http://www.healtheocean.org/library/hillary en info+healtheocean@oniracom.com (Heal The Ocean) Copyright 2010 2010-03-02T19:30:19+00:00 http://www.healtheocean.org/library/hillary/clean_water_act_undermined http://www.healtheocean.org/library/hillary/clean_water_act_undermined Dear Ocean Lover: Yesterday’s New York Times contains a chilling story about the U.S. Supreme Court declaring ambiguous the language of the Clean Water Act in terms of “navigable waters,” leaving thousands of polluters outside the law. “Companies that have spilled oil, carcinogens and dangerous bacteria into lakes, rivers and other waters are not being prosecuted according to the Environmental Protection Agency regulators working on those cases, who estimate that more than 1,500 major pollution investigations have been discontinued or shelved in the last four years,” says this news story, written by Charles Duhigg and Janet Roberts as part of the New York Times “Toxic Waters” series. At issue is the language in CWA that limits its regulatory power “to the discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters of the United States.” The Supreme Court is now maintaining that waters entirely contained within one state, creeks that sometimes go dry, and lakes unconnected to larger water systems may not be “navigable waters” and therefore are not covered by the Clean Water Act - even though pollution from such waterways can make its way into sources of drinking water. Please read this article! And then locate your representative www.house.com - and write him or her your demand that the Supreme Court honor the intent of the Clean Water Act and direct the rewriting of this language to state, “...to the discharge of pollutants into the waters of the United States.” ALL our waters are important - for the health of our planet, and for our own health. Please stay tuned to this website, too, for Heal the Ocean’s imminent publishing of our California Ocean Wastewater Discharge Report and Inventory. This important report, the very first of its kind, is at the graphic designer now, and will be posted very soon. Thank you for helping, Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:30:19 -0800 http://www.healtheocean.org/library/hillary/hi http://www.healtheocean.org/library/hillary/hi Dear Ocean Lover, Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and we cannot help but think of our dear friends who have shown their love of the ocean all through the last year and then some!   In February – just in time for Valentine’s Day! – Heal the Ocean will be launching our report, Ocean Wastewater Discharge in the State of California Report and Inventory, now being reviewed by scientists and political experts. The publication of the Inventory, announced at Heal the Ocean’s 2009 event, is several months behind schedule as it goes through review, because the finalization of the report involves the design of Heal the Ocean’s 2010 campaign for the reclamation of wastewater now being discharged into the Pacific Ocean from the Oregon border to San Diego/Tijuana. The Inventory has also been expanded to include the subject of the chemicals that are bypassing standard wastewater treatment and escaping into the ocean and the environment. Our Inventory contains a discussion of those chemicals as well as treatment needed for each, and how our policymakers must upgrade “state standards” for wastewater and biosolids. Our upcoming newsletter will explain how we, the public, can help immediately to counteract this chemical bypass problem by making informed choices about the personal care products we use, as well as other items that contain the harmful chemicals that now go down the drain and out to sea. In 2010 Heal the Ocean will also continue to tackle storm water and landfill pollution of the ocean. We do this work with an important goal in mind: to find a reasonable way, as soon as possible, to stop the pollution of the ocean we all love. We so appreciate, and need, your help. Thank you! Thank you for helping, Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:42:17 -0800 http://www.healtheocean.org/library/hillary/hi_from_hillary2 http://www.healtheocean.org/library/hillary/hi_from_hillary2 On Friday, January 8, 2010, Heal the Ocean filed with the State of California its report on the results of a two-year oceanographic and microbiological study of the Montecito Sanitary District (MSD) outfall. “Monitoring the Microbiology of the Montecito Outflow Wastewater Plume,” is a report on an intensive project that tracked the travel of wastewater once it is discharged into the ocean off Butterfly Beach in Montecito. The study was funded by a $330,000 Proposition 50 grant from the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) - one of the first research grants of its type ever awarded! The UCSB scientists contracted by HTO for the project were oceanographers Libe Washburn and Carter Ohlmann, as well as microbiologist Dr. Trish Holden and her laboratory team. From November 2007 through November 2009, the scientists visited every week, by boat, the end of the MSD outfall, where they deployed GPS drifters to computer-map where the sewage plume travels. Ocean-water samples were then taken from the spots where the drifters drifted, and the samples were sent to Dr. Holden’s lab at UCSB to for DNA and bacteria analysis.  HTO also raised additional funds to send ocean-water samples to the USC laboratory of Dr. Jed Fuhrman for virus testing, as well as PhyloChip analysis in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in Berkeley, California. The PhyloChip can scan for thousands of disease-causing microbes in a water sample and can determine definitively if human bacterial pathogens are in the wastewater plume. The outfall study report filed today contains an executive summary that outlines findings. The full suite of water collection and drift results can be viewed at http://www.icess.ucsb.edu/drifter/MSD/index.php.  