The weekend of the 8th annual Summer Meltdown Festival held in Darrington accommodated individuals of all ages and provided a beautiful, laidback environment to fully enjoy the grassroots entertainment. However, come packing out day, the "Green Conscious" message that was continuously promoted throughout this event was somewhat forgotten. Assuming, of course, sometime between the socializing and the hangovers.

Rubbish, recycling, and compost bins were all strategically placed throughout the fairgrounds to make it accessible for disposal of unwanted items. Unfortunately, it didn't feel any easier on the volunteers who spent all day in Monday's hot sun sorting through each plastic bag that came their way. Appreciation was given to those few individuals who put forth the effort to sort out their own bags and even asked questions as to what was recyclable and what was not. Realistically though, endless bags of both garbage and recyclables were handed off with maybe a thank you, but mostly without a second thought.

The Surfriders of the NWS chapter participates in this cleanup every year to help encourage and enlighten others to fully understand what it means to be respectful, responsible, and aware of our "green conscious." And through my experience as a first time volunteer, I am even more aware of my own social responsibilities.

The NWS Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation held a potluck and volunteer work party to celebrate International Surfing Day at Woodstock Farms in Bellingham. The goal of the event was to increase awareness of environmental and water quality issues and promote Surfrider events while removing non-native plants and having a good time!

Partnering with the City of Bellingham, the NWS Chapter is working on a long-term native plant restoration of the site. Woodstock Farm covers several acres of marine waterfront nestled at the northern end of the Chuckanut Mountains just south of the southern city limits of Bellingham, and is an historic homestead/farm owned by the City of Bellingham. The farm includes local Native American cultural sites including a burial site and shellfish midden, historic buildings and gardens.

Fourteen volunteers helped to remove invasive English ivy and garbage from the mostly native forest and hauled it out. Prizes were won by contestants for most creative use of garbage found during the ivy removal, as well as other themes. The Chapter also won the Grand Prize for the international Matix photo contest! Check out www.intlsurfingday.com for more info.

A rough edited version of the video "Green Ride 542" was shown and met with great enthusiasm. The video project's goal is to promote the NWS Chapters "Green Ride 542" program to promote carpooling and ridesharing to Mt. Baker ski area. The participants hope to offer free or cheap bus transportation from the town of Glacier to the ski area. The video is being made to lure potential sponsors and possibly be featured on the TV show "Pimp your Ride". Stay tuned for more on this visionary and unique project! Click here to see the video

This year, the NWS Chapter teamed up with the South Sound Chapter to coordinate the Olympic Coast Clean Up at Rialto Beach. Over 130 people registered through the chapters for the April 26 event. Volunteers cleaned from 8 AM to 5 PM and filled up the dumpsters on site completely with beach litter. Chapter member Bill Riggs raised over $200 in food, donated from Haggen's grocery store. The food was enjoyed by all in the afternoon at a beach BBQ.

This year we had a fabulous team that was both fun and competitive. The Northwest Straits Chapter placed 21st in the Whatcom County Open Division with a time of 7:21. Overall, there were 433 teams and 2600 competitors with only six legs this year instead of the usual seven. The canoe leg was canceled due to extremely high water levels in the Nooksack River to the dismay of many athletes. However, the weather held up beautifully with lots of sunshine brining lots of spectators out in support. Fun was had by all and the team is excited to compete again next year.

The Snowrider Project was on hand for the mountain portion of the event to do something that had never been done before for that part of the race-RECYCLING! Snowrider set up several stations throughout the parking lots and race area for plastics, aluminum, and mixed paper. A whole truck load of recyclables were diverted from the garbage! Snowrider also interviewed several race participants for the making of the Green Ride 542 movie.

This summer, Surfrider's Northwest Straits chapter teamed up with ReSources and REI to organize a post-fourth of July beach cleanup on the 5th. It was the best turnout for the event yet, according to Doug Stark, the Beach Naturalist Coordinator of ReSources. A huge truckload of garbage was hauled away including lots of fireworks waste, cans, bottles, tires, and other items, including over 90 pounds of metal waste.

The morning began with everyone gathering at Marine Park in Fairhaven for some morning munchies to get fueled up. Shortly after, the group divided into various beach crews, dispersing to Locust Beach, Little Squlicum Beach, and one crew remained at the Marine Park Beach. And then the adventures began. All kinds of garbage unimaginable were found. Being the day after Independence Day, there were astonishing amounts of trash on the beaches left over from the night before. Every year, Surfrider tries to send out work parties to clean up beaches typically are covered in the most garbage on July 5th each year. When we heard that ReSources had a similar idea to clean up beaches the same day, we were pleased when we agreed to collaborate with ReSources and REI. We have worked with both groups in the past and hope to work again with them in the future.

After a few hours of picking up trash and cleaning up the habitat of many marine critters, the crews met back at Marine Park for a barbeque of shish kabobs. We would like to thank the Bellingham Community Food Co-op for donating the food to refill the crew's empty stomachs! At this time, Surfrider also handed out a few prizes, such as for most trash collected and most unusual piece of rubbish collected, which went to Beau Anderson for finding a moving dolly. After the refreshments and food, two beach naturalists explored the beach at the low tide, sharing their extensive knowledge about what lived there. All in all, it was a wonderful day with a great turn out and the beaches were left nearly trash-free. Please save the date for next year and join us for some fun!

Clean Water Classic 2008 was definitely a classic one for the NWS chapter. It all started with a tabling competition to win money for our chapter. Brian Smart had recently finished his own handwork on an authentic Tiki Bar. This thing was beautiful. The chapter had also pieced together a cardboard bus to display for our current Green Ride 542 campaign, which envisions a sponsored school bus for shuttling people to the Mt. Baker Ski area in the winter. In the final minutes before hitting the road we are able to muster up a truck just big enough to haul these fine pieces of art to the event down south.

Arriving in Westport we are jazzed to unload this beast of a tiki bar and get it ready for courageously inviting participants as well as other chapter volunteers into our domain. There is pineapple juice, maui sweet onion chips, home screen printed recycled shirts and a handcrafted banner stating NWS Bellingham Chapter hanging in the background. The cardboard school bus is waiting patiently outside for the night to descend its mischief upon it. A common theme noted by visitors: Grass Roots. This was a great compliment. Great conversations over bio bus conversions and how to proceed with our inspirational vision were very helpful. Before we know it Panda Conspiracy has lit the room with vibrations and our feet were moving. Dancing the night away with interludes of checking in on the bus where a pleasure. The Bus 4 Us was doing its job in deedy. Frequent stops were made by rotating bus drivers. Voodoo Lady by Ween was dutifully covered by the P. Conspiracy ending on a shaker of a note.

The next day at the beach was successful with raffle ticket sales, amazing weather, chill people and good surf. A final walk up and down the beach with garbage bags left our little neck in the sand spotless. Clean up crew was in full force. NWS headed back to the conference hall with one mission in mind. To find a safe ride home for our main mascot "The Tiki Bar". As it just so happens its ride down parted ways earlier than expected. With a little searching and slight begging we got our mascot a ride to Bellevue from the dude who caught the "best wave" of the comp. Not necessarily the closest destination but closer than Westport by far. Who would have thought that the maiden voyage of this masterpiece would be such an adventure? All in all the whole weekend was everything we had hoped for and more!