We'd like to introduce you to our friends at Help Feed Your Soul, an initiative supporting and raising funds for Heal the Ocean.

In addition to working with us, Help Feed Your Soul has become an official supporter of the World Food Programme USA and The Music Preservation Project. As you may know, the World Food Programme USA is a nonprofit organization that builds support in the United States to end global hunger. WFP USA engages individuals and organizations, shapes public pollcy, and generates resources for the United Nations World Food Programme and other hunger relief operations. The Music Preservation Project is a social movement dedicated to preserving endangered music archives and creating a cultural resource for educators and students. The Music Preservation Project is a cooperation between the University of Southern California and a group of passionate music, education, and technology professionals.

Help Feed Your Soul is not limited to only supporting one area of work, which is part of it's greatness.

We thank Help Feed Your Soul and encourage you all to visit their website to learn more and donate to support them supporting us. As their slogan accurately states, a spoonful of goodness does indeed go a long way!

DOWNLOAD THE ELECTRONIC INVITATION!

Heal the Ocean events have always sold out! Therefore, this year we are solving this problem by staging a benefit that everyone can participate in.

We know our supporters are most interested in the work we do, so we are slashing our budget to carry on effectively with our work and pulling back on spending in every department - including putting on a Gala.

We invite you to take a night off and have a Gala Evening at home with your family and friends. Reach into your HTO Entertainment Bag for an oceanic puzzle, an adventure book, great music by Jack Johnson or watch a fantastic movie about the ocean!

And then help us by sending a real donation!
Thank you, Hillary Hauser, Executive Director

Table Sponsors:
Dream Table • Phantom Table Fantasy Table • Unreal Table • Mirage Table
All table sponsors receive the HTO Entertainment Bag and recognition in full-page ads in the Santa Barbara Independent and the Montecito Journal, to be run for Heal the Ocean’s upcoming anniversary.

Seat Sponsors:
Invisible Seats • Make Believe Seats
All seat sponsors receive books by Hillary Hauser and recognition in the full-page Santa Barbara Independent and Montecito Journal ads.

Read the letter!

Read the letter!

Heal the Ocean’s Junior Council continues their Doggie Bag Program by donating biodegradable doggie bags. Donate in the name of your dog today!

Jesse of Miramar Beach (HTO Junior Council “Poster Dog”) has bought 1,000 more doggie bags and wishes everyone a Happy New Year!

SCAPE - Southern California Artists Painting for the Environment invites you to the “First Thursday” Annual SCAPE Gala Reception, taking place Thursday, January 6th from 5:00 - 8:00pm at the Faulkner Gallery in Santa Barbara. Click on the flyer above to get a closer look at this fantastic event, which will help support Heal The Ocean!

Heal the Ocean Junior Council has launched their Doggie Bag Program.  Click here to donate

Maria and Stephen Black have bought 1,000 Doggie Bags in memory of their beloved Cappi.

After being on State Street for nearly 10 years, HTO has made a move to cut costs, and in a miraculous series of events, we captured the most wonderful office space (we think) in Santa Barbara – over the Riviera Theater! We moved on Friday, December 17. Next time you come to a matinee (Black Swan is now playing) – come up and see us! The best part of this move is that it has eliminated need for parking permits and this, together with our new rent, has cut this category of cost nearly in half! Big thanks to SendPepper, a fast-moving high tech company for subleasing us this fabulous office, and a huge thank you, too, to Christos Celmayster of Hayes Realty for making this all happen!

All mail: P.O. Box 90106, Santa Barbara, CA 93190.

The rest of our contact information stays the same:

phone (805) 965-7570
fax (805) 962-0651
e-mail: info@healtheocean.org.

Here is Executive Director Hillary Hauser receiving the Underwater Academy of Arts & Science NOGI award for Service - by Dr. Sylvia Earle in Las Vegas on November 18.

View some photos from the Heal the Ocean 2010 Benefit Event.

Watch A Slideshow Here

View Additional Photos Here

We have partnered with Cars 4 Causes®.  Cars 4 Causes® specializes in car donations and donating your car will help raise money for Heal the Ocean. Thanks for your support.

Heal the Ocean’s 6th Annual Benefit at the Coral Casino on Saturday night was a sold-out success, with over 440 people listening to Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and participating in our Auction and Raffle, and dancing to the great music of the FOG until 11 p.m.! We’ll be posting on these pages very soon more particulars of the evening, including great photos!
But in the meantime—back to work! This evening (Tuesday, October 12, 2010), Heal the Ocean will be travelling to Los Olivos to participate in a town hall meeting of residents considering whether or not to proceed with the Los Olivos Wastewater Management Plan, which proposes several options for the business area of town to get off of septic systems and either onto sewer, or to build a collection system that will recycle wastewater (among other options). The LOWWMP has a price tag of approximately $250,000, paid for out of the remaining funds brought into Santa Barbara County in 2000 by former assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson for the purpose of working on septic system problems in the county. The current draft of the plan can be viewed via the following links.

Los Olivos Wastewater Management Plan
Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board Policy Letters

Also, in our role on the steering committee of the Santa Barbara County Integrated Regional Water Management Plan (IRWMP), Heal the Ocean has been successful in lobbying for a Recycled Wastewater element in an Application for Proposition 84 Planning Grant Round 1 for Santa Barbara IRWM plan for 2012. We hope you will take a moment to read Appendix 2: Scope of Work: Santa Barbara County/South Coast Subregion, Recycled Water Development Plan! And please note that THREE of Heal the Ocean’s studies are on the suggested list for literature review – including our recently-released California Ocean Wastewater Discharge Report & Inventory, Heal the Ocean has been recognized by the county’s IRWMP consultants have having “foresight and vision” to assemble these reports – because as we move into the future, the recycling of wastewater will become a critical issue to the State as it combats the problem of increasing drought.

This Planning Grant application has been submitted to the State Department of Water, and we will hear by January 2011 on the granting of funds for this study. We are keeping our fingers crossed! And we are grateful to the sanitary districts and water districts on the Santa Barbara south coast, for their cooperation in helping us get the wastewater recycling element into the plan!

We will keep you posted!
Thank you so much for your support.

Heal the Ocean held it’s drawing on October 5, 2010 for five pairs of tickets for Jack Johnson’s concert October 14 at the Santa Barbara Bowl.
Here are the winners!
Dawn LaFitte
Foo Foo of Rincon
Mr. Mojo
Chloe of Montecito
& Bella
Congratulations to all our furry winners (and one human)!
Love, Heal the Ocean

Bella

Jesse of Miramar Beach, who donated in July for his doggie bags! Donate in the name of your dog today and email your photo!

In June 2010, HTO’s newly formed Junior Council took on the duty of stocking doggie bag dispensers on Santa Barbara south county beaches and parks, and these hard workers are raising money to pay for these biodegradable bags! They go quickly – about 2,500 bags per week. Jack Johnson, a great friend to HTO and environmental causes everywhere, is playing sold-out concerts at the Santa Barbara Bowl on October 14, 2010, and he is helping local organizations by doubling donations made to each group. We asked Jack if he would buy 1,000 doggie bags for every 1,000 paid for by HTO donors ($60) and he thought it was a great idea!  So, click here and select “Doggie Bags.” (You will see Jesse of Miramar Beach, who in July donated for the bags he uses!)

Donate $60 for 1,000 bags, and Jack Johnson will match it with another 1,000 bags, and you will be entered into a raffle for a pair of tickets to Jack’s Santa Barbara Bowl concert October 14 (5 pairs will be raffled, drawing to be held October 1, 2010). For more details, visit Jack Johnson Music and All At Once.

Hi, Everybody!

A lot is happening at Heal the Ocean!

First, on August 2, 2010 Santa Barbara County Planning & Development approved Conditional Use and Coastal Development permits to allow the construction of public sewer lines to connect Sandyland (photo here) and Sandyland Cove (Sand Point) homes to the Carpinteria Sanitary District (CSD). This moves the entire South Coast Beach Communities Septic to Sewer Project (including Rincon) a step closer to reality! This project, which has been championed by HTO since 1998, will effect the removal of septic systems from approximately 7 miles of south coast beaches. The permitting process for the Rincon portion of the project is soon to be underway with Santa Barbara County P&D and Cal Trans. Please stay tuned!

HTO is now collaborating with UCSB Bren School of Environmental Science and Management to host an all-day Working Forum of wastewater treatment plant managers and water district managers. The goal is 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 ultimate aim is to find funding for projects that will accomplish such transformation. To move HTO into a position where we can lobby for such funds, we put ourselves 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.

We are excited about moving forward on our ocean work, and we are also thrilled about the wonderful people and groups who are helping us fundraiser - for our programs, for funds to buy Doggie Bags for our HTO Junior Council program, and to help us pay for consultants, engineers and researchers. Please review the Featured Upcoming Events on this page, to sign up!

Heal the Ocean remains at the helm, working to identify and eliminate sources of pollution, on behalf of all of us who love the ocean.

Thank you for helping,

Heal the Ocean’s newly formed Junior Council has taken on the duty of stocking dog bag dispensers at many of South Santa Barbara County’s parks, open spaces and beaches!

