Thank you, EVERYBODY, for your amazing support and cheer during our Heal the Ocean Benefit at the El Paseo Saturday night! It felt like the biggest love-fest EVER, beginning with our wonderful Honorary Event Chair & Honorary Board Member Julia Louis-Dreyfus entering the room with her fabulous husband Brad Hall to spread cheer, and then after Julia greeted the crowd from the stage, the festivities began in earnest. . .

The ocean is calling…and the Mermaids have answered! Marcie’s Mermaids will be swimming 19 miles along the shore of East Beach this Sunday, September 22, 2019 beginning at 9:00AM!

All are welcome to cheer on the Mermaids for the swim in memory of fellow swimmer and ocean-lover Marcie Kjoller to benefit Heal the Ocean. There will be a memorial moment at the water's edge at 9:00AM and the swim will start shortly after. The Mermaids will each swim the distance of 3.2 miles, to add up to 19 miles. . .

In the last 24 hours the ladies of Marcie's Mermaids have had to make the difficult decision to cancel their Santa Barbara Channel swim originally scheduled for Friday, September 20, 2019, due to unfortunate marine weather forecasts in the Santa Barbara Channel - high wind and swell. Needless to say, the safety of the crew and swimmers is everyone's number one concern. . .

Heal the Ocean would like to remind the community that Styrofoam CANNOT go in the blue recycling collection bins at your home or business. To recycle Styrofoam, you MUST physically drop it off at an approved MarBorg drop-off location (20 David Love Place in Goleta or 132 Nopalitos Way in Downtown SB).

PLEASE DO NOT PUT STYROFOAM IN YOUR BLUE RECYCLING COLLECTION BIN, IT WILL NEGATIVELY IMPACT ALL RECYCLING.

Heal the Ocean is proud to announce the following program developed with MarBorg Industries - a powerful attack on an exceptionally destructive source of ocean pollution! You no longer have to throw Styrofoam material into the waste stream, you can recycle it. You'll also be slowing down the waste stream going into Tajiguas landfill.

PLEASE READ THIS ANNOUNCEMENT TO LEARN ABOUT MARBORG’S DROP-OFF LOCATIONS FOR FREE STYROFOAM RECYCLING. . .

Three-Year HTO/RWQCB Project Examines Septic System Pollution in Santa Ynez Valley

Los Olivos deadline for Fixing Problem is extended to April 2020

Onsite Wastewater Treatment Systems (typically referred to as septic systems or OWTS) located in the Santa Ynez River Valley, Santa Barbara County, have been linked to elevated nitrate levels in drinking water wells.

The highest risk to groundwater was found to be in Janin Acres, located adjacent to the Santa Ynez River with a relatively high density of OWTS and shallow groundwater. . .

Advisory Board member/underwater filmmaker Harry Rabin (center) has been hired by InterAct, the project management and engineering firm working with SLC on the Summerland oil problem – for drone photography work with the InterAct team (Mike Giuliani (Left) and Eric Kroh (right) to identify the next well or wells to be capped in the Summerland leaking oil mess. . .

After nearly two years of establishing a working relationship with Union Pacific Railroad, Heal the Ocean organized, with the Railroad, the cleanup on Friday, April 26, 2019, of an abandoned homeless encampment on the seaside cliffs in Summerland.

Our intrepid Advisory Board member/ former Santa Barbara County Fire Chief Eric Peterson, who maintains communication with fire officials about any hazards posed by homeless encampments, happened upon the Friday clean-up scene just as the work train-truck arrived with massive equipment. . .

Heal the Ocean Executive Director Hillary Hauser was featured onSolutions News Radio on Friday, March 29, 2019, in a lively discussion withWorld Business Academy (WBA) Founder/Director Rinaldo Brutoco and Kristina Jansen, Chief of Staff/Producer of Solution News Radio.

On the Friday session, Hillary and Rinaldo discussed the positive and negative consequences of converting decommissioned oil platform foundations as "rigs to reefs" in the ocean off the Santa Barbara coast.

Click here to listen to the interview now. . .

Heal the Ocean spent much time working with environmental health directors from around the state in Sacramento meetings to craft language for AB 885 septic regulations, written into law by then-assemblymember (now state Senator) Hannah-Beth Jackson in the year 2000. It was difficultbusiness, because Malibu is different from Mojave, and San Diego is not the Russian River, and so on. But with the consulting help of former Santa Barbara County Environmental Health Director Rick Merrifield (who is now on HTO’s Advisory Board), we and Heal the Bay, Santa Monica were able to make input into language that was acceptable to all, and the regulations went into effect in June 2012. . .