Category: Environment

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.

by Sunshine

As my son, Van, and I planned and prepared for this years trip to Burning Man, I had no expectations and really no idea what would occur. What can I say to sum up such an epic journey that it ultimately transformed my entire existence?

For months before the event, we planned ~ I, of course, made my usual notes and massive to-do lists ~ checking off everything as we went: shop for supplies, have the van checked, and eventually pack up for the long journey away from OB.

OCEAN BEACH, CA. We were shocked the other day when we saw an alcohol sales notice on the window of the former OB Youth Community Services building on the last block of Newport Ave, at 5041 Newport.

The applicant is Mike Abas Tajran, and it’s for OB Micro Brewery. Looks like another restaurant bar for Ocean Beach, and another addition to a block that is saturated with booze selling establishments.

OCEAN BEACH, CA. Last week it was announced that the North Beach public restrooms would be closed for 18 months for reconstruction, as the roof was falling apart.

Any talk about public restrooms in OB would be incomplete without a discussion of the restrooms in the main lifeguard tower at the foot of Santa Monica Avenue. These facilities have been wanting for years.

OCEAN BEACH, CA. News and views, community events, thoughts, musings – it’s all here.

This is OB Flashes – the OB Rag’s weekly Community Bulletin and Discussion Board. Discuss anything that is bugging you, or exciting you, or of interest. Or just something you want to share with the rest of us. Do it in the comments section.

by Jim Bell

Many experts are projecting doom and gloom, scenarios of decreasing water supplies and increasing cost, yet the San Diego/Tijuana Region can easily become renewable water self-sufficient and even become a net water exporter.

Even if we assume the worst case scenario of zero precipitation and the complete cutoff of all imported water, the San Diego/Tijuana Region could completely replace all the freshwater it currently uses by ….

by GrokSurf

In Sunday’s Union-Tribune (9/13/09), Mike Lee wrote that “water districts might have to keep boosting prices” because consumers reduced their water consumption due to the shortage. The article generated plenty of interest (169 comments, many angry, when I last checked).

As far as the San Diego Water Department is concerned, …