Heal the Bay Blog

Category: Long Beach / Avalon

Van Jones' Talk at TED

01.31.2011 | Heal the Bay

Check out this link to Van Jones’ talk on the increasing impacts that plastic has on poor communities. Jones is an environmental advocate and attorney who spent the early part of his career fighting for equal rights for people of color, particularly African Americans.

In 2007 he founded an organization called Green for All, dedicated to building an environmentally friendly economy that would lift people out of poverty. He also briefly served in President Obama’s White House Council on Environmental Quality.

In this clip, Jones describes how the production, use and disposal of plastics disproportionately harms poor people. Poverty in and of itself limits choices, making it difficult for people who are poor to purchase “safe” plastics, and making them more vulnerable to unsafe practices in jobs manufacturing plastics.

Mark Gold attended the TED conference at which Jones gave this speech, and you can read more about his impressions in the Spouting Off blog.

Watch Van Jones’ inspiring, and quite thoughtful, speech at ted.com.

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Maps of Recently Approved MPAs

01.27.2011 | Dana Murray

About Us Long Beach / Avalon Malibu / Pacific Palisades Marina del Rey / Playa del Rey Marine Protected Areas Palos Verdes Peninsula Santa Monica South Bay Venice Beach

If you’ve been following the news about Marine Protected Areas, you might know that a map of these critical portions of protected habitat was recently approved for Southern California. This means that once the MPAs go into effect in mid-2011, fishing will be restricted or prohibited in specific areas along the coastline.

If you’re interested in finding out more about our new set of MPAs, you can check out an interactive map that shows where the MPAs are and details about the regulations.

Once you get to the map, click on “MPAs, Arrays, and Proposals” in the upper right hand corner. Check the “Adopted MLPA South Coast MPAs” box. Then zoom in and click on specific MPAs to learn more about the regulations and details for each site. You can access the maps at marinemap.org.

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CSU Long Beach Shark Lab

01.24.2011 | Heal the Bay

California Sharks Long Beach / Avalon

Much of the public holds on to the Jaws-era blood and gore image of sharks as man-killing monsters. And unfortunately, scientists don’t really know that much about these awe-inspiring and truly fascinating creatures.

Places like Cal State Long Beach’s Shark Lab conduct cutting-edge research on sharks, and also play a large role in educating people about the true nature of sharks (did you know you are about 60 times more likely to die from a lightning strike than a shark attack?).

The Director of CSULB’s Shark Lab, Dr. Chris Lowe, was recently featured on Animal Planet’s new series “I, Predator”. You can see him talking about the challenges young white sharks face in learning to catch large, nimble prey like the Cape Fur Seal in a video clip from the show.

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LA to Finalize LID Ordinance

01.19.2011 | Heal the Bay

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

On January 20, the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation will hold an informational meeting on the low impact development ordinance.

This landmark regulation will help cut down on the amount of polluted runoff that reaches our beaches by requiring new and redevelopment projects to capture rainwater on site, allowing it to filter into the ground and recharge local groundwater supplies. To learn about the ordinance, which was passed in Dec 2010, members of the public can attend the meeting.

For more information, visit lastormwater.org.

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MPAs: Blood, Sweat & Tears

01.18.2011 | Heal the Bay

About Us Long Beach / Avalon Marine Protected Areas

Guest blogger Sarah Sikich, Heal the Bay’s director of coastal resources, offers some advice on navigating the backroom battles of environmental policy-making. She served on a stakeholder panel that helped negotiate a highly contentious network of marine protected areas in Southern California.

The California Fish and Game Commission made history last month by adopting the first network of marine protected areas (MPAs) for Southern California, marking our region’s first system of underwater parks. As a staff scientist at Heal the Bay, I played a role in the often contentious efforts to assemble the MPA maps, which set aside strategic sections of our shoreline for protection from fishing and other consumptive uses.

It will take years for the full history of our work to be written, but in the spirit of New Year’s introspection, I’ve been reflecting about the grueling but rewarding process. I’ve felt a slew of emotions – overwhelmed (in a positive way), pride and a smidge of disbelief. I had studied and educated about MPAs for over a decade, as a lowly undergrad at the University of New Hampshire, teaching at the Catalina Island Marine Institute, and then conducting my graduate research at U.C. Santa Barbara. And then I got to play an active role in the actual implementation of MPAs in Southern California. It isn’t every day that you to get to fulfill a professional dream.

As a member of the South Coast Regional Stakeholder Group — one of 64 individuals appointed to represent interests including commercial and recreational fishing, conservationists, local officials, and educators — I’ve spent hundreds of hours of personal and professional time over the past several years researching the South Coast, negotiating boundaries and creating MPA proposals that ultimately influenced the final Fish and Game decision. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through professionally, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that there were moments I considered quitting the process.

Read more & comment » (new window)

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Rain Doesn't Mean an End to Drought

01.14.2011 | Heal the Bay

Long Beach / Avalon Marina del Rey / Playa del Rey Palos Verdes Peninsula South Bay

It’s been a wet winter, so does that mean it’s ok to be a little more cavalier with our watering habits? Like, maybe, we can rip out that rock garden and install a nice sloping lawn? The answer, apparently, is no.

Yes, the rain has recharged reservoirs and built up a nice snow pack that will please skiiers and snowboarders all winter long, and also provide water for much of the state, but Southern California still needs to learn to live with the water we have. Which isn’t much.

