Waiting for the Perfect Wave: Surf Science 101
The talk at the beach last week was all about Linda, but she wasn’t a person, she was a tropical storm with the potential to bring big waves to local surf breaks. When the southern swell rolls in and...
Tarantula vs Tarantula Hawk: The Miniature Monster Movie in Our Backyard
The tarantula hawk has a fairy-like beauty—metallic blue-body, brilliant orange wings. Males are peaceful, they spend their short lives as an adult sipping nectar from milkweed flowers and seeking a mate. Female tarantula hawks are ferocious warriors, armed with...
Watersheds: Every River (and Creek) Flows to the Sea
The Hyperion sewage spill disaster highlights the immediate impact pollutants can have on the Santa Monica Bay, but water quality in the Santa Monica Mountains and along the coast is a complex issue, and pollution sources are not always...
Madame Gandhi
Wildfires are out of control in other parts of California and COVID-19 numbers are skyrocketing again, but it’s been a picture-perfect August in Topanga so far: No fire scares so far this month, fog at the coast, hot summer...
Sewage Spill and Beach Water Quality
Peak beach season is here, but many beachgoers continue to have questions and concerns about water in the aftermath of a major sewage spill at the Hyperion water treatment plant in Los Angeles. The disaster—debacle may be the better...
When Calabasas Was the Wild West
It’s hard to imagine it now, but Topanga’s peaceful, upscale neighbor Calabasas was once a lawless Wild West stagecoach town, with cattle rustlers, gunfighters and brutal frontier justice. In the mid 19th century, this small agricultural outpost became part...
Fire in the Mountains
Topanga and Malibu had close calls with fire last week. The Flores Fire on July 19, named for Little Las Flores Canyon, was the second fire in the Tuna Canyon area this month, and this time, it burned perilously...
The Last Best Town
The Theatricum Botanicum is premiering a new play on July 30. The Last Best Small Town tells the story of two neighboring families—one Latinx and one White—who live in the small Southern California town of Fillmore. As the first...
Our Neighbors
A July 19 fire in Tuna Canyon that ignited at what appears to be a short term rental property with multiple campsites, spread to 15 acres before being contained, and fanned fears throughout Topanga. In Malibu, where two recent...
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