Plane crash aftermath; police overtime pay; winemaking in Valle de Guadalupe

S1: It's time for KPBS roundtable. I'm Andrew Bracken. Today we hear more about the small plane crash that struck a military neighborhood in San Diego early Thursday and the impacts it's having on local military families. How the local military community is responding to the crash and its aftermath.

S2: I heard stories over at the school just near us about military families helping military families out of their homes , jumping out of windows , avoiding fire.

S1: Then later , a conversation with a longtime travel writer about Bajas winemaking capital , as well as her own journey to re-examine her relationship to tourism. Plus , an investigation from KPBS looking into high earners with the city of San Diego. That's all ahead on KPBS roundtable. Before we get started on the show today , I just wanted to give our listeners a quick roundtable update. I've had the pleasure of filling in as host here on roundtable , along with my colleague Scott Rodd , for well over a year now , and I'm happy and really also grateful to announce I'll be with you now each and every week as the host of roundtable , and just wanted to thank everyone for their support. Okay , so now onto the show. San Diego's Tierra Santa neighborhood continues to recover from a small plane crash Thursday that destroyed a pair of homes , damaged several others. Three people have been confirmed dead. All were aboard the Cessna 550 jet , which began its flight in new Jersey. Six apparently were on board that jet. The crash also forced dozens of local military families out of their homes and into local evacuation centers. And here to talk more about it , I'm joined by Andrew Dyer. He is KPBS military and Veterans affairs reporter. So , Andrew , you know , in a sign of at least a semblance of return to normal here , two local schools in that area near the crash site are back open today.

S3: But , um , last night , the the region which , you know , region manages all the bases , they and they issued an evacuation order for the vicinity of the crash , which kind of unlocked the ability of these families to , uh , get hotels and have the Navy pay for them.

S1: So , yeah , it sounds like a lot of logistics , a lot of different branches of the military , a lot of different departments here trying to figure it out. But talk more about this neighborhood. You know where this happened and the people living there.

S3: So , yeah , Murphy Canyon , it's a huge , uh , military housing area. Um , it has , you know , like duplexes. It has single family homes. And really , it has , um , members of each branch of the military. If you get stationed here , you can you can be put in , in , uh , Murphy Canyon housing , um , and , uh , and all ranks up to I think , uh , some officer ranks as well. Uh , so it's a big family area. It's a very tight knit neighborhood. Uh , a lot of people , um , maybe they're on the same ship , or they're from the same command. They live on the same street with each other. So , you know , barbecues and stuff like that. Uh , very tight knit. There's a , uh , community center. There's armed services YMCA over there. There's a Navy exchange. Um , so it's a military friendly , uh , family friendly the area.

S1: So it's not run by the military or how does that work ? I mean , tell us more about , you know , how this housing is run. I think it's Liberty military housing. Yeah.

S3: Yeah. So Liberty Military Housing is the company that manages , um , these type properties across the country and several , several areas. Um , it's a public private partnership. They have a contract with the DoD to provide this housing. They're on the hook for , you know , maintenance and and upkeep and everything. Um , and in exchange , basically , they they charge , uh , the they charge you your housing allowance is your rent. Right. So whatever the whatever they're giving you in the area for housing , that's what your rent is for , for these type places. But it's like any , uh , master planned community in San Diego that we're all familiar with. Um , same type of architecture , same type of street design. You know , Murphy canyons. It's not gated. You know , you can drive through there. Uh , so it's it's it's like any other neighborhood. The only difference is , is the folks who live in the homes and kind of the manner in which they got there. Yeah.

S1: Yeah. And another piece of that , I think , for , you know , anyone that's lived in San Diego for an amount of time , you get to know folks from the military or maybe veterans like yourself. Right ? But one aspect of it , especially for families and kids , is the kind of changing nature of of home here.

S3: Um , San Diego is very expensive. So , you know , when I was in , I never wanted to live in base housing. I always wanted to rent my own place out in town. Um , and which works for a lot of people. But if you have two kids. Three kids , um , that becomes pretty expensive around here. So , um , base housing has a real appeal for people with with family who want a bigger space. Um , so , yeah , this is the type of area where there are a lot of families. You're not going to be a single service member. Uh , living in base housing in Murphy Canyon. Not going to give you a whole house to live in if you're if you're single. Um , so it's it's it's family housing.

S1: Andrew Diez KPBS is military and veterans affairs reporter. Andrew , thanks a lot.

