By Founder and President Kurt Lieber

ODA volunteers continue to show their dedication to removing trash from the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge by getting together on Wednesday, May 21^st.

We had several late cancellations from our crew, but we still had 4 people participate in this important cleanup. Dave and Jean Merrill, Linda Nicholes, and I met up inside the refuge at 9am and headed to a spot we hadn’t worked on before.

I always arrive the day before and drive around the area looking for a location where I think we’d be most effective. The last time we were here, April 9^th, the place was just alive with all kinds of species of birds. Most of them were just passing through on their spring migrations.

But now, just 6 weeks later, the place felt empty…  I hardly saw any birds and but I did get a few great shots of this snowy egret. We're happy to clean her habit so she's less likely to mistakenly eat plastic, thinking it's food.

But that time I didn’t spend gazing at beautiful birds gave me more time to search for a location to focus on in the morning. Because this refuge is inside a military base, I can’t reveal exactly where it was at. But suffice to say, we hit the jackpot!

The ladies even had a fun moment of tossing a recovered tennis ball...

This is an area that is really close to the main channel of Huntington Harbor and is THE last place where the debris flows before the tides carry it out to the sea.

After 3 hours of just the 4 of us removing what we could, we pulled up about 460 pounds of debris.  The majority of it was plastic, but we also pulled 2 foam mattresses and one jug that had gasoline in it.

It always feels good knowing that wildlife will benefit from our efforts.  And after viewing so much of the refuge, I know there is tons more stuff waiting for us to remove.  So, if you feel the way we do, come out and help us sometime!

We'd love to have you and you would feel GREAT knowing what a huge difference you made, not just for the wetlands but for the ocean. Please send us a quick email and we'll get you onboard the team!