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Special Holiday Hours at the Pier Aquarium

12.19.2014 |

California SharksHeal the Bay AquariumSanta Monica

 

Have a houseful of holiday guests? In need of an outing that won’t add too much stress to the already over-stretched wallet? Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium knows you’ll be looking for a fun destination to entertain all ages. Our marine science center will be open special holiday hours beginning Friday, Dec. 26th through Dec. 31st. Visit any of those days from 12:30 to 5:00 p.m.

Tuesdays are feeding days, and visitors are invited to help feed the sea stars at 2:30 p.m. A presentation and feeding at the open top shark and ray exhibit can be a refreshing experience, as the sharks often spray water right out of their tanks while anticipating their meal.

Any day of the week, guests can play hide and seek with an octopus, get a hug from a sea urchin, test their water conservation knowledge at the Watch Your Water exhibit, or put on a puppet show in the Aquarium’s puppet theater. 

The Aquarium will be closed New Year’s Day, and return to regular public hours on Friday, January 2nd, which begin at 2 p.m.

Festive Seahorse in a Santa Hat

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As the Septics Seep: A Malibu Soup Opera

12.18.2014 |

Malibu / Pacific Palisades

Peter Shellenbarger, a Heal the Bay science and policy analyst, tries his hand at Hollywood with a hotly anticipated “soup opera.” As the Septics Seep is his artistic interpretation of the Malibu Civic Center Septic Saga, where Mrs. Water Quality and Mr. Civic Center navigate the sordid, stinky world of Malibu water politics.

 

As The Septics Seep

Any relationship has its ups and downs—especially one between a coastal city and its water quality.


The backstory

In 2006, Malibu Creek, Malibu Lagoon, Malibu Beach, Malibu Surfrider Beach and Carbon Beach (in the Malibu Civic Center area) were placed on the Clean Water Act’s list of impaired and threatened water bodies. Septic system discharges were identified as contributors to this impairment in 2009 and a Septic Prohibition was issued. In 2011, the City of Malibu agreed to build a centralized wastewater recycling facility to phase out septic systems in the Civic Center area. However, just this month, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board approved an extension for the phase-out, giving commercial and residential properties 20 extra months and three years, respectively, to remove their septic systems. These extensions undermine the Septic Prohibition and will allow the City of Malibu to continue discharging septic system effluent into already critically polluted waterbodies. This month’s decision is another setback for water quality in Malibu and showcases the Regional Board’s historical inability to hold the City of Malibu accountable for their septic system discharges, which impact human health and aquatic life in and around Malibu Creek and Lagoon.


Cast (in order of appearance)

Sheriff U.S. E.P.A.: Tall, stern water quality enforcer
Mrs. Water Quality: Peppy environmental scientist
Mr. Civic Center: Distinguished landowner of Civic Center Area in Malibu
Officer L.A.W. (L.A. Regional Water Control Board): Overworked, tired water quality engineer


Season synopses

S1 Sheriff E.P.A. comes to town and nails Malibu Creek, Malibu Lagoon, Malibu Beach, Malibu Surfrider Beach and Carbon Beach for public intoxication. Loaded with bacteria and nutrients, she places these waters on the critically polluted list for further investigation and future cleanup. Mrs. Water Quality begins to investigate the cause of pollution…and catches the eye of Mr. Civic Center in the process.

S2 Mrs. Water Quality identifies septic systems as a source of bacteria and nutrient pollution at Mr. Civic Center’s residence. Officer L.A.W. assesses the situation, conducts further studies, consults with other officers and creates a Septic Prohibition at Mr. Civic Center’s residence. This will require him to phase out septic system discharges at his commercial and residential properties by November 5, 2015, and November 5, 2019, respectively.

S3 To implement the Septic Prohibition, Mr. Civic Center and Officer L.A.W. agree to build a centralized wastewater recycling facility to replace septic systems polluting Malibu’s coastal waters. Mrs. Water Quality is sufficiently impressed by Mr. Civic Center’s commitment to the environment and finally agrees to date him.

S4 Mrs. Water Quality and Mr. Civic Center are seen publicly all over the Westside, and soon move in together and begin planning their romantic wastewater recycling facility hideaway. But Mr. Civic Center reveals himself to be all talk, delaying construction of the project by 9 to 12 months. He assures Mrs. Water Quality it will be completed before November 5, 2015. Mrs. Water Quality has heard that one before.