When Heal the Ocean began receiving calls about the dog bag dispensers being empty because of Santa Barbara County’s lack of funds, the Junior Council stepped up to the plate and voted unanimously to take on the job - not only to stock the dispensers, but to hold fundraisers to raise the money to by the biodegradable dog-waste bags.

Keeping the beaches clean of dog waste is a clean-ocean project with a direct effect!

On Wednesday, June 19, 2010, a special press event at Butterfly Beach in Montecito was held during which the Junior Council was greeted and thanked by Santa Barbara County First District Supervisor Salud Carbajal and Second District Supervisor Janet Wolf, Board Chair, in an official announcement of the collaborative partnership. “To bring a group of teenagers together and have them so motivated, in so short a time, it’s truly an inspiration,” Ms. Wolf said.

Mr. Carbajal added, “These are difficult times for government in our country, and to have these kids take charge bodes well for our future,” said Mr. Carbajal. “I want to thank and celebrate you guys for stepping up and modeling the way.”

The Junior Council was created with the help of its steering committee, parents Kim Busch, Paula Stussy and Stacy Pulice, and also former HTO staffer Lindsay McTavish. The steering committee parents contributed the initial $2,600 to get the program started, but the Junior Council will begin raising funds for the bags, including a dance planned for September. The initial funds paid for 36,000 dog waste bags, made from a native cornstarch and entirely biodegradable, each one costing 6.3 cents.

In addition to Butterfly Beach, the other County parks, beaches and open space areas included in the new HTO-JC/County partnership are:

First District Locations:

• Lookout Park in Summerland
• Oceanview Park in Summerland
• Manning Park in Montecito
• Rocky Nook Park in Santa Barbara
• Loon Point in Summerland
• Posilipo Lane Beach Access in Montecito
• Toro Canyon Park in Montecito
• Butterfly Beach in Montecito
• Rincon park - upper parking lot

Second District Locations:

• Goleta Beach
• Tucker’s Grove Park in Goleta
• Tabano Hollow Open Space in Goleta
• Tarragona Open Space in Goleta
• University Circle Open Space in Goleta
• Patterson Open Space in Goleta

The County has given special thanks to the Junior Council, and the HTO Board of Directors also shouts a mighty Bravo to the Junior Council volunteers, including: Andy Busch, Max deGruy, Caleigh Hernandez, McKenna Hogue, Hannah Koper, Rose Koper, Ben Kwock, Monica Lodato, Austin Lokre, Remy Pulice, Cecily Sanchez, Elise Scheuermann, Penn Stussy, Charlie Taylor, Danielle Zola, and Jordan Zola!

At Butterfly Beach the HTO Junior Council is being thanked by 2nd District Supervisor Janet Wolf (far left) and 1st District Supervisor Salud Carbajal, far right (Hawaiian shirt).

The HTO Junior Council steering committee looking on at the Butterfly Beach ceremony, L to R: Kim Busch, Paula Stussy, and Stacy Pulice.

photos by Thomas Dabney

E-mail the Board of Supervisors

The new plan to protect Goleta Beach includes a plan to move the sewer and utility lines out of the “critical erosion zone,” and we ask you to support “Goleta Beach 2.0” so that this can happen. Please help by e-mailing the Board of Supervisors:  sbcob@co.santa-barbara.ca.us

INSTRUCTIONS - Cut and paste the following into an email (edit if desired):

Dear Honorable County Supervisors:

We support “Goleta Beach 2.0” as an innovative plan to protect and enhance Goleta Beach County Park.

The Parks Department’s new plan preserves and expands the beach by over an acre, but most importantly, the plan relocates the sewer and utility lines out of the “critical erosion zone.”

The County’s sewer line should be moved all the way back to Highway 217 to avoid future sewage spills on the beach. In this way, Goleta Beach 2.0 protects the Park and the environment. We urge you to support Goleta Beach Park and direct staff to pursue all options to move the sewer line further inland.

Sincerely,
(Your name and address)
_____________________________________________________________

In addition to sending an e-mail, please attend the pivotal hearing:

July 6th @ Santa Barbara County Board Supervisors Hearing Room, 105 E Anapamu St., 4th Floor (Time TBD - call 568-2240)

Contact Brian Trautwein at (805)963-1622 for more information.

HEAL THE OCEAN JOINS The EDC & Surfrider Foundation to thank you!

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,

FINALLY! After five long years, Heal the Ocean launches our California Ocean Wastewater Discharge Report and Inventory!

We started the research for this report when we had an entirely different staff, and were located in an entirely different office. We have announced so many times that we were “nearly ready to release” this report that some people have most certainly thought to themselves, “Oh, sure…”

Why did it take so long?

