Save Our Shores has released location and contact informaiton for California Coastal Cleanup Day 2005 in San Mateo County this Saturday, September 17, from 9am to noon.

Contact Site Cleanup Captains directly to inquire about specific meeting spots, or visit www.saveourshores.org for more details on participating in Coastal Cleanup Day in San Mateo county.

Coastal Cleanup Day provides a stewardship opportunity for communities to clean up their neighborhoods, encouraging beautification around shorelines and creek corridors, creating pride in their surroundings, and having a positive impact on our coastal and marine resources. Coastal Cleanup day is a part of International Coastal Cleanup Day organized by The Ocean Conservancy.  More than 50,000 Californians participated in last year’s event, collecting 909,853 pounds of trash from 1,951 miles in California.

Volunteers help to remove trash and debris from the natural environment, and to collect data on the sources of debris.  Volunteers should wear closed- toe shoes, layered clothing, hat and sunscreen for protection from the sun.  All participants are encouraged to bring their ownwork gloves.  Cleanup Captains provide all other supplies (bags, data collection cards).

• Daly City: Thornton Beach (Contact [email protected])
• Pacifica: Linda Mar Beach, Rockaway Beach, Sharp Park Beach (Contact Pacifica Beach Coalition at [email protected] )
• Montara: Montara State Beach (Contact Montara Beach Coalition at [email protected])
• Pillar Point Harbor (Contact Pillar Point Harbormaster’s office at [email protected])
• Francis State Beach (Contact Save Our Shores at [email protected])
• Poplar/Redondo Beach (Contact [email protected])
• Roosevelt/Dunes/Venice State Beach (Contact State Parks at [email protected])
• Mirada Surf/Surfer’s Beach in El Granada (Contact [email protected] or [email protected] )
• Fitzgerald Marine Reserve (Contact Ranger Sarah Lenz at [email protected] )
• San Gregorio State Beach (Contact [email protected])
• Pomponio State Beach (Contact State Parks at [email protected])
• San Gregorio Creek (Contact [email protected], or [email protected])
• Ano Nuevo State Reserve, Gazos Creek (Contact [email protected])
• Pescadero State Beach (SOUTH @ Highway 1 and Pescadero Road) (Contact Gregory Barr at San Joaquin School of Outdoor Education 650-747-0139)
• Pigeon Point (Contact [email protected] )

As the fog begins to break up Coastsiders are in for an unusual astronomical treat. Appearing just after sunset two dazzling lights now decorate the southwestern sky. These star-like beacons might at first be mistaken for approaching passenger airplanes due to their brightness but they are Venus and Jupiter, the two brightest planets, which outshine every star in the night sky.

Cloud-wrapped Venus, to the left in this image, bounces back out into space an impressive 72% of the light that strikes it from the Sun—but due to a greenhouse effect gone wild temperatures still reach over 800 degrees Fahrenheit at the surface. The beautiful Evening Star is a hellish place.

Jupiter is the largest planet—about 1300 Earths could fit inside of it (and Venus is about the same size as Earth)—but is much more distant from us than Venus. For reasons unknown its famous Great Red Spot—a monster hurricane 15,000 miles across—has been fading in recent years.

As the weeks go on Venus and Jupiter will drift apart in the night sky (they were closest on Sept 1 ) so enjoy the view while it lasts.

Save Our Shores has been selected as the San Mateo Countywide Coordinator for Coastal Cleanup Day to manage community clean ups throughout San Mateo county’s coast and Peninsula during the 21st annual event on Saturday, September 17 from 9 am to 12 noon.

For more information on joining Coastal Cleanup Day at specific site locations in San Mateo county, visit www.saveourshores.org, or call (831) 462-5660. 

Click "read more" to see the rest of the press release.

The Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) is undertaking a revegetation project to restore native plants and wildlife habitat on POST’s 119-acre Pillar Point Bluff property, near Moss Beach.  Approximately 15 acres of the southern portion of the popular property, has become increasingly crowded with highly aggressive, invasive exotic pampas grass plants.  POST’s restoration work will remove the pampas grass and enhance the growing conditions for native plants to flourish.