S5 Mr. Civic Center and Officer L.A.W. arrange to extend the commercial septic phase-out deadline by 20 months—and the residential phase out deadline by 3 years. Officer L.A.W. approves the extension despite a lack of public support and passionate opposition from Mrs. Water Quality—who feels betrayed by both Mr. Civic Center and Officer L.A.W. Mrs. Water Quality moves out of Mr. Civic Center’s residence.

What will happen to this tragic duo in S6? Will they patch up their differences or has their love truly tanked? One thing is certain: In addition to being a heartbreaker, Mr. Civic Center will continue to harm human health and aquatic life with his septic obsession.

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT SEASON…

As the Septics Seep: A Malibu Soup Opera

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Thank You Thursday 12-18-14

12.17.2014 |

Santa Monica

A big thank you to Subaru Pacific for sharing the love with us this holiday season. The car company runs a national campaign – Share the Love – each year; for every car Subaru sells between the last week of November and January 2nd, they will donate $250 to one of six charities.  Heal the Bay is thrilled to be one of only two local charities chosen. Twenty-six of Subaru’s customers have already selected Heal the Bay as their charity of choice – the goal of raising $10,000 looks to be within reach!

We are thankful for the rain – and incredibly grateful that the employees of Team One were signed up to do a corporate cleanup at Venice Beach shortly after the first round of rain.  Thanks Team, for removing 114 pounds of trash and 2,214 cigarette butts from the beach.

And finally thanks to Madewell, which shared a portion of sales from a recent evening of holiday gift tag decorating at The Grove. We honestly appreciate HonestlyWTF for choosing us as the beneficiary of that crafty fundraiser. 

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Thank You Thursday 12-4-14

12.04.2014 |

NewsSouth Bay

The recent screening of the awesome new surf documentary, “A Wedge to Remember,” gave Heal the Bay and partners Surfrider and Keep Hermosa Hermosa a platform to discuss our fight against oil drilling in Hermosa Beach. Proceeds from the evening’s raffle will be put to good use to prevent a proposed slant-drilling project in Hermosa Beach. Thanks to Dive N Surf and Body Glove for donating the gear for the raffle.

 Thank you to Pardee Properties – a real estate agency that truly walks the talk. Ten percent of their net proceeds from each sale are donated to their client’s charity of choice. We have been grateful recipients of this generosity to the tune of nearly $5,000 in 2014. And a big thanks to this Venice-based agency’s Heal the Bay-loving client base!

Heal the Bay’s lobby is looking very festive these days, thanks to a donation by Living Christmas. The company’s “elves” arrived last week with a seven-plus-foot  potted tree.

And finally, we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: we’re so proud of Brenton Spies, formerly a staff member at Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium and currently a research biologist and PhD student at UCLA.  And now we thank him mightily for his $1,000 donation to the Aquarium. The funds will go towards developing wetland based curriculum and interactive activities to be used for education and public programs at the Aquarium. The donation is a component of his successful Kickstarter campaign, which will also fund a photographic documentation of threatened and endangered ecosystems along the California coast. We also look forward to using Spies’ photographs to enhance the Aquarium’s watershed exhibit in the Dorothy Green Room.

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Holiday Aquadoption Special

12.02.2014 |

Heal the Bay AquariumMore Ways to GiveSanta Monica

The holidays.

All those decorations, the wrapping paper, the packages, the extra groceries…wouldn’t it be great to have a couple of extra arms to help out with it all? Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium has a unique gift idea that will provide you with some extra arms—eight arms, to be exact.

Every December, our Aquarium offers one of its most popular marine creatures up for Aquadoption at a special holiday price. This year’s animal is…xylophone roll please…the octopus! Throughout the month of December, the octopus is available for $50–a bargain price that includes a year’s membership to Heal the Bay along with free admission to the Aquarium for a family of four. 

Octopuses are believed to be one of the smartest invertebrates on Earth, demonstrating the ability to learn new skills by watching one another. With their talent of changing color and texture, the octopus is a fascinating animal to observe.

The Aquadoption program provides all the benefits of adopting an animal while leaving the daily care to the Aquarium staff. If you choose to become an octopus mom or dad this holiday, you’ll receive a personalized packet with an adoption certificate, photo, fact sheet and two guest passes to the Aquarium. 

So save your arms and give everyone on your list a gift that will keep on giving all year long. You’ll make a lonely cephalopod’s day!