S3: Thank you.

S1: Coming up , a KPBS investigation leads to questions about the San Diego Police Department's reliance on extensive overtime. That's next on roundtable. Welcome back to KPBS roundtable. I'm Andrew Bracken. Joining me now is Scott Rodd , KPBS investigative reporter and roundtable alum. You know , some of your latest reporting. You've done a lot of reporting this week , but you looked into the top earners from the city of San Diego. And , you know , what you found may surprise some. I think , you know , some people might just expect executives , a mayor at the top of the list , a police chief.

S4: If you go back , like over a decade ago , the top earners were essentially the people you'd expect. You know , the city attorney , the chief operating officer , when there was one. There no longer is a chief chief operating officer , but that was a top earner , the fire chief. That started to change in recent years , where at first firefighters were making increasing amounts of overtime. They started sort of taking some of these top spots for for highest salaries. But then it became police officers. Police officers started leapfrogging them. And in the last few years , officers who were working tremendous amounts of overtime are the highest paid city employees. And to give you an idea of how much they're making. So if some officers are making over $400,000 , some are , you know , more than doubling what they made in base salary in overtime. And in order to do that , these officers have to work just tremendous , tremendous amounts of overtime.

S1:

S4: A typical workweek or a typical work year rather , is just over 2000 hours. So if you add 3000 hours on top of that , it's like this officer working his standard. Standard officer job , plus another full time job on top of it. Plus another part time job. On top of that , it equals out to like 100 hours per week. If there's no time taken off. And so again , just it's almost hard to wrap your mind around how how someone would work these many hours. There was an audit that was done last year that looked at some of these issues. It looked at overtime at the police department overall , but it dug into some of these specific officers. What we were able to do was put names to these officers. We were able to dig in through public records and determine who these officers were. And there was an example workweek that was included in this audit. And it showed that , for example , in like a three in a three day period , this officer worked over 50 hours with just a few hours off in between. I can just wrap your mind around. It's pretty tough , because it's just so much overtime that some of these officers are working. Yeah.

S1: Yeah. And that has real impacts on the officers themselves. And I think there's you know , your reporting brings up concerns over officer safety and also public safety.

S4: We first jumped into the story looking at the fiscal side of things , because the amount of money that these officers are making is pretty shocking. Like just to see that they're so high up on the list and way ahead of other top officials in the city. But then my editor and I were talking and saying , well , okay , there is the fiscal side , but we need to also look at what does this mean for how these officers interact with members of the members of the public ? What does this mean for their own well-being ? And the research shows there's a decent amount of research out there that shows that when officers are working , lots of overtime accidents start to go up , complaints against officers start to go up , and the likelihood of use of force incidents starts to go up. I spoke with Paul Parker. He is a former police officer and death investigator , and he also led the city's. He was the executive director of the city's Civilian Police Oversight Board recently. And he said from his experience working this much overtime , it's a red flag.

S5: When you work , excessive number of hours and 19 hours seems to be completely excessive. But when you're working 14 , 16 hour days and then you put a couple of those days back to back , or maybe every other day you're working 14 to 16 , you're exhausted.

S4: And you heard him referencing , they're 14 hour shifts , 16 hours shift , 19 hour shifts. These were all examples that we were seeing in the data. Some officers were working more than 19 hour shifts , and it's worth noting that a police officer's standard shift here in San Diego is ten hours. Some of them were working close to double that.

S1: So you also sat down with San Diego's police chief , Scott Wahl , for for quite a bit of time to talk about this.

S4: And I'll put it this way. There were certain things that he was concerned about , certain things that he was not concerned about , the money that these officers were making. He had no concerns about that. He said , look , these officers , they work hard , they work the overtime , they earn the money that they receive. And for him , it was like pretty clean cut. Now , when it comes to concerns about officer safety , officer well-being and then also public safety , right. Interactions with the public. He was resistant to this idea that officers who work a lot of overtime could face more complaints , or the risk of accidents goes up. His argument was , well , it's just not that simple.

S6: There are so many factors in life that can contribute to somebody that is overstressed , overburdened , or just mentally or physically or emotionally exhausted just to come in and say , well , it's because they've worked too much overtime. It's very difficult to say that that's the case for everybody. It's really on an individual basis.

