UMeTime, a new app offering deals from your favorite local businesses, celebrates its launch with a party in conjunction with Coastal Cleanup Day. Complimentary refreshments and snacks will be available for those who participate in this year’s Coastal Cleanup Day and download the UMeTime app.
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Heal the Bay Blog
Category: Locations
Lifeguard Marcus Chapman and Captain Remy Smith will volunteer at this year’s Coastal Cleanup Day on September 15 to help protect ocean users from the effects of pollution.
Chapman will be at the historic African American beach site at Bay Street as a volunteer in Los Angeles County ocean lifeguard beach uniform. Not able this year to volunteer himself due to injury and recent surgery, Captain Smith organized an ocean lifeguard team to accompany Chapman to support the cleanup day event. Christopher Smith (Captain Smith’s son), Brandon Henry Snell and Josh Williams will be the other LAC ocean lifeguards helping out at the historic Bay Street on Cleanup Day this year.
A fifth-generation Santa Monican, Smith became a lifeguard 22 years ago because of his love for the ocean environment. Chapman also provided ocean lifesaving protection for 22 years, serving as an aquatic and water safety educator.
Come out and protect what you love on Coastal Cleanup Day. Find a site near you!
Can’t make Coastal Cleanup Day? Just $20 can help run a cleanup site in your neighborhood. Donate.
What’s better after a fulfilling day of participating in Coastal Cleanup Day, the biggest volunteers day on the planet, than an ice-cold beer? That is, if you’re of age of course.
LandShark Lager has partnered with Hermosa bars and restaurants including American Junkie, Poop Deck, Waterman’s to offer lunch deals for Coastal Cleanup Day participants immediately after the cleanup! Participants from all South Bay locations are welcome!
LandShark is also donating six packs of beer in reusable metal buckets. Those buckets will be given away at the South Bay Coastal Cleanup sites at Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach and Manhattan Beach and can be used for future beach cleanups.
Bottom’s up!
Gayle Anderson broadcast live from Santa Monica this morning with information about the Saturday, September 15 Coastal Cleanup Day, the largest volunteer day on the planet.
Gayle was broadcasting from the historic African American Bay Street Beach in Santa Monica. Known as the “Inkwell,” the city beach site was a popular hangout for African Americans in Los Angeles Countyfrom the 1920s to the early 1960s, long after racial restrictions on public beaches were invalidated in 1927. Santa Monica Conservancy docents will educate volunteers about the history of the site as well as environmental concerns at Bay Street Beach. The first 100 people who volunteer at this site will receive a FREE ticket to the “Jazz for the Environment Concert” at EarthFest L.A. 2012 at 2 p.m. at West L.A. College in Culver City.
Scuba certified participants will get a chance to clear underwater debris at Leo Carillo State Beach, Redondo Beach and the Santa Monica and Malibu piers. Kayakers are welcome to join the Santa Monica Bay Restoration for a kayak cleanup in Marina del Rey, with required registration. Mountain Restorations Trust will co-sponsor a mountain bike site, where cyclists can help haul junk from an area in the Malibu Creek Watershed that’s difficult to reach on foot.
In addition, there will be three Code Red cleanup sites, which are swamped with tons of harmful trash and debris, such as plastic bags. These Code Red sites are Dominguez Channel (Artesia Transit Center and Wilmington Marinas) and Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park, as well as Arroyo Seco in Pasadena.
Registration at all cleanup sites begins at 8:30 a.m. Please bring the waiver form with you to the registration table, which is available for download at Cleanup Waiver. Volunteers under the age of 18 must have a waiver signed by parent or guardian. You may also download parking passes at the above link, which you must place on your dashboard during the event. Please wear closed toe shows and comfortable clothes. Refreshments and cleanup tools will be provided.
For a list of all the cleanup sites, please visit Coastal Cleanup Sites.
