Heal the Bay Blog

Category: News

CCD on KTLA Morning News with Gayle Anderson

09.12.2012 | Heal the Bay

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)

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Blue Demon, Jr. Takes on Trash at Lake Balboa

09.06.2012 | Heal the Bay

News

Who is that masked hombre?

Mexican luchador and pro-wrestler Blue Demon, Jr. will make an appearance at the Lake Balboa Park site in Van Nuys on Coastal Cleanup Day, Saturday, September 15 at 9 a.m.

If you don’t live in the Valley, there are still plenty of chances to enjoy the outdoors and help beautify your community on Coastal Cleanup Day, as Heal the Bay will organize nearly 60 coastal and inland cleanup sites, spanning close to 100 square miles. An online map of all cleanup sites with registration information can be found at healthebay.org/ccd2012.

No special training or equipment (including wrestling masks) are required. However, Heal the Bay encourages volunteers to go Zero Waste and bring their own buckets, reusable bags and gloves to pick up trash.

Sign up now!

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Beach Water Clear in Ore. and Wash.

08.30.2012 | Heal the Bay

About Us Beach Report Card News

Just in time to head to the shore for the Labor Day weekend, Heal the Bay’s end-of-summer 2012 Beach Report Card for Oregon and Washington shows mostly A’s and B’s, with just a few spots that need improving. This is the third year that Heal the Bay has released summertime bacterial pollution data for beaches in the Pacific Northwest.

The report analyzed water quality data collected between Memorial Day and Labor Day at 240 monitoring locations in Oregon and Washington, issuing an A-to-F grade assigned to each beach based on levels of bacterial pollution. The lower the grade, the greater the risk of an ocean user contracting an illness from contact with the water.

In Washington, swimmers are warned to avoid Holmes Harbor’s (Freeland County Park in Island County), Larrabee State Park (Whatcom County) and Mukilteo Lighthouse Park (Snohomish County). State agencies investigating high bacteria counts have identified problems with thick beach wrack, animal waste and polluted stormwater discharge, respectively, at these beach monitoring locations.

Meanwhile, Oregon beaches were quite clean this summer, with all 11 regularly monitored beaches in Clatsop and Tillamook counties receiving A grades for the third straight year.

Ocean lovers all along the Pacific Coast can check their local beach’s water quality themselves via Heal the Bay’s free Beach Report Card app for iPhone and Android users, which provides searchable A through F grades, weather conditions and users tips for more than 650 beaches in California, Oregon and Washington. Stay tuned for the end-of-summer Beach Report Card for California in the coming weeks.

Unfortunately, proposed cuts by the EPA threaten future beach water quality testing by zeroing out BEACH Act grant funding throughout the United States. Take action to find out more and send a letter directly to the EPA to restore such funding.

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What Are Those Black Clumps on the Beach?

08.20.2012 | Heal the Bay

News

“I was walking along Dockweiler Beach from Marina del Rey towards El Segundo, and I couldn’t help but notice black sticky roundish clumps all along the beach in the sand where the water breaks along the shore. Are these oil deposits? I stepped on a few and they stuck to my feet and I was wondering what they were? Thanks for your help.”

As we often receive variants of this question, our Science & Policy team prepared an answer:

“Natural oil seeps are present in the Santa Monica Bay off the coast of Redondo Beach and Manhattan Beach. They are a natural geological occurrence and are not caused by any human activity. On average, about 10 barrels (420 gallons) of oil from the seeps reach the sea surface daily in Santa Monica Bay. Surface oil generally drifts northward, towards the shore, reaching the beaches from Redondo Beach to Malibu in a few days. Tar on Santa Monica Bay beaches also comes from natural seeps in the Santa Barbara Channel. Geologic activity, like earthquakes, can affect the flow of natural oil seeps.”

As for removing beach tar from the bottoms of your feet, many of us beachgoers—especially those of us who’ve spent time on Santa Barbara’s beaches, where tar is even more prevalent—recommend using either baby or olive oil.

Got more questions? Ask them on our Facebook page.

Want to connect more with Heal the Bay? Join us!

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And the Emmy Goes to…

08.15.2012 | Heal the Bay

Long Beach / Avalon Malibu / Pacific Palisades Marina del Rey / Playa del Rey News Palos Verdes Peninsula Santa Monica South Bay Venice Beach

We are proud to announce that KTLA5 won a 2012 Emmy for its one-hour special about Heal the Bay’s Coastal Cleanup Day program. The Emmy was the third that KTLA has won for its CCD-focused programming.

We are grateful to KTLA for showcasing our work so effectively. This Emmy win is testament to KTLA’s long support of our mission to keep Southern California’s coast and waters healthy, safe and clean.

In case you missed the show, KTLA will rebroadcast it on Saturday, September 8 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, September 9 at 4 p.m., just in time for Coastal Cleanup Day on Saturday, September 15.

You can join this year’s Coastal Cleanup Day, the biggest volunteer day on the planet: Find a cleanup site near you and sign up now.