S4: He told me that he believes officers have a good sense of when they're going to be burned out , and trusts that those officers can step back if needed. He also says he believes that supervisors he trusts , the supervisors that are in place to identify if any of their officers are working too much , maybe approaching burnout. And beyond that , he says , he thinks that the sort of wellness offerings , the psychological services that are offered by the department are sufficient to address any of these concerns. And he said , look , we're not seeing any any correlation with increased complaints with officers that are working a lot of overtime. But he did say that he believes that there should be some limitations to overtime.

S1: Did he give more indication of what that might look like ? Yeah.

S4: He said , well he's open to capping shift lengths at 16 hours. Also , he supports the idea of requiring eight hours off in between shifts. Right now that's encouraged , but it's not required. Right now , there's no limit to the length of a shift. Uh , in the San Diego Police Department. He also said he would be supportive of mandating one day off a week , but he did emphasize that he can't just wave a magic wand and make that happen. He has to go through what's called a meet and confer process. That's with the police officers union and essentially has to get buy in from the union to these proposed limitations.

S1: You know , you mentioned the city budget earlier. You know , we've kind of covered this on this show quite a bit. Last year. What it was around $260 million. That number has gone up to over $300 million. The budget deficit the city is facing.

S4: It is for every single department. Gloria's administration. Mayor. His administration is looking for cuts wherever they can. The city council is also , you know , looking around to see , okay , well , what can we trim realistically , and there are going to be some really difficult cuts that have to be made when it comes to police overtime. This year , the department expects that they're going to go roughly $10 million over their original overtime budget. That would bring overtime spending to about $56 million. Now , it's worth noting that in just about every year of the last decade , they've spent more than anticipated on overtime. And the police chief says , look , we're going to try to rein this in. We're going to try to find some efficiencies to reduce overtime , and they're going to try to trim that back by about $11 million , almost $12 million compared to what they ultimately spend this year. So they're looking for ways that they could cut back. But it's worth noting that the city council at a recent at a recent city council meeting , members were saying , you know , we're concerned this could have an impact on public safety. Is this where we want to make cuts ? They expressed concern about this. Ultimately , Mayor Todd Gloria decided to keep those cuts in his proposed final proposed budget. We'll see if those make it. But there has been some criticism of this idea of trimming back over time , even though the spending on it is significant.

S1: So I want to kind of peel back the layers here of your reporting a little bit and talk about how this story originally got on your radar. Yeah.

S4: Yeah. So it came as a tip from a member of the public. They reached out and said , look , this person said , I'm a data guy and I like to dig through , you know , city records , police records , something that , hey , me personally , I identify with. Yeah. And I said , hey , that's great. And they said , look , this is kind of interesting. This police officer , this kind of just patrol police officer is making $430,000 a year. That seems kind of wild. And they said it looks like it's the highest paid city employee. And so I looked at that and said , wow , that is pretty interesting. And as an investigative reporter , I mean , I've been doing this now for about ten years. I developed a pretty good sense of when something is a story or has a good , you know , good likelihood of being a story. This right away I was like , wow , that's super interesting. Let's dig in. And as an investigative reporter , you want to start fleshing that out and say , okay , is this just an isolated thing ? Do one , do the numbers all line up ? Is there a pattern here ? And so there's a lot of important context leading up to this story now. There's been a lot of reporting about the San Diego Police Department having a lot of vacancies. They have difficulty. They've been having difficulty in recent years holding on to officers , recruiting new officers , hiring. And so the shifts that need to be filled through overtime has gone up and up and up.

S1: The dependence on those on those overtime hours to fill holes.

S4: Yeah , yeah. And that's what Chief Wall really emphasized was like he actually described overtime as their lifeblood. He said , look , we really depend on this. We have so many vacancies that just to kind of meet our basic obligations , we need to make sure that we have this overtime and we need to utilize that to backfill these shifts. So from from there gathering kind of that historical context leading up to this , we also wanted to look at , well , going back some years , how long has this been happening ? And that's when we found that it's really kind of a recent phenomena that officers were making just this much over this much in overtime. We're talking again , hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the other interesting thing that we found was it's the same set of officers , the same maybe 5 to 10 officers that you see at the top of the list , you know , in the last 4 or 5 years who are making all of this overtime and who have now become the highest paid city employees. And then , of course , beyond the financial considerations , as I mentioned before , my editor and I early on said , okay , the money side of this is definitely very interesting. It's a tremendous amount of money. But when you're looking at how does this impact public safety , we need to dig into that. And that's when we open the whole conversation about , well , when officers are working this much , when they're fatigued , does that have an impact on their policing , on their interactions with the public ? And again , as I mentioned before , research shows that , yeah , there is a correlation there.

