In May, HTO hosted record-breaking volunteer beach cleanups with more than 110 volunteers removing 400+ pounds of trash from our coastline. HTO and our partners at Earthcomb removed an additional 3,080 pounds of trash and hazardous waste near Atascadero Creek in Goleta.
HTO and TowBoatUS partnered in a rapid response effort to protect the Summerland shoreline from a beached vessel, and HTO advocated for policies that will increase the resilience of Santa Barbara's waterfront and benefit local biodiversity.
This month’s e-letter highlights these inspiring cleanup efforts, a celebration of the Carpinteria Advanced Purification Project, important policy updates, an upcoming event, a volunteer spotlight, and the incredible support helping drive our Jack Johnson Matching Campaign nearly to our goal. Thank you for being part of the movement to protect the health and vitality of our coast!
Heal the Ocean is excited to share that this April, we partnered with Marborg Industries to expand a regional EPS (also known as Styrofoam) recycling program—now brought fully local to Santa Barbara. We also partnered with Earthcomb to remove over 1,600 lbs of trash and hazardous waste from More Mesa, including 30+ aerosol cans and 20 propane canisters—materials that can pose serious risks to coastal ecosystems.
13 million tonnes of plastic make their way into the ocean every year. While adopting sustainable practices does make a difference, society still has a long way to go before plastic-free alternatives become mainstream and accessible to everyone.
We ask our supporters to take action against plastic pollution today by demanding our politicians to support the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act of 2021. . .
From July 21-25, a little over 2 weeks from now, Summerland’s Lookout Park and the beach below the park will be the staging area for heavy oil construction equipment to be used in capping Olsson 805, a beach well located on the west end of Summerland Beach. The California State Lands Commission posted a Public Notice about the temporary closure of Lookout Park and heavy equipment that will be used on the beach below. . .
Everyone is in a party mood – we’ve been liberated from the Pandemic, we can go outside, we can be with our friends. How suitable that a first real celebration after being let out of quarantine is INDEPENDENCE DAY.
We wish everyone to have a great time with friends and family, but please be mindful of your Mother Earth. Plastic bags were ubiquitous during the pandemic, but they continue on unnecessarily. . .
The Santa Barbara Maritime Museum’s Zoom event: Detecting and Capping Leaking Oil Wells in Summerland took place on Thursday, June 17, and was a huge success with many virtual attendees! If you weren't able to catch the event, you can now watch our recording of the webinar here. . .
Join us tomorrow, Thursday, June 17, 2021, at 7 p.m. as we come together to tell the story of this victory for the environment at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum’s Zoom event: Detecting and Capping Leaking Oil Wells in Summerland. This Zoom presentation will be led by producer, director, and documentary filmmaker Harry Rabin, the CEO, and founder of On the Wave Productions who worked alongside engineers and divers in the Summerland oil well field. The event will feature panelists who were involved in this environmental success.
Today, Tuesday, June 8, 2021, is World Oceans Day, and this year's theme is The Ocean: Life & Livelihoods. Designated in 2008 by the United Nations, World Oceans Day is a day to celebrate and renew our commitment to protect and honor the ocean we all love and rely on for life.
On this World Oceans Day, we celebrate all those who are working hard to help the ocean, and we also salute all who help the organizations doing the work. Thank you!
A trawler that had been anchored off the Santa Barbara shoreline at Montecito, cut loose during the high winds of the week of May 17, 2021, and began drifting down the coast toward Carpinteria. People called and could get no one to help. Technically, there is a jurisdictional line in the ocean between City and County at the end of East Beach, and this wreckage cut loose on the County side, so no harbor patrol boat could go out after it as it drifted. . .
Thanks to EVERYBODY who responded to our call for help this morning! Volunteers arrived. So did the great workers from MarBorg Industries. All the debris from that big trawler-type vessel that hit the beach at the Padaro-Sandyland area were gathered in little stacks and hauled away in MarBorg trucks. Most of it has been hauled away already, before the big operation starts, to get the boat off the beach. . .
A big trawler-type vessel has hit the beach at the Padaro-Sandyland area. Heal the Ocean and MarBorg Industries have been working on getting it, plus debris/wreckage, out of there – with the final attack on the main hull happening at an upcoming low tide.
