BECKER WELL CAPPING DELAYED
Oil Infrastructure on Summerland Beach. Photo by Nora McNeely Hurley
With considerable frustration, Heal the Ocean has had to inform Summerland residents and beach lovers that InterAct Ventura, the contractors who will cap the notorious leaking Becker Well on Summerland Beach, has sent out a notice that the capping of the of the well is delayed from its planned start date this week due to ocean conditions – namely, poor water quality (no doubt a result of the Montecito Mudslide). InterAct is hoping to start the project on February 26, 2017. (This date is also dependent on ocean conditions...we will keep you posted!) Meanwhile, HTO supporter Nora McNeely Hurley (who has led the charge on getting this mess of a well capped), please keep the Finney Avenue residents ready to celebrate, because this project will happen! It will take four days to cap the well once construction starts.
BREN RESEARCH TEAM STARTS STUDY ON
SEDIMENT DISPOSAL IN THE OCEAN
Dr. Patricia Holden, Principal Researcher on Mud Impacts to the Ocean
Heal the Ocean has promised our members, and the community at large, that after the initial response to the monstrous disaster of the Montecito Mudslide, there would be the appropriate time to get going with the environmental work. We have had the pleasure this week of talking with UCSB Professor Patricia Holden, whose research group has started a comprehensive study entitled "Microbiological Water Quality and Public Health Implications of Upland Sediment Disposal to a Recreational Beach," to understand impacts of the mud disposal. Although Dr. Holden is still applying for funding, she has conveyed to us that the research can't wait and "The time to test is now." Her group is focusing this work at Goleta Beach, hoping to document the longer term attenuation of whatever impacts are found in surf zone water quality. In 2007 Heal the Ocean received a $333,000 Proposition 50 research grant, which paid for a three-year ocean current/microbiological study that included Dr. Holden and her team. We know her work, and it’s stellar. Thank you, Trish!
Meanwhile, Heal the Ocean continues to thank all the hard-working officials and emergency responders who continue to work on returning the Montecito Community to a semblance of normalcy. To pay tribute to what these hard-working heroes have gone through since the morning of January 9, 2017, we have placed the following ad in this week’s Montecito Journal:
