On Saturday, September 17^th at 9am at the Felton Covered Bridge, SLVCORE.org will coordinate with Save Our Shores for the Annual Coastal and River Cleanup Day.  Everyone in the San Lorenzo Valley and Scotts Valley communities are invited to participate. Students – this is a great opportunity for community service credit. We will have community service forms on site.

Save Our Shores Coastal and River Cleanups will take place in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties. For all site locations, please visit www.saveourshores.org.

International Cleanup Day is the single largest volunteer event on the planet. Volunteers in over 100 countries around the world work together to remove hundreds of thousands of pounds of trash and recyclables from our beaches, lakes, and waterways before they enter our oceans. In 2010, 6043 Save Our Shores volunteers removed 14,612 lbs. of trash and 4,760 lbs. of recycling from beaches and waterways within Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties in just 3 short hours. In California, 80,312 volunteers banded together to cleanup 953,476 lbs. of trash and 146,646 lbs. of recyclables, for a total of 1,100,122 pounds (results via www.coastal.ca.gov).

Check out InternationalRivers.org, an advocacy group for the world’s rivers and river communities. Their recent focus is on the Ethiopian government’s proposal to dam the Blue Nile, a project with significant environmental and economic impacts.

<<…The Land Trust has identified eight key areas in the county that will offer multiple environmental benefits if protected, including the Pajaro Hills, where the organization has already been preserving ranch and grasslands by working with large property owners. Other areas include the Watsonville Slough area, Corralitos, Interlaken, Larkin Valley, the upper San Lorenzo River region, North Coast watersheds, river and riparian systems, and sandhills in North County.

Ultimately, the Land Trust hopes to get 50,000 additional acres protected as new pressures on water supplies and wildlife habitat are created by a population increase estimated to be 35,000 over 25 years.

Santa Cruz County — with its coastline, redwoods, mountains, streams and ranchlands — faces ever-changing land-use and biodiversity challenges. Water is perhaps the biggest issue, with the overdraft of underground aquifers having become a major issue for agriculture and local water users alike…>>

Important information for the San Lorenzo Valley which has, in the recent past, been threatened by unsustainable high density development.

The Felton Meadow

Earth Day, which falls this year on April 22, is celebrated in Santa Cruz County on April 16 11am-4pm at San Lorenzo Park in Santa Cruz. This inspirational event brings education and awareness about our natural environment.

The Santa Cruz effort is a collaboration between the City of Santa Cruz, the County of Santa Cruz, Ecology Action, Save Our Shores, and Community Foundation. Organizers are looking for festival, beach and river cleanup volunteers. To register as a volunteer, visit the Save Our Shores website and complete the registration form at the bottom of the page.

For more information about Earth Day from an international perspective, please visit the Earth Day Network website.

During our successful San Lorenzo Valley River Cleanup, we noted that a predominance of litter gathered was cigarette butts. Thousands were counted by our valley volunteers during one morning of cleanup activity. Statistically, 1 out of every 3 cigarette butts ends up on the ground and eventually into our waterways. Cigarette filters and commercial tobacco contain heavy metals and acute toxic compounds. Fortunately, cigarette litter is finally being recognized as a significant environmental concern and many good organizations are doing something about it.

Locally, along our Monterey Bay beaches, Save Our Shores designed and installed new pollution prevention stainless steel “Bait Tanks” to help keep cigarette butts and their toxins out of the oceans. SOS volunteers have removed over 100,000 butts during their cleanups since 2007. The Bait Tanks have a shark fin on top with signage that says, “Save some fish, feed me butts.”

Individually, smokers can be proactive by using proper disposal receptacles or a personal device such as the ButtsOut, a concealable portable ashtray.

Even Oprah is getting in on the cigarette butt litter information bandwagon with her 52 Ways to Make a Difference campaign.

Here in the San Lorenzo Valley you can follow any number of local and national initiatives.

• The Keep America Beautiful organization has a fascinating fact sheet which you can print and distribute.
• Give a personal ashtray receptacle to your favorite smoker.
• Be informed and share information.
• Participate in the next local river and coastal cleanups.

More information:

Guide to Cigarette Litter Prevention

Litter Study Fact Sheet

Save Our Shores

Surfrider Foundation

Cigarette Butts as Litter

CigaretteLitter.org

Visionary Vincent Callebaut has created a whale-shaped floating garden designed to drift through the world’s rivers while purifying their waters. The Physalia is a self-sufficient ecosystem that generates all the power it needs from the sun and works to reduce water pollution through bio-filtration.

Read the fascinating Inhabitat article or check out Callebaut’s website and his other inspiring works.

From Ted.com:

Architect Kate Orff sees the oyster as an agent of urban change. Bundled into beds and sunk into city rivers, oysters slurp up pollution and make legendarily dirty waters clean — thus driving even more innovation in “oyster-tecture.” Orff shares her vision for an urban landscape that links nature and humanity for mutual benefit.

SANTA CRUZ — Few issues arouse as much public interest in Santa Cruz as land use debates, and this year was no exception.

Santa Cruz officials fought opponents of its plans to create multi-use paths in Pogonip and Arana Gulch, as well as proposals to expand water service for UC Santa Cruz growth, build a desalination plant and erect an oceanfront hotel. Despite much debate before the City Council, two judges and the state Coastal Commission, none of the matters are fully resolved.

Read the Santa Cruz Sentinel article written by J.M. Brown…

Thousands of pounds of trash and recyclables were gathered by hundreds of San Lorenzo Valley residents. Read more…