Education meets sustainability as the City Council unanimously approved as part of its consent calendar last Tuesday a contract with Heal the Bay to provide educational consulting services to local schools between now and 2019.
As part of the City’s Sustainable City Program (SCP), Heal the Bay would provide its educational services to all public and private schools within Santa Monica for the next five years for $150,000.
Established in 1994, the SCP has, according to City staff, “recognized the importance of education in fostering a sustainable community.”
“The City has a history of funding educational programs to K-12 schools designed to raise awareness of coastal geography and the ocean environment while teaching science, conservation, pollution prevention and personal responsibility through stewardship,” City staff stated. “Heal the Bay, through the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium, has been an essential partner in developing and delivering this educational programming tailored to Santa Monica’s long-term sustainability goals.”
As part of the program, Heal the Bay lassoed Santa Monica into the California Coastal Cleanup Day, which is set for Sept. 20.
In addition to its to-be-planned educational programming, the agreement approved by the City Council earlier this week would require Heal the Bay to continue coordinating the Coastal Cleanup Day, including the recruiting of volunteers and the handling of media and marketing, for the next five years.
In addition to awarding $150,000 to Heal the Bay, the council also approved another consent calendar item granting the engineering firm Black & Veatch $800,000 to oversee the installment of the Olympic Treatment Plant Pilot Study.
The pilot program would follow the requirements of the Gillette/Boeing settlement.
That settlement compensates City Hall for having to clean contaminated water within the Olympic water well – located on the eastern end of Santa Monica – shortly after Douglas Aircraft Co. left town.
City staff added the pilot study would help officials “test combinations of various technologies’ efficiency in treating water from the Olympic sub basin” and “require utility work to provide power, water, and wastewater services to the unit.”
City Hall would use $150,000 from the Gillette/Boeing settlement funds to partially fund the $800,000 contract.
