Heal the Bay Blog

Category: Malibu / Pacific Palisades

3 Hidden Gems Along Malibu Creek

03.12.2013 | Heal the Bay

Cool clear water cascades softly above glistening rocks, as a California newt munches on some caddisfly larvae. Brilliant Humboldt lilies peek over the earthen creek bank, where a California chorus frog hopes to catch an unsuspecting eight-legged meal. Hard to believe that just a short distance downstream, we are confronted with the effects of man-made barriers and pollution as well as non-native plants and animals in Malibu Creek.

Heal the Bay’s Stream Team has collected data from the Malibu Creek Watershed for 12 years and compiled their findings into our first comprehensive report: Malibu Creek Watershed: An Ecosystem on the Brink. Heal the Bay has identified three key problems facing the watershed and offered solutions for each, but despite the degradation and deterioration, we also discovered three hidden gems in the Malibu Creek Watershed:

Hiking the Cold Creek Lower Stunt High Trail. One of the most pristine spots in the watershed and plenty of shade to escape a hot day. Keep your eyes peeled for native amphibians, such as California newts and Pacific and California chorus frogs. To access the Cold Creek trail, travel approximately 1 mile on Stunt Rd. from Mulholland Highway. Park at the lot and hike down to Cold Creek.

Visiting Malibu Creek State Park Rock Pool. A fine spot to picnic, rock climb or swim (although we encourage swimmers to take precaution, and avoid ingesting the water or swimming when you have an open wound). We are working with State Parks to notify swimmers about poor water quality in Malibu Creek State Park. (Malibu Creek State Park, 2028 Las Virgenes Rd., Calabasas, CA 91302)

Taking a scenic drive from Malibu Creek State Park to Kanan Rd. along Mulholland Highway, ending at Rustic Canyon General Store & Grill for a bite to eat (the onion rings are yummy!).

Read more about Heal the Bay’s findings on the Malibu Creek Watershed.

Join us March 19 for “State of the Malibu Creek Watershed” public workshop and discussion.

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Something Wicked This Way Comes… Weeds!

02.01.2013 | Heal the Bay

About Us Malibu / Pacific Palisades Santa Monica

They’re exotic, and not in a good way, but why should you care about weeds? If you want to hang on to your favorite local nature spots, constant maintenance and eradication of these non-native, invasive plants, a.k.a. weeds, is an absolute necessity.

Here’s a primer, written by Tim Rosenstein, Mountains Restoration Trust Project Manager, on the problem with weeds.

Plants will often have natural defenses that keep them from being eaten by anything that hasn’t developed the tools necessary to take advantage. Plus there are simply huge physiological differences between species, which means an insect that can feed on one part of one type of plant, say soft leaves, won’t be able to eat a different sort of plant with hard, waxy leaves.

The result of a diversity of plants then is a diversity of insects or varying specialty. Each plant supports a varying number of insects, some of which will feed on other plants, some of which will only feed on that plant. This diversity of herbivorous insects will then support a diversity of carnivorous insects, and the insects support small animals, which support other animals, etc., etc., you get the picture.

Weeds, because they evolved elsewhere, don’t support many insects. An infestation of weeds therefore decreases the amount and diversity of insects, which decreases the amount of small animals, which decreases larger animals, etc., etc., you get the same picture but this time in reverse. For a specific example the “common reed” Phragmites australis, an East Coast invasive that’s been studied extensively, supports 170 species of insects in its native Europe. Here in the U.S. it only supports five insect species.

Weeds Alter Natural Cycles

These “exotics” destroy habitat almost as completely as paving it over does. If weeds take over a landscape that area just isn’t going to support much wildlife, and it’s the interaction of wildlife and plants that make an ecosystem work (for more on this concept search the web for ‘ecosystem services’).

But that’s not all! Weeds can also change natural fire cycles, affecting the frequency and intensity of fires. Plus weeds interrupt natural succession cycles after disturbances like fire. When there’s a fire in a stand of coastal sage scrub, what naturally happens is the first thing to pop up are fire-following annuals like grasses and wildflowers, things you don’t see much except after a fire.

