By Founder and President Kurt Lieber
I received an email from Brandon Patrick back in March. It came out of the blue, as we had never been in contact before. Turns out he works with a group called CFA Society Orange County (Chartered Financial Analyst) that was looking for an opportunity to do something meaningful for the wildlife of the area.
Brandon said if I could invite them to cleanup in the county, he could probably get 15 or so people to participate.
Not wanting to let this opportunity go by, I thought this would be perfect for a cleanup at our adopted Orange County site – the Bolsa Chica Channel (BCC). I asked my contacts at the OC Public Works if we could have permission to access the area and they agreed to let us in there on Saturday, May 2nd.
I then emailed Brandon and all our regular volunteers to invite them to our channel cleanup event.
Two days before the scheduled timeslot, I only had confirmations from 4 people… Uh oh!
I thought about scrapping the cleanup, but then thought better of it, and felt that even 4 people could make a difference.
I drove down to Huntington Beach the day before to do some reconnaissance to assess the almost 1.5-mile stretch of the channel that we’ve adopted and determined where our time would be best spent.I also did some scouting inside the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge, which the channel runs alongside and got photographs of some resident birds.
There looked to be hundreds of pounds of plastic at the mouth of the channel just before it empties into the Huntington Harbor and from there, it would head out to sea. There was also a lot of trash along both banks of the channel.
The troops rally!
As 9 o’clock rolled around on Saturday morning I was pleasantly surprised to see about 30 people show up! Wholly smokers, I sure wasn’t expecting that!
I gave an orientation about where we could be most effective, we broke up into 2 groups and headed to the sites.
For the next 3 hours we scoured the banks, pulling every manner of trash carelessly tossed out by our disposable society. Bottle caps, food wrappers, stuffed toys, all manner of balls (from basketballs to volleyballs to Ping-Pong balls and golf balls), a wooden pallet, a couple of desk drawers… I could go on, but you get the point.
Check out this "before" and "after" of what this young lady did!
I want to shout out to the area population: People, STOP treating the planet like it’s your personal dumpster!
While not everyone signed in on our form, here are the folks who did: Nick Brozi, Emily Busch, Phillip Chong, Gerard Gaidos, Brittany Klein, Kelly Lim, Robert and Siena Loomans, Kent Morris, Rye Parker, Brandon and Margarita Patrick, Shaedde Pautin, Laura Pellegrini, Mary and Susan Sigler, Lisa Taylor, Shelly Wilcox and a few whom I couldn’t make out their last names: Donna, Duane, Fadel, Gus, Lena, Quen, and Taylor.
ODA Volunteer Cleanup Crew with their "Catch of the Day"!
Several people had to leave before we could gather all the debris and get the group shot. I was stunned to see how much we removed. In my estimation it was about 960 pounds. Almost half a ton!
It sure felt good to spend time with so many people who care enough about the oceans to spend a weekend day getting wet and dirty. Can’t thank you enough for all the animals you helped save from the ravages of either ingesting this stuff or becoming entangled in it. We made their world a whole lot safer.
Let us know if you want to join in on one of these fun and productive cleanups! volunteer@oceandefenders.org
