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Hands Across The Sand Biosmart Link Up?
SURFRIDER EVENT JUNE 30, 2010
Hands Across The Sand Biosmart Link Up?
Date: 6/29/2010 4:57:00 PM ( 14 y ) ... viewed 9801 times
SURFRIDER
Wednesday, Jun 30, 2010
Where
Ocean Beach, Cardiff and beyond! (map)
Description
Rise Above Plastics Day aims to raise awareness about the issues associated with single-use plastics. RAP Day is held the week prior to July 4th as a reminder for beachgoers to take less to the beach with them – especially avoiding styrofoam coolers, plastic water bottles and plastic bags. Surfrider volunteers will be on busy street corners with awareness signs on Wed 6/30 from 4-6pm along with giving away high quality reusable grocery/beach bags at Patagonia in Cardiff and the Ocean Beach People’s Organic Food Market. Get involved! Your community, workplace or local restaurant are ideal places to Rise Above Plastics. Share your story of plastic reduction here for a chance to win a special RAP prize pack!!!
Larry KING ATelethon
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/19/arts/television/19arts-LARRYKINGTOH_BRF.html
HUFFINGTON POST'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-rose-levy/deepak-chopra-oil-spill-r_b_62...
4:40 pm
June 29, 2010
2;56 pm
June 29, 2010
http://www.surfridersantacruz.org/Capitola_Ban.html/
to do!!!
Follow up!!!
In the News
Watching The Enforcers
The local chapter of Surfrider scrutinizes Capitola for enforcement of thepolystyrene ban.
By Steve Hahn
Metro Santa Cruz Staff Writer
Dustin MacDonald is leaning over the rail at Capitola Beach, pointing at the sand.
“There’s some bits of polystyrene over there. There’s some more,” he says. “The plastics get washed down here from all these storm drains. It’s hard to see all of it because it gets broken up into such tiny pieces, but it all goes out to the ocean.”
MacDonald, who acts as chair of the Santa Cruz Surfrider Foundation, is getting ready to launch an effort to hold the city of Capitola accountable for a ban on the dread substance, which has been found in the stomachs of dead birds, in the middle of a trash heap in the Pacific and in the fatty tissues of humans. He says the city doesn’t appear to be implementing the polystyrene ban it was supposed to start enforcing last December. He claims members of Surfrider submitted at least three complaints identifying businesses still using to-go containers and cups made of polystyrene (commonly known as Styrofoam), but got no response from the city. Meanwhile, the offending restaurants continue to serve food in polystyrene containers.
Now Surfrider is gathering up as many complaint forms as possible and plans to submit them en masse to City Hall in the hopes of creating an independently documented paper trail.
“It’s unfortunate that it doesn’t seem like Capitola is taking this seriously,” he says. “So we started gathering the paperwork from our members and we’re going to compile them all and submit them ourselves. That way, we have some sort of an idea of how many of these forms are being submitted.”
Capitola city staffers say they are not careless eco-villains but simply overstretched employees. Lisa Murphy works as an assistant to the city manager; a part-time employee, she alone is responsible for enforcing the polystyrene ban. She says she’s received seven complaint forms concerning five businesses and that all of those businesses have been contacted in one form or another. Murphy, who describes the city’s recycling efforts as one of her “passions,” says she’s been diligently petitioning violators of the polystyrene ban and working with restaurateurs having a hard time finding alternatives for certain products.
“People need to put this in a bigger picture. We are trying to do a lot with almost no staff,” she says, citing her other work on instituting a needle collection program and boosting citywide recycling efforts. “I only work three days a week, and I have a lot of other things to worry about. We get these mandates out there, but the follow-up is hard. I mean, why can’t these [restaurant owners] just do the right thing? I feel like these people at Surfrider think we don’t care, but we really do. Believe me.”
The restaurants in question include Cafe Violette, Donut Station, El Toro Bravo, Souza’s Ice Cream and Thai Basil. Murphy says she’s contacted all the owners.
