Surfrider’s Environmental Activists

Surfrider Foundation’s Eco-Trio Protects the Environment

One in a Series of Surfrider Huntington Beach/Seal Beach Member Profiles

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to the following copyrighted material. For permission to reprint or excerpt it and/or link it to another website, contact them at  

surfwriter.girls@gmail.com

The Surfrider Foundation Huntington Beach/Seal Beach Chapter is committed to protecting our oceans, waves and beaches. Leading the charge is the Chapter’s Eco-Trio – Jeff Coffman, Casey Metkovich and Don MacLean – which focuses on keeping our water clean and getting rid of bottles, bags and butts.

An endless trail of trash

Coffman is in charge of the HB/SB Chapter’s Blue Water Task Force, which monitors coastal water quality. Metkovich oversees the Rise Above Plastics (RAP) program to get people to stop using plastic bottles, bags, straws, and other plastics that pollute the environment. MacLean heads up the Hold On To Your Butt campaign to stamp out cigarette butts litter.

Jeff Coffman, the owner of Clean Green Technology, Inc., a Huntington Beach company that helps extract debris from water systems and alerts communities to drainage blockages, got involved in environmental activism when he “learned about the Pacific Gyre” and all the trash that was collecting there.

Jeff Coffman

 

Putting his business and scientific knowledge to work on behalf of the HB/SB Chapter, Coffman is working with the Blue Water Task Force team to alert local communities about water quality problems and raise awareness of coastal water pollution levels. 

 Here’s a sign we don’t want to see on OC beaches!

The ultimate goal is to develop programs that can influence legislation and enforcement to bring about compliance in protecting our water supplies, waterways and oceans.

 

In talking to Coffman, SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel learned that eight million pieces of trash enter the ocean every day. What’s more, the trash is being eaten by fish – there are six pieces of plastic to every plankton in the ocean – and when other animals or humans eat the fish the plastic gets into the food chain.

These “jellyfish” are actually plastic bags

Coffman, with a background in medical and electronic devices, drew on this to join the Surfrider Foundation in its battle against pollution and to launch his environmental business. A father of two young children, he’s also committed to getting the next generation involved in keeping our planet green. “It’s important to educate them about the need to be environmentally responsible,” said Coffman.

Casey Metkovich recently took on the responsibility of leading the Rise Above Plastics program after serving on the committee and seeing first-hand all the plastics pollution on the beaches. A consultant with Gensler Architects and BFS Architects, Metkovich received his Lead Certification in Environmental Landscape from UCI and is well aware of environmental issues. His background includes design work on Orange County’s Great Park.

Casey Metkovich

 

As the committee chair for RAP he has learned what a challenge it is to get people to adopt new habits, switching from plastics to renewable and biodegradable products.

 

The RAP program’s goal is to eliminate the demand for non-necessary plastics, starting with plastic packaging, such as single-use plastic bottles and shopping bags, and get people to start using reusable and sustainable substitutes. 

Californians use 600 plastic bags every second – using most of them just one time, then discarding them. Along with this, the amount of petroleum it takes to create a single-use water bottle, filter the water it contains, then transport and dispose of the bottle would fill one fourth of the bottle. 

Metkovich’s job is to help to generate public awareness of the problems caused by plastics and to utilize education, legislation, and other means to bring about change. This keeps him busy addressing city council meetings, civic groups, schools, and other community organizations. Getting the word out is personal for Metkovich, especially now that his son Chase, a recent San Diego State graduate, is a member of the Surfrider HB/SB Chapter.

In working to fulfill RAP’s goals, Metkovich said to SurfWriter Girls, “The Surfrider Foundation is great because you’re surrounded by like-minded people. Why do we want to keep the world green? When you’re out there in the water you feel like you have a responsibility to protect it.”  

Don MacLean has made it his mission to get rid of cigarette butts on the beach and streets of Orange County’s coastal communities. Cigarette litter might seem like a minor problem to some, but, according to current estimates, several trillion butts are littered worldwide – flicked on sidewalks, streets, beaches, nature trails and other public places.

Don MacLean

Cigarettes are the most littered item in the world. There’s no doubt that the discarded butts are unsightly. What’s more, the toxic residue in the cigarettes is damaging the environment, getting into eco-systems and water systems and threatening the quality of our water and aquatic life.

 

MacLean has over 20 years experience in conducting environmental compliance audits for the U.S. Army, Navy and Coast Guard, major airport facilities from Palm Beach to Anchorage, and in corporate water quality management programs. His goal now is to get smokers to properly dispose of their cigarette butts.

 

“When smokers carelessly toss their butts into our environment, which then enter storm drains, which discharge into the beach, then it becomes an issue to the Surfrider Foundation,” MacLean told SurfWriter Girls.

 

The good news is that the response to Surfrider’s Hold On To Your Butt campaign has been extremely positive. “Support for the program has been overwhelming from both youngsters and oldsters,” said MacLean, who has been busy talking to civic groups and getting “butts canisters” installed in downtown Huntington Beach – along Main Street, The Strand, and the entry to the HB Pier Plaza. 

 Surfrider’s Butts Canister

Ultimately, he hopes to increase public awareness even more and get additional business sponsors to underwrite the costs of more butts canisters.  

Litter takes on a life of its own, as many of us have been learning in the Surfrider HB/SB Chapter meetings and from talking to environmental experts like Captain Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Research Foundation... 



and Anna Cummins and Dr. Marcus Eriksen, the co-founders of the 5 Gyres Institute. 

Anna Cummins explains the 5 Gyres

You never know where that piece of trash you toss away will end up – even something as insignificant as a chewing gum wrapper – or the story it would tell if it were a hip hop rapper like this Rappin’ Wrapper™ that SurfWriter Girls found: 

Rappin’ Wrapper

I started on a stick of gum.

 Now I’m in this ocean slum.

Stuck in the Pacific Gyre,

With plastic bags and lint from the dryer.

I floated in from the Cali Coast,

Riding on a piece of burnt toast.

Now I’m stuck in the soup

With all this goop,

Swirling in an ocean mixer,

Lookin’ for someone to fix ‘er.

You can’t tell the plastic from the plankton.

Got so many bottles and bags I’ve even tried to rank ‘em.

See over there, in the vortex…

Looks like rubber gloves and even Gortex.

This Rappin’ Wrapper

Ain’t no happy camper.

With our rivers getting clogged,

Lakes and oceans turning into bogs,

It’s time to clean the beaches…

From SoCal to the farthest reaches.

So, if you get my meaning,

Grab a bag and let’s get cleaning!

Rappin’ Wrapper.

Rappin’ Wrapper.

~ SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel ©

Patti & Sunny taking a break after a beach cleanup

www.surfwritergirls.blogspot.com

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