Long Beach / AvalonMalibu / Pacific PalisadesMarina del Rey / Playa del ReyPalos Verdes PeninsulaSanta MonicaSouth BayVenice Beach
The Water Replenishment District (WRD) will offer a series of free classes for water smart gardening.
Topics include drought-tolerant plants, irrigation basics, horticultural practices, and garden design concepts. Classes will be held monthly from Feb. 18 – June 9 at WRD Headquarters in Lakewood.
For a complete schedule and to sign up, call 562.275.4215 or visit www.ecogardener.org.
Beach Report CardLong Beach / AvalonMalibu / Pacific PalisadesMarina del Rey / Playa del ReyPalos Verdes PeninsulaSanta MonicaSouth BayVenice Beach
Even if you live miles from the ocean, there are some simple steps you can take in your home to protect your favorite beach (as well as your local neighborhood, park or river).
Over the coming weeks, we will be sharing short, educational and fun videos with tips on 10 ways you can heal the Bay — so keep an eye on this page (or subscribe to our YouTube channel)!
Our first video comes from Melissa Aguayo, Heal the Bay’s Speakers Bureau Manager.
1. Keep your Litter out of the Gutter
Keep trash, yard trimmings, and other litter off the street and out of the storm drains so they don’t end up in the ocean. Clean up after your dog, cat, or horse to keep the waste out of the storm drain and away from your favorite beach. Report full catch basins to the Dept. of Public Works: L.A. City: (800) 974- 9794 L.A. County: (800) 303- 0003. For non-L.A. County residents find your local city numbers.
2. Bag the Plastic Bags
Instead of accepting plastic bags from the grocery store, bring your own reusable bag. Single-use plastic bags create loads of unnecessary litter; they are easily blown by the wind, and they often end up in the ocean. Plastic takes hundreds of years to degrade, and creates hazards for marine life and other wildlife.
3. Hold on to Your Balloons
Released helium balloons eventually pop and fall back to land, ending up in the ocean where animals mistake them for food. Always pop balloons and put them in the trash.
4. Beware of Six-Pack Rings
Avoid buying them, and any other loop of plastic, or cut them up before you throw them out. Marine animals choke on garbage and get tangled in trash. Unlike people, birds and fish don’t have hands to remove items caught around their necks.
5. Don’t Be a Drip
Overwatering is wasteful and moves trash and toxins to the ocean. Turn off the faucet when you don’t need it. Fix leaky pipes and install low-flow shower heads and toilets. Help the sewage treatment plants do a better job by conserving water.
6. Go Non-Toxic
If you must use harsh chemical products, when you are through bring them to authorized household hazardous waste drop-off centers. For locations near you, call (800) CLEAN-UP. Instead, avoid buying products like liquid drain openers. Use pesticides as little as possible and look for non- toxic alternatives. Use compost instead of chemical fertilizers. Best of all, using simple recipes and ingredients, you can make your own environmentally-friendly cleaners.
7. Make a Clean Sweep
Use a broom, not a hose, to clean sidewalks and driveways. Watering the driveway won’t make it grow! Sweep trash into a dustpan, not the gutter, and use the garden clippings as mulch to fertilize your yard.
8. Recycle Used Motor Oil
You can recycle your used motor oil at gas stations, auto parts stores, and garages. Never pour it down the drain, in the gutter, or on the ground. Motor oil is extremely toxic.
9. Go to a Car Wash
Most car washes recycle their water. But if you clean your car at home, always wash it on your lawn to recapture lost water, use a bucket to conserve water and consider a ‘waterless’ car wash like Lucky Earth or Ecover.
10. Become a part of Heal the Bay
Help us continue to protect the Santa Monica Bay and all of California’s coastal waters; become an environmental advocate, volunteer or join as a member.
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Today’s guest blogger is Melissa Aguayo, Heal the Bay’s Speakers Bureau Manager
The New Year is just around the corner, and we all know what that means… New Year’s resolutions.
Some people like to focus on their health while others focus on helping others or even saving money. If only there was an easy way to do all three… oh wait, there is!
Kicking your bottled water habit and switching to tap and a reusable bottle will save you money. Plus, it’s better for the environment and your health! Confused? Keep reading.
