Day 117 - May 2

life guard tower26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min.

4.5 pounds

462.6 pounds total

This potato chip bag was taken out of the trash can by a sea gull as I watched.

Solution? Trash cans with lids for the 10 - 15 of them that line the beach between life guard towers....I know Santa Monica is working on it, but until then, see above.

Today I played with my new Kodak hand held video camera. I had captured the gull ripping at a plastic bag inside the trash can, (don't worry, he didn't get it out, or eat it, I stopped him), and I was all ready to play with video blogging when I pressed a formatting button on my camera this morning sitting here at my desk, and presto, promptly erased everything I shot from last night's cleanup.

Note to self - when reading manual PAY ATTENTION to what the buttons are for instead of randomly pressing them WITH the manual open. Rats.

A top to...something made of plastic and it looked like it had washed in from the bay.

Like so many people around the world, I'm focused on the BP Gulf oil spill that happened recently. My inbox has been flooded with different environmental organizations weighing in with emails to drum up volunteers, or raise funds to help them battle this disasturous spill.

Global Green is an organization based in Santa Monica that opened their New Orleans office in response to Hurricane Katrina. They have set up a way to volunteer through their website, here's the link. And also - as you can imagine - had a thing or two to say that I pass on here.

"We mourn first for the 11 immediate victims who lost their lives when BP Oil's deep drill rig exploded last week. These hard working Americans, just like the 29 coal miners recently killed in West Virginia, lost their lives to provide us with the energy we need to maintain our modern lives by working in one of the world's most dangerous industries - carbon intensive energy production.

We are just now starting to consider the second wave of victims as millions of gallons of oil begins its march - without apparent end - onto Louisiana's shores, as well as our Gulf coast neighbors. The impact will likely include:

• The destruction of the livelihood of thousands of families who depend upon the fishing, shrimping, oyster harvesting, shipping, and tourism industries.
• More than 400 different species poisoned, potentially killing hundreds of thousands of animals, including countless migratory birds, fish, dolphins, and whales.
• The contamination of fragile coastal wetlands that protect hundreds of thousands of Louisianans, including New Orleans, as well as our nation's critical oil and gas and shipping infrastructure, and the most productive estuary in the nation."

And may I add, there was a safety shut off system for the oil well that was not installed because it was deemed too expensive......now we face a diaster possibly much worse than the Exxon Valdez spill....expensive in so many more heartbreaking ways than I can wrap my head around.

I find so, so, SO many plastic bottle caps on the beach.

Learn more about the CA Assembly Bill 925 to leash the lid to the bottle. There's been some progress to get this thru the legislature, but we'll need your support. I'll have updates on this bill as it goes through the process into, hopefully, becoming a law...at least in California.

read more here - "Since 1989, the start of data collection for Coastal Cleanup Day, 1,044,414 bottle caps have been collected from the state’s shorelines and waterways..."
The water line was littered with clear plastic wrappers, straws, food packaging, and plastic bottle tops tonight.

I collect from the same strip of beach every time.

I go to the beach at the end of Ocean Park Blvd. in Santa Monica and walk straight out to life guard tower 26, then turn left and head south to tower 28.

On a "good" day, I walk there and back in 20 min..

On a bad day, like today, I walk 100 feet down from tower 26.

The distance between tower 26 and 28 is at least 2 football fields in length....

Two things to end this post.

1. Carl Safina's blog entry on the oil spill. Like I said thru TWITTER, he is one of my ocean heroes.

2. Food and Water Watch's Seafood Guide. It gives you alternatives to some of your favorite fish that are no longer a safe choice for you, or the environment. Check it out.