El Toro Bravo has switched over almost all its products, but couldn’t find a replacement for one item and has been actively looking for one, according to Murphy. Souza’s Ice Cream has been granted an exemption by the city because the alternative would be more expensive than the polystyrene product the store currently uses (the ordinance allows this exemption). Cafe Violette is using up its remaining stock of polystyrene and has been warned that it must find a biodegradable alternative before its next supply run. Thai Basil and Donut Station have both been sent letters notifying them they are in violation and will be issued fines of $100 each if they don’t comply with the rules within the three-month grace period allowed under the ordinance, or by July 24.
As for the issue of transparency, Murphy says she called back all but one of the people filing the complaint forms (excluding those who filed anonymously).
MacDonald says he just wants to keep Capitola’s feet to the fire. The city was the first in the county to pass an ordinance banning polystyrene. MacDonald believes Capitola’s initiative has created an example that has been followed by the city and county of Santa Cruz and may soon be followed by Scotts Valley and Monterey County. But if the ordinance isn’t enforced after it’s implemented, MacDonald argues, the whole effort will be for naught.
“Capitola was really visionary and we were really stoked to see it happen here as the first foothold in the Bay. Now, everyone is hot on the heels of Capitola,” he says. “It needs to be enforced and even be stronger. Then we’ll be headed in the right direction.”
This may all be a case of miscommunication, but there is also a very real possibility that the debate over enforcement actually reveals a wider philosophical rift between supporters of the ban and Capitola Mayor Kirby Nicol. Nicol, who voted against the law last year, according to the Sentinel, believes education, not punishment, is the best way to transition to responsible, eco-friendly alternatives.
“We believe very strongly in education as a tool to cultivate civilized behavior, and we try to avoid the penitentiary as much as possible,” says Nicol. “Social behavior modifies over time. It starts slow, gains inertia and then hits a tipping point, and those behaviors go away due to peer pressure. That’s really the best way to shape society into a civilized space.
Suds for Surf
By PEGGY TOWNSEND
SENTINEL STAFF WRITER
Oct. 12, 2007
SANTA CRUZ – Beer drinking might not seem to have much of a connection with saving the ocean, but in Santa Cruz, it does.
Thanks to Couch Distributing Company’s annual “Save Our Surf” campaign, some $10,000 collected from beer sales in the county was donated to support environmental activities by the Surfrider Foundation.
Founded by Geoff Couch, vice president of sales and marketing for the company, the fundraiser donates a nickel for every case of Budweiser and Bud Light sold in the county during the summer.
This year, the $10,000 check was presented by Couch Vice President Louie Pieracci to Dustin Macdonald of the local Surfrider Foundation and Kelly Kaay, public relations program leader, in front of the surfer statue on West Cliff Drive.
“Our company believes very strongly in giving back to the community and this is one of our favorite programs,” Geoff said. In 12 years, Save Our Surf has raised more than $120,000 for the Surfrider Foundation. The money has been used to rent office space, set up a Web site, and buy ocean monitoring equipment.
Paper or plastic?: Santa Cruz residents may no longer have a choice
By ROGER SIDEMAN
SENTINEL STAFF WRITER
SANTA CRUZ — Taking a cue from their neighbors to the north, city leaders are considering banning the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags by supermarkets, drug stores and other large retailers as early as this summer.
Santa Cruz’s ordinance would be modeled after one passed last month in San Francisco, which became the first major city in the country to ban the petroleum-based sacks blamed for littering streets and choking marine life.
The Public Works Department, which is studying the idea, said a local ordinance has yet to be drafted but would resemble the legislation in San Francisco, where large markets and pharmacies will have the option of using biodegradable bags made of corn starch or bags made of recyclable paper.
The bag ban is one in a string of environmental measures currently under consideration by Santa Cruz staff. Other ideas include outlawing polystyrene food containers and creating a food scrap program that would allow residents to compost the new bags.
“There’s a real interest in the City Council to becoming as sustainable as possible,” said Mary Arman, operations manager for Public Works. Mayor Emily Reilly, who supports the idea a bag ban, said she has received many e-mails and phone calls from local residents who were excited by the ban in San Francisco, approved March 27, and want to see it extended to Santa Cruz.
At this point, “we need to include the community in the conversation and know that there won’t be any unintended consequences before we forge ahead,” Reilly said.
