Heal the Ocean March 2022 E-Letter

In this E-Letter:

Join HTO at the Santa Barbara Surf Film Festival Friday & Saturday - March 18-19, 2022
Santa Barbara's "Ring Net" Partnership for Resilient Communities Receives Prestigious National Award
Next Steps for Summerland Oil Well Capping

Join HTO at the Santa Barbara Surf Film Festival this Weekend, March 18-19!

Calling all surfers! The Santa Barbara Surf Film Festival (SBSFF), is this Friday & Saturday - March 18-19, 2022 - at the Community Arts Workshop in Downtown Santa Barbara! The Festival celebrates Santa Barbara’s surf history - showcasing surf films, live music, art, local eateries, plus sustainable businesses and environmental nonprofit organizations. In line with SBSFF’s missions to benefit the community, a silent auction and raffle proceeds will be distributed to its three nonprofit partners, including Heal the Ocean! HTO will be tabling at the event Friday and Saturday, selling our HTO t-shirts, fish note cards, and other merchandise!

HTO Board member and surf film producer Heather Hudson will be screening her award-winning film about surf pioneer Marge Calhoun, “93 – Letters from Marge” in Santa Barbara for the first time! “93” will be screened on Saturday, March 19 at 4:30 PM.

Tickets can be purchased here. We hope to see you there!

Santa Barbara's "Ring Net" Partnership Receives Prestigious National Award

**Lt. General (ret.) Russel Honoré. Photos by Harry Rabin.**

Following the disastrous Montecito mudslide of January 9, 2018, a group of strong Santa Barbara citizens led by former City Fire Chief Pat McElroy, founded The Partnership for Resilient Communities (TPRC), to get to work on protecting the Montecito community from the unstable mountainside now and into the future. In a very short time, they had raised over $5 million to install GeoBrugg "Ring Nets" in the canyons above Montecito, and the group has funded significant research that will help plan a future for not only Montecito but other communities ravaged by fire and flood caused by Climate Change.

This past Sunday, March 13, 2022, the TRPC group was presented theNational Service and Sacrifice Award from the Virginia-based Ready Communities Partnership, which honors citizen and volunteer responders and organizations for response to large-scale disasters. The Award was presented to the TPRC Board by U.S. Army (ret.) Lt. General Russel L. Honoré to TPRC in a gathering of Santa Barbara leaders at the Montecito home of Brett Matthews and Ginger Salazar. The TPRC Board consists of McElroy, Joe Cole, Suzanne Elledge, Les Firestein, Elisabeth Fowler, Hollye Jacobs, Brett Matthews, Alixe Mattingly, Bruce McRoy, Mary Rose, Damon Taugher, and Gwyn Lurie, editor in chief of the Montecito Journal, and Hillary Hauser, Executive Director of Heal the Ocean (“I was a late-comer, Hillary says, “this group had already raised millions for not only the ring nets but for important research that will prepare for other such eventualities.”)

General Honoré addressed the event attendees with a stirring speech about the importance of working to save human lives, and how the work will accelerate with the natural disasters taking place because of Climate Change. The statuette presented to the TPRC Board, the General explained, is a miniature marble reproduction of the Statue of Freedom that sits atop the U.S. Capitol Dome, carved from marble taken during a construction project from the steps of the historic building that houses Congress.

The General is well-known for his role of leadership in the U.S. government rescue of Louisiana communities following the large and destructive Category 5 hurricane Katrina that hit the Louisiana coast in 2005, causing over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage, especially in the city of New Orleans. For his work on the Katrina disaster, General Honoré is known as the “Category 5 General.”

Flying in from Virginia for the event, the National Director of the Ready Communities Partnership/CCROA, Dr. Rosalie Wyatt, explained the goal of the CCROA is to honor citizen and volunteer responders and organizations that save lives, keep communities safe, and maintain resiliency following a large-scale or national crisis. She called for a moment of silence to honor the 23 people who perished in the January 9 mudslide.

Lt. General (ret.) Russel Honoré surrounded by TPRC Board Members, including (Back Row L to R) Gwyn Lurie, Damon Taugher, Joe Cole, Bruce McRoy, Les Firestein; (Front Row with General Honoré) HTO Executive Director Hillary Hauser, and TPRC Founder/Former Santa Barbara City Fire Chief Pat McElroy.

Next Steps for Summerland Oil Well Capping

**The Danny C off Summerland. Photo by Nora McNeely Hurley**

The recent arrival of the tug/dive boat Danny C off the Summerland coast was a welcome sight for many who are eager to have more leaking oil wells capped. The vessel was the research platform for contractors working for the State Lands Commission to inspect the area for two more “Treadwell” leakers, #1 and #5, which are in the same lineup as Treadwell #10, which was capped in 2020.

The Treadwell pier had numerous wells that were left behind when the wildcatters left, and HTO Field Advisor Harry Rabin, in his drone monitoring of the area for evidence of oil in the ocean, picked up on these two Treadwell polluters. Rabin says the contractors are clearing the debris from #1 and #5 now, and on March 22, 2022, Rabin will provide aerial drone assistance to guide contractors to the top of the wells.

According to State Lands Commission public relations director Sheri Pemberton, preliminary work and planning on the wells will begin after July 2022, which is the beginning of the fiscal budget year, when $2 million in funding from SB 44 (Hannah-Beth Jackson) will be put into the budgetfor the remediation work.

Because the Treadwell project is expected to cost more than $2 million, State Lands is seeking Federal funding help to augment the 2022 budgeted amount. Pemberton said the contractors are also surveying two additional beach wells, “Duncan” and “Moore,” which are adding to Summerland’s oil pollution problems.