April 2025 E-letter
Andrew to the Rescue! HTO/Earthcomb Clean Up Abandoned Camp at Butterfly Beach
SOMS Geologist Ira Leifer Presenting HTO Summerland Oil Cleanup Data at Oil Spill Workshop
Global Students, Local Impact: 190 lbs Removed at East Beach
Join HTO at the 2025 Earth Day Festival!
Earthcomb Comes to the Rescue of Butterfly Beach
A phone call came to Heal the Ocean recently, from a beachgoer reporting abandoned homeless encampments near Butterfly Beach. A quick call to Andrew Velikanje of Earthcomb set things into motion:
On the following day, April 11, Andrew surveyed the site with Sgt. Corbett of the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Office to determine what could legally be removed. The next day, Andrew began clearing debris from the beach, including remnants of encampments near the East Beach volleyball courts. After that, he returned once more to remove a large, makeshift outhouse structure.
Working alone, Andrew single-handedly removed 355 lbs of debris, carrying it over ¾ of a mile to his truck before transporting it all to the dump. Heal the Ocean and Earthcomb first teamed up for an early cleanup of a camp near the Bacara Resort, and we've been working together ever since. Thank you, Andrew!
Note: If you spot trash, offal, or an abandoned encampment, please don’t hesitate to call the Heal the Ocean office at (805) 965-7570 and share the location with us. Thank you for helping keep our coastline clean!
HTO/SOMS Update: Leifer to present at Oil Spill Response Workshop
On Thursday, May 29, scientist Ira Leifer will present at the Eleventh Biennial Oil Spill Response Technology Workshop at the Marathon Refinery in Carson, CA. Speakers from around the world will present on new and innovative response technologies, improved conventional equipment, and emerging response concepts.
His presentation will focus on Heal the Ocean’s Summerland Oil Mitigation Study (SOMS), highlighting the technology used to track and sample offshore oil slicks, including: Remote sensing, Use of Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs), and GIS mapping technology.
With HTO support, Leifer is acquiring a geophysical survey permit from the California State Lands Commission, to add multi-beam sonar scanning to the project. This will allow for more exact mapping of the geology beneath the ocean floor off the Summerland coast. Heal the Ocean has hired Dr. Leifer to lead the study, to produce a more accurate map to follow when identifying wells for cleanup.
Global Students Give Back to the Community
Every April, HTO partners with Education First (EF) International School in Santa Barbara to educate students from around the world with the origins of Earth Day in Santa Barbara and environmental stewardship.
As part of our EF/HTO partnership, international students receive an Earth Day pep talk followed by a large-scale beach cleanup. This year, HTO’s Operations & Communications Manager, Jasmin Tupy, gave a presentation to the students—who come from all over the world to study English in Santa Barbara. Following the talk, the students headed to East Beach, where, in just 1.5 hours, they removed over 190 lbs of trash.
Heal the Ocean is proud to partner with the EF Santa Barbara Chapter, having first introduced our beach cleanup model to the school in 2015. Since then, the program has expanded to other EF schools along the U.S. West Coast—including San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Honolulu.
Join HTO at the 2025 Earth Day Festival!
Once again HTO will be participating at the annual Earth Day Festival staged by the Community Environmental Center (CEC) on Saturday and Sunday, April 26 and 27 at Alameda Park, Santa Barbara.
HTO will be tabling both days and we invite you to grab a bumper sticker, check out our T-shirts, and learn about HTO action and activities. Come by our booth and say hi!
Heal the Ocean is grateful to each and every one of our donors, and we thank all those working to make the world a better place.
From all of us at HTO to all of you, thank you. Please stay safe.
Hillary Hauser, Executive Director
HTO thanks the Poehler-Stremel Charitable Trust
for providing funds to publish our newsletters and e-letters!