Reilly, who owns a bakery where plastic bags are used to package bread and day-old pastries, said, “I’d like to say without hesitation that I would [stop offering plastic bags], but I would need to do some of my own research”
It’s unknown how many retailers would be affected by a city ban.
The California Grocers Association has warned that in San Francisco the new law will lead to higher prices for shoppers.
An association representative could not be reached to comment Tuesday.
Arman said before Santa Cruz drafts its own ordinance, city officials are seeking buy-in from other municipalities. A regional approach, Arman said, would make a ban more feasible, since it would be impractical to force chain stores like Safeway or Longs Drugs to supply different bags for only a handful of stores. The city will be initiating discussions later this month with Scotts Valley, Capitola, Watsonville and the county, she said.
Nancy Lockwood, an analyst with the city of Watsonville, said the city would need to take a close look at the ban before it commits. One consideration, Lockwood said, is that the city recently launched a plastic bag recycling program that is helping create a market around collecting used grocery bags and other film plastic. Genaro Gordo, the city’s processing center coordinator, said Watsonville is selling recycled bags to a San Jose processor and, at about 16 cents a pound, the price for plastic has surpassed cardboard.
“Plastic is a hot commodity right now,” Gordo said.
In San Francisco, 50 grocery stores argued against the ban because plastic bags made of corn byproducts are a relatively new, expensive and untested product. Some said they might offer only paper bags at checkout.
Craig Noble, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said it would be disappointing if grocers rejected the biodegradable plastic bag option since more trees would have to be cut down if paper bag use increases.
The new breed of bags “offers consumers a way out of a false choice, a way out of the paper-or-plastic dilemma,” Noble said.
The switch is scheduled to take effect in San Francisco in six months for grocery stores and in a year for pharmacies.
In Santa Cruz, the City Council would have to approve any ordinance proposed by staff.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Contact Roger Sideman at rsideman@santacruzsentinel.com
Paper or plastic?
Flip a coin.
The quantifiable difference between paper and plastic bags is minimal, says Umbra Fisk, a columnist for the environmental news Web site Grist.org.
The trouble with comparing the environmental impact of different products is the lack of a universally accepted evaluative framework, she says.
On one hand, it is generally understood that plastic bag production generates less water pollution, less air pollution and less solid waste, Fisk says. They can be recycled [but are mostly discarded]. And manufacturing and recycling them requires less energy than their paper cousins, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
But Fisk says, in terms of energy consumption, paper and plastic may be equal if you calculate two plastic bags for each paper bag, because store clerks frequently double-bag when using plastic.
On the other hand, paper bags trump plastic in the renewable resource realm, being made from trees rather than oil or gas, she says. Also, paper bags are biodegradable and far less likely to disturb natural ecosystems in the manner of plastic bags, which blow into trees and waterways, where they are blamed for killing marine life.
The answer to the dilemma, Fisk says, is to flip a coin.
Of course, getting rid of non-biodegradable plastic bags and using recycled bags is a step in the right direction, environmentally speaking. And yet another alternative is to sell consumers reusable bags, which some local grocery stores already do.
Ocean trash everyone’s problem
By Jarod Keller
A few summers ago, I remember sitting on the sand at Main Beach in Santa Cruz, baking in the hot afternoon sun between volleyball matches. While digesting one of my favorite burritos from La Hacienda, I noticed a sign posted out in front of the water. It was warning people to stay out of the ocean because of a recent sewage spill. All the while, a flock of sea gulls had begun to congregate around a nearby volleyball court, seeking to devour anything and everything within sight. One even managed to make off with a Gatorade bottle lid, a shiny, orange piece of plastic.
I remember that day vividly because it embodies everything wrong with how we treat our coastline.
While California’s coastline may be a major attraction for tourists and beachgoers alike, it’s also a fragile ecosystem that is host to numerous species of marine mammals, sea birds and turtles. Ironically, we unconsciously pump this gorgeous setting full of our sewage waste and excess garbage without much thought, and then we swim in it along with all the other creatures that have made these coasts and beaches their home. It seems that as soon as the trash leaves our hands, we relinquish all responsibility for its disposal, but where does all of the beach litter go?
