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ORV Alguita News
March 2006

Flagship Of Algalita Marine Research Foundation
News Aboard The Ocean Research Catamaran

Watershed Expo 2006 & Benefit Concert

The 2006 Watershed Expo held at the Hermosa Beach Community Center this past weekend was a huge success! Rock music legends Graham Nash and Jimmy Messina kicked off the Watershed Expo 2006 in a concert to benefit the Algalita Marine Research Foundation (AMRF) and the Expo at the Playhouse Theatre in the Hermosa Beach Community Center.

Saturdays free interactive learning event gave the public experience on the importance of watersheds, offering information and educational entertainment for all ages and interests. Activities included exhibits featuring displays and representatives from environmental groups, local aquariums, Expo sponsors and presentations and exhibits of new sustainable products and inventions that will help relieve the burden on watersheds. Several technical presentations on watershed issues, concepts, and solutions moderated by Dr. Bill Roley, AMRF Advisor and Director of the Southern California Permaculture Institute were made. Speakers included AMRF founder Captain Charles Moore, Bill Wilson, Roots & Shoots, and others. An all-day, ongoing Video Film Festival covered all aspects of ocean life and activities, which featured AMRF’s award-winning signature video, Our Synthetic Sea. A shuttle was available to King Harbor in Redondo Beach to tour the hybrid ORV Alguita. Included were demonstrations of plastic debris research methods.

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First Flush Sampling Cruise

After the first storm in several weeks, the ORV Alguita cruised out of Alamitos Bay to see what sorts of debris the storm washed out to sea. What we found was incredibly disturbing. Using dip nets for plankton, we pulled up samples from a windrow several meters wide that extended for miles. After pulling up our nets, we discovered that they were filled with plastic debris ranging from potato chip bags and soda bottles to small brightly colored plastic fragments and nurdles. We then separated out the different sizes of plastic within the one square foot of debris where we found a about 75 nurdles (pre-production plastic resin pellets) and about the same in plastic fragments. If doesn’t sound like a lot to you, let me reassure you it was very upsetting and a real eye-opener to the damage that were are doing to the marine environment just off our shores.

Environmental Charter High School: Inner City Youth Cruise

Environmental Charter High School (ECHS) provides students with college preparatory curriculum that extends learning into the local environment where students become engaged stewards of their community. This month four classes, comprising over 80 students, who work with AMRF to study plastic contamination of the marine environment and local beaches embarked on two days of sampling aboard ORV Alguita out of King Harbor in Redondo Beach. The students were disturbed to see that every bottom trawl for fish also pulled up plastic bags and that the surface waters were awash in plastic fragments brought up by our Manta Trawl.