S1: A lot more to follow. We appreciate you sharing more about your reporting here. Scott Rod is an investigative reporter here at KPBS. And let's do it again soon. Scott , thanks for being here.

S4: It's an honor to be on this side of the table , Andrew , and I wish you all the luck hosting the show , and I'm really excited to see what you do with it.

S1: Thanks , Scott. I really appreciate it. Next up , a look into the history of Mexico's largest wine making region in Bajas Valle de Guadalupe. That's ahead on roundtable. Welcome back to KPBS roundtable. I'm Andrew Bracken. Not far from San Diego lies Bajas Valle de Guadalupe. It's Mexico's largest wine making region by far. And it sits beyond Tijuana before the coastal town of Ensenada and its unique geography and climate has led it to become quite the winemaking hub. It's fairly accessible to visitors from both sides of the border. But how the region evolved to become the centre of Mexico's winemaking world. It's the focus of a recent story by my next guest , Michelle Bigley. She's a long time travel writer and freelance journalist here in San Diego. Hey , Michelle. Hey.

S7: Hey. How's it going ? Great.

S1: Great to have you here. So , Michele , your latest story for San Diego Magazine looked into the history of the valley , you know , and it starts with this sentence. A band of Russian exiles walks into the Mexican desert. So you hooked me right out of the gate with that. But , you know , take the story from there. Tell us more about it.

S7: So these Russian exiles were not wanting to go to war , and they found a place that they could grow food. And for , you know , a lot of pilgrims , I guess , like they would , you know , it's all about how you eat and how you sustain your family. And so they started planting and they were planting able to plant grapes. And that sort of spiraled into other people seeing that you could plant grapes. And at that point the Spanish had a law. I don't know if it was officially a law , like based on what , you know , their monarchy had , but there was a ruling that you couldn't grow wine for pleasure. You could only grow it for the , um , you know , like the church. And so any wine or sherry or , you know , variety of alcohol that was grown all kind of had to go into the , you know , for the different missionaries and the Catholic Church , etc. , etc. and slowly people started realizing maybe on the , on the DL a little bit that they could grow wine and drink it for themselves. But mostly the wine was like thinking about mass production for , you know , not for the art or craft of wine. It was more sort of like for the utility of wine , right ? Like it would be a part of ceremonies and things like that. Um , and then , um , the people call him sort of. I mean , I don't want to call him the grandfather because that infers that he's like , ancient , but he basically was like the the person who sort of , like , created the it via the region to become a wine region. And his name is Hugo DaCosta. And he sort of like , looked around and said , we could we could make something more out of this and we could create a vibrant , wide region. And , um , he started planting vineyards. And the notable thing about Guadalupe that I think a lot of people don't realize is that it's not actually one valley. It's a series of seven different like valley regions , and Guadalupe is the most popular one because that's where the hotels are. But a lot of the wine grapes are actually grown outside of the valley. And so people started to notice , like in one place that , you know , grapes would go really well , This kind of grew up. And then people started to land there and they started growing grapes in other regions around there , and it became this giant wine growing region. Wow.

S1: Wow. So , you know , it started with these , you know , Russians like avoiding war , as you said.

S7:

S1: And so when did the wineries start to take hold ? I mean , what did it look like when they first arrived and. Yeah.

S7: And he saw that wine could be grown , and he decided he wanted to start the winery that then became , uh , Santo Tomas , which is one of the most famous , like venerable wine country wine wineries in the region and vineyards. And that was the one that ultimately Hugo de Costa came in and took over. So that was all happening , sort of like middle of the century time and slowly kind of , I would say late 1900s was when people started realizing that they could grow wine , but then it was more that like boxed wine , kind of feel like it wasn't. It wasn't artsy or crafty or taking advantage of the specific terroir that was there. Like it was just more.

S1: Like an industrial sort of approach.

S7: Exactly , exactly.

S1: I mean , can you talk more about how grape farming works and what makes this region you kind of made you know , you made the point. It's not even just one valley we're talking about. But can you talk more about , you know , what conditions are needed and why ? Why is that such a unique spot for for wine.

