April 2010
Santa Barbara Channelkeeper News & Events
News & Events
Help Stop Polluted Agricultural
Discharges
Ventura River Cleanup
Clearwater Port LNG Project
Terminated!
Paddle Out Against Paredon -
May 1st
Help Protect Naples Reef
Trash Your Friends
Save the Date: Blue Water Ball
Celebrate Earth Day 2010!
Stream Team-April 10th & 11th
Help Us Greet the Grunion
Adopt-A-Stream Cleanup
"What the Channel Means to Me"
Student Art Show
Did You Know?
Help needed to stop polluted agricultural
discharges
Channelkeeper urgently needs volunteers to help
us generate letters to the Regional Water Board
in support of a critically important policy they are
considering to protect our waterways and
groundwater supplies from pollution associated
with irrigated agriculture. Channelkeeper is
producing action alerts, fact sheets, postcards,
and template letters, and we need volunteers to
help spread the word and generate widespread
public support. If you are interested in assisting
us with this effort, please contact us at ben@sbck.org or 805.563.3377 ext. 3.
Backyard Collective - Ventura River Cleanup
On March 19th, Channelkeeper partnered
with the Conservation Alliance and the City
of Ventura to host the first "Backyard
Collective" event in our region. More than
100 employees from Deckers Outdoor,
Horny Toad, and Patagonia volunteered
their time and scoured the Ventura River in
a monumental effort to rid the river and
ocean of trash. Joined by CEOs from all
three companies, these volunteers
collected and disposed of roughly four
tons of garbage from the Ventura River!
The vast majority of this garbage was deposited in the river bottom by
homeless individuals who regularly reside there. In addition to benefiting
Mother Nature, the cleanup, which was covered by local news media, helped to
raise awareness about the interconnected social and environmental impacts of
homelessness in our region. Volunteers were universally shocked at the
polluted conditions they observed that persist hidden from sight in the river
bottom just hundreds of yards from the C-Street surf break.
Channelkeeper wishes to express our enormous gratitude to the volunteers who
participated as well as to the individuals from the Conservation Alliance
(Deckers, Horny Toad, and Patagonia) who helped organize this event. A
special thanks to the City of Ventura's Community Services Department who
provided invaluable support in equipping, coordinating, and mobilizing this
volunteer force.
1

Win prizes for coming to the
2010 Santa Barbara Earth
Day Festival
car free!
Hop on your bike, lace up those
shoes or ride the MTD for free to
this year's Earth Day Festival,
then stop by the Santa Barbara
Car Free/Air Pollution Control
District booth and enter to win
prizes. Do your part for the
planet; come to the Earth Day
Festival car free!
Click here for more info.
Clearwater Port LNG Project Terminated!
Channelkeeper is thrilled to announce that
NorthernStar Natural Gas' application to put a
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal in the middle
of the Santa Barbara Channel was recently
terminated by the California State Lands
Commission. The "Clearwater Port" proposal,
which would have allowed the construction of a
massive LNG terminal offshore of Carpinteria and
Oxnard and adjacent to the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, had
been suspended since October 2007 following extensive comments submitted
by Channelkeeper and EDC.
Our comments raised numerous environmental, public health and safety
concerns with the proposed project and helped convince the US Coast to delay
the project's fast-tracked environmental review process and require
NorthernStar to respond to 416 "data gaps" before its proposal could move
forward. Two years passed and NorthernStar still hadn't responded to the
voluminous data request, so EDC asked the State Lands Commission to
terminate the application for the project late last year. The Commission gave
NorthernStar notice in December that it had 90 days to submit the required
data or its application for the project would be terminated. NorthernStar failed
to respond adequately, so the Commission officially terminated the Clearwater
Port project on March 10th. Stopping this project - which would have generated
significant pollution and underwater noise, required the intake of millions of
gallons of seawater each year, and increased the risk of collisions with ships and
whales - is a major victory in our ongoing effort to protect the incredible
biodiversity of the Santa Barbara Channel.
Paddle Out Against Paredon - May 1st
Please join Santa Barbara Channelkeeper and other
concerned citizens in a paddle out to raise awareness
about Venoco oil company's Measure J, which will appear
on the City of Carpinteria's June 8th ballot. This ballot
initiative would fast-track the massive Paredon Oil and
Gas Drilling Project, circumventing Carpinteria's typical
development review and permitting process and, if
passed, would re-write Carpinteria's governance plan and
strip the City of its power to review, regulate and
oversee the project. The proposed project has been
flagged by the City and many local groups and citizens
for a variety of environmental, public health and safety
concerns.
Whether you plan to get wet or participate from the beach, everyone is invited
to show their support for the City of Carpinteria and their opposition to Venoco's
Measure J. The Paddle Out Against Paredon will take place at Carpinteria City
Beach at the end of Linden Avenue on May 1st, 2010 at 11 am.
To learn more about the Paddle Out Against Paredon or Measure J, email us or
visit www.CitizensAgainstParedon.org. To help out at the event, please email
Carrie.
Help Protect Naples Reef!
Naples Reef, off Santa Barbara's Gaviota Coast, is one of
southern California's richest ocean areas, with as much
biodiversity as the Channel Islands. Help us protect this
local treasure through the Marine Life Protection Act. Visit
the Naples Reef Facebook page to learn more about what
you can do to protect it.
Trash Your Friends!
2
Well, not literally...just virtually. Help drive awareness and action around the
pollution of our seas by plastic bags. Channelkeeper and more than 130
partners have joined Heal the Bay's online campaign called "Trash Your Friends.
Not the Ocean."