Click "read more" to see the press release, which describes the involvement of Go Native Nursery of Montara in the project.

Apparently, a whale died in Half Moon Bay recently. The Chronicle is the latest to poke the body with a media stick. They cover the stinking whale-corpse from a tee of the Half Moon Bay Golf Links.

But Coastsider still gets the last word. Darin Boville braved the "No Trespassing" signs at Strawberry Ranch to get us a picture of the dead whale in its current state of decomposition. After which, he was escorted off the premises.

I’m not going to make you look at it, but you can click "read more" if you want to see the picture.

The deflated, stinking carcass of a dead humpback whale, which lay on a Half Moon Bay beach for nearly a week before being carted off to deeper water, is now in a rocky alcove just north of the Ritz, according to the Mercury News.

Let’s face it, sewers and financial reports are in a pretty tight race when it comes to combining importance with inherent boredom.

However, Sewer Authority Midcoastside (SAM) just won a Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting from by the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada (GFOA) for the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report 03-04 [PDF]. SAM says it’s "the highest form of recognition in the area of government accounting and financial reporting" and I have no reason to dispute this.

All kidding aside, it’s great to see our local agencies winning awards for their public reporting.

Click on "read more" to see SAM’s press release.

Montara Water and Sanitary District’s newest well may produce enough water to make up for the District’s deficit of 150 to 180 gallons per minute, according to the County Times.  The deficit is the gap between the district’s current production and the peak and emergency needs of its existing customers. By law, until the district covers its deficit, it cannot serve people who are on wells. But the new well is an important step in that direction.

District board member Kathryn Slater-Carter said that all new homes in the area would be required to switch over to public water as soon as it became available to them.

She said she hoped that would happen soon, but she wasn’t optimistic — the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, which oversees the unincorporated area’s Local Coastal Plan, had already decided to give affordable housing projects, flower farms and recreation areas first crack at the water. She said that the board of directors was appealing the decision.

According to MWSD president Scott Boyd, MWSD is asking the supervisors to include failed wells as a priority in the LCP update.

Scott says, "The numbers for the actual deficit vary a lot during the course of the year and the course of the week.  The numbers in the article are considerably lower than the numbers we’ve been working with, more like 200-240.  And that’s not so simple because any time a well fails or has to be taken offline for any reason, we have to deal with quantum jumps in the deficit, so scheduling of repairs requires careful planning."

MWSD reported the new well to the community in its spring newsletter.

The whale carcass that fouled the Poplar Street beach in Half Moon Bay is drifting back to the beach after the attempt to tow it way failed, reports the Mercury News. Shark researchers have sawed off 100 pound of blubber for shark bait. Another attempt may be made to haul it away, but not before Tuesday.

For now, the whale awaits its fate while rolling and flopping in the surf and drifting generally northward, Van Sommeran said.

"At this point, it’s all ragged and flattened out,’’ he said Sunday.

So, you’ve got a dead what on your beach. What now? On November 12, 1970, a dead sperm whale was rotting on a beach in southern Oregon. The Oregon highway department decided that the best way to dispose of a dead whale was the same way they’d deal with an immovable boulder—with explosives.

There is a website with dramatic footage of the big day and a Dave Barry column about the event. From the column:

So they moved the spectators back up the beach, put a half-ton of dynamite next to the whale and set it off. I am probably not guilty of understatement when I say that what follows, on the videotape, is the most wonderful event in the history of the universe. First you see the whale carcass disappear in a huge blast of smoke and flame. Then you hear the happy spectators shouting "Yayy!" and "Whee!" Then, suddenly, the crowd’s tone changes. You hear a new sound like "splud." You hear a woman’s voice shouting "Here come pieces of… MY GOD!" Something smears the camera lens.

The State Parks folks recommend staying away from the dead whale in Half Moon Bay. That’s good advice. Last year, according to the same site, "A dead 56-foot sperm whale exploded while being transported through a Taiwanese city. Buildings, vehicles, and people were showered with blood and entrails. The explosion was caused by the build-up of gases brought on by decomposition."