February E-Letter

In this E-Letter:
•   Too Many Boats Breaking Anchor & Crashing
•   HTO Monitoring the Summerland Oil Leak
•   Keeping our Beaches Clean Post-Storm
•   King Tide (January 21-22): Singular Event, or the New Norm?
•   Drake Rabin and Sofia Cavaness Join the HTO Team
•   HTO/MarBorg Styrofoam Recycling Program is Going Strong

The New Year of 2023 came in with a bang: Intense storms, King Tides, the largest waves in years, extreme flooding, oil leaks in Summerland, derelict boats washing ashore, sewage spills, and more. The beaches are littered with plastic, lobster traps, boat scraps, and other debris.
Heal the Ocean is tackling these issues – and we appreciate all who have come forward to help in any way they can. The ocean needs everyone’s help!

Too Many Boats Breaking Anchor

**January 3, 2023 - Photo by Harry Rabin.**

The year had barely started when 7 boats broke anchor and washed ashore – dumping pollutants, diesel, oil, sewage waste, and sharp, dangerous objects onto our beaches.

HTO documented each incident at the request of the Santa Barbara Harbor Patrol and U.S Coast Guard. Field Director Harry Rabin recorded these boat crashes by drone, and is once again firing up our Boat Task Force, a meeting of City, County, and local officials for the purpose of coming up with a solution to this recurring problem. HTO thanks SB Waterfront Department for agreeing to take 18 loose, derelict, uninsured, unattended, and/or unnavigable boats into the Santa Barbara harbor. These boats were inadequately anchored in “Fool’s Anchorage,” just off East Beach.

Harry Rabin is now working with MarBorg Industries and Andrew Velikanje of Earthcomb to get these tangled vessels removed. One of the wreckages is half buried in sand and another is stranded at high tide above the rocks. Heal the Ocean is purchasing new equipment to reach these areas.

They include:

The sailboat at Butterfly Beach is now being meticulously removed manually with the help of the boat’s owner and Andrew Velikanje.
The second wreck is a twin diesel boat with 100 gallons of fuel aboard.
The third boat wreckage, another sailboat, is awaiting cleanup on East Beach below the cemetery.
The most troublesome case is the sunken boat at Sandyland. Harry Rabin called and called for help to stop this vessel as it drifted down the coast. It is now spread over Sandyland and Padaro, with pieces in Carpinteria Marsh. HTO is monitoring the removal of this mess.

Ultimately, Heal the Ocean seeks to see tight regulations on all boats at “Fools Anchorage” – if not total removal altogether.

**Pieces of a Broken Boat Onshore. photo by Harry Rabin.**

HTO Monitoring Summerland Oil Leak

**Aerial View of the Oil Leak January 3, 2023. Photo by Harry Rabin.**

On Friday January 6, Heal the Ocean received calls from Summerland residents reporting an oil sheen off of Lookout Park in Summerland. After Harry Rabin investigated the site, he notified the State Lands Commission. Shortly after, a unified command team prepared a response for the leak.

The spill spanned 1.5 to 2 miles long, about 5 miles offshore.

The exact cause of the seepage is being studied by Harry Rabin and various state officials, but Rabin has made an important note: storms and high waves had scoured out the sand from wellheads that were capped in previous projects funded by the State Lands Commission/SB 44. These wells are fully intact and the caps are tight. However, Rabin believes that this oil spill is from the capping operations of the Ohlsson and Duquesne wells – which Rabin noted had an enormous amount of oil around them, hidden by sand. The contractors did their best to drain the loose oil once the well was capped, but much was left behind, now released by wave scouring.

Keeping our Beaches Pristine Post-Storm

Tim Kirshtner picking up Trash (photo by Valerie Aroyan). A 40 yd dumpster fills up fast after Earthcomb arrived (photo by Harry Rabin).

Following the January storming and floods, the beaches of Santa Barbara were covered with staggering amounts of debris - car tires, lobster traps, fishing line, lots of plastics, broken tree limbs, and Styrofoam.

Hammonds Beach accumulated the debris that traveled through Montecito Creek. Initially, Tim Kirshtner of Clear Water Ways worked by himself to remove the debris from the beach. Eventually Valerie and Branden Aroyan joined Andrew Velikanje of Earthcomb to help. The team cleared most of the debris from Hammonds Beach, filling up a whole 40-yard MarBorg roll-off dumpster.

Heal the Ocean can provide gloves and horse feed bags for anyone who would like to help with a beach cleanup.

HTO Documenting King Tide and Cliff Erosion

Cliff Erosion and Houses of Isla Vista Coast on January 21, 2023. Photos by Jasmin Tupy.

The Santa Barbara coastline was slammed by a King Tide on January 21 and 22, with the ocean as high as 7 feet and as low as –2 feet in one day, about a 9-foot fluctuation. King Tides are documented because they may be good predictors for the future of our shorelines as the sea level rises due to climate change. Sadly, it has become increasingly common for the cliff-side houses of Isla Vista to be condemned as unsafe, with balconies falling into the ocean.

Drake Rabin and Sofia Cavaness Join the HTO Team!

Photo of Drake Rabin and Sofia Cavaness (L to R)

Drake Rabin has joined the HTO team as the Operations Intern and Field Assistant while attending Santa Barbara Community College, where he is studying Global Studies and International Relations. His future plans are to move to Japan, and continue his international studies in Tokyo. For Heal the Ocean he is assisting with outreach, social media, daily office tasks, and the HTO dog bag program.

Sofia Cavaness is temporarily joining the HTO Team as Office Assistant until she flies off to Italy and starts grad school later this year to pursue a Masters in communication research. While working at HTO she will be monitoring political meetings, writing memos for the Executive Director, and conducting research on HTO's mission topics.

HTO/MarBorg Styrofoam Recycling Program is Stronger Than Ever!

**David Love Styrofoam bin on Saturday. Photo by Hillary Hauser**

Into 2023, the HTO/MarBorg Styrofoam recycling program has been going strong. Here is a quick reminder showing what types of Styrofoam can and cannot be recycled.

HTO Executive Director Hillary Hauser visited both MarBorg drop-off sites over the weekend – at Nopalitos Place (downtown) and at the big MarBorg yard in Goleta, at David Love Place. Both receiving sites are filled up quickly - andonce per month HTO funds the transfer of this Styrofoam to a repurposing plant in the Los Angeles area.

Here are the brief rules about what can be recycled and what goes into the trash: