We went to the wastewater treatment center. All of the water that goes there comes from
your shower, sinks, toilet, etc. The
first place you go to is called the muffin grinder. It filters out the larger junk and goes to
the landfill. It smelled awful. From there, the water all goes to a settling
tank and from there it goes to a tank that skims off the top foam. Then it goes to the tank that was full of
oxygen and there was so much oxygen in it, you would probably die because it
was like falling into fog but you couldn’t breathe so you would die. From there the water goes somewhere with
black goo. Then they put chemicals into
the water to take out the bad chemicals and they send that water to the ocean. — Sarah Jane
El Estero Wastewater Treatment Center
We have learned that everything flow to the ocean; creek water, street run-off, storm drains, and yes, even what goes down the toilet! It's quite a process, and this too affects the health of the ocean if not taken care of properly. Fond memories include the "muffin grinder" and the odor.
Tidepooling at Coal Oil Point
Cris Elfes lead us through the intertidal zone of Coal Oil Point, a preserve that borders UCSB. We found all kinds of sea stars, anemones, crabs, and a family of sea hares. One of the sea hares was not too excited about being picked up and blessed us with its beautiful purple ink!
We love the tidepooling at Coal Oil
Point. Here are a few of the things we
saw. We saw feather boa kelp, surf grass, encrusted coralline algae, stunted
Turkish towel seaweed, chitons, sea lettuce, a sunburst anenome, welts, turbin
snails, hermit crabs, leaf barnacles, acorn barnacles, starfish as big as my head and sea slugs. My little sister got
inked by one. The ink was there for a
long time.—Natalie and Chloe
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