Heal the Bay Blog

For the past two years, Heal the Bay has helped to bring hands-on science and provide meaningful experiences for elementary students as partners with teaching collaborative, Education by Nature, headed by Children’s Nature Institute.

Heal the Bay’s Melissa Aguayo, our Speakers Bureau manager, recently completed a pilot program at Magnolia Elementary school, providing extensive science education to Magnolia students.

Located near the Pico-Union neighborhood, the school serves a high percentage of youth from low-income families, with 90% of the student body qualifying for the free lunch program.

We were ecstatic when teacher Marta Shallcross, our all-star partner at the school, let us know that Magnolia’s API scoreincreased 66 points to 770, which in the world of test scores, is a big deal!

The school’s third graders in particular scored exceptionally well, which Ms. Shallcross partly attributes to the partnership, which was focused on supporting California’s science standards.

Building upon this success, we’ll continue to work with Magnolia while simultaneously expanding the program to a new school in 2014.

Bring marine science into your student’s classroom with one of our inspiring speakers!

“Mom, I have a headache”…..“It must be that radiation you got surfing the other day …” BUSTED

Heal the Bay has been swamped with calls and emails from concerned California residents asking about possible human and biological impacts originating from the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Since the Japanese tsunami in March 2011, the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has been continually releasing radiated water to the Pacific Ocean. We’re asked on a weekly basis about ocean water contamination, local seafood consumption safety, and what news sources are credible. In an effort to keep the public up-to-date on emerging environmental issues, we’ll try to illuminate some of the truths and debunk many of the myths currently surrounding the Fukushima Disaster.

Myth: California’s coastal waters are contaminated with harmful radiation from Fukushima

Busted: Entering the ocean in California, even to surf or swim, will not expose you to harmful radiation as a result of Fukushima. Open ocean currents in the greater Pacific dilute radioactive concentrations within four months of their release from Japan, according to Dr. Erik Van Sebille, a physical oceanographer at the University of New South Wales. The World Health Organization has concluded that four months’ time provides adequate dispersion of any radioactive materials released along the Japanese shoreline. It takes years for seawater plumes from Japan to reach U.S. shores.Therefore, enjoying California’s beautiful beaches and waters, even on a daily basis, will not expose humans to harmful radiation, or cause headaches or hair loss, as some media channels have led the public to believe.

Myth: Fish caught in Japan and the Far Pacific contain harmful radiation and cannot be consumed.

Plausible: It depends on the type of fish and where it was caught. Know your seafood’s origins before you consume. Highly migratory fish species and those caught in and around Fukushima may have elevated concentrations of radiation and should not be consumed; these species have been identified and/or removed from commercial fishing markets. Large predatory species, such as Bluefin Tuna, and bottom-dwelling species, can bioaccumulate contaminants more readily and may be more prone to having higher concentrations of radiation in their bodies. Read this FishWise article for more on Pacific seafood. There are other reasons to avoid eating certain species of fish aside from Fukushima radiation. Check out Seafood Watch or Environmental Defense Fund’s seafood health advisories on other contaminants such as mercury that may be present in some fish.

Myth: Consuming fish originating from California’s waters could put you at risk from harmful Fukushima radiation.

Busted: Because of dilution, scientists are not concerned about the levels of radiation in seafood harvested from the U.S. West Coast. Fish caught along California’s waters as well as our northern and southern boundaries do not have high levels of radiation. Consult US EPA’s consumption guidelines for fish caught in Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

Myth: U.S. federal agencies are actively monitoring the Fukushima disaster for public health and environmental impacts.

Confirmed: Three major federal agencies are currently monitoring radiation from the Fukushima disaster: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is monitoring marine debris and atmospheric dispersion of radioactive particles; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) is monitoring air and water for radiation that is harmful to human health; and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is monitoring Japanese imports to insure food safety. These agencies work closely together to monitor radiation leveling in the United States as well as our imported goods.

Myth: All information found on the Internet about Fukushima is true.

Busted: There is a great deal of inaccurate information floating around the Internet about Fukushima radiation and its impacts to human and marine life. We recommend double-checking your news sources for credibility, and when in doubt, check out how Heal the Bay is keeping up to date on the most recent news and scientific studies on the Fukushima disaster. We will provide updates on our website and social media channels (Facebook and Twitter) on the issue as more information becomes available.

To delve deeper, read our Fukushima FAQ.

For more information on the possible effects of radiation from Fukushima affecting fish, you can also visit the following websites:

Woods Hole Oceanic Institute

Environmental Defense Fund Seafood Selector

Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch

Frankie Orrala, our Pier Angler Outreach Manager, introduces us to one of the more unusual animals in the Bay.

The lizard fish is a unique creature that inhabits the coast of California. It has a long brown body, which serves as camouflage in the sandy ocean floor habitats. It feeds on small fish and squid. The lizard fish develop and hatch their eggs outside their bodies and probably spawn during the summer.

Their name is derived from their elongated cylindrical body, with a head and mouth that resemble those of a lizard. The body goes from a brown color on the back to a white on the ventral sid . It has a dorsal fin on its back and a small average adipose fin, pelvic fins are yellowish and have a forked caudal fin. The lizard fish can grow up to 25 inches in size and weight up to 4 pounds. (Although the species we observed in the Southern California piers this year did not exceed 12 inches in length.)

Because of its body and long sharp teeth, lizard fish are occasionally mistaken for California barracuda. The barracuda however is silver instead of brown and has two dorsal fins of similar size with ample space between them.

The lizard fish of California is distributed from San Francisco to the Gulf of California in Mexico. Some species have been reported in the region of British Columbia in Canada and the Galapagos Islands. Although most commonly found in shallow sandy bottoms (5-150 meters), they have been sighted frequently this year by fishermen at almost all Southern California piers.

How many of us know that the largest underwater Superfund site is in our own backyard? Throughout the 1940s-70s more than 100 tons of DDT and PCBs were dumped into our local waters, deposited in an area known as the Palos Verdes shelf.

But some recent tests indicate that the contamination is disappearing, without being cleaned up.

As the Environmental Protection Agency investigates the mystery of what happened to all of that industrial residue, officials decided to delay their remedying of the Palos Verdes shelf, opting instead to conduct further testing of the area.

Heal the Bay‘s James Alamillo recently took to the airwaves during KPCC’s Air Talk to discuss what should happen next.

Concerned that we continue to find an increase in the number of local fish contaminated by these chemicals, James recommends that the EPA proceed with its remediation, specifically with a limited cap of clean sediment placed on top of the toxic sediment. This cap would have a direct impact on reducing contaminate levels simply because the contamination would be buried, allowing for biological life to thrive within and above the cleaner sediment.

In the meantime, Heal the Bay’s award-winning Angler Outreach team continues to advise local fishermen and their families to avoid fishing in contaminated areas and consuming white croaker among other species.

Learn about more ways Heal the Bay is working to keep our communities healthy.

The tip sheet that Heal the Bay’s Angler Outreach team distributes to fishermen along piers throughout the Santa Monica Bay area, courteresy of the Fish Contamination Education Collaborative. Get yours today!

For six years, Heal the Bay has organized “A Day Without a Bag” to kick off the holiday season, encouraging people to skip single-use plastic. But this year we proudly celebrated “A Day With a Bag” – a reusable one – to commemorate the City of Los Angeles’ plastic bag ban, which goes into effect Jan. 1. Heal the Bay helped organize the distribution of 8,000 free reusable bags to residents in all corners of L.A. and every council district.

The mobilization wouldn’t have been possible without the assistance of the following groups: The Children’s Nature Institute, Tree People, One Generation, Temple Judea, PAVA, Sun Valley High School, Pacoima Beautiful, St. Raphaels, Augustus Hawkins Nature Park, Challengers Boys and Girls Club, EsoWon Books, Palisades Cares, Boys & Girls Clubs of Venice, CSUN service learning students, Echo Park TAP, LA Beautification Team, Urban Semillas, Punk Rock Marthas, Cathy Beauregard and a group of UCLA students. More information about all of these terrific partners can be found through our distribution site map.

Inland cleanups help beautify a community and educate about the connection between urban areas to the east and the Santa Monica Bay. We also salute JingTian Ye, president and founder of the Bottles for the Bay Foundation in Rowland Heights, who understands that connection and generously purchased three cases of heavy-duty bags for use at our inland cleanups.