Help spread the trash talk!

SAVE THE DATE: Blue Water Ball - May 22nd

Gloria Reuben will serve as the keynote speaker at
Channelkeeper's 10th annual Blue Water Ball on May
22nd at the Rockwood Woman's Club. Gloria earned
multiple Emmy nods for her role on NBC's "ER" and
has amassed impressive credentials as a regular
fixture on network and cable television. Gloria is a
strong advocate for the environment, and currently
serves on the Waterkeeper Alliance's Board of
Trustees.

Proceeds from the event will provide critical

unrestricted funds for Channelkeeper's daily
operating activities as well as our ongoing
community outreach and advocacy efforts to protect water quality and restore
aquatic habitats in and along the Santa Barbara Channel. Channelkeeper is
currently seeking event sponsors, auction item donations and volunteers. Please
contact us at lisa@sbck.org or 805.563.3377 ext.4 to sponsor, donate,
volunteer or reserve your tickets!

Earth Day is turning 40!

Celebrating its 40th year, the annual Santa Barbara
Earth Day festival will be a two-day extravaganza
on Saturday, April 17th from 11 am - 7 pm and
Sunday, April 18th from 11 am - 5 pm at Alameda
Park. The theme this year is "Bringing it Home,"
underscoring the importance of bringing authentic
sustainability into our own homes, as well as our
larger home - our county, our bioregion, our state,
our country, our planet. Stop by the Channelkeeper
booth to learn about our current initiatives.

We are seeking volunteers to help staff our booth; if interested please contact
us at penny@sbck.org or 805.563.3377 ext. 0. We hope to see you there!

3
Stream Team - April 10th & 11th
Stream Team is Channelkeeper's volunteer-
based water quality monitoring program. Every
month, volunteers join Channelkeeper staff to
test for common water quality parameters at
numerous sites in the Ventura River and Goleta
Slough watersheds. Come join us to help protect
our local waterways; we will be sampling in
Ventura on Saturday, April 10th and in Goleta on
Sunday, April 11th. For more information, visit
our website, email us or call 805.563.3377
ext.0.

Help Us Greet the Grunion!

It's that time of year again! Those elusive, slithery
silver fish will be visiting local beaches, and we want
YOU to help greet them. Join Channelkeeper on
Thursday, April 22nd from 6:00 - 8:30 pm at the
Marine Science Auditorium at UCSB for the 2010
Grunion Greeter Workshop. Be one of the fortunate
few to observe the unique nocturnal habits of our
faithful friend, the grunion. You can contribute to
science by documenting grunion runs throughout
the season. Learn about the grunion life cycle and
how you can become an official Grunion Greeter,
and sign up for a shift at the workshop. For more
information, view the workshop flyer. Please RSVP for the workshop at
ben@sbck.org or 805.563.3377 ext. 3.

Second Goleta Creeks Adopt-a-Stream event -

Saturday, April 24th!
For our second Adopt-a-Stream event, we need
volunteers to help clean up each of Channelkeeper's 23
Goleta Stream Team monitoring sites. Volunteers will
split up into small teams and travel to sites throughout
the Goleta Slough watershed to help remove garbage
before it washes into the Goleta Slough and Pacific
Ocean. We will also conduct brief surveys of each site to
document the amount and type of garbage found.

We will meet at the Goleta Beach west parking area on

Saturday, April 24th at 9:30 am. (Turn right as you enter
the beach. We'll be in the first parking area on the
right.) Please dress appropriately for field work; we will
be walking in the stream beds. Sunscreen and hats are recommended. We will
be carpooling to each site and transporting bags of garbage to a dumpster.

We need your help to keep our creeks and beaches clean. Hope to see you
there! For questions and to RSVP, please contact us at info@sbck.org or
805.563.3377 ext. 0.

"What the Channel Means to Me" Student Art

Show Reception & Awards Ceremony
Kim Kieler Gallery
1 N. Calle Cesar Chavez #5
Sunday, April 25, 2010
2:00 - 4:00 pm

For the seventh year in a row, Santa Barbara

Channelkeeper is hosting a marine environment-
themed juried student art show, "What the
Channel Means to Me". A public exhibit, reception
and awards ceremony will be held on Sunday,

4
 April 25th from 2-4 pm at the Kim Kieler Gallery at 1 N. Calle Cesar Chavez #5
in Santa Barbara.

Art show sponsors include Trillium Enterprises, Inc., Santa Barbara Bank &
Trust, Montecito Frame and Gallery, and Kim Kieler Gallery. With their generous
support, it is our aim to both reward and enable these young artists to develop
their talents and continue to inspire others through their art.

(Artwork from 2009 art show: "Super Grouper" by Spencer Taylor, San Marcos
High School)

Forward email
Email Marketing by

This email was sent to satya@sbck.org by info@sbck.org.

Update Profile/Email Address | Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribe™ | Privacy Policy.

Santa Barbara Channelkeeper | 714 Bond Avenue | Santa Barbara | CA | 93103