Recently my family decided that it is important to get educated on current events and made it a point to subscribe to the newspaper. Unfortunately, the only important section of the paper I read was the comics section, until I saw the headline about the oil spill in San Francisco. Soon, everywhere I turned there was news about the death toll of the birds, tainted crab, the polluted bay. For the first time in weeks I actually read the news before I read the comics. The bay is such a vital part of our environment we forget sometimes how lucky we are to have such wonderful surroundings. I thought you guys would appreciate some inside information on Save The Bay, the oil spill, and a little personal history of Ms. Athena Honore.

So, who is Athena Honore?

Athena Honore has been the policy associate of Save The Bay for two and a half years. She shapes the direction of the press and works on pollution prevention. Honore emphasized how dramatic pollution can be. “ A couple of drops per person times the seven million inhabitants of the Bay Area becomes a lot of pollution, every drop counts.”

1. What inspired you to protect the environment and take action?against pollution and "urban sprawl?"
“I actually started volunteering for Save The Bay by cleaning up the shoreline and then got a more permanent job! It’s really important to protect the environment and try to save our bay.?”

2. How has your job influenced your life and perception?
“I learned about the impact we have on the environment and nearly seven million people live near the bay so we all have an effect on the bay. There are still a lot of people who are polluting the bay and there are simple things that people can do to make a huge difference.”

3. Have you seen any damage or problems to the environment that impacted you?
“Well there isn’t really any one thing but I remember my dad used to tell me about some of the things he had to deal with working with South Bay technology businesses several decades ago. He told me about one project involving copper, where tons and tons of copper waste were thrown away by pouring it into the ground. My dad knew it was wrong at the time, but it was common practice and he couldn’t get anyone to stop it. Now, polluted groundwater sites like those are the focus of millions of dollars worth of cleanup, and we know a lot more about how those pollutants can harm wildlife when they leach into the Bay. Copper, for example, is so toxic to wildlife (such as algae and plankton) that it is one of the main ingredients used to kill off organic growth in places like the bottoms of boats or swimming pools.
Fortunately, we don’t have that kind of industrial waste dumping today. But copper is a good example of a pollutant that we generate in daily activities – copper is one of the main components of brake pads in our cars. Every time we hit the brakes, those brake pads grind against our tires and generate copper dust, which is part of the black dust we see on our tires. Rain can wash that copper-carrying dust onto streets and through storm drains into the Bay. The way our generation can keep our toxic wastes out of the Bay is by washing our cars at the car wash, which cleans up the polluted water which comes off of cars, instead of washing cars at home in the street. It’s harder to realize that this kind of pollution has a big impact – but it adds up.”

1. How has the oil spill affected the Bay Area?
“Fifty-eight thousand gallons of oil was spilled in the bay but only twenty-two thousand gallons have been recovered. Massive efforts have been going on for two months. The spill has killed close to three thousand birds, polluted water, mud and sediment, mussels, and eelgrass. The oil spill was not a gigantic one – much bigger spills have happened – but it’s a big wake-up call for the Bay Area.”?

2. How can we protect the bay from future oil spills?
“New laws have been drafted to toughen regulations. One of the best ways to respond to a spill is to contain it immediately with a tool called a boom that is like a big rope that circles and contains the spill. When the spill is not contained the tides move any spilled material around – and tides in the Bay go in and out four times a day. Spilled oil disperses quickly – in this case, oil eventually fouled sixty-nine miles of shoreline.”

3. In the recent oil spill, a lot of the wildlife was seriously?affected, how has Save The Bay been helping?
“Save The Bay has been providing habitat restoration to create healthy wetland marsh, increasing the amount of habitat where wildlife can take refuge in emergencies like this. We take volunteers out to plant native plants at our restoration sites, and we still need many more volunteers for months to come.?”

4. Other than Save The Bay what other organizations or groups are helping clean?up the bay after the oil spill?
“ Actually, a lot of groups have been helping. Some cities and groups organized volunteers to clean birds or pick up oil, but in the end most of the cleanup work was handled by official response teams. State and Federal agencies, the Coast Guard, private contractors, and the Oil Spill Prevention and Response Office have been doing the official cleanup work. They provided the incident command structure, clean up, assessing damage, and deciding how to pay for the damage.?”

Save The Bay was founded in 1961 and its mission at that time was to stop the Army Corps of Engineers from changing the bay into merely a river and fill most of the bay with landfill. Actually, Emeryville and Foster City were built on landfill! Fortunately, Save The Bay and its dedicated volunteers came to the rescue and saved our beloved bay. Today their mission is to clean the bay up and prevent pollution.?Save The Bay still needs a lot of volunteers so if you’re interested I’m sure they would be very grateful! Just go to www.savesfbay.org and click on get involved!