Along with everyone in Santa Barbara’s environmental and animal rescue communities, we at EDC are struggling with saying goodbye to a good friend. After threatening and taunting us for years, Lee Heller is finally set to make the move to New Zealand. While she will keep her home here, and many of us will make pilgrimages to Hobbiton for visits, there is no question we all need to get used to a lot less Lee.
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Fracking and acidizing threaten our marine wildlife, recreation, clean air, and water quality and yet they are taking place without proper environmental review from oil platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel, home to a National Park, a Marine Sanctuary, and a network of Marine Protected Areas. EDC has been a leader in discovering fracking was taking place from platforms off our coast, and filed the first ever lawsuit challenging the federal government’s lack of adequate review. Linda Krop discusses our continued work on this issue and protect our precious coast from the potential impacts for these dangerous practices.
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Whales may dwarf every other living thing on earth but they are no match for a cargo ship traveling at high speeds. Every year, whales are struck and killed by ships carrying goods around the world. In 2007, five blue whales were killed as a result of ship strikes in the Santa Barbara Channel alone. Because this was a much larger number of fatalities than usual, and due to the blue whale’s endangered status, this greatly concerned scientists.
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This blog by EDC’s Environmental Analyst and Watershed Program Coordinator, Brian Trautwein, tells the story of the Endangered Southern California Steelhead, the plight of a pair of steelhead discovered in a local creek in 2017, and current efforts by EDC and partners to bring this species back from the brink of extinction.
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As we remember the second anniversary of the Refugio oil spill (May 19,2015), it’s important to understand the important part played by the Environmental Defense Center. But let me digress for a moment to share my perspective on oil extraction in general.
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Sometime in 2006… I was on my way to the 101 Freeway near the Esplanade Financial Center. I saw two of my friends, Bill Terry and Gloria Roman, standing on the sidewalk trying to get the attention of the people in the passing cars. They had huge photographs of fiery explosions and huge pipes. They […]
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I often run along our bluff tops here in Santa Barbara admiring the ocean and our Channel Islands afar, looking out in hopes I may be so lucky to see one of my favorite ocean friends, the southern California sea otter. Today, I am excited to share with you that for the second time in just over two years, this month a federal judge ruled in our favor to protect the threatened sea otter!
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Ellwood Mesa is a mecca for hikers, joggers, cyclists, surfers, and horseback riders to enjoy a natural preserve of exceptional beauty. Situated on the Western edge of Goleta, it is protected forever from future development. This is no accident, however.
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Forty-eight years ago today, on the morning of January 28, 1969, five miles offshore Summerland at Oil Platform A, something went terribly wrong: the well blew out. As oil began seeping up from the bottom of the ocean floor, so began one of the largest environmental disasters in U.S. history.
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For me gratitude brings the greatest bliss I know, and in this state I recall the birth of the Environmental Defense Center in 1977, forty years ago, and the work that began in 1969 that led to its creation.
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