First of all, the information about wastewater treatment plant operations in the State of California does not exist in any one place. Wastewater treatment plant methods of reporting according to requirements of their National Pollution Discharge Elimination System Discharge (NPDES) permits are not standardized, each report submitted to EPA has different information than the next treatment plant. Regional water quality control boards failed to have information or reports.

Heal the Ocean researchers plugged along with this problem for years, and our California Ocean Wastewater Discharge Report and Inventory contains accurate information for each wastewater treatment plant that discharges into the Pacific Ocean, from the Oregon border to San Diego/Tijuana! HTO intends this report be a valuable resource for the public agencies charged with ocean water quality, as well as an educational tool for wastewater regulators and policy makers.

Another reason for our elongated research time was that the information kept changing - and growing, and growing. And in a quite horrific way. While our focus was (and is) on bacteria that make our beaches unhealthy for swimming, the looming problem of chemicals in the ocean moved into our target range - and every day the subject grew larger, before our eyes. All of us had been hearing about endocrine disruptors causing sea animals to change sex, the proliferation of tumors in fish and about antibiotics making their way into the sea and posing a very real threat to swimmers, who could possibly pick up antibiotic resistance if they swam into these drugs.

Then, the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) appointed a special panel to look at the problem of these proliferating chemicals that make their way into the ocean undeterred by currently accepted wastewater treatment methods. Called “Contaminants of Emerging Concern” (CECs), these chemicals are included in almost any personal care product you buy. They are in shampoo, toothpaste, body lotions, aftershaves, baby lotions, and particularly in anti-bacterial soap. They are in knives, cutting boards, shoes - you name it. The picture is horrifying - not only for what is happening to our environment from these chemicals - but what we have been, unwittingly, putting on and into our bodies all these years!

HTO research associate Katherine Engel and I attended the SWRCB) panel hearings on CECs, hosted by the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP) in Costa Mesa. Katherine researched deeper into the subject of Personal Care Products and prepared a list of the most suspect chemicals - what products they are included in and why, and what health dangers each one poses to humans (as well as the environment). Day by day, we were aghast at what we were learning as a result of Katherine’s research. Her companion piece to our Report and Inventory is called “Bad for the Ocean, Bad for You…” - be sure you read it!

Also, please read her essay, “Personal Care Products - A Researcher’s Journey,” about how she personally felt as she discovered how chemical companies have bamboozled society for so long. Be sure to read this one, too!

Along the way I decided to take advantage of Katherine’s research and brought into the office two products I’d been using - a really expensive shampoo with a “pure” name I’d bought from the last hair stylist I’d gone to, and a hand/body lotion I’d been using for years. I plunked these two things on Katherine’s desk and asked her to give me a diagnosis of both.

Here’s what was in the shampoo, which I’d been daily massaging into my scalp: PVP, Butylene glycol (similar to Propylene glycol (PG), PEG-55 Propylene Glycoloeate, Cyclopentasiloxane, PEG-12 dimethicone (dimethicone), Trienthanolamine (TEA); Retinyl palmitate; Me
Methylchloroisoiazolinone (I’m not making this up); DMDM Hydantoin; Methylparaben; Perfume/fragrance; Yellow 5 (CI 19140); Yellow 6 (CI 15985) “Sunset Yellow”; and Titanium dioxide (CI 77891).

The hand/body lotion? Dimethicone; Distearyldimonium chloride; Steareth-21; Propylene glycol; Polysorbate 60; Dipotassium EDTA; Perfume/Fragrance; Triethanolamine (TEA); Diazolidinyl urea; Methylparaben and Propylparaben.

WELL! When I got home I took all of my personal care products - including one jar of face cream that cost $124 (!) - and put all of it into a paper bag for…for…I don’t know what. It is not good to throw these things down the drain, and landfills aren’t great either for disposing failed chemistry experiments.) Then I went to a few stores that sold a wide array of shampoos, lotions, facial formulas. Their labels have lovely pronounceable words, like lavender, fennel, coconut oil, and jojoba.

Heal the Ocean will be taking our Report and Inventory on the road, so to speak. We will be talking to state water agencies, politicians, experts and regulators. And while we’re at it, we will be encouraging all of you, our dear members, to free yourselves from chemicals. Read your labels! By discontinuing the use of chemicals, you will find yourselves empowered by making a wise change in direction for you and your family’s health. You will also be exercising an immediate remedy to one big problem of ocean pollution - by enacting what is called “source control.” This is something you can do immediately! Today! We thank you for joining us in this campaign.