Among the data compiled by the UCSB oceanographers are correlations of discharge rate and temperature, drifter tracks in 10-minute increments; water depth at each drifter position; the time rate of change of water depth; total velocity; east and north velocity components; and along-shore and across-shore velocity components. According to HTO executive director Hillary Hauser, the wastewater “plume” study is the first of its type to be conducted in California. “The study will help us understand what wastewater is or isn’t doing to the ocean,” she said. She also explained that because the UCSB scientists lost about six months of analysis work due to a temporary State funding freeze, HTO has raised additional funds (thanks to the Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation) for the scientists to work six more months on “mining the data” - most notably the results of the PhyloChip testing - to produce a final, revised report by June 2010. The report filed today (Friday) fulfills HTO’s contract with the State of California under the terms of the Proposition 50 grant. “We thank the state of California for entrusting us with this most important research project!” said Hillary. “We are convinced that the advanced oceanographic technology and state-of-the-art water quality analytic technique being used for this study is an important step toward the ultimate goal of sound wastewater management in the state of California.” Thank you for helping, Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:14:27 -0800 http://www.healtheocean.org/library/hillary/hi_from_hillary1 http://www.healtheocean.org/library/hillary/hi_from_hillary1 Heal the Ocean wishes everyone a most peaceful holiday season and a very good New Year! We thank you, our wonderful supporters, for your fantastic help in 2009. We look forward to reporting back to you in January 2010 with the launching of our Ocean Wastewater Discharge Inventory for the State of California, now being reviewed by distinguished scientists and political experts. The Inventory directs Heal the Ocean’s 2010 campaign for the reclamation of wastewater now being discharged into the Pacific Ocean from the Oregon border to San Diego/Tijuana. Early in 2010 you will also be able to read the final report on HTO’s two-year oceanographic/microbiological study of the Montecito Sanitary District wastewater outfall, entitled, Monitoring the Microbiology of the Montecito Outflow Wastewater Plume. Paid for by a $330,000 state Proposition 50 grant and with supporting research funded by private, anonymous foundations, this study is being submitted to the state of California at the end of December, with a final revise supported by the Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation. In the new year Heal the Ocean will also continue to tackle stormwater and landfill pollution of the ocean, doing this work with an important goal in mind: to find a reasonable way, as soon as possible, to stop the willful pollution of the ocean we all love. Thank you for helping, Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:55:07 -0800 http://www.healtheocean.org/library/hillary/thank_you_all http://www.healtheocean.org/library/hillary/thank_you_all Please stay tuned to our site, we will be posting lots of pictures – of the scene and setting, fishes and people, the music and dancing. It was a fabulous evening! Thank you Jacob Tell and the Oniric Record Crew! Thank you Matthew McAvene for your Big & Fabulous Fish Show! Thank you, Ty Warner Hotels & Resorts for the fabulous setting. Thank you, all you wonderful sponsors who made this evening possible. Please stay tuned. Thank you all!  Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:46:18 -0700 http://www.healtheocean.org/library/hillary/heal_the_oceans_5th_annual_benefit_concert_on_september_26_2009_is_sold_out http://www.healtheocean.org/library/hillary/heal_the_oceans_5th_annual_benefit_concert_on_september_26_2009_is_sold_out Heal the Ocean’s 5th Annual Benefit Concert on September 26, 2009 is sold out! Thank you, everyone! We are thrilled to have this reassurance of public support, for we take it to mean that many people approve of the way we are working to restore the sea to health. By now the public knows that HTO works with scientists, hires scientists and researchers, and that we import and double-check scientific research to launch serious campaigns to meet our goals. We will be announcing some important news during our Annual Benefit. This will be about our next big push for a clean ocean, based on a research project we have been working on for over five years. This campaign will address the 1.35 billion gallons of treated effluent being discharged DAILY by wastewater treatment plants into the Pacific Ocean off California. This campaign will also address the approximate 134 tons of treated solid matter that goes into the Pacific Ocean off California every day (49,000 tons every year!) This next drive will be every bit as exciting as HTO’s recent victory to remove septic systems from seven miles of coastline, including Rincon. HTO has assembled a formidable scientific team in the office for this battle. In the HTO office, Maria Gordon, a program manager at UCSB’s Bren School, is putting the final touches on HTO’s long-awaited update of our Wastewater Discharge Report (WDR) for the State of California. Katherine Engel, who graduated in June 2009 with an environmental studies degree at UCSB, is back on HTO staff to coordinate the significant information in the WDR report with a new non-profit law foundation, the California Environmental Rights Foundation, San Diego. UCSB environmental studies majors William