Spouting Off Blog

Chuck Sloan - Leaving Much to Remember

Heal the Bay burst into the public’s consciousness in early 1988, shortly after the creation of the fishbones logo and our aquarium/store in the brand new, Gehry-designed Santa Monica Place. Heal the Bay sold more t-shirts that one summer than e…

Plastic Paradise

Today’s guest bloggers are Kirsten James, Heal the Bay’s Water Quality Director, and Sarah Sikich, Coastal Resources Director. Here they discuss their experience traveling to Hawaii last week and participating in the 5th International Marine D…
Plastic on Hawaiian beach

Pound Foolish

City, county, state and federal budget crises are the dominant issues facing government, business and the public.  In what has become an annual event, elected officials and administrations scramble to balance budgets by coming up with policy …
Landfill

Unanswered Questions in Miami

I spent last week at the EPA’s National Beach Conference in Miami, where I gave a couple of presentations, learned about the latest in beach water quality research, and heard from EPA on the upcoming criteria for measuring water quality. EPA’s…
Advisory Sign

"Rango" and Me

As the father of an 11-year-old daughter, I end up going to a lot of movies that would never make my must-see list.  This weekend, I was one of the many parents that took in “Rango.” I actually enjoyed the film, and I couldn’t help but …

Well, a Big Win for Santa Monica

The city of Santa Monica is celebrating the return of its local water supply. In a classic David vs. Goliath case, Santa Monica took on Big Oil to restore the people’s rights to a clean, local water supply.  The combination of leaking undergro…

Suing Over Septics

Enough is enough.  Although Heal the Bay generally only uses litigation as a last resort, we do have our limits.  On Tuesday, Santa Barbara environmental group Heal the Oceans and Heal the Bay filed a lawsuit against the State Water Resourc…

Remembering John Robinson

About 15 years ago, I was invited to an advisory board meeting of a start-up pollution cleanup company called AbTech Industries. I didn’t go for the free trip to Santa Barbara, nor as an escape from my toddler sons for a desperately needed good …
John Robinson

Batting Cleanup With the Dodgers

On an overcast Tuesday morning, a crowd  of 300 volunteers came out to clean the beach at Santa Monica Pier alongside their Los Angeles Dodgers heroes.  Nearly every volunteer was dressed in Dodger gear and some came three hours early to me…
Mark Gold and Dodgers

Fight On, Samohi!

I’m a lifetime Bruin (birth, preschool, bachelor’s, Master’s, doctorate and currently teaching) so the title of this post doesn’t come easy.  I couldn’t bring myself to write “I Heart USC” because of the history:  Rodney Peete…
USC Trojan and horse