Thank you for helping,

Dear Ocean Lover:

Yesterday’s New York Times contains a chilling story about the U.S. Supreme Court declaring ambiguous the language of the Clean Water Act in terms of “navigable waters,” leaving thousands of polluters outside the law. “Companies that have spilled oil, carcinogens and dangerous bacteria into lakes, rivers and other waters are not being prosecuted according to the Environmental Protection Agency regulators working on those cases, who estimate that more than 1,500 major pollution investigations have been discontinued or shelved in the last four years,” says this news story, written by Charles Duhigg and Janet Roberts as part of the New York Times “Toxic Waters” series.

At issue is the language in CWA that limits its regulatory power “to the discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters of the United States.” The Supreme Court is now maintaining that waters entirely contained within one state, creeks that sometimes go dry, and lakes unconnected to larger water systems may not be “navigable waters” and therefore are not covered by the Clean Water Act - even though pollution from such waterways can make its way into sources of drinking water.

Please read this article!

And then locate your representative www.house.com - and write him or her your demand that the Supreme Court honor the intent of the Clean Water Act and direct the rewriting of this language to state, “...to the discharge of pollutants into the waters of the United States.” ALL our waters are important - for the health of our planet, and for our own health.

Please stay tuned to this website, too, for Heal the Ocean’s imminent publishing of our California Ocean Wastewater Discharge Report and Inventory. This important report, the very first of its kind, is at the graphic designer now, and will be posted very soon.

Thank you for helping,

Hello All,

Save the date and mark your calendars! We have reserved the Coral Casino for the evening of Saturday, October 9th for another memorable Heal the Ocean benefit. Here is a quick glimpse at what Heal the Ocean has lined up for 2010:

February – Release of Ocean Wastewater Discharge in the State of California Report & Inventory
March – Annual Newsletter Release
April 17-18th – Earth Day Booth
August 16th-27th – HTO Flags on State Street
August – Moms in Motion Wine Trail Fundraiser
October 9th – Harbor Festival Booth
October 9th – 6th Annual Coral Casino Benefit

Hope to see you there!

Dear Ocean Lover,

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and we cannot help but think of our dear friends who have shown their love of the ocean all through the last year and then some!
 
In February – just in time for Valentine’s Day! – Heal the Ocean will be launching our report, Ocean Wastewater Discharge in the State of California Report and Inventory, now being reviewed by scientists and political experts. The publication of the Inventory, announced at Heal the Ocean’s 2009 event, is several months behind schedule as it goes through review, because the finalization of the report involves the design of Heal the Ocean’s 2010 campaign for the reclamation of wastewater now being discharged into the Pacific Ocean from the Oregon border to San Diego/Tijuana.

The Inventory has also been expanded to include the subject of the chemicals that are bypassing standard wastewater treatment and escaping into the ocean and the environment. Our Inventory contains a discussion of those chemicals as well as treatment needed for each, and how our policymakers must upgrade “state standards” for wastewater and biosolids.

Our upcoming newsletter will explain how we, the public, can help immediately to counteract this chemical bypass problem by making informed choices about the personal care products we use, as well as other items that contain the harmful chemicals that now go down the drain and out to sea.

In 2010 Heal the Ocean will also continue to tackle storm water and landfill pollution of the ocean. We do this work with an important goal in mind: to find a reasonable way, as soon as possible, to stop the pollution of the ocean we all love.
We so appreciate, and need, your help. Thank you!

Thank you for helping,

On Friday, January 8, 2010, Heal the Ocean filed with the State of California its report on the results of a two-year oceanographic and microbiological study of the Montecito Sanitary District (MSD) outfall.

“Monitoring the Microbiology of the Montecito Outflow Wastewater Plume,” is a report on an intensive project that tracked the travel of wastewater once it is discharged into the ocean off Butterfly Beach in Montecito. The study was funded by a $330,000 Proposition 50 grant from the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) - one of the first research grants of its type ever awarded!

The UCSB scientists contracted by HTO…

Heal the Ocean wishes everyone a most peaceful holiday season and a very good New Year! We thank you, our wonderful supporters, for your fantastic help in 2009.

We look forward to reporting back to you in January 2010 with the launching of our Ocean Wastewater Discharge Inventory for the State of California, now being reviewed by distinguished scientists and political experts. The Inventory directs Heal the Ocean’s 2010 campaign for the reclamation of wastewater now being discharged into the Pacific Ocean from the Oregon border to San Diego/Tijuana.

Early in 2010 you will also be able to read the final report on HTO’s two-year oceanographic/microbiological study of the Montecito Sanitary District wastewater outfall, entitled, Monitoring the Microbiology of the Montecito Outflow Wastewater Plume. Paid for by a $330,000 state Proposition 50 grant and with supporting research funded by private, anonymous foundations, this study is being submitted to the state of California at the end of December, with a final revise supported by the Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation.