S7: So the climate makes it really unique , right. So it's like cool nights consistently because it has the ocean breeze which is a unique element as well. Like we can't forget the ocean , um , the saltiness of , you know , of that spray. And then we also have the fact that the actual vaquita , Guadalupe , used to be underwater. So the groundwater , Like the soil has a lot of saline in it. Just naturally that's in that particular valley. Not all the regions , but that one. Um , and then the , um , the hot days , like consistently they , you know , it's not like Napa where you could get a frost or you could get , you know , a freak snow , or even in parts of France , or maybe not so much Italy , but where you could get extreme weather , like the extreme weather you get in Vida. Guadalupe is heat , right ? Like lots of heat. And then the possibility of fire , which is , you know , more recent of issues , right ? And then obviously drought. Right. So , so the consistency of the climate actually makes it ideal for growing both food and grapes. Right. And then what's curious or what's interesting about the actual grapes that are grown in Vida Guadalupe is they have a saltiness to them. And so a lot of crafty or , you know , artisans of making wine use that to their benefit to add this like distinct flavor. That's not the whole region. That's just specifically in the valley. So what a lot of the winemakers do is they source grapes from all the different winemaking regions , right ? The different seven valleys or different parts of the valleys , right. Higher up. Or if you're on the valley floor , it creates different conditions for the grapes , and different kinds of grapes thrive in those different conditions.

S1:

S7: So anything goes like where you think about in , you know , Napa or France or Italy or all the like , huge winemaking regions around the world. There are these strict laws that govern what grape can be grown where how it can be grown , what you have to do. But it was sort of like bloomed from this , this Wild West appeal , like you had Russians growing grapes , and then you had Spaniards growing grapes , and then you had Mexicans growing grapes , and then suddenly , like French , like , you know , people came over to escape war and they started sneaking there , you know. You know , vines in , you know , from their family's vineyard back in France. And so , like , there's cross breeds and different wines that shouldn't be grown , shouldn't , quote unquote , be grown together. So it's it's seriously as anything goes , right ? Like , people wax poetic about the different red varietals that you can find in in the valley. But I've had some dynamic , like , really amazing orange wines and rosés and whites and , you know , natural wines , like , there's so there's so many people experimenting with not just the grapes , but the blends of grapes , plus the way they're growing it , like some people are trying to do a biodynamic and some people are doing it with like limited water , and some people are doing it with lots of water. And you know , where the water comes from and the specific parts of the water , you know , all of it , like makes it so there's no one characteristic. There's no type. It's that anything is possible. And with that , you get this dynamic creativity that you can't find in any other winegrowing region.

S1: And you know , in , in your story , it kind of goes out from there. It's not just the wine that this sort of anything goes , spirit comes. I mean , I think you dive into just how the development of the of the via , you know , one of its core kind of tenets is the lack of regulation has sprouted out. So can you talk more about how that's , you know , played out in , in what the Valley's become today ? Yeah.

S7: I mean , well , you know that with any good wine and you need good food , right. And and if you don't have regulations around sort of food and building code and any of that , you suddenly have these , these chefs or these people who want to be chefs who say , I'm going to go and I'm going to put build a grill outside and I'm going to throw a bunch of tables under a tree , and I'm just going to cook for you whatever I can get from , you know , my friend who is , you know , went fishing this morning and so suddenly you have like this again , this sort of , like innovative.

S1: Creative possibilities , just like.

S7: Anything can happen , right ? And so suddenly you have a place like Melva or , you know , if you've ever been to fauna , like where you're sitting inside and outside and the roof is made of salvaged materials , or if there even is a roof. Right. And and you know , the way that the , you know , the outside elements come into the inside and the tables are all funky and weird and like , and you never know what you're going to get because everything comes from what's of the moment. Like there's not just , you know , there's not giant grocery stores that are right up the street , like every like so much of what you eat when you're in the valley is grown right there.

S1: Well , you mentioned Malva. I think that's Roberto Alcazar , you know , place down in Ensenada. But I mean , doesn't he , like , grow it right there ? Because we we talked to him on Midday Edition , um , earlier this year and he talked about , you know , how important it was to grow the stuff right there , and then you kind of come just bring it to the table. Exactly.

S7: Exactly. And almost every restaurant I've ever been to. Every place you stay has that ethos , right ? Like , like there's an understanding that when you're kind of out in the middle of nowhere , like , I don't know , for some of you who've never been out there for people who have never gone it , it's kind of a trek to get there. It's really close. It takes about an hour and a half from the border , right , to get there. But you're either going on this one , you know , very skinny mountain road curving through or you're cutting down through , and it's not. And then when you get to the valley , the majority of the roads that are getting you to your restaurants , your hotels , your wineries are still unpaved , right ? So , you know , if you go down there during rainy season , you know.

