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Heal the Bay Blog

Category: Long Beach / Avalon

Tune in to the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Lonely Planet “California Adventure” special at 10 a.m. Sunday to tour Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium with the popular travel show’s host, Dominic Bonnuccelli. 

Maria Calleia, who works in program development for Lonely Planet Television, requested permission to film at the Aquarium a few months ago.  She said the show was eager to feature Heal The Bay and our Aquarium in an upcoming special, ‘Subaru California Eco Adventure.’ Host Bonnuccelli travels to locations up and down the California Coast – in…no surprise, a Subaru – to experience eco-oriented adventures and visit organizations active in conservation and preservation.  

Calleia, an L.A. native, said she selected Heal the Bay to represent Southern California’s environmental community because of the enormity of our efforts, the organization’s credibility and our lengthy track record of making the region’s coastal waters and watersheds safe, healthy and clean. More than 100 species of marine animals and plants call the Aquarium home, including Pacific sea horses, sea stars and swell sharks.

 Along with the segment on the Aquarium and Heal the Bay, featured are the 31st Annual Avalon Harbor Cleanup, a visit to the Santa Barbara Marine Mammal Center and an interview with Sara Bayles, founder of a cleanup effort to pick up trash on the beach around Santa Monica lifeguard tower 26 for 365 non-consecutive days. Sara blogs about her experiences at The Daily Ocean.

 Watch  BBC America on Sundaymorning to see how our Aquarium shines as the public face of Heal the Bay. Check your local listings, but Time Warner Cable station 131 will air the show from 10-11 a.m.

Tour our Aquarium for yourself. Plan your visit.



June 4, 2012

The California Travel Association (CTA) will bestow its annual Tourism Stewardship of the Year award this week to Heal the Bay, recognizing us for doing the most to “protect, preserve, restore, improve, expand, or otherwise enhance California’s natural, cultural, or historical treasures.”

In honoring Heal the Bay, the CTA noted our education and advocacy initiatives to protect oceans statewide and beautify beaches for the millions of people who visit California each year, including:

  • The Beach Report Card® that provides weekly water quality grades to more than 500 California beaches;
  • Our advocacy work to help create newly established Marine Protected Areas off the coast of Southern California;
  • The ongoing education of nearly 100,000 visitors to Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium and
  • Our contribution to ending the scourge of pollution on our shores by sponsoring a number of regional and statewide measures that have significantly reduced urban runoff and marine debris.

Heal the Bay’s Coastal Resources Director, Sarah Sikich, will accept the award on Heal the Bay’s behalf during an event organized by the state’s leading travel trade organization during its annual convention June 4-6 in Sacramento. Heal the Bay is among seven honorees designated by the CTA, including surf industry legend Jack O’Neill, the Francis Ford Coppola winery and Napa Valley chef Michael Chiarello.

“Protecting the California coastline isn’t just good for the environment,” said Sikich. “It’s good for the statewide economy. The millions of visitors who come to our beaches each year expect clean water and sand. We all have a duty to protect what we love.”

Read more.

Learn more about all the ways you can help Heal the Bay.

Full information on all the award winners here.



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



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

Press Releases

Online Beach Report Card

This is the 22nd 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.



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.



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.



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



Just in time for summer vacation planning, weather information site Weather Underground is now providing Heal the Bay’s Beach Report Card grades to beachgoers in California and the Pacific Northwest on its Beach Weather pages, potentially reaching 12.5 million users each month in the U.S.

Not just weather geeks, but tourists, surfers and swimmers alike can assess water quality before heading to the shore, as well as real-time weather forecasts, wind conditions and tidal phases. Live webcams and satellite images also document up-to-the minute conditions.

Grades from our Beach Report Card are also available as a free iPhone or Android app and at www.beachreportcard.org.



May 4, 2012

Heal the Bay’s campaign to “Take L.A. By Storm” got off to a great start yesterday, with concerned citizens telling the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control board to set strong pollution limits as it debates a new stormwater permit for Los Angeles County this summer.

At the so-called MS4 workshop, Regional Board members heard public testimony about TMDLs (pollution limits), Receiving Water Limits and Watershed Management Plans for the first time in the regulatory process. These are arguably the most important sections of the permit. Heal the Bay, Santa Monica Baykeeper and Natural Resources Defense Council reminded the Board of its charge to develop and enforce water quality standards, noted the lack of enforcement for TMDL deadlines long overdue and described key permit provisions.

Stakeholders from the Black Surfing Association, Surfrider Foundation and Ventura Coastkeeper expressed their concerns with lax sections of the draft permit. Also members of the public from many parts of L.A., including Compton, Pico Union, West Hollywood, the San Fernando Valley and Santa Monica, talked about the need for strong regulation. Due to the great public turnout at yesterday’s MS4 workshop, the Regional Board heard from a diverse set of ocean lovers that strong water quality protections are critical for Angelenos.

Take L.A. By Storm Logo - Banner

Stay tuned for the next “Take L.A. By Storm” action.

Our Regional Board can do the right thing and place strong protections (such as low impact development requirements) in the permit. Or, they can make decisions that could result in dirtier water, and a higher risk of getting sick anytime you swim or surf. Heal the Bay will do everything we can to ensure that they make the right choice. We hope you will join us in the fight!

Sign up for our Action Alerts to stay tuned for future updates on our summer-long “Take L.A. By Storm” campaign.

Learn more about this critical effort to protect clean water in L.A. County.



The answer is blowing in the wind for oceanographers who have discovered that gusts of wind push plastic debris below the surface of the water, rendering previous data gathered by skimming the surface inaccurate.

After taking samples of water at a depth of 16 feet (5 meters), Giora Proskurowski, a researcher at the University of Washington, discovered that wind was pushing the lightweight plastic particles below the surface. That meant that decades of research into how much plastic litters the ocean, conducted by skimming only the surface, may in some cases vastly underestimate the true amount of plastic debris in the oceans, Proskurowski said.

Reporting in the journal of Geophysical Research Letters this month, Proskurowski and co-lead author Tobias Kukulka, University of Delaware, said that data collected from just the surface of the water commonly underestimates the total amount of plastic in the water by an average factor of 2.5. In high winds the volume of plastic could be underestimated by a factor of 27.

“That really puts a lot of error into the compilation of the data set,” Proskurowski said. The paper also detailed a new model that researchers and environmental groups can use to collect more accurate data in the future.

The team plans to publish a “recipe” that simplifies the model so that a wide range of groups investigating ocean plastics, including those that aren’t oceanographers, can easily use the model. Following the recipe, which is available now by request, might encourage some consistency among the studies, he said.

“On this topic, what science needs to be geared toward is building confidence that scientists have solid numbers and that policy makers aren’t making judgments based on CNN reports,” he said. Descriptions of the so-called great Pacific garbage patch in widespread news reports may have led many people to imagine a giant, dense island of garbage while in fact the patch is made up of widely dispersed, millimeter-size pieces of debris, he said.

Plastic waste in the oceans is a concern because of the impact it might have on the environment. For instance, when fish ingest the plastics, it may degrade their liver functions. In addition, the particles make nice homes for bacteria and algae, which are then transported along with the particles into different regions of the ocean where they may be invasive and cause problems.

Read more about Heal the Bay’s work to reduce marine debris.

To support a ban on single-use plastic bags in the city of Los Angeles, take action.