Garden St. / 101 Hwy Clean Up (1999-2019)

In 1999, during the earliest days of HTO, someone came into our office with a vial of putrid water collected from the wall of the 101 Freeway south onramp at Garden Street. We had it tested – and the bacterial readings were off the charts. HTO chased this issue for years and we were led astray by many officials, who said this area only consisted of earthquake rubble covered by wood-chipping operations that were covered with tarps during a rain. Finally, this property came before the City Planning Commission in January 2016 for approval of a magnificent plaza project, designed by celebrated architect Brian Cearnal. HTO went to this meeting and praised the project, because, we said to the Commission, it was an opportunity to clean up the mess underneath. The Commission agreed with us, and Brian Cearnal came to HTO offices to discuss a remedy. At this point Santa Barbara County Public Health Site Mitigation Unit (SMU) officials became involved. Twenty years after HTO started sleuthing on this issue, on January 28, 2019, we received a copy of a cleanup directive from Santa Barbara County Public Health to the owner of this property. Heal the Ocean is looking forward to the day this site will be cleaned up such that Brian Cearnal’s great vision for this property will be realized.