Your Aquadoption will underwrite the daily care and feeding of an Aquarium animal of your choice, and will also help support Heal the Bay’s ongoing mission to keep our oceans safe, healthy and clean. Thank you!

3 Ways to Aquadopt:

  1. Online
  2. By phone: Call 310-393-6149, x102
  3. In person: Visit us under the Pier Tue-Fri, 2-5pm or Sat-Sun, 12:30-5pm.

Santa Monica Pier Aquarium holiday aquadoption special

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Thanks to Our S.T.E.A.M. Supporters

11.20.2014 |

Santa Monica

Last Saturday our Santa Monica Pier Aquarium hosted S.T.E.A.M. Machines on the Pier—a day of fun and tinkering, art and innovation—all anchored by a Rube Goldberg machine contest. Thanks so much to our presenting sponsor, Time Warner Cable’s Connect A Million Minds Initiative, along with sponsor Bricks 4 Kidz. Thanks too to the Santa Monica Pier Corporation for their partnership in presenting this second annual event.

Congratulations to all the teams that participated in the Rube Goldberg machine contest: Santiago Canyon College; Cal Poly Pomona; Ánimo Venice Charter High School; Malibu High School; King Drew Magnet; Santa Monica High School; and Canyon High School.  Kudos to the four judges who donated their time and expertise to judge and offer feedback to the teams, including: designer Hector Alvarez; Adam Lichtl, director of research for Space Exploration Technologies; artist Brett Doar; and Betty Fekete of Time Warner Cable.

Thanks also to the vendors who spent the day demonstrating their amazing devices and giving visitors the opportunity to create, tinker and build: Dr. Sharp’s Steampunk Gear; Exploratory; iFly; Pacific Park; Peddler’s Creamery; reDiscover Center; Santa Monica High’s Team Marine; STEM Center USA; Steve Craig; ToyBuilder Labs; Trash 4 Teaching; TreePeople; and Vocademy the Makerspace.

And a special shout out to DJ Agent Blak, for keeping the stage lively and lyrical, along with Aquarium volunteer Jaclyn Friedlander and her team for building their own Rube Goldberg Machine to deliver a clean water message—and for demonstrating the contraption throughout the day. Check out the making of Friedlander’s machine!

Time Warner CableConnect a Million Minds Time Warner Cable

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S.T.E.A.M. Machine Madness at the Aquarium

11.12.2014 |

EventsSanta Monica

Nov, 13, 2014 — Jaclyn Friedlander saw the email inviting Santa Monica Pier Aquarium volunteers to build a Rube Goldberg Machine for this Saturday’s S.T.E.A.M. Machines event on the Pier and took the challenge to her most creative and handy friends.

“We had two objectives,” Jaclyn explains, “to incorporate as much of Heal the Bay’s message as we could and build a machine that works. The second part of that is actually not as easy as it looks when it comes to building a Rube Goldberg Machine.”

A Rube Goldberg machine is “an overly complex contraption, designed with humor and a narrative, to accomplish a simple task,” according to the national competition’s official website. Teams of high school and college students will compete beginning at 11:30 a.m.  Saturday marks the second annual regional Rube Goldberg contest, which will showcase machines that erase a chalkboard in a unique fashion.

The free event is hosted by Heal the Bay along with the Santa Monica Pier Corp. and presenting sponsor Time Warner Cable’s Connect a Million Minds initiative.

Friedlander’s creation won’t be entered in the contest, but will add to the multitude of fun and innovative activities – from bicycle-powered ice cream to 3-D printing, to opportunities for all to build, draw, paint and create. The event takes place 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the east end of the Pier. The theme will continue at the Aquarium, where visitors can pilot an underwater ROV, capturing marine samples with mechanical claws.

Friedlander calls the process of building a Rube Goldberg machine one of “creative trial and error with major contributions from everyone.” The six-member team did include one person with an engineering degree who creates video games for a living (Jason Wishnov) and a second, Timothy Ries, who Friedlander credits with using his construction skills to create the base of the machine.

After about eight hours in the planning phase, the team — which also included Trisha Hershberger, Justin Langley, and Nate (goes by his first name only  ) — spent a couple of hours to collect the necessary materials and another 14 hours building. So their baby is definitely a 24-hour labor of love. Built at YouTube’s studio in Los Angeles, the group created a time-lapse video as well, which will be available on Hershberger’s YouTube channel any day now.

When watching the machine in action, notice how a shell became a key component to a crucial step. But the true secret ingredient? Lots of duct tape. 

Time Warner Cable

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Thank You Thursday 11-6-14

11.06.2014 |

California SharksSanta Monica

A huge thank you to Adventure Voyaging for including Heal the Bay in last month’s Catalina Cruisers Weekend – two days full of fun at Two Harbors. Additional thanks go out to Peter Ellis and friends who served up the famous “Buffalo Milk” beverages at Saturday night’s party, donating every drop these sailors drank back to clean water. These may have been some of the most delicious dollars we’ve received recently!

When a swimmer was bitten in July by a white shark struggling to be free of an angler’s hook next to the Manhattan Beach Pier, the city banned fishing from the pier to protect public safety. The ban was lifted at the end of the summer, but the unfortunate incident prompted coastal communities with piers throughout L.A. County to consider similar bans. As an alternative, Heal the Bay recommended the establishment of a pier and sport angler educational program, where on-the-pier ambassadors educate the fishing public about local sharks and marine life and how to avoid catching these sharks.

The cities of Santa Monica, Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach along with L.A. County embraced the shark ambassador program, and all have contributed to support it. Kudos to these partners, who are helping us educate anglers on the important role sharks play in the ecosystem.

Corporate Healers play an integral role in cleaning our beaches while encouraging stewardship among their employees – not to mention providing their workers with a day at the beach. Thanks to Wells Fargo and Macerich for joining the program.

Students from low-income schools will have the opportunity to visit our Santa Monica Pier Aquarium for field trips thanks to the support of the UPS Foundation. Thanks so much for sponsoring youth education.  

And last but not least, happy 5th anniversary to the The Grilled Cheese Truck – and thanks to this traveliing wagon of cheesy goodness for donating proceeds from its celebration to Heal the Bay.

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Thank You Thursday 10-30-14

10.29.2014 |

Heal the Bay AquariumSanta Monica

The Frightfully “Fintastic” Fishy Fest held last weekend at our Santa Monica Pier Aquarium lived up to its name. The marine center was packed with all sorts of witches, ghosts and ghouls. It was a monstrously successful event and we have some neighbors and friends to thank who contributed to the fun.

  • The Girl Scouts of Troop 12815 brought reusable trick-or-treat bags they created from recycled tee shirts. The girls gave the bags out to our guests for decorating, while sharing ocean pollution education.
  • Parade partners Rusty’s Surf Ranch, The Albright, Bubba Gump and Pacific Park all provided treats for our parade of goblins. And a special shout-out to our honorary grand marshal, Treeman of Venice, who put all his passion for the natural world – and his considerable height – into leading the parade. Thanks also to filmmaker Michael Angelo for documenting the procession and post-parade festivities at the Aquarium. It was a “tree-mendous” weekend!

And last but not least, we thank Bob Shanman of Wild Birds Unlimited in Torrance, who is a true believer in getting kids outside and experiencing the natural world. For years, he has worked with our Key to the Sea and Key to the Watershed programs, providing binoculars at cost (or below cost) for our programs and servicing them every year free of charge.

What a treat!  

Halloween parade at Santa Monica Pier Aquarium

Halloween parade at Santa Monica Pier Aquarium

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Halloween: Come Play Dress Up at the Aquarium!

10.13.2014 |

Heal the Bay AquariumSanta Monica

Our Santa Monica Pier Aquarium always loves dressing up for Halloween and Dia de los Muertos. There’s the colorful papel picado hanging from the rafters, mini pumpkins decorating the tanks and spooky enhancements all around. Volunteers and visitors are encouraged to celebrate the season by arriving in spooky gear the last weekend in October for the Aquarium’s Fishy Fest.

For those who need a little help putting a costume together, both inspiration and materials will be available.The Aquarium is partnering with Santa Monica’s Resource Recovery and Recycling division to offer gently used goblin garb to visitors.  Anyone who drops off a costume with the library by Oct. 15 gets a coupon to pick out a costume at the Fairview Branch of the public library Saturday, Oct. 18. Costume swappers also receive a coupon for $1 off admission to our festivities.   

The leftover outfits from the costume swap are being donated to the Aquarium and will be available for anyone to use for the parade, stepping off in front of the marine science center at 3 p.m. Oct. 26. The trick-or-treat procession will make stops at neighboring Pier businesse. What a sweet deal for all the little monsters in your life!   

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