Winners include a small surfboard company in the UK dedicated to manufacturing boards “made entirely from natural materials”; relief organizations that helped survivors after the 2004 tsunami and continue to offer crucial medical help to people in the remote, surf-blessed islands of Indonesia; a leading US outdoor clothing brand that incorporates environmental and social responsibility into its every fiber; and individuals who have helped save whole stretches of coastline and ensure cleaner seas for millions of people.
“Surfing involves an intimate relationship with raw, dynamic nature,” said Alex Dick-Read, founding editor of The Surfer’s Path. “The essence of our sport is to be ‘at one’ with the power of the ocean. Yet many of the products and processes we surfers rely on contribute to the damage being done to the atmosphere, the oceans, and the coastlines of the world. These awards aim to highlight the numerous positive moves within our surfing sphere towards making surfing a clean, sustainable and beneficial activity.”
A year ago readers of The Surfer’s Path were invited to nominate inspiring surf-related organizations, companies, or individuals in any of these categories: Surfboard Manufacturing Companies, Surf Apparel Companies, Surf Accessory Companies, Surf Travel Companies, Surf-related Nonprofit Organizations, Surf-related Media & Publishing Entities, Individuals Who Surf, and an annual grand-prize winner: The Emerald Path Award.
Winners were chosen from the hundreds of nominees sent in by readers. “The response to this was really quite incredible,” said the magazine’s US Editor, Drew Kampion. “The scope of surfers’ efforts for the environment and the planet is enormous, and gaining momentum all the time. While it was tough to single out winners, we feel the results reflect the exceptional efforts of the many organizations, individuals, and companies which understand our the world’s desperate need for sustainable human lifestyles, especially among surfers.”
The prestigious overall prize, the Emerald Path Award, is shared between the UK’s Chris Hines, now Sustainability Director of the Eden Project and formerly founding director of Surfers Against Sewage, and Glenn Hening, a California academic and visionary in the surfing world who co-founded the powerful US coastal protection body, Surfrider Foundation, and now heads up the Groundswell Society.
The Green Wave and Emerald Path awards include commendations featuring the work of celebrated California surf artist Rick Reitveld.
“These awards will happen annually because we want to continue to highlight the positive efforts of the surfing community, to keep the pressure on our own ‘tribe’ and our industry, and to spread the word that surfing really can and should be at one with nature,” said Kampion.
The Green Wave Awards are a presentation by the editors of The Surfer’s Path in conjunction with Permanent Publishing and SustainAbility. For more information, visit: www.surferspath.com/greenwave and www.sustainability.com
The Surfer’s Pathis the world’s only truly “green” surf magazine. The bimonthly publication is printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper processed without chlorine bleach and printed with non-GMO soy inks.

Categories and Winners:

Emerald Path Award: Chris Hines (Eden Project, SAS - UK) and Glenn Hening (Groundswell Society, SRF -USA)
Surfboard Manufacturing Companies: Ocean Green Surfboards (Cornwall, UK)
Surf Travel Companies: BoardX (Belgium)
Surf-Related Media and Publishing Entities: EcoSurf Project (UK)
Surf Apparel Companies: (California, USA)
Surf Accessory Companies: Betty Belts (California, USA)
Individuals Who Surf: Brett McElheny (Oahu, Hawaii)
Surf-Related Nonprofit Organizations: SurfAid International and Surfzone Relief Organization (Indonesia and California)

Santa Barbara Channelkeeper
By Kira Schmidt

Santa Barbara Channelkeeper works hard to combat the primary source of pollution to our coastal waters - urban runoff, or stormwater. We have been lobbying Santa Barbara County and local cities to develop the strongest possible Stormwater Management Programs, required under state law to reduce stormwater pollution to the “maximum extent practicable” to protect water quality. We also advocate for increased funding for stormwater pollution prevention. In June, County Supervisors approved a 21% increase in funding for Project Clean Water, but additional funding for water quality monitoring was deferred for consideration in October. Please urge your Supervisors to approve this budget augmentation – it’s critical that the County resume routine monitoring (they ceased doing so in 2003) to identify pollution problems and sources, and assess our progress toward cleaning them up.

What is stormwater?Whenever it rains, rainwater runs over dirty streets, parking lots and lawns and picks up an array of pollutants, including disease-causing pathogens, gasoline, pesticides, fertilizers, trash, dirt and other pollutants. Even during dry weather, activities like construction, lawn watering and car washing send polluted water down storm drains. This polluted runoff doesn’t undergo treatment like sewage, but flows untreated directly to our creeks and ocean, often making swimming and surfing unsafe and threatening aquatic life.

What can you do? You can help address this problem by never dumping anything down storm drains, avoiding the use of pesticides and fertilizers, composting yard waste, recycling used motor oil, washing your car on the grass or at a professional carwash, and properly disposing of pet waste and household chemicals. For more information, go to http://www.sbck.org. Urban runoff is the single biggest threat to local water quality, and we must work together as a community to clean it up.

Naples
NAPLES ALERT: For the massive development on the Gaviota Coast, Santa Barbara County released the draft Environmental Impact Report on June 9. Public hearing and Planning Commission Meeting was held on Tuesday, July 13.
Your involvement in the public comment process is ESSENTIAL and your presence is important to help redefine the Naples development to protect the rural character of the property and the Gaviota Coast. Written comments on the draft EIR can be delivered to the Planning commission staff until August 8, 2006.

Growing Solutions
By Don Hartley
Growing Solutions continues to bring ecological literacy to the public, and functional health to local watersheds. We are working on a number of local riparian restoration projects, and we are having a blast educating students from local schools to become stewards of the land. The task that we have set for the community is vital–and together we can work towards a cleaner, healthier future.
The SB Street Sweeping Program has begun in target areas of the City of Santa Barbara and one thing is certain–debris and muck collected from the sweeper is so hazardous that our local landfill is unable to accept it. Roads, sidewalks and other paved areas are major arteries for transporting polluted refuse into nearby creeks through watershed runoff. The pilot street sweeping program has collected approximately 170 tons of contaminated debris, although the problem is so over-whelming that heavy metals, oil and grease droppings from cars, and debris still flow into nearby waterways. Multiple strategies such as installation of porous materials for parking lots and road surfaces, leaky vehicle inspections, and the use of bio-swale technology to capture watershed runoff should be used in conjunction with a street sweeping program.

CEC
All events held at CEC’s South Coast Watershed Resource Center
Arroyo Burro Beach
Call 682-6113 or email kdeleuw@cecmail.org
www.CommunityEnvironmentalCouncil.org

Art for Earth
Saturday July 8
10am – 12pm
A free family workshop to explore our connection with local habitats. Create a drawing, poem, song, story, or mobile inspired by what you’ve learned.

Beach Clean-up
Saturday July 15
10am – 12pm
Volunteers needed to help CEC clean up Arroyo Burro Beach every 3rd Saturday of the month. Water and supplies will be provided.

Movie Night
Wednesday July 26
7pm
Join us for a screening of Our Synthetic Sea and Troubled Waters, two informative documentary films on water, ocean pollution, and what we can do to remedy the problem.

CEC Argues New LNG Terminals Unnecessary
With two liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals proposed for the South Coast, the Community Environmental Council is strongly urging the state to resist building more infrastructure for fossil fuels and, instead, invest more heavily in renewable energy and energy efficiency.
LNG is a natural gas that has been cooled to the point where it becomes a liquid, making it easier to transport. In California, three LNG terminals have been proposed, two of which would be on the South Coast. One is planned for a site about 14 miles offshore from Oxnard; the other has been proposed for Platform Grace, a retired oil rig off Ventura's coast.