(Courtesy of KTLA.com)
Nearly 700 elementary school students — many of whom had never visited the ocean before — arrived at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium on the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012, for a day of environmentally focused games, lessons and activies. Heal the Bay’s eighth annual Coastal Cleanup Education Day allowed students from underserved communities to explore the beach and aquarium, leading up to the Coastal Cleanup Day, the largest volunteer day on the planet, on Saturday, Sept. 15.
The eager students from six schools collected 109 pounds of trash and five cylindrical feet of smelly cigarette butts. They participated in activies ranging from sand crab sifting to a competitve beach cleanup. Heal the Bay provided the free field trip for school groups including bus transportation and a gift bag.
Tara Treiber, Heal the Bay’s Education Director, remembers a little boy with tears of joy who came up to her at lunch. The young man “literally tugged on my skirt and said, ‘Excuse me, Miss, but I just needed to thank you for bringing me to see the beach today.'”
Heal the Bay also unveiled its new teacher resources as part of a partnership with National Geographic Education. The Environmental Literacy Guides cover fresh water, ocean, energy and climate change and are available at no cost to all K-8 classrooms throughout California.
The “Great White Sharks” from Robert F. Kennedy Elementary School show off their fins.
The fifth graders from Downtown Value School collected more than five cylindrical feet of cigarette butts from Santa Monica Beach.
See more photos from Coastal Cleanup Education Day.
Download the guides from National Geographic.
About UsCoastal Cleanup DayLong Beach / AvalonMalibu / Pacific PalisadesMarina del Rey / Playa del ReyPalos Verdes PeninsulaSanta MonicaSouth BayVenice Beach
SEND US YOUR BEST SHOTS OF COASTAL CLEANUP DAY 2012 AND YOUR PHOTO COULD BE ON EXHIBIT AT THE AQUARIUM
Take a great photo during Coastal Cleanup Day on Saturday, Sept. 15, 2012, and share it with @HealtheBay on Instagram, and your photograph could be on exhibit at Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium and featured in the Coastal Cleanup Day wrap-up publication! Images can be of a beach or kayak cleanup, underwater photos from a dive cleanup, pictures of trash, clean beaches, volunteers, or anything from Coastal Cleanup Day 2012!
How to enter: Upload photos from Coastal Cleanup Day to your Instagram feed, make sure they are public, and tag them with #CCD2012 AND @HealtheBay, as well as including location information through Geo-Tagging and/or hashtagging with your cleanup site’s name (i.e. #DockweilerBeach). At the end of the contest, Heal the Bay will collect all of the photos and decide the winners. You can enter as many photos as you want!
You can submit photos from now until September 29, and the winner will be announced October 1 through Instagram. Grab your Smartphones and start uploading to Instagram! Good luck!
Prizes:
- First Prize: Your photograph will be exhibited at Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium and published in our Coastal Cleanup Day 2012 wrap-up book. You and a guest will also receive a private, behind-the-scenes tour of Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium!
- Second Prize (2): Your photograph will be exhibited at Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium and published in our Coastal Cleanup Day 2012 wrap-up book.
- Third Prize (5): Your photograph will be exhibited at Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium.
For those not familiar with the photo sharing app, Instagram is an app for Smartphones that lets you easily tweak photos from your mobile device to give them an artistic look. If you don’t have it already installed on your phone, download the app for free.
No purchase necessary. No automated entries. Enter as many photos as you like. Photos must be taken at a Coastal Cleanup Day 2012 volunteer site in order to be eligible. By entering the contest, each entrant agrees that his or her submission is an original work of authorship and he or she owns all right, title and interest in the entry as of the date of submission. By entering the contest, entrants agree to assign all right, title, and interest, including copyright rights, in the entry to Heal the Bay and grant permission for Heal the Bay to publish or publicize all or part of their entry, including but not limited to entrant’s name, likeness and photo, in whole or in part, for advertising, promotional and trade or other purposes in conjunction with this and similar promotions in any and all media now known or hereafter developed, worldwide in perpetuity, without notice or permission and without compensation, except where prohibited by law.