S1: You sometimes the roads are closed. Yeah.

S7: Or they're washed out like , I was down once with someone and they got , you know , their car got stuck because they went off the wrong way. So , so you know that you have to be self-sustaining , right ? And that creates like , sort of it's almost like that idea of to evolve , you go back to the past. Right. That that creates that concept of like how to create a real , you know , experience of being in a place is that you have to eat what grows right there , because you don't have the luxury of easily renting out to the store to pick any of the of your produce up or your , you know , whatever , you're serving your guests.

S1: Right ? I mean , tourism plays an important role for the Valley , right ? But I mean , how are they dealing with those challenges ? And , I mean , I think of San Diego has its own challenges with growth and how much and how much to cater to tourism. Tijuana has had immense growth over the last several decades. Right. And there are challenges there.

S7: Right. So the reason that the valley is so dynamic is because people came and said , I can make this amazing wine or without regulations , or I can build this beautiful , dynamic , incredible restaurant and serve the kind of food that I've always wanted to serve in this back road , whatever attached to this beautiful winery and serve it paired with all these dynamic wines. Right. Like that's it's majestic when you're out there. There's nothing like it. Right ? But you're also coming up against the fact that , like , to have a wine country , you need places to grow wine. And without there being regulations , a lot of the places that have been sort of always considered agricultural land are now getting sold to the highest bidder. And often those highest bidders don't have the good intention of stewarding the land right in their in their hearts and minds like they're out for the dollar. Right. So so the community there , well , they want innovators and they want people who are thinking about , you know , how do we take how do we keep allowing this place to be dynamic and changing and like to to to be what it is it has it continues changing. But how do we do that in a way that it's we without regulations , we can regulate how that's done. Right ? So like if a place is catering to tourists , tourists expect or want a certain level of maybe tourists want paved roads , or maybe tourists want , you know , like a bougie hotel that , you know , now we're getting built these like very luxurious hotels where we come from a place where we expect , expect water to come out of the tap and to be able to take long showers and to we want to pool and we want , you know , bathtubs that fill up where , you know , water is a limited resource in the valley. And , and , you know , food is a limited resource. And , and the more it grows , the smaller the space is to grow that food , the smaller the space is to grow that wine. That's all the things that's bringing people to that place. Right. So so it's it's this constant dance , right ? Like we want tourists to be able to experience it. It's this wonderful , beautiful , magical place. But we don't want tourism to dilute the experience or sully the experience. We don't want to love a place to death so that it stops being why we went right , which is what we see around the world all the time. Yeah.

S1: Yeah. And I want to talk more about that and kind of your journey as a travel writer. But you mentioned water there. Can you talk more about , you know , the challenges there ? Because I think , you know , earlier you mentioned the groundwater and its relation to the ocean , but there are real challenges. And I imagine wine needs a good deal of water to , to make.

S7: Yeah , I need a lot of water to grow and so does so does produce. Right. So and so to humans. You know if we just like equalize that whole thing. Right. So Vida Guadalupe , the one valley , right. It has one aquifer for the whole valley. That's not the other regions. Right. The other regions have different water sources or whatever , but that one aquifer and that is based on rain , right ? So if there's rain , the groundwater is high. If there's no rain or we're in a drought season , the groundwater gets lower and the lower it gets , the saltier that groundwater gets. Right because of the soil and because that value is to be underwater. And the chemistry of , you know , how that all works , right ? So there are some wineries like , like Margo Bowden , who's like one of the , you know , oldest wineries in the valley. And they have this , like , huge property that stretches back up into the mountains , and there's a water source that comes down off of the mountains. Right. But the majority of the the vineyards that are on the valley floor and the majority of the people that live on the valley floor and the restaurants that are on the valley floor , they have wells that they dig. And each year people are having to dig their wells deeper to get that more water. Right. And there's one water source , right ? One water source. So and so. Nada does have a desalinization plant. It's tiny , but they do have one. And Tijuana is looking to build one. But there's like a , you know , like a gazillion dollar I don't know how many zeros there is of this project to try to build a aqueduct that goes from Tijuana to Ensenada , because now that the valley is is notable , now that there's three Michelin starred restaurants and people are traveling from all over the world to come to VI to go to the region , right ? The government is taking note and saying , okay , we we want to support this region. We need to make sure they get water. Right. So that's a that's a perk to this visibility or this , you know , whatever. But that's going to take a long time. Right. And Tijuana that region's water like this is a whole other like political conversation , but that they have an agreement with the US to get the corridor changes.

