We know that the Fourth of July has become the “dirtiest beach day of the year”. The Newport Chapter has long been a leader in the volunteer cleanup effort, hosting several beach cleanup sites on July 5th each year. Now, Surfrider Oregon is expanding our team in Lincoln County to help combat this problem, thanks to funding support from the NOAA Marine Debris Program.
Surfrider’s Freedom from Marine Debris Project aims to prevent marine debris that results from the Fourth of July holiday each year. The project will incorporate educational outreach to residents and visitors of coastal Lincoln County, OR on the harmful effects of firework debris on our ocean, beaches, and marine and coastal wildlife, as well as promote sustainable alternatives. We will also incorporate outreach directly to firework vendors to aid in our goal of reminding customers to responsibly dispose of firework (and other) debris during the explosive holiday. Surfrider will be collaborating with local municipalities, businesses, community groups, nonprofits, and others to host coordinated cleanups in the days following the festivities. During these cleanups, we will encourage volunteers to track the debris they collect via the Marine Debris Tracker App, to aid us in analyzing the impact of our outreach. We are excited to compile our findings and our lessons learned into a toolkit, which can be implemented by other cleanup groups in other counties.
To help coordinate this effort, we are excited to welcome Jennie Warmack as the newly hired Marine Debris Outreach Coordinator. In this grant-funded position, Jennie is involved in volunteer coordination and outreach activities with the aim of preventing and reducing marine debris associated with the July 4th holiday.
While working towards her B.S. in Oceanography and minor in Scientific Diving at Cal Poly Humboldt (Humboldt State University), Jennie received research grants for two of her areas of interest: harmful algal bloom prevention and the behavior of sinking plastic pollution. She also holds a Master of Arts in Teaching from Pacific University with a specialization of teaching Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). She has been an active member of the Ocean Everblue team since 2018, using social media outreach to share summaries of marine research followed by suggestions for sustainability tips. Jennie is thrilled to bring these three unique areas of expertise together in her role at Surfrider.
After living in California, England, and Rhode Island, Jennie loves living on the Oregon coast where she is both surrounded by nature and close enough to Portland to easily visit family.
If you or your organization are interested in hosting a beach or river cleanup on July 5 or 7, please contact khazard@surfrider.org
To stay up to date with beach cleanups happening in Lincoln County, email beachcleanups@newport.or.surfrider.org to be added to their mailing list