As summer fades away – along with the tourists that season brings – Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium is exhibiting a new local species: the wolf-eel, Anarrhichthys ocellatus. At nearly three-feet long, the juvenile wolf-eel is neither wolf nor eel, but a member of the wolffish family (named for their large front teeth) and will grow to be about seven feet long. The eel-shaped, grayish colored wolf-eel is patterned with gorgeous dark spots and can be found peering out of a rocky outcropping in the Aquarium’s Kelp Forest Exhibit.
The Aquarium typically closes for maintenance for most of September, but this year the facility will remain open throughout the month for regular hours: 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. Tuesday through Friday with the exception of Tuesday, Sept. 11, when the Aquarium will be closed for Coastal Cleanup Education Day. The Aquarium is open during weekends from 12:30 to 5:00 p.m. Plan your visit to see the wolf-eel at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium.
About UsLong Beach / AvalonMalibu / Pacific PalisadesMarina del Rey / Playa del ReyMarine Protected AreasPalos Verdes PeninsulaSanta MonicaSouth Bay
Thousands of tiny golden fish dart out of the way as I kick through the kelp forest — it’s amazing that they’re already learning to swim from predators at an early age. As I round the edge of a large rocky reef fringing Santa Cruz Island, I am enveloped yet again in a cloud of tiny marine animals and larvae — these ones looking more like itsy-bitsy lobster babies. Up above me, I see dozens of juvenile blue rockfish, only a few inches in length, floating amidst the strands of giant kelp. I’ve never experienced a dive like this before. It must be baby season in the kelp forest, and I’ve dove into their nursery.
Although the sheer amount of baby fish and crustaceans is impressive enough, one of my favorite animals zooms into view. With long whiskers, big black eyes, and a spotted coat, a curious harbor seal begins to play a little peek-a-boo with me in the kelp. Seeing large predators, like harbor seals, is a good indicator of a healthy ecosystem. A large school of mackerel divides and darts away from the deft predator. I’m always excited (and a bit nervous) when I see large schools of fish suddenly change direction, and a dark shadow passes over me. It usually means a predator such as a shark or marine mammal is in pursuit of its prey. I float coolly in the giant kelp forest, watching the harbor seal hunt, weaving its way around and through the school of fish.
What I experienced underwater is in a marine reserve at our local Channel Islands — a marine protected area (MPA) where all marine life can thrive, free from fishing or harvest. The marine reserves at the Channel Islands have been in place for fewer than 10 years, but the ecosystems are already so much healthier! Along the Los Angeles shoreline, we also have brand-new MPAs in Malibu and Palos Verdes, which were established on Jan. 1, 2012. Given a little time, perhaps our local MPAs could flourish like those at the nearby Channel Islands. These areas have been designated along key stretches of coast to help marine life recover and restore our fisheries. Yet, the majority of the Southern California coast is still open to fishing.
To support our local MPAs, USC Sea Grant and Resources Legacy Fund Foundation have generously funded Heal the Bay’s MPA Watch citizen science monitoring program, which allows volunteers to survey human uses within and outside of MPAs in Los Angeles. This summer, Heal the Bay’s interns, volunteers, and staff worked together to analyze and write our first MPA Watch Data Analysis & Results Report. Our 27-page report includes data from 554 surveys in Malibu and Palos Verdes spanning 17 months in 2011 and 2012. We found that the most common coastal uses in the study areas are non-consumptive activities — 99% of the coastal uses surveyed to date are non-consumptive recreational activities. Unfortunately, in both Malibu’s and Palos Verdes’ MPAs, some active consumptive activities are present in 2012, the majority of which is shore-based rod/reel fishing (80+ individuals). Although this is a small percentage of the overall ocean uses in these areas, these findings highlight the importance of education and outreach about the new MPAs to the shore-angling community.