These will dominate for a few years and the area will effectively be like a grassland until other non-fire-following plants and shrubs start to come up; bigger, longer-lived plants that, while sometimes present in mature coastal sage scrub, are not very common. These plants will proliferate and become more common for a while but eventually the dominant plants (sages, buckwheat, coyotebrush and the like) will reassert themselves and suppress the other species. That’s how it normally works. When weeds are present however this is how it works: After the fire weeds sprout first and dominate everything forever and ever the end.

Weeds Starve Natives

OK, I’m being slightly dramatic. But only slightly. Here’s another problem with weeds: They suppress the germination of native seeds. Many weeds have allelopathic properties, meaning they produce chemicals that affect the lifecycle of other plants. So not only do weeds germinate more and get established earlier than natives, starving natives of water and nutrients, they chemically suppress the germination and growth of natives as well.

They also suppress the germination of native fungal spores. This is exceedingly important because much of our native plant life requires the help of what’s called mycorrhizal fungi in order to survive. It’s a symbiotic relationship– the fungi needs the plants and the plants need the fungi– and a hugely important biotic component in a Mediterranean climate such as ours. Weeds can suppress the germination of the fungal spores and the growth of the fungus itself, effectively killing the very soil they grow in, making it that much harder for any native to ever grow there again. So when I say: “Weeds sprout first and dominate everything forever and ever the end,” I’m just barely exaggerating.

Sometimes people will ask me why we don’t just let “nature take its course” and let the weeds grow until a balance is reached. The thing is invasive species take over, that’s why they’re called “invasive.” There is no natural process by which an ecosystem can rid itself of weeds. Habitat is degraded when they enter the system, outright destroyed when they dominate it.

It is actually very much like cancer in a body, there is no “balance” to be had; either you fight the weeds or you let them win, there’s not much in between. I don’t want to be too dramatic but next to habitat loss from development the second greatest cause of habitat destruction is invasive species. Weeds, those innocent looking plants from the other side of the world, are pretty much an ecological nightmare.

Next up: We answer the crucial question; “How did weeds get here in the first place?”

Ready to help rid Malibu Creek of these harrowing invasives? Sign up now to volunteer on Sunday, February 10. If you can’t make it, no worries. Check Heal the Bay’s Calendar of Events for upcoming restorations.

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Thank You Thursday – 1.31.13

01.31.2013 | 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

Free Bird! You might be grateful to hear your favorite band cover this song…or not.

At Heal the Bay, we can say without irony that we are grateful to Freebirds in Agoura Hills for teaming with us to restore the Malibu Creek Watershed in January. Not only did a group of Freebirders join us, but they surprised us and brought burritos! It was an awesome day, pulling weeds, planting mulefat, eating burritos. Thank you, Freebirds!

A big thanks to the Gesso Foundation for their longtime support of our Key to the Sea program. Due in large part to their generosity, we’ve successfully provided thousands of Los Angeles County-based students and their teachers (K-5^th grade) with high-impact environmental education and memorable field trip experiences. For many of these students, participation in the program marked their first chance to explore the beach environment and witness marine life up close!

The Gesso Foundation was created in accordance with the wishes expressed in the will of acclaimed artist Frank Moore, who died in 2002. The Foundation’s purpose is twofold: to preserve, protect, and expand awareness of Frank Moore’s art; and to support non-profit organizations devoted to the arts, social justice, environmental or AIDS-related causes. Morphing Swallow by artist-philanthropist Frank Moore

Much like Mary Poppins herself, moms rely on Mommy Poppins LA, consulting the site for non-boring, low-cost activities to do with kids. Meanwhile Heal the Bay and our Aquarium couldn’t spread the word about our kid-friendly, fun AND educational happenings without their help. As parents and as youth educators, we thank the staff at Mommy Poppins LA for being such a helpful resource.

Do you devote your free time to volunteer with Heal the Bay? Then it’s time for us to thank YOU. Please join us on February 19 at Bodega Wine Bar as we celebrate you and all that you do to help protect our Bay…and beyond.

Join us to help revive Malibu Creek by removing weeds and planting natives on February 10.

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Climate Changing: Time to Adapt to the New Abnormal

01.30.2013 | Dana Murray

About Us Climate Change Malibu / Pacific Palisades Marine Protected Areas More Ways to Give South Bay Venice Beach

Climate change is happening now. Here in Los Angeles- not just in the Arctic. In our backyards, our ocean, our mountains, our beaches. Of course it’s important to keep reducing carbon emissions, but at this point climate change is occurring – we don’t have a choice, we need adapt to the change. Investing time and resources into identifying and advocating for environmentally-sound adaptation solutions is imperative- climate change could be one of the biggest challenges we face.

