Rest of the Conference . . .

. . . What a week.

it's difficult to know where to start, or how to organize the following post given the mass amount of great sessions, people, ideas and conversations that I encountered in Redondo Beach. But I'll just start with things chronologically and see if that works . . . one of the great things about blogging is the ability jot it down when it happens (or soon thereafter) and have the links and info for later. One of the lousy things is that you wait a bit too long and you lose some of the timeliness of your impressions or ideas . . .
. . . and to be certain, there were a whole host of great sessions that I didn't manage to attend. What I would like to do, somewhere w/in the blog or on the site is link to the TCS page with the schedule and maybe add some hyperlinks to some of my favored people, organizations and agencies.

Day One
. . . the opening plenary featured not only Dr. Geraldine Katz. There were several other great speakers each describing projects in their respective areas, and what they were trying to do to realize the idea of "green ports". I am no expert in port planning, development or management. But I do realize that these areas have a profound influence on the conditions of our coasts, and due to the economic force within them, have a tremendous opportunity to influence coastal sustainability.

• Steven Goldbeck from the (take a deep breath) San Francisco Bay Conservation & Development Commission (BCDC) talked about the use of dredge spoils for somewhat more progressive or productive ends.
• Vivien Li of the Boston Harbor Association described the many initiatives in Boston.

• Heather Hartz, director of Environmental Affairs at the Virginia Port Authority followed . . . for my taste their website doesn't do their environmental efforts justice. ISO 14001,ULSD, as well as a host of other programs are definitely raising the bar and making that complex a greener part of the Virginia coast. By contrast, they have a great camera page . . . which begs the question, what other ways could institutions like VPA use the web to convey important environmental information.
  
• and last but certainly not least (quite the contrary) was Patricia Castellano, highlighting the work of the Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports, a piece in the larger puzzle that is the LA Alliance for New Economy. I think it's sometimes too easy to forget that beyond the very real ecological and economic problems faced on our coastlines, there is a very troubling human dimension to our coasts' mismanagement or poor planning. Patricia did a great job in reminding us that true sustainability includes not only the conservation of habitat or species, of economic vitality, but of lives and livelihoods as well.

. . . then we had lunch.

"How's your blog doing?"

. . . a friend of mine asked me that question recently and I winced when I heard it. The truth is that I've been really busy with a whole host of things in the last couple months that have kept me from focusing much energy on the site . . . and yet, I can't help but feel that there's been alot of changes recently that will make an official launch of the site much more likely in the very near future . . . the very near distant future (to be on the safe side) . . .

I have moved to California (the whole state) and am currently attending TCS 21. It's only the end of Day One, and already I've met a great group of folks and sat in on some pretty interesting sessions. Dr. Geraldine Knatz kicked off the conference with a really great talk about some of the innovative approaches that the Port of Los Angeles is taking to make their operations (and the whole of the LA basin) a bit greener. . . no, make that a whole lot greener. Some of their projects seemed pretty darn innovative, and certainly readjusted my understanding of just how "green" ports could be.

With that as a kick off, it was easy to be in a hopeful mood heading into the rest of the day. Due to the fact that I have to be back in the fray in another eight hours I'm not going to get into the rest of Day One right now. But I'll definitely be posting more about the conference in the next couple of days . . .

. . . In contrast to last year, my name badge now reads Coastopolis.com at the bottom of it and quite a few folks have mentioned that the idea seems like a good one. I'm still looking for a good tag line to describe the whole thing but if you're reading this I might have explained the concept to you already. Anyway, what I wanted to say, to anybody that I've discussed the idea with (or for anybody that I speak to in the near future), is that your ideas and/or encouragement are invaluable. The more I hear that it seems like a good idea, and the more ideas that I receive for its growth, the more likely that the product in the future will become a useful resource for varied sectors of the coastal equation . . . hmm, I like that. That's mine. I just googled it and didn't find anything pertinent so I'm officially coining the phrase and there's my tagline . . . Coastopolis.com - providing an online portal for varied sectors of the coastal equation.

. . . or something to the effect. See you at Day Two.