Save Money
Bottled water is expensive; it costs anywhere from 240 to 10,000 times more per gallon than tap water. The average tap water in California costs about $1.60 per thousand gallons while the average bottled water costs about $0.90 per gallon-that means you are paying over 560 times more for a product that falls from the sky! In fact, if you look at the price per gallon, you will pay more for single-use bottles than for gasoline. In 2009 Americans spent $10.6 billion on bottled water and almost half of that bottled water came from public tap water supplies. Beverage companies do a great job of marketing bottled water as purer and safer; however this is not necessarily true.
Protect Your Health
Our tap water is safe and highly regulated by the federal government. On the other hand, the Food and Drug Administration has much less stringent rules and only regulates the 30-40% of bottled water sold across state lines. Even then, testing is intermittent and once the water is bottled and stored, it does not have to be tested at all. The Natural Resources Defense Council completed a four-year study where they tested 1,000 bottles of 103 bottled water brands. Among many shocking discoveries, they found several companies buying water from a spring in Massachusetts which was located near a hazardous waste site. The water was contaminated with carcinogenic chemicals. Many plastic bottles also contain phthalates and BPA (Bisphenol A) which are both carcinogenic chemicals and can leach into the water.
Help the Environment
Many bottled water companies take water from local public sources, which harm the environment by depleting groundwater sources which the local community relies on. Once this water is removed it has to be packaged, in plastic. The U.S. alone uses about 17.6 million barrels of oil to produce plastic bottles. That would be enough oil to fuel more than one million vehicles each year. These bottles then have to be transported over hundreds of miles which consumes energy and releases pollutants. At the end of all this we are left with billions of empty bottles of which only 16% are recycled. The other 84% will end up in landfills or littering our streets where they can make their way to our rivers, lakes or oceans through the storm drain system.
So there you have it, three incredibly important reasons to make switching to tap and reusable water bottles this New Year’s resolution. It’s a small change that will go a long way.
Now go return that ugly sweater Aunt Liz gave you and exchange it for a reusable water bottle.
About UsLong Beach / AvalonMalibu / Pacific PalisadesMarina del Rey / Playa del ReyPalos Verdes PeninsulaSanta MonicaSouth BayVenice Beach
The Los Angeles City Council’s energy and environment committee today approved an action asking for a Chief Administrative Officer-Chief Legislative Analyst report on a single-use bag ban within 30 days. Also, the Bureau of Sanitation must implement a public outreach program over the next 60 days.
Immediately after the committee meeting, the city council met to celebrate outgoing president Eric Garcetti’s long-term leadership. After Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue and the rest of the festivities, the council heard the bag-ban item.
About UsLong Beach / AvalonMalibu / Pacific PalisadesMarina del Rey / Playa del ReyPalos Verdes PeninsulaSanta MonicaSouth BayVenice Beach
If you’ve strolled down a Southern California pier, you’ve probably seen the warning sign: “No Coma White Croaker” (Don’t Eat White Croaker”). The reason for the warning? The effects of widespread DDT and PCB contamination in our local waters from the 1940s-1980s that’s worked its way up the food chain.
The kinds of health problems that have been linked to DDT and PCBs include effects on the nervous, immune, endocrine, and reproductive systems, infant development, and cancer.
To spread the alert of this danger, members of our Pier Angler Outreach Program have educated nearly 100,000 anglers over the past eight years on the health risks of eating certain fish they’ve caught on their lines, most notably, white croaker, black croaker, barred sand bass, topsmelt and barracuda.
In addition, members of our team, employing languages from Spanish to Tagolog to English, suggest cooking methods if the anglers choose to eat any of their contaminated catch.
Our EPA-award winning efforts span eight different piers: Santa Monica, Venice, Hermosa, Redondo, Pier J, Rainbow Harbor, Belmont and Seal Beach.
Find out more en espanol.
Download a guide to eating fish caught in the bay.
Long Beach / AvalonMalibu / Pacific PalisadesMarina del Rey / Playa del ReyPalos Verdes PeninsulaSanta MonicaSouth BayVenice Beach
A five-year grant is headed to scientists researching harmful algal bloom “hot spots”—aka “Red Tide”— in southern and central California.
