Category: Environment

by Gail Madsen

Who else is tired of our public officials ignoring our best interests, cutting our services, going forward with their pet projects regardless of cost and our current finances and expecting us to obligingly pick up the tab?

Well, thanks to Proposition 218; (yes, one of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association propositions); we have a chance to fight the water increase planned for November 17th.

From what I understand, the reason for the rate hike is because we have done such a good job of cutting back on our water consumption; the city is trying to make up for the loss in revenue.

For nearly the entire past year a panel of marine experts have been putting together proposals for redesigning California’s system of marine protected areas along the southern coast. The areas include Ocean Beach and Sunset Cliffs, and other parts of San Diego County. The OB coast is considered one of the chief areas of contention.

The experts have come up with three proposals for marine sanctuaries – and all of them would more than double the space to be set aside for protecting sea life on the Southern California coast. The trio of proposals would provide from 380 to 413 square miles of near-shore waters as safety zones for species — more than twice the current amount of 182 squares miles.

Crane works on jetty repair

Federal stimulus are being used to repair the Mission Bay channel entryway. The project, overseen by the Army Corps of Engineers, includes fixing the channel’s south jetty – OB’s north jetty, which was reportedly damaged by an El Nino winter storm ten-eleven years ago. Go inside for link to our earlier post on this.

OCEAN BEACH, CA. Every now and then, we like to check in to what’s been going on Newport Avenue – OB’s main drag. What is going on with the community’s main business street?

Well, there’s lots to report – both good and bad.

COW IS MOVING OUT OF OB

We spoke to Greg last week, the owner of Cow, Newport’s only music store. And unfortunately for the community, his business will be moving out of Ocean Beach by the new year. He is on a month-to-month lease. The reason for the move from the beach? Well, there are two reasons:

by Dave Maass / San Diego CityBeat

For nearly 30 years after the end of World War II, the U.S. Navy engaged in a practice one might call “truck fondue.”

At Mole Pier, a section of the Navy’s Broadway Complex, Naval personnel hosed down trucks and heavy machinery with diesel fuel, then dunked them in Paleta Creek, a tributary of San Diego Bay. The Navy sprayed, burned or buried an estimated 500,000 gallons of fuel during that period.

Editor: Way back in the Sixties, then-Mayor Frank Curran – before he was sent to prison for his involvement in the Yellow Cab scandal – proposed building a floating airport for San Diego off the southern tip of Point Loma. Well, the idea has resurfaced but this time off the shore of Ocean Beach. Is OB ready for its own airport? Hell, we can’t even deal with a marshmellow fight! Then we’d really need new public restrooms at the lifeguard tower.

by Jebediah Reed / The Infrastructurist / October 22n, 2009

San Diego desperately needs a new airport. It has needed one for years. The existing facility, San Diego International, is crowded onto a puny 675 acre parcel.

The San Diego River Park Foundation says it expects to reach a milestone at a river clean-up event Saturday. The group estimates it’s removed one million pounds of trash from the San Diego River over the past four years.

Volunteers with the San Diego River Park Foundation now spend 30 weekends a year removing garbage along the river from Santee to the river mouth at Ocean Beach.

The Union-Tribune announced on Wednesday, July 15, that federal stimulus funds will be used to repair the Mission Bay channel entryway. This project, to begin in October, includes fixing the channel’s south jetty – OB’s north jetty, which was reportedly damaged by an El Nino winter storm ten-eleven years ago. The project will be overseen by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Immediate questions arise for surfers: will the repair job affect the surf and surfing just south of the repaired jetty?

by disillusioned local

How do you say, “bah humbug!” in German? That’s my attitude about the most recent event in downtown OB this past weekend that was labeled “Oktoberfest.”

Was this an Oktoberfest or just another street fair at the end of Newport? Nothing seemed like Oktoberfest. This event was no different from any other street fair at the bottom of Newport. The charity is the same, the cost is the same, the crowd is the same…the only thing different is that this is called “Oktoberfest”.

by Mary E Mann

Even in Ocean Beach, a Mecca for sun-lovers, you can feel the fall coming. Obecians jump right into the season – just the hint of crispness in the air, and suddenly everyone is wearing sweaters, making soup, and huddling around mugs of tea or coffee, looking for all the world like extras in Home Alone 5: The Beach Holiday.

What to do with this surfeit of cozy feeling? Even in the city of eternal summer, options abound for fall fun. Here are just a few ideas for creating fall in the shadow of a palm tree:

1) Escape the bubble – I know it’s scary to cross Nimitz and venture into the shadowy world beyond OB, but I believe in you. San Diego is one of the largest and most diverse counties in the U.S.A., and an hour drive can take you to another world.

OCEAN BEACH, CA. Every now and then, an Ocean Beach organization takes one of the community’s problems head-on. This is happening with the old OB lifeguard station and its public restroom facilities. Recently, the OB Rag complained about the state of the restrooms.

Stepping up to the problems, the OB Town Council has “adopted” the public building – built sometime in the late Sixties – and plans to shepherd through some improvements with the facility.

OCEAN BEACH, CA. What do you think about art installations on top of Peace Rock? This became an issue lately, when a group of Point Loma High School seniors placed their year “2010” in wood red numbers up on the rock. The rock is the large, protruding rocky sentinel that juts out of the Pacific Ocean just south of where Froude Street runs into Sunset Cliffs Boulevard. Everybody who has driven, walked, or jogged along Sunset Cliffs knows it.