Harryman and Tony Langenback have put long hours in the office as interns to coordinate all the information of California coastal wastewater plants together with internet maps that show the exact location of all ocean outfalls in the state. Adding to this core work, HTO has also consulted with hydrologists, environmental health officials, sanitary district engineers and water district engineers to discuss the ways and means to get full reclamation and safe reuse of wastewater. This includes subjects that must be addressed in wastewater reclamation, such as pharmaceuticals and other compounds. We realize we’re facing a big job, but Heal the Ocean welcomes the challenge involved in this work! From the moment we formed eleven years ago, we have been talking about the folly of using the ocean for the discharge of wastewater. The ocean belongs to the fishes and all the creatures that live in it. The ocean belongs to all of us who surf, swim and play in it. The ocean is not our private dumping ground. Thank you for helping us! Thank you for buying tickets to our September 26 event! For those who would like to be on our waiting list, please e-mail Lindsay@healtheocean.org. We will do everything we can to have you join us. Thank you for helping,  Executive Director, Heal the Ocean Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:12:33 -0700 http://www.healtheocean.org/library/hillary/welcome_to_heal_the_oceans_new_website http://www.healtheocean.org/library/hillary/welcome_to_heal_the_oceans_new_website We’ve been working hard with Jacob Tell and Oniracom for many months to bring Heal the Ocean’s website to a place where we can best tell you the news of our progress in combating ocean pollution, and also to involve you, our readers, in this work. Heal the Ocean has, like many organizations, reassessed our goals in the midst of a challenging economy - and we have made a hard and fast decision to batten down the hatches and focus on the One Big Goal we care about the most: that the ocean is no longer used to dilute human waste. By this we mean that we are now concentrating on the conversion of wastewater, now discharged into the ocean, to reclaimed water, that is usable for irrigation on land. Instead of sewer outfalls depositing our waste, even treated, into the ocean, is a reckless use of not only the ocean, but of a resource that is reusable. Further, we are investigating the cost and feasibility of total conversion of wastewater by reverse osmosis methods, to eliminate all presence of pharmaceuticals and/or bacteria. We are also investigating the use of reclaimed water in fire suppression: instead of putting out fires with drinking water, there are perhaps ways, which we are researching, to pipe reclaimed water to “purple hydrants” for use in fighting the horrendous fires that can occur in the Santa Barbara back country. To accomplish this change of focus Heal the Ocean has changed staffing in the office so that we can use our financial resources in a strictly budgeted way to get what we want. We welcome Lindsay Hernandez (as our new Office/Events Director and Christi Davis (Administrator) to help us zero in on the supreme goal of eliminating wastewater discharge into the ocean. To this end, here is where we are: In June 2009, Heal the Ocean joined a 10-member Santa Barbara county-wide steering committee to guide an Integrated Regional Water Management Plan (IRWMP) for the allocation of state Proposition 84 funds dedicated to water quality and water conservation. HTO is seeking funding to pay for planning grants, and construction, for the upgrade to tertiary treatment levels - reclaimed water - by both the Carpinteria Sanitary District and Summerland Sanitary District. By these upgrades, these two wastewater plants will be producing recycled water for productive use, rather than putting wastewater into the ocean. (Everyone on the steering committee recognizes state funding is in disarray at the moment, but because these funds are mandated by the public, when California’s budget problems are worked out - which they surely will be at some point - the projects that are of interest to Heal the Ocean and its membership will be represented). Heal the Ocean is the only non-profit environmental group on the IRWMP steering committee, joining the Cachuma Operations & Maintenance Board (COMB) & Cachuma Conservation Release Board (CCRB), the cities of Lompoc, Buellton, Santa Maria, Santa Barbara, the Goleta Water District, Montecito Water District, the Central Coast Water Authority and Casmalia Services District. Heal the Ocean’s Wastewater Discharge Report (WDR) for the state of California is nearing the finish line - July or August 2009 - when UCSB’s Marine Science Institute will have finished the internet maps to illustrate our five-year compilation of all wastewater discharged into the Pacific Ocean along the California coast, from the Oregon border to Tijuana/San Diego. This WDR report, which will include latitude and longitude, distance from shore and depth of water of wastewater discharges, as well as histories of exceedances (violations), will be used by a newly formed Southern California legal non-profit to promote the preservation of California resources, which includes implementation of the state’s newly formulated Recycled Water Policy. We are also keeping our eye on $2.1 million in Proposition 84 funds that have already been allocated to the South Coast Beach Communities Septic to Sewer Project (including Rincon), which will reimburse homeowners 25% of the cost of building the public sewer in these four communities. We have worked hard to get this grant for the project, which is now in the preliminary engineering phase and which will enable the removal of septic systems along 7 miles of coastline along the Santa Barbara south coast, from