Many people have never heard about the North Pacific Gyre, a region of the Pacific Ocean that has become known as the “eastern garbage patch” and is “roughly the size of Texas” Pacific Ocean currents form a circular pattern that serves to accumulate the trash that we deposit in ocean waters, especially plastic. Charles J. Moore, captain of the Alguita research vessel, piloted a study in the gyre that found 334,271 pieces of plastic per kilometer, amassing a weight of “approximately six times that of plankton” Unfortunately, this problem cannot continue to be ignored.
Unlike most of our products, plastics must be degraded by sunlight because they simply cannot biodegrade from the ocean’s elements. As a result, they can withstand the ocean currents longer than other debris, making them possible hazards for creatures living nearby. Marine animals can mistake them for food or get entangle in them and die. The food exchange does not stop there, either; ocean birds, like fully mature sea gulls, will often share food with their young, spreading the effects of plastic consumption.
Taking the entire situation as a whole, there are several components that factor into coastline pollution, but every movement needs a beginning. Plastics can be the first step to diminishing ocean pollution, and the good news is that the process can begin in the our local communities. Some nearby cities are beginning to agree.
San Francisco has already taken a revolutionary step toward ridding its community of plastic pollutants by outlawing the use of plastic bags in supermarkets. Did you know that out of the 100 billion bags thrown away by Americans, less than 5 percent are recycled per year? Quantities this large do not just disappear, so one can imagine that at least some of that will end up in the ocean, maybe even in the North Pacific Gyre or in a creature’s stomach.
The next time you decide to go for a grocery run, just ask for paper instead of plastic. Granted, higher paper-bag use will inevitably take a larger toll on tree populations, but future environmental steps will involve a switch to recycled paper or even potato starch like in San Francisco.
Unfortunately, other forms of trash still find their way to the ocean. After all, Californians do love to visit the beach. In fact, one summer Orange County collected enough trash on six miles of beach to fill “10 garbage trucks full of trash every week” and cost taxpayers $350,000. Even with the elimination of plastic bagging in stores, other forms of non-biodegradable trash are left behind for ocean-side creatures to consume. So what else can be done?
Luckily, strength can always be found in numbers. The Santa Cruz chapter of the Surfrider Foundation promotes group coastal cleanup days on the first Saturday of every month. Volunteers scour one stretch of beach and collect garbage for only two hours right in the middle of the day, leaving the rest of the morning and afternoon available.
With new species going extinct daily and the effects of global warming happening right around the corner, it’s comforting to know that we, as a community, can still have a say in what goes on in our world. So stop looking around and get involved. I hope you join me in cleaning up Twin Lakes Beach on July 7 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Jarod Keller is a student at Stanford University.
Environmentalists call on Capitola to bring back foam ban
By Soraya Gutierrez
Sentinel staff writer
Environmental groups and residents are protesting the city’s decision to back away from a mandatory ban on foam food containers so that the California Restaurant Association can make a case for a repeal.
Members of the community and Save Our Shores as well as the Surfrider Foundation Santa Cruz and Monterey chapters have sent thousands of e-mails to City Council members, urging them to stand by a decision made in December to ban the material, called polystyrene. Many businesses use polystyrene for packaging, but the containers do not break down easily and end up polluting the ocean and sitting in dumps for decades.
“Capitola could really set a beautiful example for other cities and counties in the Monterey Bay Area by taking a lead in this,” said Sarah Corbin, Central California regional manager for the Surfrider Foundation.
No other city in Santa Cruz or Monterey counties has such a ban.
The ordinance was set to go into effect July 1. That was until the restaurant association called for a closer look at the issue. In what Mayor Michael Termini described as “American politics as usual,” the restaurant association registered concern with the ban through phone calls, letters and e-mails to the City Council, prompting enough council members to choose to reconsider the ordinance. “I am furious at the efforts of an outside organization to try to steer the direction of the city of Capitola,” said Termini, who sat on the original council when the ordinance was approved last year. “It would be a slap in the face to everyone in Capitola if we ignore their wishes”
At a council meeting in May, the final draft of the ban failed by a tie vote, with councilmen Ron Graves and Kirby Nicol voting against the ban, and Sam Storey and Termini in favor. Councilman Bob Begun was absent.
The issue will be revisited later this month.
