Heal the Bay Blog

Three Ways to Salute World Oceans Day

05.30.2012 | Heal the Bay

On World Oceans Day, traditionally held each year on June 8, people around the globe gather to celebrate and honor the ocean and the life it contains. The theme for 2012 is “Youth: the Next Wave for Change” and the event boasts a long list of activities designed to encourage young people to realize that the future of ocean conservation is in their hands.

To help celebrate locally, 5,000 students, teachers and volunteers will gather on Thursday, June 7 at Dockweiler State Beach for “Kids Ocean Day.” Not only will they help clean up the beach, but they plan to form an aerial art piece—a massive shark holding a shield, emblazoned with the message “Defend the Sea.”

Volunteers are still needed for the event, which is organized by the Malibu Foundation. Sign up.

Meanwhile, Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium will celebrate World Oceans Day on June 9, 12:30-5 p.m. The Aquarium will offer ocean-themed games, activities, scavenger hunts and presentations. Staff will also announce the winners of the “My Perfect Ocean Contest,” which offers free registration at a Heal the Bay summer science program as the grand prize. Find out more.

But that’s not all! The Aquarium’s June 9 activities are part of the Santa Monica Pier Honolua Paddleboard Race and Ocean Festival, featuring ocean swim, SUP and paddleboard races. This all-day event from 7:30 a.m. – 3 p.m. benefits the Aquarium and also features hula dance groups, live music and an ocean sport history exhibition.

For more information, visit www.pierpaddle.com.

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Know Before You Swim in the O.C.

05.29.2012 | Heal the Bay

Beach Report Card Beach Report Card Spanish South Bay

Ocean lovers in the Orange County now have a newly-enhanced resource for assessing water quality conditions before going for a swim.

The Orange County Health Agency’s Ocean Water Protection Program just upgraded its public web tool, making it more user-friendly with features that include:

An interactive Google Earth map on the homepage that allows a quick status check of current ocean water quality conditions.
Color-coded map pins (green-yellow-red) indicating the current ocean water quality conditions.
A “menu bar” along the top of the Google Earth map that provides an easy-to-use drop down list to find your favorite local beach area, from Huntington Beach to San Clemente.
Clicking on the drop down list provides a close up view of the local beach area with water quality status, current weather conditions, beach amenities and beach information links.
Clicking on a color-coded pin provides a photo and directions to the beach along with information about the monitoring location and its sampling frequency.

Give it a try!

Read how California beaches fared in Heal the Bay’s recently-released annual Beach Report Card® . Weekly grades are also available from your iPhone or Android or online at www.beachreportcard.org. In addition, grades can now be viewed on Weather Underground.

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Paddle Out for Ocean Education

05.25.2012 | Heal the Bay

About Us Long Beach / Avalon Malibu / Pacific Palisades Marina del Rey / Playa del Rey More Ways to Give Palos Verdes Peninsula Santa Monica South Bay Venice Beach

What better way to kick off a summer spent at the shore than with some family-friendly, crowd-pleasing ocean sport competition?

In the water on June 9, the Santa Monica Pier Paddleboard Race & Ocean Festival will feature SUP, paddleboard, ocean swim and dory competitions. While up on the pier deck, live music, hula dancing and a surfing, lifeguard and paddleboard museum will be found. The event will run from 8:30 a.m.- 3 p.m.

The paddleboard competition continues a Santa Monica tradition from the 1940s, when two paddleboard clubs were headquartered on the pier.

Heal the Bay will receive a portion of net proceeds from the event, which will directly benefit our marine education facility, the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium.

Check out the vibe for yourself with this video.

For more information, visit www.pierpaddle.com

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Heal the Bay's 2012 Beach Report Card

05.23.2012 | Heal the Bay

About Us Beach Report Card Beach Report Card Spanish Long Beach / Avalon Malibu / Pacific Palisades Marina del Rey / Playa del Rey Palos Verdes Peninsula Santa Monica South Bay Venice Beach

California beachgoers can head to the shore with little anxiety this summer, as their beaches are generally very clean, according to Heal the Bay’s 2012 Beach Report Card®. In fact, 407 of the 441 beaches monitored throughout California’s summer dry weather received very good to excellent (A and B) grades; a 2% improvement from the previous report.

The Report
2012 Beach Report Card
PDF

Press Releases
California
Los Angeles
San Diego
San Francisco

Online Beach Report Card
BeachReportCard.org

This is the 22^nd time Heal the Bay has released an annual Beach Report Card, which provides water quality information to millions of people who swim, surf, dive or fish along the West Coast, including Oregon and Washington.

This year’s grades encompass more than 650 locations along the West Coast for summer dry weather and more than 300 locations year-round on an A-to-F scale. The grades represent the risk of adverse health effects from bacterial pollution.