In the new year Heal the Ocean will also continue to tackle stormwater and landfill pollution of the ocean, doing this work with an important goal in mind: to find a reasonable way, as soon as possible, to stop the willful pollution of the ocean we all love.

Thank you for helping,

Enjoy a slideshow of over 100 photos of the 2009 Heal the Ocean Benefit Concert.

This event featured guest speakers Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jean-Michel Cousteau & Hillary Hauser. Fine artist Matthew McAvene provided us his Fabulous Fish Puppet Show.

Oniric Records produced the music portion of the night, featuring Culver City Dub Collective and The Black Seeds who played until The Coral Casino in Santa Barbara kicked us out.

Please stay tuned to our site, we will be posting lots of pictures – of the scene and setting, fishes and people, the music and dancing.

It was a fabulous evening!

Thank you Jacob Tell and the Oniric Record Crew!

Thank you Matthew McAvene for your Big & Fabulous Fish Show!

Thank you, Ty Warner Hotels & Resorts for the fabulous setting.

Thank you, all you wonderful sponsors who made this evening possible.

Please stay tuned.

Thank you all! 

The 5th Annual Heal the Ocean Benefit was a huge success!  The Santa Barbara Newspress covered the event (Read the article here).  Enjoy a few photos by Branden Aroyen from the evening and we will soon post a full report…

Beautiful Table Settings

Auction Items including a Hillary Hauser painting

Ed Mercadillo, Jacob Tell, Marlo Tell, Val Aroyan & Branden Aroyan

People enjoying themselves

The crowd cheers for Hillary!

Jean-Michel Cousteau speaks

Matthew McAvene’s Big & Fabulous Fish Show

Matthew McAvene with Jean-Michel Cousteau

The Fish help parade the crowd inside for Culver City Dub Collective

New Zealand’s The Black Seeds

McAvene Fish Wishes you Goodnight!

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

GOLETA SANITARY CEQA DOCUMENT APPROVED BY HTO

[Read the Letter Here!]

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY STORM WATER REPORT GETS CRITICIZED BY HTO

[Read the Letter Here!]

Heal the Ocean takes issue with GOLETA GENERAL PLAN as it relates to Coastal Land Use and Water Resources.

There is a hearing at Goleta City Council Monday, August 24, 2009.

[Read the Letter]

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.

Carpinteria Sanitary District issues Notice to Proceed.

During its July 7, 2007 board meeting, the Carpinteria Sanitary District OK’d Penfield & Smith’s design/construction plan for the South Coast Beach Communities (Rincon) Septic to Sewer Project, and Notice to Proceed was issued Wednesday, July 8, 2009.

Heal the Ocean is looking forward to the on-line publishing of the U.S. Geological Survey’s final report, “Sources of Fecal Indicator Bacteria in Urban Streams and Ocean Beaches, Santa Barbara, California,” which is currently going through final scientific review before being published by USGS in the on-line Journal of Annals of Environmental Science.

Heal the Ocean participated with the city of Santa Barbara in the three-year investigation by the USGS to study the possibility or likelihood of groundwater transport of human pollutants (septic and/or sewage waste) to the ocean. We were able to contribute over $60,000 to the study due to generous multi-year grants from an anonymous Orange County foundation.

When the USGS report is published, HTO will provide a link on our website.

Some conclusions from the study:

• Point sources dominated FIB contamination to streams during baseflow (non-rain), and non-point sources dominated FIB contamination to stream during stormflow (rain);
• In most areas FIB concentrations in shallow ground water were low, suggesting leakage from sewer lines and laterals connecting sewer lines to residences;
• Ground water flow at West Beach was toward a regional sewer line, which acted as a drain;
• Sewage from the sewer could not move toward the beachfront and ground water discharge at the beachfront was small;
• Discharge from nearby streams also contributed FIB to West Beach, especially after stormflow.

As a result of the USGS study, the city of Santa Barbara has taken proactive measures by connecting the Haley Street storm drain to the city’s El Estero wastewater plant, and also sleeving the sewer main along the Cabrillo Blvd. waterfront.

Young people seeking to fill community service hours requirements are invited to become a HTO Storm Trooper!

It’s very simple: you take a camera and go on a survey of storm drains and/or creeks. If you see a messy storm drain, a cluttered creek, or water pouring down a storm drain when it’s not raining, take a picture and e-mail it to us with the exact location (street and cross street, or address), the day and time, along with your name and contact information.

HTO will then call the appropriate officials to conduct a cleanup or investigation, and we will notify you when action has been taken. You will then go back to the site and take a picture of the clean-up and e-mail that picture to us. We will give you a signed community services form to indicate you have done this service for us, you will earn a Heal the Ocean t-shirt, and we will list you on our website with your before and after pictures!

