Member Highlights

To me, SCCAEPA is like family. There are statesmen such as Weixing Tong, YR, Jason Wen, and many before them who brought SCCAEPA from obscurity in 1991 to its current glory. There are youngsters such as Pianpian Wu, Ethan He, and many others who are the future of the organization. And there are many more such as Scarlett Zhai, Eric Wu, and others who work tirelessly and consistently over many years to keep the organization operating at very high levels. I have fond memories about many events I participated in or organized and people I made friends with. Many of them are still my special friends to this day.

SCCAEPA is also a springboard for my professional career. When I first joined SCCAEPA as a regular member in 2009, I was still fresh in my new job at Orange County Public Works, where I was the only mainland-born Chinese. I worked very hard on my job and was able to quickly establish a professional network. In comparison, SCCAEPA opened a door for me not only based on what I do, but also on who I am. I remember attending the first SCCAEPA annual conference and meeting Dr. Eric Wu, who I admired because his line of work that closely matched mine. We clicked right away, and I was ever since hooked with SCCAEPA, through which I met so many highly accomplished environmental professionals. I soon found out that they were not only good at what they do professionally, they were high quality human beings that I truly admire, and they became kindred spirits and lifelong friends. I soon found myself elected to the SCCAEPA board, then became the vice president. Through various networking events and conferences, including those with environmental professionals from China, my professional network grew exponentially. I and other SCCAEPA members visited many universities and institutions in China and networked with many fellow environmental professionals. Through our collective professional connections in nearly every city, I was able to do something true and dear to my heart, which is to help our motherland restore and improve its deteriorating environmental quality. Working through the SCCAEPA platform, we brought to China the US’ best science and management practices on watershed management, stormwater, and related disciplines that could take decades longer to be developed internally. We can proudly say that SCCAEPA has made significant contributions to the recent advancements in China’s surface water management.

I also benefited professionally myself from the involvement with SCCAEPA. My promotion in 2014 to the most challenging supervisory position in my organization (Section Chief on Water Quality Planning) benefited from my broadened perspectives in surface water management because of SCCAEPA. My involvement with the influential California Stormwater Quality Association (CASQA) became highly visible when I promoted CASQA-China collaboration through the SCCAEPA platform.

In recent years I have been less involved with the association due to work and family commitments, but I hope I will be back soon. I sincerely hope that the current Board of Directors (with many younger generation members) will take over the heavy torch passed on from the prior leadership and carry on the mission of this great organization.

Congratulations SCCAEPA, on your 30th anniversary! This congratulation comes from both myself and me on behalf of the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission (SMBRC), a long-time proud sponsor of the SCCAEPA. Thirty year would be an important milestone for any organization. But SCCAEPA deserves to be especially celebrated for its remarkable achievements in so many areas and fields, and we should all be proud of, and give ourselves a pat on the shoulder for being the active participants and contributors of these achievements. At the same time, we are all indebted to the SCCAEPA for the benefits we leveraged to advance the mission and agenda of the organizations we worked for, and in many cases, to advance our own professional careers.

I can speak and contest credibly these achievements and mutual benefits based on my personal experience that spans throughout my 30+ professional career. Whether by coincident or not, it happens that the history of the SMBRC, where I spent my entire career, overlaps almost completely with that of the SCCAEPA. The SMBRC was initially established as one of the National Estuary Program in 1988. Over the last 30 years, the SMBRC has achieved the purposes and goals intended by enabling federal and state laws through monitoring, assessment, coordination, and other types of assistance to state programs and prioritizing earmarked bond funding. Major achievements of the SMBRC include the landmark epidemiological study on health risks associated with swimming at urban runoff contaminated beaches, which led to new State laws and regulatory standards that have improved water quality monitoring and reduced potential health risks at beaches throughout California and the United States; more than 30 contaminated stormwater runoff reduction projects funded through the leveraging of $65 million of earmarked state bond funding; and the restoration of kelp, coastal dune, and wetland habitats, including most prominently the Malibu Lagoon. Not only I’m proud to contribute and lead many of these efforts, but I myself have also gained a wide array of expertise related to ocean ecosystem protection, which I volunteered or was called upon to share with my peers.

The year I started to work for the SMBRC, called Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project at that time, was 1991, the same year the SCCAEPA was established. I still remember attending the very first meeting in Chinatown commencing the SCCAEPA’s establishment. I admit that for many years since that meeting I was a SCCAEPA member on paper only, as I had reservations about the mission of the organization then, and as the organization itself also underwent some growing pains. But thanks for the persistent efforts of successive leadership, the organization ultimately evolved and transformed into a well-organized, recognized, broadly inclusive organization that are enthusiastically embraced by all of us today.

Nonetheless and above all, it has been an amazing and rewarding journey for both the SMBRC and SCCAEPA. The two organizations supported each other along the way, and I’m proud of my role in facilitating these collaborative efforts, especially during the years when I served in the leadership positions of both organizations simultaneously. Among many ventures we established and worked together, the best example is the collaboration in community outreach, for that the SMBRC and myself are good sources of information on beach and fish contamination, marine habitats, climate change, etc. while SCCAEPA provided an ideal platform to get the information disseminated to the underserved Chinese ethic community. On top of this, the SCCAEPA also facilitated the international contact and exchange of knowledge, expertise, and lessons learned with our counterparts, especially with the broader global Chinese community through forums, field trips, attendance and presentations at conferences abroad etc.

Although I had retired from the Board of the SCCAEPA for several years and I’m also retiring from the SMBRC this year, I treasure forever my experiences with both organizations and look forward to see and celebrate more amazing successes in the next 30 years.

Dr. James C. Lu, the 1992-1993 SCCAEPA President and one of the Board Directors from 1991 to 2004, was awarded a patent recently entitled “Method and System for Generating Large-Scale Renewable Energy by Pressure-Enhanced Osmosis and Synergistic Effects – US 11,092,141B1” on August 17, 2021. This patented technology, in addition to the existing major renewable energy sources such as hydropower, wind power and solar power, may become another major renewable source for the solution of the global warming problem. According to Dr.

Lu, the subject new form of osmotic energy can also be developed in a small scale, such as supplying clean power for small islands, large ships, small communities, or even developed for high-speed trains’ self-sufficient power supply in the future.

Besides this newly awarded patent, Dr. James Lu has been awarded about twenty-five patents in both USA and China so far after his retirement about 12 years ago. These patents are all in the earth’s ecologic protection field, cover subjects such as solid waste recycling, soil and groundwater remediation, desertification control, and nano-fertilizers for air emission control. Any members who are interested in Dr. Lu’s technologies are welcome to contact him directly for the information.