Overall, only 25 of the beaches (6%) monitored statewide received D or F grades during summer dry weather, when most beachgoers typically use the ocean. High bacteria counts at these sites are linked to such potential illnesses as stomach flu, ear infections and major skin rashes.

Los Angeles County once again leads Heal the Bay’s annual Beach Bummer List, with seven locations in the ranking of the state’s 10 most polluted beaches. Avalon Beach on Southern California’s Catalina Island, troubled by outdated and leaking sewers, claimed the No. 1 spot.

On the positive side, San Diego, Orange and Ventura counties once again had superb water quality in dry summer. Central and Northern California ocean beaches also continued their trend of outstanding water quality in dry weather, save for some troubled spots in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties.

Read the full report.

Beachgoers can check Heal the Bay’s Beach Report Card weekly grades from their iPhone or Android, or online at www.beachreportcard.org. In addition, grades are now available on Weather Underground.

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Plastic Bag Ban Victory in L.A.!

05.23.2012 | Heal the Bay

About Us Marina del Rey / Playa del Rey Palos Verdes Peninsula South Bay Venice Beach

May 23, 2012

In a 13-1 city council vote, Los Angeles today became the largest municipality in the U.S. to ban single-use plastic bags.

Heal the Bay board members Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Sharon Lawrence, Amy Smart and David Nahai addressed dozens of ocean supporters for the pre-vote rally and energized the city council meeting’s public comment period.

“What is hideously ugly, gigantically dangerous, and outrageously expensive and yet we still use it every single day in Los Angeles? No, it is not the 405. It is plastic bags,” said Louis-Dreyfus in public comment.

For the past five years, Heal the Bay has led the legislative fight to enact a bag ban as part of its ongoing efforts to tackle plastic pollution in California neighborhoods and seas.

In moving forward with the bag ban, Los Angeles can embolden other cities, counties and states—including California—to also take action. The next fight is a statewide ban, which will be debated this summer in Sacramento.

“Today, the Los Angeles City Council took a prudent step to protect our environment and bolster our economy,” stated Kirsten James, Heal the Bay’s director of water quality. “The vote further emphasizes the fact that the days are numbered for single-use bags in California.”

Under the approved policy, the city will take a phased, three-step approach for curbing the environmental and fiscal waste associated with the distribution, collection and disposal of single-use bags.

Read our news release for more details.

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‘A’ Listers Head to Beach for Star-Studded Gala

05.22.2012 | Heal the Bay

About Us Bring Back the Beach Gala Long Beach / Avalon Malibu / Pacific Palisades Marina del Rey / Playa del Rey More Ways to Give Palos Verdes Peninsula Santa Monica South Bay Venice Beach

On May 17 Heal the Bay hosted nearly 1,000 of our closest friends and biggest supporters at our annual Bring Back the Beach gala. Themed “Sea of Love,” this year’s sold-out event celebrated eco-couple Danny Moder and Julia Roberts, as well as Amy Smart and Matthew Hart on the sand at the Jonathan Beach Club.

With such A-List honorees, Bring Back the Beach drew top government officials, including City of Long Beach Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal, as well as Hollywood celebrities Peter Fonda and Ali Larter and sports luminary Michelle Kwan.

In addition, Heal the Bay board members Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Sharon Lawrence lent their voices to the upcoming vote in L.A. for a ban on single-use shopping bags and their all-star talent to the awards presentations.

The band Entourage provided high-energy, dance-along tunes that got partygoers out of their seats and up on stage to groove until late in the evening.

Earlier, guests were given a chance to bid on a new Toyota Prius c, generously donated by long-time Heal the Bay supporter and community member LAcarGuy.

To view photos from the event—including a shot of the evening’s amazing Technicolor sunset—visit our Flickr photo set.

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Celebrate Dads and Grads by Adopting a Pacific Seahorse

05.22.2012 | Heal the Bay

Heal the Bay Aquarium More Ways to Give Santa Monica

In honor of dads and grads everywhere and in celebration of the male seahorse’s unique role in childbirth, through the month of June only, the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium’s seahorses are now available for Aquadoption for just $50.

Growing up to 12 inches in height, the Pacific seahorse, Hippocampus ingens, is among the largest of the world’s seahorses and the only one to be found along the California coast. In the seahorse family, the males give birth, carrying eggs in their brood pouch, which are deposited there by the female. The male can give birth to hundreds of babies – known as fry – at one time.

A yearlong aquadoption of a seahorse includes a personalized packet with an adoption certificate, photo, fact sheet and a full year’s membership to Heal the Bay – and free family admission. Consider this one-of-a-kind gift for the dad who has everything and to celebrate the graduate in the family.

Learn more about our Aquadoption animals.

