Long Beach / AvalonMalibu / Pacific PalisadesMarina del Rey / Playa del ReyNewsPalos Verdes PeninsulaSanta MonicaSouth BayVenice Beach
El Día de Limpieza Costera de California se tomara acabo el sábado 17 de Septiembre en más de 65 sitios sobre todo el condado de Los Angeles. Habrá un sitio donde limpiar cerca de ti. Así que no agás decidía y comprométete hoy a llevar la familia entera. Da un poco de servicio a la comunidad y aprende cómo y porque el medioambiente nos afecta a todos.
Regístrate para que puedas ser parte de este gran evento.
What could possibly beat a wild capybara emerging from the murky waters of a California sewage pond? Rodents of unusual size have a wide following. (Exhibit A: the classic Rob Reiner film “The Princess Bride.”) And capybaras are prized as a Peruvian delicacy (Exhibit A: My food critic brother Jonathan Gold). But I’m pretty sure that the rodent in question didn’t escape from anyone’s vermin ranch.
Also, what the heck was the capybara doing in the wastewater pond to begin with? I know the animals love water, but Amazonia is a long way from Paso Robles. And the Amazon’s pristine waterways seem a lot more appealing than poorly treated Central Coast sewage.
The settling pond photos look like something from before the dawn of sewage treatment technology. And they are! The plant was built in the 1950s and has not been modified since then to provide nitrogen removal. The 3 million-gallon-a-day plant definitely needs a major overhaul and Paso Robles is considering joining the 21st century on wastewater treatment (an estimated $50M for adding filtration and denitrification).
Meanwhile, be on the lookout for rodents of unusual size in Paso Robles.
After a decade of disagreement about the impacts of sewage treatment plant discharges to the Santa Clara River estuary, the city of Ventura and environmental groups Ventura Coastkeeper, the Wishtoyo Foundation and Heal the Bay today jointly announced a settlement agreement to protect the estuary while increasing local water recycling.
The Santa Clara River estuary is the terminus of one of Southern California’s largest and most productive river systems. The area is also home to the endangered southern steelhead trout and tidewater goby. The agreement will end the last direct sewage discharge to an estuary in California.
The settlement will result in at least a 50% reduction (approximately 4-5 million gallons a day) and up to a 100% reduction (8-10 million gallons per day) in treated sewage discharges to the estuary. This tertiary-treated effluent (filtered and disinfected) will be recycled locally for irrigation and other non-potable uses. The water that doesn’t get recycled will be discharged to a treatment wetland that will further cleanse the treated wastewater. Then, the water will flow through the wetland before being discharged to the estuary.
Burbank and Huntington Beach city councils voted this week to move forward with plastic bag bans, part of a growing movement of local governments taking responsibility for ending the environmental and economic waste caused by plastic pollution. The moves comein the wake of Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, Calabasas and Los Angeles County passing similar ordinances over the past two years.
The Burbank City Council agreed to advance a plastic bag ban that will likely start with large grocery stores, while Huntington Beach’s council voted for city staff to develop a new law that would ban stores from using plastic bags and instead replace them with reusable bags.
Members of the Huntington Beach city staff were also directed to coordinate with other organizations to create an educational program to bring about a change of attitude about plastic bags.
Kreigh Hampel, recycling coordinator for the city of Burbank, told the Burbank Leader: “When you talk about plastic bags, about 500 to 600 bags are used per person, per year, according to Los Angeles County,” Hampel said. “If there are 110,000 people in Burbank, and they use 550 bags, that’s 60.5 million bags.”
In July, California’s Supreme Court upheld a city’s right to restrict the usage of plastic bags.
An adult female sea lion was found dead on Venice Beach on August 3. She had been shot three times.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Law Enforcement is investigating the shooting, as killing a marine mammal is a violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which can result in a $100,000 fine and a year in prison.
It can be difficult to track down the perpetrators because the crime typically occurs far out at sea where there are few witnesses. Animals attacked may travel miles from the scene of the crime before washing up on shore.
Marine Animal Rescue is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whomever killed this sea lion. According to Marine Animal Rescue, some fishermen have been known to kill seals, sea lions and pelicans because they view them as a threat to their livelihoods. Some shoot the animals while others use “California seal control devices,” otherwise known as seal bombs.
Those with information about the shooting or any other violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act can contact the NOAA Office of Law Enforcement hotline 24 hours a day, seven days a week at (800) 853-1964.
In addition, sea lions are threatened by domoic acid, a powerful neurotoxin produced by a specific group of microscopic algae that sometimes blooms in coastal waters. Marine mammals such as sea lions eating fish laden with toxin can ingest sufficient domoic acid in the stomachs of their prey to experience symptoms of domoic acid poisoning. These symptoms can include a variety of neurological disorders including disorientation and seizures, and in severe cases, death.
The Marine Mammal Center in Northern California provides a seven-step guide to what to do if you find a stranded marine mammal.