S1: With the South Bay sewage. Right.

S7: And then the Colorado River is supposed to source we they buy some of it , but less and less is going there. So so that region is having to reroute their rule system. There have to reorganize everything they're trying to accomplish to make sure there's enough water to keep this desert region sustainable as our climate changes as rain becomes less or more volatile or whatever.

S1: I want to turn more to you. You kind of referenced this earlier in this discussion around the struggles of growth for the region. We talked earlier and you kind of refer to yourself as a recovering travel writer. Can you talk more about , you know , why ? Why recovery ? Because I think that's has anyone that's interested in travel ? A travel writer seems kind of like a dream job scenario. You know , talk about your experience over the years and how you change your relationship to it. Right.

S7: Right. So I got my first gig. It was my dream job. Like total dream job. Like , people were going to pay me money to fly somewhere and write about it and , you know , have this dreamy life where I would go experience the world on someone else's dime. Right. And then I get to write about it.

S1: Dream.

S7: Dream. Yeah. I was living the dream. And then I got to take my kids. I got to , you know , like all of it , right ? And then I started , I. My main beat was in Hawaii. It was in Northern California , mostly in Hawaii. And I started to notice that I like being a writer and telling you where to go in Hawaii , and a place that's fragile and a place that's beloved by the millions that , you know , we don't always understand the impact of our footprint. And my first book that I wrote about Hawaii , it was a travel guide. And , you know , I started talking to somebody who I went to grad school with. And he's like , actually , the best advice I can give you is to tell people not to come. And I didn't understand it. Right. I didn't get why I would want to be a travel writer that told people not to go to a place and over , you know , way too long of doing this writing. I started to realize that the more we tell people to go find the secret place or do the secret thing , or go to this beach that you know is , you know , beautiful , the more impact we have on that landscape , like we are loving these beautiful places to death. You see this in the Great Barrier Reef where you know the the reefs are bleached. And that's not simply just because of , you know , a lot of humans going to it. It's also because of our sunscreen. It's because of acidification , and it's because of a gazillion reasons. Right. But the more I was out there in the world and the more I saw that , like tangible impact of , you know , our tourism on other places , I started to realize that , that I couldn't be complicit in that anymore. I couldn't I couldn't allow myself to play that game or , you know , just tell. You basically just write. Travel porn was what I felt like I was doing. I was just writing these beautiful stories about romanticizing a place and telling you all this beautiful stuff , but failing to give you the truth or the depth about what you know. You know , what your flight does , and then what your impact does , or how your hotel is adding to erosion or how you know , etc.. So I started researching different ways to to write about the world and write about the places I love. Um , and I stumbled upon a different type of journalism , um , which is called solutions journalism , which is really you look at what places are doing , you know , well , to kind of like highlight problems. And through that I stumbled upon this new way of travel. That's called regenerative tourism. And I started really like rethinking what how I travel and how I write about travel to kind of share with people , sort of like what regenerative tourism is and how you might be able to make a trip that does more good than harm.

S1: I'd love to know more about what regenerative travel is , I think. I you know , I've heard of sustainable travel , for example. But yeah , tell us. More.

