Richmond Marks A Century of 'The Plunge,' CA Scientists Work to Create the First Detailed Record of Tide Pools

from KQED. Support for KQED podcasts comes from Star 1 Credit Union. Give your savings account the love it deserves. When you keep your money with Star 1, you keep more of your money. Star 1 credit union in your best interest. Minions don't wait, especially for Wi-Fi. Summons Same Day Wi-Fi from Xfinity and get the same price for five years and seen minions and monsters only in theaters. Xfinity. Imagine that. Restrictions apply not available in all areas. Learn more at Xfinity.com slash same-day Wi-Fi. This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace, and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message, and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew, well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer find more on Facebook. From KQED, this is the latest, a podcast that updates throughout the day, bringing you local news when you want it. I'm Dana Kronin. It's Friday, August 14th. Here are this hour's headlines from the KQED Newsroom. Live from KQED News, I'm Natalia Navarro. A civil trial is finally set to take place later this year in the death of Stephen Gaines, aka Zumbi, the MC of popular East Bay hip-hop group Zion 1. KQBD's Nasty of Wojnowskaya spoke with his family this week at a vigil in San Francisco's clarion alley. She brings us this report over one of Zumbi's compositions, Silly Puddy. Loved ones remembered Gaines as a devoted father, partner, and friend. Fans and collaborators praised his lyricism. In 2021, Gaines sought medical attention at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley during an apparent mental health crisis. He died after a struggle with security guards. Here's his mother, Carolyn Gaines. Zimbi deserved to have justice because what happened to him should not have happened. There's no justification for it at all. He was a beautiful man. Gaines's family has filed a wrongful death suit that's set to go to trial in November. I'm Nostia Wainovskaya, KQED News. Alameda's popular water shuttle, a small passenger boat known as Woodstock, will be back in service by next Friday. That's according to San Francisco Bay Ferry officials who have been working to repair the boat after two separate engines broke down. Woodstock connects the island of Alameda with Oakland's Jack London Square and is especially popular with bicyclists. I'm Natalinga Navarro. KQEady News.

Here's a deeper dive into the local stories we've been following. Tomorrow, the city of Richmond is marking the 100th anniversary of a local landmark. The Richmond Plunge. It's an indoor swimming pool, and it's been a fixture for generations, thanks to a community effort that kept it from closing altogether. KQED's Azul Dostromekman has the story. The Richmond plunge is bright and airy. There are over 100 windows, and the ceiling is vaulted with exposed steel beams. Twelve-year-old Naomi Mowgli's favorite part about the pool is the mural, depicts a local park, and covers an entire wall. Because I like how it's big, and it has the, like, birds on it and the trees and the lake and stuff. She's swimming in the deep end for the first time. after passing her swim test. I like to do laps, but I really like to just swim. Like, just, like, play around in the pool. She's with her grandfather, Otis, who's been coming here since he was a kid back in the 70s. Yeah, every summer, you know, like almost every day. So the plunge is kind of a family tradition now. She likes to swim, so we bring her here to, I guess, refresh some memories. and give her some for her future, you know. The Richmond plunge first opened in 1926 as the municipal natatorium. This was a time when indoor swimming pools were popular attractions, like Sutro Baths in San Francisco, another historic public swimming pool that's now long gone. You can see that there's a big balcony, right? Architect Todd Jersey points up to the second level of the plunge, where he says there used to be a band shell. so people could watch synchronized swimming performances with live music. So this was a whole entertainment piece, as well as a recreational pool. The Plunge's history inspired Jersey to help save it. Over the years, the building fell into disrepair, and it was damaged by the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. Repairs were expensive, and Richmond voters rejected a bond measure in the 90s to reinforce it. For years, the building bore a swim at your own risk sign. The city finally closed the pool in 2001. A few years later, Jersey teamed up with a local nonprofit and came up with a plan to repair it for a fraction of the cost. It was the momentum the plunge needed. It finally reopened in 2010. Kind of a ridiculous amount of love and care went into this building. Nowadays, the Richmond Plunge hosts Aqua Zumba and kayak classes, as well as recreational and lap swim. It's used pretty much all day long and all year long. John Schonder is the head coach of the Richmond Sailfish swim team, which practices here. He says the 100th anniversary is special. You just don't see 100-year-old pools. You don't see a lot of 100-year-old anythings really that is celebrated and has such a community behind it. Lisa Klein is 73 and lives in Oakland. She comes to the plunge a few times a month to swim laps. She says it's beautiful. I love the history of it, this big old building. And as soon as I get in the water and start swimming, whatever problems or things I'm working on dissolves. And it's a great pool.

