State Street will become a sea of blue, when Heal the Ocean’s flags fly from August 14-28, 2009! The happy dolphins on the HTO flag are one of the State Street Flag Program’s most popular images. They represent the joyful feelings of Heal the Ocean, too, in that the organization is celebrating its 11thanniversary on August 19 with a fund-raising dinner at Piatti, Montecito.
HTO is also commemorating the beginning (in July 2009) of construction for the South Coast Beach Communities septic-to-sewer project, which will remove septic systems from Rincon, Sandyland, Sand Point and Padaro Lane - seven miles of beaches on the south coast. The organization is also celebrating the recent release of the CEQA document necessary for the upgrade of the Goleta Sanitary District to full secondary treatment, a case HTO won with the help of its 3,000 supporters.
Heal the Ocean is now organizing a working group of scientists and engineers that will address the issue of full reclamation of wastewater.
Hillary Hauser and Santa Barbara attorney Jeffrey Young co-founded Heal the Ocean on August 19, 1998 after Hauser’s editorial in the Santa Barbara News-Press sparked a public protest over closed beaches in Santa Barbara. The organization has since affected ocean policy not only in Santa Barbara but the state of California - and even across the nation.
Heal the Ocean’s annual Benefit Concert, to be held this year on September 26, 2009 at the Biltmore’s Coral Casino La Pacifica Room will feature the U.S. west coast premiere of The Black Seeds, a rock/reggae group from New Zealand, and Culver City Dub Collective will also be performing. For more information, and to join, visit HTO’s website www.healtheocean.org.