Our members and community service hour students are a wonderful resource for helping us keep our oceans clean. If this is something you would like to participate in, please contact Christi Davis at our office (965-6570) or e-mail her at Christi@healtheocean.org. Thank you!

While on HTO staff, Priya Verma, now a UCSB doctoral candidate, outlined the perimeter of an unlined landfill in the city of Santa Barbara waterfront area, where monitoring wells show presence of chemicals and toxins, and where groundwater is pulled to the ocean and possibly into Laguna Channel. Because of HTO’s work, the Regional Water Quality Control Board recently required the city of Santa Barbara to produce a Wet Weather Preparedness Report and a Sampling Analysis Plan for the landfill - as well as a Report of Waste Discharge (ROWD) which we will be reviewing.

We’ve been working hard with Jacob Tell and Oniracom for many months to bring Heal the Ocean’s website to a place where we can best tell you the news of our progress in combating ocean pollution, and also to involve you, our readers, in this work.

Heal the Ocean has, like many organizations, reassessed our goals in the midst of a challenging economy - and we have made a hard and fast decision to batten down the hatches and focus on the One Big Goal we care about the most: that the ocean is no longer used to dilute human waste. By this we mean that we are now concentrating on the conversion of wastewater, now discharged into the ocean, to reclaimed water, that is usable for irrigation on land. Instead of sewer outfalls depositing our waste, even treated, into the ocean, is a reckless use of not only the ocean, but of a resource that is reusable. Further, we are investigating the cost and feasibility of total conversion of wastewater by reverse osmosis methods, to eliminate all presence of pharmaceuticals and/or bacteria. We are also investigating the use of reclaimed water in fire suppression: instead of putting out fires with drinking water, there are perhaps ways, which we are researching, to pipe reclaimed water to “purple hydrants” for use in fighting the horrendous fires that can occur in the Santa Barbara back country.

To accomplish this change of focus Heal the Ocean has changed staffing in the office so that we can use our financial resources in a strictly budgeted way to get what we want. We welcome Lindsay Hernandez (as our new Office/Events Director and Christi Davis (Administrator) to help us zero in on the supreme goal of eliminating wastewater discharge into the ocean.

To this end, here is where we are:

• In June 2009, Heal the Ocean joined a 10-member Santa Barbara county-wide steering committee to guide an Integrated Regional Water Management Plan (IRWMP) for the allocation of state Proposition 84 funds dedicated to water quality and water conservation. HTO is seeking funding to pay for planning grants, and construction, for the upgrade to tertiary treatment levels - reclaimed water - by both the Carpinteria Sanitary District and Summerland Sanitary District. By these upgrades, these two wastewater plants will be producing recycled water for productive use, rather than putting wastewater into the ocean. (Everyone on the steering committee recognizes state funding is in disarray at the moment, but because these funds are mandated by the public, when California’s budget problems are worked out - which they surely will be at some point - the projects that are of interest to Heal the Ocean and its membership will be represented). Heal the Ocean is the only non-profit environmental group on the IRWMP steering committee, joining the Cachuma Operations & Maintenance Board (COMB) & Cachuma Conservation Release Board (CCRB), the cities of Lompoc, Buellton, Santa Maria, Santa Barbara, the Goleta Water District, Montecito Water District, the Central Coast Water Authority and Casmalia Services District.
• Heal the Ocean’s Wastewater Discharge Report (WDR) for the state of California is nearing the finish line - July or August 2009 - when UCSB’s Marine Science Institute will have finished the internet maps to illustrate our five-year compilation of all wastewater discharged into the Pacific Ocean along the California coast, from the Oregon border to Tijuana/San Diego. This WDR report, which will include latitude and longitude, distance from shore and depth of water of wastewater discharges, as well as histories of exceedances (violations), will be used by a newly formed Southern California legal non-profit to promote the preservation of California resources, which includes implementation of the state’s newly formulated Recycled Water Policy.
• We are also keeping our eye on $2.1 million in Proposition 84 funds that have already been allocated to the South Coast Beach Communities Septic to Sewer Project (including Rincon), which will reimburse homeowners 25% of the cost of building the public sewer in these four communities. We have worked hard to get this grant for the project, which is now in the preliminary engineering phase and which will enable the removal of septic systems along 7 miles of coastline along the Santa Barbara south coast, from the Ventura County line to Padaro Lane, near Summerland.
To all of you who have come forward with financial help, we are most grateful to you. Please come to Fifth Annual Benefit Concert at the Coral Casino on September 26, 2009, and celebrate with us the progress we have made and the work we will continue to do together. Thank you for helping,