The city's all-day celebration will feature a building dedication and discounted entry for folks who want to take the plunge. I'm Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman, KQED News. Kids are heading back to school across the Bay Area, and seven of the region's students are recognized in this year's NPR student podcast challenge. It asked them to reflect on what life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness means to them in light of the nation's 250th anniversary. Laura Leon is a senior at Mountain View High School. She won an honorable mention for her piece. called everything given forward. It's about her grandfather and how he became a U.S. citizen. Leon tells the story to reflect on her own bicultural identity. Two worlds loud enough that I never noticed I didn't fully belong to either. Not Chinese enough for one, not Hispanic enough to look like the other. For a long time, I had no name for where I stood. But I've come to understand something that this is my grandfather's fault. in the best way possible. Leon says doing the podcast helped her honor her grandfather. He recently died of Alzheimer's. I feel like this disease. It's like it slowly eats through your brain. And so I remember my stepdad telling me he's not going to remember his past. Like you should definitely document his past. And so I think from an early on, like since I was like what like 12 years old, like I really wanted to do this sort of project. Leon's peers from the Bay Area won honorable mentions for a variety of topics, including sexism in Silicon Valley, peer pressure, recycling, and girls' flag football. NPR chose just a handful of winners from more than 700 entries nationwide. One of them is Violet Maxinoski. She's a senior at Carmel High School. The title of her winning entry is The Journal. In it, she revisited stories from her mom's journal. journal while she was serving in Iraq. In the middle of war, uncertainty, and constant instability, so much of life was dictated by circumstance rather than possibility. After another bombing, an Iraqi interpreter says something while conversing with my mother, though it would stick with her long after. At least we have freedom. We have freedom to speak, to speak our minds on any subject. Freedom is not free. That's Violet's mom, Sandy Maxinovsky, reading from her own journal. Violet says the experience of making the podcast brought them closer. There was like this disconnect kind of with like, yeah, my mom was off on the other side of the world doing this stuff. I hadn't ever really like understood that. And I think being able to talk with her about it, it's like these two different people are now like one. Like my mom was this military veteran or she is a military veteran and she's my mom and this is like the same person.

She says her mom's story shows that the nation's founding values, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness shouldn't be taken for granted. You can find the full list of the Northern California winners in this year's NPR student podcast challenge at KQED.org slash arts. The latest will be back after this quick break. This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace, and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message, and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew, well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer find more on Facebook. Support for K-QED comes from Genentech, the original biotech company. For 50 years, Genentech has pioneered more than 40 scientific breakthroughs across various diseases, bringing greater hope to patients everywhere. Learn more at gene.com. That's g-e-ne.com. We're back with the latest. Now, here's a look at the top news and culture stories from around the Golden State. This is the California Report. I'm Alex Hall in San Francisco. The California Coastal Commission unanimously rejected a proposal by a Southern California oil company Thursday for a fracking project off the coast of Ventura County. The commission said the aging infrastructure and risk of oil spills is too high. The fracking proposal was the first off the coast of California in a decade. The project could still move forward. The federal government will have final say over the decision. Shasta County Supervisors have voted to censure their top county elections official because of threats of violence he allegedly made towards staff. Jefferson Public Radio's Roman Battaglia reports. The Board of Supervisors delayed taking up this censure vote until after the June primary election. This followed an independent investigation that found county clerk Clint Curtis made unprofessional, sometimes violent remarks towards staff. That includes threatening to have HR pull a staff member out of their office by their hair. Supervisor Matt Plummer acknowledges that a censure is really nothing more than a public reprimand. This board can only do what it can do with an elected official, but we're going to say that you need to follow the personnel codes. And if you don't, there are going to be consequences to the extent we can take them. During public comment at the meeting Tuesday morning, Curtis said that he, quote, may be perfect and that election staff have been sabotaging his efforts to reform the election system. Curtis was voted out of office during the primary and will leave at the end of the year. For the California report, I'm Roma Battaglia. Coachella's City Council is moving toward a permanent ban on data centers. The Council this week unanimously approved the first reading of an ordinance that would prohibit large-scale data centers citywide. KVCR's Anthony Victoria has been following the issue.

The city says concerns over water, electricity, noise, and potential impacts on emergency response are guiding its approach to the ban. Coachella's planning staff considered recommending that the ban go before voters. Instead, they prefer an ordinance because a future council could change it through the normal public process without an election. That would give the city more flexibility if new technology or uses emerge that don't fit within the ban. Residents have pushed for a ban since April, but some also want voters to have the final say. They say keeping the issue off the ballot falls short of what they've been asking for. And at least one member of the council, Mayor Frank Figueroa supports putting the ban before voters. That was KVCR's Anthony Victoria reporting from the Coachella Valley. Dinosaur bones and taxidermied animals get most of the attention at the Natural History Museum in L.A. County. But researchers are excited about a new collection that could have big implications for monitoring climate change. As Lucas Brady Woods reports, it's all about California tide pools.

