Heal the Ocean’s 5th Annual Benefit Concert on September 26, 2009 is sold out!

Thank you, everyone! We are thrilled to have this reassurance of public support, for we take it to mean that many people approve of the way we are working to restore the sea to health. By now the public knows that HTO works with scientists, hires scientists and researchers, and that we import and double-check scientific research to launch serious campaigns to meet our goals.

We will be announcing some important news during our Annual Benefit. This will be about our next big push for a clean ocean, based on a research project we have been working on for over five years.

This campaign will address the 1.35 billion gallons of treated effluent being discharged DAILY by wastewater treatment plants into the Pacific Ocean off California. This campaign will also address the approximate 134 tons of treated solid matter that goes into the Pacific Ocean off California every day (49,000 tons every year!)

This next drive will be every bit as exciting as HTO’s recent victory to remove septic systems from seven miles of coastline, including Rincon.

HTO has assembled a formidable scientific team in the office for this battle. In the HTO office, Maria Gordon, a program manager at UCSB’s Bren School, is putting the final touches on HTO’s long-awaited update of our Wastewater Discharge Report (WDR) for the State of California. Katherine Engel, who graduated in June 2009 with an environmental studies degree at UCSB, is back on HTO staff to coordinate the significant information in the WDR report with a new non-profit law foundation, the California Environmental Rights Foundation, San Diego.

UCSB environmental studies majors William Harryman and Tony Langenback have put long hours in the office as interns to coordinate all the information of California coastal wastewater plants together with internet maps that show the exact location of all ocean outfalls in the state.

Adding to this core work, HTO has also consulted with hydrologists, environmental health officials, sanitary district engineers and water district engineers to discuss the ways and means to get full reclamation and safe reuse of wastewater. This includes subjects that must be addressed in wastewater reclamation, such as pharmaceuticals and other compounds.

We realize we’re facing a big job, but Heal the Ocean welcomes the challenge involved in this work! From the moment we formed eleven years ago, we have been talking about the folly of using the ocean for the discharge of wastewater. The ocean belongs to the fishes and all the creatures that live in it. The ocean belongs to all of us who surf, swim and play in it. The ocean is not our private dumping ground.

Thank you for helping us! Thank you for buying tickets to our September 26 event! For those who would like to be on our waiting list, please e-mail Lindsay@healtheocean.org.
We will do everything we can to have you join us.

Thank you for helping, 

Executive Director, Heal the Ocean