Executive Director, Heal the Ocean

General Comment:
“It is now general knowledge that construction projects are the best, or most doable situations for improving (or making worse) storm water runoff, since it is still very difficult to treat or control storm water once it’s released into the street and storm drain system to the ocean…”

Download Report: HTO Comments on Montecito Country Club

This site was created by several Rincon Point homeowners with the goal of developing an objective forum to discuss the ongoing sewer project. The site will host an ongoing conversation through which homeowners and others with valuable knowledge can work together. As the project progresses, everyone can post information (Q & A’s) to inform the collective knowledge of the community and ensure that the sewer project gets completed at/or under budget. It is our goal to encourage an agreeable location for sewer equipment (such as the pump stations) as well as to minimize landscape damage.

www.rinconpointsewer.com/

During the past few months, we have reflected back on the beginnings of Heal the Ocean and realized just how naive we were. We had set out to discover the source of Santa Barbara’s ocean pollution during the first year and then we would clean it up the second year. We automatically assumed our regulatory agencies would welcome our help and that the public - which so ardently embraced the plans we announced - would jump at the chance to upgrade, improve, and change the way human waste is handled. We were confident that once we produced cost feasibility studies and scientific reports that indicated wastewater infrastructure or septic systems as a source of ocean pollution, everyone would jump at the chance to change.

Very quickly we received our wakeup call! Regulatory agencies overseeing water quality issues in the state, county and city were not very receptive to our urgings to look at septic systems and wastewater handling. Why should they? State standards were being met. Then we discovered that almost everything with a price tag is met with opposition. Achieving our goals were clearly going to take more than two years and the sailing would not be smooth.

Nevertheless, we forged ahead, chipping away at the resistance with cost feasibility studies for upgrading wastewater plants and with high-tech methods (DNA) to determine whether or not septic systems were leaching into lagoons, creeks, rivers, groundwater and oceans. We tested, sampled, rallied and spread the word.

Today, nine years later, the regulation of septic systems is most definitely in the future for the state of California, and wastewater infrastructure is being upgraded almost everywhere. This, combined with the fact that Heal the Ocean now enjoys healthy and productive working relationships with our regulatory agencies, is enabling us to continue on our path towards a cleaner ocean.

A few of our past year accomplishments are:

• The Regional Water Quality Control Board passed a resolution commending HTO, along with other project proponents, for their work on the South Coast Beach Communities (Rincon) septic-to-sewer project.
• The State Water Resources Control Board, which oversees all nine regional boards in the state of California and gives Clean Beaches Initiative grants, has given HTO a $333,000 to study the fate and transport of sewage once it is discharged into the ocean, in this particular case, off a beach in Montecito.
• Santa Barbara residents have proven that they are willing to pay to change their wastewater ways by signing up for the city of Santa Barbara’s Sewer Lateral Incentive Program (SLIP) to replace old, impaired laterals, and in February 2008, the city council voted to invest another $240,000 into the program.
• In October 2007 the homeowners within the South Coast Beach Communities project, which includes Rincon, Sand Point, Sandyland and Padaro Lane, voted YES to pay the price for abandoning their septic systems and hooking into public sewer.

Again, these successes have not been without a price. Heal the Ocean has been subjected to many negative accusations and angry scrutiny this past year from those in opposition to what we fight for (specifically, the Rincon septic-to-sewer conversion). We have not allowed this to discourage us or lessen our efforts. Instead, we consider ourselves most fortunate for the continual outpour of community support, which exponentially outweighs our opposition. We cherish every kind word of encouragement that comes our way.

It is especially moving to receive these signs of support and appreciation from children in the cards, letters, pictures and donations they send in. The young students of Cold Springs School brought in a big donation collected from ticket sales to their talent show, and three months later these same students followed up with a whopping donation from a penny drive! We have pictures of a lemonade and cupcake stand accompanied with a love letter and donation, and we have a fabulous picture of the great kids of FUND (Families United for Nurturing Development) holding a big bake sale wherein “copious amounts of homemade pumpkin pies, brownies and chocolate chip cookies sold out in record time.”

The photos of these youthful enterprises, held on our behalf, hang on our office walls, side by side with the youthful artwork and thank you cards we get - including one by six-year old Kayla, who made a pen and pencil drawing of a seabird dipping beneath an ocean wave into a school of little fish. These young people are our future, and every day, when we look at these pictures, artwork, cards and letters, our hearts are filled with renewed purpose. We share with you in the pages of this newsletter their wonderful industry and love.

And to all of you who have come forward with financial help, we are pleased to report to you that our Year End 2007 drive was the most successful in our history. The significance of this support is not only the tremendous gift of funds that enables us to continue with our goals, but it is your vote of confidence towards the work we promised you we would do and will continue to do for the children, and for you.

Thank you for helping,