Michael Scanlon, restaurant association chapter president and manager at Shadowbrook restaurant, said the council was wrong to have approved the ban in the first place because the city did so without first consulting those who would be most affected: the restaurant owners.
The problem with the mandatory ban, he said, is that it targets one industry.
“Go after everybody, not just restaurants,” said Scanlon.
The city has roughly 125 food-service businesses such as restaurants and grocery stores, and 25 percent of those use foam containers, according to city records.
The city’s Commission on the Environment pushed to make Capitola’s 10-year voluntary ban mandatory, and go from an 80 percent compliance rate to full compliance.
Berkeley was one of the first cities in the world to ban polystyrene food packaging 20 years ago. More than 100 cities nationwide have since followed suit, including San Francisco and Santa Monica.
While most agree that switching to environmentally friendly materials is ideal, not all believe a mandatory ban is the best way to achieve that goal.
Though the Shadowbrook stopped using foam containers six years ago, Scanlon said the city’s proposal is merely a “feel-good” ordinance that does not address the issue. A more effective method, he said, is to keep the ban voluntary and implement outreach and educational programs.
The way the new ordinance is written, those in violation will have three months before they get a written warning. Penalties include a $100 fine for the first violation after the warning is issued, and up to $500 for the third and any future violations. There are exceptions.
Restaurant owners can ask for a waiver if they can prove the ordinance would be a financial burden.
Bill Garcia, who owns Taqueria Baja in Capitola Village, said he’s already tried to make the switch, but cardboard was costing him twice as much as foam containers.
“It’s just so freakin’ expensive,” he said. “How do they expect the merchants to change?”
At Jamba Juice off 41st Avenue, switching from polystyrene cups to a more environmentally friendly alternative is something the company has been looking into on an ongoing basis, said spokesman Tom Suiter.
They’ve already started using paper cups in cities such as Berkeley and San Francisco, he said, in an effort to do what’s best for the environment.
“That’s totally Jamba,” he said.
The polystyrene ban is up for reconsideration at a public hearing at 7 p.m. June 28 at 420 Capitola Road. Call 475-7300.
Contact Soraya Gutierrez at sgutierrez@santacruzsentinel.com
Shark tagging transmitter found off Steamer’s Lane: minus shark
By Kelly Vander Kaay
On October 17, 2006, the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation (PSRF) detected a shark tagging transmitter a couple of miles off Steamer’s Lane, drifting away from shore in a south-southeasterly direction. According to PSRF Executive Director and Surfrider member, Sean Van Sommeran, until recently the transmitter had been attached to a white shark they were following through the Tagging of Pacific Pelagics (TOPP) program.
As to where the shark is now, Van Sommeran said, “It’s almost certainly patrolling off Año Nuevo Island, where we attached the transmitter last year.” But where did shark and tagging device actually part? Van Sommeran’s answer: “It likely drifted down the coast from Año, where the shark dropped it after returning to the area.” Since being tagged in Northern California, apparently the shark traveled out to a deep-sea locale just southeast of Hawaii, which Van Sommeran calls the “bad lands”.
The shark’s migration patterns and a wealth of other data have been made possible by the TOPP program, which was first deployed at Año Nuevo Island and the SE Farallones in 2000 (www.topcensus.org). For instance, some of the tagged sharks have been shown to migrate all of the way to Hawaii—demonstrating that they are, in fact, open ocean creatures. Prior to TOPP’S inception, PSRF began studying white sharks at Año Nuevo Island in 1992, with ID tagging commencing in 1995. Two years later, PSRF researchers started deploying ultra-sonic acoustic transmitters and ultimately moved to archival satellite transmitters in the fall of 2000. The TOPP program was born in the winter of that year.
While Van Sommeran says finding the sharks is pretty consistent, the devices themselves can be hard to recover when nearby cliffs cross-up RDF equipment signals. Nonetheless, data continues to pour in from the transmitters they do find, helping them to better understand the behavioral patterns of these often misunderstood creatures. For related article in The Herald, see link below. Additional information on PSRF and their participation in the TOPP program can be found at:
Useful Links:
Pelagic Shark Research Foundation
TOPP Program
Monterey Herald Article
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