Tracking human uses in these new MPAs is important as the data can be used with ecological surveys to help give a more complete picture of ecosystem health, as well as inform education and enforcement actions. Like the Channel Islands MPAs, I look forward to the marine life and ecosystems in our local coastal MPAs in Malibu and in Palos Verdes will also begin to thrive and to seed areas outside of the MPAs.
–Dana Roeber Murray
Heal the Bay Marine & Coastal Scientist
Want to help survey new Marine Protected Areas? Join MPA Watch.
Contact Dana Murray for more information.
As summer fades away – along with the tourists that season brings – just in time to welcome back the local community, Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium is exhibiting a new local species – a juvenile wolf-eel, Anarrhichthys ocellatus. At nearly three-feet long, the wolf-eel is neither wolf nor eel, but a member of the wolffish family (named for their large front teeth) and will grow to be about seven feet long. The eel-shaped, grayish colored wolf-eel is patterned with gorgeous dark spots and can be found peering out of a rocky outcropping in the Aquarium’s Kelp Forest Exhibit.
The Aquarium typically closes for maintenance for most of September, but this year the facility will remain open throughout the month for regular hours: from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. Tuesday through Friday – with the exception of Tuesday, Sept. 11th, when the Aquarium will be closed for Coastal Cleanup Education Day. Weekends, the Aquarium is open from 12:30 to 5:00 p.m. Meet the wolf-eel and visit the more than 100 additional species on exhibit.
Long Beach / AvalonMalibu / Pacific PalisadesMarina del Rey / Playa del ReyPalos Verdes PeninsulaSanta MonicaSouth BayVenice Beach
I don’t get a ton of opportunity to get out from behind my desk to romp in the creeks and watersheds that we protect. But this Friday afternoon was going to be the exception, as I was joining our Education Department for a kayaking tour of the Los Angeles River.
The night before I cringed at all the work I had to finish to be able leave the office for four hours, but I knew it would be worth it. And it was! What an excellent way to see the L.A. River up close. And this time I was not armed with gloves and a trash bag but rather a kayak and a paddle.
We weren’t even in the kayaks yet and our Education staff was spouting off information on this bird or that plant — I’m a hobby gardener so I could add a few names here and there as we meandered down the wide calm river for an hour-and-a-half tour. Birds and dragonflies were everywhere. We saw Black-Necked Stilts, Snowy Egrets, a Great Blue Heron and Great Egret fishing in a rocky outcropping – it caught two fish while we snapped pictures.
The river was not at all what one thinks of when they conjure up images of the L.A. River. Most think of the Hollywood version of a high speed car chase down a solid concrete storm drain. The banks were filled with Sycamores and Willow trees that touched the water’s edge. The air smelled like sage – the same scent you get while hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains. The temperature was hot, but the water was cool to the touch. We quickly unwound from work mode and started joking and laughing and enjoying the exercise. What a great way to end a busy week – or better yet, start the weekend.
The tours sold out very quickly, so be sure to put this on your list for next summer. There’s an exciting possibility that the tours will expand to the Glendale Narrows, the soft-bottomed stretch of the river that runs from the Los Angeles Equestrian Center to the 5 Freeway overpass.
Thanks to LA Conservation Corps for taking us out on this day. And big thanks and congratulations to the Friends of the L.A. River, who recently succeeded in getting Governor Jerry Brown to sign the Los Angeles River Expanded Public Access Bill, which will allow more residents can experience this little known treasure. The new law takes effect January 2013 and will broaden the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works’ 100-year-old mission of flood control and stormwater management to include, for the first time, education and recreation.
—Alix Hobbs
Associate Director, Heal the Bay
View photos from Heal the Bay’s L.A. River expedition.
Join our fight for clean water in Los Angeles.
Our amazing partner, Summer Fridays, has generously committed to matching all Giving Tuesday donations made to Heal the Bay (on or before December 3, 2024) up to $10,000! Double your advocacy for the environment!