In addition to investigating methods that could provide early warning detection of toxic blooms, the $4million project will boost the capabilities of California management agencies to safeguard living resources, public health and economies.
The study was funded through a national competition of the Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms (ECOHAB), a program run by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s National Ocean Service/National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science.
According to a statement from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), research will be carried out at the University of California Santa Cruz, the University of Southern California, Moss Landing Marine Laboratory, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, University of California Los Angeles, and NOAA’s Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research.
Some species of red tides produce a toxin that when eaten can lead to potentially fatal human illness. The toxins can also cause illness and death in marine mammals and birds. To find out more about the hazards of algal blooms, visit the NOAA National Ocean Service Harmful Algal Blooms website: http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/hab/
Read Aquarium Director Vicki Wawerchak’s The Truth About Red Tides.
About UsLong Beach / AvalonMalibu / Pacific PalisadesMarina del Rey / Playa del ReyPalos Verdes PeninsulaSanta MonicaSouth BayVenice Beach
Make a difference for our coast and ocean!
Ever wonder what you can do to help take care of the beaches and ocean you love? Did you know there are tons of simple things you can do at home, at work, and at school that can have a huge, positive impact? The California Coastal Commission has created the Coastal Stewardship Pledge, with everyday tips you can use to help our environment. Show you care by taking the pledge today. There is a special pledge for classrooms and youth groups and a Spanish language pledge as well.
Some simple things you can start doing right now:
You can read the stories of people like you who care for our coast.
Join the thousands of other Californians who have already become Coastal Stewards! Thank you for making a difference for our coast and ocean.
Organizations: Please consider becoming Coastal Stewardship Partners by linking to the pledge from your website or distributing shorter printed versions of the pledge to your participants. For details, please email coast4u@coastal.ca.gov.
Visit the California Coastal Commission’s Public Education Program at www.coastforyou.org.
Long Beach / AvalonMalibu / Pacific PalisadesMarina del Rey / Playa del ReyMore Ways to GivePalos Verdes PeninsulaSanta MonicaSouth BayVenice Beach
‘Tis the season to consider a meaningful gift for an ocean-loving family member, friend or co-worker. Dedicate a contribution to Heal the Bay on behalf of a couple or an individual and help us educate the next generation of environmental stewards, train volunteers for community action and advocate on behalf of our rivers, beaches and ocean.
Gifts are fully tax-deductible, with 84 cents of every dollar you donate going directly to restore our coastal waters and watershed and protect the beaches we love.
From Aquadoptions to funding our beach cleanups, discover all of the different ways you can give.
Long Beach / AvalonMalibu / Pacific PalisadesMarina del Rey / Playa del ReyPalos Verdes PeninsulaSanta MonicaSouth Bay
Ever wonder how the fish we eat gets from the ocean to our dinner plate? This complex process is thoroughly explained in a five-part series intended for students in grades 6-12. Featured in The Seattle Times Newspapers in Education, the series provides a classroom guide (with a glossary and activities), as well as background information on the science behind maintaining a healthy fish population.
Downloadable here: http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/Education/Activities/Seafood_intro.html
Find more seafood facts at fishwatch.gov.
Long Beach / AvalonMalibu / Pacific PalisadesMarina del Rey / Playa del ReyPalos Verdes PeninsulaSanta MonicaSouth BayVenice Beach
In the Citizens United case last year, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that corporations have the same rights as citizens. The ruling already has changed the face of electoral politics in America, with unlimited campaign contributions by corporations for communications now apparently a First Amendment right. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney famously stated in Iowa last August that corporations are persons. And the Occupy movement has continually spoken out about the disproportionate influence of Big Business in the United States.
In response to the corporate personhood issue, and the lack of progress statewide and nationally on a wide variety of environmental issues, the Santa Monica Task Force on the Environment worked with Global Exchange, Earthlaw and the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund to develop a draft Sustainability Bill of Rights. The draft includes elements of the Rights of Nature ordinances that have passed in Pittsburgh and numerous towns concerned about the impacts of industry on local water supplies.
The draft also includes elements of Santa Monica’s renowned Sustainable City Plan, which was first approved by city council 17 years ago. And finally, the draft includes fundamental environmental rights that every person should have. These are a modified version of the environmental bill of rights I recommended back in 2008 in this blog.