WE NEED HELPERS IMMEDIATELY – the boat is currently breaking up in the surf and there is Styrofoam everywhere. MarBorg workers are on-site now gathering up debris from the wreckage, which is now spreading widely down the beach – we need YOU to go to the beach immediately and help the workers by picking up debris and making little piles of debris as close to the parking lot as possible on the beach for the workers to pick up. . .
Calling all divers and ocean lovers, grab your gear and head down to the Santa Barbara Harbor at 8 AM on Sunday, May 16, 2021, to help with Operation Clean Sweep -- the annual volunteer seafloor cleanup in the SB Harbor!
Every year, people lose phones, chairs, barbeques, fishing poles, and even the occasional refrigerator in the harbor. All this material collects on the bottom. To date, Operation Clean Sweep has removed over 20 tons of debris from the seafloor. For the last two years, the event couldn’t take place because of weather issues and COVID-19, so the ocean can use more help than ever at this year’s Clean Sweep. . .
“What is the West End Master Plan?” asks a Santa Barbara City employee. “Where do I find the Questa Study?” says another. “What is the Questa Study?” asks another.
Does anyone know where I can find the Goleta Potable Reuse Study? The Braemar conceptual sewer plan? Santa Ynez Community Plan?
In recent years, Heal the Ocean has been approached numerous times for help in finding these pieces of information. As many city, county, and state officials have retired, taking their institutional knowledge with them, we have recognized how critical it is to preserve their work and knowledge for future use. As a result, Heal the Ocean has created a new website with a digital research library of these and other documents – important works that need to be preserved and accessed by all. . .
Join Heal the Ocean today, Thursday, April 22, 2021, at 3 PM as we celebrate Earth Day 2021 with a virtual "Environmental Awareness" Downtown Business Spotlight interview hosted by Downtown Santa Barbara and the Santa Barbara Independent! HTO Executive Director Hillary Hauser will join CEC's Sigrid Wright and Deborah Schwartz of Santa Barbara Beautiful in a Zoom panel for a lively discussion and to answer your questions. . .
This Earth Day, Thursday, April 22, 2021, at 3pm, join Heal the Ocean for a virtual Downtown Business Spotlight interview hosted by Downtown Santa Barbara and the Santa Barbara Independent!
The show’s theme, “Environmental Awareness,” will feature Hillary Hauser from Heal the Ocean; Sigrid Wright from the Community Environmental Council; and Deborah Schwartz from Santa Barbara Beautiful. Join us as we dive into questions about what Heal the Ocean does and how you can help local environmental groups do their work.
For more information and to join the conversation via Zoom on Thursday, April 22 at 3pm, please click here.
On Saturday, March 20, 2021, a large banner flew over Lompoc Federal Correctional Complex Saturday morning as a show of support for inmates who have had to endure the COVID-19 pandemic behind bars.
The long banner read "FCC Prisoners You Are Not Forgotten."
Heal the Ocean provided the airplane. Originally, organizers planned to release balloons designed to fly in the sky over the prison in a show of support for inmates who have suffered multiple COVID-19 outbreaks at the prison since March 2020. During those outbreaks, more than 1,000 inmates and staff members at the prison were infected. Four inmates have passed away. . .
Heal the Ocean has received the exciting news that the State Lands Commission (SLC) will cap two more wells on Summerland Beach later this year, during the last half of 2021!
Olsson #805 and Duquesne #910 were identified in the original CEQA document that was a part of the process for the recent capping of Treadwell and NorthStar. Since the engineering was also completed for these wells, SLC elected to finish all the wells prepared in the documents already completed. . .
An abandoned homeless camp surrounded by trash, bicycle parts, car batteries, flooded tents, and other offal became an eyesore on the “Graveyards” beach in Montecito, at the base of the cliff below the Santa Barbara Cemetery. Heal the Ocean got a call about it from a concerned citizen, on Thursday, January 7, 2020. It took all day Friday to figure out how we could legally do anything about it – one cannot remove a homeless camp in use. . .
On Friday afternoon, November 27, 2020, while many of us were still cleaning up our kitchens from Thanksgiving dinners the night before, the Curtin Barge, under contract to the State Lands Commission to cap the leaking Summerland oil wells, was towed from its protective mooring nearer the Santa Barbara Harbor, back down the coast to Summerland where it anchored to begin the process of capping the second, and final, well – NorthStar. Marie Morrisroe caught this sight from her Montecito balcony as they motored by.