Some of the ongoing and expected climate change impacts here in coastal Los Angeles include increased storm intensity, ocean temperature increases, changing currents, sea level rise, species range shifts, coastal erosion, and ocean acidification. To make matters worse, when a combination of impacts collide—such as high tides, sea level rise, storm surges, and inland flooding—projected inundation could severely impact our freshwater supplies, wastewater treatment plants, power plants, and other infrastructure… not to mention public health and the environment.

According to NOAA, in 2012 the U.S. experienced our warmest year on record, which might sound nice and toasty at first, but really means that we had more extremely hot days and heat waves than in years past. This type of climate change not only has immediate impacts to public health, but can also affect nature’s timing—prey, predators, and pollination may not match up as they have in past years—which can have profound effects on our local and migrating species, upsetting the natural balance native species have established for centuries.

At Heal the Bay, we’re committed to advocating for environmentally sound climate change adaptation methods through participating in local stakeholder groups such as Adapt-LA, analyzing and commenting on proposed plans and policies, and educating the public about the coastal threats associated with climate change and how everyday people can be involved in sound solutions that protect our critical natural resources.

Some areas we’ve been involved with for a while will help with climate change adaptation – like encouraging water reuse and conservation, or supporting and advocating for low-impact development. Also, by supporting the restoration and protection of specific ecosystems- such as wetlands and eelgrass beds- we are also not just adapting to climate change, but trying to offset it. Wetlands and eelgrass beds can act as a carbon sink, natural places that absorb more carbon from the atmosphere than they release.

One of Heal the Bay’s larger efforts over the past five years, and one of the key slices of my personal work at Heal the Bay is the establishment and implementation of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), which help to maintain and create healthy ecosystems. How are MPAs and climate change related? Healthy ecosystems can better withstand the pressures of climate change much more effectively than a stressed ecosystem, and MPAs house more resilient habitats and species. By focusing on reducing overall stressors to the environment, such as pollution and overfishing, we can buy time for species to adapt to stressors that we cannot control- namely, climate change. A more resilient ecosystem can rebound and adapt after an extreme event. Also, by supporting a network of MPAs, rather than just single areas, we are planning ahead for species shifts to northern waters as ocean temperatures rise- our California MPA network provides a continuity of protected habitats.

I was encouraged to hear our President bring up climate change in his inauguration speech this month, and am ready to face the challenge and help implement solutions for our community, our environment, and for future generations- I hope you are on board too!

–Dana Roeber Murray, Marine & Coastal Scientist

You can get on board by joining the Forward on Climate rally in L.A. on February 17.

Or consider supporting Heal the Bay’s coastal resiliency efforts.

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Join Our Elite Pollution Fighting Team

01.28.2013 | 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

Do you care about clean water in your community? Love putting on a show? Want to make change (not just the money kind)?

Join our elite Speakers Bureau team to help raise educational awareness across Los Angeles in schools, workplaces and social groups.

For more than 25 years, Heal the Bay has relied upon people just like you to help spread the word about ocean pollution.

Last year we were able to reach 55,000 people! Obviously, we can’t do this on our own: We need you!

Our winter training sessions begin on Tuesday, March 5, 1-4:30 p.m. at the Los Angeles River Center. Sessions run through the month on Tuesdays in March (the 12^th and the 19^th), with a talk on Saturday, March 16, 9:30 a.m.-noon at Venice Pier. Attendance at all sessions is mandatory.

Register for Winter Speakers Bureau Training.

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We Know Where We're Headed in 2013

01.23.2013 | Heal the Bay

Beach Report Card California Bag Ban Long Beach / Avalon Malibu / Pacific Palisades Marina del Rey / Playa del Rey Marine Protected Areas More Ways to Give Palos Verdes Peninsula Santa Monica South Bay Venice Beach

As representatives of Heal the Bay, we often get asked: “Is the bay healed yet?” People know we’ve been at this a long time (more than 25 years). While the answer is a qualified “yes,” we still work every day to fulfill our mission to make southern California’s coastal waters and watersheds, including Santa Monica Bay safe, healthy and clean. Our tools? Science, education, community action and advocacy.

