As you read this, hobgoblins are coming out, and so are ghosts, spider webs, and witches, all great scary fun. We at HTO wish you the greatest of treats among the tricks, and we are happy to report to you some great news that goes into your treat bag!
In this E-Letter:
HTO Event a Super Fun But Serious Sellout – Thank You, Dear Sponsors!
In Time for Christmas? Two Summerland Oil Wells Move Toward Capping
Mountains of Styrofoam Hit the Recycle Button
Chris Gabriel Joins HTO Advisory Board
HTO Initiates Clean Sweep Project for Cleaning Up Storm Water
HTO has Fun Next to Fishes at SB Harbor Festival
San Marcos AAPLE Academy Students Jump onto HTO Volunteer List
Finally, for a Good Smile: See Our Favorite SB Courthouse Docent in Her Halloween Hat!
THANK YOU, FABULOUS EVENT SPONSORS!
A BIG shout-out goes to the sponsors of Heal the Ocean’s 2019 Benefit at the El Paseo on October 19, 2019! Everyone is still talking about all the crazy fun that was had that night. But in addition, we raised (meaning NET) THE MOST FUNDS EVER IN OUR HISTORY OF FUNDRAISING PARTIES. We have HTO Board Director/Event Manager Heather Hudson to thank for that. After serving on HTO event committees at QAD (we were the first up there!) and Coral Casino, and El Encanto, and who knows where else, Heather simplified everything, landed us at the beautiful El Paseo Restaurant, which now feels like home to HTO annual gatherings. To top it off, this year our great honorary Event Chair (and HTO Honorary Board Member) Julia Louis-Dreyfus came to start off our evening with a great bang, and great cheer. It was the best, ever!
Thank you, dear sponsors, who continue to believe in us, contribute to our Mission, for buying seats and tables and Auction Items, and raising your paddles – as well as everything you do throughout the year - to support HTO’s fundraising efforts. To our glorious 2019 Sponsors, THANK YOU:
Hammond’s: Marrie Morrisroe; Rincon: Dan & Rae Emmett, Tomchin Family Foundation; Miramar: Marcy Carsey & Susan Baerwald/Just Folk; Nancy & Thomas Crawford; The Roy E. Crummer Foundation; Brad Hall & Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Summerland; Nora McNeely Hurley & Michael Hurley; Sam Scranton. Butterfly: David & Lyn Anderson: Tom & Sheila Cullen. Leadbetter: Aqueos Corporation/Ted & Carolyn Roche; Big Speak Inc.; Maria & Stephen Black; Heather & Kelly Clenet.
Refugio: Judith Little. Hendry’s: John & Caron Berryhill; Terri Carlson, M.D.; Lee Heller; Jed Hirsch; MarBorg Industries; Francoise Park; Patsy Tisch; Alan & Kathryn Van Vliet; Susan Venable & Charles Vinick; Zog Industries/Fred Herzog
THANK YOU, ALL!
The Scene
Stay tuned for the complete set of pictures of this great event, taken by PRISCILLA!
OH GREAT PUMPKIN, PLEASE BRING US THIS CHRISTMAS PRESENT FROM SUMMERLAND!
Harry Rabin, environmental filmmaker and Heal the Ocean Advisory board guru is shown here on Tuesday, October 29, 2019, with State Lands Commission engineers at Summerland Beach, as the team closes in on the actual location of the North Store Wharf, which the officials believe is where the “Ramp” oil leaks emanate.
Rabin has been working with Interact, the engineers under contract to SLC, in a battery of testing to find wellheads, using divers, metal detectors and magnetometer array to pinpoint the sources of leaks. The team has already located the second beach leak, “Ohlssens,” which will be capped at the same time the Ramp Leak is ready to go. The goal is to start excavation sometime in December on the Ramp Leak, to calculate what’s needed to install a cofferdam around the leak, to contain and cap it, hopefully at the beginning of 2020.
During the past few months, the notorious Treadwell leak has been explored by divers with magnetometers also, and the Interact (and Harry Rabin) team is working on it with the same goal of figuring out how to get a cofferdam around the well. Treadwell will be a more complicated operation in that this well is in deeper water offshore, and the installation of a cofferdam around it takes considerably more equipment and maneuvering. Nevertheless, the hope is to get started on capping Treadwell in 2020 as well. Rabin, who has been working with Interact engineers on pinpointing exact location for all these leaks, said Treadwell is the first offshore well – ever - to ever have a casing, and he has been working with divers to locate exactly where the casing is.
Dragging Magnetometers to pick up metal (oil well casings)
Harry Rabin with State Lands Commission engineers
All Photos by Harry Rabin © On the Wave Productions.
CITY OF GOLETA SIGNS ON TO MARBORG/HTO STYROFOAM PROGRAM
Big thanks to the City of Goleta for helping spread the news about the MarBorg/HTO Styrofoam recycling program! The City recently posted an announcement about the program on its City website, and it is our hope that it will bring even more Styrofoam to the MarBorg dropoff places at David Love Place (Goleta), as well as Nopalitos (lower Milpas area). We LOVE seeing this mountain of Styrofoam being processed into re-useful products rather than dumped into the landfill!
Specifically, the City of Goleta website lets citizens know what is in the MarBorg/HTO notice. (Please contact the HTO office for free cards about the program, which can be posted at packing places, mail houses, anywhere there is Styrofoam moving around. Here is a repeat of the information being shared to Goleta citizens:
MarBorg Industries and Heal the Ocean have partnered to create a pilot program for Styrofoam recycling in Santa Barbara County! Help make the program a success by dropping off your Styrofoam for free at 20 David Love Place in Goleta and 132 Nopalitos Way in the lower Milpas area of Santa Barbara - do not place it in your blue recycling bin. Instead of making its way to the ocean and hurting wildlife, the recycled Styrofoam is “densified” into viscous material that is reformed into usable products such as mirrors, picture frames and new packing materials. Any form of Styrofoam is accepted, including the type electronics are shipped in, construction material and meat trays. However, the Styrofoam must be clean (no tape, aluminum wrapping, concrete, food…). Packing “peanuts” and the softer Polyurethane foam materials are not accepted. Learn more about the program here.
At David Love Place in Goleta, MarBorg workers place enormous amounts of Styrofoam onto a conveyer belt…
…where it all comes out to be pushed into a compact bale. The bales then go to a facility where the Styrofoam is “melted” and re-molded for the making of new products.
All Photos by Harry Rabin © On the Wave Productions.
CHRIS GABRIEL JOINS ADVISORY BOARD
Peaches the cat
Chris Gabriel has joined Heal the Ocean in an advisory capacity, helping the organization with a focus on stormwater issues. He recently organized a cleanup of Channel Drive, Montecito, which included overseeing a group of volunteers picking up all the trash and litter along the sidewalk area, which Chris said was close enough to get washed down to the beach via storm drains. Chris graduated from USC with a degree in Civil Engineering and for over three decades worked in management roles on public projects including waterfront and transportation facilities, parks and water systems. He worked for the Port of Los Angeles, the County of Santa Barbara and for two local engineering consulting firms. Now that he’s retired, he focuses on volunteer and real property improvement projects and spending more time on and near the ocean (and helping HTO!).
CLEAN SWEEP FOR CLEAN STORM WATER
Chris Gabriel has joined Heal the Ocean in an advisory capacity, helping the organization with a focus on stormwater issues. He recently organized a cleanup of Channel Drive, Montecito, which included overseeing a group of volunteers picking up all the trash and litter along the sidewalk area, which Chris said was close enough to get washed down to the beach via storm drains. Chris graduated from USC with a degree in Civil Engineering and for over three decades worked in management roles on public projects including waterfront and transportation facilities, parks and water systems. He worked for the Port of Los Angeles, the County of Santa Barbara and for two local engineering consulting firms. Now that he’s retired, he focuses on volunteer and real property improvement projects and spending more time on and near the ocean (and helping HTO!).
Hitting the road…
AND AFTER THAT, A SWEEP OF TE SAND!
FISH & FESTIVITIES! HARBOR FESTIVAL 2019
Left: HTO Operations Coordinator Alison Thompson & HTO Intern George Henner at the HTO table!
Right: Local fish for sale at a nearby table.
Photos by Hillary Hauser.
Heal the Ocean had a great time at the Harbor Festival on Saturday, October 12, 2019! It was an amazing day of ocean education, wherein HTO t-shirts occupied a table next to other organizations working for the ocean, as well as fishermen, who put out tables of delicious local seafood!
Thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth to chat about ocean issues and to buy HTO gear. If you missed out on the opportunity to purchase HTO t-shirts, hats, coffee mugs, and all else that we have, check out our online store!
HOORAY, AAPLE ACADEMY VOLUNTEERS!
Students signing up to be on the HTO volunteer list. Photo by Hillary Hauser
On October 23, 2019, students at San Marcos High School's AAPLE Academy rotated between four different rooms where individual speakers — Roger Durling, Andrew Firestone, Dr. Edwin Feliciano, and Hillary Hauser of Heal the Ocean -- held informal half-hour conversations with the students about life and career paths and inspiration. Hillary had the opportunity to share with the students in the AAPLE leadership program what she does at Heal the Ocean, and the career path that got her there, as well as HTO’s mission and greatest accomplishments. She talked with students about how to get started by volunteering and helping the community. By the end of the lecture, the students signed up to volunteer like mad! Thank you San Marcos High School's AAPLE Academy and the great students for inviting Hillary to come to speak!
THE CAT IN THE HAT:
MARIE IN THE COURTHOUSE
Marie Morrisroe at Information Counter, Santa Barbara Courthouse, on October 30, 2019.
Photo by Hillary Hauser
To end our Halloween greetings to our wonderful supporters, we can’t help but share a photo of one of the liveliest Halloween hats of all time – worn by our great friend and supporter Marie Morrisroe at her place at the Information Counter at the Santa Barbara Courthouse. Marie has been doing this work here for a number of years, once a week, counseling visitors about the Courthouse, giving directions, and providing plenty of fun talk to visitors from out of town and from out of the country. The hat? A surprise present to her years ago…Marie wears it every year at Halloween – and dozens of visitors always line up to take pictures of her, because they’ve never seen a Cat in the Hat like this!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!