you.
Sean Knierim:So, tracy, as an engineer, as a scientist, as a non-profit leader, as a public servant, with this Blue Ribbon Commission, who has a really unique perspective across everything we're working on here in LA, where's the hope coming that's animating this effort that you're bringing to this community?
Tracy Quinn:Every my hope comes from the impacted communities. The ways in which we were able to come together and share information and fill this gap left by our government agencies that weren't prepared. That gives me hope. Whenever I need something, I can go to the chats and someone has the information that I need or has a resource for me, and that has been absolutely invaluable. And just the ability of these communities to come together for one another prior to the fires. And I think, because we live in a divisive society, you can feel very alone and I haven't felt alone through this process and I feel so much closer to my community than I did before the fires did.
Allan Marks:Thank you for being one of the reasons for that, though, because what you're doing for the community and you and your colleagues. Thank you for being one of the reasons for that, though, because what you're doing for the community and you and your colleagues not just at Heal the Bay or on the commission, but what you're doing more broadly is creating that glue that's holding people together, and we couldn't do it without you.
Sean Knierim:Thank you. Thanks for agreeing to join us, meeting us for the first time here today with us, and thanks for the work you're doing. This has been another episode of Shared Ground. We hope you continue joining us for more of these conversations moving forward. Thanks very much. This has been another episode of Shared Ground, a podcast about resilience and community Follow us on your favorite platform or learn more at sharedgroundcom. That's shared-groundcom.