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L.A., ban the plastic bags

05.22.2012 | Heal the Bay

About Us Marina del Rey / Playa del Rey News Palos Verdes Peninsula South Bay Venice Beach

On May 23, Heal the Bay will lead a rally on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall to urge the City Council to vote for a ban on single-use shopping bags. Once again, we are heartened that the Los Angeles Times editorial board joins us in urging the approval of “a ban on the carry-out bags to protect the environment.” Read an excerpt from their May 22 editorial below:

The City Council on Wednesday will consider whether to ban stores in Los Angeles from offering single-use plastic carry-out bags. A ban would take some getting used to, but examples from other jurisdictions, including the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County, show that it can be done and that shoppers and stores quickly adapt. A ban is the right move. The council should adopt it.

For a city with such a strong environmental ethic, Los Angeles is lagging on the plastic bag issue. It has been batting around the idea of a ban for three years as cities up and down the state acted to keep millions of the bags from being freely distributed, only to end up fouling waterways, beaches and the ocean.

Like the Styrofoam containers that once held fast-food hamburgers, plastic bags became popular because they seem cheap and convenient. But it turns out they seem cheap only because the true costs aren’t assessed directly to the seller or the buyer, but to all of us when we bear the burden of environmental degradation and cleanup. Some fast-food chains recognized that they, their customers and our society could take a step forward by reaching back and returning to the use of paper containers. Others caught up when laws required them to. No one is the worse off for it, and we’re all better off without the Styrofoam clogging streets and sewers and, eventually, forming part of a floating mid-ocean garbage patch.

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RALLY: L.A. City Council Bag Ban

05.16.2012 | Heal the Bay

Long Beach / Avalon Malibu / Pacific Palisades Marina del Rey / Playa del Rey Palos Verdes Peninsula Santa Monica South Bay Venice Beach

Do you think the City of L.A. should be a leader on the single-use bag issue instead of the last to the finish line? Do you want to end the scourge of plastic bag pollution in your neighborhood, local city streets and worse of all, on our local beaches? Then join us for a rally at City Hall to urge L.A.’s City Council to finally adopt its long-proposed plastic bag ban.

Please join Heal the Bay and other concerned citizens at Wednesday’s City Council meeting, where they will be voting on the ordinance to ban single-use shopping bags.

Your voice will be key in supporting the passage of this ordinance, which will help reduce local trash and marine debris and set a precedent for the statewide ban.

What: Rally to support L.A. City Council’s Bag Ban

When: May 23, 2012 9 a.m. Rally; followed by 10 a.m. City Council Meeting (bring I.D. if you plan to attend the meeting)

Where: John Ferraro Council Chamber, Room 340, City Hall, 200 North Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90012

Who is attending: Concerned citizens, elected officials, environmental champions, business leaders, students and veterans groups

If you can join us for this critical meeting, please contact Natalie Burdick to RSVP so we can update you with the latest details and provide you with rally materials. Download the flyer.

WEAR BLUE TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT

Think about whom you represent…your family? Your community group? Your business? Yourself?…then come out to make your voice heard.

Learn more.

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Plastics Threaten Ocean Ecology and Our Food Web

05.11.2012 | Heal the Bay

Long Beach / Avalon Malibu / Pacific Palisades Marina del Rey / Playa del Rey News Palos Verdes Peninsula Santa Monica South Bay Venice Beach

They may be small, but sea skaters are alerting scientists to the immense perils posed by plastic pollution in the ocean.

“We’re seeing changes in this marine insect that can be directly attributed to the plastic,” says Miriam Goldstein, a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, who’s studying these invertebrates.

Goldstein told the Inter Press Service (IPS) that sea skaters now lay their eggs on the abundant fingernail-sized pieces of plastic floating in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean instead of relying on a passing seabird feather or bit of driftwood.

According to IPS, the study is the first proof that plastics in the open ocean are affecting marine invertebrates with consequences for the entire marine food web because nearly all plastics break down into smaller and smaller pieces and everything from turtles to seabirds and fish mistake bits of plastic as food (read more here).

Researchers at Scripps have also reported that nine percent of the fish collected during their expedition to the Pacific Gyre (the site of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch) had plastic waste in their stomachs. They estimated that fish in the intermediate ocean depths of the North Pacific Ocean ingest plastic at a rate of roughly 12,000 to 24,000 tons per year.

One of the ways Heal the Bay is working to reduce the amount of plastic that ends up polluting the ocean and threatening the fish we consume, is by advocating for a ban on single-use plastic bags in Los Angeles, with the long-term goal of establishing a statewide ban. Less than five per cent of the 19 billion plastic bags used in California every year are recycled and many of these plastic bags become litter and eventually end up polluting our oceans.

Join our fight against plastic bags and take action today.

Find out more about marine debris.

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