Each year we discuss where we’ve been, where we’re headed and how we’re going to get there. It’s a valuable process requiring that we all know what our HtB colleagues are up to: whether we’re teaching school kids at our Aquarium, coordinating our next advocacy campaign or analyzing water samples in Malibu Creek.

Here’s what we came up with for our goals of 2013:

Science

Marine Protected Areas and Fisheries

In 2013, we plan to continue to build our MPA Watch program. We will review data collected by MPA Watch volunteers and interns, and share it with management, enforcement, and other monitoring agencies to help understand and evaluate how local Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are being used. We also plan to inform and evaluate the development of fisheries management plans for key southern California fisheries, including spiny lobster. Additionally, in 2013, we will work with local and statewide partners to advance the statewide sustainable seafood policy developed by the Ocean Protection Council (with Heal the Bay’s involvement) and local efforts to promote sustainable seafood. On the education front, we are playing a leadership role in creating new MPA curriculum for teachers with the Southern California Aquarium Collaborative.

Stream Team

Heal the Bay will continue to develop our Stream Team program. We plan to begin evaluating watershed impacts associated with agricultural development in the Santa Monica Mountains, including vineyards. Additionally, we hope to inspire residents and recreationists in the watershed to become Creek Stewards, and help scout for watershed health impacts throughout these mountains.

Malibu Creek Watershed

We will educate local partner groups and management agencies about the findings of Heal the Bay’s State of the Malibu Creek Watershed report. We will also work with watershed partners and policymakers to prioritize and implement recommendations detailed in the report aimed at improving local stream and watershed health.

Predicting Beach Water Quality

Heal the Bay will continue our partnership with Stanford University in developing a predictive beach water quality models. The models will use oceanic and atmospheric factors (i.e. tides, waves, temperature, wind direction etc.) as inputs to forecast indicator bacteria concentrations at beaches, as means of providing early “nowcast” warnings of human health risks (our current methods take 18-24 hours to process, leaving the public with day-old water quality information). We plan to develop simple models for 25 different California beaches that will rapidly “predict” when beaches are in or out of compliance with water quality standards. Additionally, these models will be helpful in identifying and prioritizing beach cleanup and abatement priorities.

Education

Youth Summits

To take student learning beyond the classroom into community action and civic engagement, Heal the Bay will organize more youth summits. Students learn how to protect what they love through adjusting their own behavior, speaking publicly to businesses and governments and educating others in their local communities. This year we will focus on scheduling these events quarterly, formalizing their structure, and expanding their reach throughout Los Angeles County high schools.

Teacher Opportunities

Heal the Bay will expand our teacher education and professional development opportunities in 2013. New workshops and field experiences will be offered to help increase teacher expertise in teaching environmental principles and concepts, marine and watershed science knowledge, and best practices for melding field and laboratory activities into their own classroom curricula.

Santa Monica Pier Aquarium

To further educate the 75,000-80,000 annual visitors to the Aquarium about water conservation, we plan to overhaul the Green Room, named after Heal the Bay’s founding president Dorothy Green, with a new exhibit in her honor. The education room will include interactive, bilingual exhibits on watershed education and the urban water cycle, as well as a space dedicated to Dorothy’s accomplishments and inspirational vision.

Classroom Enrichment

In 2013, we’ll expand our environmental education outreach to more low-income communities and to a wider range of age groups. Through our partnership with the Discovery by Nature program, we’ll be able to reach classrooms in underserved communities, where public education in the sciences — as well as field trip funding — are limited.

Advocacy

A “Yes” for Clean Beaches

In the new year, Heal the Bay will mobilize support for the Clean Waters, Clean Beaches funding measure, which will drive an extensive and multi-faceted water quality clean up and conservation program in Los Angeles County. The proposed measure would address contaminated drinking water, polluted stormwater runoff as well as toxins and trash in the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers, among other challenges.

Plastic Bag Bans

In 2013, we will take a leadership role in advocating for a strong single-use bag ordinance for the City of Los Angeles that is consistent with several other policies adopted by local governments in the area. We will work with partner groups and City Council offices to conduct outreach to the community about the pending ordinance, and ensure that a final policy is adopted that eliminates single-use plastic bag usage in the City at grocery stores, pharmacies, and convenience stores, and greatly reduces paper bag distribution from these locations.