the Ventura County line to Padaro Lane, near Summerland. To all of you who have come forward with financial help, we are most grateful to you. Please come to Fifth Annual Benefit Concert at the Coral Casino on September 26, 2009, and celebrate with us the progress we have made and the work we will continue to do together. Thank you for helping, Executive Director, Heal the Ocean Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:16:24 -0700 http://www.healtheocean.org/library/hillary/hi_from_hillary http://www.healtheocean.org/library/hillary/hi_from_hillary During the past few months, we have reflected back on the beginnings of Heal the Ocean and realized just how naive we were. We had set out to discover the source of Santa Barbara’s ocean pollution during the first year and then we would clean it up the second year. We automatically assumed our regulatory agencies would welcome our help and that the public - which so ardently embraced the plans we announced - would jump at the chance to upgrade, improve, and change the way human waste is handled. We were confident that once we produced cost feasibility studies and scientific reports that indicated wastewater infrastructure or septic systems as a source of ocean pollution, everyone would jump at the chance to change. Very quickly we received our wakeup call! Regulatory agencies overseeing water quality issues in the state, county and city were not very receptive to our urgings to look at septic systems and wastewater handling. Why should they? State standards were being met. Then we discovered that almost everything with a price tag is met with opposition. Achieving our goals were clearly going to take more than two years and the sailing would not be smooth. Nevertheless, we forged ahead, chipping away at the resistance with cost feasibility studies for upgrading wastewater plants and with high-tech methods (DNA) to determine whether or not septic systems were leaching into lagoons, creeks, rivers, groundwater and oceans. We tested, sampled, rallied and spread the word. Today, nine years later, the regulation of septic systems is most definitely in the future for the state of California, and wastewater infrastructure is being upgraded almost everywhere. This, combined with the fact that Heal the Ocean now enjoys healthy and productive working relationships with our regulatory agencies, is enabling us to continue on our path towards a cleaner ocean. A few of our past year accomplishments are: The Regional Water Quality Control Board passed a resolution commending HTO, along with other project proponents, for their work on the South Coast Beach Communities (Rincon) septic-to-sewer project. The State Water Resources Control Board, which oversees all nine regional boards in the state of California and gives Clean Beaches Initiative grants, has given HTO a $333,000 to study the fate and transport of sewage once it is discharged into the ocean, in this particular case, off a beach in Montecito. Santa Barbara residents have proven that they are willing to pay to change their wastewater ways by signing up for the city of Santa Barbara’s Sewer Lateral Incentive Program (SLIP) to replace old, impaired laterals, and in February 2008, the city council voted to invest another $240,000 into the program. In October 2007 the homeowners within the South Coast Beach Communities project, which includes Rincon, Sand Point, Sandyland and Padaro Lane, voted YES to pay the price for abandoning their septic systems and hooking into public sewer. Again, these successes have not been without a price. Heal the Ocean has been subjected to many negative accusations and angry scrutiny this past year from those in opposition to what we fight for (specifically, the Rincon septic-to-sewer conversion). We have not allowed this to discourage us or lessen our efforts. Instead, we consider ourselves most fortunate for the continual outpour of community support, which exponentially outweighs our opposition. We cherish every kind word of encouragement that comes our way. It is especially moving to receive these signs of support and appreciation from children in the cards, letters, pictures and donations they send in. The young students of Cold Springs School brought in a big donation collected from ticket sales to their talent show, and three months later these same students followed up with a whopping donation from a penny drive! We have pictures of a lemonade and cupcake stand accompanied with a love letter and donation, and we have a fabulous picture of the great kids of FUND (Families United for Nurturing Development) holding a big bake sale wherein “copious amounts of homemade pumpkin pies, brownies and chocolate chip cookies sold out in record time.” The photos of these youthful enterprises, held on our behalf, hang on our office walls, side by side with the youthful artwork and thank you cards we get - including one by six-year old Kayla, who made a pen and pencil drawing of a seabird dipping beneath an ocean wave into a school of little fish. These young people are our future, and every day, when we look at these pictures, artwork, cards and letters, our hearts are filled with renewed purpose. We share with you in the pages of this newsletter their wonderful industry and love. And to all of you who have come forward with financial help, we are pleased to report to you that our Year End 2007 drive was the most successful in our history. The significance of this support is not only the tremendous gift of funds that enables us to continue with our goals, but it is your vote of confidence towards the work we promised you we would do and will continue to do for the children, and for you. Thank you for helping,  Executive Director, Heal the Ocean Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:53:20 -0700