Pulitzer Prize winning culinary writer Jonathan Gold eloquently advocates for AB376, which would ban California sales of shark fins, in the Opinion section of the Sunday, August 7th Los Angeles Times . “There is no sustainable source of shark’s fin,” wrote Gold, noting that “nearly a third of shark species are approaching the point of extinction.”
Read Jonathon’s Op-Ed
- Shark fin soup: The taste of extinction (LA Times)
Help Save Our Sharks
- Take Action on AB 376Use our Action Alert to call your Senator and send them an e-mail urging their YES vote on AB 376.
- Attend the Rally to Save Our Sharks on 8/13
Please join Heal the Bay and other leading environmental groups on Saturday, August 13, 10am, at the Manhattan Beach Pier to tell our State Senators to stop the sale of shark fins and vote YES on AB 376! Shark costumes are encouraged!
Gold, dubbed “L.A.’s most adventurous eater” by The New Yorker, is the older brother of Heal the Bay President Mark Gold. For the past 25 years he’s specialized in writing about ethnic cuisine, spending significant time in restaurants that serve Cantonese food, including shark’s fin.
In his op-ed, Jonathan notes that Chinese culinary culture has proven to be resilient over the centuries, able “to withstand the absence of sea-turtle skirt and bear paw, whose preparation obsessed the earliest Chinese gourmets. There is no third way with shark’s fin – we either stop eating it because we choose to preserve the species, or we stop eating it because soon there will be none left to eat.”
Read Jonathan’s entire op-ed (new window).
Illustration by Wes Bausmith / Los Angeles Times
Long Beach / AvalonMalibu / Pacific PalisadesMarina del Rey / Playa del ReyNewsPalos Verdes PeninsulaSanta MonicaSouth BayVenice Beach
A small town in Provence declared smoking off limits on a stretch of its beachfront, proclaiming itself the first non-smoking beach not only in France, but Europe.
According to the Associated Press, the smoking ban came into effect earlier this summer in La Ciotat, and compliance among the public at the packed beach has been strong. “We don’t stop smokers from going elsewhere, but this one we want to reserve for nonsmokers, for mothers and children so they can make sand castles and not cigarette butt castles,” Deputy Mayor for the Environment Noel Collura told the AP.
Cigarette butts remain the No. 1 item picked up by volunteers at Heal the Bay beach cleanups, despite the fact that Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Long Beach and Malibu have banned smoking on the beach. A typical cigarette butt can take anywhere from 18 months to 10 years to decompose, depending on conditions. Cigarette butts contain the chemicals filtered from cigarettes that leach into waterways and water supplies.
Read the story at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44002823/ns/travel-destination_travel/
Photo courtesy Jacques Brinon / AP
Long Beach / AvalonMalibu / Pacific PalisadesMarina del Rey / Playa del ReyNewsPalos Verdes PeninsulaSanta MonicaSouth BayVenice Beach
Buy one of California’s newly-designed Whale Tail® specialty license plates and support Heal the Bay’s cleanup and education programs. Plus, be among the first 1,000 ocean lovers to get the new Ecoplate and pay $25 instead of $50, or get $25 off a personalized plate. Each of the first 1,000 to purchase one of these license plates will also receive two tickets to visit one of several California destination attractions.
But the best reward is: Each purchase of these new plates benefits Heal the Bay and supports our award-winning beach cleanup and education programs. We use these funds to support the 600+ cleanups we conduct each year along the L.A. County Coastline and to educate our volunteers on how to protect the ocean environment from pollution.
The Twilight Dance Series partners with Heal the Bay on Thursday, August 4, 7-10 p.m., with Nelson Marquez & the Moderators and Tutu Sweeney & the Brothers Band set to perform a free concert at Santa Monica Pier.
Show your appreciation and “Protect What You Love!” by texting GIVE2HEAL to 20222 which will donate $5 to help keep our beaches safe, clean and healthy.
Does the scene in this photo count as algal impairment under the Clean Water Act? I’m just curious if the folks in Florida that are attempting to blow up the Clean Water Act over proposed nutrient standards would agree that this is impairment. After all, the kids appear to be enjoying themselves, and after all, isn’t that what recreational water contact is all about? Heal the Bay gets in a lot of fights on the definition of algal impairment with regulators and the regulated community. When you see pictures like the ones from Qingdao in China, it makes you realize that the regulated community isn’t even willing to come part way on the issue. If there is a Karenia bloom in Florida that poses a respiratory health risk to beach goers, is that an impairment? If Malibu Creek has an antifreeze algae bloom that covers the entire creek for a quarter mile, is that impairment? The regulated community may argue that 10% algal cover for 30% of the time isn’t impairment (a definition previously used by some at EPA). But how can they look at pictures like those in China, Florida and Malibu Creek and not offer nutrient reduction recommendations?
Harmful algal blooms are a growing problem that are choking our nation’s rivers and coastal waters with devastating impacts to aquatic ecosystems. Yet, the EPA and most states are still arguing over the right thing to do and completing an endless series of studies. They should be requiring aggressive reductions in nutrient discharge loadings (nitrogen and phosphorus) and concentrations, and they should have done it years ago.