Community Action

Zero Waste Cleanups

In 2013, Heal the Bay plans to run all Nothin’ But Sand monthly beach cleanups as Zero Waste events. Building upon the success of the 2012 Zero Waste cleanups in October and November, we shall focus this year on not generating excessive waste in the process of performing large-scale public volunteer events. The hope is that the public will witness our commitment to practicing what we advocate, by going reusable and minimizing trash.

Compton Creek

Heal the Bay, in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Goldhirsh Foundation, will complete a project to build trash capture devices in the concrete portion of Compton Creek, just upstream of the earthen-bottom, riparian section. Compton Creek is the last major tributary that feeds into the Los Angeles River before it ultimately reaches the ocean in Long Beach. The devices ‑- adjustable metal racks that will be bolted into the channel bottom — will capture trash from dry weather urban runoff and low volume producing storm events and go a long way toward improving water quality.

A Park in South L.A.

Heal the Bay is partnering with Wisdom Academy for Young Scientists (WAYS) Charter School to complete the construction of the WAYS Reading & Fitness Park on the site of 4,000-square feet of unused City land in 2013. This park, located at the intersection of McKinley Avenue and 87th Street in South Los Angeles, will be on the leading edge of green technology, recycling street water to irrigate its own landscape.

Help us reach our goals this year, donate now and keep the field trips, advocacy campaigns and water testing afloat!

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HtB Trash Can Takes a Hawaiian Holiday

01.18.2013 | Heal the Bay

About Us California Bag Ban Long Beach / Avalon Malibu / Pacific Palisades Marina del Rey / Playa del Rey Palos Verdes Peninsula Santa Monica

This trashcan tells quite a tale, discovered more than 2,500 miles away from our Santa Monica base on a Hawaiian beach.

Researchers found the intact plastic trashcan emblazoned with Heal the Bay stickers while they were surveying 2011 Japanese tsunami debris at Ki’i Dunes on Oahu.

“It really highlights the fact that trash travels very far,” Nicholas Mallos, a conservation biologist and ocean debris specialist at the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy told LiveScience.

Mallos and colleagues from the Japan Environmental Action Network, the Oceanic Wildlife Survey and the Japan Ministry of the Environment just completed the beach survey in Hawaii in search of tsunami debris.

Heal the Bay Trash Can in Hawaii The Hawaii survey turned up masses of typical ocean garbage, including fishing nets and traps, Mallos said, noting the irony of also finding a “Heal the Bay” trashcan.

The problem of typical ocean trash is inextricably linked to the issue of tsunami debris, Mallos continued. Tsunamis aren’t preventable, but regular ocean litter is, he said. Apparently even trashcans can become part of the problem.

You can help reduce the problem of plastic in our oceans by ditching one-time use plastics and going reusable instead, from grocery bags to coffee mugs and water bottles.

UPDATE 1.22.13: A Hawaiian Islands Land Trust employee reported today that another Heal the Bay trashcan has washed up in the Aloha state; this time along the shoreline of Maui’s Waihee Refuge.

Signs of Progress Along Our Coast

01.17.2013 | Dana Murray

About Us California Grunion Malibu / Pacific Palisades Marine Protected Areas News Palos Verdes Peninsula

Planting one of the first MPA signs along Los Angeles’ coast felt like it’d been a long time coming.

California lays claim to the only statewide network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), or underwater parks, where ocean wildlife can thrive with less disturbance from humans. Yesterday our Coastal Resources Director Sarah Sikich and I, along with our colleagues at L.A. Waterkeeper, installed the first MPA signs in Los Angeles County along access points in Malibu’s marine reserve.

Southern California’s marine protected areas have been in effect for a year — after years of hard work to implement them– and now they’ll finally be marked.

Point Dume State Marine Reserve is located on the Malibu Coast, and includes a rocky headland peninsula, one of the world’s most popular coastal destinations. Migrating gray whales often stop off and feed along Point Dume, and the reserve’s kelp forests, canyon, and tide pools teem with octopus, anemones, and sea stars. Historically, Point Dume’s kelp forest has been the largest in southern California, providing food and shelter for a variety of sea life, including sea lions, grunion, and spawning squid.

It took over a year to get these initial simple signs designed, approved, funded, and installed- but an even longer public process to identify, negotiate, and designate MPAs along the Southern California Coast. Big thanks to the collaborative efforts of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Los Angeles Waterkeeper for helping to make these signs become a reality!

