2014: Our Goals for a Whale of a Year

Since 1985, we’ve partnered with people like you – volunteers, supporters and sustainers — to make Southern Californian waters safer, healthier and cleaner. And 2014 will prove no different.

As another year closes, it’s a good time to reflect, but also to look ahead to the challenges we’ll face in 2014.

Here’s our working list of the goals we’ve set for the coming year:

• Uphold the moratorium on oil drilling off the South Bay coast. Hard to believe, but the risks from offshore oil drilling could once again become a threat to the health of our local waters. Voters in Hermosa Beach will decide In March 2015 whether to allow energy company E&B Natural Resources to conduct slant-drilling operations off the Hermosa shoreline. Heal the Bay, in partnership with Stop Hermosa Beach Oil, Keep Hermosa hermosa, and the Surfrider Foundation — will mobilize community support to protect our Bay throughout 2014.
• Support strict limits on a planned string of ocean-based desalination plants along the California coast. If unchecked, these plants could suck in massive quantities of seawater — and marine life — to meet our region’s ever-growing demand for water.
• Advocate for a regional funding measure that would underwrite numerous multi-benefit, clean-water projects throughout the Los Angeles region.
• Protect marine life. Coastal oil drilling, power and water desalination plants sucking in sea water, and sonar blasts from Navy operations all harm marine mammals and represent just a handful of the upcoming threats that we’ll be watching closely in the next year.
• Build a community park in South Los Angeles that will capture and infiltrate stormwater, as well as provide much-needed open space and fitness opportunities. Heal the Bay’s Healthy Neighborhoods team is overseeing the $1.3 million project, which is funded by California State Parks. It will serve as a model of how communities can work together to improve their neighborhoods while protecting the health of the Bay.
• Implement a plan to mitigate the effects of climate change. Working together, our Science & Policy and Programs teams are reaching out to local communities to educate Angelenos about the simple steps they can take to adapt to climate change, such as capturing and reusing rainwater and planting drought-tolerant gardens.
• Prime the next generation of eco stewards with the expansion of our Youth Summit programs for high school students throughout L.A. County, as well as expanding our field trip and speakers programs serving local classrooms.
• Assemble a new predictive modeling tool that will determine water quality much faster than traditional sampling, which can take 24 hours. Working with Stanford University, we hope to predict bacteria levels at an initial set of 25 California beaches via our Beach Report Card®, identify specific sources of pollution in the watershed and better understand new threats, such as an increased number of vineyards in the Santa Monica Mountains.
• Increase data collection for newly established Marine Protected Areas in Palos Verdes and Point Dume.
• Strengthen community partnerships. Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium staff looks forward to curating education events for the Pier and working closely with Santa Monica officials on plans for the Pier bridge replacement project.

We don’t take clean water for granted, and we know you don’t either. Sustain our work: Make a donation to Heal the Bay.