This past Saturday, Surfrider Foundation Newport Chapter joined forces with The Oregon Coast Aquarium Youth Volunteers to remove Scot’s Broom (an invasive species) from South Beach State Park. "As a part of our continued stewardship program with the South Beach State Park, we enjoyed coming out and putting in a few hours of physical labor and community service to make the day use area a little nicer. The participation of the Youth Volunteers from the Oregon Coast Aquarium in this event was fantastic. Pulling Scot's Broom is hard work, but the results are gratifying and immediate," says Newport Chapter's acting Vice Chair, Joe Haxel. Additionally, the chapter was able to get the event accepted through SOLV's Project Oregon Program, bringing out the best of SOLV’s motto:"When people get together things get done."

The Central Coast Chapter finalized their suite of recommendations for best management practices along Nye Creek and throughout the City of Newport for stormwater management affecting water quality levels in the creek and on the beach. The watershed management ordinances and codes were sent back and forth to the council workgroup sessions 3 times before finally passing all recommendations made by the chapter. In late February, the Council voted 7-0 in favor of a watershed protection ordinance, stormwater utility and disconnect program, pet waste ordinance, and nuisance ordinances protecting the watershed to name a few. Additionally, the chapter and City’s plans for a supplemental environmental project for a biopond and DNA testing along Nye Creek were accepted by the Department of Environmental Quality. The project will begin this summer and end in the fall of 2009. This spring the chapter will be launching a new campaign (Stop the Sewage), in light of sewer and stormwater cross-connects discovered during the chapter and city’s source id testing this winter. The codes are in place now to enforce this important issue and the chapter and city of Newport have begun a smoke and dye testing project aimed at identifying the households in violation.