Next up are installing MPA signs along the Palos Verdes coast and Catalina Island … and later on this year, beautiful and informative MPA interpretive signage which will include images, maps, and multi-lingual descriptions of our local MPAs. For Heal the Bay, this is just the first step in education signage, but an exciting one to help with marine protected area education.

–Dana Roeber Murray, Heal the Bay’s Marine & Coastal Scientist

For ocean lovers who want to get more involved with underwater parks, join our MPA Watch training program on January 30 and February 2 to help monitor these vital environmental resources.

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Things to Do with HtB for MLK Day of Service

01.14.2013 | Heal the Bay

About Us Beach Report Card Malibu / Pacific Palisades Marina del Rey / Playa del Rey Marine Protected Areas More Ways to Give Santa Monica Venice Beach

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: ‘What are you doing for others?'” –Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Each year on the federal holiday marking Dr. King’s birthday, Americans celebrate his legacy by working together to serve our neighbors and communities, making the third Monday of January more than just a day of sales at the mall, but a national “MLK Day of Service.”

Come keep your community clean, by joining Heal the Bay this MLK Weekend on Saturday in Venice for our first Nothin’ But Sand beach cleanup of 2013. We are striving to go “Zero Waste” at our cleanups, so please bring your own reusable gloves, buckets or bags from home. And, if you didn’t know already, our monthly beach cleanups are perfect “get involved” opportunities for the ENTIRE FAMILY – an introduction to a lifetime of making a difference.

Nothin’ But Sand runs from 10 a.m.-noon, which gives you just enough time to get over to Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium to celebrate Underwater Parks Day, 12:30-5 p.m. The annual event recognizes Marine Protected Areas (aka “MPAs”) and the aquatic life they safeguard. Visitors will receive a free canvas tote bag to decorate and have a chance to join various fun activities designed to teach ways to improve the ocean’s health.

With the new year, we encourage you to join Heal the Bay as a member. We are only as effective as the folks who band with us to solve local water quality problems. Help us protect our coastal waters and watersheds and join 12,000 other active members to help fund our education, science and advocacy programs. We’ll keep you up-to-date on work and you’ll enjoy member benefits, such as FREE passes to our Aquarium, Beach Report Card emails and other special offers.

Discover more ways to get involved with Heal the Bay.

The MLK Day of Service is a part of United We Serve, the President’s national call to service initiative. It calls for Americans from all walks of life to work together to provide solutions to our most pressing national problems.

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Teens Team Up with Holocaust Survivors for PSA

01.11.2013 | Heal the Bay

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

Through a powerful collaboration between Holocaust survivors and teen filmmakers, Heal the Bay received a video gift that will definitely keep on giving.

Students produced It’s Not Just One, a public service announcement that vividly depicts the impact of littering on the health of our communities and ocean.

The PSA was created in a “Righteous Conversations Project” workshop held over the summer at Harvard-Westlake school aimed at students in 7th-11th grades from all over L.A.

These teens worked with Holocaust survivors to pinpoint injustices they wanted to confront together. Through the workshop they learned to harness the power of media messages, the ways video can be used to raise awareness and effect change.

Participating survivor Idele Stapholtz’s message was simple. “I was a child survivor,” she recalled sharing with the students. “To be a survivor in this world means that you need to understand and respect something precious, help save it and keep it pure.”

It’s Not Just One was inspired by Harvard-Westlake freshman Michael Kellman’s love for the ocean. “I really wanted to do something about pollution in the ocean because the ocean is a huge part of my life,” he said. “I row crew in Marina del Rey every day and that’s my favorite thing in the world.”

Once the student filmmakers (Sarah McAllister, Kelly Morrison, Kyra Perez and Jordan Seibel) completed the PSA, they decided to gift it to Heal the Bay, which pleased Idele, a longtime supporter of Heal the Bay’s work. With her husband Ben, Idele spent years volunteering at what is now Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium.

“I thought It’s Not Just One was incredible. The result is so powerful,” she said.

Righteous Conversations launched in 2011 and is a project of Remember Us. Harvard-Westlake’s Visual Arts and Film Chair Cheri Gaulke led the workshops.

Learn more about participating in the Righteous Conversation workshops.

Watch Heal the Bay’s videos, from mockumentaries to hip hop music videos and silent films.

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