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Sewage Spill in Orange County

08.13.2012 | Heal the Bay

Beach Report Card News

As of August 11, the harbor water area at the Huntington Harbour Boat Launch in Orange County at Warner and PCH to the boat docks at Bluewater Lane is closed to swimming and diving due to a sewage spill.

Baby Beach in Dana Point and Poche Beach in San Clemente were also on alert for high bacteria levels.

County environmental health officials also advise beachgoers to avoid contact with any beach area adjacent to storm drains, creeks and rivers, where bacteria may be high.

Ocean and bay waters are closed when an immediate health hazard is identified, such as a sewage spill.

More information here.

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Win Tix to 'Frozen Planet' Premiere at Hollywood Bowl

06.28.2012 | Heal the Bay

News

Want to celebrate International Joke Day? Submit your funniest ocean-themed joke for a chance to win a pair of tickets for the July 6 world premiere of Frozen Planet in concert at the Hollywood Bowl. In order to win, you must Like us on Facebook and submit an aquatic/ocean-related joke.

Entries must be submitted in the form of a comment to the post on our Facebook wall by Monday, July 2 at noon PST. We will choose the best joke and announce the winners at 5 p.m. PST on Monday. The winner will receive two tickets to the Frozen Planet in concert performance at the Hollywood Bowl July 6 at 8 p.m.

About Frozen Planet in Concert

Los Angeles Philharmonic

George Fenton, conductor

This stunning new production is the ultimate portrait of the Polar Regions. Led by the award-winning composer, the event combines live orchestral music with breathtaking HD footage from the landmark series Frozen Planet, co-produced by the BBC and the Discovery Channel.

Special Offer for Heal the Bay’s Facebook fans

20% discount to July 6 event at the Hollywood Bowl. Discount available for bench seats in sections M & N. Tickets may be purchased online, by phone at 323-850-2000, or in-person at the Box Office (2301 N. Highland Avenue) by using the code word PLANET, available now.

For tickets and information, visit HollywoodBowl.com

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San Onofre to Power Down?

06.25.2012 | Heal the Bay

News South Bay

The Los Angeles Times reports that “California energy officials are beginning to plan for the possibility of a long-range future without the San Onofre nuclear power plant.”

The story continues:

“The plant’s unexpected, nearly five-month outage has had officials scrambling to replace its power this summer and has become a wild card in already complicated discussions about the state’s energy future.

That long-range planning process already involves dealing with the possible repercussions of climate change, a mandate to boost the state’s use of renewable sources to 33% of the energy supply by 2020 and another mandate to phase out a process known as once-through cooling, which uses ocean water to cool coastal power plants, that will probably take some other plants out of service.”

Heal the Bay has long worked to end once-through cooling, a process in which fresh ocean water is sucked into the power plant, cycled through to cool the systems, and flushed out, destroying thousands of animals a day.

Help our efforts to protect marine animals from threats such as once-through cooling, desalination and habitat degradation.

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It Takes a Village to Clean the L.A. River

06.18.2012 | Heal the Bay

Marina del Rey / Playa del Rey News

Even though the L.A. River has received significant media attention since the EPA designated it a “traditional navigable water” in July 2010, a lot of work still needs to be done to educate the public about the river and its many access points.

There are 1 million people living within a one-mile footprint of the Los Angeles River, and there are 9-10 million people living in the L.A. River watershed, according to Friends of the LA River staffer Karin Flores, writing in a KCET Departures blog post.

Flores continues: “Three thousand volunteers is a great start, but we need more. …here’s what you can do to help the revitalization plans: explore the river, and share it with those who have never experienced it. Show friends and family the many pocket parks, historic bridges, murals, and decorative gates. Pedal the bike paths, birdwatch in the estuary, and ride a horse on the equestrian river trails.”

Explore the river yourself. Join Heal the Bay and the Pacific American Volunteer Association on June 23 for a river cleanup to kick off Take L.A. by Storm this summer.

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Calif approves new marine protected areas off north coast, finishing statewide network

06.07.2012 | Heal the Bay

Long Beach / Avalon Malibu / Pacific Palisades Marina del Rey / Playa del Rey Marine Protected Areas News Palos Verdes Peninsula Santa Monica South Bay Venice Beach

California created another group of ocean protection zones on Wednesday, putting the finishing touches on a vast network of protected areas that dot the sea from Mexico to the Oregon border.

The Fish & Game Commission voted unanimously to approve the new zones off the state’s far north coast from Point Arena in Mendocino County to the Oregon border, where fishing is restricted or banned outright in areas.

“We are poised to return California’s marine resources to the sustainable abundance we all once enjoyed,” said Richard Rogers, a commission member from Santa Barbara, choking up as he cast his vote after more than seven years of work on the project.

The vote was an outgrowth of the 1999 Marine Life Protection Act, which called for a system of marine protected areas along the coast based on scientific study and years of public input.

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