SoCal is, and always will be, a desert, and the more water we use, the more water we suck from rivers and the aquatic life that call those rivers home, as well as agriculture. Plus, when we do get rain, we funnel it straight out to the ocean instead of trying to capture and reuse it. We need to figure out how to use less water, as a region, and be more creative with our limited rainfall. Read more at the LA Times.

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Insane Rain

12.22.2010 | Heal the Bay

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

It looks like the rain might finally be slowing down, but that just means the clean-up can begin. Among the downed trees and mudslides, there are also some ocean issues for you to keep in mind. This much rain carries huge amounts of bacteria and pollution straight through the stormdrain system to the beach, and can also cause sewage spills. Make sure you stay out of the ocean for a full 72 hours and avoid stormdrain impacted and enclosed beaches for 5 to 10 days after a storm, to give the bacteria time to disperse. You might even want to wait a little bit longer, given how much rain fell.

For up-to-date info, check out the Beach Report Card.

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San Jose Does it Right

12.17.2010 | Heal the Bay

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

San Jose banned the bag! Just the latest in a series of local goverments doing the right thing. Locally, Long Beach did it, as did LA County. All of these local bans on plastic bags are going to help end the blight that litters our streets, beaches and parks, and kills our marine life. But as the San Jose Mercury News points out, a statewide ban would be more effective, easier to implement, and better all around.

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Marine Protected Areas Approved for Southern California

12.15.2010 | Heal the Bay

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

In a history-making decision for ocean protection, the California Fish and Game Commission approved a collection of Marine Protected Areas for Southern California. The decision, made on December 15, 2010 in Santa Barbara, is the final step in a multi-year collaborative process to establish a network of safe havens for marine life throughout the region as a part of the implementation of the California Marine Life Protection Act.

More About the Dec. 15 MPAs Approval
Heal the Bay Press Release
Spouting Off Blog
Map of Approved MPAs
Dept. of Fish & Game News Release

More About MPAs
MPAs Fact Sheet
MPAs Web Page
Marine Life Protection Act Initiative – South Coast Study Region

The network of south coast MPAs was created by a stakeholder group consisting of representatives from environmental and fishing communities, local government officials and educators. Heal the Bay was extremely active in the MPA process, representing the conservation community and also providing a science-based perspective. Our participation was spearheaded by Sarah Sikich, Heal the Bay’s Coastal Resources Director, who served as a member of the taskforce charged with drawing up the map of MPAs.

The final map of MPAs creates 36 new MPAs encompassing about 187 square miles of state waters (~8% of the South Coast), with about 5% designated as fully-protected no-take areas, leaving the vast majority open to fishing.

Locally, this network includes:

A marine reserve east of Point Dume in Malibu
A partial take marine conservation area off Zuma Beach
A marine reserve and partial take marine conservation area at Abalone Cove and Point Vicente in Palos Verdes
A partial take marine conservation area at Farnsworth Banks
A marine reserve at Long Point and Wrigley for Catalina Island

By protecting the entire ecosystem in select Southern California waters, these MPAs will help restore and safeguard marine life and coastal heritage for future generations. Southern California’s new network of MPAs will take effect in 2011, following a period where local communities will be educated on MPAs.

Southern California’s MPAs join such ecologically diverse areas as California’s northern Channel Islands, the Florida Keys and New Zealand in establishing safe havens for marine life to thrive and reproduce.

MPAs Overview

Southern California’s marine ecosystems are stressed and continue to face many threats such as polluted runoff, marine debris, habitat destruction, and overfishing. Kelp beds throughout the Santa Monica Bay have declined substantially since the early 1900s. Several fish stocks have crashed statewide, causing many fisheries to be closed or severely limited. The majority of fishing throughout the State occurs in Southern California – together, Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego Counties account for over half the recreational fishing activity in California.

Currently 13% of land on earth is protected. However, less than 0.5% of the oceans are protected. As a valuable tool for both ecosystem protection and fisheries management, Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are likely to help replenish depleted fish populations. MPAs have shown to be effective in parts of California, the Florida Keys, New Zealand, and in close to 50 other countries around the world.

Marine Protected Areas, or MPAs, consist of three levels of protection:

State Marine Reserves, in which no fishing is allowed
State Marine Parks, in which commercial fishing is prohibited but recreational fishing is allowed
State Marine Conservation Areas, in which commercial and recreational fishing are allowed in limited amounts. MPAs do not restrict access or any other kind of recreational use

Learn more about MPAs.

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A Well-Earned MPA Victory!

12.15.2010 | Dana Murray

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

After two years of marathon stakeholder negotiation sessions, endless contentious public hearings and reams of studies and environmental documents, the California Department of Fish and Game today finally established a network of Marine Protected Areas in Southern California, passing a slightly revised version of the Integrated Preferred Alternative by a 3-2 vote.

The final vote reflects tough compromise. The maps protect some key places from extractive uses, like Point Dume, Naples and La Jolla, but fail to meet scientific guidelines in some locations. (For example, the fishermen won the battle for Rocky Point, and the MPA at Farnsworth Banks is little more than a paper park). The commission also made a few small changes at Swami’s and La Jolla in San Diego County.

The final hearing and vote took place in Santa Barbara, a fitting location given that the northern Channel Islands became California’s first designated marine protected areas years ago.