S7: More. So sustainable travel is like that same thing as when you were in kindergarten and your teacher was like , you know , leave the place as it was when you arrived , like , just clean up your mess , right ? Which so , you know , we all know that from hiking , right ? We hike in , we pack all our stuff out , we go to the picnic. We don't do what my parents did , which is like , just leave your trash on the , you know , whatever. Like , you know , we're not doing that old world style. Like we clean up after ourselves. We know how to do that. But regenerative travel starts with the concept that , like , we know just getting to a place , you're starting at a deficit , right ? Like your flight puts you in debt , you're getting there , puts you in debt. And then when you go we we always as consumers , typically as travelers , we go in with this idea of like like we're it's a transactional experience , right ? We're buying an experience that's going to be life changing. But regenerative travel flips that all on its head. And it says , you go with this idea that you don't ever arrive at a place without offering something of yourself , right ? So the goal is that you want to give back to the place in some tangible way. So that could start with like thinking about the hotel you stay at. Right ? So , for example , you know , there's three hotels that are sort of like standard of what regenerative travel is. One is Playa Viva in Mexico and the Mexican coast. One is Rancho Santa Ana and Nicaragua coast. Another is Corcovado Wilderness Lodge in Costa Rica's Oso Peninsula. And there's there's a few , there's a lot more. But they're actually walking the talk with this idea being , you know , the way the hotel is built , like , is all built around sort of like using regenerative materials , like , not like cutting , growing new trees to cut new wood , etc.. It's thinking about the watershed and thinking about your impact. Thinking about how your waste is used is thinking about where the food is grown , where the water comes from to take care of the community. And after you're aware of , like what , that hotel , you know , what their their ambitions are , how they're helping the actual community , like Rancho Santana actually like , educates kids and gives free education. Like , you know , there , there. Um , there's another one in Costa Rica called Costa Rica called Nira , that is building houses for their staff to live in to make sure that everybody is there , their community is taken care of. And then at that point , then you're lifting up the community and you're offering the local people decision making , right ? So for example , Playa Viva , like they started a co-op bank that is run by their staff at Playa Viva , and that co-op Bank gives loans , micro loans to community members to grow cacao or , you know , other things that grow there. Then they can create a business that they can sell at play. Viva back to the community. So it's it's imagining sort of how where you stay and how you get there does good. And then while you're there , you're offering a service of yourself , right ? So it's not just manual labor like you could be planting trees like Hawaii does , right ? Like you could do this project where you go plant trees to offset your flight. Right. Or , you know , you could be , you know , going on a on a kayaking trip to clean up the reef or something like that. Right. Like there's a lot of different ways that destinations are trying to let you participate.

S1: And it sounds like an undercurrent of what we've been talking about is obviously the climate , the human impacts from travel. But you're also kind of pointing to the communities , I mean , the micro loans and the economies and the experiences of the people living in these communities that we visit. We might fly in and out of. So , I guess , you know , taking that regenerative travel lens back to , you know , our conversation on the via to Guadalupe.

S7:

S1:

S7: We drive there rather than flying. I don't know anybody that's flown there , but I'm sure there's someone. Right ? You know , so we drive there , we arrive , we think about how we can be , you know , um , you know , choose a hotel that is locally owned and operated that puts local people in leadership positions that , you know , if they're using the well , they're they're working with their wastewater , they're growing their own food. And example would be lovey dovey or , um , and , and Guadalupe sourced all its materials from salvaged materials that were thrown away in Tijuana or , you know , there's there's a new place that's called Mirror Earth Studios that is , you know , trying to be really , like , thoughtful about what ? How they built it. Right. And then it's it's trying to support the businesses , you know , whether that's wineries or , you know , restaurants that are , you know , eat , like serving organic produce or , you know , not taxing the land or like offering stewardship programs , like thinking about the holistic Perspective , like all those decisions play into how we give back.

S1: And I imagine it transforms our experience with that community rather than just going on a tour of said place. Right. Exactly.

S7: Exactly. I mean , we're not just sitting there at the pool with a drink and , like , not understanding it. We get to have this transformative experience by getting to know the places we're staying and learning , you know , meeting the people who are living there and who are thriving there and who haven't invested interest. And then we hear about , you know , the good and the bad , and that helps uplift us. And then we bring that home and we can look at our San Diego community or wherever we're from , and we can say like , how can I apply these kinds of principles here in my own community ? And how can I aim to do good here ? And then that echoes outward , right ? So other people get the experience that we had going to VA when they come visit us in our businesses here.

S1: It goes both ways. Exactly.

S7: Exactly. Exactly.

S1: Exactly. Michelle Bigley is a freelance journalist here in San Diego. You can read her latest piece on the history and evolution of the Guadalupe in San Diego Magazine at San Diego Magazine. magazine.com. Michelle , thanks so much for enlightening with us. This has been really great.

S7: Thank you so much.

S1: That'll do it for our show this week. Thanks so much for listening. As always , you can listen to KPBS roundtable anytime as a podcast. The program airs on KPBS FM at noon Fridays and again Sundays at 6 a.m.. If you have any thoughts on today's show or ideas for a future one , you can always email us at roundtable at KPBS or leave us a message at (619) 452-0228. Roundtable's technical producer this week was Brandon Truffaut. The show was produced by Ashley Rush. Brooke Ruth is Roundtable's senior producer. And I'm your host , Andrew Bracken. We'll see you again next week. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend.