Has education failed to reach its potentail in fighting climate change and environmental degradation? That’s the topic of a June 2nd discussion at UCLA. The discussion, led by Charles Saylan and Daniel T. Blumsein, will cover their book, The Failure of Environmental Education (And How We Can Fix It). The talk will also include a book signing.
photo: michale via Flickr
Long Beach / AvalonMalibu / Pacific PalisadesMarina del Rey / Playa del ReyPalos Verdes PeninsulaSanta MonicaSouth BayVenice Beach
Recently, the first tsunami related debris arrived on the West Coast, in Washington State.
Heal the Bay plans to continue our monthly beach clean-up activities, and will be scouting for any potential tsunami related debris. We will do our best to report any tsunami related debris to those that are tracking it. As of now, we do not plan to do any monitoring for radioactivity. Monitoring was conducted in the debris field at sea in September 2011, and the results showed no radioactivity. The debris was washed out before radioactive water started leaking from the power plant, so the contamination route is unlikely.
Do you have some questions about how the Japan tsunami debris may affect the California coast? The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has the answers.
Whether you have concerns regarding radioactivity or need more information about what the navigational safety hazards will be, for the latest updates, check out NOAA’s marine debris site.
If you find any on your beaches, you can report it to MDsightings@gmail.com.
Photo: yisris via Flickr
Santa Monica Bay pollution may make the headlines, but the pollution in San Pedro Bay is a lot worse. Last week the Regional Water Quality Control Board made an attempt to heal our other local bay by passing the most comprehensive and complicated Total Maximum Daily Load in California history. (TMDLs are water body-specific pollutant limits.) The TMDL covered 79 different impairments of Dominguez Channel and the Greater Los Angeles and Long Beach Harbor (San Pedro Bay) waters and contaminants, including heavy metals like mercury, lead and copper, DDT, PCBs, toxicity and petroleum hydrocarbons.
The bottom line is that there are now five species of fish in the Bay that the state recommends you avoid eating and another 11 that you shouldn’t eat more than once a week. Also, there are numerous toxic hotpots and the benthic ecology (bottom-dwelling animals) at some of those locations is highly degraded.
Although this TMDL was one of the most important in the entire Consent Decree between the environmental community and the EPA, it was delayed until 2011 because of its complexity and the number of industrial heavy hitters that are regulated by the action, including such players as the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, numerous oil companies, the Montrose Chemical Co. (the folks who brought us DDT), and numerous upstream cities with intense industrial use. Perhaps the biggest reason for the lateness of the TMDL was the complex and time-consuming modeling (five years in the making) of San Pedro Bay and the Dominguez Channel required to develop the regulation.
The Regional Board voted 5-0 to approve the staff recommended TMDL over strong opposition from Montrose and the Coalition for Practical Regulation cities. Montrose and the CPR cities opposed the TMDL because of cost concerns, and they actually claimed that they shouldn’t have to pay for the Dominguez Channel and San Pedro Bay cleanup because they already had to pay millions of dollars under the Superfund and Natural Resources damages lawsuit in the 1990s. In other words, “Let the locals eat toxic fish!”
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Recently, to wrap up Earth Month, a class from the Laurel Hall School in North Hollywood took a visit to Santa Monica Beach to participate in a cleanup and learn how trash ends up in the Bay. Afterwards, the group toured our Santa Monica Pier Aquarium. If you’ve never been to the aquarium yourself, you’re in luck. Craig Clough from The North Hollywood-Toluca Lake Patch was on hand to film our educator Amber Maron in action!
photo: dimsis via Flickr
We Californians love our sharks. And if you need any proof, just ask the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The aquarium is the main sponsor of legislation in support of sharks and the facility recently conducted a poll that found wide-ranging support from all ages and backgrounds for AB 375, the bill to ban shark fin in the state. A surprising 76 percent of respondents supported putting an end to shark fin trade. Among polled Chinese-American registered voters, 70 percent supported the ban. That figure is important because opponents have claimed the bill is an attack on Chinese culture, which traditionally has served shark fin soup at important celebrations.
Read more about the poll and the ban from the San Francisco Gate.
Photo: Sam Howzit via Flickr
Heal the Bay and Ford invite you to
Drive One 4 UR Beach! Volunteers that test drive a new Ford during any Nothin’ But Sand summer cleanup will be automatically entered for a chance to win an all-new eco-friendly Ford.
For every test drive completed, Ford will donate $50 to Heal the Bay to keep LA’s beaches clean.
Test drives start at 9am. Cleanup starts at 10am.
I just spent a looong weekend in Texas, hanging out at Texas A&M Galveston overlooking the Bay and the lime green piles of sulfur lining the shores of the port. I flew out to watch the finals of the National Ocean Sciences Bowl and to root for the team from Santa Monica High School. Go Vikings!
I flew in Friday and got to the venerable Galvez Hotel on the Galveston breakwater by the afternoon. Beautiful hotel, but Galveston’s beaches are no match for the sand and surf of Santa Monica Bay. That evening, we went to Moody Garden Aquarium to hear Her Deepness herself give an inspirational talk on the importance of the oceans and why everyone needs to fight for them. Sylvia Earle always has this calm, persuasive way of making humanity realize the value of ocean stewardship.
Sylvia was nice enough to hang with the Samohi crew during dinner in the aquarium. Little did I know that this would be the first of many meals dominated by single-use plastics. Like every event she attends, Sylvia was a rock star, signing autographs, taking photos and answering everyone’s questions.
On Saturday, the games began. Watching my son Zack and his teammates, Dana, Mari and Maddy, compete at the marathon competition on Saturday marked one of the proudest moments of my life. Ingo Gaida, the Samohi Oceans Bowl team coach, did an extraordinary job preparing the students for the nationwide tourney. These guys already know more about the world’s oceans than I’ll ever know.
And they were joined by teams from Alaska to Hawaii, New England to Florida. The whole nation was well represented.
By the end of the day, there were three more plastic-served meals, consisting of Polystyrene plates and cutlery and Styrofoam cups. I don’t think any of our food came on readily recyclable plastics. Haven’t any numbers other than sixes even hit Texas yet? And recycling must not have hit Galveston.
The teams were culled down to the final six. Samohi was the top seed and finished the day undefeated, winning every game handily. This guaranteed a spot in the Final Four. Even the incessant local greeting of “Howdy” and our growing contribution to the global marine crisis didn’t get to me on Saturday. I was so proud.
We decided to ditch another plastic dinner and celebrate with grub at Gaido’s in homage to the coach’s almost namesake restaurant. A magical day ended with us sitting along Galveston high school students dressed to the nines for their prom dinner at the shoreline seafood restaurant that survived the last hundred years of hurricanes. The giant green crab on the restaurant roof served as the perfect cap to a perfect day.
Saturday was more wonderful and stressful than watching UCLA get to the Final Four. Unfortunately, Sunday brought back flashbacks of Florida and Memphis State. This was Samohi’s Alamo.
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About UsLong Beach / AvalonMalibu / Pacific PalisadesMarina del Rey / Playa del ReyPalos Verdes PeninsulaSanta MonicaSouth BayVenice Beach
Earlier in the week, Frankie Orrala and James Alamillo gave a staff presentation in our office on the progress of the Pier Angler Outreach Program coordinated by Heal the Bay, EPA and the Fish Contamination Education Collaborative (FCEC). Frankie and James have run Heal the Bay’s program for eight years. Their achievements, along with the efforts of the outreach workers, have been nothing short of astounding.
To date, the program has educated nearly 100,000 anglers at eight different piers: Santa Monica, Venice, Hermosa, Redondo, Pier J, Rainbow Harbor, Belmont and Seal Beach piers. (Cabrillo Marine Aquarium educates Cabrillo Pier anglers). The risk communication efforts focus on the health risks of eating locally caught DDT-, PCB- and mercury-contaminated fish. The outreach workers encourage anglers to avoid the most compromised fish, and they provide fishermen with cooking methods if they choose to eat any contaminated catch.
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Mother’s Day is right around the corner and what better way to celebrate motherhood than to adopt one of the swell sharks at Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium? Adult female swell sharks, their developing swell shark pups still incubating in egg casings and new born shark pups are all available for fostering through the Aquarium’s Aquadoption program.
Aquadoption at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium is an important way to connect with the marine environment, support an animal on exhibit and gain a greater understanding of the amazing ocean habitat of the Santa Monica Bay. An Aquadoption gift not only assists in the feeding and care of an animal, it also funds the maintenance of exhibits and the ongoing education and advocacy efforts core to Heal the Bay’s mission.
Swell sharks are one of eight species available for adoption, ranging in price from $25 to $750, depending upon the animal. Whether you purchase a yearlong adoption for Mom, for a friend or for a child or grandparent – or foster an animal yourself – it is the gift that keeps on giving on behalf of marine life welfare.
An Aquadoption includes a photo of the animal and an animal fact sheet. Two free family passes are also included to encourage recipients to visit their foster animal.
Visit the Aquarium to get acquainted with prospective adoptees during public hours: Tuesday through Friday from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. or weekends from 12:30 to 6:00 p.m.
Download an Aquadoption Order Form today.
Photo: Tara Crow
Guest blogger Vicki Wawerchak, the director of the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium, discusses hitting an unusual jackpot.
“We’ve got skulls!” Pumping my fists in the air, I shout out to my computer and anyone within earshot of my office. I just finished reading another email from our friends at the Marine Mammal Care Center in Sausalito (remember our baleen?) stating they had three mammal skulls they would be happy to donate for education purposes if the appropriate permits were granted. I was ecstatic—yet again—at the thought of adding more, real, tangible, marine artifacts to our Aquarium collection.
Granted, I understand that to some of you, an email like this might rank right up there with the ones that tell you that you won the Nigerian lottery and then instruct you to wire transfer $10,000 to claim your winnings. But as a scientist and educator, these are the emails I long for; the messages that validate my hours of facility research to find centers that donate artifacts, the continued networking of colleagues in the field to put a face to a name and the numerous paragraphs written describing who we are, why we are looking for artifacts and what we intend to do with them.
In my opinion, nothing compares to creating a strong conservation ethic and empathy like a tangible item—dead or alive. Think back to when you were a child—did you like digging up earthworms to make sure they were okay in the mud? Did you move snails off the walking path to avoid them from being stepped on? And did you make sure that every moth was placed gently on a leaf if found sitting on a windowsill? Or maybe that was just me? If you ask my mother how many half-alive, baby birds I held in my hands, tears streaming down my cheeks, begging her to help me save the small, featherless, creature in my hand, she will tell you that she lost count when I turned five. I digress….but could these early recollections about attempting to hold and save every animal I set eyes on be the reason I have a limitless passion about ocean conservation and strong empathy to the animals that live within it? You bet! So back to the skulls and how we are going to use them to teach limitless passion about ocean conservation…
Jose Bacallao, the Aquarium’s senior aquarist, was right there with me. “What kind of skulls?” he answered, without skipping a beat. I hadn’t even really focused on that detail before I shouted out, so looking back at the email I read that they had two sea lion skulls (one male and one female) and one harbor seal skull. I passed that information on to him. Then I thought, “I wonder if they are already prepped?” And as if our friends at the Marine Mammal Care Center heard that question hundreds of miles away, twenty seconds later, an audible beep alerted me to a new email. It read, “Oh…and the skulls aren’t prepped.” Here we go again I thought. I laughed at the thought of what our conversations over the next few days were going to entail.
I shared this small prepping detail with Jose and I could see the wheels being to turn. Jose has been my partner in crime with these types of tasks for more than a decade. We have talked endlessly about how best to prep shark skin, how to remove a sea anemone without damaging it’s pedal disk, why baleen whales have two blowholes and toothed whales have one, and the list goes on and on.
We both love a challenge and this was going to be another great adventure, removing skin and tissue from the skulls—would we do it with beetles, by burying it, or by freshwater or saltwater maceration (to separate as a result of soaking)? We were already weighing the pros and cons of each method, talking a mile a minute…
(Read Parts Two and Three for how we prepped the skulls)
Photo: Reed Hutchinson