On an overcast morning last month, Greg Rouse scoops water into a plastic bin from a tide pool near La Jolla's bird rock. This place is incredibly diverse in habitats. Sampling tide pools like this is pretty routine for Rouse, who's a marine biologist at Scripps Institute of Oceanography. But lately, it's been part of something bigger. Rouse is leading the first phase of a project to comprehensively document California's tidal ecosystems. That means logging every tiny organism found in tide pools from San Diego up to the Oregon border. Rouse and a team of scientists recently collected more than 7,000 samples from around Bird Rock, representing 1,600 species of invertebrates and algae, some of which may be new to science. It's a baseline of what is here right now. It's a shame we didn't do this 20 years ago or 40 years ago, but in those times we didn't really have the DNA technology and the cost efficiency that we have these days. The intertitled DNA library project is overall a big undertaking. It's led by a coalition of top scientific institutions and is funded by the state to the tune of almost $10 million. The goal is to create the first detailed record of California's tidal habitats by focusing on the algae and invertebrates that live in them. Once collected, the physical specimens and their DNA profiles will be stored in a massive archive at the Natural History Museum of L.A. County. Scientists say referencing that library will let them more effectively monitor those habitats, which are especially vulnerable to the impacts of a changing climate. Dean Penchef, one of the museum's lead scientists on the project, says there's a lot we don't know about our tide pools. To responsibly manage the shore and manage our resources and manage the life on it, we need to know who's where. And who's who? Pentchef says the reference library will also lay the groundwork for new, powerful tools scientists can use to monitor changes in the tidal ecosystem. One of those emerging technologies uses environmental DNA, which naturally falls off of organisms. When scientists collect samples of water or sand, that eDNA in it can give them a snapshot of an ecosystem, but only if it's compared to a baseline. Creating that baseline is one reason why officials in charge of protecting the state's marine environments are excited about this project, including Mike Esgrove, a scientist with the California Ocean Protection Council. Where invasive species showing up? What's happening with species range shifts as things migrate northward? Those are the kinds of questions that we can answer, start to answer, with a lot of this information. That's important to Esgro, who oversees California's official marine protected areas, which cover about 16% of the state's coastal waters. He hopes the library, and emerging tools like E-DNA that rely on it, will help officials see, for example, if there are additional parts of the ocean that need state protection. Esgro, along with the other scientists on the project, also wanted to serve as an example for others like it across the country and the world.

Back at the Scripps lab, Rouse, the marine biologist, fills a petri dish with sampled water and slides it under a microscope. He turns on a high-resolution monitor. There's several species in here, and they just love living in this myophonal inter-sand-grained habitat. Hundreds of nearly microscopic shrimps, snails, worms, and at least one bright orange sea slug come to life on the screen. Similar specimens and their DNA are bound for the museum in Exposition Park, where there'll be a resource for scientists for years to come, just like the dinosaur bones and taxidermied animals. That was L.A.S. Lucas Brady Woods reporting. And that's the California report for Friday, August 14th. We're a production of KQED News. Our engineers are Danny Bringer, Brendan Willard, Christopher Beale, Jim Bennett, and Catherine Monaghan. Our producers are Billy Cruz and Keith Miziguchi. Our senior editor is Angela Corral. Our managing editor is Ted Goldberg. And our editor-in-chief is Ethan Tovin Lindsay. I'm Alex Hall. Thank you for listening and have a great day. That's the latest from KQED, but remember we're updating throughout the day, so come back anytime. The latest is powered by the newsroom at member-supported KQED in San Francisco and is made by me, Dana Kronin, Swishdi Prabha, and Bianca Taylor, with support from Jen Chien, Ted Goldberg, Keith Miziguchi, and Katie Springer. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and radio artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local. Thanks for listening. Support for KQED podcasts comes from San Francisco International Airport. Whether you're chasing the sun or escaping the heat this summer, SFO can get you there with nonstop flights to more than 140 destinations worldwide. FlySFO.com slash nonstop. Minions don't wait, especially for Wi-Fi. Summons Same Day Wi-Fi from Xfinity and get the same price for five years. And seen minions and monsters only in theaters. Exfinity. Imagine that. Restrictions apply not available in all areas. Learn more at Xfinity.com slash same-day Wi-Fi.