Hi, Everybody!
A big thank you to Heal the Ocean’s good friends John Maienza and Gregg Wilson, the famous Globally Gorgeous architect/interior designer guys who are doing huge things by just communicating what they feel about Mother Earth and being green and being cool. John and Gregg hosted a phenomenal party for Heal the Ocean on May 20, 2010 at their fabulous East Mountain Drive property in Santa Barbara, where we celebrated with wind, rain (waterfall) and fire (outside fireplace), while Harold Welch of World Cuisine Express up fabulous things for us. It was a sneak preview of HTO’s upcoming Annual Event on October 9, 2010 at the Coral Casino, which is being given a high-tech design by the Maienza/Wilson team. Thank you to our 2010 Benefit Founding sponsors, who bought or pledged nearly $100,000 for half the tables!
Julia Louis-Dreyfus is again our wonderful honorary chair (boy do we love her!) and the all new October 2010 event will be emceed by HTO advisory board member (and world great underwater showman/filmmaker Mike deGruy, who is known for his fabulous storytelling) check out his award-winning talk on the prestigious TED series, “Hooked by an Octopus”. And I personally can’t wait until we’re all dancing to my personal favorite dance band, The FOG (Favorite Olden Goldies). Please dial in to our website donation page, to join in the 2010 fun!
We appreciate all the support we’re getting for our current campaign for wastewater reclamation on the Santa Barbara south coast. In this regard HTO is working on putting together a Working Forum of wastewater treatment plant managers and water district managers, to learn what is needed, both in infrastructure and funding, for wastewater recycling and reuse - as a way to keep wastewater out of the ocean. Our goal is to find funding for projects that will accomplish such transformation, and to move Heal the Ocean into a position where we can lobby for such funds, we are doing a number of things:
One of which is getting HTO onto the steering committee for the Santa Barbara County Integrated Regional Water Management Program (IRWMP), which is working to present projects to the State for funding under Proposition 84. HTO is the only non-profit on the steering committee, working with agencies from every city around the county - public works directors, sanitary districts, water districts, etc., - to approve projects for submittal to Sacramento.
For the first round of Proposition 84 funding ($5 million for the region), the list approved in May by the steering committee includes: 1) A Secondary Water Efficiency System for the City of Santa Maria; 2) a monetary contribution to the Goleta Sanitary District wastewater treatment plant upgrade (this upgrade a result of HTO legal settlement with GSD in 2004!); 3) San Jose Creek Capacity Improvement & Fish Passage, City of Goleta; 4) Lompoc Valley Regional leak Detection Program (which saves water); 5) Santa Ynez River Tamarisk & Arundo project, to remove noxious weeds from the Santa Ynez River; 6) a Waterline & Recycled Waterline project for the Goleta Water District; 7) a CCWA Pipeline Erosion Damage and Repair project; and 8) a Recycled Water Feasibility Study for the City of Guadalupe.
During the fall the IRWMP group will begin scrutinizing another list of projects for the second round of Proposition 84 funding, and HTO will be working to get projects on the list that focus on turning wastewater into reusable - very clean - recycled water. When we say “very clean,” we mean recycled water without chemicals or contaminants, such as pharmaceuticals, anti-bacterials, flame retardants, etc. These chemicals now go straight through standard wastewater treatment to the ocean, and it’s happening every day. The State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) is finally holding hearings to deal with this issue, and Heal the Ocean is right there, working on the problem and contributing our arguments (see The Comment / PDF) on behalf of all of us who love the ocean.
Thank you for helping,
